CHAPTER 221(Marching Home)

Please read the author's notes.

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pat.treon:/Keanu_Eugene

CHAPTER START---

---Monster-Rex: Goliath, Boss Room...

In the large cavern looms the monster-rex. A grey-skinned titan standing three stories tall with white hair and black eyes.

It clumsily swings its arms around at Thalie, the woman in casual adventurer combat clothes, long pants, boots, and a comfortable top, her team was dressed the same way with the exception of Yang's coat.

In mid-air, she adjusts her position with her spear, Hokori. A gust of wind is expelled as she evades another fist in mid-air.

"Stop dashing around so much," Yang commands from above both combatants. He and Welf standing on a cloud and looking down at the fight. "Focus on hovering in place so you can practice building leverage without footing, remember?"

"I remember!" Thalie yells out as she dodges another fist.

The level-four monster-rex couldn't really do damage to the level-seven woman. But this was a training exercise for a reason.

Staying in the air again Thalie constantly releases bursts of wind to dance from left to right and stay off the ground. Every activation of Hokori costs magic, as well as how much magic you want to expel. Releasing a constant stream of air was much more efficient, as well as having better control of the air generated like Welf has with his flames.

"How am I supposed to hit with no leverage or momentum?" Thalie asks, still struggling with aerial combat.

Yang sighs and hops off the cloud, leaving Welf standing above as he still maintains it. Surrounded by a shroud of swirling green air, he lowers himself to hover just above the fight for Thalie to see, as she's constantly avoiding the Goliath's strikes.

"Look at me," Yang says. As Thalie looks up she sees him standing on air and effectively acting as if he's walking around on nothing. "Constantly boosting yourself is only good against things that can't fly, to be a true aerial combatant against things like dragons and Roks you have to be able to hover and provide leverage with the thrust, or in your case the updraft, that keeps you steady."

Thalie casually slaps away a fist strike from the Goliath, knocking the boss monster on his back.

"Easier said than done," she says while constantly releasing bursts of air to stay airborne, constantly bobbing up and down in place.

"You're too tense," Yang says. "Always on alert. You need to relax. Using magic even through one of our weapons is like a muscle, the more you focus on it the more you're aware of how much it hurts. Eventually, when fighting in the air becomes second nature you'll be able to instinctually move around, and hopefully, by then you can calm your mind enough to stay put instead of always needing to be moving somewhere."

"And for now?" Thalie asks.

"Let's get to the lower floors for better practice," Yang says as he drops to the floor.

As Thalie throws Hokori at the Goliath the spear effortlessly pierces the monster and shatters the crystal in its chest. Before she can even drop to the floor she recalls the weapon and it returns to her hand.

Walking through the tunnel to the floor eighteen safe-zone Welf can't help but shake a strange feeling.

"How do you spend so much time on those clouds of yours without feeling weird after?" He asks Yang.

"Oh, Nimbus? Yeah you need a pure heart to ride it that's probably why you feel weird," he says jokingly.

Thalie raises a brow at the claim. "You expect us to believe you have a pure heart?"

"Yeah I'm not buying it," Welf says.

"Alright so that was bullshit but it's mostly because I'm so used to flying around, fighting on walls, and stuff that makes my sense of balance pretty...extreme," Yang admits. "Besides, I've walked on the ocean so not having entirely stable footing isn't a big deal."

"That makes more sense," Thalie admits. "I'm almost certain you and Freya probably did some heinous stuff on clouds, can't be pure of heart...because honestly, who wouldn't."

"Hahahaha," Yang releases a deep laugh. "Oh yeah, a lot..."

---Monster-Rex: Udeaus Boss Room...

"Wow...they're bad," Yang murmurs as he leans against the entrance to the boss room.

Locked in the middle of the room Udeaus lashes out with its fist while raising an endless army of skeletal soldiers.

Scattered about the room members of the Ganesha familia are desperately trying to fight the soldiers while their mages chant another barrage of spells to attack the boss.

