CHAPTER 131(Toward The Unknown)

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

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pat.treon:/Keanu_Eugene

CHAPTER START---

Sitting in her living room, Thalie pours over piles of documents. None of which belong to her.

Opening letter after letter, throwing the usual offers away. Familias and businesses offering to sponsor her team in exchange for credit as well as lend them fresh members. Hundreds of offers to join them and even more requests for apprenticeship under Welf from smiths far and wide.

Taking a deep breath after finishing Welf's pile of letters she moves onto Hephaestus's. Breaking the seal that so clearly was only meant for the goddess. She opens the contents of one particular letter. Her eyes widen as she grips the paper tightly, unable to stop herself from murmuring as she reads the letter.

"Your latest offer is rejected like all the others eyepatch, if you're lucky I'll give you more time. Don't push it..." Thalie's face contorts in anger and confusion as she sees who the letter is from. "Adrestria..."

Placing the letter back in the envelope and carefully sealing it she takes long deep breaths to calm down.

"She's been talking to Adrestria... why didn't she tell me any of this..." she asks aloud, getting up and pacing around the room frantically.

"Hey, you ok?" Yang's voice calls out. The woman's head whips around to see him in full battlemage gear staring at her curiously. Standing in the entryway of her suite with the door slightly open he looks at her, then at the piles of documents, "uh we're supposed to be heading out in a few minutes," he reminds her.

"Right, just doing some mail stuff... people wanting to join our team and crap like that. I'll meet you guys at the fountain just need to take some of this to the guild," she says. Her nervous energy almost peeking through in her voice.

"Gotcha, take your time," he says, obviously noticing her nervousness and trying to leave her be as he exits the room.

Looking down at the letter, Thalie frowns, "no deals Hephaestus, this ends in blood..." she says before walking down the hallway to put on her armor.

---Babel Plaza 15 Minutes Later...

Sitting on the edge of the fountain in Babel Plaza, Yang and Welf observe large crowds of adventurers entering the dungeon to start their morning. Yang was currently in his battlemage clothes without the coat while Welf wore his full Kimono-like red armor.

Welf had an adamantite greatsword across his back with Mosoka at his side, unlike Yang who carried no weapons other than his currently equipped gauntlets outside of his storage.

"So what was training with the new weapon like?" Welf asks.

"Nine days with Thalie stabbing me every time I lost balance, what do you think?"

"Depends... how many times did ya lose balance?"

"Let's just say, there's a reason I had to go clear out a shelf in Airmids store yesterday alright."

"Damn...that bad huh."

"It's 240 pounds and I need to think about the weapon and my magic at once plus balancing, until I get a lot more practice it's gonna be a bit rough," Yang says.

"Should've just asked for a regular greatsword."

"Hey in my defense I didn't actually think this was possible till I literally met Hephaestus herself," Yang raises his hands defensively.

"That's fair," Welf says as he looks around the plaza once more, now noticing a few small parties standing around eyeing him and Yang. They weren't making any attempts at entering the dungeon, only focusing on his party. "Something's off here, check that out," Welf nods toward the largest party of onlookers.

"Hmm, maybe they're fans?"

"Possibly, but the way they're looking at us... looks more like they're hungry for something," Welf says.

"Because they are," Thalie says as she approaches her team after remaining the letters to Hephaestus at the guild. "They're waiting on our little 'Speedrun' again."

This earns a curious look from Yang, "for the loot?"

"Yup, lots of people got paid pretty well just for following our trail last time. There was a big scrap over who gets the Goliath Crystal last time too, these guys just want a piece of that loot," she explains.

"That's actually pretty smart," Welf admits.

"Yeah but none of the floor boss monsters are up right now so they're only stuck with regular loot. And any super rare loot we'll definitely take...we can store it at floor 50 then just pick it up on the way back if we have space," Yang says as he rises to his feet and stretches his arms out. "Alright, let's get moving."

Taking a few steps in front of his team Welf leads the way just as before, this time with much more confidence after slaying the strongest monster on the explored floors, Balor. "Try to keep up," he jokes to his team as they drop down into the dungeon entrance.

