CHAPTER 198(Emperor Of Elders -II-)

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---

Sitting at the edge of his bed back home, Yang stares at the door to his room.

The light footsteps of his family getting prepared for their morning reaches his ears, and keeps him paralyzed, terrified, numb.

Looking down at his hands he sees his right hand as flesh, but his left hand is metal. Below the wrist on the underside, he sees the symbols of The Trifecta and Hephaestus.

Clenching his fist he feels no magic, he can feel the cool air of his room and the warmth of the morning sunlight shining on his bare back. His mind felt like he was walking through fog with a dim light calling out to him.

'If I just, sit here...nothing happens,' he thinks to himself. Knowing how this morning ends.

Walk into the kitchen, have breakfast with his family, get cast into another world, and perhaps never see them again. But he could just avoid that, maybe if he just sits here, nothing happens.

Looking down at his metal hand again he flexes each finger, the enchantments are still active for it to respond just as a regular hand would.

'Maybe I already got back?' he questions. It would explain the memories and the hand at least.

"Yang!" his mom shouts from what sounds like the kitchen, "you'll be late, get dressed you need to eat!"

He stares at the shut door for a moment in shock, "Mom?!" he immediately gets up and walks to the door. All logical and rational thinking gone as he hears her voice saying his name, a voice he'd been wanting to hear again for over a year. Desire overcomes reason as he reaches for the cold door handle and turns it.

"WELF!" Hephaestus's voice echoes all around him in a panicked shout. The entire building seems to shake with each word the goddess speaks. "YANG! THALIE! ANYONE!"

"Hephaestus?" Yang looks around confused as the walls begin to crack, the ceiling begins to pull itself apart as the quakes continue.

"Hello!" Hephaestus calls out once more causing the building to become undone.

"NO!" Yang yells out as he rushes through the hallway, within the five large steps it takes for him to run to the corner and even get a glimpse of his family, the building comes apart, the world comes apart.

In a flash of blinding white light his head snaps up to be greeted by darkness. The sound of labored breathing meets his ears as he feels intense pain wracking his body. He feels dried blood all along his back and immense weight trying to crush him.

"Wh-ACH!" he releases a dry cough as he tries to speak. In the darkness he uses his magic to create water and wet his throat as he takes stock of his situation.

His position was as if he'd been standing with his back to a wall. Pressing as hard as he could to stop the wall from crushing him apparently, judging by the weight he could feel.

"Hello!" Hephaestus calls out once more, only this time he could hear her voice three times, once from what he knew was his metal hand, and two others from the darkness.

"What? Huh? Hephaestus?"

"YANG! What's going on? Why didn't you check in after the boss fight?" the goddess asks.

"Boss fight..." all the memories of what happened comes crashing back to him. He creates a small mote of fire like a lamp and holds it out in front of him. He sees broken stone all around in this small cave-like structure. He sees both Welf and Thalie laying on the floor with cracks in their armor, helmets still on and their chests rising and falling barely enough to know they were alive, breathing sounding labored through the helmets.

The memory of the Sapphire of the Emperor being used. He grabbed them and tried to outrun it, only to fail a few hundred feet away from the exit pathway. Making this small cave in what little time they had and trying to shield them with his body and the dungeon stone.

"Shit, the boss fight," he mutters quietly. "Hephaestus, when did we last check-in?"

"Yesterday before entering the boss room on floor one-hundred, why? Is everything ok?"

"Yeah...yeah, we've just gotta make a new plan, I'll update you when it's over," Yang says as he cuts the call.

As he tries to remove himself from the wall he finds that his body is currently acting as a support pillar, with very small and careful movements he uses Earth Magic to reinforce the small pocket they were in before dropping to his knees.

"I must have used everything to protect us and passed out," he quickly assesses while withdrawing two cases of Elixirs. Walking over to his teammates he removes their helmets and quietly feeds each of them an Elixir as he sits beside them.

As he waits for them to wake up he looks around this small pocket of stone they were in, keeping the air fresh with his magic he sees that the stone appears smooth and extra dense, easily deducing that it was made by his magic.

Sitting down he tries to lean back only to wince in pain as his back touches the wall. Taking one of the Elixirs he pours it onto his back, feeling the burning pain cooling down and breathing easy once again.

