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Azure Chronicles: Zaonia
Chapter 20: ...The Most Spectacular...

Chapter 20: ...The Most Spectacular...

Rocketing through the air with a whistle, Zalroth slammed back first into multiple marble pillars, smashing straight through them before crashing into a wall. As the broken pillars crumbled to rubble, Zalroth's eyes went blank from the impact, the faint sound of bony cracking filling the room before he tumbled off the indent in the wall and collapsed between the rubble. Chronia popped her head out beside the spot Zalroth fell on and eyed the amethyst gem dragon with disdain as it now towered over the duo with its increased size and imposing figure.

"Magic-immune enemies are the worst, especially the magic-absorbing growing kind," Chronia grumbled, a fierce fury burning in her glare as she nibbled the tip of her fingernail. While Chronia continued to complain and pondered multiple avenues for a counterattack, Zalroth remained motionless on the ground as embers of dense particle tri-coloured green energy seeped from his body. Zalroth's jolted on the ground, springing back to life, and flinging the qi embers off himself as he pushed against the ground.

"Can you not repeat that line every time I get the wind knocked out of me?" Zalroth requested, although teetering on making it a demand. Chronia puffed up cheeks and lightly waved her hand downwards in a playfully dismissive manner, her expression matching her demeanour as Zalroth rolled his eyes in annoyance at her teasing.

"Look, it's hard to come up with quippy lines where our opposition is as talkative as a cardboard cutout," Chronia grumbled sulkingly, pouting with her arms crossed as she hovered above the floor. Zalroth lowered his head and audible sighed before raising a hand and tightly crushing it into a fist, snapping the bones in it back into place with a barrage of pops.

"It's nice to see you're more concerned with being a character from an anime than helping deal with the dragon," Zalroth quipped as he pushed his fist against the floor and knocked himself onto his feet. Chronia cheekily swatted the air with her fingertips narrowly brushing Zalroth's face, festering a mild annoyance from Zalroth as he followed her hand.

"Come now my portable fluffy bed... or would you be a bed carrier?". Chronia, momentarily distracted by whether Zalroth was a bed carrier or the bed itself, raised a hand to her chin and methodically massaged it, imagining herself with a poofy Santa Clause beard to heighten her mental power before snapping back to reality, "Now's not the time to get sidetracked, Nai!"

Chronia adamantly nodded with a contentious grin on her face, praising herself for catching herself from getting too off-topic. Zalroth blackly stared at Chronia and facepalmed, the irony of Chronia getting distracted from praising herself for not getting sidetracked aggravating him to no end. His silent aggravation was only elevated to levels he never knew he had as he watched a lightning mana beam bounce off the unaware Chronia and rocket back to the amethyst gem dragon before being reabsorbed causing it to grow slightly bigger.

"At this point... I should resign myself to being a support at this point," Zalroth grumbled disapointedly. Almost like she sensed his self-directed disappointment, Chronia snapped out of her mumbling state and swiped her head in Zalroth's direction, her face beaming with a disapproving temper as she wagged a finger at Zalroth.

"Now listen here! Out of the two of us, you're the one with the main character powers, Mr. Afterall, you do have an ability-making ability," Chronia stated in a playfully stern way as she continued wagging her finger.

"For the last time, that's not how my Azure works.". Chronia moved closer, leaning slightly over Zalroth and casting a judgmental raise of her eyebrow at him as he rolled his eyes at Chronia's incoming antics.

"Oh yeah? If not how power works, then why always have a crest with a conveniently specific ability despite never encountering said ability beforehand?" Chronia said smugly, her arms crossed in a boastful union as she triumphantly hovered over Zalroth. Feeling like Chronia was derailing the situation way off course, Zalroth threw his arms up into a shrug and pitifully sighed as his response.

"Is now really the time to be questioning me on how the things neither of us understand function?" Zalroth asked with the last shreds of his patience burning away as Chronia tilted her head, her expression remaining unchanged. Chronia plopped her hand back on her chin before resuming her brainstorming as another of the amethyst gem dragon's attacks hit and was unconsciously reflected by her.

