Acting on pure reflex, William and Letisia’s groups all made efforts to block or avoid the incoming attack.

Letisia immediately used her defensive spell “Prism barrier” while William and his friends opted to simply dodge the incoming arrows.

Unfortunately, 3 people from the ragtag group of 15 that chose to fight alongside William were caught off guard, causing the traitor barrier to trigger and wrap them in chains thus taking them out of the fight.

“Who’s there?” Letisia shouted. “Show yourself!” She continued, but the only response she received was another hail of arrows coming from a different direction.

“Dammit, our enemy is on the move.” Letisia thought to herself.

“No good!” William suddenly declared. “We need to get out of here quickly. They seem to be just buying time!”

“I agree.” Mary replied as she activated a simple vision spell to help her track down the unseen attacker. But this proved to be futile as she was unable to follow the enemy’s movements. It was always just on her peripheral, escaping narrowly no matter how hard Mary tried to track her.

"How? It's like it knows where I am going to look." She thought as she gave her command.

“Everyone!” She yelled. “Run through the exit. Our enemy is simply buying time, we don’t need to confront them here directly. Just run to the treasure now!”

Letisia and the rest silently agreed to this proposition causing her to drop her shield and run quickly towards the exit, but the moment they turned their backs, the attacks greatly intensified.

“Damn it! Where is it!” Letisia screamed in frustration as an arrow barely brushed past her face but in this moment of distraction, another volley was shot towards her.

Before she could use the Prism barrier to defend herself, the 12 remaining people that followed them to the labyrinth formed a vanguard and shielded her instead.

“Go!” A tall man with blonde hair screamed. “We’ll stay behind and hold it off!” He declared, causing William to voice his disapproval.

“Why? If we fight all together we would have a better chance!” He yelled out, only for another person to voice their own reasoning.

“Our opponents are those four people that managed to qualify for the S-rank trials right? If we all face them together I doubt we would be of much help, but if we could trap one of them here then they lose a quarter of their strength!” Another one shouted.

“But before you go, just promise us all one thing. Promise that you will all win for us okay!” Another one requested.

While this seemed to be the best thing to do given the situation, he felt a little sad since he wanted for all of them to share in the victory. But in the end, he simply agreed as he turned his back to run towards the exit.

This act however, stirred something within Letisia as she looked back towards those who chose to remain.

“It seems I misjudged you lot.” She exclaimed. “As a form of respect, I swear to bring not only victory but also to share the spoils with all of you. That is all you want right?”

“Who cares about that, just go already!” Was the only response she received.

Once Letisia and her William’s teams have entered the exit, a large explosion can be heard from behind, the 8 of them then look back only to see that the path has been blocked by rubble and debri.

William suddenly felt a cold chill run down his spine once more as he thought of one scary possibility.

“Is this what they wanted to happen?” He thought to himself, causing him to suddenly stop running.

“William what are you doing! Hurry!” Julia yelled at him and successfully took him back to reality.

“Sorry Julia, I-I just ugh, nevermind.” William then shook his head as he pushed those thoughts out. Right now, all he needs to do is focus on the battles ahead of him.

---

As the figures of William and the rest disappear into the exit the 12 who chose to remain once again focused their attention towards the unseen opponent.

Suddenly, a large and bright spell flew over them and headed towards the roof of the exit. A brilliant explosion accompanied by a loud bang reverberated inside the dimly lit room as the walls of the exit collapsed.

Now the remaining 12 were trapped inside with no way out.

“Damn it!” The man with blonde hair screamed out in frustration. “Was this all a trap for us?” He said in a loud voice.

“Sure looks like it, Norv.” Another voice replied. It was a medium sized man with short red hair that replied to his inquiry.

“And we fell for it too! I kinda feel bad for getting all fired up with that speech of yours earlier.” He continued.

“We didn’t really have a choice Lester, and if you ask me, I’d rather not face all of those four people at the same time. You did see how that magic knight destroyed everyone right?” Norv replied.

“Yup. I can’t believe that guy is in the same freaking batch as us. The world isn’t fair you know?” Lester replied.

