Lili stumbled out of the cavern after activating her technique. Normally, she would be fine even if she used it because she could quickly refill her mana by eating some matter. However, due to her current situation, she couldn’t do so and had to stay as drained of mana as she was. The party should be able to kill the moapiens and the thinman once it came out of the void bubble. In the meantime, she would be right outside the cavern as she slowly regenerated her mana.

  It took the moapiens a few seconds to react to their boss getting trapped, which allowed some of the party to engage.

  Tesilim knew they had to kill all the minions before the big bad itself came out of Lili’s weird dark bubble, so he said the forbidden words.

  “Nothing Personal, you pile of goo.”

  Appearing behind one of the flesh piles, Tesilim’s body moved on its own as he swung his katana, and a massive current of crackling lightning was unleashed at point-blank range. A flurry of lightning struck the moapien, causing it to spasm as its flesh burned. Meanwhile, the slash cut right through the creature, shattering its crystal in the process.

  Jasmine followed Tesilim’s example, already targeting one of the mid-rankers as she activated her “Final Spark!”

  Alyx joined Jasmine, and with her attack plus a lightning bolt, they were able to kill another mid-ranker. They could have each taken one out, but it would have taken them much more mana, mana they needed to save. Still, after that, Jasmine joined Rose, and they both moved towards the three remaining moapiens who were changing.

  Drex had already been running towards one of the moapiens, the third Mid D Ranker, and once he felt he was close enough, he opened up his maw. A stream of acid shot out and struck the flesh of the aberration. Drex didn’t care much for the creatures. They didn’t taste very good and could melt for all he cared.

  Looking over at the remaining moapiens, one had turned into the bottom part of a human head. Meaning just the jaw and mouth area. Also, it was floating above the ground, with closed pink lips, though that quickly changed when it turned toward him and opened, revealing a pink tongue and white teeth. Then it belched, and Tesilim saw a fast-moving, blurry wave of sound heading his way.

  Tesilim teleported out of the way just in time as the wave struck the cave wall some distance from where he had been. The wave didn’t break the stone, but it was enough to shake the wall a bit, which meant it would hurt like hell if he got hit. Things got even worse when he saw smaller lips appear around the jaw of the creature.

  The creature then turned towards him again, unleashing another big belch while the other mouths did the same, sending dozens of attacks his way.

  Where one moapien had turned into a mouth, the other had turned into a giant floating eyeball. The creature was pink all over but in different shades. Also, it started glowing while staring right at Rose. Rose knew exactly what was about to happen, and she could try to dodge it or take the hit.

  Rose stopped dead in her tracks, maxing out her Body Enhancement as she sent a message to Alyx and Jasmine. Then she threw a bunch of Sol’s mana into her shield, encasing it in a barrier as she also began to glow gold. Finally, the beam of pink struck her shield before she, too, was enveloped by it.

  Seconds after the pink energy beam enveloped Rose, Jasmine arrived next to the large eyeball. Her best friend had devised a bad plan to tank the beam attack to keep the monster still and allow her and Alyx to strike it easily. And it had worked. Jasmine's staff was covered in burning white and silver energy as it blurred towards the side of the giant eye. The staff made contact and struck with some force, the energy instantly burning the eyeball, causing it to squint and stop its beam of pure energy.

  Glancing over at her friend, Jasmine saw the redhead on one knee, breathing hard and smoking but still glowing gold. Jasmine also saw, when Alyx finished his spell, a familiar spike of stone manifesting and shooting straight at the eyeball.

  The eyeball had turned to look at Jasmine, already beginning to glow when the spike arrived, easily piercing through the monster and causing it to squint in pain. This also reset its charge, though sadly, it didn’t shatter its crystal.

  Jasmine was already mid-swing when the spike hit, and by the time her staff struck, the monster's eye was open once again. However, it now contained a hole that was bleeding black blood. It was then that the monster blinked once again, but instead of opening its eye, the eyelid merged with the creature, creating a blank canvas of pinkish skin. Naturally, this blank canvas began popping up smaller eyes all over, many of which stared at Jasmine angrily.

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  Drex wasn’t sure if he had melted the aberration's crystal or not. What he did know was that most of its flesh was gone, and so was a quarter of his mana. Also, his dad was in danger. Running towards the giant jaw aberration, Drex opened his mouth as he lunged at the creature. mid jump, a torrent of flames erupted from him, engulfing the aberrations back, and not long after, he landed on it. Finally, in range, Drex opened his maw wide, as he enhanced it, then, with regret, he bit into the monster.

  Tesilim had been struggling to dodge all the various sound-based attacks thrown at him, and a couple had hit him already. Needless to say, they hurt like hell, and he would have a couple of bruises. The problem wasn’t that he was slow, either. It was the sheer number of them, along with their sheer transparency at certain angles. Thankfully, Drex arrived, and the attacks stopped, giving him a few seconds of breathing room.

