Above: bees.
Below: fire.
Guess what that is?
The answer is my current situation, damn it!
Hey, bees.
You guys are seriously annoying.
Why are you attacking me right now, of all times?!
Bee stings don't do any damage, but in a situation like this where even a moment's opening could cost me my life, give me a break!
The ground is still burning fiercely.
Right in the middle of it all, Arava spits breath my way.
I dodge it in midair.
Then I bisect a bee that comes charging at me with my scythe.
The falling corpses get scorched by the flames.
Arava, sitting at the heart of the inferno, isn't unscathed either.
There's a difference between being immune and having just resistance. With resistance alone, you still take damage.
Even if the magic in question is your own.
Flame Resistance is a higher-tier Skill than Fire Resistance.
Getting a higher-tier Skill right off the bat is impressive, sure, but even so, it still can't reduce damage to zero.
Arava is currently scorching itself — literally — while watching for a chance to take me out.
Thanks to my high-speed HP recovery, my HP is dropping pretty slowly.
But little by little, its body is being consumed by the flames.
If I just keep running, will it self-destruct?
...Nah, it's never that easy.
The earth around Arava surges upward, shielding its body.
Its specialty, Earth Magic, guarding it from the blazing inferno.
Its HP starts recovering at a rapid rate.
The high-speed HP recovery Skill has leveled up during this fierce battle too.
Its HP is regenerating at a speed that makes me suspect it's been hit with healing magic.
Ugh.
Growing in the middle of a fight? Just which protagonist do you think you are?
That kind of cool protagonist-only privilege is reserved for the main character, you know?
That's cheating. Straight-up cheating.
How unfair.
I want a redo.
Let's be honest.
My chances of winning through a head-on fight are gone.
Even if I recalled every Parallel Will, it wouldn't be enough.
Arava's combat ability has skyrocketed that much.
And to prove it, the walls of the vertical shaft start burning.
Not just the floor — the walls are engulfed in flames too.
Every inch of ground is filled with fire.
My only escape is the sky beyond the fire's reach.
And even that sky is about to be violated — massive energy builds up inside Arava's maw.
The ultimate attack Arava hasn't been able to fire until now.
Protected by earth and flame alike, it's finally been unleashed.
I imagined what would happen next.
Arava fires an enormous breath, as if piercing through the sky.
It would blow away even the flames spread across the walls.
A single beam of light, blasting from the depths of the underground all the way up to the sky.
...That's the scene I pictured.
Nope. No way.
If I took a hit from that, I'd be charcoal. Charcoal!
There's no way I could survive that.
So I teleported out.
Current location: between the Upper Layer and Middle Layer, where I'd left the Ark's carcass.
It's on the complete opposite side of this massive labyrinth, so the aftershocks of the battle haven't reached here at all.
I was worried about tremors or something by now.
The world would be collapsing.
Ahh.
Time for a break.
Let me eat some Ark.
I burned through a lot of SP, after all.
Might as well restock here.
Ugh, this tastes terrible.
While eating the Ark, I check the Status and current location of Arava, which I'd marked.
Arava isn't moving.
Is it savoring the moment, thinking it got me? Or is it lamenting that it missed?
Either way, it doesn't matter.
I'll be heading back soon.
My poison is already eating away at Arava's body.
It probably hasn't noticed yet.
But as long as it doesn't take me down, that poison will keep corroding further.
It hasn't reached a critical level yet, but it will eventually.
And when it does, I win.
If I can't chip away its HP through a direct assault, then I'll take a different approach.
Arava has me figured wrong.
I'm not a warrior who makes a living through brute combat.
I'm a despicable hunter who deceives, traps, and devours her prey.
Setting traps is my specialty.
Poison is my greatest weapon.
Arava is already caught in my web.
Arava has already been poisoned.
All I have to do now is wait for the poison to spread — while making sure I don't get killed.
That whole "making sure I don't get killed" part is the tricky bit, though.
I eat the disgusting Ark meat and replenish my SP.
I eat through my Gluttony stockpile too.
But the Ark's massive body still has plenty left.
This should keep me fed for a while.
Alright.
Time to head back to the battlefield.
Teleportation.
I teleport to a spot some distance away from Arava.
If I teleport right in front of it, now that it has spatial awareness, it could land a devastating hit.
...Or so I thought, and sure enough — the moment I appear, breath comes flying at my location.
I scramble to dodge.
I just teleported, so even Future Sight didn't activate in time.
A blast grazes my back as it passes by.
Focus.
This opponent is without a doubt the strongest monster I've ever faced.
Against this foe, a single instant of carelessness means death.
That breath attack was clearly aimed at detecting the telltale signs of my teleportation.
I can't use teleportation freely anymore.
Escaping is one thing, but coming back is where the real danger lies.
The flames on the ground are still burning.
But the wall flames have been blown away.
And so have the bees that were buzzing around up there.
It really did go exactly the way I imagined — the breath blew away the wall flames, swept up the bees overhead, and shot straight up to the sky.
Even if teleportation is risky, that breath attack is something I can only dodge by teleporting.
There's no way my evasion alone could handle it.
Hard to dodge when there's no room to dodge in the first place.
But because it's such a massive attack, the cost is enormous too.
On top of activating Scorched Earth on a scale that covers the walls, Arava used that colossal breath attack, which has drained a lot of its MP.
To use that breath again, it'll need to recover its MP first.
So... what's Arava's next move?