After a few hours resting in the—now much cooler—hallway, Leo and Cain approached the doors the Furnace Warden had been guarding.

While reminiscent of the doors that had first led them inside, these felt different. Something about them made the air feel heavier, like the space beyond was holding its breath.

Maybe it was his senses prickling. Maybe it was part of the dungeon’s design. Leo wasn’t sure.

What he was sure about was the feeling.

Danger.

Not enough to ward him off going in of course, but enough to know that one wrong step would likely be his last.

Nothing new there then. Leo chuckled to himself despite the danger.

Cain gave him one of his icy looks. It was ineffective.

“Shall we?” Leo asked rhetorically, walking right up to the door and placing his hands on it.

The doors yielded the moment he pushed, parting as if they’d been waiting for him.

The floor groaned as they opened. Obsidian scraped faint scars into the polished marble. Beyond them was nothing but darkness, a hollow stretch of black that swallowed the light.

A torchlight ignited at the back of the room, barely illuminating anything. It revealed just enough to show the size of the room, and it made no sense compared to the bastion outside.

Leo and Cain walked inside, stepping carefully into the darkness. Cain placed a hand on Leo’s chest, holding him from walking further than just past the doors. Leo looked at him, and saw his eyes were a bestial yellow and staring straight ahead.

The torches beside it flared to life, then the next, and the next, the light racing down the walls in a growing chain until only the center of the chamber remained in shadow.

A deep, bassy hum echoed within the hall. The doors slammed behind them as Leo felt his chest shake from the vibrations.

Like a furnace drawing breath, a flicker of light bloomed at the center of the room. For a moment it only showed a hulking silhouette.

The light flared again—brighter, hotter—and the boss was revealed in full.

The creature was almost the size of a Goliath, massive black plates coating its body like custom made armour. Its mandibles resembled ragged furnaces, thick and jagged, heat leaking through the seams.

Its body wasn’t the regular ant shape. The thorax, which was usually quite long, was instead shortened, and hunched over, leading up to a siege engine mounted on top of it. To keep it stable were six treetrunk sized legs, finished off with claws that dug into the marble beneath it.

Its eyes lit up with dull red light as the intruders entered its lair.

Siege Breaker Antling General - Level 68

“Oh boy,” Leo whispered.

Cain’s hatchets appeared in his hands. Leo kept Ellie safe within him for the moment as he rolled his shoulders. He suddenly wished he’d been more convincing when speaking to Cain about his level 50 skill.

Against this brute they’d need everything and then some.

“Thoughts?” Leo asked as they both stared the behemoth down.

“Kill it,” Cain replied in a growl.

Leo’s body started to spark as he took on the stance of Lightning. His mind and body quickened.

“Damn.” He gave a short, airy huff of amusement. “You’re a tactical genius."

“Bwoaaar!”

The general roared, shaking the room once more. A light in its chest started pulsing up through its body, all the way to its thorax weapon. The light grew brighter, danger flared up inside Leo’s mind.

They both took off in opposite directions, feet barely touching stone as they gave it all they had. There was nowhere to take cover for whatever attack was coming, all Leo could do was hope he was quick enough to dodge.

The grinding clunk of metal running along hidden ridges filled the hall, loud enough to rattle his teeth.

*Boom*

A large molten projectile fired out, its legs bracing as the force of it was shot forward. The massive projectile swerved in the air until it was above Leo. He looked up at it as he ran, the anticipation killing him.

It didn’t land on him.

It burst apart above him, scattering molten shards. Slag rained down in a deadly curtain. Nerveflash screamed in his skull. Every fragment was lethal.

Leo was forced to expend both Spark Dash charges just to gain ground on it as the ground was decimated. Explosions sounded out behind him like it was carpet bombed.

Thankfully his speed after the dashes was enough to get him from it. He grinned, despite the situation. His heart was racing.

It was time to get some damage in before it could fire again. Leo charged directly towards it, noticing it was in the process of swinging its head to the side away from him.

Three blood-red claws tore into the metal layers of its carapace.

