CHAPTER 65(Through Serenity, Know Power)

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

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CHAPTER START---

As Yang drops to the valley floor, clutching the side of his head in his left hand, he squints at the molten metal in his right hand, the remains of his weapon, the bellowing of two Giant Crocodiles draw his attention.

Rushing toward the young adventurer, two 10 meter long crocodiles are hungrily approaching.

"Ahh shit...my head..." Yang grunts out as he looks around the battlefield.

Spotting his greatsword, he immediately rushes over to the weapon, easily retrieving it before his new opponents arrive.

Standing before the charging monsters, Yang steadies himself while taking a few deep breaths, trying and failing to alleviate the throbbing in his head.

The instant one of the monsters lunges toward him, he dashes toward the side of the creature, much like Welf did with the serpent, running his greatsword along the side of the long creature, at least before the other lunged toward him.

Storing his weapon back into his storage, he jumps onto the back of the injured monster to avoid the bite attack only for the crocodile below him to being rapidly rolling, sprinkling blood everywhere.

Leaping backward, Yang summons his greatsword once more, thrusting it down directly into the skull of the monster, pinning it into the ground, halting the death roll and immediately destroying the beast.

As the broken crystal falls to the floor, Yang sees the open maw of the final crocodile rapidly approaching, taking the greatsword into one hand he points it toward the monster's head, holding it as if it were a javelin before hurling it with all his might.

The weapons jets through the air, destroying the skull of the monster before easily exiting the back of the creature and embedding itself, up to its hilt deep within the wall.

While the crocodile becomes ash a few teeth on the ground, Yang approaches his weapon. A look of surprise overcomes his features as he observes the blade, its blade red hot as the stone around it shares the same appearance.

He reaches out with furrowed brows and grabs the handle, only for it to immediately bend to his touch as if it were rubbed.

"But... I didn't use any fire, at least not intentionally. Maybe I accidentally used magic?" he questions no one in particular while turning away from the weapon, leaving it in the wall.

"You guys ok?" He calls out to his team, noticing them approaching and appraising the drop items from the kills.

"We should be asking you that dude, are YOU ok?" Welf counters.

"Yeah just, melted my weapons accidentally, not sure..."

"Maybe because your mark flared up?" Thalie questions.

"What?"

"When you were gonna kill the last Ape, it was barely there, but it was there..." Welf adds.

"I haven't been able to trigger it since the challenge ended, not like it came with instructions, maybe it's because I was having fun or something right..." he says before muttering to himself.

"If that's what you call having fun, why not just, you know, blast them with fire?" Welf asks.

"I wanted to get some practice with other things, weapons, water, and wind here. But I'm trying to be more well-rounded since that's kinda my thing considering my skills."

"Well your level 4 stats are definitely something, they made up for the fact that you mostly fight like a mage with a sword..." Thalie deadpans.

"Hey!"

"Hahaha" Welf can't help but laugh.

"It's fine, everyone starts like that. I'll teach you a thing or two when we get to the safe zone, can't have you out here embarrassing us if other teams run into us, so you still gonna handle this valley solo?"

"Yeah... still got something I wanna test, I'm hoping that if I'm in a fight it'll work," Yang says, turning back toward the large corridor.

"Alright, we're right behind you," Welf says.

After almost two hours of Yang clearing out monster hoard after monster hoard, the Trifecta finally takes a small break.

Yang can be seen leaning against the wall as Welf and Thalie look around at all the monster drops, carefully sifting through in hope of finding the Cheat Material.

"I don't think it's here... do we even know if it from a monster or from the dungeon walls?"

"It's natural, seems like claws or fangs, something like that. It doesn't react like ore would," Welf quickly informs her as he sorts through a pile of drop items.

"Once we find what it's from then we can just focus that particular monster, as much as id rather just grab all this stuff and sort it out at the safe zone," Yang comments as he takes another sip of water.

"How's your magic doing, you've been going non-stop, rather not have to deal with you being asleep again..." Thalie comments with a small smirk.

"Ugh, never gonna drop that huh, I'm fine don't worry about it..."

"You sure man, it's cool if you need to switch out you know," Welf adds in.

"My magic creates a positive feedback loop, I put flames on myself, my skills absorb some of their magic to heal me and restore my own magic, they also trigger my magic regeneration skill, unless I misuse my magic or do some absurd attacks in a row I'm fine, unlike most mages I'm more suited to longer fights so you don't need to worry..." Yang says, slightly annoyed.

