C131: End of the Abyss P13
Overall Word count = 2074 on 8/19/2024.
Alt Title Spoiler: The Chemist, ….
"Howdy folks, I reckon you all better prepare yourselves. I dare say, I may have hit..no. pummeled…no. I…I hurt the dungeon. It's probably going to be angry. Haruhime, prepare the chant." They all pale at his words and they further pale as the whole of the dungeon shakes, as if the Dungeon Will had just recovered from being jumped by Axel and his soul fragments. The walls of the 58th floor, the dragon nest. It trembles and breaks as monsters break free to kill Axel and his group.
The first one that shows itself is the Goliath from the original 17th floor. Yet this one is pure black where it's hard to see it's complete form as it's body seems to absorb the light around it.
"Yip" A dog bark is heard and Axel quickly turns his head to the pocket reaper, he just barely understands that it wants to fight it. So with a nod of his head, the best boy began jumping around in the air, its scythe materialized in its mouth before it let go and it hovered by itself at its side.
Axel has to use his nen mask construct to create Hisoka so that he can use his bungee gum (which has both the properties of rubber and gum) to help his team stay grounded to the floor. The reason for this is due to the scythe now spinning at hyper speeds that when the Goliath finally gets in range, it starts getting atomized by the scythe. The doggo then has it fly all around the Goliath where it's torn to chunks with the exception of its giant monster core that somehow shrinks down and lands within the bone dog's mouth. The crystal is immediately disintegrated within it's mouth as it returns to watch over Sabrina. "Yip"
"Huh, cool" Axel says in response, the only thing he really understood what it said was something about Pseudo-souls. Fake souls that are typically used in puppetry to make the puppets life-like and stronger. This is why these monsters called Rexs appear stronger than normal monsters, the pseudo souls mutate their bodies to be bigger.
So Axel could very well have encountered, in the next 10 or so floors, a smaller Goliath that is just…some big dude. (Featherless, Bipedal. It's a man). The only inconsistency is that the current floors would easily wipe out the standard Goliath. So would that instead mean that Goliaths are just mutated goblins or something. Hmm, maybe an Orc, or War Shadow.
Axel is knocked out of his contemplations as the walls begin to break again. Lava begins to spill out from the walls until a snake makes its appearance. Except it's not any ole regular snake but Amphisbaena, Except this one is red. There is no distinction between either head as they are identical this time around. Before they were white and blue but now their crystal 'hair' is gone for a sleek scaly scalp. Did I mention that it is resting within a pool of lava. Or that it's twice the size of the regular Amphisbaena.
It's practically a reverse Amphisbaena but it wouldn't be interesting if it was just a regular one but bigger, faster, tougher and stronger. That would be boring. Axel wonders if the magic canceling mist still exists.
Axel first cancels Hisoka to replace it with Shizuka Murasaki and her googly-eyed nen vacuum that begins to suck up all the lava near it and even the bits far away start being pulled into the nen vacuum, Blinky[1]. Amphisbaena is naturally distraught by this and targets the black haired glasses girl with a mist breath that Axel quickly realizes has acidic properties in addition to possible anti-magic.
Axel creates a giant fan like those from 'Naruto' which he uses to repel the thick mist as it begins to melt the outer shell of the Dragons Nest.
Proving fruitless, the other head of Amphisbaena releases a roar that causes a powerful sonic shockwave that injures Shizuka. Axel dispels the nen construct so he doesnt get injured this early in the fight. Of course he had also bought time for Welf and the others. They all unveil a set of various magic swords that Welf had made with Adamantite. They all possess the Durandal property and were freely distributed to everyone except the two newest members who are covering behind Axel and his pet dragon.
Said dragon has an angsty face at seeing so many invaders in it's territory but it has no reason to move unless it senses a threat to it's life or is ordered by it's master. As such, he grows a bit carefree as Welf and the others unleash a rainbow of attacks. Ice to melt or freeze the remaining lava. Wind blades and giant boulders manifested from the earth swords being thrown at the two heads. They also have fire swords but are unsure if they should be used since Amphisbaena is literally sitting in frozen lava.
The Snake Rex begins to thrash against the frozen lava to shatter it or melt it down again but the other magic swords prove a stronger hindrance than it could have expected. Long ravine style cuts are made in its giant body. Blood seeps out of these wounds before they too evaporate or freeze. The body of Amphisbaena begins to steam which melts the lava near it.
Axel was about to resummon Shizuka so that she can continue sucking up the frozen lava, but he paused. The reason for that is because he saw his group was getting confident in fighting this Albino Amphisbaena, but Axel gradually grew worried when the other snake head had not done much except roared which was the source of the sonic blasts.