Molten cracks spread from the impact, glowing lines spidering across the plate. The ant barely reacted.

Leo took his chance to hit it in the neck, gauntlets made of draconic brilliance coating his arms as Volt Crash impacted. A large gouging crack was sent along its back, but sadly the lightning from it didn’t do much against the metal.

He unleashed a rapid fire assault of blows, stacking his Iron Repetition up to full before its head could spin back around. Three kicks in the span of a heartbeat drove the cracks wider, heat bleeding from the splits in its shell.

Nerveflash warned him of danger, telling him to… jump?

Leo leapt, eyes wide, as jets of flame roared from the general’s planted feet. The ground was suddenly coated in roiling fire. Leo’s Cloak of Wind manifested around him, carrying him onto its back where he continued his assault.

So far this thing seemed dangerous, tanky, and extremely slow. The warden had been much more difficult so far, but the fight had only just begun.

The ant's feet were wrenched from the ground. It started thrashing back and forth, causing chunks of metal to spill off it. The sheer force of it made Leo jump back, but not too far.

Its body spun round, slightly faster than before. The jagged, flaming mandibles snapped out at Leo as he dodged back and forth. Cain in the meantime was ripping pieces from it whenever he could.

It was like peeling an onion—except every layer beneath was just more armour, fused together with molten metal.

Is that even its real body? Leo questioned as he faced it down once more.

It reared its head back for another swing. Leo Spark Dashed backwards, but Nerveflash told him he’d fucked up.

Molten resin spat out in a net-like shape, cutting off his retreat paths as it encased the whole area.

Leo couldn’t Spark Dash quite yet due to the cooldown, so he hit the ground with both hands, raising a barrier of three walls in front of him.

The resin hit the walls and then splashed over them, still carrying the capturing shape. Stoneskin flared up over his forearms as he guarded his face.

A second later, the sticky resin coated his skin, chewing through his Stoneskin like wet parchment. Ellie emerged, instantly radiating her Frost Shroud, coating Leo in frost. He writhed on the ground from the searing pain.

Ellie’s shroud cooled the resin down quickly, turning it into a solid that she was ripping off him in chunks. The ground crunched as the boss approached from behind his walls.

Leo quickly used Second Wind to get some healing. His stamina was full now too since he had been conserving it, it was a bit of a waste but that attack had torn him to shreds. And healing potions were useless.

He pulled the last of the frozen resin from him with the help of Ellie. Just as he did, Nerveflash flared once again. Leo spun on the ground, feet planted against his conjured wall and pushed, pulling Ellie along with him as he was sent skidding across the floor.

Two giant mandibles ripped the wall to pieces a moment later, sending shards of earth flying before they dissipated into the air.

He hopped to his feet, staggering slightly from the pain. Ellie stood beside him, ready and eager to fight. Resonance was running on empty after all the attacks he’d thrown into it so it was time to let her at it while it recharged.

He held back on using Lightning Drive, using his stamina for Fuel the Fire for now. Due to the heat pulsing out from the general, the usual steam didn’t rise from his skin.

He’d activated his Earth Stance when the resin coated him, hoping to blunt the damage. It slowed him, but he was still fast enough to circle the creature—so long as he was careful.

Getting close was still a little tricky, but holding its aggression was enough to let Cain rip it to pieces. He just needed to stay alive and wait until it switched focus.

Something that happened quickly as a fur-clad man dove in from above, cracking twin, blood-red hatchets into its head.

It staggered for the first time so far in the fight. Whatever Cain had hit had caused pain. Cracks split further along its metal shell, heat billowing from between the plates.

Leo used Wyrmstep, taking him and Ellie to its side in a rush of movement. Ellie’s teeth and Leo’s twisting fist hit the side of its body. Leo expected heavy resistance when his hand passed through the metal plate, but it was… hollow?

All the way to his elbow, he pushed further until he found what felt like chitin instead of metal. Leo pulled his arm out, signalling to Ellie what he wanted her to do. She dove down in two Wingbeats.

