When Luna exited the portal, the first thing she saw was a red eyed Sei.
"I'm sorry, I couldn't.."
"It's fine." Sei smiled.
"It's true that I'm worried but I want to believe in the man that I love."
Only then did Luna notice that Sei's hands were trembling and her palms were sweating.
She gingerly took her hand and offered her a kind smile.
"We'll wait for him together, yea?"
An idea briefly bubbled up in Sei's mind before she smiled and agreed.
'Surely she doesn't but if she did… I think that if it was her.. I would not mind.'
-
"This is bullshit!"
Nina was staring at an almost fully recovered Malachi.
Even though there was still some faint fatigue, he was incomparable to the walking corpse he was before.
Nina's shock was an appropriate response.
Normally a blessed overusing their powers would put them on their ass for the rest of the day.
Yet after Mal's brief 10 minute nap, he was brimming with energy.
He wasn't certain, but he got the feeling he was drawing strength from the night itself and using that energy to recover his stamina.
"I-I give up! I cannot allow you to shock me anymore I feel like my brain is going to explode!"
"Isn't he just incredible?" Opal was staring at Mal hungrily and he was beginning to feel like she could see through his clothes.
"I can't believe i only filmed him sleeping for 10 minutes and we're up to 15 million viewers!" Bill was certain he'd be getting a raise after this.
Malachi rolled his eyes at all the attention he was getting.
"Come on guys let's just get going."
'Who made this rookie the leader?' Nina thought but she followed behind him all the same.
'I love a commanding man~' Opal was imagining some very dangerous scenarios as she trailed behind Malachi.
-
As the group trekked throughout the desert, they didn't run into any more scorpions.
There were some rare materials to be collected by the extraction team later but there were no more monsters and most importantly, no drops.
"Do you think you killed them all back there?" Nina asked after realizing they'd been walking around unimpeded for about twenty minutes now.
Malachi tried to use his sight enhanced by the night, but because the scorpions were below ground to begin with, he had no way to know if they were there.
What he could see though, was the boss and they just so happened to be coming upon her right now.
Lounging sleepily in a large sand basin was a captivating monster.
From the waist up she was a beautiful woman with richly tanned skin, sleek black hair and four red eyes.
Her lower half was that of a massive black scorpion complete with golden markings.
She was easily around 13 feet tall.
Mal felt his face get hot as he stared at the beautiful monster lady.
When Mal noticed that her massive breasts were swaying freely in the wind, he felt like a pervert when his gaze lingered for longer than it should have.
"Alright Mal, do you have a plan?"
"Huh? O-oh right, plan…"
Suddenly, Malachi was drawing a blank.
Even though he was a very smart and reliable person, for the first time in his life he was at a loss for what to do.
This was his first dungeon after all.
After much deliberation, he finally settled on a plan that was absolutely foolproof.
"Hit with powers, make fall down?"
His joke of a plan only earned a smack from Nina and a chuckle from Opal.
Viewers online also laughed at Mal's attempt to joke even in a dangerous situation, completely unaware that he was actually very serious.
"Alright guys, here's what we'll do.." Nina began.
While the group was going over their plan, a seemingly invisible force blew a faint red powder into the face of the sleeping monster.
She inhaled the substance in her sleep, and it wasn't long before her four eyes flashed open, strained with power.
"AAAAARRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!"
The group's planning was interrupted by the scorpion woman's roar that shook the desert sands.
"What the hell?! Her aura's exploded!"
At first glance it was easy to see that what was formerly a C rank boss had somehow jumped to B rank.
"Nina! The sand!" Malachi yelled.
"Got it!" Nina quickly threw her hands down and the sand underneath them began to rapidly harden and change into concrete.
Since a bit of the boss's legs were submerged under the sand, the resulting attack left her stuck.
"That won't hold!" Nina was already sweating and felt like she was going to go mad under the strain of trying to keep the monster subdued. "Use those flames, now!"
Malachi hurriedly obliged and witching the next second his hands produced bright golden flames.
He shot them directly at the trapped boss monster, only to be briefly surprised when he did not feel them going wild as he did before.
The surprises didn't stop there, when the boss saw the volley of flames coming towards her, she held up her giant pincers and blocked the blow.
