Chapter 14(The First Solo Expedition Pt.3)

Please read the author's notes. (Examples and explanation of moves and appearance+ Monster Sources)

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CHAPTER START------

Stepping into the 12th floor Yang found more of the same cave walls with the exception of trenches in the ground sparsely littering the floor. He slowly walks through the floor room after room and to his pleasant surprise found them completely empty 'I guess I was right, spending time resting would have just been a waste. Even if it was more of those rabbit creatures it's not like they can stop me'. As he continues walking he is only accompanied by the silence of the rooms so he simply summons a ration from his inventory and begins eating away at the blueberry-flavored biscuit.

Finishing his ration and almost reaching the middle room of this floor he notices that this room is different. There are no rock protrusions and this cavern seems to be much bigger than the regular dungeon rooms. This room was a jagged circular shape almost 200 feet in diameter and the floor had piles of broken rock scattered about. Pausing for a moment he used the presence of the light bugs to observe his surroundings from the floor to the ceiling in case anything was going to drop onto him but he found nothing. Calmly walking across the room to the large exit door on the opposite end he strides with fervor until he reaches almost to the center of the room, then it struck him.

In only a moment everything went from calm and boring to an absolute crisis. First came the rumbling, low at first but as he took one more step rocks and dust blinded him as it launched its ambush. He reacted quickly and activated both Mage Armor and AMP to doge out of the way but as he jumped backward to make distance he felt his right leg get held, then crushed, then shattered completely. "Arghhhhh!!!!!" He screamed out in pain as he felt something clamp down onto his shattered leg like a vice. His gear is the only thing stopping whatever it was from tearing his leg off completely.

It felt as if a dozen hammers were slammed into his leg as the pain was almost blinding, his adrenaline kept him away from passing out due to shock but it also made him lash out at his attacker. In a moment of pure instinct, he coated his fist in fire, wind, and lightning with what little magic he has left as he struck out with as much strength he could through the wall of dust that was now surrounding him. His punch struck true and did in fact make contact, the force of the impact cleared the dust cloud and revealed a creature's head that was almost the size of his torso. His leg in its mouth and its small black eyes staring directly at him as what appears to be an armored shell covered it completely from head to toe.

His fist made an impact and this one attack immediately made its way onto his list of stupid decisions for the day. As the impact pushed the dust away a faint cracking sound could be heard as some of the bones in his right hand fractured. "Ahhhhh" He screamed out once more. The little magic behind the attack only seemed to piss off the creature as it stood on the floor at a full 8 feet tall on all fours and began to thrash around slamming him into the ground repeatedly. His blood coated his leg slowly helping him escape its mouth as he tried his best to hold on to prevent his leg from being removed. Every time he got slammed into the floor his body quaked and bones were tested but not broken, luckily.

He eventually got a grip on the creature and focused lightning element into his body but instead of using AMP, he elected to use 'SHOCKING GRASP' which transforms parts of his body into effectively a taser. Thankfully for him, it worked as the creature dropped him before it began to reel in pain with smoke leaving its tongue. Being thrown 20 ft away and rolling to a stop he quickly summoned a health potion and a mana potion to his hand and began to chug them as the creature was still reeling in pain. Not taking his eyes off the creature while drinking the potions he observed as the 15 ft long(Including 4ft tail) and 8ft( On all fours) creature with a grey and brown tough hide slowly stopped reeling in pain and shifted its body to look directly at his as it began charging.

Feeling the effects of both the potions slowly helping his body he elects to stall until he can escape or fight. Boosting himself into the air by creating flames on his back he shot 40ft into the air as he traveled 60ft across the room before slowing his fall and landing on his side. His leg was still shattered to the point that he couldn't even limp on it, much less fight. As he saw the creature's charge miss it elected to do something that he truly didn't expect for its size. In a matter of seconds, its massive body was completely underground as it burrowed at absurd speeds and left almost no trace of itself aside for the destruction in its wake. 'Ok that's a problem, it's too tough for me to brawl with unless I restore enough mana, I don't have enough mana to boost myself to the next floor for safety and my leg is busted so I can't run, I really need to get creative'.

