"We'll be diving down to fight a boss together this time." Aarim said serious as they looked at the sink hole leading back into the ocean.

Glancing at each other briefly, they nodded before putting on their helmets on once more and dived downwards.

*SPLASH!

Taking a moment to adjust her eyesight, Shiro looked around to see if there were any other paths.

'Seems like it's just a straight path to the boss.' Shiro thought.

Following behind Aarim, they swam for around 10 minutes through a series of twists and turns. Naturally, they would take the occasional break since their stamina wasn't unlimited.

Soon, they could see light peek out from the corner.

Gesturing at each other, they pulled out their weapons.

Shiro with her Ascendant Dream, Madison with her sword and shield, Lyrica with the dual ended blades and Aarim was weaponless since she only uses magic.

"The strategy for this boss is simple, just hit it till it dies and avoid any attacks if you can. Also, stay away from each other since his attacks chain up to other people close to you. The more it chains, the more damage it deals. If that's clear give me a nod and we'll enter the room."

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Waiting for a moment for their responses, Aarim swam forward into the room.

*URAHHH!!!!!

As if waking up a century old monster, they could see the entire ruin rumble with random pieces of debris falling pass them.

Spreading out as Aarim had instructed, the party glanced at the monster.

Measuring at a minimum of 15 meters long, the monster was a hybrid of different parts from animals. Giant tusks from an elephant, a face of a shark, the elongated neck and body of a serpent, four wing like flaps that resembled the wings of a manta ray and a shark tail that was filled with spikes.

Its body was coloured with different shades of teal along with moss growing all over its body.

[Grydred The Ancient Behemoth – LVL 45 (Weakened)]

HP: 1,000,000/????????

MP: 1,000,000/????????

"Grydred The Ancient Behemoth has 3 forms of physical attacks and several magic attacks. Watch out for his head, wings and tail as well as the turbulence that is caused when he swims past you. If you can't dodge, don't worry, I'll keep you covered with an Earth Wall. But after that, it'll be down to you to get out of the way before it collapses." Aarim called out over the mic.

"Alright. So we just hit it as much as we can right?" Lyrica asked just in case she forgot any strategies needed for this boss."

"It's just a huge target that fights back a little. As long as you have sufficient distance from each other, it'll be fine." Aarim reassured.

Shiro, on the other hand, took the initiative to gain aggro since the others aren't able to swim as fast as her. Which meant that they couldn't take aggro as well as her.

Elemental Shift: Metal.

Flicking her wrist, she controlled the blades to slash towards the eyes of the behemoth. Since the behemoth only had two eyes, if she took care of one and not the other, she should be able to create some more blind spots for the party to exploit.

*BANG!

The sword slammed against the boss's eye but failed to penetrate.

'Huh?!' Shiro widened her eyes in surprise.

The defence of the boss was so outrageous that she didn't even deal four digit damage to him.

What she did accomplish, however, was gain his aggro.

*URAHH!!!!!

Trashing his head towards her direction, the boss's eyes glowed with a slight blue.

Ice suddenly formed around his head and slowly froze the water surrounding it. Eventually, it had formed a hammer of sorts that smashed towards Shiro.

The sheer size of the hammer made it hard for her to dodge so she could only gather mana around her and use ice to fight against ice.

*KRRRRR!!!!!

Releasing her killing intent in a huge burst, Ice rapidly formed around her before colliding with the hammer.

*BANG!!!!!

The collision caused cracks to form through the ice.

"Kuah!" Shiro couldn't help but cough up a little bit of blood due to the impact.

Not wasting this moment, the rest of the party attacked the boss.

Aarim floated for a moment as a giant three fold magic circle started to expand out behind her.

Drawing runes into the space in front of her, Aarim continued to enhance her spell.

"Tier 3 Earth Spell: Gaia's Embrace." She called out the name of the spell in order to increase its effectiveness.

*DONG!!!!

The toll of a bell rang out causing a giant threefold magic circle, identical to the one behind Aarim, to expand out under the behemoth.

*BANG BANG!

Suddenly, two giant arms made from earth erupted out of the magic circle and wrapped around the behemoth.

*CRACK!

The breaking of the bones could be heard which even caused Shiro to flinch slightly.

Looking at the caved in back of the behemoth, she couldn't help but gulp.

'She should have more spells of this kind.' Shiro thought to herself since a source mage needed mastery over all basic elements and once she did, she'll be able to amplify the tier of a low rank spell.

With Aarim's capabilities, she was able to amplify the effects of a tier 2 Gaia's Embrace into the realms of Tier 3.

Briefly glancing at the boss's health, Shiro couldn't help but gawk slightly at the fact that her spell had managed to deal 6 digit damage.

"My other spells are somewhat restricted right now so don't expect me to use them. I can only use my earth magic for now." Aarim called out.

However, they couldn't celebrate just yet since the bones of the boss could be seen shifting around.

'Seems like we can't incapacitate it for long.' Shiro thought with narrowed eyes.

A few bosses would have the passive to heal any injuries that would incapacitate it such as a broken spine. It was so that they could still fight at peak performance whilst losing health.

Quickly thawing the ice around her, Shiro swam toward the back of the behemoth.

'Since the obvious weak points such as the eyes are shielded, the rest of the body should be a little weaker in comparison. I'll save the ass for later or else the aggro I attract maybe a little too much for me to handle right now.'

Controlling the blades to slash against its hide, Shiro smiled when she saw her blades draw blood.

