Emily POV
Emily stared at the captain of the Mistborn team.
The corpse of the Mini Boss floated inside Serisa’s mist body, partially hidden by the constantly rotating currents surrounding her. Dense mana leaked from the corpse, mixing with the pressure coming from Serisa herself.
But Emily’s attention was elsewhere.
Alice was still fighting.
Emily trusted Alice’s strength, but that did not stop her from worrying. Alice could probably hold the Mistborn team back for a few more minutes, maybe longer if she pushed herself hard enough. But that only made Emily more anxious. Alice never cared about getting injured if it meant achieving her goal.
Emily cared. She hated seeing the people close to her bleed.
"Give the corpse back," Emily said.
"I wouldn’t have come here to steal it if I planned on returning it." Serisa answered. Her voice sounded calm and refreshing despite the tension filling the air.
"Please give the corpse back, or I will have to hurt you," Emily said again. Her tone remained polite, but the impatience underneath it was becoming more noticeable. "I need to help Alice quickly, so I can’t hold back during this fight. If you continue resisting, you will get injured."
"An Adept is warning me?" Serisa chuckled softly.
Even while laughing, the mana inside her body churned violently. Emily could already tell Serisa was preparing a powerful skill.
"I already warned you," Emily replied.
Mana rippled outward from Emily’s body. The next second, the three Blazing Pterodactyls appeared in the sky once more, flying beside the Crimson Sky Wyrm. Flames flickered around their wings while lightning crackled through the clouds overhead.
Without another word, Serisa’s body exploded apart.
The human-sized mist vanished as her entire body transformed into a gigantic cyclone. Wind screamed through the battlefield as the spinning storm rushed away while carrying the corpse of the Mini Boss overhead.
"Cut her path off," Emily ordered.
The Blazing Pterodactyls opened their mouths and breathed streams of blazing fire downward. At the same time, the Crimson Sky Wyrm summoned blue lightning from the sky.
The attacks slammed into the ground ahead of Serisa, creating giant walls of flame and lightning that completely blocked her escape route.
But Serisa was not trying to flee.
The cyclone suddenly changed direction and rushed directly toward Emily instead.
Her goal was obvious. Emily’s summons were terrifying, but Emily herself was still only an Adept. If Serisa defeated the summoner, the battle would immediately turn in her favor.
The ground shook violently.
Stoneward, the Abyssal Mammoth, charged forward and rammed its massive body into the cyclone. However, the attack achieved almost nothing. The rotating storm simply flowed around the mammoth while continuing forward at full speed.
Emily remained calm.
Another summon appeared beside her.
The Catastrophe, Iron Armor Rhino.
Serisa was surprised.
She already knew Emily had tamed the monster because of the system notification that appeared during the Lord Quest. Even then, seeing the creature personally was completely different. The pressure radiating from the Iron Armor Rhino alone was enough to make the surrounding mana unstable.
Serisa could not understand it.
One Catastrophe summon was already absurd for an Adept-ranked awakener. Emily, however, was controlling multiple monsters with combat strength rivaling Overlords, and two Catastrophes.
There had to be some hidden drawback to such an ability.
No Adept should have been capable of this much power.
What Serisa did not know was that this was only natural for Emily.
She was the sole heir of Netherworld.
Other than Isaac, who gained the bloodline through a method that practically cheated the System, Emily alone carried the true bloodline.
Her mother, who possessed the same power, had once created an Empire respected even by Dragons and Celestial Kitsune.
The Iron Armor Rhino lowered its head slowly. Its horn began glowing blood red. A deafening roar erupted from its mouth as it charged forward like a living fortress.
The glowing horn pierced directly into the cyclone.
The rotating mist tore apart violently.
Serisa was forced back into her original body. The corpse of the Mini Boss slipped free and crashed onto the ground nearby.
But Serisa reacted instantly.
Compressed wind blades shot toward Emily the moment her body reformed.
The timing was perfect.
Emily could not dodge in time. Her summons were too far away to intercept the attack. Serisa had deliberately endured the Rhino’s attack to create this exact opening.
The blades sliced through Emily’s body.
Serisa’s eyes widened immediately. The damage felt wrong.
"Shit. It’s an illusion—"
Before she could finish speaking, thunder descended from the sky.
