C135: End of the Abyss P17
Overall Word count = 3021 on 8/28/2024.
Alt Title teaser: N/A (too much happening for me to give any sort of spoiler because a single word would not be enough to describe anything)
I apologize for not publishing this chapter yesterday, I had informed my 'loyal' discord followers of the reason but I really wanted to make this chapter longer than it would have been if I had released it yesterday. I had alot of ideas for this chapter and it finally shows. I wanted to actually put in the idea for next chapters content into this one as well but i felt it was long enough and I kept you all waiting.
Sorry again and enjoy. Next chapter will still be tomorrow (the 29th) like normal, aka as if I had actually published yesterday.
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The battle does not progress very well for the group, though Bell is doing work by being able to channel his [Argonaut] skill to help stave off the larger clusters of magic projectiles coming at them from the Hydra Heads. He can somewhat more controllably activate it due to awakening the memories even if he still does not fully understand them. Yet this can only serve as a stop gap due to the overwhelming difference in the two sides' powers.
The two black heads are especially worrisome as they don't really know how it works but anything that is touched begins to rapidly decompose. Welf and Ouka suggested that it might be some sort of acid breath but then the purple head spat out actual acid which nullified their suspicion as each hold holds a different 'element' or power. So there is no reason for the hydra to have two heads that do the same thing….Unless they are not the same thing.
The only clue they have found is that fire seems to nullify it, but only partially. The group has to regularly run around to not get hit at all by any of the magic blasts from the hydra. Even without that, they would have to move around to not be stomped upon by the earth golem.
The group still gathers many injuries over time but they are just holding steady. At least they were until a mistake overwhelmed them in the form of the dungeon floor breaking apart as the golem absorbs part of the floor to recover from it's injuries so it can continue being the first barrier for the core.
The uneven and brittle ground causes Lily to fall over after being struck by the shockwave of a hydra's fireball. She was knocked to the floor as a piece of broken ground cut her cheek. She has a few tears in her eyes as she mentally complains how much she hates the dungeon and how much of a fool Axel is.
Her mind is focused on her past insecurities at being weak, or useless. While this was heavily neutralized by learning Nen more in depth after getting her ring. She still struggled against the advanced techniques like Ren. She was also one of the ones who still has not properly awakened a nen ability unlike the others. She hates herself for being weak but also hates the world for making her weak. Then as if she had said a magic word, her mind goes into a trance as a phrase is repeated endlessly.
'Hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it' Lily slowly gets up and turns around to face the golem but her head is down, still in her trance.
"LILY!!" Bell calls out to the Pallum who the golem lifts its legs and is about to crush when she suddenly lifts her head up to yell out.
"I hate the world and it's your fault" A golden glow surrounds Lily as a silver gold suit of armor covers her body. A golden visor covers her eyes as a magnificent spear appears in her hands that the light condenses around into some sort of magic blast that is shot out. The light based spear pierces through the golems foot and then out through it's back, just nicking the monster core as the hydra golem is physically lifted off the floor by the power of the attack.
Fianna Armáil [1].
Lily stands in place as her gaze is focused upon the golem while the others are shocked by her change. They can clearly tell that her strength has increased, especially as they see her Nen 'visibly' (because you need Gyo, focused on your eyes to see nen like this) begin to expand. Twice fold, triple fold, quadrupled, quintupled.
Her previous weaknesses are nowhere to be seen but the group is confused by the change except Bell who has heavily studied how to become an immortal/saint from Raikou and others. He learned about the phenomena that is meant to occur. While this is different from that, it is only due to the leftover control the dungeon possesses in this area. The air around her turns misty and golden and she visibly trembles as if being locked in place.
Bell being amongst the first to rush up to support her as the golem's size shrinks down a bit to compensate for the damages done to it, but the hole in its chest is just living space for the newest addition to the hydra head family. Another green head. Truthfully, this is the head that the group is least worried about because it actually has not done anything up until now.
Yet that quickly changes as both heads open their mouths to release a light green mist that flows back around to cover the Hydra and Golem. The green glow seems to sprout a ton of moss to cover the golem which then begins to sprout vines, roots and tree like appendages. Before the group has any ideas for potentially burning this new weakness, the azure head covers all the wood and plant life in ice. The golem now sports an additional 2 layers of defense. The wood armor and ice coating.
