'I'm going to die here.' This single thought overwhelmed Raya's senses as she stared at the towering monstrosity standing before her.
Both Max and Jasmine were too far away to help her in time, meaning she had to somehow survive the incoming attack on her.
As a last-ditch effort, Raya used her (Vine Control) spell to guard her head and all her other vital organs.
Sadly, all the other miners weren't that lucky, as the fire chains of the Kerberus went wild throughout the whole room.
The few awakened miners tried to use their spells or other means to defend themselves, but they were too helpless against the might of a S rank, and their bodies exploded upon even the slightest contact with the chains.
And in just a few seconds, all the miners were killed.
After the miners, the chains aimed towards Raya's head, intending to kill her in one swift, but thanks to the vine she had created just moments earlier, she was able to redirect the attack, avoiding instant death.
But despite her best efforts, the chains were too strong for her to stop, and they pierced her in the chest.
Upon being impaled, Raya fell on her ground as the ground became dyed in her own blood as she breathed her last few breaths and awaited her inevitable death.
At the same time as this was going on, both Jasmine and Max were also attacked by chains erupting from the ground.
But thanks to their superior stats and instincts, they managed to avoid fatal hits to vital organs, but they couldn't avoid the attacks completely.
In the end, Jasmine lost her right leg and Max his left arm.
Despite their best efforts, they had lost.
They had put up a good fight, but in the end, it wasn't enough to close the massive chasm of difference that existed between them and the Kerberus.
And now, as both of them lay on the ground, awaiting their inevitable end that they knew was coming, they both had one single thought.
'I wasn't strong enough in the end'
'I let everyone die'
Both of them thought, respectively, as they wallowed in self-shame and felt a sense of loss mere moments away from death.
As for Raya, she was also lying on the ground, rapidly losing consciousness as her vision started going blank.
'We couldn't live up to his expectations,' she thought.
Raya was devastated seeing John 'die' in front of her, but she managed to control her emotions and told herself that he was still alive.
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Her whole life, Raya was pretty physically weak, and she didn't have much talent in terms of mana.
The only thing she had was her intellect, good looks, and an aspect that worked really well when assisted by others.
The only reason she became an adventurer was so that she could become stronger and stop needing to constantly rely on others for help.
But despite everything she did, her stats just refused to budge.
She was still only at 3000 BF, despite all the natural treasures she had consumed thanks to her family.
In the end, it really came down to her being untalented despite having an above-average aspect.
Raya came from a family of merchants who sought monetary gain above everything else.
And her father wanted to use her good looks to marry her off to a baron-rank family to build connections.
But after a lot of back and forth, she made a deal with her father to cancel the marriage if she could become a S-rank adventurer in under two years.
In Markwhelter Kingdom, S-rank adventurers are practically treated like celebrities, and having one come from their family would definitely benefit them a lot more than merely marrying into a Baron family.
Her father had nothing to lose; if she managed to become a S-rank adventurer, she would bring a lot of good publicity and monetary gain for them, and if she didn't, he could just marry her off and build connections, so he allowed it.
But for Raya, her whole life was on the line, and she was willing to kill herself rather than marry the man her father wanted her to marry.
There were multiple rumours about the heir of that Baron family being a sexual assaulter, with multiple cases of rape fired at him.
But using their families money and authority, they always just swept it under the rug and avoided any kind of punishment so far.
With this knowledge, how could Raya allow herself to be married to such a man?
Who knows what kind of things such a man would do to his own wife?
Raya had tried to tell her father about this, but he just called them baseless rumours and told her to stop wasting her time doing useless things.
But Raya knew that all rumours have at least some truth to them.
All of this combined to cause her current desperation, which made her take risky missions all for a chance to gain a really powerful relic or natural treasure to compensate for her lack of talent.
Sadly, her hopes were useless, as even after months of adventuring, she was unable to find such an item, and even her stats hadn't improved that much.
But despite this, she didn't give up and kept switching from one team to another.
And it was just a few days before she met Edge Lord, a man overflowing with so much talent and power despite his young age.
The more she watched him, the more envious she became of everything he had.
She wanted to hate him, but he was too handsome for her to hate. It didn't make sense to her how a single man could have talent, good looks, and a good personality.
Before meeting him, she used to think these things were mutually exclusive, until he proved her wrong.
Raya was convinced that John was the luckiest man alive and someone who was loved by the world itself.
It was only after meeting him that she learned what it was like to have a crush on someone, but she knew that he was far out of the league of someone like her.
Just after a single conversation with him, she could tell he was destined for greatness, and she had no right to stand beside someone like him.
But despite knowing this in her final moments, she only wished to see him one last time before she lost consciousness.
However, right before she fell into the cold clutches of death, she felt a warm green fire envelope her body as the temperature around her decreased and a familiar presence entered the room.
**
As William entered the dungeon room, he was overwhelmed with extreme rage, which threatened to consume him as he saw the headless corpses of the miners whom he was supposed to protect and his own party mere moments away from death.
But before even realising it, he used the [green flames] that he gained from his new bloodline.
The warm and healing green flames engulfed Max, Raya, and Jasmine.
As the green flame engulfed them, their bodies started healing at a rate visible to the naked eye.
And before long, they managed to stand back up and look around in confusion, unable to properly understand what had just happened.
"How am I still alive?"
"My arm is back?"
"My leg is back?" Confused mutters like this could be heard from the cleaners.
Upon looking around, they found William, or rather, as they knew him, John.
He looked completely different from normal; his height was a few inches smaller than before, but it was hard to notice due to him being elevated in the air.
Instead of his previous black hair, he now had very long, pearly white hair that fell below his waist.
Near his eyes, two bright golden runes could be seen.
And behind him, gigantic, majestic red wings, which looked too big for his body, adorned his back.
The pressure that his mere presence gave off was suffocating for everyone in the room.
His presence even dwarfed that of the Kerberus, which defeated the cleansers.
The temperature around him rose rapidly as all the cleansers could feel sweat falling down their faces.
Despite how different he looked, all the cleansers could instantly tell who the person in front of them was.
But they all had one main question aftet seeing him.
'Just what had happened to him?'
However, William didn't care about their questions, and instead of that, he asked a simple question.
"Did you guys miss me?" he asked as he flashed a bright smile.
And without even knowing why all the cleansers fell unconscious, due William using hhis [Authority of mana] to make them fall asleep.
And now, with the cleansers asleep, the only two people and one creature left in the room were William, the kerberus, and an unconscious Sung, whom William vowed to kill.
**
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