"DUCK!"
At Lily's words, the 6 students dove toward the ground, narrowly avoiding the slash as it whizzed right above their heads.
Glancing ahead, Lily looked at where the cloaked figure had been previously, but he was no longer there. In fact, he wasn't anywhere in their sight; he had disappeared right back into the smoke.
Snapping Lily out of her thoughts, Liam spoke up with his sword aimed towards the smoke.
"It's just one of them."
"Even if it's just one... we have to get to the exit and defeat him while he just has to stop us from clearing out the exit."
Nodding at Alya's words, Lily regrouped with others, her wand ready to cast a spell at any moment.
"We need to do something about that smoke."
"Oh, good fucking insight, Captain Obvious. What? Are you going to tell us we need to escape this room next?"
"Kevin and Liam. Is this really the time?"
"..."
"..."
Irene, standing at the edge of the group with the fire still burning in her hand, considered using her fire to burn away the smoke but dismissed it because it could backfire and add more smoke.
Yet again, she was useless.
Interrupting the silence, Alya asked.
"Lily, why don't you use water to dilute the smoke and make it slowly disappear."
"That could work... but the time it would take."
"Why don't we just go into the smoke and take him out? It's a 6v1."
"I think we might actually agree on something, Liam. Am I dreaming?"
"Shut it, moron."
Lily turned to Alya, Zach, and Irene, who nodded their heads at Liam's suggestion. Why did they need to devise a complicated plan?
It was 6 main cast members against some random third-rate villain!
Recalling the earlier scene where Alya's icicles came flying back at her, Lily nodded her head before saying.
"Alright, but be careful of your own spells as well as his."
"Yeah, don't worry about it, Lily. I'll take care of that random for you."
"Yo, Kevin, do you even think before you speak? Like, are you really flirting right now? This might actually be a dream."
"Big talk from someone who's never spoken to a girl."
"Yo, are you fucking stup-"
"Time and place, you two."
At this point, Lily felt like a chaperone on a kindergarten field trip. Was she really entrusting the fate of the world to these two?
As the 6 of them got ready to charge into the smoke, Zach pulled out his hand and placed it in the center of their huddle.
"t-team Celestial Academy on 3! 3... 2..."
"Yo, shut the hell up, will you?"
"..."
This time, Lily didn't even intervene at Kevin's ill-tempered words.
While Liam, Kevin, and Zach directly charged into the smoke with their weapons pointed forward, Lily, Alya, and Irene stood at the edge with their wands shining, indicating that their spells were ready to be cast.
Inside the smoke, Zach, having lost sight of both Liam and Kevin, swung around his axe, temporarily clearing the smoke before it immediately regrouped.
The villain couldn't have planned the smoke, as Alya spontaneously decided to send the icicles. That meant if Zach couldn't see, the enemy couldn't either.
Thus, Zach didn't feel any need to be prepared while walking around. His main goal was to locate the villain and relay his location to the 3 girls, who were waiting with their spells ready outside the smoke.
Swinging his battle axe once again, Zach cleared the smoke in front of him. Through that gap he cleared, he could see a pitch-black elemental slash charging towards him.
Then, next the second, the gap closed, and the smoke regrouped, hiding Zach's vision of elemental slash.
Blindly diving to the right, Zach felt something bang against his chest and looked downwards, seeing that he was now lying flat on a table.
Having the wind knocked out of him due to the diving on the table, Zach struggled to get up until, finally, he was able to sit upright on the top of the table.
Looking forward, Zach saw something variation in the grey fog. A pitch-black color was spreading and replacing the grey color of the fog. The black color was spreading quickly towards the area where Zach was sitting down.
Before Zach could react or dodge, he heard a voice speaking directly into his ears.
"Have a good dream."
With a soft chop on the nape of Zach's neck, he fell unconscious, his body sprawled out across the half-broken table.
Somewhere else in the large fog, Liam and Kevin were walking side by side, searching for the cloaked figure.
"Why the hell are you following me?"
"Is your ego so big that you trick yourself into believing the lies you make, Kevin?"
"Aren't you a delusional one? You're quite literally following me right now."
"Can you put aside your ego for one fucking second? Do you really wanna split up in this gigantic smoke? Why would we let the villain fight us 1 by 1 instead of just fighting him together?"
" *tsk* You really are delusional. Didn't you leave behind, Zach?"
"I lost track of him in the fog, so I followed you. Is that all of your questions? Do you want to know my favorite colors and hobbies now?"
"Look ah-"
"Oh no, Kevin, maybe you want to know my favorite dish? My fav-"
"LOOK AHEAD OF YOU."