The Crimson Sky Wyrm summoned lightning directly onto her position. Serisa immediately tried to dodge, but the Wyrm’s First Eye opened.
[Suppression].
Her movement speed dropped by 50%.
The lightning slammed into her mist form and blasted her into the ground. Cracks spread beneath her body as pain shot through her entire self.
At the same time, the remaining summons moved into position around her.
The Crimson Sky Wyrm and the three Blazing Pterodactyls circled overhead, sealing the sky completely. Stoneward stood like a fortress behind her while Lume and Aeralis blocked both sides. The Iron Armor Rhino slowly pawed at the ground ahead of her, its blood-red horn still glowing faintly.
Eight monsters surrounded her completely.
Every single one possessed combat strength comparable to an Overlord.
For the first time since the battle began, Serisa stopped moving.
Her gaze drifted toward the corpse of the Mini Boss nearby. She had tried to damage it during the fight, but after losing her cyclone body, she no longer had enough destructive power to destroy the corpse quickly.
The summons moved aside. A path opened through them.
Emily slowly walked forward.
Her feet floated slightly above the ground as she moved, never fully touching the earth beneath her.
Averon followed behind her with a strange expression on his face. Since earlier, he had been excited to fight and defeat Serisa. But seeing her crushed so thoroughly by an Adept-ranked awakener made even him feel a little pity for her.
Emily stopped directly in front of Serisa.
Her expression remained cold.
At home, Emily often looked naive and harmless beside Isaac and Alice. Right now, however, there was no trace of that softness remaining. Standing among the surrounding monsters, she looked like someone who commanded absolute strength.
Serisa slowly raised tendrils of mist like trembling hands.
"I give up," she said quietly.
"You should have surrendered earlier," Emily replied. "Now leave the Dungeon, or else—"
Her words stopped abruptly.
A massive golden pillar of light suddenly erupted in the distance.
The beam shot upward into the sky like a second sun.
Notifications appeared simultaneously before Emily, Averon, and Serisa.
[All three Mini Bosses have been defeated in First Area.]
[Boss Monster, Colossus Grazer, has been summoned.]
[Time Until disappearance of Boss Monster: 12 Hours]
Emily stared at the floating notifications before slowly turning toward the distant pillar of light.
That beacon revealed the location of the Boss Monster.
Nobody had defeated it yet.
Since this would be the first clear, the rewards would be extraordinary. Special loot, Titles, and possibly hidden benefits connected to the Great Dungeon itself.
That was one of the main reasons the Lords had rushed toward Isaac’s City in the first place.
Everyone wanted the first-clear rewards.
Beside her, Serisa’s thoughts moved quickly.
The frustration and shame from her defeat disappeared, replaced by determination once again. Even if she lost the Mini Boss corpse, she could still regroup with the other teams and challenge Emily later.
Right now, escaping was all that mattered.
The moment everyone’s attention shifted toward the golden pillar and notifications, Serisa moved. Her body burst apart into mist as she dashed sideways at maximum speed.
The summons reacted a moment too late.
Serisa felt excitement rise inside her. She had escaped—
"When are you going to surrender?"
Her entire body froze. The voice came from directly in front of her.
The scenery around her flickered strangely for a brief second. Then realization hit her.
She was still standing in the exact same place.
The summons still surrounded her from every direction. The golden pillar still shone in the distance, and the notifications remained floating in front of her exactly as before.
Nothing had changed at all.
’An illusion...? Since when?’ she thought.
She had not even noticed the moment she was trapped inside it.
"Okay," Serisa finally said.
There was no point struggling anymore. Between the summons surrounding her and the illusion user hiding somewhere among them, escape was impossible.
Mana gathered beside her, and a portal slowly opened.
Serisa drifted toward it without another word. Just before disappearing, she glanced once more at Emily and the monsters surrounding her. Then the portal closed behind her, and her presence vanished completely.
Emily quietly let out a breath after confirming Serisa had truly left.
"Good job, everyone," she said softly. "You too, Lume. She probably would have escaped if not for your illusions."
"It is my duty to assist you, my liege." Lume, the Abyssal Trickster, bowed slightly.
Emily nodded lightly.
Defeating an Apex Overlord should have been a monumental achievement. Most Champions—let alone Adepts—would never even dream of surviving against one, much less overwhelming them so thoroughly.
