Chapter Fifty-Seven: Entering the Passage

Roar!~ Under the players’ counterattack, it threw back its head and let out an enraged bellow. Flames, mingled with molten lava, burst violently from between the scales of its body. In an instant, these fiery torrents coalesced in the air around it, forming a blazing red shield that completely absorbed the players’ onslaught. Whether spells or sharp arrows struck this barrier, all were deflected with ease. This meant that as long as the crimson shield remained intact, ranged attacks were futile. All hope now rested on the warriors closing in; perhaps only close-quarters combat could bring victory.

Yet this hope was swiftly dashed as well. When the warriors charged, the Fire Serpent King slammed its tail into the ground. The earth split open, and rolling magma erupted from the fissures, surging toward the warriors and their summoned beasts in a furious tide. I could scarcely bear to watch the players’ agonizing deaths as they struggled in the searing lava—the visual effects, set to the highest level, made my heart race wildly.

A fierce wind howled as crimson clouds suddenly churned across the sky above. Countless fireballs rained down from the swirling heavens, engulfing the entire basin. The warriors in front retreated at full speed, exposing the Fire Serpent King to a relentless barrage of magic. The surviving elementalist mages in the rear unleashed their skills together. So many spells cast at once—no matter how formidable the boss, it was bound to reel under such a direct assault.

An unending hail of fireballs, wind blades, icicles, meteors, and lightning crashed down upon the Fire Serpent King. Its protective red barrier flickered and shrank, finally collapsing inward. The remaining spells struck its true body, inflicting real wounds at last.

A series of crimson numbers floated above the boss’s head, but its resistance to magical energy was clearly immense—the damage numbers rarely broke a hundred. For a boss with such a vast reservoir of life, the attacks were bearable.

But with the shield gone, the archers had their moment. A torrential rain of arrows swept toward the boss, while the warriors surged forward, hacking and striking with wild abandon.

As time passed, the scales of victory tipped ever more in the players’ favor. The boss lashed out with its long, fiery tongue, burning to ashes the warriors who came at it one after another. Beams of white light, signifying death, flashed incessantly!

Yet no matter how fearsome the Fire Serpent King’s power, not a single warrior faltered or retreated. They fought with every ounce of strength, swinging their weapons and unleashing every skill at their disposal, sacrificing themselves to keep the boss pinned down and grant the mages and archers their chance for a killing blow.

As more players poured in from the distant windswept forest and mountains, the Fire Serpent King, beset by such overwhelming numbers, had no chance to unleash any miraculous reversal. It was soon plunged into utter despair, its health plummeting alarmingly.

It howled in agony; blood streamed from its mouth, nostrils, and ears, its entire form swaying unsteadily. Its attacks grew sluggish, the shield never reappeared, and in its agony it could only bow its head and endure the blows, unable to resist.

Countless attacks split its scales open, leaving gashes from which blood flowed, dyeing its already crimson body an even deeper red. Its health bar was nearly drained.

Suddenly, as the warriors surrounded and slashed at it, a torrent of flames erupted from the Fire Serpent King’s body. With a furious, desperate shriek, it struggled to its feet, the blood streaming from its wounds instantly evaporating in the heat. All along its back, its scales stood on end.

Roar!

It threw back its head and unleashed a roar of such rage and despair that the sky itself seemed to change color. Flames gushed from its body, shooting more than ten meters into the air, transforming the Fire Serpent King into a pillar of fire.

In the next instant, a massive fire ring exploded from its body, expanding rapidly in all directions. At the final moment, the Fire Serpent King unleashed its most devastating attack.

The fire ring swept over the warriors and summoned beasts crowding around the boss, incinerating them instantly—none survived, and death’s white glow filled the air. The front lines were stripped of all defenders.

The ring then crashed into the foremost mages. In a single, shattering impact, more than a hundred mages were reduced to ashes, shields or no shields. After harvesting so many lives, the ring detonated in a spectacular blast, its scorching flames sweeping across nearly every remaining player.

More flashes of death’s white light blinked across the desolate basin.

When the surviving players blinked away the dazzling light left by the explosion, they found the ground ahead charred and blackened—the companions who had fought beside them only moments ago had vanished without a trace.

The boss had unleashed its ultimate skill. As the blast faded, I crawled out from the earth—thankfully, the Storm Wolf King had shielded me with its own body, or I would have been buried alive. Rising to my feet, I saw that fewer than a hundred survivors remained—the losses were unimaginable.

But the Fire Serpent King, too, had spent its final reserves of strength. Its tremendous form slowly toppled, and a golden radiance flashed across its body. The flood of experience was so great that I leveled up instantly, and my experience bar for level 36 shot up, bringing me just shy of level 37—a testament to the boss’s incredible bounty.

As the boss fell, more than thirty pieces of glowing equipment rained down around it—weapons, armor, accessories, everything one could desire. Most tempting of all was a fiery red staff gleaming with a rainbow sheen. It was no divine artifact, but its aura alone marked it as an item of exceptional quality, likely of at least silver-tier.

Besides these treasures, hundreds of various coins were scattered across the ground, from common copper and silver to heaps of gold piled like small mountains, and several fist-sized, multicolored crystal cores—rare and precious indeed. Thanks to the latest update, players no longer had to dig into monsters’ bodies for these cores; they now dropped along with other loot.

And so, the cleanup began. At the sight of the loot, players rushed forward, scrambling to snatch what they could. Unlike them, I claimed a suit of armor and some crystal cores for myself; coins no longer tempted me much, since I already carried over a thousand gold and would be set for a long time.

With the battlefield swiftly cleared, the epic battle outside the passage came to an end. The players pressed forward, drawing ever closer to their destination. As for the unfortunate fallen, few spared them a second thought.

Approaching the passage, everyone saw it was like a colossal, circular cavern. The entrance alone spanned nearly five meters wide and over thirty meters high, perfectly round as if drilled by some giant auger, its interior lost in impenetrable darkness.

Many of the first arrivals halted in their tracks, and those who’d hurried to be first now grew uncharacteristically humble, standing at the entrance without daring to go on. The sight made me pause in surprise—didn’t these people want to rush in and grab the spoils?

Soon enough, someone ventured inside, only for a chorus of screams to follow—clearly, they hadn’t made it far before being wiped out by the monsters within. The rest, alarmed, quickly retreated to the mouth of the passage, unwilling to leave but too afraid to proceed. They decided to wait until more had gathered, then enter together.

“Go on! Move up, don’t block the entrance!”

“What’s the holdup? Get down there and stop clogging the way.”

“There are so many of us—if we go together, we’ll have the strength of numbers. What’s there to fear?”

“Don’t just stand here—let the warriors take the lead. The rest, follow behind. If we stick together, nothing can stop us!”

The players shouted and argued, while more arrived by the minute. Squeezing forward was clearly not a solution. There was no unified command, but the warriors stepped up to the front—this was their calling, after all, and one they were well suited for.

Other classes followed, with the priests shielded in the center of the formation. In these conditions, priests were the linchpin of the group, becoming the army’s true core. Tempted by unknown riches and united by shared hardship, everyone’s private schemes were set aside for now. Original parties were dissolved and reformed into larger groups or, for some, left behind in favor of solo exploration. Step by step, the players advanced into the unknown.