CHAPTER 99(The Fourth Crown)

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

Discord: https://discord.gg/K7f8qGpvuk

pat.treon:/Keanu_Eugene

CHAPTER START---

Tiona lowers her hands as she began pouring a potion onto herself, healing the burns she received from sheer proximity. She dreads to imagine what being down on the battlefield felt like.

The blinding clash of fire and ice forced itself all the way to her spot outside the battlefield. She was fortunate that the runoff didn't melt the stone around her. Barefoot on lava isn't pleasant after all.

Looking over the edge of her cover, she saw the aftermath of the attack.

Balor looked as if it were catching its breath from that attack. 'Must have a cooldown' she thought, not uncommon for large attacks from monsters.

Her eyes pass over the molten stone that made up the battlefield, even the Balor was currently ankle-deep in the stone. The arena was properly destroyed, all aside from one small island of solid, heated, but still solid stone.

With his unbreakable sword piercing the ground, Welf knelt down with both hands burnt to the hilt of his blade, the weapon still red hot from shielding them from the attack.

Starting from him and widening in the shape of a cone, the rock wasn't melted.

Yang knelt behind him, hands up to his shoulders frozen, caked in frost from using that much magic all at once. Panting heavily as he takes desperate shallow breaths.

Thalie ignored her burnt face as well as the searing pain on the left side of her body as she pours an elixir onto each of his hands, she's more than trained enough to ignore the pain and prioritize healing their biggest asset.

"You guys ok?" Yang forces himself to speak.

"Uh...huh..." Welf groans out, tearing his flesh from the metal of his weapon, the sound not going unnoticed by his allies as his hands begin pouring blood. He quickly reaches into his pouch in his kimono for a potion and begins treating it.

"I'm good, can you use your hands still?" Thalie asks Yang, clear concern in her voice.

"Yeah, gonna have to finish with them, I've got enough magic to give us a foothold, then it's just force from there..." Yang groans out, forcing himself to stand.

"Gotcha, let's finish this," Welf stands up, putting Mosoka away and once again drawing the adamantite greatsword.

"I'll make an opening, make it count," Yang bites out as he walks in front of Welf.

With a stomp, a wave of cold washes over the liquid floor, not enough to make it solid, but enough that they won't immediately sink in, a direct path to Balor.

Gritting his teeth once more, Yang takes a deep breath as he feels his heart rate rise, he'd spent days upon days practicing this, now was the time to use it for real.

"AAAHHHHH!" he screams out, familiar red marks appearing all across his body, chaos flowing into his being as he locks his gaze onto the Balor, no, not the Balor, just the thing that's IN HIS WAY.

With a never-before-seen speed from him, he charges forward, his footsteps forming craters in the brittle stone, liquid rock forms waves that crash across the battlefield as he charges the Balor.

All strategy leaves his mind as his desires take over.

Win.

Survive.

Overcome.

His only thoughts.

The Balor stands its ground, why wouldn't it, after all, injured or not it is the level 7 monster rex, the strongest monster on the first 58 floors, a king.

With every swing of its sword, Yang punches the blade. This clash goes on and on.

Every time it misses, he lands a hit on its body, the monster buckles under his strength, but never gives an inch.

As Welf and Thalie chug potions, running up to Yang as they wait for their opening, they watch this brawl with unwavering gazes.

He wasn't winning by any means, but he wasn't dying either, not without a fight at least.

As he stalled long enough, they both began charging their magic, in an incredible display of sheer bullheadedness. Yang refused to give an inch, his desire was so great that his body, his falna, his spirit itself forced something that he'd been trying to do for weeks.

His mage armor flared to life while he was using the Chaos Mark.

Blue flames appeared on his body, rapidly consuming what little mana he had as Balor raised his sword once more.

Pouring every drop of mana he had into his armor, he condenses it all into his right fist as the sword swoops down at him.

*BOOM*

Their attacks clash, Balor's strike was much weaker than when the battle had first started, just weak enough for Yang to handle.

He could feel the bones in his arms crack and strain, but not break. A testament to his stronger, higher-level body. His stats plus skills and the chaos mark made him an absolute unit, and Balor was about to realize.

With a deafening cracking sound, Balor's longsword shatters, molten metal is sprinkled all across the battlefield as the flames in the blade explode between both opponents.

Balor is unharmed by the explosion, Yang, however, is not that fortunate.

As the explosion goes off he barely has time to realize what's happening before he feels the force and heat wash over his body. He can taste his own blood before he feels his head bounce off the stone floor. It ragdolls him across the room, skipping him across the stone like a pebble across a lake. He catches a glimpse of Welf and Thalie running past him, their eyes completely focused on the enemy as they keep preparing their weapons, then all he sees is the far wall approaching him much too fast for comfort.

As Balor stumbled back from the explosion, not from the flames but from the sheer force of the blast, the liquid rock at his feet causing him to lose his footing for barely a moment, Thalie and Welf are already upon him.