While the ice armor can be broken by any of the groups magic swords, the wood armor would only be susceptible to either fire, ice or wind magic swords. Not to mention how the green and azure hydra heads can just reapply the same protection at any time unless they are somehow taken care of. The situation is looking grim for them and they don't even know what is going on with Axel after being taken away.
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Back up at the 60th floor, a large group split into 3 sections is making their way through the dungeon. The 1st group is made of regular adventurers, though even when saying 'regular', they are all level 2, 3 or even a few rare 4. One amongst these adventurers would wield their hammer to smack the dungeon walls, when they see that it regenerates or not, they report to the next group which then reports to the third group. At this moment, that person struck the wall and it did not heal, other parts nearby even broke off from the shockwave. He quickly rushed forward to report, "The dungeon wall is broken, this floor has been regained"
The second group is known as the Second String which is primarily composed of level 4 or 5 adventurers. Lefiya Viridis who was given the report by the hammer wielder nods and moves forward to report to the next group about the situation. She specifically approaches her own magic teacher and vice-captain, Riveria Ljos Alf about the floor situation. The high elf nods in understanding and informs the group's captain Finn Deimne about this.
Yes, this is the Loki familia who is deciding to commit to one last dungeon expedition just like the Axel's group but they had left earlier than his group even though they just arrived. Another indicator that teleporting is bullshit. The Loki members had been traveling fairly quickly due to the lack of monsters in their way. Even then their progress is slow since it would have taken too long to try breaking through multiple floors like Axel did by breaking the walls. The width of each varies and Axel only knew due to his mana threads already reaching the other side of the walls. This means they could only take the long way around. Tiona is still in a bad mood, mostly being dragged around by her sister who didn't want to exclude her from the expedition.
Finn has had a bad feeling since his familia got ready today. His thumb has been aching, urging him to speed up for an unknown reason when they arrive here on the 60th floor. As this area was still a struggle for their group to properly investigate before the dungeon started weakening, they only have a partial map towards the 61st floor. Though it does help when they find the still broken walls that Axel had made during his group's travels. They warily follow this path and arrive at the staircase to the next floor. Multiple cheers rang out about not getting lost or questions arose from the reason why this path was there.
When they fully arrive at the 61st floor. They find one of the guild's surveyors here, resting on the staircase for their lunch. The group casually asks them some questions and it devolves into "The previous floor has been regained suddenly, do you know how far this has progressed?"
"Not entirely sure, our group has only reached the 65th floor so far. The dungeon has been growing weaker ever since Bors told us that Axel Gram and his group have been spotted around the 50th floor before. We sped up our pace to follow them but we lost them on this floor and so we had been surveying as fast as we can but it's all so strange. Up until just a few minutes ago, these few floors were still part of the dungeon" The surveyor shares what they know but just knowing that Axel Gram is in the dungeon and it suddenly lost multiple floors at once is a very intriguing story for the Loki Familia group.
Of course for everyone except Finn, the ache in his thumb spreads to his entire hand that he has to stabilize himself with his other hand. His expression grows serious as he cant help but wonder what is going on with Axel's group that inspires such a sense of dread to encompass him. His mind can't help but move towards that Pallum, Liliruca Arde. The first woman he has confessed to.
His mind flows towards the words that she said to him, the riddle that he still can't completely understand. "Silly Dim, You should always polish your spear, you can't allow yourself to grow rusty, not if we seek to complete our goal." Ever since he slept after hearing that phrase he has had dreams of slaying monsters alongside another group of Pallum, though he could never make out their appearances or names. At first he felt that he was simply dreaming normally about his desire to have been part of the original Fianna knights. But this sort of desire is held within the heart of all Pallum of their 'goddess' Fianna.
In his latest dream, he saw a glimpse of another Pallum with long brown hair in golden armor. She returned around and extended her hand to 'him' and said "Let's go". His heart has been shaken due to this as one of the reasons his thumb hurts. Yet he can't help but feel strange and no longer holds Fianna deep within his heart. That is not to say that he still doesnt adore her or revere her but that he can't see her as a goddess but as a sister. A strange feeling for him as just hours ago it was not like this.
'Fianna, guide my spear' He mentally says to himself as his regular phrase to calm and steel himself. But now he grabs his head as he feels it ache. A strange scene comes to him as he stands in a grassy hill with a tree at the top. A group of Pallums tempering their equipment as a horde of monsters can be seen charging in a direction perpendicular to them. "Fianna, will you lead our spears to take down those monsters?"
