Floor 51, Gale challenged Cadmus, the pseudo monster rex of the 51st floor. This was yet again a rather intense fight. The monster had fortunately spawned with his highest reported strength, making it a truly level 7 monster, of the dragon variety… In other words, not an easy fight for anyone on their own…
Well, Maxim, Empress, and Zald wouldn't struggle. But they're all way above the monster, or are monstrous themselves… Depends on how one looks at the situation. As for someone like Shurry, he'd struggle without the outer moon, but using it might as well be considered a cheat. Hence why it's only sparingly used.
"It's fortunate that Cadmus spawned like this. I'm not sure how much I'd trust Gale in the lead position against Thalia…" Maxim muttered.
"Huh? What about that other guy you talked about?" Shurry, being sat upon Lyca's shoulders, asked with curiosity.
"Ah, that's right, Balrog. He's a bit harder to find. There isn't really a spawn timer for him. He just sorta appears whenever."
"Is there a way to summon him?"
"We don't know. Tried everything we could think of so far, but nothing."
Cadmus finally fell, and it was clear that while it was a difficult fight, Gale didn't look happy. "Maxim, I don't think that was enough to level me up… It felt too easy."
The party sighed. "I see. If you feel that way, then let's continue with the plan. If Balrog doesn't spawn then we'll have you play vanguard for Thalia."
"Uh, yeah… Sure, that'll do it… YOU SURE YOU DON'T WANT ME TO DIE?"
"You're too loud, bad uncle Gale." Shurry scolded with a childish innocence.
"Heh, let's move on…"
The 51st floor's exit. "Everyone, remember the plan? We aren't taking the usual route this time. We're gonna fall."
"Let's hunt!"
Maxim, and Empress lead the way, followed closely behind by Shurry. He was ready to have some fun. It wasn't long before the first plume of fire rose from the depths, destroying the floor beneath.
Dodging out of the way in the nick of time, And just after the fire disappeared, everyone jumped into the freshly made hole, descending down.
The rush of the air whizzing by his face, and whipping along his tail… It was an amazing feeling. Shurry giggled the whole way through the fall. Meanwhile the lower level supporters were currently not enjoying this experience.
Another fire breath aimed upwards, but it was futile, Shurry's moonlight platforms deflected the whole column out, around, and above them. So they kept falling. When suddenly, just before they would collide with the ground beneath them, two layers of light covered every single one of the members who would otherwise never survive the fall.
This effect created a protective barrier around the person, restricting their movements enough preventing them from harming themselves, as well as an inner cushion of air that would rapidly compress at a sustained rate, drastically reducing the impact of landing on the ground. Even a level 1 could survive it in one of these things, though, they might lose their lunch… Several did…
"Ugh, it tastes even worse the second time."
"Remind me never to do that again."
"Oh get over yourselves-" Dude was interrupted by their need to vomit. "Look at him over there. He's already killing the Valgangs. Look, a wolf tearing through dragons."
An hour after the fight began, the fight was over. Maxim and Empress made short work of the ugly monsters. But now what was there to do with this brief moment of peace?
Well, they tried every single method to summon Balrog, however, it was fair to say that none of those methods worked in the slightest.
"See, Balrog just doesn't show up with a normal timer. Sometimes it's a month, sometimes a year, and even then there's a few accounts of it being 5 years." Maxim explained to an extremely disappointed Shurry.
"So mean. Why doesn't he come out? Is he stupid?" Shurry asked, and then his senses picked up on something… It wasn't his usual senses that did so, it was far more accurate to say it was his sixth or perhaps even some other seventh sense, he couldn't really tell. Maybe it was purely his childlike instinct? Either way he acted on it. "BALROG! YOU BIG UGLY REVERSED SCALE OVERGROWN LIZARD! COME OUT NOW!"
The dungeon roared to life with the sounds of cracking, it was the spawning of the monster rex, Balrog. It took a minute for him to make a full break out of the dungeon. His body was massive, standing on all four legs with his head up right towards the ceiling, he was 50 Meters tall, and 100 meters long, 120 if you counted the tail's whisps at the very end.
The expression the monster had was clear, pure aggression, a powerful fire blast charged in its mouth. Anger fueled its fire, it spread its wings, at the same time he fired off a focused stream of fire at Shurry.
This was not any ordinary monster rex, it was smart. It had been watching the team through their earlier fight. And decided to get rid of the one who could block his fire, doing so with this dense stream… Calling it fire wasn't really accurate, nor inaccurate… It was more like if 5 hyper concentrated fire beams were occupying the same space, all twisting around each other forming a drill.
There was no time to move, but there was time to stand one's own ground. Shurry put up a light barrier big enough to block the path, but… It shattered. Both parties smiled. Shurry released more light platforms, each forming a rather odd shape, however, their purpose wasn't to block the fire entirely. No, he was able to redirect the flames using a carefully organized set of the panels that chipped away at the column of fire.
By the time the fire was supposed to meet Shurry head on, it had been knocked off course and bored a large hole through the dungeon wall.
"Holy shit…"
"Gale, get in there! We're fighting Balrog! He's reached a uniquely high status! We have to kill him now." Maxim ordered, drawing his blade, and began applying his own amps. "We've got to take this guy seriously.
"Shit, what do you think I'm gonna do against something you need to get serious for?"
"Shut up and do it!"
"Fine!"
The battle began. There was no time to think about how stupidly easy it was to spawn this monster. A thing they would definitely be using later on. To summon more of them…