The hounds were big like a bear and covered in dark red flames. Truly even the sight of watching them could bring shivers down the spine of a person. The hounds, after breaking out from the wall, analyze their surroundings for a while to look for who had woken them.
They spot Lux and his group on the other side of the area from them. Quickly, they rush towards their group at a great speed. Lux quickly activates Gravity Counter and along with his use of mana, he slides through the area as if he was frictionless.
As the distance between the hounds and Lux closes, he casts Gravity Field which decreases the agility of the hounds and increases the agility of his group which makes fighting these hounds way easier inside of his field. One of the main strengths of these hounds is speed, so they will be at a huge disadvantage with this spell under effect.
"Now, I will try to divide these hounds, so you guys fight on 1 hound at a time." Lux says as he rushes towards one of the hounds in the area.
Everyone understands what Lux meant and they all go to one part of the area and take position. After Lux sees this, he activates gravity touch and sends one of the hounds flying towards Gilbert. He repeats this process with all hounds and sends each hound towards each one of them.
Not underestimating his opponent, Gilbert quickly takes out his soul weapon and casts Flame field around him and the hound. Being more concentrated in a small area, the flames become even more fierce and powerful than the time when he was facing Lux in a larger area.
Also, with the help of Lux's gravity field, his speed increases greatly and, in just a matter of seconds, he quickly changes his position from time to time. The hounds could also cast spells and the most basic spell they cast was Fireball, where they sent a huge ball of fire towards Lux and his group. So, changing position from time to time was really important to dodge this fireball.
But, Gilbert quickly sees one of his weaknesses. He sees that the flame field he had cast actually had no effect on the hound he was facing. He was dumbstruck to see that these hounds were so powerful as to have no effects from his fire. He then realizes that only because of Lux's spell, they were able to hold on equal grounds against these powerful hounds.
He dissipates the Flame field spell to conserve more mana during the battle. Using his speed advantage, he quickly arrives behind the hound when it was casting the Fireball spell and slashes it using his spell Flame Burst. The hound tries to dodge the attack from Gilbert but doesn't manage to react at the right time, so it gets hit by Gilbert.
With the Burst effect from his spell, it takes heavy damage and gets sent flying towards the nearby wall. It crashes there with a huge blast.
On the other side, Killian also easily manages to deal heavy damage towards the hound before him after he casts one of his most powerful spell Lighting Burst. Crystal had trained martial arts from her early childhood, so she had more precise movements and techniques to deal with the hounds.
People with death affinity were mostly given the position of cursemancers and were not involved in a face to face battle much. So, they were considered really weak when faced against an enemy Mage or a monster face to face. But, looking at Crystal, she completely defied this logic as she was really efficient in hand to hand combat.
She could even use most of her curse spells to her advantage and even some combat spells really well. After Lux had sent a hound flying towards her, she had quickly cursed it using her Death Evident spell. It could increase any spell damage that an enemy took and even the basic spells could deal heavy damage under this curse.
Then, using a spell, Blessing of Thanatos, she gained a heavy buff on herself. Before even a second could pass, she appeared in front of the hound before her and used the spell Death Acupoint while hitting 20 different spots in the hounds body in around a second's time.
The hound was terrified when she suddenly appeared in front of it but, seeing that she had used no major spell, it tried to use a fireball spell. But, to its surprise the hound could not even move a muscle. Then, Crystal used the spell Wind Palm and hit the hound in its neck area with a terrifying force.
After being hit, the hound's body could be seen no more. Instead, it's parts were all scattered here and there with green blood covering the area in front of Crystal. The force was so powerful that the whole area was rustling with all the wind produced from that spell. There was even a huge crack on the wall before Crystal by the effect of this spell.
"Terrifying!" Even Lux was startled after seeing such a battle. Crystal had truly surpassed his expectations by far. In this state, Crystal could already be called the most powerful one in their group right now. Even Lux would have a hard time beating her if she was this powerful.
'I think I should not anger her in the future.' Lux thought after seeing this battle with the hound. He was also smiling bitterly looking at the scene take place.
After beating the hound, Crystal looked towards Lux who was in the middle of the whole area in front of the chest looking at the battle taking place. Her lips were curled up which had a smile basically asking Lux "So, How was it ?"
