CHAPTER 135(New Moves)

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

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CHAPTER START---

"So...plan?" Welf asks, seeing the three monsters menacingly strutting toward him and Thalie.

"Let's not take any chances, we can focus the middle one first and hit it as hard as we can, then we break off and see what they're made of," she says, raising her spear and focusing her magic into it.

Glancing over to her, Welf sees her hands, from the forearm to fingers glowing with a faint yellow light as well as her feet from shins to the tip of her toes.

"That's new..." he says as they start running toward the monsters.

"Yeah, I'll explain after," the woman says as they see the monster in the middle gaining distance from the others as it takes the lead.

As the monsters close in the blue lightning become more excited on their fur, dancing around and sparking violently at Thalie and Welf.

Both adventurers raise their magic weapons to defend against the bolt. Her spear, Liberty, glowing brilliantly while his sword, Mosoka, is completely red on all sides. As if it were just heated in his forge.

The moment the monster pounces forward, it turns into a spin. Doing multiple barrel rolls as it hurls through the air like a supercharged bullet.

Both Welf and Thalie are startled by this, only for a moment as they raise their weapons and bring them down. Thalie thrusts forward with all her strength while Welf does a massive vertical swing.

As Mosoka is brought down flames erupt on the blade and extend it from four feet to a five-foot buster sword, made entirely of blood-red flames molded into a solid form. The blood-red flames are compressed repeatedly making...something completely new.

'Flame Construct; Greatsword,' Welf mentally commands as he draws upon all his hours of practice.

As the three attacks clash, weapons smashing against electrified horns. Both adventurers can feel their hands burning and straining under the force, this lasts for a tense moment before the sound of sizzling is heard.

What they couldn't see behind the blinding light of the clash was with Welf's cutting heat and Thalie's piercing power they'd long broken the horns of the monster, their weapons now carving into its skull.

While Thalie's spear stops at the brain Welf's slash continues. Dividing the entire body and the hill behind the monsters, instantly melting the surrounding snow to form a new glacial stream.

A deafening silence befalls the small battlefield as Thalie and the monsters alike stare wide-eyed at Welf, more obviously staring at the fire construct blade in his hand.

"What the fuck is that?" Thalie asks before whipping her head back to the monsters. Both of which were charging forward once more.

"Hahaha, I'll explain after..." Welf says with a hearty laugh as they both begin their battles.

Leaping toward her foe with her limbs enhanced by her magic, Thalie's blows are stronger than ever. Her combat style changes, less slow and methodical. Much more sporadic and brutal, capitalizing on her boosted striking power while making the most of her time limit.

She carefully ducks and weaves the strikes of her enemy, a rough dance but a dance no less as they both lash out in this fight for survival.

"Ugh!" she groans, taking a direct paw swipe, knocking her into the icy ground and carving out a trench with her body.

She barely has time to react to the next attack, the monsters' tail slamming into her directly, she raises her arms to cushion the blow only for the force to slam her forearm into her face, breaking her nose against the armor.

"Mmmm!" she grunts, jumping back into the fight with a new surge of adrenaline, digging into the monster with cuts and stabs. Her spear always hitting the blue scales instead of the reinforced yellow. Even now she was a perfectly trained warrior, she wouldn't hit the armor simply from habit.

Eventually seeing an opportunity, the monster howls, massive bolts of lightning arc outward, taking the chance she draws three shurikens from her armor and throws them at the monster's face. As the blue blades soar through the air, a mere ten feet away from her they transform into jets of blue magic, they each impact the immobile creature as it roars.

As the ice freezes the monster's head temporarily the lighting stops. Before the beast can escape this prison Liberty pierces its chest, Thalie thrusts in with both her hands pushing upward against the body of the monster.

Blood flows down the spear and over the golden glow of the magic on her hands as the body becomes a corpse.

"Hngh," she grunts, heaving the beast to the side and preventing it from falling onto her.

Lifting a hand to her face and deactivating her magic, she feels her broken nose. Looking down at her armor there are burnt spots all around the full plate suit from where the lightning struck. She can feel a burn at the side of her face from the monster's area of effect attacks, she shakes her head and takes out a Hi-Potion while leaping onto the corpse to get a view of Welf's fight.

The moment they separated, as Welf had one monster all to himself he pushed more magic into his fire construct. Controlling the power and heat of the magic technique and place all its power into the edge he charges forward.

The monster raises a paw to swipe at his, the smith knows he doesn't have the strength to parry a level 5, so he simply lets Mosoka do its job.

He raises the edge of the weapon to the massive paw and the blade sliced through the monster with some struggling.

Blood splashed across his face, ignoring the burning liquid on his body he spins around and swings his blade down. stepping toward the shoulder of the monster and cutting its head off in one clean motion.