Thalie stands beside Yang and stakes her spear into the stone ground to free her hands. "Believe it or not this is how regular people fight bosses...but yeah it's sad compared to us."

"It's not that bad," Welf says. "I mean we have our standard formations too, it's just a lot more...loose."

"How long does this crap usually take them?" Yang asks. "We need to get going and they're in the way."

"Usual boss sieges can take upward of an hour," Thalie says.

"Took me like five minutes to kill this thing...guess I've got time to kill," Yang says as he falls backward, only for a cloud to form behind him and catch him. Now comfortably laying on the cloud he rolls onto his side to continue watching the desperate fight.

A few minutes later Shakti is shattering skeletal soldiers by the dozens with her armored gauntlets. "Protect the mages! Shield wall!" She commands as Udeaus raises both massive boney hands above his head and brings them down in the direction of the mages.

Seeing her adventurers not being able to form up in time she rushes forward, straining her tired body and ignoring the pain in her legs as she arrives in front of the mages.

"Don't stop chanting!" she says. Allowing them to continue chanting as she blocks them with her body, joined by a few adventurers with shields

As the fists slam into the stone floor a shockwave rushes forward in a straight line. The shield line is completely blown apart before the attack slams into the mages.

Multiple colorful spells implode onto themselves before exploding outward. Explosions of fire and sound magic echo out as the mages are hurt by their own magic.

"Again!" Shakti yells out, and everyone immediately reforms their ranks and either begins handing out potions or chanting once more. Picking herself up off the floor Shakti notices she was knocked to the back of the room. Barely able to stand she drops down to one knee and desperately tries to catch her breath.

"Hey, you good?" Yang's voice calls out to the side.

Whipping her head in his direction she sees The Trifecta. Yang laying on a cloud writing notes in a book, seemingly enjoying the fight.

Thalie was sitting on the floor with her back against the doorway, eyes closed, taking a nap?

Welf seemed to be comparing two pieces of Ore in his hands, both grey and dull...Mythril.

"Can you help us?" Shakti asks, sounding much more desperate than she intended.

Yang raises a brow at the request. "Adventurers aren't supposed to get involved in another person's adventure, remember?"

"This isn't an expedition," Shakti says as she forces herself to stand up and approach them. Trying to focus on the matter at hand instead of the young man laying on a cloud she takes a deep breath to focus. "We aren't here to level up. Anubis familia was on a joint expedition with Baldur familia, some of the members got separated and they hired us to find them, floor forty, we just have to get past this boss."

"And what you didn't bring enough people to fight Udeaus?" Yang asks.

"Our resources were drained by-" Shakti looks around to make sure none of her familia was close enough to hear. "There was an Elder Dragon spawn on floor thirty-five," the entire Trifecta is immediately at attention when they hear this. "Big blue lion-dragon thing."

"Lunastra, on these early floors she shouldn't be that strong," Yang says. "She's in the book, you should've read it."

"I can't memorize three hundred pages," Shakti says.

"I did."

"Look the point is, it drained a lot of our supplies so this fight is harder than it should be, can you help us?"

Yang sits up on his cloud and shrugs, "sure, you're in my way anyway so whatever."

Flattening his hand he raises his entire arm up before slicing down. A large but razor-thin blade of green wind rushes forward, carving into both the ceiling and floor while it moves toward Udeaus.

With the monster being a giant horned skeleton with no legs, its pelvis built into the stone floor like a turret, it was impossible to dodge.

Shakti can barely track the blade with her eyes as it hits the monster. All the skeletal soldiers in its path are cleanly divided, thankfully Yang was able to avoid touching any of her people.

As Udeaus was trying to reach out and grab some of her men the blade hits his hand before passing through his body and the Monster Crystal within.

A pregnable silence befalls the room as from the floor to the ceiling behind Udeaus is divided in two.

"Wh-" Shakti's confused words are cut off by the sound of the crystal shattering and all the monsters becoming dust. Shaking her head at the absurdity of his power, far more used to it than most people at this point, she turns to Yang. "Thanks, when you're done with this expedition I owe you guys a meal," she glances over to Thalie who was now giving her a bored look. Shakti sighs, "yes you too...criminal," she mutters the final word.