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"Perhaps... it's a unique interaction... between your Azure and Keither maybe?" Chronia suggested incoherently. Despite her words being mostly a blurry mumble, Zalroth barely managed to make out Chronia's deduction but couldn't see her throughline on how the two were related.

"...".

"Don't you ellipsis me, it's just a guess based on what Nolazir mentioned about your keither!" Chronia blurted out as she raised her fists before lightly hitting him poutfully.

"Then why don't you say things more plainly then instead of saying it in parts," Zalroth said, swatting Chronia's hand away as a dot barely different in colouration to his skin appeared on the back of his right hand. For a brief instance, Chronia remained starstruck and donned a deer in headlights stare before closing her eyes as she cockily grinned.

"And here I thought you wanted me to shut up," Chronia jested as she flustered a few inches away from Zalroth. Without saying a word, Zalroth raised a hand to Chroia's forehead and locked his middle finger behind his thumb, priming it for attack. Chronia mentally and dismissively scoffed at the impending attempt from Zalroth to flick her forehead.

"As if I'd let you flick my-". Chronia's boastful retort was silenced as Zalroth's finger collided with her forehead and flung her backwards, tumbling through the air until seemingly crashing into a pillar with an audible oof from her. Bouncing off the pillar without even touching it, Chronia flopped onto the ground and defeatedly groaned, not from any sort of physical pain but from her ego being bruised.

"How'd he do that?" Chronia grumbled as she raised her head off the ground and spotted something, leading her to grin amusedly. Noticing her obnoxious grin of glee, Zalroth could only muster a faint sigh while covering his face with his right hand, completely missing the dense particle-like energy swirling from it as the energy glowed a bright green. The energy pooled into the blank magic crest on Zalroth's hand, forcing its way into the crest causing its form to morph and take on a new state.

Once the process was complete, an overpowering shockwave shot out of the magic crest, launching Zalroth's hand towards him and making him slap himself in the face with a deafening clap which silenced any sound in the boss chamber; however, the silence didn't last as Chronia bursted into a fit of laughter so violent she lost control of her body and wiggled on the ground like a worm.

With a lime-coloured star magic crest on the back of his palm, Zalroth left his hand firmly planted on his face to hide it as he pondered over the odd sensation stirring in him; despite the laughing being directed at him, Zalroth found it off how it didn't elicit any negative emotion but instead the opposite, a blend of joy and another feeling he couldn't quite name.

"Laughing at my expense are you?" Zalroth asked rhetorically, making Chronia stop her wiggling but not completely reining in her laughing.

"Who can say.".

"Who's-". Zalroth managed to say before a pebble flung by Chronia booped him in the nose, cutting him off mid-sentence.

"We don't need a repeat of me explaining what that phrase means, Zalroth," Chronia stated sternly. Zalroth amusedly shrugged as he balled up his fist, activating his magic crest. In an instant, a layer of lime green energy enveloped Zalroth, coating him fully before a lightning mana beam surged over him, making Chronia flinch.

"Wouldn't this be the part where you'd dramatically say my name, instead of that lacklustre reaction?" Zalroth asked cheekily as the amethyst gem dragon's attack died down, revealing Zalroth to be unharmed as the energy coating him shattered into particles. Chronia was briefly stunned by Zalroth's question but quickly recovered before crossing her arms with a hearty huff.

"For the record, I was just surprised the boss took so long to do another attack is all, definitely not because I was worried you were hurt, Idiot. It's not like I like you or something," Chronia exclaimed with an angry tone but her giddy expression betrayed her true intention of wanting to put on a show.

"Alright, enough with the tsundere stick," Zalroth requested as Chronia fluttered over to him.

"It's shtick, though the thought of a stick dressed like a tsundere is kinda funny," Chronia mentioned whilst placing her hands on her hips. Zalroth playfully rolled his eyes before he reverted to his serious demeanour, eliciting a sorrowful sigh from Chronia as she remarked the fun Zalroth was gone again.

"Can't have too much fun when in our current situation," Zalroth stated as he donned a fighting stance towards the amethyst gem dragon before leaping at it, leaving Chronia in the dust. Chronia mildly rocked her head from side to side, wondering if she should fly after Zalroth but decided she'd let him do things his way.