'Seems like my guess is right.' She thought with relief. 

Glancing at her damage, she nodded her head slightly when she saw her attack do almost 5 digit damage. While it wasn't optimal, it was at least better than doing damage in the hundreds against a boss that has 1 million health.

Meanwhile, Lyrica and Madison was struggling a little since both of their main elements were fire. And using fire underwater wasn't the most effective options. Not only did it deal minimal damage, the MP cost also increased exponentially.

"HAAA!!!" Lyrica couldn't help but shout out. Her dual ended blades slammed against the tough hide of the boss and barely did 4 digit damage.

Madison was a little better since her class was strength based but it wasn't any better.

While Shiro, Lyrica and Madison dealt damage to the boss, Aarim supported them from the back with spells that protected them from damage.

After a while of attacking the boss, the party noticed a small change.

"Get ready, the boss is preparing the next skill." Aarim warned.

Giving a simple gesture of understanding, the party continued their attack whilst keeping an eye out for the skill.

*URAHH!!! BZZZZ!!!!

Lightning flashed around the boss's body surprising the party a little.

"Move back!" Aarim shouted out. While she did know about the boss's skill set, she didn't know the order of which it would use the skills. Especially since it was random all the time.

Thankfully, the party reacted quickly and moved back before the lightning could damage them.

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"Stay away from the boss and only use long ranged attacks. Be wary since it will use a lightning breath attack." Aarim frowned. Their luck was pretty bad since the boss had chosen to use lightning early on.

"Use your mana to form a protective shield around you. Don't forget, your suit is able to help amplify the barrier if you have a mana barrier skill." Aarim reminded as a translucent barrier of energy slowly wrapped around her.

The same happened with the trio as the lightning attempted to hit them but was warded off by the barriers. Naturally, they still suffered a little bit of damage but that was much better than being tasered to death.

Shiro was a little better since she had lightning attunement. Right now it was at Tier 2, which is more than enough to grant her enough protection against the weakened boss that fell into D class for strength.

Swimming towards the boss, she would occasionally activate life fire under her suit secretly to heal herself.

Her damager per second was definitely the highest out of the party since Aarim was focused on covering for Lyrica and Madison.

The fight was an arduous task of trying to not get hit while making sure they could actually deal enough damage to the boss. The worst part was that after the 50% mark, the boss started to regenerate his health which only slowed things down further.

But pushing pass all of that, they were able to knock the boss down to 15% health.

Shiro had kept her MP above 40% at all times since she could feel the occasional stares of the party that they had ran into before. While she didn't know why they were just watching, she could guess that it was either for them to hurt the boss until it was almost dead or to take advantage of them. Whatever it was, Shiro had a plan to turn the situation back in their favour.

As expected, once the boss reached 10% health, the party swam towards them from all directions.

Even though they couldn't hear each other talk, they could see the gloating in their eyes.

"What should we do?" Lyrica asked with a frown on her face. Her first thought was to kill them but then remembered that they were level 50.

"Get out of here first." Aarim said as she started to swim away. The other party didn't pursue since they were focused on the boss.

Lyrica and Madison followed after Aarim but Shiro stayed back.

"Shiro?"

Shaking her head, Shiro gestured for them to leave first.

Swimming behind the boss, she activated Shadow Cloak to hide herself from the boss.

Losing his target, the behemoth set his eyes on the new party.

*URAHH!!!!

Little did they know, Shiro hid behind one of the boss's fins and had started to heal it with life fire.

Watching the health bar increase, Shiro frowned for a second before giving up. Her initial plan was for the boss to get his health back to full but it seems like she'll have to go with plan B.

Waving her hand, a magic circle appeared behind the boss and aimed towards the most reliable weak point she knew for gaining aggro.

*BANG!!!!

The sudden appearance of an ice spear shocked everyone, including the boss due to the fact that he was on the receiving end.

Seeing the damage that was less than 3 digits, Shiro smiled before swimming away with shadow cloak activated.

As long as she dealt minimal damage, it would mean her aggro would be max since they would realise that someone had just tried to probe it.

The scales on the behemoth trembled before slowly turning red.

[Enraged Grydred, The Ancient Nightmare – LVL 45 (Weakened) – Essence Unleashed]

HP: 3,000,000/????????

MP: 3,000,000/????????

Glaring at the party with his blood red eyes, Grydred flapped his wings once causing several whirlpools to appear around the area.

"GAH!!! What the hell happened to the boss!!" Someone shouted out as the boss who was almost dead regenerated all his health and MP and even tripled it.

"I don't know but stay away from those whirlpools and retreat!" The captain shouted out with slight amounts of panic. He guessed that the ice spear was the result of the white haired beauty that he had seen before.

Shiro, who was the perpetrator of all of this, had long retreated next to the group. They were hidden in the corner far away from the boss. Since they hadn't killed it, they couldn't advance into the next area.

"I never imagined that you would trigger something that had never been recorded in the guide. There were records where Grydred would get enraged but never had there been records where his title would change along with stats. Not only did he become the Ancient Nightmare, his HP and MP tripled. What did you do?" Aarim asked with curiosity. She wondered about what Shiro could have done but nothing came up.

Since the three of them were swimming away, they didn't manage to see what she had done.

""Must've stabbed it in the ass."" Both Lyrica and Madison said at the same time. Their expressions weary since they had gone through this feeling several times now.

"..." 

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