The next two hours were brutal.
After resting, Apophis's party went right back to warring against the nagas. These monsters were as skillful and cohesive as a professional army, and made every step forward a hard-won victory. Moreover, the labyrinth walls were identical, 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 which Lotus created using her Engineer class assured them they were going in the right direction.
Finally, after exterminating a group of twenty nagas, the group finally saw a change in their surroundings as they entered a huge enclosure, 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 enclave was a huge door… guarded by a red naga four times the size of the regular monsters they'd been fighting!
[Naga Queen] [Boss] [Level: 25] [Rank: C+] [Hostile]
The boss wasn't alone, but was surrounded by more than a hundred naga!
At this sight, the party was shocked and demoralized. How could they face a hundred naga at the same time?! Let alone the boss, whose abilities were completely unknown! 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 ~Materialization~ skill and built a wooden staircase that rose to the top of the labyrinth walls, which also composed the boss's enclosure.
The team was shocked! They'd seen him summon rocks before to protect them, but that could have been a very basic 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!
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!
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! It proved to be impossible for even her to fight back against Apophis and his party, let alone the normal nagas, which were much smaller!
It was a one-way fight. They quickly and easily eliminated the hundreds of nagas who arrived to defend their queen, then attacked the queen herself.
Some nagas noticed Apophis's staircase and rushed up it, but he had been waiting for this! Once a swarm of about ten nagas had filled up the staircase and almost reached the top, Apophis snapped his fingers!
Apophis waited for the right moment. When ten Naga were present at the same time on the staircase, Apophis snapped his fingers.
The water-covered staircase burst into black flames!
The damage was incredible!
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.
Finally, the regular nagas were dead, and the team focused their firepower on the Naga Queen.
However, just when the 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 lvl 20 easily!"
The group exploited this mechanic for five hours. It was tedious, but eventually paid off when they reached lvl 22.
Even Lotus, who had entered the dungeons 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, and the nagas no longer provided enough EXP for the farm to be worth it. Apophis finally ordered them to finish off the boss.
After ten minutes, the boss simply died to the party's ranged attacks, unable to even defend itself.
Now it was time to gather loot and reach the next stage of evolution!
