Multiple wolves, some clad in lightning while others were wreathed in flames, lunged at high speeds from all directions, surrounding Shin.
Simultaneously, camouflaged chameleon beasts launched their razor-sharp tongues, invisible to the naked eye.
Using only his instincts, Shin avoided counter-attacking for now. Instead, he evaded each strike with minimal, fluid movements.
He deliberately guided the monsters' momentum with his footwork, leading their attacks to collide with one another.
"Kyann!"
The whimpers of wolves echoed as they were struck by the attacks of their fellow beasts while Shin evaded them cleanly.
"Kuurh! Kurhh!"
Painful groans erupted from the chameleons as their tongues were seared or electrocuted by the elemental wolves they had "accidentally~" struck.
Meanwhile, a few raptor-like monsters began lurking along the ridges of the behemoth's back armor, searching for an opening.
One raptor, perched between two large spikes on the behemoth's spine, managed to find the perfect vantage point for a surprise attack.
Shin appeared to be heading right toward it while dodging the advances of the other monsters.
Just as the human entered its effective lunging distance, his figure suddenly vanished.
"Kyan! Kyan!"
Another wave of whimpers rose from the elemental wolves as they crashed into each other where Shin had stood a split second before.
"Ungh...?"
The raptor let out a confused sound, questioning the peculiar event of the human's sudden disappearance.
"Gruuaahhh!"
Suddenly, its vision shifted rapidly.
It felt a crushing grip on its tail as it was violently dragged from its perch.
"Oh~ a surprise attack, huh? Not bad for an overgrown bipedal lizard,"
Shin murmured as he dragged the "poor" creature along.
"As a reward, you've been promoted from a target practice to a practice weapon~."
Shin locked eyes with the monster.
The raptor monster, though devoid of higher sentience, felt its instincts flare at his words.
While it couldn't understand the language, the sight of Shin's smiling face and glinting crimson eyes told it one thing.
'Whatever happened next at the hands of this silver-haired human was definitely going to be bad!!!'
"Gruuaahhh!!!"
The raptor roared, attempting to stand, retaliate, and break free—but it was completely useless!!!
It was utterly powerless as Shin brandished it like a secondary bludgeoning weapon, swinging the raptor ruthlessly into the other monsters and its own kin.
The skirmish—or rather, Shin's "monster swarm handling training"—continued with him effortlessly evading attacks and causing massive friendly fire among the horde.
Whenever the behemoth they were standing on tried to join the fray by shaking its body or tumbling to crush him under its massive weight, Shin would simply dispatch it.
A single, devastating strike to its head would take it down before he lightly leaped to another behemoth-platform, seamlessly continuing his training with the surrounding monsters.
*************************************
While Shin was having his fun-happy training with his "monster friends~," our beloved crimson-eyed, golden-haired vampire princess kept her gaze locked on the horde of monsters below—specifically targeting a certain Traum archer.
"Prometheus Azure Blaze."
Yue murmured the spell's name as ten blue, flaming spheres materialized and began hovering behind her, entirely unbothered by the extreme heat they produced.
This spell was the improved version of her classic Azure Flame and Azure Blaze.
Abiding by Shin's directive to "train her creativity and manage her magic reserves," she deployed this particular magic she had been developing for exactly these kinds of scenarios.
Thanks to Yue's natural prodigy—allowing her to manifest magic directly without chants or arias—and Shin's spartan training, which had further heightened her proficiency, these blue fire spheres could persist for an hour and were capable of maneuvering effortlessly through the air under her control.
Originally, she had planned to use a brute-force, total-annihilation type of spell, which would have required a continuous refill of Shin's blood for her magic recovery.
But a certain bony Traum archer had the guts to shoot first, distracting Shin from agreeing to that glorious plan and landing her in this training session instead!!!
Such were the thoughts running through her mind.
"Go."
Hovering in the air, Yue murmured the command.
At her word, the ten blue spheres streaked downward, descending from her position to hunt the monsters below.
The blue flaming spheres descended like falling suns, searing the air and scorching everything in their path with a blinding, bluish light.
"BUUMMMOOOOOOHHH!!!"
Behemoths caught in the trajectory let out earth-shaking roars of agony.
"GYYYAAAAAA—!"
The surrounding lesser beasts roared and groaned as they became collateral damage from a falling behemoth whose thick, heavy armor liquefied like candle-wax while the intense heat cooked them alive.
Traum soldiers, archers, and other monsters attempted to counterattack.
Their mindless instinct or design to attack intruders prevailed over their sense of self-preservation, proving them truly loyal as labyrinth guardians.
"Keeerrrh! Shahhh!"
But their actions were entirely futile.
The moment the azure flames brushed against them, their shrieks were cut short.
They vanished into clouds of drifting ash, leaving nothing but the melted lumps of iron from the Traum soldiers' and archers' armor scattered across the stone floor.
The battlefield descended into a frenzy of desperate groans and screeches as the horde turned into ash, not a single bone left behind as they loyally followed their designed directive to fend off intruders.
But the golden-haired adversary did not stop there.
As the spheres completed their initial strike and hovered momentarily in the smoke-choked air, she gracefully raised her arms, weaving her hands through the air like an orchestra conductor guiding the blue spheres of annihilation with flawless precision.
"GURRRRRAAAAH!"
Moving entirely on her whims, the fiery spheres twisted, looped, and danced through the chaotic slaughterhouse of a battlefield.
They rocketed toward her next directed targets while the monsters howled, groaned, screeched, and roared in searing pain and desperate battle cries, completely powerless against the hovering golden disaster.
But her highness still did not stop, as her primary target was still missing.
It was that certain Traum archer, which for some reason had luckily evaded her initial attack.
She carefully scanned the remaining monsters fearlessly brandishing their fangs, magic, and weapons at her, despite the devastation she had already wrought and the impending blue spheres of destruction looming over them.
Again, their dedication as labyrinth guardians was truly to be commended.
"Hmmm..."
Yue murmured as she focused on the monster crowd below.
Then, within her vision, the specific Traum archer finally came into view.
It was clattered between its fellow Traum archers and monsters.
'Found you!!~' she thought.
She murmured another spell.
"Fulgurdraco Tortuosus."
[Coiling Lighting-Dragon]
Following her whisper, bright golden lightning began manifesting and shaping itself into a serpentine dragon.
It coiled in the air like a divine beast summoned from the heavens, its body zapping and illuminating the entire cavern with its golden glow.
"Get them," Yue commanded.
The dragon quickly descended, striking literally like lightning onto her chosen target.
"Ungghh!!"
The Traum archers' glowing eye sockets flared as they fired a desperate volley of arrows at the descending dragon.
But the effort was futile, the arrows burned and scorched to nothing as the speeding dragon closed the distance.
A deafening crack of thunder echoed when it made contact with the earth and its targets.
The clattering bones of the Traum archers, soldiers, and nearby monsters were instantly vaporized, leaving only their armor and shattered hard shells behind in the aftermath.
The dragon then transformed into countless residual bolts of lightning, scattering across the surrounding area.
Other monsters met their doom as the rogue electrical currents chained from one target to the next.
********
Shin and Yue continued to wreak havoc on floor 99, treating the encounter like a routine training session as they steadily shaved off the monster horde.
The battle finally ended as the remaining monsters dwindled under Shin's friendly-fire strategy and Yue's blazing azure spheres and lightning dragons.
The aftermath left the floor starkly divided between the two sides, lumps of iron and drifting ashes on Yue's side, and piles of broken monster corpses on Shin's side.