"Ahh, that's better," he gives what he just did a second thought as he reaches back with an armored hand. "What the hell," he could feel the armored hand on his bare skin. Removing his helmet he sees the entire back of it cracked and broken in most places leaving just the sides and faceplate intact. Realizing that the entire back of his helmet and torso armor was missing made him glad he wasn't awake to fully experience what happened.

Pouring another Elixir onto himself and drinking a third he takes stock of what he sees once more. This time much more calmy, allowing him to notice Mosoka, firmly grasped in Welf's unconscious hand even now. The stone under it melted to an extent that the handle was the only part above the ground, the rest of the weapon having sunk into molten stone before it cooled.

Across from him was Liberty, scattered across the floor only a foot away from its owner. His own weapon was nowhere in sight, not that he thought it could comfortably fit in this cramped space.

His magic alerting him that it's squared away in his inventory alleviates his mind as he sits back and quickly eats two ration bars to satisfy his growling stomach.

"We won?" Thalie's voice breaks the tense silence causing Yang's head to snap to her.

"We survived, you ok?"

"Yeah, one more Elixir and I'll be in perfect form, you?"

"Already back in form," he says as she sits beside him and downs an Elixir. Without a word Yang passes her a ration bar and continues eating.

"What's the plan?"

"Kill it," Yang says matter-of-factly.

"Ugh," she coughs slightly, almost choking on her food. "You think we can kill it?"

"We can, and we will...we have to, I'm close. I can feel it..."

"One of those attacks took us down even with both of you trying to push back and all this stone between us," she gestures to the area around them. "You seriously think we can fight that thing as is? Maybe if Welf has time to make us some Magic Swords tailored to this fight sure, but I think we should turn back for now."

"Thalie," he looks her in the eyes and gently nods, "I have a plan, we can win this. The Tiamat form made the weakness obvious, I just need you to trust me on this."

She narrows her eyes slightly before softening her gaze, "fine, but Welf is gonna need atleast a few more minutes."

"That's fine, for this to work we can't all show up at once anyway. I need it to burn up some energy trying to get at me before you two show up since I've got the better chance of not dying to it. When he's up just get him up to speed and be ready," he gives her a firm nod.

With a deep sigh, Thalie shakes her head, "alright, just be careful."

"I'm always careful," he gives her a mischievous smile as he puts his helmet back on and stands up.

"You can't even say that lie with a straight face..."

As he turns around Thalie sees the back of his armor completely ruined and winces, the skin was already as good as new but it didn't take too much thought to imagine how horrific those injuries must have been before his skills and magic healed him up.

Moving a few steps away Yang places both his hands on the wall and pushes his magic into the stone, feeling the dense rock fight against him he forces it to part and creates a tunnel back to the surface, almost a dozen meters between them and fresh dungeon air.

"I'm moving us up just in case the fight gets a bit crazy," he gives Thalie a nod before shifting the entire pocket upward till there was only a few inches of stone between them and the room above, easily destructible by either of his friends if needed.

Hopping out of the tunnel Yang immediately summons his weapon and looks around. Standing on guard he only has to take a few seconds before he locks eyes with Safi'Jiva.

'Must have heard the stone shifting,' he assumes while making a small blue flame in his left hand. With a slash of his hand he carves a massive 'X' into the floor behind him, marking the location of his friends so he knows where not to take the fight.

Taking this as a sign to begin, the monster leaps into the air and immediately rushes over to him.

Seeing the massive red dragon gliding toward him Yang immediately rockets off to the left and takes to the sky, with a flap of its wings Safi'Jiva shifts course to follow the obvious target, notably going away from the thin ground above his friends.

While the dragon's roar rattles his bones Yang observes the destruction the boss room endured. Every surface was melted and cooled with an Orario sized crater in the middle of the room to mark the epicenter.

The ceiling was still hundreds of meters above them and Yang could see massive marks from it being warped and cooled by the heat.

Shifting his attention to the dragon quickly catching up to him he looks back to see it only a few dozen meters trailing behind him as they do laps in the room.

'Called it,' he figuratively pats himself on the back as he sees massive amounts of Dragon Energy flowing from the heart through the pathways and into the wings. 'If it's reinforcing itself with Dragon Energy then I need it to empty the tank...'

