The demons wasted no time continuing the battle. Its body made no sound. There were no unearthly shrieks like the last demons had ripped out. That just made it eerier.

  Honestly, Ray didn’t mind that he was now facing his own demon instead of fighting and killing the one Sameer had maybe weakened. It was fine. What was more frustrating was the fact that the System still refused to enlighten as to what exactly he was facing. Where was his Dungeon Obstacle? Surely, now that he was embroiled, he deserved a handy notification.

  The demon wasn’t stopped by the Windbane maw. It didn’t even flinch as it was blasted by deep-blue flames. Just as with Sameer’s attacks on the other demon, the flames left next to no burns.

  Even less damage, if that was possible. Ray scowled. It had to be Cornered. What an odd ability. But it made sense. With more demons present, each demon was now even stronger than before.

  The monster rushed at him with the speed of lightning, shooting at Ray like a missile. Air itself warped around as it rushed at him.

  Ray stood his ground. Even when the Aeonguard orbs barely slowed its charge, he didn’t move. When the demon reached a mere six feet from him, he cast Timereave. A ghostly blue version of Ray erupted from him. He barely felt the cold shiver of his soul at casting the spell, his blood pounding and his heart hammering in his chest.

  The apparition burst from Ray with enough force to punch the demon back, despite its powerful rush. That gave Ray a tiny bit of breathing room.

  Sameer had resumed his fight with his demon. It was the same stalemate. Both demon and human avoided each other’s attacks, unable to injure each other in any meaningful way. The only difference was that Sameer was actively crushing a Mana crystal. He was running out of gas.

  A quick look around convinced Ray that none of them were having much luck. That wasn’t what really interested him, though. He noted that the demons had subtle differences. They weren’t all the same. Some were thinner, some wider and large. Some looked darker than others. Some were quite obviously faster compared to others.

  Demonic Reflection. Hadn’t that ability said that the demons were reflections of their opponents in some way?

  Ray’s musings were cut short when his monster rushed in. Cursing, he dodged with a flap of Soaring Wings he had already called up. He had almost got caught. The demons’ soundlessness was annoying.

  Even more annoying was the fact that his spells didn’t have much of an effect on it. Neither the flames from the Windbane maw, nor the direct hits from Aeonguard.

  He cast a few more spells, more Aeonguard orbs and more constructs to attack it, but the demon activated Demonic Aura. A hemisphere of dark violet energy crashed into Ray’s spells and dissolved them like magical acid. Ray jumped back quickly, but the monster was rushing at him once again.

  Just as the demon got close, Ray cast Aetheric Trace once more. This time, he summoned his Viledrake tail. Molten Mana made the blue apparition turn burning orange as the oversized limb swooped in and slammed into the demon with enough force to again push it back.

  Alright, that settled it. Ray’ direct spells weren’t dealing much damage, failing to even slow down the monster.

  But that wasn’t as true for spells with physical force. The demon was more resilient to magic than to direct blows. In other words, most of Ray’s spells and typical means of taking opponents down wasn’t going to work. He needed a more direct approach.

  These monsters really were weird reflections of their opponents. Built in such a way that they’d be difficult to take down normally.

  “Sameer!” Ray shouted. He’d have used the System Chat if it had been possible with Sameer, but yelling would have to do for now. “Disappear into one of your Portals and don’t come out.”

  Sameer dodged his charging demon before blasting it with a tornado from one of his portals. “What?”

  Ray was getting a little tired of fighting his own one, so he called on the services of his Imitator construct and set it loose on the monster. “These demons are modified specifically to counteract each of us. But if we switch things around, we can beat them pretty easily. I’m sure of it.”

  “You’re crazy.”

  Sameer ignored Ray and continued battling against his Demon of Pride. It didn’t help. His demon was extra impervious to his Mana-based abilities, just as Ray’s was. Why was he trying to be so bullish and—

  Demon of Pride. Ray cursed. Right, of course. These demons were targeting their pride. If they couldn’t fight and beat their opponents on their own, then they’d end up “losing” regardless of whether the demons were beaten or not. Because if it took someone else to kill these monsters, then what good were any of them?

  “They’re playing you, you idiot,” Ray said. “They want you to act like this.”

  Sameer continued to ignore that and fight.

