The transition was violent.

One second, Verso was staring at the beautiful mermaid who looked exactly like Lua, while the next filling his visions were rows of teeth that he had seen countless times today.

Seeing the rows of needle sharp teeth closing in on his face, he did not hesitate for a single second. He turned his focus towards his summoning space, forcing a massive blue portal to tear open directly in front of his chest.

"Really need you right now!" He shouted.

Instantly the Sea Serpent exploded out of the portal with its maw already wide open. Before the Siren could even reach Verso’s head, the Serpent’s massive fangs sank into the monster.

The force of the impact was staggering, sending a spray of foul smelling green blood across the cavern walls.

As with a powerful, muscular twist, the Serpent dragged the thrashing Siren away from the shore and into the inky black lake at the center of the cavern.

Verso scrambled backward, his boots sliding on the wet stone as he gasped for air.

He wiped a streak of Siren slimy blood from his cheek as his eyes darted around the cavern. When he had got out of the hoax, the space around him completely changed from what he had first seen.

’It looks just like how it did during the exam!’

The beautiful, clean paradise he had seen before was gone. The illusion was completely shattered, replaced by a dark gloomy underground cavern dominated by that familiar black inky lake in the center.

In the center of the dark pool, the Sea Serpent was finishing the job.

It coiled its powerful, muscular body around the Siren, constricting with enough force to make the water churn violently.

The monster tried its hardest to fight back, its claws striking down the Serpent’s scales in a desperate attempt to find a weak point but it was to no avail.

The Serpent was a tier above the Siren when it came to physical stats.

With one final, bone crushing snap, the Sea Serpent bit down on the Siren again, completely chomping off its head and ending the struggle in an insane display of brutality.

[Elite Beast Slain: Lost Siren.]

The blue system chime echoed in his head, but Verso’s expression remained one of deep confusion.

’It is just another Lost Siren... then what was with that hallucination?’

During the exam, he had experienced the Siren’s mind control, but it had been a physical puppet mastery through sound.

What he had just experienced right now though, was different, it was a complete sensory override that had nearly led him to death, and the worst part of it was that he had not even seen it coming.

’Maybe this is just another skill of the Siren...’

He looked back at the Nameless Skeleton standing behind him.

To his surprise, the seven foot summon was standing tall, excitedly cheering for the Sea Serpent who had just won the battle.

Little Bone was clattering its jaw and waving its massive arms as if it had just watched the greatest fighting performance of its life.

Verso realized that just like last time, the skeleton had not been affected by the mental trap at all. It had just stood there, watching its master walk into a monster’s mouth, only intervening at the final second with a slap.

’Maybe it is because he is a beast...’

Looking at Little Bone continuing to cheer for a fight that had already ended, he reconsidered.

’or maybe he just doesn’t have a brain.’

Verso clicked his tongue in a mix of regret and irritation. He had fallen for the Siren’s trap again, proving that he still had a long way to go.

Time and time again, these encounters taught him the same brutal lesson that stats were not the only metric of a formidable foe.

A creature like the Lost Siren stood out because of those specialized mind attacks, which was a factor that could end a summoner before they even knew the fight had started.

"Enough. Let’s move."

With a flick of his hand, Verso pulled the Sea Serpent and the Nameless Skeleton back into his summoning space.

The cavern returned to a heavy, oppressive silence as he turned around to leave the cavern, walking back out onto the white sands of the beach.

He stood there for a moment, staring out at the horizon of the Island.

’What do I do now? I can’t just reset the realm every time I kill a single Siren. It’s too inefficient.’

He scanned the landscape, looking for any other points of interest.

As his gaze drifted toward the center of the island, he stopped his sentence midway. Something about the massive mountain in front of him felt different than it had before.

As he had been flying around this entire time, he had not noticed the detail. But looking from below, he saw a massive cave entrance carved into the lower half of the mountain.

It was hidden behind thick, grey vines that seemed to pulse with a life of their own.

’That was not there in the dungeon, was it?’

The entrance was easily forty feet wide, a dark hole bored into the very foundation of the mountain. It did not look natural at all, the edges were too clean.

Just as he said this, he suddenly saw movement inside the cave, almost as if something vast and pale shifted deep within the stone.

His survival instincts kicked in as he felt dread spread through his mind.

He instantly summoned the Reinforced Gargoyle and scrambled onto its back.

"Get me out of here, now!" He shouted in desperation.

The massive summon listening to his commanded started beating its wings, shooting straight up into the air.

Verso gripped the ridges of its neck but his eyes were still fixed on the cave below. But even before he could get far, something happened that defied logic.

In an instant, outside of the massive cave, jumped a gargantuan, pale Wyrm.

Its body was as thick as a plane, covered in translucent scales that caught the sun. Although the creature did not seem to have wings, it still shot straight for him with its mouth open wide.

"What the fuck-"

Before Verso could even issue a command to dodge, the massive beast collided with the Gargoyle, destroying it instantly as it shattered into pebbles by the sheer force of the impact.

Verso did not even have time to register the loss of his summon as in the next heartbeat, he was inside the maw of the massive creature.

He saw rows upon rows of saw like teeth for a fraction of a second before the jaws snapped shut, making his vision go dark.