CHAPTER 224(Boss Gauntlet -II-)

Please read the author's notes.

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CHAPTER START---

---Floor 108, The Crystal Palace...

'Something doesn't feel right...I should be back to normal by now...' Yang thinks as he flexes his fingers.

Walking beside his friends through the crystal hallways, following the flow of energy behind the indestructible dungeon crystals. He focuses on his body, still feeling a bit sore from their last fight against the Death Tyrant, completely oblivious to the temporarily diminished health effect of the Life Transference beam.

Holding out his left hand he makes a small flame in his palm. Against the black metal of his gauntlet it looks that much brighter, he smiles and takes a relaxed breath.

'Magic is still fine at least...' he thinks gratefully as the flame dissipates.

After progressing to another floor, after more than a day of small fights allowing him to heal. He still didn't feel fully recovered.

"Something big and bad is up ahead," Thalie says as they arrive at a junction of eight different paths.

Looking around Yang sees the energy flowing behind the crystal dungeon surfaces to the far left and points down the tunnel leading that way. "Is the danger this way?"

"Mmm," Thalie closes her eyes in her helmet and focuses on the gnawing feeling at the back of her mind. "Yeah, that way..." she confirms. Already showing great improvement with her Primal Awareness Skill.

"Then that's the way," Yang says as he begins walking down the path.

After another hour of walking, they arrive at the entrance to a large battle chamber.

Thalie gives them both a stern nod, signaling that she senses another boss-level monster within. "My instincts are telling me we shouldn't go in there..." she says in a hushed voice.

"This is the path," Yang says as he walks forward. "I'm too close to stop now."

Entering the chamber with his Switch-Axe slung on his shoulder Yang sees a massive room. His immediate thought is that it was a crystal domed arena, the size of a massive football stadium.

"Crap, Nergigante," he mutters as the opponent drops to the middle of the battlefield with a deranged look in his eyes.

"RRAARRGGHH!!" A deafening scream causes the adventurers to flinch as it immediately charges forward.

A black dragon, one-story tall with two massive horns on its head. White spikes rapidly grow on its back, tail, wings, and forelimbs. Sharp white teeth and a bulky, stocky build.

"Scatter!" Yang commands. Both his friends vanish from behind him and move to surround the charging monster.

Seeing the incoming Elder Dragon, Yang swings down vertically, pushing Lightning, Fire, and Wind into his weapon to make a massive Greatsword, the entire blade glowing dark blue as the colors mix.

As the monster is charging, the white spikes immediately begin to harden even further. Like a dragon-porcupine hellspawn with black metal spikes covering it.

CLANG!

Yang's blade bounces off the monster's two massive horns as it knocks him into the air.

He feels the air leave his lungs with the force of this impact, catching himself in mid-air via fire magic and blasting himself closer toward Welf.

"It's coming again!" Welf calls out as the monster stands on its hind legs for a moment before flapping its wings, hovering in the air for barely a moment before making a mad dash toward Yang.

"Play defense!" Yang commands as he and Welf split up, the monster superman punches the ground where they were standing and black spikes from both forelimbs fire out toward them.

Welf raises a wall of fire to incinerate the spikes, only for them to easily pierce the wall and scare him half to death. One of the spikes takes a piece out of his helmet, barely missing his skin as it flies past him.

Yang uses his absurd Agility stat to carefully avoid the path of the spikes instead of blocking them.

"What the fuck is that?!" Thalie cries out, already glowing in golden magic. "This one of those black dragons you're always talking about?"

"No," Yang says as Nergigante rushes at him with claw swipes. Instead of blocking he focuses on avoiding all the large sweeping moves. "This is Nergigante, the eater of elders. An Elder Dragon that hunts the others."

"Breath attack?" Thalie asks as she rushes forward.

"None, it heals and brawls. The black spikes should be like Durandal at minimum, focus the underside of the belly, wings, and the hind legs and tail," Yang says. "Let me keep its focus, it seems to really hate me for some reason."

As both his allies are getting into the fight Nergigante only focuses on Yang the entire time. Not even taking the strikes of Thalie and Welf seriously, completely ignoring any damage they were dealing in favor of a focused assault on the Elementalist.