  Ray ignored him for the moment too, turning his attention to his actual teammates. They were still fighting of course. Everything was moving a little too fast and was a little too chaotic, with eight different combatants all crashing past and colliding against each other.

  Ray: You guys heard me yelling at Sameer?

  It took a moment for Gritty to reply. Marcus didn’t even bother.

  Gritty: I’m trying not to die here, not listen to two idiots bickering.

  Ray: It’s important. You have to—

  His message was cut short when his demon freed itself from the Imitator construct. So far, the mimic had tried everything Ray himself had done, attempting to stop the demon with spells. When they had little to no effect, the mimic had tried to physically restrain the demon, throwing itself at the monster to lock itself around its target.

  Upon which the demon simply tore the mimic apart before continuing on.

  Ray blinked. He wasn’t actually sure how durable the construct was supposed to be, but considering it was a mimic of him… not very durable. Which suggested that he’d suffer the exact same fate if he let that thing get too close.

  Thankfully, the demon didn’t seem terribly smart when it came to attacking. As it had so far, it just charged straight at him. So, Ray simply waited until the right moment before swiping his Viledrake tail to smack the damn monster away so he could think.

  Turned out he was underestimating his foe. The demon wasn’t smacked away as Ray had hoped. It was pushed back, but not far, as it held onto the Viledrake tail.

  Then it tried to swing the tail around like a lasso.

  As soon as Ray had felt himself being lifted off the ground, his heart thudding in his chest, he let go of the spell. Cursing the demon, Ray cast Timereave again, a spectral version of him punching the Demon of Pride to really force it back.

  Alright, this was getting too long and too ridiculous. Ray focused for a second, then settled on a course of action.

  He cast Resurrect Recollect several times in quick succession. The first threw out the Petrified Vines to eat up his surrounding area and replenish his Aeon Mana store. All the other casts had pulled out a bunch of constructs. Three flying Windbane maws specifically, each of which received additional Aeon Mana to reconstruct the rest of their draconic bodies.

  Ray gave two of them only one order. Hold that demon back so he could get on with actually taking all the monsters out.

  They performed their job admirably. Their flaming breaths hardly did anything to the Demon of Pride, but that wasn’t their goal anyway. Plus, they were more durable than the mimic construct had been. The temporal powers of Aeon Mana made their consistency as they originally were, which was far stronger than the plain meat and muscles of Ray himself.

  The third one he sent flying away as far and as fast as it could. That one’s real job would come later.

  With the Windbanes holding back the monster, Ray turned his attention to his actual target. He focused on Sameer’s demon.

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  Ray flapped his Soaring Wings and rushed in. He pushed back his hesitation. Sure, considering how strong he had seen his demon act, it was likely getting close to any of the others would be similarly dangerous.

  Sameer was still fighting the monster, and it was frankly dangerous to go interfering. But Ray was tired of it all and was determined to end this.

  He got in close. Letting the demon grab him would probably be fatal. Good thing he didn’t have to get that close. Just near enough for his petrified vines to emerge from his back and wrap around the dark grey bastard.

  Sameer shouted, which got satisfyingly cut off mid-screech when Ray used Temporal Passage.

  He didn’t care how far the third Windbane maw had flown in that time. It had to have gone far enough. When Ray reappeared, there definitely were no other demons or anyone else from either team in his vicinity. Perfect. It was indeed far enough.

  It was wholly unexpected that the demon would break free of the vines in no time at all. He had already seen just how strong those things were.

  What was surprising was the fact that it ignored him completely. The demon was facing the direction they had appeared from, the direction where the loud sounds of battle were crashing in from. Nothing in the description Ray had read via Eternal Pulse suggested that they were so laser-focused on specific opponents. But it was clear this demon wanted Sameer alone.

  So, Ray gave it Sameer. He didn’t even need to cast Resurrect Recollect. With a focus of his will, the Windbane construct that had flown this far now turned into an Imitator construct, quickly taking the shape of Sameer.

  The demon stopped as fake Sameer halted right in front of it. Ray really had to wonder what was passing through its mind.

  Well, whatever the case, it was frozen in place. It wasn’t moving any more. Which gave Ray the opportunity to create two Windbane maws around his hands with Aetheric Trace.