All of a sudden, the volley of arrows seemed to have stopped giving them a small window of reprieve, but it was all cut short when a being, that everyone never expected to see in their lives, started walking into the light.

It was a woman with blonde hair and green eyes, but that alone would not warrant any attention. It was the long, almost knife-like ears that caught everyone’s eye, and this feature alone was enough to rock their reality in an instant.

Curiously, she was wearing a camo jacket with green military goggles hanging from her neck. There was also a brown sling bag hanging on her person.

But the strangest detail to all of this was the elf's mana, they could feel it was different even though they themselves don't know how to completely describe it.

“I-it can’t be! Is that, Is she-?” Lester declared in shock his voice trailing off with every word as his mind is consumed by disbelief.

“This is impossible. An elf!?” Norv shouted out loud, his voice stuttering in shock, something all of the people present, even the ones who were already bound by chains did in varying degrees.

This was simply too much for them to handle at the moment. Elves, for the most part, have been relegated to myth and legend. While Elves aren’t certainly new in pop culture, it is widely believed inside mage circles that they once existed on earth at one point but all of a sudden they just vanished. Leaving nothing but tales that have been twisted and mangled over time.

And right now, they seem to be seeing something that should have been gone long long ago.

The elf, upon seeing their reaction let out an audible sigh and started shaking her head.

“Oh boy, it seems I need to get used to this kind of reaction from now on.” She said in a disapproving tone and after those words, a change started to happen to their unexpected opponent.

Her body started to glow an almost ethereal light. The blonde coloring of her hair started to fade and revealed a shade of red underneath as her long ears began to shrink.

“Ugh, time already?” She said as she inspected her left hand. “Oh well, nothing I can do.” She then took the goggles hanging from her neck and placed them over her eyes.

The mythical being in front of them suddenly morphed into a normal human girl.

Once the girl completed her transformation, Norv and Lester immediately recognized her.

“You! You’re with those guys aren’t you!?” Lester shouted in his continued state of disbelief.

“But that transformation! Y-your mana!” Norv then gave his own questions, but reason soon fell over him.

Right now their opponent was right in front of them, and it seemed that she had lost whatever power-up she was enjoying earlier.

“Everyone, stop acting all shocked already!” Norv suddenly yelled. “I don’t know what trick she used but she’s human again. We can defeat her!”

But his words elicited a strange reponse from the woman in front of them. Once Norv set his gaze back towards her, he could see a faint and sullen sadness present in the half hearted broken smirk that was showing on her lips.

“Human huh?” She said while slowly approaching the weary group of 12. She wasn’t even gathering mana, nor trying to cast any spells. She was just walking, slowly, and it was enough to unnerve them all.

“What is she doing?” and many other questions ran through their mind, as she reached deep into her brown back and took out a vial filled with a darkish brown liquid.

“Now, I guess it’s time to finish this.” She said as she slowly took off her thick goggles revealing eyes that can only be described as wrong.

The whites were stained jet black as if ink was splashed all over. Her pupils yellow and constricted, almost snake-like while giving off a faint and eerie glow.

Yet, try as they might, they could not look away.

As they stared into dark eyes, the group suddenly felt their thoughts slow down to a crawl and their limbs feel heavy and stiff. Each passing moment made it harder and harder for them to move, like they were being turned into stone.

With her opponents immobilized, the woman then placed her goggles back on and proceeded to drink the brown liquid from the vial.

Even though the petrifying effect was slowly losing its grasp, what happened next achieved the same effect anyway. Because the moment the woman drank the potion, her arms suddenly grew to an unbelievable size.

Each arm now looked like it was about as long as three fully grown men stacked on top of one another with muscles matching it to boot.

Norv could hardly believe his eyes upon witnessing the transformation. Knowing fully well that defeat was imminent, he used all of his strength and willpower to move his lips.

“What are you?” He asked in a weak voice.

The woman simply smiled and gave a short answer.

“A monster.” And with those words she leapt into the air, raising her gigantic arms to slam the frozen and hapless people below.