As he strategized, he decides to buy himself time by boosting up and against the wall of the room as he summons his longsword and drives it into the side of the cave allowing himself to hang on it instead of staying on the ground. 'Ok Yang c'mon think, it attacked you without seeing you so it can probably tell where you are on the floor, you almost break your hand by punching it without enough magic, and it's too fast to outrun like this. Ugh, how the hell am I supposed to beat this thing, maybe I really should have listened to Tsubaki and brought a team'. As he tried and failed to form a plan he saw the creature burrow out of the ground directly where he was laying only moments ago.

'Ok so definitely can't go on the floor, can't hang here forever so I need to figure something out, I hurt it before but that was from using lightning to shock inside its mouth. Ugh, I'm not going into a monster, and I don't think it's big enough to eat me without chewing anyway so something else.' As Yang observed his opponent the creature sniffed the air before craning its head to gaze directly at him. Not even a moment later it approached the wall his sword was embedded into and he was hanging from and slowly sank its claws deep into the wall. "NO" he said out loud to himself the creature begins to slowly climb the vertical wall using its long 6 inch claws "Nonononon that's not fair cmon" as Yang saw this he knew his time was up and quickly pulled himself to sit on the flat end of his sword as he pulled out another mana potion and chugged it immediately. by now the creature was only 15 feet under him on the vertical wall and his feet were not far from its mouth.

'Ok fuck it here goes' he thought as he placed his sword back into his inventory and fell headfirst with his right hand in a fist aimed at the creature's mouth and his left hand bent to grab the creature's face. As he fell the creature opened its mouth to catch him which he happily allowed. The moment his hand reached the mouth of the creature it took up to his bicep into its mouth and bit as hard as it could. this hand had already had some of the bones in his fist cracked so he didn't have much of a choice. It simply didn't have the strength to hold the creature's face and prevent him from being pulled into its mouth, what it could do however was use magic.

With broken bones and blood everywhere his gauntlet on his right hand began to burn with fire and wind magic as he clenched his fist. " Arghhhh!" He screamed as pain shot through his being as the cracked bones in his hand were forced into a fist. A small sphere of fire began to form and as he opened his first, an explosion rocked the entire room "FIREBALL!". Smoke and dust filled the room as Yang fell 20 feet to the floor on his back and didn't have the energy or magic to soften his fall, not to mention his right arm and leg being injured at this point. His entire body was in pain and his mana was abysmally low leaving him no choice but to hope for the best and drink potions. This would be his 3rd mana potion and 2nd and 3rd health potion for this fight alone. He now only had one of each remaining and had to be extremely careful on the next floors. As he lay there he weighed his options.

'This thing really took me by surprise which could have killed me, if it were anyone else they probably would have been more careful and had a team and a healer to help them with it. If I go further I need to be able to run away just in case so having enough mana to always run in the future is good. I'll also not have any potions aside from one of each for the next rooms until I get to the safe zone so that's a problem too. Ugh, maybe I should turn back, that's honestly not a bad idea, then again I have the hunter skill so once I'm careful with the first one the rest will be way easier, and once I'm careful I should be fine from here. I guess getting the safe zone should be fine as long as I keep enough mana to run away, I'm fairly sure I'm faster than most if not all of these creatures once I have mana anyway. I've got time before this floor respawns so I should be fine to rest for a bit and use my skills to regain some health and mana, I really need to be careful in the future'.

As Yang sat with his back against the wall of the large room and looked at the monster crystal 30 ft away from him, he did not even want to get up and take the crystal right now. He only wanted to rest. Taking stock of his potions, weapon, and lastly his gear. "Oh god damn it, my fucking gauntlets destroyed!" he loudly exclaimed as he looked at his now mostly missing right gauntlet and sees his hand bare as day with only pieces of a glove of Hellhound hide where his gauntlet once was.

CHAPTER END------