  He fired them both. Having raised their Tier with the Mana Infuser ring, the lasering blasts that erupted from them were like exhausts from jet engines. Twin blue steams of fiery energy crashed into the demon, sparking and burning together until they detonated in a blistering explosion that rocked everything and made Ray almost lose his own footing.

  Ray blinked through the dust and debris falling around him. The demon still wasn’t dead. Again, unsurprising, because he had seen how resistant the monster had been to everything that Sameer had pelted it. Ray wasn’t going to have much more luck.

  Except… he was having some luck, as evidenced by the way chunks of the demon’s body had burned away or broken off into scorched, crumbling chunks. He recalled that moment when it had torn free from the Petrified Vines too. Sure, it was still immensely powerful, but it had taken longer than it should have.

  Essentially, Ray had drawn it away from the rest of its brethren. This made the skill that empowered it by being closer to others of its kind ineffectual.

  But shit, it still wasn’t dead. What else could—

  Ray shouted as the demon rushed at the Imitator construct. Fake Sameer was still standing in the same position, still presenting itself as a target to confuse the demon.

  But before he could order the mimic to dodge away, a shadow fell over them.

  Ray looked up, then immediately threw himself back. His whole body felt like it was about to pop as an entire cliff crashed down where he had been a second ago. It was Sameer again. Just as he had in the Tier 35 dungeon, he pulled out an entire broken mountainside from his portal and slammed it down.

  He had probably intended to crush Ray alongside the demon. Or at the very last, he didn’t care if Ray got squashed to a pulp either.

  Well, unfortunately for the bastard, Ray reacted fast enough. Nevertheless, his whole body shook as the cliff smashed down, annihilating the demon until it was nothing. Ray froze, wondering if the monster was somehow about to push off an entire cliff.

  But no. It actually stayed dead.

  “You could have died,” Sameer said. “Probably should have died,” he added with a mutter.

  Ray scowled at him. “You’re welcome.”

  “Don’t think this means we’re allies now.” The way he said allies made it sound like he was being forced to curse his own dead grandma. “I didn’t ask you to interfere.”

  “You want to know something? I’m not your real enemy here. You know who the people who really want to kill you are?”

  Sameer crossed his arms as he stood next to his cliff. “Who? Are you going to tell me it’s the Sylvans?” He scoffed. “I haven’t done anything to them like you.”

  Ray had to wonder what Sameer had learned about Ray’s actions on the other Floors. More importantly, he was curious who had told Sameer.

  “No,” Ray said. “I wasn’t about to say the Sylvans, even if it’s true. I was talking about this dungeon specifically. There’s—”

  A crash interrupted Ray. He frowned. It sounded weirdly like explosions at a mine, except much more localized. Then another blast came. And another. Ray understood what was going on a second before a hole erupted in the cliff, the Demon of Pride emerging from the falling debris, arrowing straight for Ray.

  He cursed. Arguing with Sameer had distracted him from the very real fact that he still hadn’t dealt with his demon.

  Which was now barrelling at him like a runaway freight train.

  Ray reacted quickly. Aetheric Trace summoned up the Viledrake tail that sent the monster flying back. It was easier to smack around now that it had been drawn away from the rest of its kind.

  The demon wasn’t going to be pushed away for long. It tore apart the Viledrake tail, then rushed down Ray again.

  Only to be met with the Imitator construct. This demon didn’t appear as confused as the last one had. Though maybe that was because the real Ray was far too close. Whatever the case, the demon didn’t get to reach the real Ray. The mimic was doing a fantastic job of restraining it. Especially because Ray had created a second one to help the first construct.

  His brain hurt a little when he cast Resurrect Recollect a few more times. Four Windbane maws growled with flames spurting from their maws. At the same time, Ray used Aetheric Trace to create more draconic heads on his hands.

  Then six blasts burst and struck the Demon of Pride at once.

  Ray had ordered his Imitator constructs to drag the demon to the cliff. It was there the six streams of coruscating, lasering breaths met. They combined and grew into one gigantic burst of compressed, deep-blue fire for just a second. Then they exploded.

  The last blast had been bad enough, shaking everything and making Ray shudder in place. This one was far, far worse.

  Ray himself was sent tumbling back at the sheer force of the detonation. Sameer’s cliff stood no chance of surviving. Every inch of it was torn apart to dust and smithereens, explosive flames sending scorching chunks flying everywhere like a volcanic eruption.

