Chapter 32

The gorge was an absolute meat grinder. The Level 48 Obsidian Minotaurs were simply too heavily armored for Maya to punch through efficiently, and Naofumi’s counter-attacks were barely scratching their health bars.
As another massive Minotaur charged, its axe raised high, Maya’s tactical mind snapped the pieces together. Raw damage wasn’t working. They needed to exploit the mechanics.
“Naofumi!” Maya roared over the din of battle, dodging a sweeping blade. “Trap it! Box it in, but leave me a gap!”
Naofumi didn’t question her. He slammed his Wyvern-scale shield into the dirt. “SHIELD PRISON!”
A sphere of interlocking, glowing green shields erupted from the ground, entirely encasing the roaring Minotaur in a perfect, impenetrable dome. The beast slammed its axe against the inside of the barrier, but the shields held firm.
Maya sprinted to the glowing prison.
**[Equipping: Chimera-Acid Gauntlet]**
The silver plates melted into the sickly, glowing green metal. Maya found a small, two-inch gap between the interlocking shields where Naofumi had left an opening. She jammed her gauntlet directly into the crack.
The sapphire on her knuckle flared with intense, violent light. “Breathe deep, you overgrown cow.”
Maya unleashed a massive, pressurized torrent of concentrated Chimera Acid directly into the sealed dome. The corrosive green mist filled the confined space in less than a second.
The roar of the Minotaur instantly turned into a horrific, gurgling shriek. Trapped inside the airtight *Shield Prison*, the beast had nowhere to run. The acid mist aggressively corroded its obsidian armor, melting its lungs and dissolving its flesh from every angle simultaneously.
Ten seconds later, Naofumi dropped the shield.
A mountain of digital polygons and a heavy *Obsidian Core* spilled onto the dirt. The Level 48 monster had been completely eradicated.
Naofumi stared at the dissolving pixels, his green eyes wide. He looked at Maya, who was already shifting her Gauntlet back to its iron form, a dark, ruthless smirk on her face.
“That is… terrifying,” Naofumi admitted, raising his shield as three Abyssal Crawlers hissed at them.
“It’s called synergy, Shield,” Maya yelled back. “Do it again!”
The battlefield turned into a systematic execution. It was a horrific, flawless combination. Naofumi would isolate the highest-level threats with *Shield Prison*, turning his defensive skill into a sealed chamber. Maya would then inject either Chimera Acid or the paralyzing, suffocating spores of her **[Venom-Mush Gauntlet]**, creating a literal gas chamber that bypassed the monsters’ massive physical defense stats entirely.
While they operated their brutal “Iron Maiden” strategy, Raphtalia and Onyx formed a lethal perimeter. The raccoon girl’s swift sword strikes and the shadow wolf’s crushing jaws easily dispatched the lower-level stragglers that slipped past the main line.
High up on the cliff, Myne watched the carnage, entirely useless. Her fire magic was ineffective, so she simply stood back, shivering as the “brainwashed” Gauntlet Hero and the “Shield Demon” slaughtered the horde with terrifying, synchronized brutality.
*CLANG.*
Maya shattered the skull of the last Abyssal Crawler in the immediate vicinity. She stood panting, her silver armor covered in caustic burns and monster blood.
Behind them, the last of the civilian wagons finally cleared the gorge, disappearing down the road toward the safety of the capital. The bottleneck was secure.
But as Maya looked out over the Riyuza Valley, her stomach dropped.
The sky was still bleeding a terrifying black. The three dimensional rifts were still pulsing. And in the distance, where the Vanguard was supposed to be holding the line, the flashes of Ren’s sword and Motoyasu’s spear were growing dangerously erratic. The Royal Army’s frontline had completely collapsed, leaving the three Heroes drowning in a sea of high-level nightmares.
“The civilians are clear,” Naofumi grunted, wiping sweat from his forehead. He lowered his shield slightly. “We held the line. Let’s fall back and let the King’s prized idiots deal with the rest.”
“We can’t,” Maya said, her voice dead serious.
Naofumi frowned, turning to look at her. “Why not? My job was to protect the people. I did. I’m not risking Raphtalia’s life to save the Spear Hero’s ego.”
Maya grabbed Naofumi’s shoulder plate, her grip like a vice. “Look at the sky, Naofumi! The Wave doesn’t operate on a timer; it operates on the Boss! If the Wave Boss isn’t killed, those rifts stay open permanently. The horde will just keep pouring out until it washes over the entire kingdom.”
Maya pointed toward the epicenter of the valley, where a massive, swirling vortex of dark energy was beginning to form. Something colossal was preparing to step through the central rift.
“They are getting slaughtered out there,” Maya said, her dark eyes locking onto his. “If Ren, Motoyasu, and Itsuki wipe, this Wave will crush us through sheer attrition. We have to regroup with them. We have to kill the Boss.”
Naofumi gritted his teeth, looking at the distant, chaotic flashes of light. He hated the other Heroes. He hated the King. But he looked down at Raphtalia, who was watching him with absolute trust, her sword at the ready. If the Wave didn’t end, Raphtalia would eventually be overrun.
“Fine,” Naofumi spat, hoisting his Wyvern-scale shield. “But I’m not taking orders from them.”
“You don’t have to,” Maya smirked, her Gauntlet clicking into its heavy **[Meteoric-Iron]** form. “They’re going to take orders from us.”
Maya turned toward the cliff and cupped her hands around her mouth. “Princess Myne! The civilians are safe! Hold your position here and guard our escape route! It is far too dangerous for you in the epicenter!”
“I… I shall hold the rear, Maya-sama!” Myne called back, her voice trembling but eager to have an excuse to stay far, far away from the Level 45+ monsters. “Do not fall!”
*She really is a coward when the stats aren’t in her favor,* Maya thought with dark amusement.
“Onyx! Shadow Melding!” Maya commanded. The massive black wolf instantly flattened into a two-dimensional silhouette, sliding seamlessly into the shadow stretching behind Maya’s boots.
“Vanguard formation,” Maya ordered, looking at Naofumi and Raphtalia. “Shield in front. Let’s carve a path.”
With Naofumi acting as an impenetrable battering ram, Maya and Raphtalia flank-striking everything that bounced off his shield, the trio plunged back into the sea of monsters. They moved with terrifying speed, cutting a brutal swath straight toward the epicenter of the valley.
As they finally breached the inner circle of the battlefield, the true nightmare revealed itself.
Ren was on one knee, his sword cracked, bleeding from a gash on his forehead. Itsuki was out of arrows, desperately trying to fend off an armored gargoyle with his bowstave. Motoyasu was unconscious in the dirt, his party members trying to drag him to safety.
And towering above them all, having fully emerged from the central rift, was the Second Wave Boss.
It was a *Ghost Ship*. A massive, rotting galleon floating mid-air, wreathed in cursed blue flames. Skeletal cannons lined its broadside, and a massive, spectral Kraken clung to its hull, its ghostly tentacles thrashing wildly.
**[Wave Boss: The Spectral Leviathan. Level: 60]**
Maya felt a chill run down her spine. Level 60. And it was airborne.

**How does the newly formed strike team conquer the Level 60 Boss?**