Looking back Yang sees the monster quickly building energy into its breath attack and instantly switches his stance.

With a mid-air tumble he does a complete 180 and instantly rockets toward the monster.

An orb of volatile blue energy narrowly misses him, he speeds up and pushes wind magic into his weapon.

Covered in and radiating green Wind Magic his Switch-Axe shifts into its greatsword mode. He rolls to the side just enough to avoid the dragon's teeth digging into him and finally hits his target.

With all his strength he performs a perfect vertical slash, pushing more and more magic into the blade of his weapon as it slashes down onto the wing-bone of the monster.

"AHHH!" he cries out while making contact, he feels the bones and muscles in his shoulders and arms strain in the split second it takes for him to bounce off the monster, failing to even get skin deep.

A sudden influx of Dragon Energy had instantly moved to defend the particular part of the monster from his assault, further reinforcing the already superdense and durable hide.

As his weapon bounces off the monster's hide, because of the speed of the collision Yang doesn't have time to adjust causing it to slam into his armored face and chest.

Flipping through the air he manages to regain his balance before colliding with the floor, making a faster and rougher landing than he would have liked as he touches down.

"Ok...maybe that was dumb," he says while shaking his head, trying to get the ringing out of his ear. Opening his eyes just in time he sees the monster trying to divebomb him, before it makes contact it diverts Dragon Energy into its right forelimb and strikes out with a massive punch.

"Shit!" he yells out while leaping away, his powerful legs clearing a hundred feet before he skids to a halt.

At the exact position he previously stood at, the monster smashes up to its elbow into the dense stone floor before the ground begins glowing blue around the limb.

In a powerful display the ground explodes in blue flames sending bits and pieces of rumble high into the air with some stones harmlessly bouncing off Yang's armor.

"Ok, plan B," he says while storing his weapon back into his inventory.

Recalling what he just saw, all the Dragon Energy visibly flowing beneath the skin toward the claws and limb before it buried itself into the strong stone floor gives him an idea.

"Dragon Energy likes to be dense and focused, so let's force it to go everywhere. Firestorm!" Yang cries out as his Elemental Wheel appears at his back with equal parts Fire and Wind.

Contrary to what one would believe, Safi'Jiva is a red dragon but not a fire dragon. Dragon Energy is pure life energy and he acts as a big pool of it, all elements work on this monster, but some are better than others.

As the monster rushes forward it's blinded by a swirling ocean of blue flames. Powerful winds that would move a lesser creature beat against it, the stone floor is slashed by the wind before being melted by the blue flames.

From the outside, both combatants appear to be swallowed by a swirling blue dome of tightly packed fire. Heat radiating outward to bake the entire room, the floor for hundreds of meters quickly become more and more similar to lava.

The massive silhouette of Safi'Jiva remains on display through the otherwise blinding attack, looking around and roaring against the raging flames.

As the flames settle down Yang is revealed hovering in the air with a jet of blue flames under each foot with his arms folded across his chest. The armor slightly glowing as it was already damaged by the initial attack yesterday.

Looking up at him is Safi'Jiva, the Emperor Of Elders, more pissed off than hurt. Small patches of Dragon Energy already receding back to its core as the healing process is complete.

"Need more damage," Yang says as he drops to the floor and switches his Elemental Wheel slightly to incorporate a third element, lightning.

The moment his feet touch the floor Safi'Jiva is already charging at him, ready to shred him to pieces with a claw swipe.

Using his superior speed, his lightning speed. Even if to scale they were the same speed-even for its size and absurd weight as the entirety of Tiamat's sixty-thousand tons was crammed into its body- Dragon Energy was simply on another level entirely.

As the monster rushes toward him with every step its feet sink into the stone floor causing it to flap its wings until it was above solid ground.

Yang felt the room quake as with every bound and step the ground cracks and shatters under the titanic beast, even with its incredible speed, however, it seemed so slow.

To scale, it could have been slightly faster than him, but because it was so much larger he easily avoided the claw swipe and positioned himself below the monster.

'SHOCK ZONE!' with a mental command and practiced ease the wheel of purple lightning at his back glows slightly brighter as he discharges a thunderstorm all at once.

