The headless monster ran. At first, it seemed random, but the golem knew what it was doing. It ran at full sprint and smashed into the wall, sending crystals flying and the room shuddering.

Then the crystals in the wall where it had slammed into started moving. They slid down the wall and molded onto the monster as its head and its two hands.

"You’ve got to be kidding me," Catena said. He had regained his strength and was now standing, but he was still holding his bruised stomach.

Azaroth clenched his teeth. He really hated monsters like this, and the only way to defeat them was by using overwhelming power. Or, at the very least, a very big firepower that none of them had.

Even his chaos technique didn’t have something like that. If they were higher ranks, their natural strength would have been enough, but that was a matter for another time.

"What are we going to do now?" Alex asked. "Our attacks won’t work." Everything just glanced off the monster, and where it didn’t, and actually did affect it, the monster just healed itself anyway.

Stallus sighed. She had hoped it wouldn’t come to this because she didn’t know how she would do. The only skill she had ever practiced from her technique was the light skill, so she didn’t know how she would do with crystals.

Of course, she had her formation memorized, but she never needed any reason to use it until now. She didn’t know how it would go.

Kael Hound told them not to include any unknown or untested weapons when making a strategy for fighting, but what other choice was there when your opponent was more powerful than you?

"Can you shake loose a very large chunk of crystal, Catena?" Stallus asked him.

Azaroth watched them. He looked at her, and she nodded at him. He understood then. She meant to do something. Since the monster was made of crystal, she must have some kind of plan. If she failed, then Azaroth would simply use his chaos core until the monster turned to dust.

"Alex," Azaroth called and ran forward. Alex understood and started his barrage of attacks again. Azaroth got in and started to engage it with his sword and Fire Force.

Catena grunted and moved all his essence to his right hand to add to the strength of his skill, then he punched the wall. A huge red crystal fell down from where he had previously weakened it.

Stallus bent, picked up the crystal, and looked at it. She had to pick it up with both hands and felt the weight. Even holding it, she could feel it resonate with her blood in a way that no material ever had.

She started to connect her skill, and it was easy. She had thought about it a thousand times. Hundreds of thousands of times. That was all she did every time she had no crystals to work with.

Stallus connected the essence link between the formation and her core. Her skill reacted, and the crystal started glowing, red at first, and then her essence turned the whole thing blue.

It started vibrating with power. Stallus turned and ran. Her essence poured into it, more than she could control. It was as if a floodgate had been opened in her core, and all her essence was flooding in.

Even the essence covering her went in, and the mass of crystal throbbed like a wound. "Run!" Stallus shouted when she got close to the monster.

The others didn’t have to be told twice as they made a run for it. She threw the crystal and turned to run too.

Stallus’s skill, the only skill she had in her current rank, was to make crystals explode. Basically, she would put her formulated essence into the crystal and make it explode.

It all depended on the quality of the crystal too. Some crystals could take more power than others, some would break down in the face of little essence, and some could withstand a lot of it.

The crystal in this crypt could take a lot.

And the more essence, the bigger the explosion. And now, the quality crystal had taken all the essence in her core. Stallus didn’t want to wait for the explosion that would follow.

They ran down the tunnel, past the puddles of slimes. Then the explosion happened. It happened with a boom that shook the whole underground and sent rocks falling.

Shockwaves mixed with blue energy snapped in a boom. They felt a mental click that meant the crypt had been cleared.

Azaroth looked back. The damage the explosion caused was massive. The chamber was almost gone, and a big crater dominated the place where the monster was.

Azaroth looked at Stallus, who was breathing hard from having to run that fast without essence. That was a dangerous power. Very dangerous. But at least now, they wouldn’t have Stallus dragging them back.

"T...that was insane!" Alex said. He looked at the damage she caused and shook his head. "You’ll have us clearing all the crypts in one go."

Stallus shook her head. Her muscles trembled, and she sat on the ground. "I don’t think so. I don’t want to have my core drained like that. It would mean my death if I didn’t eliminate my enemy with that single hit."

Smart decision, Azaroth thought. If she poured all her essence into a single attack, what would happen if the enemy survived? Or if there were more than one?

Still, that kind of firepower was what was lacking in the team, and Azaroth was already planning how to use such powers.

The essence they gained settled on them, and they sat to start harvesting it to their core. Stallus brought it inside her core greedily. She did not like the thought of having her essence stripped from her, even though it was the only thing she could do at that time.

Actually, no, it was that she lost control of her skill.