"Knew you loved me," Thalie jokes as she gets up and grabs her spear.

"Whatever," Shakti turns to her people. "Everyone be ready to move out in ten minutes, we still have to search the next floor!"

As the stunned and confused people are still trying to wrap their minds around exactly what just happened to the monster their captain turns to Yang. "Don't suppose you've got some super special tracking magic too?" she asks jokingly.

To her surprise Yang just silently nods.

Her light chuckle dies in her throat, "I was kidding...your third magic is tracking magic?"

"What? No, that's way too lame-" Thalie smacks Yang on the head.

"Mikoto has tracking magic," she says.

"Oh, right, my bad," he apologizes. "But yeah it's not my third magic slot, I can just use Earth element to find them," he hops down from his cloud as it disappears.

"How does that even..." Shakti just shakes her head and stands back. "I'll just trust you with this. We're looking for twelve adventurers, all roughly your size."

"Gotcha," Yang goes down on one knee and rests a palm flat on the stone floor. With a thought, his Elemental Wheel appears at his back, made of broken rocks rotating around like an asteroid belt.

"Wow," Shakti's eyes widen as she finally gets to see this skill up close. One of the skills that were made public multiple times but never explained to the people.

RUMBLE!

A sudden earthquake hits for barely a second, sending a vibration in every direction with Yang at the center.

Shakti is surprised for a moment as is her entire familia whilst Welf and Thalie don't even bat an eye at a force of nature being created.

Yang remains on the ground for a few more seconds before he gets up and dusts off his hand. "Found them, show me your map," he says.

With no hesitation, Shakti takes her map out of her adventuring pouch on her back and hands it to him.

He points directly to one room at the far end of floor forty, "it's at the opposite end from the entrance to the next floor. That's too out of the way for us to help you...also, I don't want to, I felt six people in there, good luck."

"That means the others are likely dead," Shakti mutters as she marks the room. "Thank you, and how exactly did you find them...if you don't mind me asking."

"Seismic Sense," Yang says. "Just like whales and bats send out sound and get a map when it bounces back to them, I do that with the vibrations, but I get a lot more info, the more I take in, the bigger the headache, and these floors are larger than Orario, each. So scanning them is a pain," he rubs his head to emphasize his point.

"I didn't know bats and whales can do that, that's incredible," Shakti says, amazed by his otherworldly knowledge.

"Oh, well, yeah," Yang says awkwardly, completely getting too excited in his explanation and forgetting how limited science and research were in this world.

"And you can tell people apart?" Shakti asks.

"No," he shrugs. "But they're the only things smaller than a bear on that floor. But if I know where someone is or better yet, if they're in front of me," he gestures to Shakti. "I can monitor their heart rate, among other things, gives me a good idea about how they're feeling."

As realization dawns on her Shakti blushes slightly and looks away, scanning the state of her allies as they get ready to move out. "Right, well, um...thank you."

Yang chuckles and shakes his head as he begins walking to the exit. "Good luck Captain Shakti..." he says with a wave over his shoulder as his allies join him.

As they're entering the new floor Welf can't help but asks, "so...does Freya not have a problem with you teasing other women? Figured she'd go on a warpath if you even looked at one."

"Mmm, it's complicated," Yang says. "But she likes the fact that other people want me, makes her feel special that she has me...had me," he corrects himself.

"Women are weird," Welf sighs. "Wish I didn't have any romantic desires like Thalie, would make life so much easier, and I'd get more work done."

"Don't let your goddess hear you say that," Thalie warns him. "Freya is open about being a psycho, Hephaestus is sneaky about it."

"Hephaestus isn't like that," Welf says.

Both Thalie and Yang share a somewhat knowing look before looking at the love blinded smith.

"She's a goddess," Yang says. "They're all crazy, at least mine is open and honest about it...mostly."

END CHAPTER---

Been writing my Earthbender fanfic this week(Chapter 1 in my discord)...some of it leaked into this.