At that moment, Red Cloud's flames suddenly surged, shifting from red to blue and then to white. With a crisp, piercing phoenix cry, Red Cloud spread its massive flaming wings, its size expanding more than fivefold. An overwhelming aura of dominance swept out— the ultimate fire-type king: the super-divine beast, Phoenix!

All the other phantom beasts retreated from the battlefield. In just a short while, they had already suffered heavy casualties. The hydra also realized it had met its match; all nine heads turned to face Red Cloud, switching from attack to defense for the first time!

Transformed into a phoenix, Red Cloud looked down at its opponent from the sky, exuding the pride of a true king that every “spectator” could feel. With a flap of its wings, white raindrops fell. Even with the hydra’s defenses, faced with this “soft” attack, it could only retreat. The nine heads lunged at Red Cloud from nine directions—if even one succeeded, the others would swarm in. As for magic, to the super-divine beast Phoenix, it was completely immune, even to water-type spells. Since the hydra wasn’t a true water-type super-magic beast, its off-key water magic only added fuel to the fire!

We stared in shock at this epic battle. Damn, this really isn’t a game for humans—so cool! If humans tried to take on this thing with our current attack power, we’d be wiped out, just cannon fodder!

Red Cloud clearly had the upper hand now. As a natural enemy of serpents, it didn’t matter how many heads the hydra had—even a hundred would be the same. The only problem was that as the battle dragged on, Red Cloud’s flames would gradually weaken... After all, it wasn’t a true super-divine beast!

But the hydra was in even worse shape—its heads were dwindling, all roasted by Red Cloud’s doomsday flames! Its magic and poison attacks were completely ineffective against the phoenix, and its physical attacks weren’t agile enough... It couldn’t even fly!

Red Cloud had also suffered several serious injuries, bitten by accident—after all, when two titans clash, it’s impossible not to get hurt. Sigh, I couldn’t help but complain—why didn’t Red Cloud’s mother finish off this guy before her rebirth!

Only one of the hydra’s heads was left, barely hanging on, and Red Cloud was about to revert to its normal state. With one final dive, it charged at the hydra for a decisive showdown!

Boom~~~

A massive explosion rang out, and all kinds of equipment, treasures, and gold coins rained down from the sky—it was like a poor man suddenly arriving at a mountain of gold, enough to make your heart race!

Luckily, none of us were greedy for these things. The three of us rushed over to find Red Cloud. Grace dove straight at it—Red Cloud was lying on the ground, barely alive. Grace hugged Red Cloud and was about to cry. Sigh, women just don’t care about time or place—if this keeps up, she’ll cry herself to death.

“Grace, hurry up and heal!”

Only then did Grace hastily cast a healing spell, letting Red Cloud catch its breath, and we all breathed a sigh of relief. The surrounding phantom beasts let out joyful cries, flapping around in the air and on the ground for a while before slowly retreating.

...These guys really aren’t very considerate—couldn’t they at least say goodbye?

All that was left was to clean up the battlefield. Basically, we picked up and tossed aside as we went—there was just too much good stuff, things we’d never even dreamed of before were everywhere! ...And we even got 100,000 experience points each—wow, the sound of leveling up is music to my ears!

Time to tally the loot—this was one of the ultimate bosses, after all. Heh, two ghost items: the Super-Heavy Space Bag and the Mana Spring. (The Super-Heavy Space Bag can expand its original space tenfold according to the player’s level; the Mana Spring replenishes mana at five to ten times the normal speed, with a capacity fifty times that of a top-grade mana crystal. Once depleted, it can be refilled with top-grade mana crystals—perfectly compatible with my magic ring.) One super-divine weapon, the Dragon-Slaying Blade; one Elemental Staff; a set of Dragon King’s Divine Power; several other immortal equipment parts; and countless other items—all packed away.

I figured I could open a shop when I got back. I immediately equipped the new gear—look at that, so cool! I could clearly feel the power of this set; it felt like I could take on another hydra myself—though that was just wishful thinking. We decided to give the Dragon-Slaying Blade to Mood, to repay her kindness—after all, a drop of kindness should be repaid with a spring. Honestly, we weren’t even sure of its value at the time. This was the only Dragon-Slaying Blade in the Second World, the ultimate warrior’s divine weapon, an indestructible treasure. But what we didn’t expect was how things would develop between me and Mood—a blessing in disguise, perhaps?

After killing it, each of us gained 1,000 reputation points. I now had 2,100, Grace 1,050, and Darling 1,010—a huge haul. Now, we weren’t in a hurry to go back. With our new gear, we could train on the third floor. Of course, we weren’t going to fight those guys again—we stuck to the edge of the third floor, hunting some seventh- and eighth-tier magical beasts. But after a while, the leveling wasn’t very fast, so we returned to the second floor. Grace and Darling were in charge of luring monsters, while Red Cloud and I handled the kills. My newest skill, Meteor Fire Rain, was just right for the job. Occasionally, a tough one would show up, but Red Cloud would take care of it. The experience gain was just amazing! We kept at it for a long time—I reached level 75, Grace 63, and Darling 51!

Chapter Four: The Demon King Returns