"This place stinks," was the first thing Darius said as they were dropped in a first that was quite a distance away from the stronghold.

The places the students were deployed to was divided into three different colored hypothetical rings.

The green ring, which was closest to the stronghold and with relatively less danger because the highest ranked beast found there were C-Rank.

Next was the orange ring which was located a distance away from the stronghold, but still relatively close.

This was the zone where the actual danger of this place was revealed but still, it was relatively safe when compared to the red ring.

The red red ring referred to the side of the corrupted lands where the spirit mages had barely properly ventured into.

And that was where two groups found themselves, Cassian’s and the group which the prince and Saintess were into, although at completely different ends.

"Keep your guards up," Cassian ordered as he looked around, "we’ll first try and establish base somewhere safe before planning how to survive the rest of the month."

His tone was calm, one fitting for a leader.

"We’ll try to avoid any territories e—"

"Too late," Adrian cut him off as he looked towards a certain direction.

Cassian followed his gaze and noticed that there were only large tress in that direction, but the next second,

The ground below them started trembling and the sound of falling trees reached their ears.

Darius looked in that direction with a large grin on his face as he muttered, "finally, some action."

"Leave this one to me, I’ll handle....it?" The words died in his throat as the gathering of trees before them fell and the beast finally revealed itself.

It looked like a giant lizard standing upright, with completely black scales covering its entire body.

On both its hands were dagger sized claws and the giant tail behind it was what was responsible for all the falling trees.

"...."

{What?} Inanis’s voice was heard in Darius’s head as it noticed him freezing, {you scared now, idiot?}

"As if," Darius’s grin returned as he looked at the beast, "alright you overgrown lizard, show me what you’ve got."

The beast looked at the four for a second before its chest area suddenly started glowing orange and it opened its mouth, launching a stream of lava towards the group.

Seeing the incoming attack, Adrian simply grabbed Renelle’s hand and teleported out of the attack’s path.

"It’s all yours," he muttered to Darius who had also gotten out of the attack’s path.

Cassian on the other hand, had a frown on his face as he heard Adrian’s words and was about to order the idiot to stop.

But he suddenly paused and thought of it for a second.

He had observed that the red haired idiot was stubbornly loyal to the damn butler, so that might be a problem when it was time to deal with the pest.

So if this lizard could get him out the way, then that would save him the trouble.

The frown on his face quickly disappeared as he moved out of the Lizard’s path and rested on a tree , ready to observe the idiot get torn apart....or scorched.

***

"HAHA!"

Darius laughed as the stream of molten lava scorched the ground where he had been standing moments ago.

The heat alone was enough to make the air distort violently, but instead of retreating, he let out, "now we’re talking!"

"Let’s do this Bob!" He called out as flames lit up all around him.

{It’s Inanis, you idiot,} the dragon replied, but he paid it no mind.

Crouching low, the heat around him rose high before he finally launched himself towards the beast, leaving a molten crater behind.

Darius slammed his entire body through the beast’s raised arm burning it cleanly off, but just before he could celebrate, the lizard retaliated with its tail.

He barely raised his arms in time before the the tail slammed into him whilst still mid air.

The hit sent him flying, his body slamming through a tree before crashing into another, then another, before he finally stopped.

"...gh—!"

His vision seemed as he landed on the ground, fortunately for him though nothing was broken, despite the height of the fall and the number of trees he slammed into.

The beast, on the other hand, looked at the arm that was cut off before the stump started glowing and its flesh started wiggling.

Darius recovered just in time to witness its arm regenerating and shed the white scales that were wrapped around it.

The moment it was done, it turned towards its attacker and let out,

ROAR!!!!

"That’s disgusting," he muttered with a frown on his face.

{Use that,} Inanis suggested.

"...." Darius silently considered it for a while before asking, "doesn’t that burn through my mana faster?"

{Would you rather keep fighting it over and over again whilst it regenerates?} It asked, {besides, don’t use it as recklessly as you use our flames and you should be able to keep it up for two minutes.}

"Black flames it is," Darius muttered before all the flames surrounding him suddenly died down.

Both Cassian and the giant lizard seemed a bit confused at the action, but the next second, the flames lit up again, but this time only on his fists.

And they were....black?

"Alright you overgrown lizard," he called out, "round two."

In response, the lizard suddenly lifted its tail and slammed it in Darius’s direction but instead of dodging, he threw a punch towards the tail.

At first, it seemed like a stupid decision, but the moment the tail came in contact with his fist coated in those black flames, they immediately spread.

As if the tail was flammable, the flames ate away at it until it was completely coated in it.

The lizard let out a screech of pain as it quickly slammed the tail into the ground, in attempt to turn the flames off, unfortunately, that did nothing to help.

The lizard had no other option but to cut the tail off, itself, after all, it could just grow it back.

Unfortunately, when it tried regenerating the lost tail, nothing happened.

"Let’s end this then shall we," Darius said as he rushed towards the confused beast, the moment he got close enough, he launched himself up again, using his normal flames beneath his feet as boosters and the next second,

BANG!

His hand slammed straight into its chest, the flames coating his fists transferring to the creature before he quickly hopped off it.

The beast tried in vain to remove the flames until it enveloped its entire body, quickly burning it to ash.

"What a warmup," Darius muttered as he landed on the ground, turned the flames off his fist and turned towards Adrian, 𝑓𝘳𝘦𝑒𝑤𝑒𝘣𝘯ℴ𝘷𝘦𝓁.𝑐𝑜𝑚

"How’d I do?"