But Emily had no time to think about that.
She was too worried about Alice.
Without wasting another second, Emily used her Legendary-grade item and summoned the spirit of the Mini Boss. A distorted spiritual form slowly emerged from the corpse while violent mana fluctuations spread across the battlefield.
The spirit roared and attacked immediately.
However, the fight ended far faster than the original battle.
With eight summons whose combat strength rivaled Overlords, along with Spirit Element enhancements boosting them further, the Mini Boss spirit was overwhelmed in minutes. After weakening it enough, Emily successfully tamed it.
The spirit immediately lowered itself respectfully.
"Greetings, Master~" the Mini Boss said cheerfully while bowing its head.
Inwardly, however, it was practically crying.
It absolutely did not want to serve Emily. Unfortunately, refusing meant getting beaten again, and dying was impossible without her permission.
Realizing resistance was meaningless, it instantly changed its attitude and tried its best to appear loyal, and score brownie points with her.
Emily gave it a small nod before storing most of her summons back inside her Soul Space. Only the Crimson Sky Wyrm remained outside.
She floated upward and landed on the Wyrm’s back while Averon quickly climbed on behind her.
The Catastrophe spread its massive wings. A powerful gust exploded outward.
Within seconds, the Crimson Sky Wyrm crossed the battlefield and reached the location where Alice and the Mistborn team were still fighting.
Emily’s expression froze the moment she saw Alice.
Alice was covered in blood.
One of her eyes had been destroyed completely, and large portions of the dragon scales covering her body had been torn apart. Blue blood dripped continuously from countless wounds while her damaged wings struggled just to keep her airborne.
Then Emily noticed the wound on Alice’s neck.
A hole.
Right where the Reverse Scale should have been located.
Emily’s eyes became hollow. A sense of fear and anger rose in her heart.
’They damaged her Reverse Scale... They seriously tried to injure her.’
Terrifying bloodlust erupted from her body.
Below, Kael was still speaking casually to his teammates.
"Tsk, I thought we could at least get some dragon scales out of this, but I guess her transformation level still isn’t high enough ye—"
His words abruptly stopped.
Kael looked upward and saw the giant Crimson Sky Wyrm descending from the sky along with the horrifying bloodlust radiating from Emily.
Even the surrounding Mistborn members stiffened instinctively.
[Emily...]
Relief filled Alice’s mind when she sensed Emily’s presence. If Emily was here, then it meant she had succeeded. The Mini Boss had been tamed.
The tension holding Alice together finally disappeared.
Her eyes slowly closed as her exhausted body fell from the sky.
"Catch her," Emily said quietly.
The Crimson Sky Wyrm moved instantly. It caught Alice carefully with its front claws before gently lowering her onto the ground.
Emily floated down beside her.
She silently checked Alice’s injuries.
Most of the damage was serious but manageable. Alice had exhausted an enormous amount of mana during the battle, and the damage to her Reverse Scale had disrupted her mana recovery badly.
As long as Alice rested long enough to recover her mana, she could heal herself using her own abilities.
Her life was not in danger.
Even so, the bloodlust around Emily only became more intense.
She gently touched the damaged scales near Alice’s neck before slowly turning back toward the Mistborn team.
They were already using the brief pause to recover themselves.
Inside her Soul Space, the newly tamed Mini Boss spoke loyally,
"Master! Those bastards injured Miss Alice! Please summon me! I will personally teach them a lesson!"
Emily waved her hand. Every summon appeared once more.
The Mistborn members froze when they saw the Mini Boss standing beside Emily along with the Iron Armor Rhino.
Shock spread across their heart immediately.
"Mistborns! Attack the Mini Boss first! We can’t let it root itself into the ground and turn this entire area into its—"
Kael, the Apex Overlord, quickly analyzed the combat style of the Mini Boss.
However, before he completed his words, the Crimson Sky Wyrm had already moved.
The gigantic Catastrophe slammed directly into the Mistborn formation like a falling meteor. A massive explosion erupted across the battlefield as the ground shattered apart beneath the impact.
Several Mistborn members were blown away instantly.
Before Kael could even recover his balance, the Crimson Sky Wyrm grabbed him with its claws and shot upward into the sky.
At the same time, the three Blazing Pterodactyls descended from above and released waves of scorching flames onto the remaining Mistborn members.