"Damn, guess I was worried for nothing..." Thalie says while bringing her bag of items for Yang to store.

"Yeah, the more you know the less he makes any sense, don't sweat it," Welf jokes as he walks over with his bag of item drops.

"Ha.Ha. Very funny..." Yang says while storing Welf's bag in his inventory, with both the small bags stowed away, the Trifecta begin to move forward.

After some weaker monsters, the team eventually found something interesting.

"Uh, what the heck is that supposed to be?" Welf questions while cocking an eyebrow at the monster blocking the path forward.

The 35ft monster, made entirely of stone though they seem to hover around its core as if it were exerting its own gravity field. Its arms and legs thick and sturdy to support its weight and the lack of a head betraying the conventional bi-ped body structure.

A soft brown glow emanates from within its chest as rocks hover around that area as well as around its body.

"That my friend... is an earth elemental, and I'm guessing that it's one of the guys only I know about?" Yang asks while looking at Thalie, receiving a quick nod of confirmation. "Well, they're pretty much resistant to... everything, I'd like to say, we should be fine though, just watch out for rocks" he finishes with a light chuckle.

"Smartass," Thalie says while drawing her shortsword.

"Let's make this quick, monsters will start respawning behind us soon," Welf adds in while drawing his greatsword.

Flying forward in a streak of blue flames, Yang immediately rushes the elemental. The slow and bulky creature simply can't hope to keep up with the smaller and faster adventurer as he approaches.

Flipping in mid-air, he adjusts to make himself parallel to the dungeon floor before boosting even further, slamming both his feet into the chest of the elemental, only for its armor to be sealed shut and stop his dropkick.

*CRACK*

The bones in his feet buckle and strain under the force of his impact, the elemental remaining unhurt and completely unshaken. Boosting away by releasing flames from his hands Yang flips backward to gain some height.

"IT'S REALLY DAMN TOUGH!" Yang yells out as he adjusts himself to hover in the air, narrowly avoiding a stream of rocks being thrown at him.

"YEAH, WE NOTICED, IT'S NOT EVEN BOTHERING WITH US!" Welf yells out, his greatsword barely chipping into the feet of the massive monster.

"YOU HAVE A PLAN?" Thalie shouts out as she tries to avoid some rocks moving around the monster.

Dropping to the floor, Yang dashes over to his allies at the feet of the monster.

"Yeah, distract it..." He quickly says before placing both his hands on the ground.

"Ugh, fine..." Thalie groans as she begins climbing the creature, leaving Welf to run defense for Yang from all the floating rocks.

As Thalie scales the elemental, batting away small rocks with her blade ever so often, she quickly reaches the front of the creature, garnering its attention.

Putting her acrobatic skills on full display, she bobs and weaves around all the monster's attempts to swat her or hurl rocks at her, running from shoulder to shoulder and twirling and flipping her way around its body.

Before long, however, the entire earth elemental suddenly began to rumble, then tilt, then fall.

Leaping backward off the monster and toward her team, she watches with some confusion as the massive figure begins to fall backward, arms flailing around for anything to grab onto, the valley walls being a few meters too far on either side to give a handhold.

As she gracefully lands in a crouch, Yang and Welf are standing before what would appear to be a raised ramp of stone, directly from the ground.

"You tipped it over... what's the plan now?"

"Kick it while it's down, if it breaks apart to reconstruct itself standing, the core gets exposed, get ready," Yang says while activating his flames once more.

As the Trifecta was expecting one of the said options, they hadn't predicted that the limbs of the monsters would fall apart as its chest cracks and compressed inward, becoming denser and harder to break. Before their very eyes, all the rocks that make up the limbs began to orbit the chest where the core is stored independently.

"Like Saturn and her rings huh..." Yang mindlessly mutters out.

"What?" Welf questions from right beside him.

"Nothing, just, shit. We need to break the core, using earth won't work now that it's on guard."

"What if we get you to the chest piece, can you get through it?" Thalie suggests as she and Welf begin parrying the rocks being hurled at them.

"Yeah but, it grounded itself into the floor so my lightning won't be as good unless I'm right on top of it, if I try you'd need to stall for me..." Yang says in a hesitant voice.

"Yeah, I can do that, Welf you need to distract it, let's go," Thalie says before she and Yang rush forward.

