The rift mages in the boss room were far stronger and faster than those on the other floors, with 70% of them either instantly teleporting out of the range of the vortex or activating their elemental shields just in time for the explosion to hit.
And among those who stayed back and used their elemental shields, none of them died as their shields stood strong!
The shields of the ones at the forefront who received the full brunt of the attack had cracks all over but they were not broken.
Unfortunately for them, Evan was not alone.
Pride who was right behind him charged in and released a slash of pure demonic energy that shattered the shields of the rift mages and injured them severely, paving the way for Amy's Breath of fire to turn them into charred chunks of flesh.
David's group did not slack either, with their support mage and Eliza combining forces to not only increase the strength of the attacks but also decrease that of the opponents.
David himself proved to be a skilled swordsman, as he swept through the boss room at break-neck speed, slicing apart the summoning magic circles created by the rift mages with his aura-coated sword.
Some of the rift mages tried to take him out but his team's tank jumped in and blocked their flurry of attacks with his large shield, before ducking and letting the spearman use his body as a foothold to jump in the air and stab the rift mages with his skill.
Follow on NovᴇlEnglish.nᴇtNaturally, there was no way that the superior variant rift mage would sit back and watch its brethren die as it waved its staff and summoned not only monsters but other rift mages too!
These other rift mages then began to summon monsters but they soon discovered that none of the monsters could take any steps forward as multiple tentacle-like appendages had grown from their shadows and wrapped around their bodies tightly, holding them in place.
Of course, this was Kuro's work.
With the shadow spirit's assistance, the summoned monsters and some unlucky rift mages who had tier shields broken by Kayla and Amy's magic became sitting ducks for Evan, Pride and David to slaughter at will.
Suzanne also had her part to play, revealing her mastery over the bow that made Evan's jaws drop with shock.
She skillfully twirled the bow in her hands around, releasing arrow after arrow that pierced the vitals of multiple summoned monsters and rift mages alike.
The frightening thing about her was that none of her arrows missed!
Each arrow was actually generated through her condensing her light attributed magic power into an arrow of light, one that possessed great penetrating power.
When all of these existences over level 140 (except Suzanne) attacked, the rift mages and their summoned monsters had no choice but to all die within five minutes despite there being hundreds of them.
Like so, the groups progressed to the 21st floor and continued monster hunting, with Evan continuing his magic power condensation to improve his magic power quality.
The 21t to 30th floors were known as the 'North Pole' of the dungeon, due to the outrageously low temperatures of the area.
Averaging at around 10 degrees Celsius, these ten floors were the home to the monsters known as frost boars, large one-metre-tall boars that possessed unusually long tusks and formidable charging strength.
What's more was that these boars never stayed alone, with the lowest number of boars one could see together being five!
The levels of the monsters in the mansion of the damned had a cycle averaging at around seventeen levels every ten floors, with floors 1-10 having their average monster levels being 105 to 122, however, the bosses and elite monsters on floor 10 were exceptions to this.
Floors 11 to 20 had monsters with levels of 121 to 138, however, the strength of adventures who braved the 11th to 20th floor successfully increased exponentially due to the fact that they also received experience from the monsters that rift mages summoned too.
Perhaps this was the reason why the 21st to 30th floors did not conform to the normal rules, with the levels of the monster averaging at around 140 to 160 and the temperature of these floors was dangerously low.
To add to the mix, the low temperature granted one the 'Blistering Cold' status effect, which worked wonders in reducing the fighting strength of adventurers.
Follow on Novᴇl-Onlinᴇ.cᴏmNormally, with such low temperatures, an average human would have frozen up multiple times over, however, the adventures that usually braved these floors had levels averaging at around 145-155 and their bodies were resilient enough to match their level.
They also weren't stupid and obviously prepared countermeasures, so crossing these ten floors was not much of a problem at all.
Provided that the ones crossing the floors weren't paper tigers who only had high levels but ridiculously low strength compared to what people on their level should have as the monsters here were quite ferocious, to say the last.
Imagine five one-metre-tall boars weighing over two hundred kilos each charging toward you at speeds exceeding fifty metres per second while exhaling cold breaths from their nostrils.
Even for the groups who were capable of seeing the frost boars' movements clearly, it was still a scary sight, because they knew that the striking power of these boars' charges was not something to be trifled with.
In the game, Evan used the 21st to 30th floors of the mansion of the damned to train himself on how to dodge attacks, and this time, he wasn't training alone as even Suzanne who was the weakest in the group, had her speed stat raise by a whole rank by the time they had left the 21st floor.
Due to his continuous grumbling, David's party eventually discovered Evan's temporary inability to level up, with David sympathizing with Evan as he had faced a similar situation when he was about to become a master-level existence.
He made a remark about it taking him a few months, Evan's face to turn pale, and it wasn't from the cold.
Thanks to Amy's presence, the area around the group was relatively warm as the mere presence of the fire spirit was enough to ward off the cold.
David's party members were surprised when the flame spirit suddenly appeared on Pride's shoulder, with their shock doubling when Kayla also manifested her physical body just for the fun of it.