Quickly pulling out her revolver, Iris headshot the few Shooter-class Phantoms who had been aiming at her in the sky. They were a ranged archetype who used their two special tail-like tentacles to shoot out white thorns of poison.

They weren’t that powerful defense-wise, but get hit by one of those thorns and it was pretty much game over without a Healer Angelica here. Luckily, Iris was quite nimble with her wings and also a skilled sharpshooter, so these pests were more of an annoyance than anything.

Having dealt with them, she returned to scanning the chamber with her eyes. And then, her gaze landed on the gemstone within the staff being held by the Baron. Inside, just faintly, a symbol could be seen. It was the circling snake. She then looked at the rest of the Baron’s body and saw other symbols over them — sword snake in the right eye, skewered fish in the left eye, 8 snake in the chest, and so on.

But the question was, how did all of that help?

“Ivy — shoot at his scepter with your sniper!” Tian Long yelled. “His powers come from the gem — aim for that!”

‘The gem…’ Iris thought, quickly pulling out her sniper from off her back and lining her eyes up with the scope, placing the reticle directly on the gem embedded within the staff. As soon as they aligned, she pressed on the trigger, sending out a powerful high-caliber sniper round on direct course with the gem. But as it struck… nothing happened.

The bullet bounced harmlessly off of the gem, completely useless.

“Wha…” Iris was dumbfounded, both confused and surprised.

Down below, the first wave of Phantoms had just about finished being cleared. As this happened, ten separate sections of the walls, five on the left and five on the right, suddenly opened up. The Baron raised his staff again, causing portals open up once more and spawning in another wave of enemies.

Iris, who still had her Angelica’s effects active, widened her eyes as ten corresponding symbols appeared above each of the new entrances. On the left side were the snakes, on the right were the fishes.

Realizing what they had to do, Iris quickly descended from the sky, narrowly avoiding the thorns shot by one of the Shooter-class Phantoms, and landed on Finn’s shoulders without any warning.

“…!” Finn hurriedly spun around, thinking a Phantom had gotten on him, and attempted to shake it off violently.

“Eek-!” Iris yelped, throwing her arms around Finn’s neck tightly. “C-Calm down, it’s me!”

“Ivy…?”

“Yes — now, I want to test out a theory I have. A new path opened; run directly straight until I tell you to stop.”

“Copy,” Finn murmured quietly before taking off, leaving the others to continue clearing out the room.

They passed through a tight hallway narrower than anything they’ve been in before, and finally came across an open room with a pressure plate within it.

“Okay, step forward!” Iris instructed Finn, who obeyed and triggered some kind of mechanism.

Immediately, four small portals opened up around the two of them, spawning in several Phantoms. Iris quickly took care of them all with her handgun, then twisted her body to aim for the big one, but Finn had already sensed its low frequency sound and vaporized it with a single Lightning Blast.

The Stormbringer Angelica in the Lightning Aura state was just that powerful. Still, he had to be careful of his mana. Although he had far more than the average person, it still wasn’t unlimited.

Slowly, Finn was becoming able to detect the subtle differences between the frequencies the various classes of Phantoms make. Morphers, Drones, and these slightly larger Abominations all had different sounds, although nearly imperceivable.

Suddenly, the circling snakes symbol above the duo flashed briefly as a line cut through it, signaling that it had been conquered.

“Alright… now, let’s head back to the main room,” Iris said. “If my guess is correct…”

Together, the two raced back to the main chamber, where the others were still busy clearing out the new wave of Phantoms. None were checking out the other new pathways, since they needed Iris’s Oculus Angelica to tell them what to do, given its importance in this Dungeon.

Finn quickly cleared out the area around him using his Burning Fists weapon mod, conflagrating the pack of Phantoms like a forest fire. Meanwhile, Iris flew up into the air and aimed at the gemstone in the Baron’s scepter once again, and let out a bullet.

This time, it struck true.

The Baron froze as the gemstone shattered to pieces, before narrowing his pupil-less red eyes and suddenly throwing the now-useless staff at Iris at incredible speed, who was unable to dodge in time.

“…!”

“Look out!” Octane yelled, using his high speed to launch off the walls and push Iris out of the way.

“Engh-!” Iris yelped at the impact, while Octane was struck by the metal scepter instead.

“Guh!” He groaned, flying backwards and slamming into the wall.

“Octane!” Iris yelled, looking back at him as he slid down to the ground, clutching his chest in pain — both from the injury and his asthma.

“Agh… don’t worry about me… we need your power more…”

“… Thanks!” Iris said in gratitude, realizing any more talk was just a waste of time. Instead, she spun around and announced to the other members of the group their course of action.

“Everyone — two people head into each one of the new pathways that opened up on the sides and step onto the pressure plate in the room! Kill all the Phantoms that spawn and- tch!”

Suddenly, four tentacles shot out of the Baron’s back, seeking out Iris, who flew away just in time. In the air, she spun around and pulled out her revolver before shooting at the tentacles, causing them squirm a bit and back off. But the Baron wasn’t done just yet.

“FOOLISH SINNERS. MINE WEAPON IS NOT THE STAFF THAT WHICH THOU BROKE. IT IS MINE FAITH!”

The priest raised his ash-like hands into the air as more tentacles shot out of his back and began pummeling the chamber, breaking everything in sight.

“Ace, look out!” Iris called out, but it was too late.

“Ngh…!”