"RRRRAAAAAAAA!!!"
The boss seemed to feel some pain, but it was nothing compared to the absolute incineration inflicted upon her children earlier.
When the volley of flames ceased, the group could see the boss's partially melted claws, but were shocked when she simply used her upper human hands to rip off her pincers.
The blessed watched in abject horror as she promptly grew new pincers in the blink of an eye.
BANG!!
The beast finally broke free of the stone encasing her legs and wasted no time leaping out of the sand dune on top of the group.
Malachi, unwilling to miss the opportunity to strike his airborne opponent, let loose a volley of black lightning from his hands.
The results proved to be even less effective than the flames as the monster simply smirked, indicating she felt no pain at all.
BOOOM!
The beast crashed to the ground and immediately began flailing out her extra appendages, intending to strike or impale all of the intruders before her.
Opal was knocked aside and coughed up a mouthful of fresh blood, Nina was almost pierced but narrowly avoided the strike from a jagged leg.
Malachi's reaction was the fastest, as he had time to avoid the blow and still get Bill back to a safe distance.
Opal drew her katana and Nina drew her weapons as well, a pair of large sleek magic pistols modeled after a character from an anime that Aisha had shown her.
Nina shot off a few rounds but most were blocked by the enemies hard exoskeleton and the few that weren't unfortunately did not penetrate deep enough to cause any real damage.
Opal coated her sword in vibrant blue energy before she rushed forward and began to attack the beast.
She barely managed to avoid incoming pincers, legs and the pointed tail that was launched at her and counter attack with her own blows.
Like Nina's, they were shallow and hardly effective.
Seeing his teammates working so hard, Malachi endeavored to follow in their footsteps.
He summoned all of his knives and left them rotating around him before he quickly coated each with black lightning.
Launching the blades at an imperceptible speed, his efforts proved not to be in vain.
The blades weaved around the beasts body expertly and like all of the attacks before them, they were not sharp enough to leave any deep cuts.
One blade however, was propelled directly into one of the beasts four red eyes.
A sickening squelch was heard, before the electricity on the blade shocked her from the inside out.
"SCREEEEEEEEEE!!!"
The beast howled in pain as the most substantial wound so far had just been dealt.
"That's great Mal, keep going!"
"I'll reward you later if you get us out of here alive!"
He ignored the praises of the two girls and only stared at the beast in front of him.
When the boss realized which human inflicted that grievous injury upon it, it snarled before rushing forward with a speed that was comparable to some A rank bosses.
'Fast!' Mal barely had time to react as he narrowly dodged a blow from a massive pincer.
Unfortunately, Mal forgot about her tail and that proved to be the perfect opportunity for her to smack him with it, sending him flying across the sand.
"Mal!"
"Malachi!"
Both girls rushed forward, only to receive similar heavy blows that produced loud cracking noises.
The boss ignored the two groaning women and focused it's eyes on the human male in front of it.
It had to pay for inflicting a harmful injury on her divine body.
She would eat him to help heal the damage he had caused!
Mal groaned as he looked up and saw the beast slowly approaching.
He recognized the look in her eyes and a bestial anger bubbled up in his heart.
'She's looking at me like I'm prey?! Me?!'
Such a thing could not be allowed to stand!
He was the apex predator here and there was no one above him!
Unbeknownst to Mal, his body was undergoing a transformation to suit his current needs.
His skin turned completely black before it became tough like old leather and dark claws burst from his fingertips.
His muscles exploded, and his body grew at such a rapid rate that he tore through his clothes with ease.
He needed more than to be a beast at the moment.
He needed the best aspects of both.
Only the combination of both of his natures, would allow him the satisfaction of feeling his enemy's bones crunch between his teeth.
The boss seemed to recognize that her prey was going through some sort of metamorphosis and it made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up.
Malachi rose up from the ground and an apex predator was revealed.
The only thing left of his clothes was his dark suit pants which had long since started tearing at the bottoms.
His feet had torn through his nice leather shoes and changed into massive dark paws.
He was already tall at 6'5 but currently he was a staggering 7'3.
His handsome face had shifted and contorted until all that remained was the head of a giant panther, it's gaze unflinching and uncompromising.
"ROOOOAAAAAAARRRR!!!"