CHAPTER 226(The Finish Line)

Please read the author's notes.

Discord: https://discord.gg/K7f8qGpvuk

pat.treon:/Keanu_Eugene

CHAPTER START---

"It's up ahead," Thalie says as they round the final curve of these intricate crystal tunnels.

"Whatever 'it' is, it's taking a lot of power," Welf says.

"What do you mean?" Yang asks, mostly distracted by the feeling of knives flowing through his veins. Between the fight against Nergigante to where they are now, he'd barely spoken. Most of his focus was spent on looking strong.

"Look at that," Welf points to the crystal tunnel leading into the next massive chamber. Taking a closer look they could see the kaleidoscope of flowing energy behind the crystal merging from all the different routes toward this point, becoming a solid river of power.

"Damn," Thalie gestures to the room ahead. "Hopefully that energy is going to your angel and not whatever I can feel waiting up ahead, whatever it is... it's unreal how badly my instincts are telling me to run away."

"That bad?" Welf asks.

"Mhm, and worse," Thalie looks toward Yang. "We could rest for a bit or go in now, what's your call?"

"Hmm," Yang raises a finger to his chin and considers his options. 'I'm still really really damn hurt. But this could be it. But what about what Thalie is sensing...' he wracks his brain for a few seconds. Taking in the pain tearing his body apart, struggling to fight whatever the last two monsters did to him.

As Yang is about to make his decision, the same guilt and shame swell in his chest. That familiar stinging sensation surfaces once more as he hears someone call out.

"Yang!" a familiar voice, his mother's voice.

"Mom?" he immediately rushes down the hallway, following her voice and the flowing energy into a massive chamber.

"Mom?" Thalie and Welf ask in unison as they barely keep up with his mad dash.

Skidding to a halt at the entrance to the massive crystal chamber. Perfectly smooth surfaces all around, like a massive ballroom of shining sparkling crystal. Yang is completely tunneled on his goal, instinctively he looks to his left and darts off.

Ignoring the deafening roar of a monster at his back. Covering the few hundred feet to the far end of the room he is blinded to the fact that all the energy behind the crystal surfaces is converging at his goal.

Seeing a strange spot in the otherwise perfectly uniform wall he rockets forward on a burst of blue flames.

In the crystal walls, all the flowing energy converges onto one spot. A particularly clear sheet of crystal with a being of dimly glowing white light held within.

A cage with no doors, fueled by the dungeon to lock away his only hope of returning home.

Yang lands harshly a few feet away, stumbling as he's hit with a jolt of pain from his battered body.

Another deafening roar echoes out behind him.

The cries of his friends are ignored as he approaches the cage.

Locked within, the angel stands almost pressed to the wall separating them.

Standing seven feet tall, a slender feminine figure with an almost completely flat chest. As if made entirely of dim, barely there, white light, skin perfectly smooth like a porcelain doll. And small two sleek wings appeared like broad curved blades extending out from her back, barely reaching the small of her back.

Long hair draped over one shoulder reaching past her hips and down to her thighs, her body truly giving the impression of being beyond nature itself.

A face with only two glowing blue eyes filling both her eye sockets, no mouth, no nose, no ears. Yet she speaks to Yang as easily as if she were whispering into his ear.

"Yang!" his mother's voice calls out once more, from The Angel. "Free me, I want to go home, we can go home, finally, please!" she pleas.

An orange inferno ignites somewhere behind Yang, casting a shadow onto the crystal wall in front of him. Roars, flames, and the sound of clashing steel echos in the chamber, yet he hears none of it.

"How?" Yang's eyes were erratic as he walked forward, close enough to almost touch the crystal.

"Reconnect," The Angel says. She steps forward and places a hand on the clear wall. The energy immediately responds and rushes to where her hand touches. "Ah!" she cries out in his mother's voice.

"No!" Yang slams his fist into the wall, breaking two of his finger, not that he noticed, not that he even felt the pain or registered the cracking sounds.

As The Angel stumbles back he sees her hair move, in the middle of her chest a single shard of her is missing. A two-inch sliver, just like in his dreams.

"Reconnect," she pleas while reaching forward and touching the wall. "Uh-ahhhh!" she cries out as the energy tries to separate her from the wall on the inside.

Yang instinctively reaches forward and places his right hand on the wall directly over hers.

"Argh!" Yang groans, gritting his teeth and enduring the pain. Ignoring the now completely enraged roars from the monster currently fighting his team. He feels pain in his chest as if his body was trying to turn inside out. He feels his strength to even stand slowly trickling away.

CRACK!

A single small crack appears on the wall between his hand and The Angel's.

"C'mon!" Yang yells out as he tries to ignore the pain still wracking his entire body.

"Yang look out!" Thalie shrieks, only to be completely ignored.

Still focusing on the wall Yang is completely blindsided when something stabs him in the right shoulder, "AHHH!" he cries out as he's carried through the air, traveling on a wide arc away from The Angel.

Looking back he sees the crack, almost a foot wide, instantly repair itself with the Dungeon Energy flowing in the walls.

"NO!" he struggles all the way to the floor as he lands beside Thalie. Looking up at her he snaps out of his haze and glances over to the cause of the immense pain in his shoulder. "What the fuck?!"

Thalie had thrown her spear and arced it using its wind magic to bring him toward her. Now she only gives him an absolutely livid glare as she places a foot on his chest and removes her spear from his shoulder. "What the hell is wrong with you, we have a monster to deal with," she points to his last location. The monster itself now actively protecting The Angel's cage.

Yang sees Welf playing defense from a myriad of ranged attacks. Lightning bolts, ice spikes, fireballs, globs of water, all from one monster.