Immediately descending the hundred-foot drop into the massive hole that acts as the entrance to a monster-infested hell. The adventurers walking on the long pathway spiraling down the walls see their figures quickly pass by before they disappear below.

---Floor 51...

Standing on the steps only a few feet from the surface of floor 52's entrance, Yang gives his team one last look and receives only nods of agreement.

"Alright, let's go..." he says while rushing off with Welf at his side. Both men leave Thalie in the tunnel, her fear of heights would allow her to be in this part of the plan. But with the average strength of monsters here being level three she wasn't at risk while taking the longer route.

"I never thought I'd be so ready to fight dragons before," Welf says as they turn another corner.

"Yeah, no matter how many I kill it still never gets old man, they were kind of the favorite myth back home," Yang says as he comes to an abrupt stop.

"Really? I mean with all the---" Welf's words are suddenly cut off and his vision gets blurry for a moment.

As he stops moving a split second later he finds himself standing 20ft away from his previous spot. Where he and Yang were standing now had massive pillars of fire bursting through the floor, completely melding vertical shafts into the dungeon floors.

"There we go, don't choke now," Yang says as he takes one leap and jumps right into the hole with no hesitation, leaping down the shaft into hell where Valgang Dragons await.

"Damn, when did he get so fast?" Welf asks aloud as he follows Yang's lead.

Falling down the massive shaft, Yang lays horizontally in the air as if he were on a bed, one hand under his head as he falls beside Welf without a care in the world.

Welf currently had a serious expression on his face with Mosoka in one hand and his adamantite sword in the other.

"Fire-resistant stuff must annoy you huh?" Yang asks.

"Well us normal people are thankful to have any magic!" Welf cuts a Wyvern in half as he uses Mosoka to deflect a fireball from another before he continues, "so I'm just grateful!"

As Yang is about to ask another question, the shaft they're falling through suddenly becomes much much brighter. The red-orange glow of dragons fire is rising as multiple Valgang Dragons take direct aim at Welf and Yang.

"Ok I got this one," Yang says as he rolls over and stretches out a hand.

"WAIT! Let me," Welf insists, turning into a full nosedive as he holds Mosoka perpendicular to the blast, using his left hand to hold the handle and placing his right hand on the prongs of the blade itself like a shield.

Trusting his friend Yang falls back slightly and lets Welf take the lead. As the pillars of flame reach him Welf channels much of his magic into his weapon, the entire blade glows red hot for a moment just before the impact of the flames.

Falling directly behind Welf, Yang sees the flames break apart and cascade around them, as if they were a boulder in a rushing river.

"Argh!" Welf grunts as he feels sweat forming on his forehead, gritting his teeth in a test of magic endurance to outlast the dragons.

After a few seconds the flames stop and Welf takes a deep breath, steadying himself just in time to release a jet of flames from his sword and catch himself before hitting the ground, Yang casually does the same and lands beside him.

Ignoring the seven large Valgang Dragons roaring and charging toward them, Yang looks over a Welf with genuine surprise on his face. "Holy shit, since when was your flame control that good, I know it was better than mine but damn..."

Taking a deep breath between words Welf rises to his full height, "you...aren't the...only one...training," he wipes the sweat off his brow and draws his adamantite sword once more.

"So you wanna take the little guys and let me handle the big ones?" Yang asks as he points toward the charging Valgang Dragons.

"Uh...." Welf looks from the seven large level 5 red dragons to the much smaller but much more numerous swarming hoards of Wyverns flying above, "I need flight training anyway, have fun," he says before pointing Mosoka at the ground and rocketing through the air.

Unlike Yang, Welf simply doesn't have the magic capacity for controlled flight, opting to use controlled bursts of flames to bounce around in the air while swiping at the flying monsters with his adamantite greatsword in the other hand.

"I hope I don't look that stupid flying around...fucking Bakugo over there," Yang groans at the sight of Welf essentially using controlled explosive flames to fly.

Hearing the high-pitched humming of the air and noticing a bright light growing over his left shoulder Yang leaps away from his current position and turns to the Valgang Dragons, narrowly dodging a jet of fire as it carves out a massive trench in the stone floor.

