With the loss of Pang Zi, the group now only had 8 people. But that didn’t matter — they had a mission to accomplish, and they would take that to the bitter end.

Tang Zi slowly rose from his friend’s corpse, fists clenched tightly. His armor burned brighter than before with raw, scorching fire, and in his eyes was a deadly determination never seen before.

He already lost his friends once. But now, it’s happened again. And he wasn’t about to just accept that lying down.

“Draco…” Iris murmured hesitantly, having dragged Finn to a safe spot in the chamber to recover.

“Don’t worry. I won’t charge in like an idiot,” Tian Long replied, easing her worries and staring at the Baron with deep hatred in his eyes. “Now… how do we beat this bastard?”

“Right now, we can’t damage it — I tried,” Iris explained. “But if we have two people go in each of the new rooms that opened up on the sides and take down all the Phantoms that spawn in there, we should be able to.”

“… Two people? I don’t need that.”

Tian Long turned and immediately ran for one of the rooms on the right side, disappearing from view.

“H-Huh? Wait-” Iris called out, but he was already gone. Sighing impatiently, she pressed on her earpiece to better communicate with the others.

“Frostbite, go into one of the hallways on your own and take down everything in there. Clairvoyance and Death, head into the one right beside you and do the same. That’s the mechanism to beat this Baron — hurry!”

“On it,” Qi Ling replied briskly before dashing into one of the hallways — skewered fish — though not before leaving behind a field of ice on the ground that froze all the Phantoms in sight. Iris quickly took them out with her gunshots, then turned her attention on Squadron 154’s members. Of them, only Reaper was still able to move.

“Reaper, can you…”

[Command: authorized. Executing order.]

“…” Iris was cut off mid-sentence as Reaper cleaved open a path with his scythe and flew into one of the hallways. Unfortunately, it was the same one Iris and Finn had already completed.

“Wait, Reaper! Not that one — go into a different one.”

[… Understood.]

His black shadow zoomed out of the hallway before going back into a different one in the matter of seconds, while Iris worked on clearing the Phantoms in the room to the best of her ability.

However, with all the other targets in the room gone, the Baron now turned his full attention onto Iris, sending out all of his tentacles at her. The three Pang Zi had destroyed with his life earlier had now completely regenerated, essentially rendering his sacrifice useless.

If it’s like this, then… Iris wouldn’t be able to escape without the help of her Angelica.

“Eye of Twilight — Celerity!”

Changing the Eye Ability she had active from Omnipotence to Twilight, this allowed her to perceive incoming attacks quicker and more accurately. She was able to shoot some of the tentacles coming for her while dodging others, her eyes shining green rather than the usual gold.

“Ivy, I’ve done it,” Tian Long’s voice suddenly said in her earpiece.

“Alright…!” Iris swerved around in the air and took aim with her sniper, aiming for the Baron’s left hand. When she was looking for the symbols earlier, she had memorized where all the symbols were on the Baron’s body. And now, she was able to hit them even without the Eye of Omnipotence active.

With a nasty quickscope, Iris’s bullet struck the Baron’s hand and penetrated it, splattering black blood on the walls behind him. The Baron slowly lifted his injured hand and looked at it emotionlessly while Iris quickly ducked out of the way of the tentacles, which curled and came at her again.

Qi Ling, Reaper, and the tag team of Yun Xin plus Si Shen both returned shortly after, letting Iris know that they had done what they needed to do. She then sent Qi Ling into the final room on the right side while leaving Yun Xin and Si Shen here so that she had some help with these annoying Phantoms down below, while Reaper took care of the three remaining left-side rooms all on his own.

He was a robot — he had unlimited stamina, so long as his power didn’t run out.

In the meantime, Iris continued to shoot the various parts of the Baron. The tentacles still focused on her despite there being two other people in the room now, but by now she had gotten a hang of the rhythm of quickscoping and immediately dodging out of the way. Since the Baron was such a large target, this wasn’t difficult to pull off.

As more and more rooms became completed, things became easier and easier for Iris. Her teammates returned to the main room one by one, and they helped get rid of the tentacles chasing her around — which was good, since her mana was running dangerously low.

‘There’s just one more left…’ She thought, gritting her teeth and reloading her sniper and pre-aiming, taking advantage of the fact that the others were busy distracting the tentacles. The final symbol was the sword snake, which corresponded directly with the Baron’s forehead. If she could just break that, then…

[Subject-IVY. Mission accomplished. Status: successful.]

As soon as she heard Reaper’s mechanical voice beeping those words in her earpiece, she pressed the trigger.

A high-caliber bullet flew towards the Baron at full force, heading directly for his forehead.

Instantly, all the Phantoms in the room disappeared and all the tentacles receded as black blood splattered all over the wall behind his head. His eyes closed, dead.

Iris lowered her sniper as everyone gathered around her, and she landed back on the ground. “Is that… it?”

But then-

“Ngh-!”

Everyone was blown away by a sudden release of energy from the Baron, caught off-guard and sent crashing into the wall and pillars. Iris landed beside Finn, who was resting in the corner.

The Baron opened his glowing red eyes once again as his skin regenerated completely and his countless tentacles shot out of his back, squirming and writhing in anticipation.

Octane, clutching his chest still, widened his eyes. “All his wounds… they’re gone?!”

“FOOLISH SINNERS,” the Baron boomed, voice commanding and condescending. “THOU THOUGHT THOU HAS’TH SHATTERED MINE PROTECTION? HOW PITIFUL.”

A terrible aura engulfed the entire room, erasing all color. White turned black, and all the beautifully colored stained glass panels turned into shades of grey to match. It was like this church hall had turned to fit the theme of the rest of the Dungeon.

“Gah… how is this possible…” Tian Long muttered, getting back up to his feet and wiping blood from his mouth. “We broke his barrier and shot him in the head…”

The Baron, hearing this, couldn’t help but chuckle slightly.

“MINE BARRIER? DOES’TH THOU STILL NOT REALIZE?”

And it was then that Iris did.

“No… that wasn’t a barrier we broke,” she whispered, voice quivering. “That was a seal… a seal holding his power back.”