Transmigrated as a Ghost

Lilia, Alaric, Aurelia, and Zareen had suddenly been whisked away from the first area they had been battling in after they had believed they'd already won.

It had been a difficult and brutal fight, and as far as they believed, more than enough to warrant the clearing of a floor.

However, when the special dungeon decided to bare its fangs, it always did so to the upmost effectiveness.

After only a ten-minute break they had been brought to a new area that looked like a giant circular arena that was easily three hundred meters in diameter.

A very large field to do battle in, but with how large their opponent was this huge area would be necessary.

'What is that thing!?'

Looking out in surprise and horror, Lilia could hardly believe what was before them.

In the middle of the arena surrounded by a shimmering blue field was a colossal mantis that stood easily a hundred and fifty feet tall.

Along with its massive size it also had four arms instead of only two, each with giant blades on them that looked like they could easily cut the triceratops monster Lilia had just killed after much struggle in two.

Above its head was currently a large display of numbers that were counting down. And it did not take them long to realize that this was a timer with less than thirty seconds left on it.

Watching the timer start to go down, Lilia looked around frantically to assess where everyone else was and found that each of the had been placed around halfway between the center and the walls of the arena in each of the four cardinal directions.

This put them all fairly far away from each other, and if they tried to form up now, they would be caught before the huge monster mantis would be freed.

"Prepare your strongest ranged attack! We need to hit it as hard as we can when the barrier freezing it fades!" Lilia shouted out to her companions.

Then without waiting for a response, she held both of her hands forward and began amassing her mana.

She could tell even while it was still frozen that this monster was in a league above anything they had ever fought and that they would need to hold nothing back.

"Kinetic Explosion."

The instant the timer ran out the shimmering field around the mantis monster disappeared and, in that moment, Lilia and her team unleashed their strongest ranged attacks all at once.

For Zareen she had burst into flames and sent a large spiral of raging fire forward.

The attack lacked elegance, but it did have a good deal of power behind it.

In contrast, Aurelia's attack was far more focused and came out as a compressed beam of light similar to Marcus' laser spell.

Alaric for his part had used his recently acquired tier five ice magic spell and sent out a hundred-foot-long lance of ice which Lilia had seen Mrazivý use before.

Her attack though was undoubtedly the strongest. A powerful spell she had originally gotten from this very dungeon, and that she had painting finished the missing parts of.

It was tier five, the strongest she could currently use, and its destructive power was enough to lay waste to a small village all at once.

The first of the attacks to hit was Aurelia's beam of light, which carved into the Mantis' unguarded head.

The next was Alaric's glacial lance spell which the mantis tried to respond to and grab with its two left arms, but was unable to fully stop it.

The huge lance of ice pierced deeply into is torso and splattering of green blood began pouring out of the wound.

Next Zareen's wave of flame swallowed the mantis' legs, and its body began burning.

Finally, Lilia's attack connected, and a huge expanding force shook the area, and everything was blown away.

Even standing over a hundred meters away from the blast, all of them were shaken by the immense amount of power behind it, and Alaric was even thrown off his feet.

'Did that do it?' Lilia thought as she looked towards where the mantis was.

Her own attack had created a large cloud of smoke and mist when it blew away Zareen's and Alaric's attacks. Obscuring the mantis.

Still, she was hoping that their four-pronged attack would have been enough to bring it down.

But as the dust settled, they all saw clearly that the colossal monster that was their enemy was still standing despite their best efforts.

That is not to say it got off unscathed.

There were two holes in its body now. One in its head and one in its torso that were bleeding profusely. Its legs were also burned a bit from being engulfed in fire, but the greatest damage it had taken were to its right arms.

Both were barely attached and looked like they had been crushed by a hydraulic press.

It was clear that it had sacrificed these arms in order to take Lilia's attack and prevent too much damage to its main body.

'I just need to fire another one off.' Lilia thought as she prepared to use her kinetic explosion spell again.

Except as she did, she faltered. Her mana had still been low from the earlier battle and using that single tier five spell had brought her pretty much to her limit.

She did not even have enough power left to cast a tier one spell, let alone a tier five. And when she tired to force out the dregs of mana she had left, it caused her to collapse to her knees.

That proved to be the decisive moment, as the mantis' back opened and its wings spread out.

In a movement that seemed impossible for its size, it swiftly moved right towards Lilia who had stumbled over and lashed out with its two remaining bladed arms.

A loud whistling sound resounded through the arena as it cut through the air, and Lilia could only watch as the attack came for her.

Her reflexes kicking in, by some miracle she raised her arms up and pulled herself into a ball to take the hit.

An instant later she felt the terrifying power behind the blow that had connected with her, and she was blasted towards the wall of the arena.

With a heavy thud she smacked right into the arena's wall and bounced off it like a ball.

Blood flew out of her mouth when she landed, and her arms were both twisted at unnatural angles and horribly discolored from bruising.

Nevertheless, she had survived, and it was thanks to the armor Marcus had made her that she was not cleaved in two or turned to pulp by that attack.

Unfortunately, she could not muster any strength to get up after taking a hit like that, and all she could do was raise her head slightly.

Blood filled her vision, and she could feel that her skull was cracked. But none of that mattered.

The colossal mantis monster was moving towards her to finish the job and there was nothing she could do about it.

'Move, damn it. Move!'

Trying to summon up her strength, Lilia did all she could to force her body to get away. But barely any of her muscles would respond, and all she accomplished was raising her torso so she could look the deadly monster looming over her in the eyes.