(Arc 2 Complete!) Path of the Last Champion [Sci-Fantasy LitRPG, Party Dynamics, Earned Power]

They filtered out into what seemed to be a wider opening in between cliff walls. Above them, a line of featureless, bright gray sky, shone the light of day down a narrow gorge that opened into a wide space of sand banks, green coated rocks and peaceful eddies of whispering, shallow waters. The stench of something decomposing was even heavier out here, and in the distance, Nar caught the sound of waves, and realized with a start that it had been there from the very beginning, ignored as harmless white noise.

As they filtered out into the boss's room, there was a low rumble that grew in volume, and suddenly, sand and water exploded as a mass of something pushed up from under the sand in the center of the room.

Nar checked their enemy, even as smaller versions of it emerged from the sand all around them, surrounding them in the dozens and dozens.

The boss crab was a muddy, sandy color, its legs arching high above even Gad's head, and its carapace shone in the gray light, with bits and pieces of it looking as though they had been further armored with some sort of dark gray and white, rough material.

Damn… Nar thought, considering the crab's massive pincers. That's enough to cut a sapient in half.

Or crush them to death, as the boss immediately sought to do, bringing a massive claw down on Viy. The pale, dark haired human jumped out of the way, but just, as her movements were hindered by the water covering their ankles.

"Gad?" Kur asked.

"Trying!" she shouted, standing right in front of the boss.

The monster however, ignored her, and continued to chase after Viy.

"I'm alright!" she shouted, managing to keep pace with the beasts' attacks. "Don't worry, Gad. Take it slow!"

Gad grunted in reply, pouring all of her focus on her new, and illusive way of tanking.

"Already. While Gad tries to get her aggro flows going, the rest of you, do what you want, but get rid of those adds first!"

"On it!" Nar shouted, alongside the rest.

"Nar!" Kur called.

Nar stopped in his tracks and found his party leader gesturing for him to approach him.

"Something wrong?" he asked.

"Don't kill too many of them," Kur whispered to him. "And don't help out with the tanking unless we're in trouble. They need to go through this."

"What? Oh…" Nar said, realization hitting him.

"Yeah. We're going to suck for a bit, but we need to before we can get better," Kur said. "As for you, I don't think you're going to struggle as much, and you can't just go ahead and clear the whole dungeon by yourself."

"Got it," Nar told him.

"That said, you probably still need to work on your [Aura Blade], right?"

"Yeah," Nar said, grimacing. Then he lifted his eyes to the walls of rock around them, remembering how he sliced through the sheer rock of that mountain as though it was nothing. "But not here, I think."

"Yes," Kur said, making a face as he too, glanced up at the walls surrounding them. There was no way of knowing how stable those were.

"For now, just hang back and keep a look on things," Kur asked. "Kill a few so we're not overwhelmed, but let people struggle."

Nar patted his shoulder. "I got it. And don't worry, I'm okay with it."

Kur exhaled heavily.

"Thanks, man. I'll keep an eye to make sure you're not penalized for it," he said, offering him a brief smile.

But instead, he discovered only empty air at his side, as Nar was already gone, rushing straight for Mul.

Three crabs threatened to pull the brawler down, and his punches didn't seem to be doing much to deter them.

Nar was there in the blink of an eye, and his sword, glowing with aura, cleaved through one of the beasts with ease. He wasn't up for risking failure in that sort of situation by not coating his weapon with aura, and besides, he had so much of it now, that there really wasn't much point in conserving it like that anymore, and he realized, that going forward, he should probably always fight with aura cycling into his blade.

"Thanks! But leave the others to me," Mul said, shaking his sputtering, flame wreathed fist.

"Are you alright?" Nar asked, standing ready to intervene again.

"Yeah, yeah," Mul grunted, opening and closing his fingers.

Meanwhile, the other two crabs seemed at a momentary loss as to what to do. Their pincers opened and closed threateningly but the two beasts retreated a couple of steps from the two delvers.

Wow. When they said it was going to be easy, I didn't actually believe them, Nar thought,

glancing down at the split, smoking corpse of the crab he had just cleaved into two, hard armor or not.

When everyone had told them the dungeons would be easy, he had expected to be sucker punched again, but it seemed like the faculty truly wanted to provide them with a safei-sh environment in which to try and sort out the changes in their paths.

