664 10/11 3:21 (Autumn, Day, Dungeon Propriety of the Guild in Astrar)
In a B-Rank Dungeon whose entrance was completely regulated by the Guild's efforts, three members of the 'Iriblades' were currently on the ninth Floor, resting after having slayed the Boss of the current one and more importantly preparing for the tenth.
The tenth was different from most other Dungeons, one of which being that it was only a continuous Boss battle and the second being the nature of the Boss itself.
Azure sighed, walking forward and back as she waited for her Party mates to be done in their preparations. "Come on! This is the last time we need to ran through this Dungeon, you really should be more accustomed to the way here." She sounded out sharply, causing Marine to immediately jump to her feet.
"Well, excuse me if I need to spend way more Energy here! Differently from a certain gorilla, I can't just destroy everything in my way with brute force!" The Witch immediately shot bact, her Mana flaring around her together with her emotions, water slowly accumulating around her.
"Hoh? Are you challenging me? Even if you know very well how our last seventeen fights ended?" The Half-Elf responded at once, her voice sending back her own challenge.
Before the two could start bickering again, Fora intervened in her hidden role as the two's minder. "We are in a Dungeon, even if it is one we know very well, now is no time for us to fight between each other. Azure, you know well that this dry environment is hard on a Druid, especially one as specialized in favor of the Water-Attribute as Marine."
The redhead looked away, her lips twisted in a slight pout at being scolded, while the blonde briefly looked smug before she understood fully what exactly the Dwarf said. "I am not a Druid!" She exploded immediately. "I am a Witch! A Witch!" She repeated multiple times, causing the more responsable one of the three to sigh, palming her face in exhaustion.
"Why did I let myself be talked into this?" The most mature one of them asked herself at a low volume, cursing her past naive self at seeing no problem with their Party's temporary division to deal with this Dungeon while maximizing both their speed and efficiency, deciding on ignoring the still loudly protesting Water-Attribute Druid in favor of keeping an eye on the environment until she was done with her protests.
A good two minutes later, Marine finally exhausted herself from her ranting, breathing harshly a couple of times, a small smile forming on her face, satisfied. "Are you done? Can we finally deal with this Boss for the last time?" Fora affirmed, tired and ready to go back to bed as fast as possible.
Before Marine could say anything at all, Azure as exasperated as the Dwarf herself just proceded to the next Floor immediately, removing any chance that the Human could erupt in another tirade in favor of just fighting the Boss of the Tenth and Final Floor of this Dungeon.
The rest of the present Iriblades hurried after their archer, preparing for the final challenge of this Dungeon.
After a brief flash of light, the three finally appeared in the next Floor, a vast glass dome floating into a sea of nothingness emerged upon an half-sphere floating in the void.
Azure, Marine and Fora looked up to the only other occupants of this place, the five identical figures standing in place before them.
Each of them was a figure in a heavy-set, grey and dull wood-like armor, the only embellishment being the grey, shining gems on their heart and the deep furrows similar to a circular system carved upon their armor, each of them wielding a similarly carved long staff with an identical gem floating atop it.
The three central units pointed their staff towards their challengers, the gems and the carving of two of them shifting to a burning red while the central one's shifted to a breezy green.
Fire emerged from the two red ones, joining together in a fireball before the central one before a strong gust of wind feed the flames, condensed the heat and then directed the following wave of flames towards the three challengers.
Said challengers however were all well accustomed with the way they fought and so responded immediately, Fora smashing her hammer in the ground while enveloped in Mana, causing the earth beneath her feet to erupt as a wall in the way of the attack, refined from simple rocks to a much harder substance thanks to her Unique Arma's ability that was able to deal with the explosion.
Before the three sets of armor could react, an arrow made of vivid fire flew from the smoke and impacted the ground beneath the three, detonating in a wave of flames that washed over the three suits of armor, flames weak enough that they would be barely able to hurt E-Rank Monsters.
However this Dungeon was quite the irregular one, as could be expected from a Dungeon painstakingly modified from the Grandmaster across various decades and could be proved by the Bosses of this Floor.
Instead of a single B-Rank Monster, the role of Boss was split equally between five high C-Rank Monsters with very specific characteristics demonstrated by their reactions to Azure's flames.
The one still glowing green was left completely unharmed by the flames, sign of either an Immunity or an higher Tier of Resistance to that Attribute, in this case a Nullification, while instead upon contact with those flames, the two armors glowing in red immediately detonated, leaving behind only their four gems floating in a lazy orbit in the air.
That was the trick behind these Monsters.
They knew Spells belonging to any Attribute even if they were unable to Cast Spells belonging to either no Attribute, an Altered Attribute or a Composite Attribute.
And while they had a natural Nullification towards all Attributes and were Neutral towards Physical Damage, the moment that one of them was to Cast a Spell belonging to an Attribute, it would immediately gain an incredibly Vulnerability towards that same Attribute, both while Casting and for two more seconds.
As shown by the result of Azure's Spell.