"RAARRRG!" The monster roars as the lightning dances across its body. In the same second that the attack begins it reacts almost as quickly and charges its left claw with Dragon Energy to swipe at Yang, only this time, he doesn't dodge.

"Guh!" he barely makes a sound as the air is knocked out of him before he silently rolls across the stone floor and slams into the far wall of the room. Rolling over and looking up, through his blurry and pained vision he sees Safi'Jiva flying across the kilometer between them, following the shallow trench his body carved into the stone floor before reaching the wall.

"Gah!" he greedily gulps down air, ignoring the pain all across his body and his likely fractured if not broken arm that took most of the hit. Blue flames appear on his body as he activated Mage Armor to begin healing himself. Feeling the ground shaking he looks up with clear vision in time to leap to the side.

Safi'Jiva's massive tail, the end of which is much thicker and made for combat slams into the wall where Yang would have been. Keeping his eyes on the monster he leaps backward and observes its core.

'No real sign of Dragon Energy decreasing...shit,' he thinks while leaping backward.

As he's about to leap off the ground once more, keeping just out of range of the monster, the dragon finally decides to bring out the big moves.

With Yang in mid-air, Safi'Jiva opens its mouth and releases a small blast of Dragon Energy. With the blast smaller than a car, Yang, as always, raises his hands and releases a pillar of blue flames to clash and eventually cancel or beat it.

As he fires his counter forward, however, to his horror the Dragon Energy collides headlong with his body, moving through his flames as if they were nothing, because compared to Dragon Energy, that's all they were, nothing.

The orb of blue energy slams into him and rattles, not just him in his armor, but his brain in his skull as it explodes and knocks him upward. As Yang is falling out of the air, before he can even gather his senses and catch himself or hit the ground, a solid beam of Dragon Energy ten feet wide slams into him.

Hitting him in the chest the beam carries him all the way to the ceiling, hundreds of meters above, and slams into the stone ceiling.

At the moment he was hit Yang instinctively struggled against the attack, flaring up his Mage Armor with his Elemental Wheel as well as his Chaos Mark, an effort in futility as he feels the ceiling slam against his back, then feels himself get pushed dozens of meters into the stone.

For a precious minute, silence reigned on the battlefield...

In the small tunnel carved out by the superheated energy, small footsteps could be heard as Yang walks to the edge, anchored by his magic so he doesn't fall. With the monster standing on guard below Yang walks across the molted stone and stares down at the beast.

Tossing an Elixir vial to the side their eyes meet, reaching up he pulls the final piece of shrapnel out of his face and wipes away the blood.

When the attack had hit him his already greatly damaged helmet couldn't take the hit. When he raised his arms to block, his armored forearms slammed into the faceplate and shattered the helmet entirely, riddling his face with sharp metal and causing it to fall off.

Looking at the monster he see the Dragon Energy that was flowing through it quickly recharging, but slow enough that he could tell that blast actually made it falter even slightly.

'Seems like my attacks aren't as effective at draining it as its own attacks...'

Taking a deep breath Yang prepares to use something that he's never done before, something that he's admittedly neglected simply because it wasn't the most effective option, until now...

Getting into a low crouch on the ceiling as if it were a floor he pushes off. A spiderweb crack forms for dozens of meters across the ceiling as he arrives at the ground in a second, his next big attack already prepared during his trip from ceiling to floor.

However unlike most cases, his standard tactics don't work here, his usual bag of tricks has been proven ineffective, but suddenly his most neglected asset is what he needs, something he rarely if ever uses in combat, simply because of efficiency.

This time, he amplifies his Earth Magic, swirling shards of brown rock hovering and shifting in a perfect circle behind him, his own asteroid belt at his back like the rings of Saturn to display his power, all before he lands.

In the ground it was as if two city blocks were suddenly flooded with magic trying to make it far too dense under too much pressure, forcing friction and heat with pure Earth Magic alone.

"Grand Eruption!" he can't help but yell out as the stone floor all around both he and Safi'Jiva instantly explodes.

Earth Magic, his least used card has been played for a costly chain of attacks...

END CHAPTER---

Didn't plan to split this fight into multiple chapters but it's massive and putting it all into one or two was constantly stressing me out because...I'm bad at/don't like writing fight scenes :(