‘Have to say, kinda happy I can’t kill it anymore. Felt pretty bad about doing that over and over again, you know?’ Sylph chirped into the Gamer’s thoughts. ‘It’s just talking and the commentary is kinda funny so I want to hear it, also the music is good. Can we bring music into the next Instant Dungeon? I think that would make things more-‘

‘For the love of fuck, Sylph.’ Salamander’s answer lacked her usual aggressiveness. ‘How do you still have energy? I almost want to admire you…’

They were on the final stretch of the 16-hour grind. It had been torture. For the first four hours, everyone had been extremely high performing. For another two, it seemed alright. John took this as a sign that he could push things a bit further in the future.

Past that six-hour mark was where things became difficult. It was like going to a massive party with giant motivation to hang out, gulping down an energy drink at the very start and then feel the energy getting sapped over a thirty-minute period way into the evening.

Siena was the first to really suffer from this. More than anyone else, she was made for bursts of power and decisive attacks, not prolonged engagements. Salamander was the second who needed a pause. Then John, Gnome, Undine, Aclysia and finally Beatrice. Only Sylph worked constantly without a break. As long as she stayed in motion, it seemed mental fatigue didn’t really affect her. Useful and a bit odd, but John didn’t question the gift horse. Especially since they needed the thunderstorm elemental to keep hunting down the Radiohead Relay.

The strategies had to be adjusted in order to accommodate the people that needed rest. When Siena had to use a teleport cooldown to escape getting killed by three enemies, having gotten careless due to her exhaustion, John analysed the situation. There had to be a way to allow everyone to sit down, maybe even sleep for anything between thirty minutes and an hour.

The tower, at that point, had grown to be a massive fortification with walls thicker than his arm was long and a ring of massive stone around it. It was pretty safe for someone to retreat into it. All Gnome had to do was create an extra chamber at the heart of it that shut out the noises as best it could. Once that condition had been cleared, the only question was what the essential combat roles were and who could fulfil which one while another person rested.

Top of the list was, no doubt, taking out the Redestruction Workers, since they were the only ones that could threaten their position through tunnels and explosives. Killing them was a job that could be assigned to a large number of people, thankfully. John, Salamander, Sylph, Siena and Beatrice were all optimal for this. If one of them took a break, it didn’t affect that part of the operation too much.

The Smog Noodles were the second problem, since their toxic breath could smoke them out of the tower. Only John, Salamander and Sylph could really take them on and there were a lot of them at all times. Sylph being steadily available really saved their butt on this front. When John or Salamander took a break, the remaining two could at least stem the tide.

Road Sharks were more of an afterthought. Aclysia, Beatrice and Gnome were the three that were best at taking them out, simply baiting them into attacks at the gate and then slicing them apart. Unless left to grow into a massive swarm, which steadily shot shrapnel at the walls, they weren’t particularly dangerous. It was just that someone needed to guard the entrance.

When Gnome, Undine or John took a pause, that created other, unique strategic difficulties. Undine was the most obvious, losing access to healing for a little while was quite terrible. Without John, they lost the central command and, although they had their combat roles, the familiars became less able to react to individual situations optimally. The Mandala Sphere, no matter if in its original shape or as Jack, was also unavailable during those times. While the Possession was maintained, John was unable to control things in his sleep.

However, the pauses Gnome took were the two tensest stretches. Without her ability to repair the tower and to track underground happenings, they had to be steadily wary of tunnels appearing around the tower. Not inside the fortification, thankfully, since the secured ground stretched far below earth level so many hours in. If half a dozen Redestruction Workers managed to tear a hole into the side of the tower, that would have been a giant issue regardless.

It actually happened once as well. A situation they only managed to solve by having Undine use her Unleash to defend the second opening herself. In the past months, she had come into control of the rage that befell her in that state – although they were still best advised to leave her to herself and keep their distance. Her attacks were a bit too sweeping for comfort. She also managed to manoeuvre herself into a pincer and had to use her teleport.

Between hour seven and fifteen, there was always at least one person taking a rest, sometimes two. It was horrible, but they muddled through – for the most part. Exhaustion was truly their worst enemy, and at one point, every last one of them had used up their teleportation cooldown to escape a bad situation.

They somehow did it though.

Now there was just one final hurdle.

“Everyone looks like they would rather be somewhere else!” the Radiohead Relay exclaimed in its 1950’s radio voice. “Well, let’s be a charming fellow and see if we can help them with that – I hear graves are a great location in the summer!”

‘Here we go then,’ John thought. ‘Everyone, get ready!’

The Radiohead Relay, the last in a series of respawns and invulnerable thanks to mechanical protection, darted down to the tower. In a dramatic fashion, it hovered in the air in front of the gate. John himself came out of the protection of the dark inside and blinked. He had spent the last fifteen hours and fifty minutes in darkness, guiding his Extension and everyone else. There was very little use in throwing his actual body into the fray.