Fora did not hesitate, holding onto her hammer more firmly and slamming it against the ground again, a very weak wave of force traveling through it and striking the whole place, a countermeasure in case any of the missing two Armors had shifted to Earth-Attribute.
Marine finally made her move, Channeling her Mana into her staff and, with a flourish, launching her Spell, a combination of Sorcery, Magecraft and Druidry. "Tell me! Can a Druid do this?!" She roared out, a dense blue sphere of energy flying from her staff before stopping atop the peak of the dome, exploding in a great cloud.
Cloud that soon enough released a thick rain that fell upon the entirety of the arena in an accelerated water cycle that left it very open for the Witch to control, a thin layer of water forming on the pavement while a similarly thin mist spread among the air.
The two pairs of floating gems continued their movements, forming two spirals that gradually became smaller while their companion prepared to the combat.
Having observed the Fire-, Earth- and Water-Attributes being employed against it so efficiently, and considering the abundance of water now filling the air, the once more grey mage decided on another Attribute to test out, its glow and gems now turned pure white, a sudden brightness filling the area around it.
It slammed the bottom of its staff on the ground, causing long wide beams of Light-Attribute to explode from around it, seeking to impale the challengers.
Trial that failed before it could even really begin as Marine utilized the water around them to refract the light slightly, just enough for Azure to blur forward and land a vicious left kick to its head that led to her hands flashing forward to grab onto its staff, using it as a lever to pull herself in mid-air and sending both of them to the ground.
Before the Boss could respond to this sudden assault, the Half-Elf took her bow and aimed straight for its head at point-blank. "This distance is not ideal but one must make do, no?" The nocked arrow quite literally exploded forward, ripping apart its head in a way that would have been quite gory had it any actual blood or viscera.
As the Boss started to disintegrate, leaving behind only its two gems in their usual spiraling orbit, Azure stood up, opening and closing a couple of times her left hand, unsatisfied. "Physical arrows are really quite inconvinient." She murmured to herself, already missing the feeling of launching arrows made entirety of Energy.
As she was seemingly distracted by this feeling, her shadow darkened slightly before erupting, letting out one of the Bosses, this one having both gems and carvings now glowing a dark ebony and possessing a blade of physical darkness around its staff, in a sudden surprise attack that could have worked had she not been well aware of this possibility and not alone.
Azure did not bother reacting to it, merely grabbing its hand and stepping sideways so that in this way she could let the twenty centimeters radius Adamantium sphere launched by Fora strike it in the chest, taking advantage of the metal's ability to ignore Attributes entirely to simply destroy it altogether with pure explosive force.
As she turned her back to the remains of her opponent, the two gems flying in their spiraling orbit ever closer, her eyes immediately searched for any trace of the last one, scowling slightly and reading her bow, only to be anticipated by the rain tightening slightly before pulling together, forming a sphere around something.
"I found it!" Marine's voice pointed out, full of smug satisfation. "It used a Light-Attribute Spell to render itself invisible and then, after the two seconds were up, it Cast an Air-Attribute Spell to grant itself flight." She explained, expecting praises especially from Azure.
The redhead merely looked away, unwilling to satisfy the desires of her Party Mate, causing Fora to roll her eyes. "You two are really-" She stopped her murmurs, retrieving the Adamantium sphere through its chain. "Good job, Marine. How much longer can you hold it?"
"Don't look down on me! The moment it shifts to the Water-Attribute, I can immediately turn this cage in a blender! I am merely waiting to see if we should one cycle this Boss or not."
"Let's get this over with. One cycle is more than enough." Azure affirmed, rolling her eyes and immediately launching a fierce barrage of arrows towards the stuck target, impaling its invisible body from all sides with arrows that left behind very audibles shockwaves at their passage, the Spell wearing off and revealing the visibly flaking form of the now purple Unit, stopped in its attempt to Curse them all, falling apart before their very eyes.
All Units were currently nothing more than their gems floating in the air.
And only now the second phase could begin.
The ten gems shone brightly, ending their spiraling orbiting to fly towards the center of the arena, briefly starting a similar movement before collapsing inwards, colliding and exploding in a wave of Energy that joined together in a new, much more majestic form.
Long wings opened wide behind it, a great maw full of blades roared, two pairs of eyes shining brightly, a pair of great hands capable of rendering even a moderately strong Person into shreds in an instant slammed to the ground with immense strenght and a tail cut through the air at deadly speed.
All this combined with a ten-meters tall, vaguely Draconic and vaguely Golem-like frame composed of a mix of bright grey energy and dull, almost bone-like carved metal, a five-segmented grey star shining where its heart would be, the result of the fusion of the ten gems.
Before such a beast, three figures stood as its opposition, an Half-Elf pointing her bow at it, her Spirits' presence heavy in the air around it, a Human Druid focused on the Water-Attribute surrounded by rain, and a Dwarf forger wielding a warhammer in one hand and an Artifact comprised of a ball of Adamantium linked with a chain of liquid metal that could extend and retract at her command in the other.
"Well, girls, let's destroy it for the final time and then take a nap." Fora smiled sharply, the liquid chain starting to swing like a pendulum, a slowly growing mist filling the place around them.
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