Her face covered the hole, a beam of light building within. She let it rip full force, causing a glowing light to surge up through the cracks in its shell.

The general thrashed back and forth as Ellie kept up the beam as best she could. It was screeching in pain, which sounded out in a deep bassy hum.

The light within faded as Ellie’s breath ran out. But it was quickly replaced by another. A bright light that started in its chest and rose to its thorax.

“Oh shit. Back up!” Leo yelled, voice carrying on his aura.

Before they could even move, the attack shot out above them and instantly detonated. The molten rain was like a concentrated downpour, starting from the outside and moving in. Leo was forced to try and take cover underneath the ant instead of braving the rain.

Leo watched Cain’s health bar tick down to almost half as he was hit. The rain pierced his skin like lava bullets, those that didn’t exploded next to him.

There was no time to help him as his Nerveflash warned him once more. The rain was coming but the ant was about to crush him. Leo knew that both options were awful. This thing must have weighed an absolute tonne.

He briefly thought about trying to push Fuel the Fire past its limits and holding it up, but he wasn’t some kind of anime protagonist. Maybe if he’d gone all out on Strength.

Rain of death it is.

Leo Spark Dashed while Lightning Drive kicked in. He met the rain head on as the general made the ground rumble. Nerveflash told him it was coming, showed him where. He just had to focus and move.

Like a martial artist threading through falling raindrops, Leo bobbed and weaved at full speed as he retreated. Some hit him, but he made sure it was on lesser areas. He saved his last Spark Dash for the final spurt.

His body was wracked with damage, but not nearly as much as he’d expected. Pushing himself to go fast was much more his style. Even though it would have been cool for him to lift the general up.

“One day, maybe,” Leo said, clutching his arm. A burning hole ran clean through his forearm. It wasn’t enough to stop the arm from moving, but it sure as hell hurt.

The rain hit its final stages as it rained down on the very creature that had used it. Explosions rattled across its shell, a rapid staccato like a heavy machine gun hammering steel. But it did not groan in pain, nor did it even try to evade it.

“Run!” Cain’s voice bellowed, his form already running to the edges.

Leo’s eyes went wide as the explosions cleared. The metal carapace armour was red hot and glowing. The air vibrated with heat and Leo ran, he pushed Lightning Drive as hard as it would go.

The moment his Nerveflash triggered, Leo put up three walls in front of him in as tight a layer as he could. Taking cover like he was in a trench on a battlefield, the detonation came a second later.

Molten shrapnel, hot as can be, shot out in every direction. It peppered his wall with smaller shards and broke through entire sections with larger pieces. More were sent above, hitting the outer walls before they crashed to the floor.

Leo found himself moving without thought, his body rolling. The side of his wall vanished in a flash of metal. A massive shard punched through all three layers in a single heartbeat.

Holy fuck. Leo gasped for breath as the backlash from Nerveflash hit him.

“How the hell… is this thing… a tutorial boss?” Leo asked no one, panting every few words.

He shook off the feeling of weakness as it faded, quickly getting to his feet. He looked over the arena. The ground was torn up in massive chunks, bits of marble ripped away. Small pools of heat were sizzling.

In the middle, instead of the siege weapon looking antling, there was a much smaller creature, slightly larger than a Soldier Antling, its body glowing a smoldering orange.

Its mandibles had morphed from massive furnaces with jagged edges to sharp, thin, and blade-like. Each one had split into three smaller sets, the edges twitching independently like a nest of knives.

Its body had shrunk, what was once metal now showed cords of glowing muscle packed beneath the chitin. The thorax was no longer a mounted weapon. It was slimmer, and curved, almost like a scorpion tail. Inside of the thorax a fiery core hummed with power.

An ear wrenching screech made Leo cover his ears as he watched the boss. It had barely taken a single bit of damage, the only thing showing was Ellie’s scorch mark from her laser and a small slice from Cain’s hatchet on the top of its head.

Leo’s health was sitting around fifty percent—his stamina similar. But apparently the boss had just warmed up.

Phase two was starting.