And speaking of which, Nar watched Mul lunge forward to punch one of the remaining crabs. The creature tried to skitter out of the way, but even hindered as he was by the water that rose above his ankles, Mul was faster.

"Ow!" he grunted. "Ugh!"

Nar raised an eyebrow at the brawler, the expression safe behind his helmet.

"Are… Are you not using your weapons?" he finally asked, before Mul could attack again.

"What does it look like… Oh, wait. You were asleep."

Mul sighed and waved at the crabs. "Can you kill one more, please?"

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"Uh… Sure."

Nar's sword rose and fell and he blurred, and another crab was gone.

"Thank you. I think I need to do them one at the time," Mul said, his voice a mix of exasperation and tiredness. "And no, I can't use my weapons anymore. My fucking instructor got it into her head that my path is going to be barehanded from now on."

"What?" Nar asked, unsure he had heard it right.

"Yup," Mul said, preparing himself to punch the remaining beast.

"Is that… Is that even possible?"

Mul sighed. "It is. Of course, it is! She's not crazy! And she showed it to me. I just… I just need to figure it out."

Nar examined Mul's fist.

The flames that covered it sputtered and blasted in erratic bursts, and while their color matched the rest of his gear, the flames lacked its stability and solid shape. His armor fizzed and sputtered weakly where the water touched his feet and legs, but the difference between that and the flames on his fist was evident.

"Are you trying to use your aura on your hands? Like with the weapons?" Nar asked.

"That's the plan," Mul said. "Ugh."

The new flames winked out and he opened and closed his fist again.

Nar was about to ask him whether the pain came from punching the crab's hard shells or from cycling his fire aura through his fists as though they were weapons, or even a mix of both, when the brawler waved at him to go.

"Go on. Don't worry about me. Just one of these isn't going to do anything," Mul said. "I just need time to figure it out."

And space, probably, Nar thought. Having people staring never made anything easier.

"Sure. Good luck," Nar said.

"Hmm."

Nar left the brawler to it, and as he stepped away from Mul and the solitary crab he now dueled, he considered the rest of the fight. It was as though the beasts had the uncanny sense to know who to target and who to avoid.

Nobody went close to Tuk or Rel, and just like himself, Nar noticed that the ranged weren't doing much fighting either. In fact, the two of them seemed entirely focused on cheering Cen on as she held a glowing hand up, the hazy, nebulous shape of a single [Aura Projectiles] flickering and warbling above her palm.

No staff either? Crystal…

Then again, that development wasn't that surprising. After all, Cen had been manually creating forks of aura to eat with, and he had seen her shaping aura with her bare hands during their first dungeon. As someone who's path entailed complete direct manipulation of aura, maybe that was the only way to go.

And actually… Is that the same path as the Master of Aura? He wondered. I've never seen her using a staff either. Or anything else… Hmmm.

Well, maybe he'd ask the master when next he saw her.

Is it too rude though?

Putting the thought aside, he looked around for the rest of them.

Kur and Jasphaer seemed to be engaged in relaxed conversation, keeping to themselves behind the ranged, though Nar noticed that despite the ease in their posture, neither of them took their eyes off the encounter.

As for the others, Jul seemed to be doing alright, and since her new short sword didn't seem to be doing much against the crabs, she focused mostly on the other pair of wicked looking weapons.

Nar winced as she punched the whole spike down into a crab, cracking and splintering through its hard shell with ease, and her dark aura spread her fear debuff into the trashing beast as a complete overkill.

Damn… he thought.

The quam had replaced her daggers for a terrifying new combo

The short swords for speed and whatever those are for piercing through armor… All to deliver her debuffs, right?

That was probably it, and the results seemed undeniable. There were five crabs dead in her vicinity, all of them displaying the same cracked, open piercing wound atop their heads, fear aura still oozing from their injuries.

She doesn't even need her skills for these things, he thought, as Jul moved on to the next group of crabs that emerged from the sand. To her, this is about learning to fight with those new weapons. Which leaves…

He grimaced.

Gad was still facing the boss crab in the same squared shoulders, tightened core position as before. However, the boss was still chasing after Viy, splashing water and sand under its mighty limbs, slowed by her purple AOE, [The Weight of Guilt].

For her part, Viy didn't seem to be in any trouble. Even as he tracked her with his eyes, a little crab tried to attack her from behind, but as it got into range, her AOE slowed down its movements, and before it could react to it, her halberd's hammer smashed it to easy bits.