"Close," he says while raising a finger at the closest monster. With a flash of blinding purple light, the monster immediately becomes ash as a bolt of purple lightning shatters the magic stone in its chest.

The unfortunate dragon behind the pile of ash wasn't much better off, the bolt shattered its skull and left it a lifeless corpse on the floor for the remaining 5 to trample as they furiously charge at Yang.

Leaping toward the hoard and happily meeting their charge, Yang withdraws his switch-axe as he arcs through the air. Lifting the weapon high above his head as his mage armor flares to life, engulfing his body in blue flames, he brings to axe head down on the maw of a dragon. The monster was preparing a breath attack only for its skull to be split in two. The force of the swing carries through the monster's entire body dividing it clearly from head to tail.

With a smile on his face, completely caught up in the excitement of what he'd just done. Yang fails to notice a massive paw swiping at him.

"Ach!" he groans as his face carves a straight trench into the stone floor as his body glides across it.

Lifting his head up, his weapon still held tight within his grasp he spits out some bits of stone while shaking his head.

*BOOM*

Another massive paw stomps down onto him before he can ever get his bearings back.

A moment later and a powerful but thin jet of water cuts through the leg of the monster, severing the offending foot before a blue flame shoots into the air, carrying Yang Shen on it.

"Ouch? Honestly surprised that didn't really hurt much..." Yang says as he rockets toward the monsters. In a frenzy of axe slashes he cuts the dragons to ribbons. Still not used to always having to compensate for the unwieldy nature of his weapon, whenever a monster is about to strike at an opening in his guard he can't adjust properly. Opting to kick out instead, using his legs to defend himself.

In a brutal display of strength, one of the dragons has their skull crushed under his boot before only one dragon remains, bloodied and hurt from the fight thus far, the dragon sizes up this adventurer before charging forward.

Now having enough room to really move, it stops just beyond the range of its bite and claws and does a full body swing. The powerful tail perfectly lines up to slam into Yang.

Standing on the ground the adventurer doesn't move an inch, focusing his earth magic to anchor himself to the floor, just like he's been practicing for the past week to use his weapon.

When the tail hits his hands are already free of any weapons. Taking the blow to his side he wraps his arms around the appendage and squeezes, he can feel the scales crack, the sound of shattering concrete reaches his ears as the dragon's natural armor easily gives under his strength.

Leaning back slightly he twists his entire body, lifting the dragon off the ground he spins it around.

Once.

Twice.

Before finishing in one massive twist, arcing back and slamming the beast into the stone floor.

The monster's body craters the ground as it immediately becomes dust, leaving behind only shattered pieces of the crystal and a few scales, not unlike what the other dragons left.

"Huh, that wasn't so bad... just gotta keep focused," he says while casually dusting his hands, not feeling any strain from this fight at all as he looks toward Welf. The smith was currently batting away fireballs from Wyverns and giving chase with his greatsword above Yang's battlefield.

---1 Hour Later...

Sitting at the top of the stairs leading into floor 59, Yang looks down toward the staircase as his team prepares their equipment.

Welf was pulling on a reinforced salamander coat and holster for more magic swords.

Thalie was doing the same but in addition, she had her extra shuriken as well.

Putting on their gloves both adventurers walked over to Yang, ready for the next part of their adventure.

"So, how strong are you at level six...pretty sure I saw you pick up a dragon and body slam it..." Welf says as Yang rises to lead them into the unknown.

"Thalie and I spend ten days training and nothing survived a hit that I actually put my back into, Balor could but he's not back up yet," Yang says.

"Yup," Thalie confirms, "and nothing is durable enough to even make him need his weapon up here, hopefully he finds a challenge down there..." she says as they cal already see the ice at the far end of the tunnel.

"Yeah, these floors don't have anything for me anymore. That means our adventures are in the unknown from now..."

END CHAPTER---

Yang is officially, easily stronger than Gareth. For reference, Gareth did a similar feat with the dragon but was huffing afterward, for Yang it was light work. Pic here and in the comments for reference :)