The moment the lifeless body hits the floor his weapon returns to its inactive state, he's already on one knee panting and chugging a magic restoring potion as if his life depends on it. He feels a headache creeping in, he barely used it for a minute but the strain was taxing on his level 4 Endurance and Magic stats.

Cleaning his face with his sleeve he quickly removes the magic crystal and piles up the loot before sitting in the snow to observe Thalie's fight which was only just beginning.

As Thalie stands on her fresh monster corpse, she sees Welf standing with drop items at his feet giving her a cocky smile.

"What took you so long?" he asks.

"These things are definitely peak level 5," she gives him an uneasy look, "you ok?"

"Yup, two swings and it's dead, didn't even touch me honestly, you?"

"Broken nose, my armor got some burns too from the lighting but all good."

"You guys ok?!" They hear Yang yell as he rushes over the hill toward them.

"What the hell happened to you?" Welf asks, seeing the state of Yang's enchanted clothing and his coat completely shredded.

"Dragon Energy basically made it the same kind of threat as a level 7. Tore right through all my defenses and into my skin..." he explains.

"Hmm," Thalie looks back to the corpse behind her, "ours were only peak level five low level six, that's a big jump in power."

"Did you guys do ok?" Yang asks.

"Easy fight honestly," Welf shrugs.

"It could have gone better, had to use the new trick to get the win this time," Thalie admits, a small frown on her face at the thought.

"Oh the glowing hands a feet thing, what was that?" Welf asks.

"Basically it's the same thing as my charge-up magic attack. When I went into the dungeon to train Yang with the new weapon he got the idea from some story he saw, instead of one attack I split the power into different parts of my body and maintain it longer. Less power but much better in combat, the downside is the longer I use it the more magic it takes each second."

"So like a temporary boost in striking power?"

"Basically, but what about you, fire swords?" Thalie asks.

"Fire swords?" Yang asks, completely confused.

"It's something I've been working on since I got Mosoka actually. Remember when we were training and you said my flame control was better than yours?" he asks Yang.

"Yeah, what about it?"

"Well you showed me how you made a sword, it was just a flame that you could slightly control to make a sword-like shape, I figured if my control is so much better..." he draws his weapon and holds it out for them to see.

As the entire tuning fork-shaped weapon glows bright red a small sword blade forms on one of the prongs. Glowing blood red with no flames flickering off it, all completely condensed and contained in this blade.

"I call them my Fire Constructs, kinda fits since I'm a smith right?"

"Uh-huh...you made a lightsaber..." Yang reaches forward and touches it. As his finger hit the blade he feel a solid object, not a flame but more like he tapped a piece of metal. He can even feel it warm to the touch. "It's warm..." he says with obvious amazement in his voice.

"I'd say it's a bit more than warm," Thalie gestures to the glacial stream Welf carved into the floor earlier.

"No...I'm fireproof, and it's warm," at his word a look of full realization finally dawns on her. She stares down at the blade with wide eyes before Welf disperses it. "Only my big attacks can burn me anymore, for the most part, I'm basically immune to the elements, but I felt your blade's heat. That's serious ridiculous man," he can't help but chuckle and shake his head at the absurdity of it all.

"Guess I'm stronger than I thought huh," Welf looks down at Mosoka with a gleam in his eyes.

"Obviously," Yang puts a hand on his shoulder to get the smith's attention, "this team is made of only freaks, if all of us couldn't punch above our level we wouldn't have gotten this far remember. And you've actually got the most potential of us all," he says while giving the man a warm smile.

This statement earns raised brows from both Thalie and Welf, not at all what they expected. To them and everyone else the order of power was simple, Yang then Thalie, and lastly Welf.

"Me?"

"Yeah, you're the X factor in our team. You can make the things we need, and anything our magic can do you can probably make something to do better, maybe not now but eventually. But you aren't limited to one person using it like us. Even those magic swords you and Thalie are carrying, that's basically having my magic as an item, so don't forget that. You're invaluable to any team... You're the man who's gonna make something to impress even Hephaestus remember?"

Welf was stunned by this revelation. He'd never really considered this perspective. Standing shoulder to shoulder with people like Yang and Thalie would cause even adventurers matching their levels to shrink into their shadow.

But here was the most powerful adventurer he'd even met. A man who broke every record and had the most absurd magic...speaking to him on more than even footing, even while being two levels away. It almost brought a tear to the smith's eyes.

"Yeah... one day," Welf says as he wipes his clean sleeve across his face.

"Alright, let's loot these corpses so you can make some cool shit and get out of here," Yang says.

Before Welf can walk away Thalie stops him, looking him right in the eyes, "if we didn't think you were good enough you wouldn't be here, this team only has three people for a reason...try to remember that," she says before walking toward the monster to inspect the corpse with Yang.

"Right..." Welf takes a deep breath, letting the cold air fill his chest," just us against the dungeon, we're the only ones this far down for a reason..."

END CHAPTER---

New moves are explained in the Author Thoughts below :)