The reason why he decided to change this was because Radiohead was too much of a wildcard to stay bunkered up in some location. ‘Remember, if he’s too hard, we’re doing pure delay tactics,’ he told everyone. The Assault was won on a timer, not by defeating the boss. ‘Otherwise, follow the strategy.’ The core parts of this strategy were a purple energy ball hanging above and a small golden egg dangling from his waist.

Waiting for the dramatic scene to play its course, even spawned enemies held back, gathering in the background.

In a grungy voice, the Radiohead Relay started singing a single word, “Hello,” as its electrical currents expanded. The sphere became a humanoid, fizzling energy. Blue and yellow, formed the outline of a suit. It steadily shifted. If there had been a pause button, every frame would have looked as if a child was drawing the rims of the clothes. In the continuous flow of time, however, the steady movement made it look intimidating. “Hello,” it sang for the second time, raising a microphone, made from the same electrical surges, to his head. “Hello.” One final time and that same head manifested to be a solid, wooden box. Two tuning knobs at the bottom, a bar for the frequency, and the large speaker made it out to be an old timey radio. The tiniest of satellite dishes was on the top.

John had barely Observed it before he let loose. There was a pillar of arcane light, as the sphere above aimed. Then, suddenly, everything was consumed by purple light.

The following recipes combined for the easiest cheese in history: 1. a definitive spawn time at the end of an encounter. 2. an ability that continued to charge endlessly, increasing its destructive power and radius. 3. Immunity to friendly fire.

John had cast Arcana Strike in the second hour of the encounter, when they were all still well-rested enough that he could regenerate his mana to full without being too worried and after the base had been firmly established. Before the Guild Perk that had disabled friendly fire, that strategy would have been suicide. Now, however, he and the entire harem stood in a blaze of arcane glory that reduced the city to nothing.

Through the eyes of Sylph, his own were filled by nothing but purple, he followed the arcane nuke. Buildings directly around them simply ceased to exist, were disintegrated into their particles. Further out, it was the shockwave that ripped through the concrete and blasted it into pebbles or large chunks, depending on the distance.

The colour of the entire thing was a royal purple, deeper than any other arcane spell that the Gamer had ever used before. It was unlike any other explosion. No mushroom cloud rose; instead, the arcane power dispersed into some sort of nebulous energy that hung around like a floating mountain made out of translucent satin.

“How low,” came the final word out of the refrain as dust settled and revealed an unharmed Radiohead.

‘Well, fuck,’ John blinked, with his burning eyes. “Stirwin, go!” he shouted and reached for his belt, throwing the golden egg like a pokeball.

The secondary benefit of spending mana continuously for 16 hours straight was that he definitely had reached something new on the front of feeding his favourite crocodile.

‘I’ll take it!’ John thought. One million mana, just to get that guy up to normal fighting strength. What an investment – what potential for more.

With roar and momentum, Stirwin exploded out of the egg in a flash of light that blew a hole into the remaining arcane cloud. Four metres of magic, teeth and scales manifested in the shape of a crocodile that was closer to a dragon than to its non-extinct cousins.

Two rows of teeth snapped at Radiohead. An outer layer, razor-sharp scales that extended past the lips, and thick, sturdy teeth of a silver colour in the copper gums inside the proper mouth. Although the boss dodged, flying backwards, the sheer intensity of the bite produced a loud, hollow sound.

Argent eyes focused their slit, pitch-black pupils on the target. Stirwin reached out and slashed with his claw. His limbs were long, much longer than a normal crocodile’s no doubt, and ended in almost human-like five fingered hands. The webbing, scales and giant claws pulled that image away from a proper comparison. This attack, too, missed, although this time on virtue of a song.

“Ocean man, take me by the hand.” Those words preceded some Admiral Akbar looking fishman appearing in mid-air, literally taking Radiohead by one arm and yanking him out of the way. Afterwards, he disappeared into a cloud of nothing.

Stirwin landed on the ground, once a street, now nothing more but dirt and dust, crackling with purple energy. The infinity elemental whirled around, his two-metre long tail sharp enough to cut the average person into two with that whipping motion, and stared. The blazing gold of his scales exuded heat like a minor sun, ridged scales stretched over his back like bladed mail. Due to his hindlegs being longer and more muscular, the head was naturally lowered when he took firm stand.

‘You misfired,’ Stirwin’s voice echoed in John’s head, much deeper and more dangerous than he was used to. This wasn’t even the adult form of the elemental and the voice already made John’s hairs stand on end. Not out of fear, he trusted the giant chomper, but because of the sheer power of awesome.

Regardless, the criticism was true. ‘Seems like it,’ he agreed. There was a minor chance that the final bit of the song was an invulnerability spell. More likely was that John had pulled the trigger at the tail-end of the spawning animation and thus wasted the chance to (quite literally) nuke the boss.