"Fuck," Yang mutters in horror and disbelief as he tries to get to his feet, "Alatreon..."

The mythical Blazing Black Dragon, Alatreon, a god amongst Elder Dragons, the final Monster-Rex of their adventure.

Standing at twenty meters tall and thirty meters long from nose to tail. Covered in sharp black scales, glimmering constantly as if it has a myriad of lights constantly moving around it to illuminate the monster.

Two massive horns atop his head, curving very slightly and forming a prong shape much like Mosoka when fully intact. Crackling, brimming, overflowing with red lightning, Dragon Energy. Pouring out of the horns and across the monster's entire body. Ice and fire constantly fall off its body as it moves, Dragon Energy flowing to its limbs and claws more than anywhere else.

Seeing the large breastplate of scales Yang notices the Dragon Energy building on all the contact points of the monster. Spreading through the large wings and meaty tail.

"Welf get back!" Yang commands. Welf instantly aims Mosoka and Ikari at the floor to rocket away from the dragon on two flame thrusters.

Immediately Alatreon releases another ear-splitting roar before belching out bellowing flames. A wide cone engulfs the room.

As Welf is on the other end of the room Yang raises his hands, broken fingers and all.

"C'mon!" he releases an equally large wave of fire, meeting the dragon's attack closer to the monster.

The blinding blue wall of fire is suddenly shattered as Alatreon's orange flames are crackling with Dragon Energy.

"Fuck!" Yang grits his teeth and activates his Elemental Wheel. Seeing the orange flames about to consume them he pushes himself more and more, feeling his magic about to run dry he gets desperate. "RAAAAAH!" he bellows out an inhuman roar as his Elemental Wheel becomes pure white, Thalie stumbles back in surprise as he's suddenly matching the monster's flames.

Only a few feet in front of them the waves of fire collide, stuck in a deadlock. But Alatreon is fresh, and Yang is running on fumes. His eyes barely maintain focus as he's backed into a corner.

"Welf?" Yang calls out.

With both hands in front of him, he doesn't get to hear Welf's response.

Out of the colliding flames comes a massive ice spike. Hurled at such a speed that Yang in his exhausted state couldn't even react.

The ice spike, as large as a bus, filled with red and blue lighting. The lightning element and Dragon Energy, is intercepted by Thalie.

"Hah!" she cries out while slashing at it with her golden spear, defensive and offensive magics shining brilliantly. As her spear makes contact with the ice, the spice glows bright blue and red for less than a moment.

BOOM!

Both Yang and Thalie are sent rolling across the room until they slam into the far wall.

Thalie gets up immediately and shakes the dizziness from her head. Adjusting her helmet slightly she looks over to see Yang sprawled out on the floor, struggling to get his face off the ground.

"What's wrong with you, get up!" Thalie yells as she looks at Yang. Now feeling a bit more comfortable as she sees a wall of black flames separating them from the monster.

"He doesn't look good! We should go!" Welf yells while glancing back at them. Seeing Yang barely picking himself up from the floor.

"I'm...fine..." he gasps for air while shakily getting to his feet, leaning against the wall the entire time.

"We're leaving," Thalie says as she easily grabs Yang by the waist.

"I'm fine!" he argues while trying to push her off, normally he'd easily be able to get away from her, but now she didn't even have to pay his efforts any attention.

"Um," Welf cuts in nervously as he glances above them, seeing orbs of lightning forming on their positions. "We need to go, now!"

Both he and Thalie immediately start running, using the flames as cover with a thin layer of Void Flames to protect them they sprint back to the hallway that leads into this room.

A massive explosion or lightning is accompanied by a crack of thunder at their previous location as they enter the hallway.

"What the fuck was that?!" Thalie literally throws Yang down the hallway. His body skates across the floor and leaves a small line of blood on the clean crystal floor as she stomps up to him. "What the fuck is wrong with you?"

As she grabs Yang by his hair and brings him up to look her in the eyes, without flinching he answers, "we need to go back, The Angel is right there."

Thalie slams him back onto the floor, knocking the wind out of him in this weakened state. "That thing will kill us, whatever the hell is!"

"Hey," Welf speaks up trying to get between them. "Let's calm down a bit before things get worse," he nervously suggests.

"We aren't ready for this fight," Thalie says, looking directly at Yang.

Yang forces himself to sit up, still bleeding from the shoulder, holding his stomach, "we can do this, just give me a minute to make a plan. We got this."

Welf gives Yang a concerned look, "why are you so hurt, it only hit you with that one ice attack," he glances over to Thalie and sees her armor is only scratched, even if it was because of her magic armor that was still active. "It shouldn't have hurt you this much, it couldn't have done this damage..."

"I'm fine," Yang says. Closing his eyes and taking a deep breath he focuses his mind, "just give me a minute to think of something for Alatreon, then we can go back in and deal with him."

"No, you're anything but fine," Thalie says. "We need to go reset, we found The Angel so we can come back later."

"NO!" Yang openly meets her glare. "I'm here, this is it. This is the finish line, we can end this here," he begins trying to stand. "Just..."

Thalie gently taps him with her spear, knocking him back onto his ass. Shifting from glaring at Yang she glances over to Welf. The smith gives her a nervous but understanding look, then a nod.

Thalie sighs, "Yang, you're like our little brother... so this is all out of love."

Yang manages to sit up and look at her, "wha---"

CRACK!

Thalie's magic-covered boot cracks his jaw as she hits him a bit too hard to knock him out.

Expedition failed...

END CHAPTER---

Made it to the finish line, but couldn't quite clear it. Monster Hunter fans...if you didn't guess Alatreon as the final Monster-Rex when the mc is literally 'The Elementalist,' c'mon...