Adon wanted to move, wanted to leap into action or help Rosslyn avoid the oncoming attack or something.

  But he read the room telepathically. No one was panicking.

  Rosslyn, William, and Frederick each remained unfazed by the sudden curtain of magma rolling their way.

  In fact, both brothers continued charging their lightning mana, even as they also shifted positions—drawing closer to each other as well as to Rosslyn and Adon in the middle. Rosslyn simply stood in place, charging up mana and infusing it throughout her armor and sword.

  As the magma streams that separated the path from the walls surged upward and blocked any effort to move to the sides, the brothers took up their final positions directly in front of Rosslyn before the magma wall could make impact.

  They each extended both palms simultaneously, and this time, huge balls of lightning materialized and shot forward, blowing a very large hole in the middle of the magma curtain. The molten liquid was blasted backward, away from the brothers and Rosslyn, while the unaffected parts of the curtain simply advanced at their sides, harmlessly passing the humans by.

  The wyvern, seeing the humans unharmed after its attack, just grew angry.

  It made another loud squawk, and it began charging mana again and simultaneously raked its claws along the ground. Despite their relatively small size, the appendages were surprisingly strong. The wyvern tore loose a large chunk of rock from just in front of it and hurled it forward.

  William blew the rock up with another bolt of lightning, while Frederick rushed forward toward the wyvern on the left. Rosslyn quickly followed from the right.

  The wyvern was charging its attack up quickly, but as its opponents crossed the twenty feet or so that separated them from the beast, it was forced to adapt to their sprinting pace.

  Without slowing its energy gathering tempo even slightly, the wyvern stretched out both its skin wings, dipped them into the streams of magma at its side, and then whipped them forward, slinging what were effectively large handfuls of magma at Frederick and the Princess as they drew closer.

  Frederick was forced to throw himself to the ground, tuck his head, and roll forward, while Rosslyn slowed slightly, held her sword carefully in both hands, and rushed into the attack. As the magma drew close to hitting her, she slipped her body to the side of the liquid and used the flat of her blade to deflect the few droplets that she had not perfectly dodged.

  Both the fighters drew nearer to the wyvern, albeit slightly slower and warier of further attacks.

  But the wyvern was not willing to face them in melee combat just yet, it seemed. It dipped the wings into the magma streams once more. Rosslyn and Frederick slowed and prepared to counter thrown globs of magma again, but Adon sensed that something different was happening.

  Get away from the streams! Adon shouted into all three fighters’ minds.

  As he was blaring this warning, the wyvern’s magma suddenly rushed from its upper body, where it had been concentrated, down through its wings and directly into the magma streams.

  The molten magma bubbled ferociously all around the warriors, and then shapes began to arise from out of the liquid. Rosslyn and Frederick stopped running forward and stepped back away from the streams, until they were back to back with swords drawn.

  Adon, you did not mention any of those turtles in these streams, Rosslyn complained in her mind. The words were accompanied by an audible groan.

  There aren’t any turtles in these streams, Adon replied instantly.

  Although the shapes looked almost as bulky as the turtles initially, he could feel a distinctive difference. What he felt from the shapes now arising from the streams was that they were barely alive in any sense. Perhaps less sapient than the average ant or wasp.

  At the same time that he communicated to the Princess, he connected with mental magic and prepared to use it.

  Adon sensed dozens of creatures moving, but he sensed almost no mental activity from them.

  As the creatures rose up more fully and stepped out of the magma streams, Adon finally understood why he sensed so little thought.

  Identify confirmed that these were no normal monsters.

  Lesser Magma Elemental.

  The figures stood only around two or three feet tall each, and they looked like hunchbacks made entirely out of slowly flowing, dripping molten magma.

  But for all that, Adon could see they would obviously be incredibly deadly. After all, the group had no easy way of dealing with these creatures in melee, and there were around eighteen of them standing on each side of the path.

  The wyvern let loose an aggressive squawk, and the elementals advanced.

  Then there was a loud, crackling noise of electricity from behind Adon and Rosslyn. Adon turned his body just in time to see William throw out a dozen of bolts of lightning that forked and split into multiple smaller attacks.

  In an instant, more than two-thirds of the elementals shattered from impact with the lightning.

  “Thanks for the assist!” yelled Frederick.

  Hurry up! Adon yelled telepathically. They aren’t done!

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  Already, the elementals were reforming themselves on the ground, while those that had not been struck were moving into a line to better defend the wyvern. They were slow, though.

  Rosslyn leapt into action in response to Adon’s prompting.

  He heard her invoke some magic in her mind and felt a ripple of power pass through her body. Her sword suddenly glowed more brightly, though the light shifted to almost entirely concentrate on the edges.

  Divine Sword, Sixth Form, Edge of Light.

  Then Rosslyn was in melee distance with the wyvern.

  Adon only noticed now that it had resumed charging mana again—perhaps for some third attack that they had not seen as of yet—but Rosslyn swept in with her sword, slashing and hacking in the wyvern’s direction.

  Her first swing took the left wing off in the middle of the delicate membrane—Adon could almost feel the pain of that blow, since he had a pair of fragile wings of his own. Blood gushed from the wound and turned to steam from proximity to the superheated elementals.