As if Choreographed, the other head opens it's mouth as it begins to gather some air for a powerful roar. The group readies their magic swords and unleash their attacks early to catch the incoming sonic boom early. Yet the thunderous blast never comes, Instead the snake continues sucking in air and with it. When the magic attacks were sucked into its mouth.
Axel watches this in curiosity if this is somewhat similar to Antares. Because if it is then he is jumping in and pummeling this two headed snake. Axel uses some magic to analyze the snake after collecting some of its blood through his mental threads. He quickly understands that the original anti-magic mist had been merged with the internal organs of Amphisbaena. That is why it lacks a proper breath attack since its original breath is also magic.
So one head sucks up magic while the other releases highly acidic gasses. Yet due to his little test, he figured out it's weakness.
"Araba" The dragon tilts it's head back a bit to attempt to look at Axel who is on it's back.
"Would you kindly shoot your fire breath at the snake head that shoots out the acid breath, as it's shooting it out?" The dragon seems to nod at his request and the two wait while the group attempts to continue killing the beast, yet after the first reveal, the second snake head has begun absorbing much more magic attacks while the other head had been slamming the ground, attempting to crush any of the group members that have gotten close to it or attempted to attack with the magic swords from a different angle.
The moment finally arrives and the group is bundled together, nice and tightly that the first head begins to exhale it's mist that Araba started charging up it's own fire breath beforehand that it now shoots. Axel seems to wave his hand as Araba releases it's iconic power. The strength of the breath passes through the mist at first but when it comes in contact with the inside of the snake's mouth. The other end of the snake suddenly throws up oceans worth of blood.
How this happened is a mix of two details, the first is that Amphisbaena is releasing an organic acid. That very same acid coats its entire insides just like the mana resisting effect.
Organic acids are flammable but then why would it be swimming in lava? Well that is because another factor is the snake produces an antifire reagent that protects it from it's own fire. The downside is that it's body needs to be warmed up constantly to produce this reagent. His group could have won if they persisted with the various ice attacks but it would have taken a long time.
What he did is throw in a chunk of nen created Sulfite Nitrate and dithionite. Both chemicals working together can make organic acids burn brightly but the fire breath had to first break through the protective barrier. This is why he timed the firebreath with the acid mist. The mist served as the indicator for the acid storage opening. So with the two chemicals mixed with dragonbreath, the fire was led all the way to the acid storage tank. So when that exploded, the rest of the snakes insides also got burned to a crisp, ruining both the magic protection as well as it's acid.
Science rules.
"Thanks Migi" Axel offhandedly comments as the little researcher had looked up various animals defense mechanisms in it's original life. It learned plenty about acids and how to counter them in case it or its host had encountered any. The information aspect of his gluttony was rarely ever used by him as he did not need to know what the internal structure of a goblin or any other creature like it was. They all had fairly clear weaknesses but only something like these variant Rexs' that he felt the need to use.
Amphisbaena soon faints/collapses from the giant internal injury as well as shock from the explosive force. Its two ends are spread out from each other. The group takes this opportunity to attempt to finish the beast off. Meanwhile Axel extends two mana threads to touch the snake head that landed closer to him.
One thread is connected to him while the other is connected to his back and wraps around Sabrina. She would typically absorb the thread with ease and break the link but he momentarily protects it until the devoured energy comes in contact with her. She would then leech off that threads devoured energy instead of the thread which acts like a transporter.
It took alot of testing to figure out he could finally extend his gluttony beyond arm's reach with the mana thread. Even longer did it take him to be able to use his full force gluttony with the threads as he had to make them adequately thick to handle the onslaught of various energies absorbed from monsters or anything else. He had tested this with leaves, learning far too much about the diet of the bush/tree it was originally attached to as well as how it's internal structure works.
Gradually Amphisbaena is finished off and explodes into dust where its sizable magic core drops to the ground. The group brings it closer to Axel and the valgang dragon, Araba.
They all retake battle positions as the next round of rumbles occurs in this end of the cave.
t***********************************
Alt title: The Chemist, and the Boss Rush P2,
So with the acid stuff, just take it as is.
[1] So Blinky can absorb anything that is 'non-living', so no, it is not limited to just water, blood and everything nice. It can even be used to suck up poisons from inside people and other sparkly joys.
Below is a bit of research I did on acids and fire. You are not obligated to read it as it's a bit dumb since i'm no specialize on this matter.
I did just enough research to figure out two things: is acid flammable? - organic = yes. Mineral = no. What can cause acids to burst into flames: I learned of Carboxylic acids and what they react to: "sulfites, nitrites, thiosulfates (to give H2S and SO3), dithionites (SO2)". This is all relate to Carboxylic acid which is like a parent of tons of other acids. Ill just leave it at that since I don't feel like listing all the various acids that make up the 'children'.