The next two hours were brutal.
After resting, Apophis's party went right back to warring against the nagas. The further they traveled, the fewer Naga Scouts they faced, instead fighting much stronger nagas specialized as soldiers and assault troops. These monsters were as skillful and cohesive as a professional army, and they made every step forward a hard-won victory. Moreover, the labyrinth walls completely lacked distinguishing features, which disoriented the party and filled them with a stagnating fatigue.
At least the combat awarded plenty of EXP! By the end of that two-hour stretch, everyone had reached LvL 17. And, thankfully, the beacons and progress map which Lotus created using her Engineer class assured them they weren't retracing their old paths.
After exterminating a group of twenty especially vicious nagas, the group finally saw a change in their surroundings. The mist cleared almost entirely as they entered a huge courtyard, the floor of which must have been an entire square kilometer in area!
Everyone's first instinct was that they'd come across the boss chamber, but even the thought of that was a kind of relief from the insane stress of the labyrinth corridors.
At the far end of this enormous courtyard was a huge door… guarded by a red naga four times the size of the regular monsters they'd been fighting!
╔══════════════╕
╟─╼ BOSS MONSTER
║ ╰╼[Name]: Naga Queen
║ ╰╼[LvL]: 25
║ ╰╼[Rank]: C+
╚══════════════╛
Moreover, the boss wasn't alone, but was surrounded by more than a hundred naga soldiers!
The party was shocked and demoralized at this sight. How could they face such a huge army in such an open area?! Moreover, how were they supposed to fight the boss at the same time? Not even Apophis knew what to expect! Surely, this was beyond the team's capabilities.
Hulk spoke up. "There's no way I can hold back so many monsters at once. Besides, I'd bet this isn't all of them. Reinforcements will definitely jump out from behind us once the fighting starts. If our previous battles have made anything clear, it's that the nagas' key strategy is to overwhelm us with sheer numbers!"
Everybody began debating the best strategy. It was hard for anyone else to admit that the boss would be impossible for them in their current state, but several people wanted to return to the labyrinth and grind at least a few more levels.
However, Apophis stopped them. "Look, I have a plan!" He used his ~Cosmic Materialization~ Skill and built a wooden staircase that rose to the top of the labyrinth walls, which also served as the edges of the huge courtyard.
The team was shocked! They'd seen him summon rocks before to protect them, but that could have been a very basic elemental Esper Skill! Apophis could just summon whatever he wanted? What kind of broken Skill was that?!
Apophis ignored their surprise. He took the initiative and led the team up the staircase.
The walls rose ten meters high. At the top, Apophis could have potentially seen the whole labyrinth—if not for the heavy fog which covered the rest of the maze!
But he hadn't climbed the walls to get a good view. No, Apophis had realized that climbing the wall would put them out of melee range from most of the nagas. It might not protect them from the towering boss, but it was certainly an immense advantage.
Apophis had avoided this previously because he knew there was a much greater risk if they tried to travel along the tops of the maze walls in the fog. If someone fell, they probably would have died from a combination of fall damage and a naga ambush, and their character would have been lost forever. But in this situation, when they had much better vision and knew exactly where they were, it seemed like the proper strategy.
With careful steps, the team moved forward and engaged the boss from the wall. Before they attacked, Apophis soaked the wooden stairs with water, then threw his first ball of fire at the boss!
The Naga Queen looked lost and confused! It rushed the wall and body-slammed it, trying to knock the players down, but the smooth stone was much too sturdy. The players didn't feel even the tiniest shake. It then tried to pounce upward, but the huge height of the wall made it impossible for it to fight back against Apophis and his party, let alone the smaller nagas.
Then the queen started hurling javelins upward, but this was the worst possible way to try to make a ranged attack. Gravity pulled directly against what might have otherwise been deadly weapons, making them wobble in the air and clatter harmlessly against the wall below the players. A few javelins actually rose high enough to brush the players, but there was so little force behind them at that time that they caused no damage.
It was a one-sided fight. The players quickly and easily eliminated the hundreds of nagas who arrived to defend their queen, then attacked the queen herself.
During this attack, some nagas noticed Apophis's staircase and rushed up it.
He was waiting for this, of course! Once a swarm of about ten nagas had filled up the staircase and almost reached the top, Apophis snapped his fingers!
The water-covered staircase burst into black flames!
Nagas screamed as they burned alive, consumed by the synergized fire and water Apophis had recently learned. The wooden stairs quickly collapsed into embers, hurling the remaining monsters to their deaths below.
This was hardly a necessary strategy, but it was great for morale. All the party members cheered as these nagas died in such a theatrical way, and Apophis gave the Naga Queen an arrogant smirk.
Just when the Naga Queen's HP was almost gone, Apophis had a sudden idea. "Hold on! Stop attacking! Listen, I just realized there's a potential EXP farm here. Every two minutes, about twenty nagas appear as reinforcements. Since there's no way they can hurt us here, why not just sit here and slaughter them as they show up? We should be able to hit Level 20 easily!"
Since there was no time limit on the Dungeon, everyone agreed to this. The group farmed these minions for five tedious hours and eventually reached LvL 22.
Even Lotus, who had entered the Dungeon one level behind everyone else, caught up because of the sheer amount of EXP required as the levels rose.
However, once they hit LvL 22, the amount of EXP needed for the next level skyrocketed. The nagas no longer provided enough EXP for the farm to be worth it, so Apophis ordered them to finish off the boss encounter.
The Naga Queen had regenerated all its health after these five hours of grinding, but it didn't matter. The party finished it off with basic ranged attacks, unable to even defend itself.
Now it was time to gather loot and reach the next stage of evolution!