When his one arm flails helplessly into the air, Welf is the first to act, jumping up to the chest of the monster, he slams Mōsōka into the boss's chest, pouring all his remaining magic into his sword, the heat at the very center of Balors chest dissipates. His bright red flesh becomes almost a sickly grey as the heat shield is weakened, as he loses hold of his weapon, his eyes heavy, the last thing he sees is Thalie raising her spear high.

With one final thrust, using her magic on her spear and arm much like she did against Tiona, Thalie leaps up and plunges the tip of her weapon directly into the center of the boss's chest.

The bright gold weapon disappears into the grey flesh as blood splurts through the gaps in her armor. Her entire right arm, from the tip of her fingers to her collar bone shatters, bones protruding through the skin beneath her armor. But she never loses her grip.

"AHHHRRRRGGGG!"

She cries out, tightening her grip as she plunges the weapon a bit further, until the resounding cracking noise is heard across the chamber.

With a loud shattering sound, Balor turns to blue dust as Thalie and Welf fall to the ground weakly, the monster crystal falling nearby with her spear, Liberty, still embedded into it.

Taking out an elixir from her pouch, she quickly downs it, trying desperately to regain whatever stamina she can.

As the liquid takes effect, she falls onto her back, taking greedy breaths as her adrenaline slowly comes down.

"YANG! WELF!" her calls are answered with silence as the words echo around the chamber.

After a few more deep breaths, a loud impact is heard behind her, before she can force herself up to see what it is...

"THAT WAS AMAZING!" Tiona cheers as she approaches Thalie, Yang already slung over her shoulder, completely unconscious.

"Did you bring down those elixirs by chance?" Thalie's question is answered by Tiona quickly handing her an open elixir.

"Thanks."

"You guys actually beat it, uh, can we get out of here before we get you healed up... kinda hot," Tiona points out, Thalie takes a look at the girl to notice she's constantly switching feet, bare feet.

"This is why you need boots amazon, let's go..."

The walk back to the safe zone was rather uneventful. Carrying Yang and Welf on her shoulders while Tiona drags the Balor's horn and crystal behind her. Both women make it back to camp by quietly avoiding any monsters they can.

Hours of slow walking later, they find themselves back at camp. Loki familia's crates are still where they left them, the tents are unbothered atop the plateau. No other adventurers are supposed to be this far right now anyway.

Putting Yang and Welf down, the girls gently strip them down before pouring some elixirs onto them and bandaging them up. Leaving them in their tent for a while as Thalie goes to get herself cleaned up.

As she removes her armor, Tiona has to help her rebreak the bones as she pours elixir onto them, ensuring they rebind properly.

Throughout the entire process, Tiona can't help but look Thalie up and down as the woman continues to unclip her armor.

"You're cute but not my type kid..." Thalie jokes as she takes off her undershirt, showing off her muscular body.

"It's not like that, I was just wondering..."

"Spit it out," she pours another elixir over her shoulder.

"How come you guys are so strong, and what was that magic you used?" the amazon asks with some apprehension, understanding adventurers didn't exactly like to share this kind of information.

"We're strong to fight for our goals, and my magic lets me hit hard, longer I wait harder I hit but then I can't use it for a while, that's all your getting," Thalie shrugs as she inspects herself for any more injuries.

"Uh-huh, it's just, you killed Balor, two new level 5s and a level 4...killed a level 7 monster rex, how can I not want answers?" Tiona whines as she does her best pout.

"Uh-huh, fine, I'm only gonna explain this once alright. 1, we aren't normal. 2, Our gear is way better than anything your familia has in terms of weapons, we don't have a traditional mage to need something that competes with Nine Hell's staff so that's not a factor. 3, we've got Yang. I'm sure you saw him punch the sword and break it, and his magic negated a lot of the problems from the fight, not to mention his plan..."

"What was his plan anyway, you never really told me everything about it."

With a sigh, Thalie decides to divulge, it's not like Finn wouldn't put it together when Tiona fills him in any way.

"Balor has two weapons, each channeling a differed element, his entire room heats up, and it immediately started to cool after he was dead for a while remember?"

"Uh, yeah..."

"And our team is good against fire, so we removed his lightning first because?" she asks the amazon.

"Because... wait, why not just rush the fire sword first then if you didn't have to be as scared of it?"

"Exactly my thought process, this is why Yang handles monsters and I handle people, same rules don't apply. He figured that whichever element you remove would cause the other to get stronger, because Balor wouldn't have to split its mana between them. Since we're good at dealing with fire we chose to empower the fire element."

"Ohhh, that explains all the ice stuff, and you didn't use any until the fire got stronger right?"

"Exactly, when we were defending from the strongest attack, Yang realized he wouldn't have enough mana to keep using magic for much longer, without a weapon getting to the crystal of larger monsters isn't easy so he let me deal with that, he got rid of the sword and staggered it so Welf could remove some of the heat shielding Balor for me to finish him, get it now?"

"Uh, yeah... he's pretty smart," Tiona admits, her face contorted with a bit of confusion as she tries to make sense of their plan.

"Yeah, atleast when it comes to the dungeon and monsters..."

END CHAPTER---

This is why I didn't make Yang into a solo leveling style character, this provides more story options than just bullying everything you fight in my opinion.