But, this smile quickly disappeared after she fell to the ground having used up a lot of her mana. She clearly had the most potential but needed to increase her mana capacity and needed to learn better mana control if she aimed to become a great mage someday.
Lux thought what would happen if she learned perfect mana control. If that would happen then, she would definitely become one of the most powerful Mages that Lux had ever seen.
Then, Lux goes towards Crystal and picks her to bring her towards the center. Looking at this, Crystal blushes being held in Lux's arms.
"You did a really good job there. Even I was amazed looking at that fight."
"..." As Crystal was blushing, she couldn't even speak in this situation.
"Huh ? Are you sick or something ? You look really red." Lux says looking at Crystal who was blushing.
"It's nothing" Crystal quickly denies in a harsh tone.
"I even picked you and you still are annoyed with me. What have I ever done to make you so annoyed ?" Lux asks himself, hearing the answer of Crystal in a harsh tone.
Crystal had not meant to say it in a harsh tone. But, she was blushing so much that she had to use such a tone to avoid stuttering while speaking.
Alice was also doing great while facing her hound. She did not have precise movements and techniques like Crystal but, she had her own ways to cover up for that. Quickly after Lux had sent a hound towards her, she used the spell Water blade and sent a blade of water towards the hound.
This small blade of water had a really great speed. The hound, not being afraid of such a puny water blade, took the blade head on. But, to its surprise the blade cut off one of its horns. Being angry, it casted fireball towards Alice but she had already changed her position.
Although the damage the fireball dealt was massive, the slow cast rate was enough for Lux's group to dodge it completely.
Alice then jumped high into the air and using her spell Rain Steps, she amazingly walked in the air. She sent many other water blades towards the hound but, after facing its damage once, it dodged all the attacks from her.
Even though water affinity magic was very dangerous and powerful, the main disadvantage to it was it's source. Water affinity magic required water from the surrounding as it's source to cast magic.
This was the main reason why it ranked so low in the affinity charts as water was not available everywhere and at any time. So, the mages choose to attack water mages in the areas where the source was low and finished them off.
So, Alice could only use some water in her current surrounding where it was so hot and the water amount here was low. That was the reason why she was only using small water blades to attack the hound. But, even with that, she was doing a great job keeping the fight with the hound.
Lux really admired Alice for being so thoughtful and using her surrounding water present in the air only in a small amount to attack these hounds. She would become a great mage in the future if she was taught properly.
Lux then suddenly remembered an item which would be useful to Alice.
'Seems like I need to get it for her soon. It will help her to achieve greater heights than any water affinity mage in my previous life.'
Unfortunately, right now Alice was having an even harder time as the amount of water in the air was decreasing. Most water mages would store water in their spatial ring to fight against others. But, even that was insufficient and could run out anytime.
He saw that Alice also had one such ring with her. Some water mages even made soul weapons having the ability as spatial rings to save water in them. But, using the spatial rings effectively while casting a spell was really hard and even intermediate mages had a hard time learning it.
That was the reason why most people with water affinity never considered becoming mages. He was now even more eager to watch the battle of Alice. If she had already mastered using a spatial ring for casting spells then, watching this battle would really be amazing.
Alice seemed to know that the water in the surrounding was insufficient so she finally used her spatial ring. In this time of using water blades against the hound, she had already managed to analyze most of its movements and patterns.
After all that, she had found the perfect way to deal with the hound. This ability to analyze and plan for the next moment was really crucial for Mages. Lux was looking at the fight knowing each and every step of what Alice was thinking. Her mentality could already be compared to someone of the advanced rank right now.
Alice, quickly using the advantage of the gravity field of Lux, arrives before the hound. She then quickly uses the spell Water Burst as she hits the hound with her bare fists. She had already activated water from her spatial ring for use as a spell.
The very next second, a huge blast of water pushes the hound to the very corner of the area. There was also a lava pit at the very corner. With the blast's effect, it gets pushed into that small lava pool.
When Lux thinks that Alice also had finally finished her job, a really loud roar was heard throughout the area. Lux looks around his surroundings to see what has caused this roar. Then, he sees that the hellhound that was pushed into the lava pool by Alice had actually evolved into an elite hellhound.
It was even more furious than the precious four hellhounds. Instead of fire covering its body, it had cracks in its body which had lava running through them. Just by looking at that appearance, one could say that it had a really tough body. The body even looked tougher than the rocks present in the walls of this cave.