Although Nar could tell the slowing and falter in her pace due to the water hindering her, Viy didn't even miss a step, and kept the easy distance she had with the enormous beast that roared after her, so Nar stared at the tank instead.

Come on Gad, you can do it, he silently cheered her on.

However, Gad remained still, only turning ever so slightly in order to keep facing the monstrous beast. The rest of the crabs seemed content to avoid her, and when once in a while a fresh wave of a dozen or so crabs emerged from the sand, Tuk and Rel kept their numbers manageable for their struggling party members to continue training. And finally, Nar allowed himself to relax a little.

These dungeons really were easy encounters, perfect for providing the struggling apprentices with just enough of a challenge to figure out the changes in their paths and fight styles.

I wonder if I'll even get any gains from these, Nar thought as he decided to go stand closer to Mul, who was still struggling with that same lonely crab.

And that's when the pile came predictably crashing down. Nar heard Viy yelp, and looked back in time to catch the massive beast leaping for her, its shadow covering her.

Viy rushed to jump out of the impact zone, leaping clear of it… And straight into the ranged, Kur and the healer.

Rel let out a blood curdling scream and dropped to her knees, holding her head tightly as Viy's guilty AOE demolished into her head. Kur stumbled and he too went down to one knee, Jasphaer rushing forward to prop him up with a sudden horror filled expression.

Viy quickly withdrew her skill, but not before Nar saw, his eyes going wide, Cen losing control of her singular [Aura Projectiles]. The erratic, snapping aura lashed out around them, forcing Tuk to jump out of the way, which stopped him from attacking the boss.

With a shout, Cen managed to shoot the rampaging projectile away from the party, and it sailed well above their heads, impacting on the rocky cliffs right above where Nar and Mul were.

Shit! Nar thought, as cracks quickly spread across the rock surface, dust coming loose.

He ran for Mul, who had gotten entangled with the crab in the confusion. The brawler rightly cast out any need to learn how to use his fists and simply flooded the creature with fire aura, trying to set it ablaze as the Pile came tumbling around them, but Nar got there in a series of leaps and pried the thing off of Mul with his sword, not waiting to see if his aura could ignite the wet creature or not.

Bending low, he pulled Mul up and threw him over his shoulder, thrusting the brawler not to set him on fire, and then dashed away as the first rocks came crashing down upon them.

Beyond them, Viy had changed tactics, and was now pummeling the boss to death, two of its legs already destroyed and oozing a greenish, gray goo.

"The cliff is falling!" Nar shouted, looking up to eye the spreading cracks that chased after him and Mul.

"Finish it!" Kur shouted. "Quickly!"

"Drop me!" Mul shouted at Nar.

Nar tossed the brawler in the general direction of the core of the party and with his sword ablaze he triggered his [Aura Quickening].

In two leaps he was there.

[Sword Aura]! 364 points!

It was the most he had ever pushed into the skill, but death was coming for them, and as he had realized, he had a Pile ton of aura now, and no need to hold it back. His sword erupted with blinding aura as he poured as much as his [Mastery] and passive bonuses from [Pathways of the Champion] and [Combat Cycling] allowed him to, and the blade melted through the boss' carapace as though it wasn't even there, and Nar buried the blade up to the hilt.

With a quick succession of [Sword Aura]s, he drove the blade in and out of the crab, keeping himself to its back. Meanwhile, Viy dodged around the boss' panicked, massive claws and shattered its legs one by one.

"Faster, faster!" Kur shouted, as more rocks came loose. "Tuk keep your rings on you! I'm getting us out as soon as that thing is dead!"

Soon, the whole cliff would come collapsing on top of them, and Nar considered using his [Aura Blade] to finish the beast. But just then, with a mighty groan, Viy buried her halberd, spear tip first, through the boss's face in an insane display of raw [Strength]. The creature gurgled in warbled pain and crashed on its destroyed legs.

Nar didn't waste any time and leaped onto its back. With a final [Sword Aura] he buried his blade right in between the boss' black eyes, and the dungeon went blank around him.

Suddenly, he was kneeling somewhere else, and a weight that could only belong to Gad toppled on top of him as the entire party collapsed in a heap in the tiny space outside the dungeon cube.

For a moment, nobody spoke in the panicked, gasp filled air.

"Well," Kur said, his voice low. "That could have gone bad."

Then Viy erupted in apologies.