With Welf flanking the elemental, he runs ahead of the duo with his greatsword, bashing projectiles aside as he tries to make himself as much of a nuisance as possible.

'This thing is insane, where the hell does he come from for this to be an actual thing, he didn't even seem that worried,' Welf thinks as he bats away more rocks, constantly taking stabs at the core to keep it focused on him.

As Yang places both his hands onto the bunker that contains the monster core, Thalie stands above him, with her agility and level being higher than Welf having her protect him from so many lines of attacks was the only choice.

With every rock that clashes against her blade, Thalie can barely feel her fingers. The strain of contesting the power behind dozens of projectiles is quickly becoming too much even for her. At this point, Welf can barely even feel his arms, adrenaline, and the desire to survive keeping them going. With every cut and bruise, they simply ignore the pain, ignore the blood, ignore the exhaustion.

"Ugh!" Thalie grunts as a rock collides with her shoulder, slamming into her harshly and knocking her directly toward Welf.

"Gotcha," Yang mutters, opening his eyes for the purple lightning crackling in them to be visible, from his entire body the lightning magic flows through him and down his arms, flooding directly into the bunker of the earth elemental.

Barely half a second later, all the floating projectiles fall to the floor, completely still.

"Ok, that might ACH---"

Yang's quiet words are immediately cut off as a large rock, almost the size of his torso slams into his shoulder, knocking him off the bunker.

"Aahhh," he hisses in pain while looking at the elemental.

"Plan B?" Welf asks, his greatsword shaking in his hands.

"Yeah... I just... need to calm down... need to focus, this won't work if I'm not calm," Yang says between deep breaths.

"Easier said than done in the dungeon, don't take too long, I'm getting kinda tired of always covering for you..." Thalie says while taking a defensive stance in front of Yang, standing in line with Welf.

"Yeah, I'm sick of having to ask for time, trust me on that..." He mutters while taking more deep breaths, standing perfectly still as his allies defend him from more projectiles.

With his fists places together in front of his chest, Yang focuses his thoughts, focusing on that incredible surging feeling, the feeling of magic at his back.

'Just settle down Yang, you've done this a few times, never in battle but no time like the present, just focus on the flame, the flame at your back... relax, and let it take form...' he instructs himself while steadying his breathing.

As his shoulders begin to slouch, his head falls forward slightly as if he was about to fall asleep. A palpable feeling of magic envelops the area. Thalie and Welf immediately feel it due to their proximity.

Unable to look away because of the projectiles being hurled at them, they only realize what's going on when Yang steps between them, walking forward with his Elemental Wheel at his back, lit up as a bright blue flame, swirling and rotating around its shape while emanating, barely any heat, much to their surprise.

As Yang calmly steps forward, taking one deep breath, he glares at the bunker of the earth elemental, before raising his right foot.

As his foot slams down in front of him, a pulse of blue flames flare out from the limb into the ground, creating a clearly visible path to the enemy as it melts the earth around the small, barely 4 inches wide, river of flames.

As it arrives at the earth elemental, Yang speaks.

"FLAME PILLAR!"

*FOOM*

In an instant, the entire elemental is caught in a rising pillar of blue flames, the sheer heat forcing Welf and Thalie to immediately retreat backward as Yang holds his stance, pouring more magic into the attack.

After nearly 10 seconds of continuous magic expenditure, the attack finally stops as Yang's elemental wheel disappears.

Leaning forward he places his hands on his thighs while trying to catch his breath. The completely melted area in front of them speaking for itself as the remains of the monster can't even be identified.

"Holy shit, you can do that with all the elements?" Thalie mutters as she walks up to Yang.

"No....not...yet....only....fire" he struggles to answer between breaths.

"Wow there man, take it easy, fights over for now just catch your breath," Welf says while looking around the area.

"Somethings coming," Yang says, rising to his full height as he downs a mana potion immediately.

"Huh?"

"It's coming fast, ahead of us, be ready," Yang says as he takes out another mana potion, growing all the more thankful for his storage magic.

True to Yang's words, down the valley toward the Trifecta, a massive metal bull, completely silver can be seen charging down the valley directly at them.

Standing at 15ft tall and 25ft long, the metal bull charges with green mist pouring out of its mouth and nose.

"That's a gorgon, the mist causes petrification..." Yang quickly says.

"Petrification?" Thalie asks.

"Turns you into stone," he quickly answers.

"I miss when monsters made sense," Welf says as he uses a health potion on his arms.

END CHAPTER---