  Quickly looking over the battlefield, things seemed to be going alright. Well, if Rose getting encased in a beam of light was alright, she was a tank, after all. However, Lili’s bubble didn’t seem as odd to his eyes; it was probably a sign of its weakening. With that in mind, he needed to finish off his opponent, hopefully with some more help from someone other than Drex. Focusing back on his opponent, he saw Drex was still on it, moving to take another bite.

  The moapien was attempting to throw Drex off its body like a bull trying to unmount its rider. Tesilim wasn’t sure why it hadn’t blasted the drake with sound, but maybe a jaw wasn’t too intelligent. Of course, just then, a bunch of mouths closed, and a larger one appeared under Drex. Knowing what was about to happen, Tesilim teleported to the aberration and shoved his katana inside it. The pain was enough to delay the attack, allowing Tesilim to tell Drex to let go of the aberration just before a blast of sound belched out of the mouth.

  Teleporting a short distance away from the creature, Tesilim easily dodged blasts of sound that slammed together where he had just been. At the same time, Drex unleashed another stream of acid, though he had to stop early to properly dodge more blasts of sound.

  Jasmine managed to pop up a barrier right in time. Sadly, there wasn’t enough mana in it, and the various beams from the small eyes quickly broke through, slamming into her with physical force. The beams didn’t stop there, and they carried her all the way until she slammed into the wall of the cave. It was then that the real pain started as her body was forcibly squished between beams of force and a hard stone wall. In response, she enhanced herself more, though thankfully, the pain didn’t last for too long.

  “SHIELD BASH!” Rose yelled as her shield slammed into the moapien, actually deforming the creature's flesh. The redhead’s insides were burning, and so were her outsides. That beam had hurt a lot, but she was back in the fight. And when she had seen Jasmine get blasted back, she had snapped out of her pain and rushed the eyeball.

  Speaking of which, she followed up her shield bash with a stab of her sword as she began tearing into the monster with abandon.

  Alyx felt like Rose and Jasmine could finish up the eyeball, and he focused on Tesilim’s fight. The elf had been dealing with the monster mostly on his own, which meant it hadn’t taken too much damage, at least until Drex got there. Even so, the moapiens still had decent regeneration capabilities and needed to be struck hard and fast. As such, Alyx began sending metal blades its way.

  Curved blades of metal and wind bit into the floating jaw. The metal ones came from Alyx, while the wind ones were from Drex, and both tore in the moapien, causing its blood to splash out from dozens of large cuts. Joining the combined attack, Tesilim teleported right above the moapien and unleashed a “Chaotic Slash!” The slash was more like a lightning bolt, and it sped ahead, cutting then spreading through the largemouth aberration.

  Following the lightning, Tesilim fell on top of the monster, his weight and the paralysis from the lightning knocking the aberration to the ground. On top of the oddly stabilized jaw, Tesilim began to cut and tear into the monster.

  With all the open wounds on the aberration, Drex was happy to unleash a blast of poison directly into it as he bit down. He didn’t stay for long since he didn’t want the poison smoke to reach his dad, and he let go soon after.

  Seeing Tesilim cutting away at the monster, Alyx sent a large metal blade his way, making sure to alert the elf in time, and he saw Tesilim disappear from atop the aberration. Alyx’s blade cut right where Tesilim had been, making the wound larger. At that point, the moapien unleashed more sound blasts at Drex, Tesilim, and him, but they all managed to dodge them.

  Finally, in a last combined attack, Tesilim appeared above the aberration again, unleashing another of his chaotic slashes. This time, it was a blade of pure wind that cut into the same spot Alyx’s metal blade had struck. Meanwhile, Drex had unleashed a brief burst of flames that stopped when Tesilim landed atop the moapien again. Except this time, the thing was barely moving and stopped when Tesilim finally cut through a spot where its Heart Crystal had been, as it was being moved.

  Jasmine had arrived by Rose as the redhead blocked a few beams of force with her shield. Her friend had done a good bit of damage with her bash and the following stabbing of the monster, but the eyeball was still standing. It rotated itself to keep Rose in its many lines of sight, which were all clustered on the surface area of its body that the redhead had left intact. Jasmine planned to change both things.

  “Binding Light!”

  The moapien was covered in white chains that quickly tightened and also attached themselves to the ground, stopping its rotation. Then, she and her best friend began beating the crap out of it. Rose cut deep into it with every swing while Jasmine's blunt damage mangled flesh until the creature was a pulp on the ground, crushing its crystal afterward.

  After defeating their enemy, the two looked around, finding Alyx, Tesilim, and Drex walking toward them, all of them staring at one thing. The black bubble Lili had made was starting to show hints of pink light from within. Their time before the thinman escape was almost out, and that was going to be the real fight.