Calamity Upon This World

~Rawwrrr!!!!~

A deafening roar was heard as Max and his party entered the boss's room.

A fearsome giant black-furred hound with three heads glared at the adventurers who had entered his lair and dare disturb his master.

Each head of Kerberus was wearing a black dog collar around their necks, with chains coming out of them that reached the ground.

Behind the kerberus was a ritual circle drawn out of dry red blood, and on top of this circle was a simple altar made of bones.

Lying atop this alter was a unconscious Sung with a sword piercing his heart.

Behind the alter, thousands of monster corpses could be seen with their blood flowing towards the altar where Sung was lying.

A purple barrier was erected in front of the altar, separating the boss room into two parts.

The first part contains Sung lying on an altar along with a thousand monster corpses, and the second part featured Kerberus along with Max and his squad.

Everyone who saw the scene had an ominous feeling overwhelming their senses, almost like they had seen something they weren't supposed to.

Which wasn't that far from the truth, as in a few minutes, an evil god was going to descend into the room they were currently occupying.

But of course no one in the party knew this, as they had one massive problem in front of them that needed to be dealt with first.

'So this is where Sung was and why there were so little monsters in the dungeon,' Max thought.

Max could tell that some sort of weird ritual was ongoing in this room and that it probably wasn't for a good cause.

But he couldn't be bothered to concern himself about that yet, as he first needed to deal with the kerberus in front of them.

The miners stepped back as they felt the gaze of the fearsome three-headed hound, eager to devour them.

"We can't face that thing," one of the miners said.

"Yeah, we're going to die if we try to fight," another miner agreed.

The morale was once again going down as a few of the miners planned to attempt and run away.

But before they could do that, both Max and Jasmine rushed at the beast they were supposed to defeat without any signal from each other.

Max had his hammer in hand, and Jasmine had her katana now increased in size as she attempted to slice the hound in half.

Seeing this, the kerberus used the chains around its neck and launched them at the incoming adventurers.

Both Jasmine and Max clashed with the chain, holding it in place for a few seconds before jumping back once they started getting overpowered.

Using the opening they created, an arrow made up of wind charged at the hound, who was unable to notice it in time due to having its attention on Max and Jasmine.

~Whistle~

The arrow managed to make contact with the left eye on the right head of the beast, managing to destroy it in the process.

~growl~

The beast growled in pain at losing an eye, but it didn't seem like its opponents cared about that as a lance of rock and slash of wind charged at it, not giving it even a moment to rest.

Seeing the attack, the two other heads of the kerberus spewed flame from their mouths, which consumed the two other weaker attacks and continued to fly towards the miners and the girl responsible for damaging one of its eyes.

But before it could burn them alive, three thick and sturdy walls of stone appeared between the attack and the humans.

~Bamm~

The first wall crumbled easily, unable to stop the attack.

~Bamm~

After a bit more effort, the second wall was also destroyed.

The flame was already weakened by now, but it still rushed towards the third wall.

~Bamm~

After a lot more effort, the third wall was also destroyed, but it had achieved its purpose as the flame also dissipated.

Not wanting to give the boss any moment to rest, Myra enlarged her left hand and formed a fist as she attempted to punch the beast.

But before she could do that, black chains emerged from the ground, catching Jasmine off guard as they trapped her left hand.

And almost instantly, the previously black chains grew orange as their temperature increased and burned Jasmine's left hand.

"Ahhhh!" Jasmine screamed in agony at having her left hand burned, but the beast didn't let go of her hand and instead pulled the chains towards itself so that it could devour Jasmine.

But just when Jasmine was a few kilometres away from the kerberus, Max appeared and crashed his hammer onto the chain holding Jasmine, utilising his aspect to its fullest, and managed to free her right before she could be eaten alive.

After freeing her, he used his maximum speed to rush towards Jasmine and grab her before rushing towards their allies and managing to once again make distance between them and the beast.

"Oww, it hurts," Jasmine cried out in pain as her entire left arm was burned alive, making her unable to use it for the rest of the fight and also making her get hindered by it due to the constant burning feeling.

"Be more careful," Max suggested as he handed her a mid-grade healing potion.

After consuming it, her hand appeared to be a bit more normal but still too burned to let her use it anytime soon.

But it at least stopped the constant feeling of agony and worked as a temporary fix.

It seems they overestimated the dungeon boss of this dungeon, and the reason behind the absence of monsters was the weird ritual altar that the boss seemed to be protecting.

And as for the kerberus itself, it seemed to be inexperienced in combat, which made it make many openings in the fight that were exploited by the cleansers.

Speaking of which, all of them were significantly weaker than the kerberus itself, but thanks to their perfect teamwork and complimenting abilities, they were able to hold their own in the fight.

The only reason Jasmine got hurt this time was because she got cocky and tried to act on her own.

However, one might wonder how the cleansers were able to work in such perfect coordination despite not having much experience working together.

The reason behind this was Raya, who was using a telepathy skill to command both Max and Jasmine using her eyes while also trying to look for any weak spots the kerberus may have.

It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that Raya was the brain of the group, with both Max and Jasmine serving as her two hands.

'Jasmine, make sure to not make a similar mistake; you almost died back there' she scolded Jasmine using her telepathy skill.

'I'm sorry, Jasmine apologised almost instantly.

'Don't worry and go attack the right flank of the beast while Max and I distract it,' Jasmine said.

'Alright'

After getting the instructions, Max used his [Sand Clone] skill as three other identical-looking Max appeared out of the ground and charged at the kerberus, who looked confused to see more enemies appear out of the ground.

But this confusion didn't last for long, as six lances made up of fire appeared behind the kerberus and charged at the sand clones, destroying them easily.

The sand clones created by Max were much more than that and could only use a fraction of his abilities.

They were mainly meant to serve as distractions to trick his opponent, and they had done their job perfectly, as three arrows made up of wind appeared from behind the now-destroyed clones and caught the kerberus by surprise.

The kerberus looked like it was about to jump leftward and dodge from its body language, but after realising that dodging would make the arrows hit the barrier guarding the altar, it chose to tank the attack.

This was something that Raya had predicted, as she had theorised that the kerberus was protecting the altar, meaning it was its weak spot.

~Boom!!~

~Boom~

~Boom~

The arrows crashed on the still target, causing dust and rubble to rise on the spot, blinding everyone for a few seconds.

Jasmine uses this opportunity created by her allies and by utilizing her [Strong Punch] paired with her [Strengthen] to launch a devastating punch at the kerberus.

The attack was sure to do some serious damage even to a S-rank monster if it connected; however, contrary to her and her team's expectations, the punch hit nothing as it came right through the smoke.

'What?' Jasmine, Max, and Raya all collectively had this thought, as none of them could have ever expected the kerberus to dissipate out of thin air.

And out of pure instinct, Raya looked behind her, where she saw a towering, fearsome entity standing behind her and the miners.

Not even in their wildest imagination could they have expected a monster with the ability to teleport.

Without even realising it, they had ended up underestimating a S-rank monster due to it not being as strong as they expected, and now it was time to pay for their mistake.

Experience tales at m v|l e-NovelFire

They had been completely outclassed and outsmarted by a monster as the Kerberus finally launched a counterattack at the party.