The Arcana Strike wasn’t wasted, every other additional enemy they would have had to fight had just been incinerated. All the Redestruction Workers that spawned would be busy fixing the city until the Assault was over and the Road Sharks were fish out of water. Only the Smog Noodles could be a minor interruption at this point.

‘No use thinking of it now, I suppose,’ Stirwin growled into John’s thoughts with such intensity that his soul rattled. An actually pleasant side effect, as it hushed away the sleepiness, at least for the moment. “The traditional way of murder then,” the crocodile continued out loud and charged forwards. “RIP AND TEAR!”

‘Sylph, Siena, Salamander, Undine, you four, Combine,’ John declared, after quickly deciding which of the Combinations would be the most useful here. Since they were facing a higher-level enemy, he wanted to have quality pieces over quantity.

His command was heeded. Not that Radiohead was just sitting still while they went through that motion.

“Is this the real life?” the Bohemian Rhapsody began. “Is this just fantasy?” The world around them flickered like a broken monitor and the ground tilted. “Caught in a landslide.” Countless boulders suddenly started rolling towards them. “No escape from reality…” And to top it all off, John’s feet suddenly felt like they were made out of super-heavy lead.

“I hate lmao-random fights!” he shouted and looked over to Gnome. “Tree wall!” he shouted with mouth and mind. Although Gnome (and all other familiars) suffered the same drawback to their mobility, the butterflies moved about just fine. Four of them were currently ready and quickly formed a line between them and the approaching rocks. They transformed, first into the thin pillars, then, several seconds later, into the trees.

And several seconds was exactly how long they had. Stone ground against suddenly spawning stone, all of it reinforced to be even harder than the normal variant, as boulders collided with trees. Then the same boulders just suddenly disappeared and the entire world resumed to its previous levelness.

Stirwin jumped at Radiohead, who continued to concentrate on dodging. A giant golden crocodile was snapping his jaws at an electrical suit with a radio for a head and all John could think was that he really missed his couch. A ridiculousness that wasn’t made any better when a gothic lolita was added to the mix.

In a streak of green and black, Edge cut forwards. “I’m here again!” the long-haired incarnation of sadism and dancing exclaimed, the addition of Undine and Salamander to the mix adding black and red lines all over the left side of her body, even running over her dress. “Let me cut you and maul you and hug you really tight until your innards explode out of your mouth!”

“Jokes on you, darling,” Radiohead responded, the speaker moving with every word. “I don’t have any innards!”

In the four-type Combination category and the current situation, John had to decide between Edge and Smlere. Although Edge’s Unleash wouldn’t work in this situation, there was no blood to ingest, having a quick flyer seemed more useful than a slower ground-based fighter.

A calculation that proved to be correct pretty quickly, as Edge darted around Radiohead and slashed at his back. The wound was shallow, but more importantly, it cut off his best retreat route. Only barely did he escape Stirwin’s maw. “Don’t worry, darling,” Edge combined Sylph’s chirpy voice with Siena’s overly sexual tone, “I will find some.”

Aclysia and Beatrice stormed into the melee as well. The forty level difference between them and the Boss was bridged rather well by Edge’s presence and the fact that it was four against one. Five if one counted John, who used the Mandala Sphere as a tactical presence, cutting off Radiohead’s retreat into the sky. The second it would try, the Mana Blade Beyblade would spring into action.

The only real choice the boss had was to try another song. “Goodness gracious great balls of fire!” it was a line so slurringly sung John barely deciphered what it was before he actually saw the meteor storm heading for them.

“I am not dealing with that today,’ John thought and pointed his left hand at the enemy. The Arcana Strike had maxed out Rising Annihilation anyway, so he had no reason to hold back on the Arcane Ascension. Well, usually he would have held back purely because he wasn’t at an optimal striking angle, but tired John just wanted to get this over with.

Purgatory pulsed, the individual scales, from those that connected to his shirt down to the fingertips, having their outline highlighted by blue light. This was usually followed by a giant arcane sword, but John no longer needed to pre-charge the spell, which opened a few more interesting avenues.

Rather than a single, short lived energy beam, what gathered in John’s palm were five times his maximum Mana worth of Arc Lances. At one-thousand per unit and a base value of 6000, that made for thirty javelins of partly crystallized energy.

They ripped outwards one after another, like bullets out of a machine gun. Radiohead had ignored John, having been beset from all directions. Something it must have regretted quite a lot when three javelins penetrated its sides in quick succession. Twenty-seven more were to be dodged, and the boss managed. Only by throwing caution to the wind though.

“GUT YOU!” Edge screeched, using her clawed left to slice open the back of Radiohead and send him flying to the ground. Grounded, the boss was immediately impaled by Perfect and cleaved in half at the hips by Tiemarath.

“Daisy… dai-“ Radiohead spoke his last, before Stirwin caught the speaker between his jaws and crushed the damn thing. The meteors in the sky disappeared and the Assault ended shortly thereafter.