  Then the magma elementals started getting in Rosslyn’s way. They did not directly attack her but simply placed themselves in the path of her sword to keep it from striking the wyvern again and crowded closer to her. The sword chopped through the elementals as easily as it did through flesh and bone, but the elementals were not meaningfully harmed. It passed through like it was moving through water.

  The Princess started to back away, trying to avoid becoming surrounded or getting into close proximity with the monsters, but they pressed closer and closer. Her distance from the wyvern grew as she gave ground, taking on a defensive stance even as she continued hacking, slicing, and bisecting the elementals—to no effect.

  Maybe you need to try something different, Adon thought but did not send. He was afraid of distracting Rosslyn.

  He had been preparing his own attack, as well, and as the monsters drew closer to the Princess, he finally unleashed the power of his mental magic.

  Back off! The yell ripped through the magma elementals, and for a few seconds they all paused in their tracks. One that Rosslyn sliced in half simply shattered and failed to reform.

  Then they started moving again—if anything, more aggressively.

  “Do that again,” Rosslyn hissed.

  Stop it!!! The mental attack was weaker this time, but it still forced the feeble-minded creatures to hold completely still for a moment. Rosslyn was able to slice three into six before the rest could approach again.

  The rest of them launched themselves at her with a terrible fury now, and Adon had to summon up mana quickly for another mental attack.

  Be still!!!!

  The elementals froze up once more, but this time, lightning bolts struck the elementals all around Rosslyn and even those further in.

  Adon looked back and saw both William and Frederick throwing their lightning at the creatures. Both young men were drenched in sweat. It was obvious that this was not something they could sustain. Their elemental affinity seemed to have at least one drawback relative to Rosslyn’s fire magic. They had clearly used up their power far more quickly than she would have.

  “Go!” yelled Frederick.

  Rosslyn needed no prompting.

  As a lightning bolt shattered an elemental reforming in front of her and tore a surprisingly thin and shallow-looking red line across the wyvern’s chest—the wyvern’s armor really was tough and good at minimizing damage, it seemed—Rosslyn entered the opening in its defenses that attack had left.

  Her sword still glowed brightly with the white light of her “Divine Sword” ability, and she thrust it up and slashed sideways. The wyvern threw itself backward, clumsy with only one wing, toppling onto its tail section—but it had saved itself for the moment.

  The blade only took off the front half of its head, severing the long beak from the rest of the creature’s body.

  The wyvern let out a choked noise of pain and surprise, and Adon recognized that something had changed in its mindset. He could almost see it in the creature’s eyes.

  It’s given up trying to survive, Adon warned telepathically. Just wants to take you with it now.

  The world seemed to slow down from there.

  Huge quantities of mana surged up from within the creature, the thin wound in its chest glowing bright red alongside a duller orange glow throughout its body. It had always been a ranged fighter with vast quantities of mana and little in the way of melee fighting power.

  Now that mana boiled up, and Adon was fairly certain the creature was about to self-destruct.

  Rosslyn raised her sword, but the surge of power was happening too fast. Adon did not think she could make it.

  Then a lightning bolt flew and struck the wyvern directly in the crest that topped its head. The attack looked feeble and weak, but it slowed the creature down for a moment.

  Rosslyn’s weapon chopped through the neck, and the head and the body fell in two different directions. The glow of mana all throughout the monster’s body started fading immediately. The elementals that had been slowly reforming and crowding around Adon and Rosslyn simply dissipated instantly—or, more accurately, they collapsed back into magma and trickled downhill, back into the streams from whence they had come.

  The Princess let out a long breath.

  “No more enemies around, right?” she whispered. Her voice was tense and tired, but the mana around her blade remained as sharp and bright as ever.

  That’s right, Adon replied instantly. There were no more minds—no more enemies—in the area. The dungeon exit loomed before them, a massive square opening that they could reach as soon as they crossed in front of the wyvern’s body—or collected its remains, as the case might be.

  It looked as if the dungeon had, for some reason, done them the favor of actually carving the tunnel to the next level into a set of stairs.

  Rosslyn released the energy from around her sword, took out a cloth, and wiped the blade—then her face. She was sweaty, although not nearly as drenched in perspiration as the young lords.

  She sheathed her sword and turned to look back at them, and Adon saw again that the brothers were so sweaty that they could have been melting.

  “We won,” she said in a slightly choked voice.

  “It was a hard fought victory,” William said, also clearly drained to the utmost.

  “Considering the magma attacks and the elementals, we would have taken terrible and horribly unnecessary losses if we had brought the knights here,” Frederick said somberly. He nodded at Adon. “Thank the Goddess that none of us died here.”

  You were all incredible, Goldie gushed from his shoulder. The teamwork—I hope I can make myself useful in a fight like that one day. She sounded nervous at the thought, but excited at the same time.

  For the record, Adon sent, I am only counting all of that—what just happened—as one single kill. And the kill went to Rosslyn. Any arguments with that?

  Despite or perhaps because of their exhaustion, everyone laughed. And no one argued.