"This doesn't make sense," Thalie grunts out as she pierces the underside of the monster. Drawing blood and still getting no response from it. "Why is it ignoring me? Does it hate you that much?" she notices the wound already slowly healing as she moves to make more while carefully making sure the dragon doesn't squish her.

"I've-" Yang raises his Greatsword up to catch a crushing paw swipe with the flat of the blade. Feeling the Elder Dragon pushing down on him he tries to fight back, mage armor flaring to life all over his body as he grits his teeth and begins to sweat below his visor. "What the hell!" his Chaos Mark goes into full bloom. Even through his jet black armor the red marking and eyes somehow glowed through the solid material.

Feeling the dragon exerting more and more force he becomes aware of his bones cracking and fracturing as Nergigante leans in more and more.

Feeling himself pushed to his limits in the opening minutes of this fight Yang activates his Elemental Wheel with all six elements.

Using the boost to his Mage Armor he begins pushing back, barely gaining a few inches while his friends hack and slash away at the monster.

"RAARGH!" Nergigante roars directly in his face as black and red lightning crackles around it, pure Dragon Energy.

Suddenly Yang crumples under the strength of the Elder Dragon, flattened between the powerful claws and the indestructible crystal floor.

"Aghhhhhhh!" his scream is only heard through his friends' helmets via their communication setup. If not, it would have been drowned out by the growling monster and the sound of his armor cracking and breaking apart as the monster constantly slaps him against the floor.

BOOM!

Yang skates across the crystal floor the moment Nergigante raises his claw to slam down once more, sent skidding across the battlefield by a fiery explosion.

Tumbling until he eventually came to a stop on one knee Yang looks up to see the monster taking one massive leap to rocket toward him. Feeling blood and sweat running down his forehead he takes a deep breath and rushes forward, changing his approach completely now to hit-and-run tactics.

As the monster divebombs directly toward him Yang dashes out of the way, "spikes!" he warns, knowing what happens next, knowing that being this close he wouldn't have time to react properly.

Only a few feet away from where the monster slams down he can barely register the spikes hurtling toward him.

In an instant, his Elemental Wheel flickers, from six elements of different colors fighting for dominance, to one ring of pure white magic. The unity of all colors working together in perfect balance.

Seven layers of defense form up instantly. Starting closer toward the monster, in order, walls of Fire, Earth, Water, Wind, Ice, and Lightning, with his mage armor being his most powerful set of blue flames yet.

And yet, the spikes shredded him through it all.

Yang couldn't register the pain, his body and adrenaline not allowing him to feel it because of how severe it was. Massive meter-long spikes in his chest and limbs, one large gash on his cheek from a spike that destroyed his headpiece and barely missed his skull.

He can feel the wetness of blood filling up his clothes, only dammed by the spikes still in his body.

Not far away, because they were running toward him, Welf and Thalie are assaulted by even more spikes. Yang had to deal with the spikes of one forearm, they had the tail, wings, and the entire back. Yet they were unscathed.

In a split second, Welf brought out a small wall of Void Flames, barely enough for them to hide behind. On contact the powerful spikes were completely erased, sparing the two adventurers. If only he could use these more, but for any more than a blink and it was possible that Mosoka would shatter, the simply had no idea what the limit was.

"Tag out!" Thalie shrieks as she appears beside the dumbfounded Yang. Still staring down at his body riddled with spikes. Grabbing him by the shoulder she throws him back toward Welf and gets in Nergigante's face.

Catching his friend, Welf immediately rushes back to the tunnel that led them to this monster, worried eyes hidden behind his helmet as he sees Yang, still awake, trying to make sense of what the hell just happened.

While Thalie dances around with Nergigante, Yang is sat down in the tunnel and finally comes to his senses, feeling a strange stinging and itching sensation from his wounds. Like a hundred knives made from poison ivy were in each wound, constantly moving and trying to dig in further.

"Go, I got this," Yang says in strained words, blood leaking out of his mouth and onto his undershirt. He's still in full mage armor with his Elemental Wheel back to normal.

