22: Earth Elemental

"Ok, I think this is a good time to start" - Ren said as he folded his arms.

"Don't you think this is too much?" - Eric asked as he looked at Erika, who was not only protected by blunt armor, but also by 4 huge golems.

"No, her safety is extremely important, besides, I don't think you have the right to tell me this when..." - Ren replied as he pointed at Elisabeth, who was being surrounded by an entire squad of soldiers.

"What? I'm just protecting her" - replied Eric, completely ignoring the irony of his words - "That aside, let's hope for the best."

Ren frowned slightly before nodding - "Right, let's hope it all works out"

* * * * *

"This presence..." - muttered a hooded man as he looked to the east, in the direction of what appeared to be a rocky area - "No doubt about it, it is the presence of a powerful elemental."

The man was silent as he debated whether to go or not to see what was going on, though after a few seconds curiosity was stronger than his sense of self-preservation, after all, he was a wandering mage, this was a once in a lifetime opportunity to observe the behavior of an elemental, even if it was corrupted by a dark energy.

"Let's hope this doesn't come to bite me in the ass" - muttered the hooded man as he ran towards the rocky area.

* * * * *

"We arrived, and the aura feels much heavier than I thought" - said Ren with a frown - "Now I can confirm it, this is not a treasure, but rather an earth elemental, a very powerful one..."

"What are we going to do, Ren?" - Eric asked with a frown.

"We'll go back, there's no way we can..." - Ren replied, though his expression changed as he felt the ground begin to shake - "Shit, what's that thing doing at the entrance to the canyon!"

The soldiers' expression changed drastically with these words as they watched the rocky walls slowly begin to break apart, these being accompanied by a mighty roar - "ROAR!"

"Ren!" - Eric exclaimed in surprise and terror as the magical aura of this creature was overflowing - "What is that thing!"

"It's an [Earth Elemental], and from what I can see, it's about to get a consciousness of its own, which makes it close to changing into a [Titan]!" - Ren exclaimed with a pale face - "Stand back, I'm going to buy time for you to escape!"

"Don't even think about it, I'm not going to let you fight alone!" - Erika shouted with a serious look on her face.

"This is no time for jokes, that thing is deadly dangerous, and I'm the only one who can fight that monster and survive long enough to escape!" - Ren exclaimed as he materialized a huge war hammer. He had trained with every weapon possible, because he knew that one had to be prepared for anything.

"We will not retreat!" - Eric exclaimed as the soldiers stood on guard, there was no way they were going to let their leader do all the work, that would be a hard blow to their morale, and would affect their future in Surt.

Ren was about to yell at them, when he noticed the passionate stares of the soldiers, as if they were communicating to him that they were ready to give their lives on the battlefield, which made his resolve waver for a few seconds, though he quickly accepted the soldiers' wishes - "Ok, I guess this is the part where we end that thing and get out of here all alive"

"That's wishing for a miracle, Ren" - Eric muttered as he looked at Elisabeth - "If anything happens to me, please take care of Elisabeth, you're the only one I can trust with the most important person in my life."

"Don't even think about it, you idiot" - Ren said with a frown - "I don't want to listen to your pessimistic crap, we'll leave alive, and you'd better start thinking about expanding your bloodline"

Eric blushed when he heard this, though he quickly shook his head as the soldiers began to taunt him.

Ren looked in the direction of Erika, who was glaring at him firmly, communicating that there was no way she would back down while he was putting his life in the line - "Be careful."

"Of course" - Erika replied as she nodded.

Ren moved his gaze to Rhea and Elisabeth, only to tell them to guide their subordinates while he fought ahead alongside his best friend. He didn't understand the reason for this decision, but at the same time he felt it was the best option, not to mention that with how busy he would be fighting this monster, there was no way he could focus to lead his troops, in fact, he was sure that if he did so, he would only end up causing more casualties than necessary.

"Understood!" - Rea exclaimed as her eyes sparkled slightly - "This will be easy, and casualties won't be many..."

"Rea..." - muttered Elisabeth with a frown as she signaled with her eyes for her to lower her voice - "This is not a game, these are real lives who are putting all their trust in us"

Rhea's expression froze when she heard this, though she had to admit she was fortunate that no one heard her words, or she would be branded as a psychopath.

"I understand that there are going to be sacrifices, but..." - Elisabeth continued, only to be interrupted by the blonde-haired girl.

"I understand, you don't have to say anything else" - replied Rhea while muttering an apology under her breath, though she quickly returned to normal because there was no time to be sad about her action, after all, this monster was the most difficult optional boss of the first chapter, though this was not due to its power level as such, but rather to the amount of resources the player had during the combat.

"Soldiers, grab your crossbows!" - Rhea exclaimed as she looked around - "And use the penetration scrolls along with the igniting force scrolls!"

The strategy was simple, take advantage of Ren's mobility and talent to get the [Earth Elemental's] attention, while the soldiers attacked from a distance while dodging the rock monster's counterattacks. The scrolls of penetration and igniting force were necessary to drastically reduce the pressure Ren would endure as the main tank.

Ren gave her a strange look because he remembered how Rhea and Elisabeth had asked him to make a good amount of those two scrolls, which made him think that those two knew about the [Earth Elemental], which wasn't strange if you took into account that they had said they came from the "future".

Ren quickly shook his head, though his expression changed when he saw a large-sized rock appear right in front of him.

Cursing under his breath, Ren gave a loud stomp before disappearing from the spot, only to reappear above the creature as it created a huge astral glyph - "[Tartareus (Infernal Meteor)]"

From the astral glyph, a huge shower of incandescent rocks began to fall on the monster, who simply blocked the attack by creating a rock wall.

Ren frowned slightly before extending both his hands - "Gehenna (Hell)]!"

Before he could react, the huge earth and rock monster was surrounded by a pillar of fire that reached up to the sky, to the point where everyone looked at the prince's magical power in surprise.

"This power..." - Rhea muttered with a frown because the prince seemed to be much more powerful than she had first thought, in fact, [Gehenna] was a level 4 fire spell, this being a level that was borderline inhuman, level 5 being the maximum level and only applicable by heroes when they unlocked their final ascension, in other words, Ren was a far dangerous than she had thought.

Elisabeth also frowned because this made no sense, she knew everything about Ren due to all the time they had spent together, but this was ridiculous, the prince had used a magic that could only be cast with a lot of trouble since the final half of the game, although there was also another possible answer, and that was that the young prince could use these magics from the beginning, but he had them sealed for some reason.

* * * * *

"Altia..." - Artemis said as he looked off into the distance, in the direction where a pillar of fire could be seen extending into the sky - "Isn't that direction Surt?"

"It looks like our target is much stronger and more dangerous than we thought" - Altia replied with a frown, although at the same time she could feel a strange familiar feeling, and no, she didn't refer to the heir being Draco's descendant, but rather because deep down, she could feel this strange resonance that connected her with her master - "I think this will be more fun than we thought..."

"What do you mean?" - Altia asked with a frown.

"It looks like our hero's blood contains something hidden, something I'm going to enjoy investigating ~" - a huge smile appeared on Altia's face as she felt her breathing quicken.