26 Twisting Tigers

They spend the next half hour trying to find the dungeon, and Sen starts to think maybe Julie was wrong when they find a tree that is a good ten meters wide at the base, with a massive hole in it.

Walking into the darkness, it goes on for far longer than could be explained by the size of the tree, and the darkness slowly fades into a pale light, glowing moss filling the ceiling in irregular patterns, giving enough light to see the general area, but not enough for details. Everything is made of wood, circles that are used to tell the age of trees creating a wavy pattern upon the walls and ceiling.

The group pulls out some core powered lanterns, affixing them to their waist, and everyone gives a grin to each other as they continue. Sen is actually quite disappointed that they haven't run into anyone from a big guild, even though they're about midway between three different cities at this area.

It isn't long before the first monsters find them. They look like tigers, except their fur is black swirling patterns upon white skin. The patterns themselves seem to draw you in, and Sen is sure that if he stares at them too long he will end up feeling quite dizzy, as they almost seem to move as the monsters do.

The group splits up, Xue going to hold one of them off while Julie sets up an array, and the rest targeting the other one. Once they get into actual combat, they find that they aren't particularly strong, on the lowest end of C rank, and while they're still quite tough to cut into, it's nothing like the giant scorpion they had faced before.

Once Julie sets up her array, the false images of her begin to harass one of the monsters, and while it tries to kill the images, everyone else focuses on the other one, cutting it down in short order before turning to the one that's still playing with the images, just like a cat with a laser pointer.

After eliminating that one, they continue through the dungeon, sticking with the same tactic, as the "twisting tigers" as Tir says they are called, only seem to come in groups of two. As they proceed, everyone has massive grins on their face. Even if they'll only be able to run this dungeon once every fifteen hours, it will still start to rocket them ahead of the other groups.

Eventually, they get to the boss, and everyone groans. It seems that the monsters they had been facing so far were just juvenile versions of what they saw before them. Not only that, the pairs they always came in were echoed within the boss room, two of them lying on their sides, lounging like all cats seem to.

They have a short discussion before entering the massive cavern of wood, which is much more brightly lit than the rest of the cavern, the moss that grows in patches elsewhere covering the room almost entirely.

They start off the fight by splitting up, Xue and Sen charging to the three meter tall tiger on the left, and Jennifer and Lynna charging the right one. Julie hangs back, setting up a few different arrays. The first blow towards Sen he goes to block, his sword impacting the claws of the giant tiger in a flash of sparks.

Sen slides backwards, using the wind to dissipate his backwards momentum so as to not be sent completely out of the fight. As he charges back in, Xue is sent sliding back as well, but she'd cut into the arm of the monster, though it was barely a scratch considering the size of the giant tiger.

Every now and then, the bosses will stop moving, and the patterns on its fur will start to shift, and anyone caught looking at it will slowly fade into a stupor, making the others in the group have to go slap them a bit to wake them up, but it doesn't cause too many issues when they have five people. The girls seem to feel much less guilty about slapping Sen awake, as he will only go for the shoulder, while Lynna has made sure to get his face when she got the chance.

They continue to get in small hits while being batted around like a ball of yarn, and eventually, the monsters seem to slow down. Sen gives Julie a thumbs up. She'd used an array that slows down anything inside of it that doesn't have an amulet created to match with the array.

With both the bosses slowed down, they're able to get in deeper cuts, though the sheer mass of the giant tiger is still knocking them around a bit when they're forced to block certain attacks. As the monster goes to bite at Sen, he uses Gale Steps to jump quickly to the side of it, and slashes down powerfully at its side with Weight of the Mountain. The image of a mountain over his sword crashes into the side of it, but is stopped by the ribs.

Sen grimaces, he heard a pretty solid crack on impact, so he'd likely broken a rib or two, but this thing's bones are damn tough. Images of Julie start to appear, taking the pressure off of them as the big cat chases them like they're a toy, but they don't manage to even cut into its skin. With the pressure a bit lighter, Sen checks on Lynna and Jennifer, to see Jennifer cradling her arm a little, but still attacking it in a determined fashion.

They eventually manage to leave enough cuts on the twisting tigers that they both start to slow down even further than the array Julie had put down would account for. It isn't long until the first one falls, and Sen and Xue turn from the one they had just killed to see Lynna using her icicle looking skill to thrust through one of the tiger's eyes as Jennifer pulls its attention.

The fight over, the group looks over the many C ranked crystals they've acquired, splitting them as evenly as they can, agreeing that the people who didn't get the boss crystals will get them next time. They each absorb a couple of the crystals, leaving the rest to trade for other C rank crystals at the store.

As they take the teleport array to the entrance, they see a group of people that Sen recognizes from Epic Skillz. Contrary to their childish name, they're one of the professional teams in the region, though they aren't from Falan, so they must have been from a different city nearby.

Sen and the group raise their weapons, but the other group doesn't raise theirs, clearly wanting to talk rather than fight, for now at least.

"What guild are you from?" The leader of Epic Skillz asks.

Lynna is the one to answer. "We're not affiliated with any guild."

The man looks at her a bit askance, clearly not believing her, but seems to decide that since he doesn't recognize them they're probably not from any of the big teams that they are trying to compete with. He waves them on, and the group starts heading back to the car, Sen wishing they'd decided to fight. They may have been outnumbered six to five, but he doubts that they will have an array master, and with Julie, they'd easily be able to make up for the numbers.

Array masters have become a bit of a thing, but very few would actually directly fight like Julie, simply setting up arrays beforehand and having others lure their targets into the area. Julie's system where she uses her special throwing knives to set up arrays instantly for simple ones, and only needing to place a few items for more advanced ones makes her possibly the most combat oriented array master in the world, or at least the best one that Sen knows of.