"Silly dim, I fight for my own reasons, you must set your own path otherwise your spear will rust and fail you in battle. You must always temper your spear and yourself to not grow rusty."
"Fianna, I shall cleanse the world of monsters, so nobody else has to go through what we have. I can't allow myself to rust" Finn regains his mind and notices that Riveria is crouching beside him in worry, casting a healing spell on him but he slowly gets up and tells her to stop.
The group's attention is split, the higher level members are focused on Finn and his 'ailment' while the weaker half are confused by the strange golden ribbons that seep through the walls, heading deeper into the dungeon from all directions. There are initially only a few ribbons but more rapidly can be seen. When Finn gets up, he extends his hand to one of the ribbons, he does not feel afraid of it for some reason.
That ribbon is absorbed into his body and one of his blue eyes turns yellow-golden which brings about a greater headache but he remains standing, if his head drops down to the general direction of the ribbons flow. Through his golden eye he spots a cluster of gold many floors down but next to it is a myriad of colors. One spot holds various colors but all outlined in a thick black akin to an ink. An ink that can consume gold.
"Fianna" His whole arm trembles as he shakily grabs his spear Roland and the Fortia Spear. The two spears are grabbed with both hands as the golden light flows from within Finn towards the spears, changing their shapes into one as they are both the spear and Finn are reborn. The Rolan spear shrinks down to fit Finn's size better like the Fortia spear.
"Fianna, hold on" Finn suddenly exclaims as a golden light bursts out of him too and he calls out "Mianta Dim"[2]. To the view of everyone else, the newly golden spear stabs forward, charging through the ground until he finally breaks through to the 68th floor. The golden light weakens but not entirely as a silver glow then overtakes Finn and his spear who are falling from the roof.
"seacht gealaí" [3]
He waves his spear 7 times, creating long slashes that ravage the Hydra Golem. The first 2 slashes shatter the entire ice barrier, a third snaps the wood apart while the remaining 3 slashes tear the golem asunder. Only the core remains as the sludge like hydra sticks to it like always. It quickly reforms to protect the core but there is no hope for the golems reconstruction. Finn lands next to Bell and the still glowing Lily.
"Are you alright sister" Finn calls out to Lily who sheds tears of joy as a grin is plastered on her visored face upon seeing her half brother Dim. Finally reborn.
"Yes and welcome back Dim"
"Can't let you have all the fun but what is the situation? Where is the Titan?" Finn responds and asks when he doesnt spot Axel around.
"Lily is becoming an immortal/saint and we had to move him away after he was afflicted with something when he touched this monster's core. Careful, it's getting more heads" Bell explains the situation, though what he didn't know is that Lily is outright becoming a god, not an immortal due to the gathering of Faith from an entire race, the Pallums. Finn doesnt have any time to think about her ascension as he watches the Hydra recover it's original 9 heads as well as the secondary 5 heads but also grow an additional 15 heads. Now armed with 39 heads, it has 4 or 5 of each element. Bell quickly informs Finn/Dim of what each head does but the Pallum commander didn't care about this information too much as he steals another golden ribbon which he channels into his spear to begin the nightmare of the Hydra.
Back on the higher floors, the rest of the Loki Familia is rushing forward through the holes that Finn made but stop on the 67th floor as the 68th hole recovers. They can only make their way through, granted they didn't really know which way to go but follow the sounds of fighting. Riveria takes charge and has the 1st group of their weakest members set up camp here while the second string follows her and the rest of the executives to try catching up to Finn.
We (the readers) gradually focus upon Tione and Tiona. The younger sister has regained a bit of spirit upon hearing earlier that Axel was here in the dungeon. She is capable enough to at least walk on her own as they follow Riveria but suddenly Tiona hears a bit of shuffling from the side. She cant help but move towards the source of the sound where she ends up in a side tunnel. She spots a fairly big dragon which has somehow been shrunk down to around a big wolfs level lying down on it's side.
Her eyes widen in shock as she finds Axel lying down next to the wolf dragon. She kneels down next to Axel and is about to touch him when he suddenly opens his eyes and waves his hand, making her disappear.
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Alt Title: Lily, Reinforcements, Boss Rush P6
[1]fianna armament, translated to/from Irish.
[2] Dim's Desires
[3] Dim 7 moons, a partial pun that could be reread as 7 dim moons since 'dim' means dark as well in english