Large ribbons of lime energy shot out from the floor, cracking it and piercing through the air at swift speeds for the already bonded amethyst gem dragon. The new ribbons joined the others, coiling around the available spots on the amethyst gem dragon and restraining it even further.

"I don't think this is working," Chronia mentioned as she brought a hand to her face and repeatedly tapped her cheek, inquisitively mulling over their lack of progress.

"What makes you say that?" Zalroth asked, red-faced beyond relief as he was crouched down and violently shaking with his magic crested hand planted on the floor.

"Well... even though it's not attacking any more, it is still gradually growing and we still haven't inflicted any meaningful damage on the thing," Chronia stated while gesturing to the scrape mark on the amethyst gem dragon's tail. Chronia threw her head back and groaned in frustration while complaining energy absorbers are so annoying to deal with, especially in real life.

"I feel you're auto-invert reflex is the blame for that," Zalroth said before his hand sunk slightly into the floor as the amethyst gem dragon pulled and struggled against its bindings.

"True...," Chronia pouted quietly, resting her cheek in her hand with a pout and sighed before adding, "But it's not a bad reflex to have in every other scenario though.".

Zalroth rolled his eyes at Chronia's sentence addition, finding it mildly irritating she could still pout after all her prior pouting. Cupping his head with his free hand, Zalroth scratched the spot of his head where one of his kitsune ears would be with abrupt aggression while he cast his eyes to the cracks in the floor surrounding his floor-bound hand.

"Do you have a plan from here then?" Zalroth asked. Without much need to think it over, Chronia threw her arms in a shrug and giggled in resignation.

"Nope, I was kinda hoping we could wait for it to shrink and potentially be damageable again, but clearly it's not getting any smaller," Chronia stated, mentioning the amethyst gem dragon seems to be siphoning the mana from the energy ribbons Zalroth created.

"And its state of being remained stagnant when I was purely dodging its attacks," Zalroth remarked. Closing her eyes, Chronia rocked her head and swayed on the spot, recalling how the amethyst gem dragon never once fired any magical attacks between Zalroth gaining his new magic crest and the present moment.

"Perhaps, that suggests the gems this golem is made of functions like a sponge?" Chronia remarked absent-mindedly. Not quite understanding the implication of her words, Chronia was shocked to see Zalroth scowling, communicating a level of seriousness she had only seen a handful of times from him as he snapped his gaze to her.

"We need to get out of here. Right Now!" Zalroth exclaimed with a mild shake to his voice. Chronia recoiled in utter shock at Zalroth's out-of-the-blue flip-in approach, the feeling only being compounded into worry as a teal and cyan-coloured image of the ceiling above Zalroth and the amethyst gem dragon flashed in mind. Swinging her head up, Chronia spotted small chips of marble spit from the ceiling independent of the amethyst gem dragon's movements, compelling her to believe the authenticity of the mental flash from before.

"Zalroth! You need to get away, hurry!" Chronia exclaimed without the slightest hint of artificiality or insincerity. The absence of the usual inflexions in Chronia's anime-influenced shouting shot through Zalroth like a huge red flag; he wasted no time in severing his connection to the energy ribbons with a swift slash of his free hand. He swiftly jumped onto the gem dragon's head and kicked off it like an Olympic swimmer to propel himself away from the area. However, right as he reached the border of its physical attack range, the amethyst gem dragon managed to rip one of its front legs free from its restraints and slapped Zalroth mid-air sending him tumbling through the air.

As Zalroth descended, Chronia repeatedly repositioned herself in the air and raised her hands in preparation to catch him; in spite of Zalroth's dumbfounded slack-jawed expression, it took Chronia a good second to realize the error in her action but her body couldn't respond fast enough before Zalroth came crashing down on her, his capability to properly land hampered from Chronia clinging to his body. The duo managed a few staggered steps away from the amethyst gem dragon before Zalroth got Chronia's hair snagged around his legs, tripping the two to the floor with Chronia getting sandwiched between him and the floor.

"Thanks for the catch," Zalroth grumbled with a pained attribute to his otherwise genuine words.

"No prob, Bob," Chronia mumbled with a muffle as she crawled out from under Zalroth. Zalroth pushed himself off the floor, allowing Chronia to catch her breath as she slumped onto her back and glanced up at Zalroth with a cheeky wink. Seeing she wasn't hurt, Zalroth rolled his eyes as he pushed against the ground and swung up onto his feet.

"Now would you care to explain yourself," Zalroth asked while brushing the dust off his clothes. However, Zalroth's question fell on deaf ears as Chronia absent-mindedly giggled to herself, leaving Zalroth to wonder where Chronia's common sense was when she was born. As her giggling gradually declined, a shadow crept over Chronia's face and hovered over her. With his hand held out, Zalroth stared down at Chronia with defeat in his eyes as he released the rock in his hand and let it fall to Chronia before it shot back up and pulverised itself against the chamber's ceiling.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

"I'll ignore that, and to answer your question, I foresaw the ceiling collapsing," Chronia remarked boastfully, her arms locked in a confident cross as she levitated off the floor while continuing to remain in a lying position.

"I didn't think you had that kind of observation skill; though given that thing's size now, it's bound to happen at this rate," Zalroth stated, causing Chronia to quietly chuckle with a foreboding and sinister undertone.

"Tst-tsk, as if I would waste my brain power on such trifling matters. For I was blessed with a glimpse of the hereafter," Chronia boasted with a put-on snooty demeanour. Zalroth blankly stared at Chronia with confusion littering his face as Chronia buried her hands in her onesie's outer pockets.