  With his ears still ringing from the huge blast, Ray got back to his feet as fast as he could. Everything before him had been shattered. If Sameer’s demon had somehow survived having a cliff dropped on top of it, the obliterating combination of attacks from Ray surely should have annihilated it. Just as it should have done to Ray’s demon.

  Should being the key word, for that wasn’t the case. Not for the latter demon, at least.

  It emerged from the burning, crumbling ruin that was Sameer’s cliff. Ray stared. His attack had ruined the demon. Half of it was entirely vaporized off, while chunks of it were falling apart. Despite its resistance to Ray’s spells, it was in terrible shape.

  But it was still alive. Still attempting to reach and kill Ray, moving faster every second as it made its way towards its target.

  Ray crushed an Aeon Mana crystal to top himself up. Now he could cast the same sequence of spells and actually take that thing out for good. He prepared to cast his spells again, but then Sameer stepped up.

  “Fine.” He sighed heavily as he appeared out of a portal. “I suppose I do owe you one.”

  A portal appeared next to the demon. From this portal burst several long, many-segmented clawed arms. Each arm grasped a piece of the demon and simply tore off a chunk of it before retreating back into the portal.

  Ray blinked. It didn’t take much time at all before the demon was destroyed entirely. Especially when he remembered to use his latest spell to create a copy of the temporal demon, which he then attacked alongside Sameer. In less than a minute, all that was left of the monster were smouldering little grey chunks.

  [Enemy Defeated—Demon of Pride]

  Tier 35 Monster: Demon of Pride [Level 72] x1

  Essence: +25,200

  Knowledge: +3

  Aeon Mana Restored: +2,520

  Essence to Level 56: 53,800/312,000

  Knowledge to next Threshold: 2,548/3,500

  Ray turned to Sameer. “Thanks for the assist.”

  Sameer harrumphed before turning away. “I’m not going to be in anyone’s debt is all.”

  “Yeah, sure. We need to go and help the others.”

  “I already told Eliza and Karkatrix how to take care of the demons. They should be done by now.”

  Regardless, Ray would have preferred to head over there and assist his teammates. But it turned out Sameer was right. Moments after finishing their battle, the rest of the teams showed up.

  “You can’t just run off,” Eliza complained as she appeared. She, and the rest of them, looked none the worse for wear despite taking on seemingly unkillable demons. “That guy probably wants to take advantage of you.”

  “I do not,” Ray said. “But I still think we need to work together. Like I was saying, the other teams have banded together to beat us. If you think you can go against them on your own, then be my guest. But we have a better chance of getting through this dungeon together.”

  “And what are we going to do at the end? Just split the treasure in half?”

  Ray turned to glare at Sameer, though he moderated it because ticking him off now would be detrimental to working together. “Didn’t we already do that once?”

  “We did,” Sameer said, before scoffing again. “But this time, we won’t. Because we’re winning this dungeon. All of it.”

  As much as Ray wanted to competitively challenge the bastard and prove that he would be the winner, that would also be detrimental to working together.

  “How about we have a fair fight when we’re the only ones left in the dungeon boss room?” Ray suggested. “No betraying, no backstabbing, just focusing on getting to the dungeon.”

  “You seriously expect us to trust you?” Eliza asked.

  “I think working together is a good idea, to be honest,” Marcus said, making pleading eyes. “And then we can settle things between us when there’s no more bullshit.”

  “Hmm, I suppose we could…”

  Ray stared. “I just said the exact same thing.”

  Gritty held back her laughter.

  “It is true,” Karkatrix said, fingers on all four of his hands moving as though he was performing some crazy calculations in his head. “Our chances of success are much greater if we ally ourselves with another accomplished team.”

  “Accomplished,” Sameer muttered.

  “But also,” Karkatrix continued. “We risk losing a great deal if we are indeed betrayed.”

  “No betraying,” Ray insisted. He looked straight at Sameer. “Because you know what? Ultimately, as much as I want to win this tournament, I haven’t lost sight of who my real enemies are, and it’s not you. And as much as the other teams are a problem for us in this dungeon, I know my enemies will be your enemies too.”

  “Oh yeah?” Eliza said. “How?”

  “Because I know exactly what the treasure you got in the last dungeon is.”