As Yuriy and company fought or await the result of their current duel, something stirred elsewhere. on the 1st floor of the dungeon, the hordes of monsters begin to swell anew. Anticipating Midgardsormr's retaliation after fleeing from their last fight, the floor guardian began to pre-emptively charge into the lair of the serpent.
Standing above the entrance to the watery cavern, the floor guardian evoked the contaminated water to shoot into the air leaving only a dry but deep chasm. Afterwards, the guardian flew into the hole in search of its hateful foe, only once it reached the border between floors no serpent could be found. This could only mean one thing; Midgardsormr fled to the 2nd floor. Sending a message to the 2nd floor's guardian, the 1st floor guardian continued to search the floor for the serpent.
A similar scene occurred on the 2nd floor as the floor guardian searched the entire fiery floor. The floor guardian spared no effort to search every crevice for signs of the serpent, but nothing was found. Unlike the path between the first and second floors, there was no such path to the 3rd floor.
The reason being a highly dense gravitational field surrounding the entire 3rd floor. Additionally, the 2nd floor's monsters were not influenced by Midgardsormr in any way, thus while ushering a domineering roar, the Abyssal Molten Python commanded all fire-type monsters to sweep the floor and make way to the 1st floor.
The floor guardians moved with urgency, afraid of the serpent's retaliation; however, they were not aware of the subtle influence Midgardsormr had over them. In fact, the serpent had never left the 1st floor, but simply went to a newer, darker hiding place and watched as the floor guardians amassed a new wave of monsters,
"(Cackle)… Stupid puppets, bring me all the soldiers I need for my conquest. Soon, my little bobble will reach the core, giving me a direct path to my prize…soon…"
The serpent spoke to the darkness, its tainted fumes filling an enormous monster cradle with commonly seen monsters on the 1st floor, as well as four other types of monsters completely foreign to the dungeon as a whole, just as tainted as the serpent. The dark monster cradle was filled with fleshy incubation sacks with hundreds if not thousands of monsters awaiting to be released…
…
(Damnit!! I am at my wits end! I have tried everything I can think of in order to increase my response speed. And still, after a full 2 hours of nonstop fighting, I am remain a step away from my hard-fought desire.)
I stood there panting like a whale trapped on a beach with no way to get back into the ocean despite being so close. Elder Aliandorith remained stationary while watching my every move. For the last 2 hours I have yet to make him take a single step backwards, nor have I caught him off balance.
Truly the combat experience he has outranks mine. In comparison it was like the distance between heaven and earth. But what can I do about it? I had been hitting this mountainous wall with all I have in me, but nothing seems to work. Does this mean I will never awaken aura? While I was being filled with despair, the Elder spoke out,
"Ancestor, I hath confirmed thou hast placed all thine might, prowess and will into thine efforts. Yet, thou hast withheld a polar side of thine might. Release all thou hast obtained, leaving nothing left."
After speaking, the Elder assumed his combat stance once more. I honestly tried to use only my body which has worked well until this moment. Nonetheless, as Elder Aliandorith has noted, I am indeed holding back.
I have seemed to forget I key piece of information while trying to awaken aura. That is, I am not taking the same path as mages or warriors. Instead, I walk alone down a new path. A path greater than the sum of both common paths to power, and yet vastly different.
My aim is to have the power and endless growth of both mages and warriors, without their weakness and faults. If I am to walk this perfected and flawless path, then I must not limit myself to what is common knowledge. I must use all I have, and not just physical ability, but the arcane in perfect harmon6y with my body..
"Thank you Elder, for reminding me of what I am pursuing."
Saying this, I took out uncle's sword while still holding my plasmasaber. Taking a deep breath and calming myself, I evoked pyrosaber on uncle's sword while evoking the 2nd spell of the Atomicsaber arts, Uranium Shroud. Although this is the first time I am using this spell, I was able to evoke it in almost the same fashion as elemental saber spells.
With both weapons out, I released my bloodline radiation again and evoked Ra's domain with all four stellar cores, only instead of a dome, I had the green stellar core settle on my head, two normal stellar cores on my shoulders and the last two on my knees. Once positioned, a radiant set of armor materialized over my body. Although it was see-through and featureless, this magoi armor increased my response time.
Even still I was not finished, I infused substantial amounts of magoi into my armor which began to produce a thick black fog. As the fog radiated from my armor, the stellar magoi armor absorbed the fog and began to darken until it was as black as a new moon night. Without holding anything back I readied myself. In response, Elder Aliandorith noticing how powerful I became, too released his aura and bloodline radiation.
Just like before, phantoms began to form in between and began fighting. Only this time, my phantom avoided getting hacked to bits. Followed by the Elder's phantom getting his limbs chopped off, sword destroyed, flesh eroded. With each death, the Elder increased his aura's output, until he released the might of a Initial Duke stage Battlemaster. Of course he did not take out his trump card, but only released his aura to the fullest.
Once this stage was reached, our phantoms fought each other to a deadlock, or at least that is what it appeared to be. With each exchange, my phantom powered up and used modified spells most suitable for the fight, and the Elder would release his might until finally our phantoms faded and we clashed,
BOOOMM!!!
Each time we crossed blades, an explosion would ensue. Not even thinking about what moves to use, I began to enter a trance while performing an archaic sword dance with the Elder. Our blades occasionally clashed against each other, but for the most part we were dodging each other's advances and following up with a counter only for that to be dodged or blocked.
With every exchange, our dance grew faster. With every step, the force field around us grew. The elements seemed to respond to our sword dance as pillars of fire, water, earth, and wind formed in the four corners of the arena. I was too focused on the fight at hand to notice the changes. Even as we danced, an audible melody began to sound. With each clash of our swords the magoi density rose.
BOOOOM!! BOOOOM!! BOOM!! BOOOOM!!
Like the sound of drums, the explosions caused by our blades meeting rang out. With each passing moment, A dark radiance came from my entire being, while radiant light glowed from the Elder. Deep inside myself that dark energy was bubbling like crazy, waiting for the moment to burst forth. Eventually at some point, I no longer cared about the fight as our exchanges of swift and deadly sword swings were dodged, parried, blocked, and countered.
-End of Chapter