Please read the author's notes. (Examples and explanation of moves and appearance+ Monster Sources)
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CHAPTER START---
As the footsteps subside in the distance, Yang and company take a moment to relax as best they can.
"So... Anjanath?" Thalie questions, giving Yang a strange look.
"Uh... It's a monster from very far away, didn't realize they would be down here..." he says, an obviously vague response.
"Uh-huh, how tough is it?" Welf chimes in, also unsure how to take Yang's behavior.
"It shouldn't be that strong considering this is just the 24th floor, I was just shocked to see it here, it should just be a big lizard that can breathe some fire, oh... and the back can sprout wing, well, more like big fins to help it jump but nothing special..." he finishes off.
"Yeah, that, with its size, probably classifies it as an irregular in strength, what's the play?" Thalie asks, throwing the decision to Yang.
'Hmm, it shouldn't be worth much, but did the dungeon make it... I need to know just in case'
"Let's go kill it, I know how it SHOULD fight so just let me do this, if something unexpected happens I can probably handle it, Thalie, I'm gonna play around with it to make sure it doesn't have anything new, be ready when I give the signal. Ok, let's move," He says, running after the monster.
Quickly catching up to his target, Yang's footsteps are unrelenting as he rushes toward the Anjanath. As the monster enters the hollow trunk of another massive tree, he leaps into the air, assisted by his wind magic he arcs toward the top of the monster.
*BOOM!*
He slams down onto the head of the monster, rattling its brain and making its head almost touch the ground from its height. Leaping forward and into the view of the monster, he raises his hands, his open palms facing forward, and prepares to test his theory.
"ROARR!" The monster belts out, shaking the ground with the sheer magnitude of its voice, nearly splitting the ears of the adventurers.
"Yeah just pull the entire floor to us, dick..." Yang mutters as he rushes forward.
As he charges at the monster, he focuses on his physical abilities instead of magic, for now, charging at the monster's ankles he immediately closes in the distance and delivers a heavy kick to the creature's ankles.
*CRACK*
The limb buckles as the massive limb skids a few feet back, throwing the monster off balance for a moment.
Following up his strike with another dash, he lunges forward and delivers a strong punch to the same foot of the monster.
"ARRR!" Anjanath shrieks once more, the pain from the hit rattling its limb.
'I need to throw it off balance, no earth around to use since we're in a fucking tree. Force then'
As Yang decides his path, he takes a deep breath before pursing his lips, making a motion as if he was spitting, a jet of water flies out of his mouth and into the foot of the monster.
"RARGH!" Anjanath cries out as blood pours from its foot, the toes now missing as the WATER CUTTER slices them off.
Quickly moving from under the monster, Yang uses his flames to boost himself 10 meters away.
As he stands and observes the creature, he reassesses his opponent.
'Staying under it means it can't bite me, keeping it off balance stopped it from stomping, removing the tail will stop tail swipes naturally, everything works like the game, just those two left...'
As he runs through his checklist, Anjanath charges. With rage in its eyes and a maw filled with dagger long teeth, the monster goes into a full sprint trying to consume the young adventurer.
'Boost'
Yang simply jumps away, maintaining the same distance as the monster has to stop and restart its charge.
As it charges once more, he jumps away again.
"What, can't catch me?!" he taunts, trying to enrage the beast.
The monster charges once more, its skin becoming slightly pinker as it approaches at high speed, only for him to jump away again.
As he is in mid-air, however, looking back at the monster he sees it immediately whip its head in his direction, locking eyes with him, a split second of recognition for him to raise his arms up, before it belches a wave of fire and embers in his direction.
'Hmm, so it does have that...' he mentally checks off from his list while pushing both his palms out, blocking the flames with a wall of wind.
As he waves his hand in front of him, a gust of wind blows away the embers spewed out by Anjanath.
"Fuck--"
That was all Yang could say as a massive open mouth lunged through the flames, using its own flames as a smokescreen Anjanath jumped forward and decided to simply devour its opponent.
"ARGH!"
Yang exclaims as he narrowly avoids the monsters' mouth. Boosting to the right as if he were a cape waved before a charging bull, only a few feet away from the monster's head as it moves past him.
*BOOM!*
*CRACK!*
A loud impact echoes in the chamber of this massive tree, as Yang boosts into the creature and strikes its head. His fist coated in flames as he cracks the monster's jaw while it jumps past him.
With a loud crash, the Anjanath crumples to the floor and rolls along the chamber for a dozen meters before coming to a stop. As the creature lays on its belly, dazed from the last attack, Yang observes it.
"Hmm, there they are..." He says as the massive wings on the back of the monster are now seen, no longer obstructed by the flames.
As the monster gets up, slowly turning to look at him, its lower jaw hanging on by a muscle as the shattered bones are completely useless. Its tongue hangs limply as it glares at Yang, his form still standing in the air with flames at the bottom of his feet.
"Ugh, sorry about that, I think that's all I can learn from you, WE'RE DONE HERE!" He yells out, dropping to the floor with a small thud.
*BOOM*
As he looks up, the core of the monster has a hole in it, half of its crystal shattered to bits, looking through the hole, however, Thalie can be seen embedded in the wall behind the now-dead Anjanath.
As she pries herself out of the tree and drops to the floor, the Trifecta convenes at the corpse of their latest hunt.
"So..." Thalie starts off, throwing the conversation to Yang.
"It's standard Anjanath, nothing new really. What level you thinking?" He asks Thalie.
"Eh...hard to tell seeing that you gave me that much time to charge up. Maybe level 4 or 5, hahaha... probably should of let Welf fight it to get a proper read on it," She jokes in response.
"Uh... fire breathing massive... thing, I can probably use Will-o-Wisp and make its own flames self-destruct it, shouldn't be a problem. Physically, dunno." Welf answers.
"Will-o-Wisp?" Yang questions, his interest piqued.
"A spell I have, basically anti-magic, hits you, and then if you use magic, boom," He says with a smirk.
"Huh, damn, well we're done here so let's just take something to document this and get out of here..." Yang says, moving to store the crystal in his inventory.
"You gonna tell us where this far away place is that this new monster came from?" Thalie prods, still not satisfied with the lack of information.
'Hmm, time to keep it simple,' Yang thinks.
"Can't, literally can't remember much about it, can't remember much past my family honestly," He lies, choosing to bring up a sore subject to make his allies drop the questions.
Deciding to ignore it, for now, Thalie holds her tongue as they prepare to march to the lower floors.
As they move toward the entrance to the 25th floor, returning to the water palace, Yang can't help but retreat into his thoughts for a bit.
'Hmm, are there any monsters from the game that would be a problem for me... assuming they are on the same level with me at the time... I think we should be fine once we match pace with the dungeon, no need to get everyone worked up, I'll just play it by feel unless things go bad. But how the hell did this happen, and did it only bring stuff from that game, maybe because it was most similar to what this world has already...' He ponders as they enter the tunnel to the 25th floor.
END CHAPTER---