The Drowned King roared.
The sound shook the remaining ruins violently while waves exploded outward across the flooded battlefield.
Its anger had clearly reached the limit.
The Boss Monster immediately raised one massive foot and stomped downward toward Eleanor, intending to crush her before she could recover.
But Avery moved first.
Water burst beneath her feet as she appeared beside Eleanor instantly and pulled her away from the impact zone. The stomp landed a split second later, causing the ground to collapse inward while shattered stone and water erupted high into the air.
Avery quickly brought Eleanor toward Alice.
"Heal her immediately," Avery said.
Alice wasted no time. Serene mana wrapped around Eleanor’s body as healing energy surged into her wounds.
The Drowned King immediately turned toward them and started advancing.
But before it could reach them, Stoneward intercepted it.
The Abyssal Mammoth slammed into the Boss Monster from the side with overwhelming force, nearly bringing the gigantic undead king down to one knee.
With the sword destroyed, the chains binding Emily’s summons had disappeared completely.
All of them could move freely again.
The Drowned King roared angrily and swung its remaining fist toward Stoneward. The impact echoed across the battlefield like thunder, but Stoneward endured the blow without retreating even a single step.
At the same moment, the Iron Armor Rhino charged forward.
Its glowing crimson horn pierced through the battlefield like a launched spear aimed directly at the Boss Monster’s chest.
The Drowned King did not dodge.
Instead, it punched directly toward the horn.
The collision shook the surrounding ruins violently.
The glowing horn pierced through the Boss Monster’s armored fist while red cracks spread rapidly across its arm. Before the creature could even react further, another attack arrived.
A giant cyclone crashed horizontally into its head.
The Colossus Grazer had launched its attack like a massive spear.
The impact twisted the Drowned King’s upper body backward. At the same time, attacks descended from above.
Blue lightning crashed downward alongside three flaming breaths unleashed by the Crimson Sky Wyrm and the Blazing Pterodactyls.
The combined attacks engulfed the Boss Monster entirely.
A deafening explosion erupted across the battlefield.
The Drowned King’s body shattered apart.
Armor fragments, bones, and black water exploded outward before being consumed by flames and lightning. By the time the attacks faded, nothing remained of the Boss Monster except scattered remains drifting through the flooded ruins.
Silence followed.
Everyone stared toward the destroyed battlefield.
Eleanor leaned against Sera for support while breathing heavily. Blood still stained the corner of her lips, but her eyes remained sharp as she waited for the System notification.
Several seconds passed.
Nothing appeared.
Eleanor’s expression darkened immediately.
"No notification..." she muttered.
Then she suddenly raised her voice.
"It’s not dead! It must have a phylactery! Search for it immediately!"
The atmosphere instantly became tense again.
Everyone except Emily reacted immediately.
Emily blinked in confusion while looking around. The word sounded vaguely familiar, but she could not remember its meaning. Most of Professor Catherine’s lectures had ended with Emily sleeping at her desk.
Alice immediately noticed Emily’s expression.
[It’s a device. Think of it as the heart of a necromancer that they can remove from their body and hide away. Until that device is destroyed, they won’t truly die.]
Emily’s face changed immediately.
"So it can just keep reviving forever?"
[If the phylactery remains intact, yes. And this thing is probably strong enough to keep creating new bodies endlessly. Also, it’s not resurrection. It’s true core is still alive.]
Almost the moment Alice finished speaking, the ground beneath the palace trembled violently.
Large cracks spread throughout the flooded battlefield.
Then the earth split apart.
Three more Drowned Kings slowly emerged from beneath the ruins.
Averon, at the sides, felt chills run down his spine.
The newly emerged monsters looked identical to the original one.
Alice immediately took flight in her dragon form while the Crimson Sky Wyrm and the three Blazing Pterodactyls dived downward to intercept the new enemies before they could fully stabilize themselves.
Explosions erupted once more throughout the battlefield.
Meanwhile, Alice closed her eyes while hovering in the sky.
As a dragon, her senses far surpassed those of ordinary beings. She spread them outward rapidly while focusing entirely on mana fluctuations across the battlefield.
The phylactery had to contain an enormous concentration of mana.
If it existed nearby, she should be able to locate it.
As her senses expanded, Alice began detecting everyone around her. Emily and her summons appeared clearly within her perception. Avery’s mana moved sharply and fluidly while Eleanor’s felt unstable due to her injuries.
Then Alice sensed something else.
The ground beneath the palace was still moving.
More Drowned Kings were forming underground.
If they failed to locate the phylactery quickly, the battlefield would eventually become flooded with endless Boss Monsters.
Alice spread her senses deeper beneath the earth.
Nothing.
Then she expanded her perception farther outward instead.
There was always a possibility that the phylactery had been hidden somewhere far away from the palace itself.
Several seconds later, Alice suddenly sensed two powerful mana signatures in the distance.
Her attention focused on them instinctively.
At first, she thought one of them might be the phylactery. But almost immediately, she realized she was wrong. Those signatures belonged to people.
The other teams.
Before the thought could fully finish forming in her mind, a beam of white light suddenly appeared directly in front of her face.
The attack was too fast. Far too fast.
Alice barely realized what was happening before impact.
The power behind the attack was horrifying. It had to be a full-powered strike unleashed by the leader of the Florathi team. Only someone on that level should have been capable of launching an attack this destructive from such a distance.
The beam struck Alice directly.
An explosion erupted in the sky.
Black scales, flesh, and blood scattered outward violently.
Half of Alice’s head exploded apart instantly.
Fragments of skull and exposed brain matter rained downward across the battlefield as the giant black dragon lost control of her body.
Then Alice fell from the sky.