"Pardon?".

"Foresight, dummy," Chronia uttered in a huff as she zipped to an upright position in the air while flailing her legs in a running motion to keep Zalroth's attention on her.

"Huh?" Zalroth uttered perplexedly before multiple loud and distant tremors rumbled from somewhere above. Before he could even react, the ceiling shattered, exploding with a deafening bang as a glacier of ice encased in pink keither(dense particle-like energy) punctured through the ceiling and crashed directly on top of the amethyst gem dragon. The fallen rubble tumbled and bounced down the large piece of ice, jetting straight for the duo where Zalroth summoned his kitsune tails to shield Chronia and himself.

"Huh... what do you know," Zalroth uttered in mild surprise before the smug side eye from Chronia and the faint blush on her cheeks made him exhaustedly sigh. As the dust settled and revealed the massive chunk of ice buried in the floor lost its energy covering, Malfaroth descended from the hole above, his posture elegant and firm while using his open umbrella which shot wind mana out of it to slow his descent as Lily and Nolazir dangled from his feet.

"You wouldn't happen to be in need of assistance, my good fellows," Malfaroth asked, enquiring if the boss was nearby or elsewhere. The two girls dropped down next to Zalroth and Chronia before Malfaroth closed his umbrella and dropped down to the floor with the speed of an anvil in water, fracturing the floor upon landing.

"Not now, thanks to that super move you three pulled off," Chronia stated, masking her prior emotion with a confident grin. Malfaroth moved his head back, peeking over at the glacier behind him and could barely make out the blurry outline of the amethyst gem dragon through the ice. Feeling the drive of investigation, Nolazir hopped over to the glacier and lightly poked it as she bounced around it like an energetic rabbit.

"Seems you were right again, Nola" Lily remarked whilst giving a bombastic double thumbs up to the preoccupied Nolazir as she continued her examination.

"Right about what?" Chronia asked puzzledly. Malfaroth raised his hand and rhythmically spun his umbrella around his wrist with its curved handle, rocking his head to the side as he racked his brain for the memory and info he needed.

"Oh, just that the sinkhole was directly above this boss room, and that Lily and I needed to get us to you two with the utmost haste," Malfaroth explained as he stomped the end of his umbrella into the ground in front of Lily to stop her from walking past him and getting hit by the piece of debris which narrowly fell in front of Lily. Chronia nodded at the explanation presented to her, half-mockingly remarking they could have ended up flattening Zalroth if she hadn't got him to move, and Lily smugly retorted, "But we didn't though.".

"That thing didn't stop using magic at any point did it?" Nolazir asked as she scuttled her way over to the group.

"It's not gonna blow or something is it?" Lily said cheekily before instantly having her question absently followed up by Zalroth saying, "Yeah, how did you-.". A booming frigid crack echoed through the chamber, the group went silent as they turned their heads in the direction of the sounds to see the piercing purple light pulsing through the glacier of ice as large cracks spread out from its base. Lily threw her hand onto his scalp, her mouth agape in shock and surprise as she silently screamed.

"We're cooked!" Lily exclaimed frantically and goofily, her words drawing out an aggravated groan from Malfaroth and Zalroth in equal measures while Chronia and Nolazir amusedly smirked in silence.

"Can you keep your internet terminology to yourself," Malfaroth said with mild disdain as he raised his umbrella slightly off the floor. With flare in his step, Malfaroth swirled yellow keither around the umbrella's canopy which sparked off with bold flare bursts before he slammed his umbrella into the floor. From the umbrella's tip, a rippling wave of his keither washed across the chamber towards the glacier of ice before sinking under it. The piercing purple within the cracking ice rapidly faded replaced by a watery blue causing the cracking of the ice to halt momentarily.

"Huh, what did you do?" Chronia asked. She leaned forward in the air, narrowing her eyes as she focused her vision to see the water mana contained in and under the glacier of ice. Malfaroth cockily smirked, repositioning the collar of his suit and resting his hands on the handle of his umbrella.

"Oh nothing too crazy, I simply used my keither to change the elemental type of the mana inside the ice from lightning to water," Malfaroth stated with a smugly aloof grin while bowing in a showy manner.

"And how does that solve the impending explosion?" Zalroth asked, his arms crossed and his eyes cautiously locked on the cracks of the ice as they slowly crawled up through the ice's structure. Unable to stifle his overly zealous and showy laugh, Malfaroth raised his head and offered a hand in Zalroth's direction before cheerfully snapping his fingers at him.

"It didn't unless you count it being less of an explosion in the traditional sense," Malfaroth stated, his tone and inflexions the perfect mix to instigate the very same nerves in Zalroth that Chronia hits regularly with ease.

"Can we get that in normal terms," Lily asked aggressively before elbowing Malfaroth in the side, making him crumple into a perfect V-shape and stagger to his knee.

"Nolazir sure loved that baking soda exhibit at the middle school fair," Malfaroth muttered between strained words as he held onto his side and used his umbrella as a crutch to bring himself to his feet. It wasn't too hard for the others to put two and two together, especially when the very tip of the ice glacier cracked followed by the entirety of the ice going completely opaque.

"Oh, crud.". As a piercing glass-shattering bang boomed through the chamber, Chronia barely got her snarky remark out before a monsoon of water blasted past, completely obscuring the group whilst the surging water filled the chamber and gushed up into the upper levels through the newly made tunnel.