Sensing the urgency in Kevin's voice, Liam looked forward and saw smoke suddenly parting, revealing the cloaked figure only a few steps in front of them.
"HERE!"
Instantly, dozens of icicles, fireballs, and wind bullets flew towards the three of them, causing the smoke to further disperse.
Combined with the fact that Lily had been slowly diluting the smoke with water magic, the smoke was on its last legs, as you could actually see through parts of it now.
As the spells neared the figure of the defenseless villain, who couldn't even dodge as Kevin and Liam were surrounding him, a smile appeared on Liam's face.
A moment later, that smile disappeared.
"w-what?"
The villain was gone; he had disappeared.
The spells meant for the villain hit the wall behind him, causing further damage to the room. As a result, more rubble fell from the roof, further blocking the exit route.
"BE CAREFUL!"
Hearing Lily's scream behind him, Liam snapped out of his confusion and disbelief before surveying his surroundings. The smoke was now gone, or in other words, the villain had nowhere to hide.
After looking around the room a moment, Liam was about to walk to the other side of the room to search when a sudden shriek echoed from behind him.
"HEL-"
Instantly, Liam turned around to see a masked figure standing right behind Irene with his hand wrapped around her mouth.
Before Liam could even react, Lily was already on the move. She summoned a portal that immediately flung out an endless amount of water right at the villain.
However, it was too late. Irene's body fell onto the floor, and most importantly, the fires dancing on Irene's palm disappeared, returning the room to complete darkness.
The moonlight shone through the windows, illuminating the villain standing over Irene's body, still holding the odd pitch-black shapes.
Facing the water beam directly, the villain held his daggers up to the water, slightly faltering and being pushed back by the pressure of the water.
Recovering from their shock, the other 3 immediately made their moves as Liam and Kevin charged toward the villain while Alya summoned a lance made out of pure ice and hurled it at the villain.
However, the villain remained in front of the water beam, not making any attempts to dodge or move.
Then, the water beam halted. Lily watched in confusion as the source of the water beam, the portal, moved without her permission and flung towards the villain.
Now with the portal floating right above the villain's head, the water beam flowed out of the portal once again, this time heading straight for the charging Kevin and Liam.
Surprised by the sudden twist, the two barely managed to dodge as the water beam grazed Kevin's clothes, immediately causing him to become drenched.
As the portal changed directions and hit the ice lance, instantly shattering it into hundreds of pieces, Liam and Kevin scrambled to regroup with Lily, who was standing in front of one of the windows.
A moment later, the portal entirely disappeared, and the villain, who was no longer illuminated by the moonlight, was nowhere to be seen.
"LILY, WHAT THE HELL WAS T-"
"No time for questions, Liam; there's been a change of plans."
Gesturing towards the window beside her, Lily said.
"There's another way to leave."
Considering the option for the moment, Alya asked.
"How are we going to get everyone out of here? Zach, Irene, and the others. Sure, we can make it out, but not them."
"Welp guys, we've tried our best, I think it is t-"
"Shut it, Kevin, and listen to her."
Seeing Liam gesture to her, Lily opened the window and continued.
"Look down."
On the surface of the ocean below the window stood 3 normal-sized ships, each equipped with various canons.
"w-what, h-how? I thought you didn't tell anyone e-"
"Look closely, Liam."
Upon closer inspection, Liam realized that each boat was plastered with Elven royal family symbols, and the boat's flag was the image of the World Tree.
"W-was this your backup plan...?"
As Alya and Lily nodded their heads, Kevin angrily exclaimed.
"WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL US?"
"Would you really have stalled to the best of your abilities if you knew it was all a diversion?"
Having no response to Lily's question, Kevin muttered something under his breath before turning to Liam, who responded.
"Does it even matter anymore? Let's get going."
While Alya and Lily went to the bodies of the two fallen main cast members, Liam gathered the students and guided them through the darkness towards the open window.
Beside Liam stood Kevin, who had his sword equipped and ready for any attack that could come.
However, there was no attack.
The four of them gathered all of the students, even the drunken and uncoscous ones, at the open window.
"...isn't something off."
"Liam's right, Lily. The villain can't just be letting us go..."
"Maybe, he got scared of my almightyness and ran off."
"Kevin, I don't think you even got close to him for more than a second."
Maintaing a calm composure, Lily simply pulled out her wand and turned to the others.
"Get ready."
In her mind, there was only one reason why the villain would stop attacking.
Reinforcements had arrived for him.
The ground shook, and the roof above the food area collapsed, causing more rubble to fall and block the original exit.
After all the dust was cleared out, the image of 5 djinns, each with a set of red horns and longswords, could be seen standing on the remannts of the roof.