Welf turns to rush back to the fight before stopping, "I need to heal you up," he says.

"I can do it myself," Yang grits out as he begins pulling out the spikes. Withdrawing a case of Elixirs he begins pouring on onto his chest, feeling a soothing sensation already working on the wounds. "Just go stall the monster till I'm back in action..."

"Mmm, fine, I'll be back here if you aren't up soon," Welf says before rushing off, both swords drawn and Flame Constructs already made.

As Welf leaves Yang continues treating himself, normally he'd already be up and about, but something felt weird.

He still felt as if something was wrong, already on his third case of Elixirs, and the wounds wouldn't fully close, they'd barely close in fact.

"What the fuck..." he whispers while removing a large roll of bandages. "I'm not healing? But if they know they'll make me go back...and I'm so damn close to her, I can feel it," with no hesitation he cleans and wraps himself as best he could then puts on a new shirt to hide the bandages.

"Argh!" he grunts just to stand up. Leaning against the wall he takes a few deep breaths to compose himself, focusing on the sounds of constant fighting not far away.

Closing his eyes he focuses on his magic. Igniting his Mage Armor once more he notices something strange.

"My magic too...what the hell is going on," he shakes his head at this situation. "Whatever, I've got more than enough to make it there..." he convinces himself before rushing back into the fight.

---Folkvangr...

Knocking gently on Freya's bedroom door with her foot, Heith is extra careful not to spill any of the soup or tea on the tray in her hands.

Listening extra carefully she receives no response from her goddess, again.

The healer frows and holds the tray with one hand, using the other to push open the door. Stepping into the ornate room she sees Freya sitting in bed against the backboard, a small bottle of lighting in her hand. Literally, a small bottle of purple lighting.

With the windows opened it wasn't completely blinding, the daylight allowing Heith to notice the bottles of wine scattered across the room.

'This again,' the healer dreads the situation. Glancing down at her one gloved hand as she makes her way over to the bed. Casting a dirty glace to the tray of food on the bedside table she notices breakfast was completely untouched, again.

Steeling her nerves Heith sits at the edge of the bed, Freya doesn't even acknowledge her presence.

"Lady Freya, you can't keep skipping meals like this," Heith says.

"..."

"You have to take care of yourself, please, we're very worried about you."

"..."

'I hope she doesn't punish me for saying this...' Heith mentally says a small prayer before she speaks.

"What would mister Shen says if he saw you like this?" Heith dares to use Yang as a threat.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, it does get a reaction.

Freya's eyes widen ever so slightly as she turns to stare a hole through Heith's skull.

"Lady Freya, just a few spoonfuls," Heith raises a spoon ever so gently and leans forward to feed her goddess.

"I'm not hungry Heith," the goddess slides down and pulls the blanket over her head, leaving the bottle of lighting outside so she doesn't blind herself.

"Mmm," Heith thinks for a moment. "What if we go torture Horn in the basement? You always love that, and I haven't healed anyone today so you can have an extra-long session," she says in a rather chipper tone.

"It doesn't matter anymore, now all I can do is wait," Freya says.

"Wait? Wait for what?"

"For Yang to die, to meet him in his next life, my Odr and I will always find each other...now I have to wait, because I wasn't good enough..." Freya begins to quietly sob into her pillow.

Heith looks heartbroken as she recognizes the sound, having never experienced the tears of her goddess before. She sets the tray of food aside and sits up on the bed properly, gently stroking Freya's head. Trying her best to comfort the goddess.

"I doubt he'd die so easily, my lady. He's only been gone for what, a month? I'm sure he'll be fine and come back to you," Heith tries to reassure her.

The sobbing only gets more intense, Freya adjusts herself to rest her head in Heith's lap. "He's never coming back to me in this life, at least that's what I think, that's why he's ignoring me, that's why Hephaestus won't let me talk to them...my Odr is gone," Freya's sobbing becomes erratic and surprisingly ugly for such a dignified goddess.

Heith tenses at the sight, not quite sure what to say, so she says nothing.

Spending the rest of that afternoon gently petting her goddess and trying to keep her calm, still failing at getting her to eat anything...

END CHAPTER---