It took her sixteen loops to get one without the Demon Chimera or Ballisto.

  The huge body and multiple heads of the Demon Chimera required four Tanks to contain and without bunching up the groups near the front, they weren’t going to reach it in time before someone died. Even when she tried to encourage everyone to bunch up to meet the massive Demon’s charge, she couldn’t get enough Tanks over there before people started dying. After a handful of loops, she just started resetting the moment she saw column 22 or 26 were part of the bosses they faced.

  The sixteenth loop got Jeru excited. “21, 24, 27, 28, 29, and 30!” The blue Elf cheered. “Looks like we’ve got a winner!”

  It only took almost two years to do it. Penelope sighed as she called out the columns. She’d seen the boss from 29 in thirteen of those runs, so by this point, it wasn’t uncommon to see the Little Gluttony as part of the monsters they faced.

  The boss from 29 had the body of an apple, with six moss-covered, insect-like legs coming out of the bottom of the body. On the front of the body was a huge mouth lined with sharp teeth that stretched across the entire width of the front of the body. A pair of clawed arms and a pair of leathery bat wings protruded out of the shoulders of the monster. There was no neck, just a bird head with antlers above the gaping maw of the ten-foot-tall boss.

  “We’ve got some threats!” Penelope got her spells up in the air. “We can’t let the Bombfly get overhead or the Primal Bomber get within range or it’s going to be difficult to protect everyone from the explosions!”

  “We can’t go down there and meet them head-on.” Patrick pointed at the smaller monsters charging at them. “We’ve got to thin out the herd first!”

  Penelope resisted the urge to down and charge at the bosses herself. Both were a threat, but it was a manageable one and while they were going to lose towers, all of the Casters were able to carry one other person when they used , which would allow them to rescue anyone who got knocked out or was too injured to use the spell themselves.

  The Rubsanas was the boss that flew towards them. Four of the circled the bramble-covered monster, with each one of them using to yank it to the dirt. The other four channeled through the prism over it, each burning away chunks of its thorny hide. Penelope dumped half her mana on the snake-tailed boss, but that was all it took to get everyone an experience notification.

  “Whoa…” Marlow looked over the wall of the tower, then over at Penelope. “That was brutal.”

  “It only worked because it had .” Penelope spread out her orbital spells and continued to blast anything that got in her range with . “Fire does more damage to that and .”

  “Which makes those of us without fire skills look like we’re not pulling our weight.” Circe fired a shadowy arrow at the smaller monsters.

  “You’re going to still be firing arrows long after I’m out of mana.” Penelope smiled at her friend. “I wouldn’t call that ‘not pulling your weight’.”

  A tower further to their right crumbled under the assault of the Primal Bomber. The remaining little monsters pulled away from where they were trying to get over the wall and ran towards the breach. The Prime Fly was down, but the Bombfly, Porsel, and Little Gluttony were all still very much alive. The three other bosses backed away from the towers they were harassing and moved towards the breach as well.

  “We’ve got to go down there before it gets completely overrun!” Penelope didn’t wait for the others; she simply to the next tower in the line, then the next, until she was one tower away from the breach.

  The Primal Bomber turned its duckbilled face toward her and lobbed a flaming acorn at the tower. The basketball-sized projectile exploded near the base, tearing stone from the tower and shaking the structure.

  Penelope grabbed the wall around the lip of the tower to steady herself and grinned. If it was close enough to hit the tower she was on, it was close enough for her to hit it.

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  Smaller monsters screamed as they crashed through the screen over the pitfall ditch on the other side of the wall. The monsters behind them kept coming, using the bodies of the first wave as a bridge to get past the trap.

  A pillar of fire erupted out of the middle of the breach as Judah got close enough to create a flaming barrier. Frederica’s team was on the ground in between the two walls, slowing the wave of monsters.

  The tower shook again and someone grabbed the back of her jacket, yanking Penelope away from the edge.

  “Focus!” Circe screamed as she pointed her bow at the Bombfly headed straight for them.

  The moved away from the Primal Bomber and streaked through the air to intercept the explosive monster. lashed on it, pulling it off course and dragging it into the pillar of fire.

  The explosion knocked them both off the tower. With the damage already done to the base of the tower, the one they were on tipped, cracking around the base, then crashing over the wall of burning brush.

  Penelope and Circe both to the tower behind them, putting themselves farther from the action, but their efforts had bought time for more teams to get in between the two walls and meet the charge of monsters.

  While there were more Tanks to shelter the damage dealers, the Primal Bomber was still an issue, raining flaming acorns on the gathered defenders.

  “We’ve got to take that thing out.” Penelope pointed at the boss from 30.

  “You’re almost out of mana, so unless you’re going to waste a mana potion, you’re done for a bit.” Circe patted Penelope on the shoulder. “This is what we’ve got Healers for.” She pointed at the fight with her bow. “All the monsters are gathering in one place, and pretty soon, all the rest of our teams are going to be here. You helped take out two of the big ones; hang back until you get more of your mana back, then come help us mop up if you want.”

  The brunette didn’t wait for Penelope to agree; she just away, leaving Penelope by herself.

  Has anyone died? Penelope bit her lip and tapped her foot while she waited for Jeru’s report.

  “There’s a handful of injuries that are going to need a couple days to recover from, but mainly just concussions, bad burns, and deep punctures.” The blue man gestured at the fallen tower. “We’ve lost nine of the thirty-one towers, so there’ve been broken bones too, but no fatalities.”

  Good. She tapped her fingers on the wall of the tower and took a deep breath. I should be out there.

  “Circe is right; you helped get these people ready for this fight. You need to trust that they can finish it on their own.” Jeru sat down on the wall beside her with his back to the action. “Half the bosses are dead and most of the little ones.” He turned around and waved both his arms. “Most of the teams are down there. The bosses aren’t going to make it to the third wall, let alone the main one. This battle is over; it just needs to finish playing out.”

  The Little Gluttony flew into range and was immediately pulled down by over a dozen . Flames from multiple sources bathed it in fire, burning it down and earning the defenders another experience notification.

  “See?” Jeru leaned back so he could look at her. “They’ve got this.”

  I can see that; it’s just… Penelope looked at her menu. 13 mana out of 254. Her shoulders slumped as she acknowledged just how little help she’d be able to provide without using a mana potion. The temptation was there. With full mana, she could over to the Primal Bomber and obliterate it, but the urgency wasn’t. Circe was right; the monsters were being pushed back across the wall. The injured were getting moved back behind the third wall and all of the teams who could fight were spreading out around the breach.

  “You spent almost two years for this win.” Jeru twisted off the wall so he could stand next to her. “Enjoy it. Because you’ve got diplomacy you’re about to have to deal with.”

  Penelope groaned as she remembered what waited for her on the other side of this fight. While she’d dealt with Cirdor hundreds of times, she’d never gone down to the fourth floor. Thinking about the twenty-two years she’d spent raising her job levels reminded her of the hardships that the other teams faced on the next floor and that she wasn’t going to be able to guide things as easily with all the locals wanting to call the shots.

  “Take a minute to gather yourself, then get in a good place to start the next run from.” Jeru winked at her. “Because I have a feeling you’re going to be redoing things a lot.”

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