The forest smelled of cheese as slice after slice of crescent-shaped melted cheese cut through trees. It hadn’t taken very long for the area of the Mushroom Grove to become a battleground once the cheese elemental fight got started and now the party attempted to dodge the many attacks as they retaliated.
Lili was keeping track of the party as she easily dodged the waves of cheese that came after her. She had her enhancement going around halfway in order to conserve mana, and it was more than enough to deal with the current attack rate of the elemental. She knew the monster was on the very low end of C rank, which meant it still had a bit more to go to reach its power peak. The thought made her worry about her fellow party members who were D rank. Just one of the current attacks would cause them to take some decent damage, and if they took one later on when the elemental was at full power, it would suck even more.
The only saving grace they had was numbers. The elemental was trying to target all of them at once, which was not something it was good at, and it reduced its cheese slice attack rate by a decent margin, which it would make up for with sheer speed when it peaked in power. Still, even then, as long the party could keep their enhancements up, there would be enough stagger in the attacks to allow them to dodge. Meanwhile, she needed to keep pumping out the damage.
Lili knew that the elemental was already spending a lot of mana regenerating all the cheese it was throwing out, and all the damage they did now would bring the fight closer and closer to an end. There was a chance they would have been better off blasting it from earlier on, but that could have also meant the elemental might have gotten desperate and tried something crazy. However, as things were going now, the cheese vortex clearly seemed rather confident in keeping the current status quo which was good for the party. So, Lili continued to throw her Consuming Slash, getting its attention for a second as it sent a few more blades her way, leaving someone else in the party free for a few seconds.
Tesilim’s strategy was simple: he kept his body enhancement high enough not to be cut in half by a cheese slice if he got hit while teleporting around. He was using his daggers as mobility enhancers while chipping away at the cheese elemental with water slash after water slash. Of course, his strategy was only working because the elemental had more targets to deal with; otherwise, he would have already been cut and melted into pieces.
Rose always waited for Tesilim’s water slash or one of the dark waves Lili threw before she boosted her enhancement further and went in for a semi-empowered Sun Slash. This, of course, brought the elementals focus on her as blades that were supposed to go to someone else came speeding in her direction. Luckily, she managed to dodge one or two while the rest slammed into a smaller and weaker version of her Shield Wall, which stopped their momentum. Finally, if any blades got by all of that, Jasmine was there with one of her pop-up shields.
Jasmine was keeping a close eye on Rose; she was the most susceptible of the three melees outside of Drex, and it was Jasmine’s job to support her. So far, supporting Rose had been easy, mainly because the elemental barely targeted Jasmine after she stopped attacking it. It did help that from her spot; she had her enhancement going just enough that it allowed her to react in time as she watched the battle, which was when she noticed the unintended or possibly intended rhythm that began with Alyx.
Alyx had been casting the same spell ever since the elemental went into its latest form. The spell was just an ice magic missile, which the creature apparently despised, probably because that was the big bang that started the whole fight. However, it could also be because it literally cooled it off as it was trying to heat up.
Either way, from the very first time the spell hit the elemental, its focus always shifted to Alyx for a bit longer than anyone else. This let Alyx prepare, and every time he was targeted by dozens of cheese blades, he always boosted his enhancement, which, when added by Jasmine’s speed boost, was more than enough to dodge the attacks. Of course, by then, the monster had forgotten about him as Drex continued the fighting, blasting the elemental with one of his many breath attacks. Drex was then followed by either Tesilim or Lili, who, in turn, set Rose up until it finally came back to Alyx, where he unleashed another set of icicles.
All in all the rhythm was good except for the one factor that would eventually give out: Drex. Every time the drake spent mana, its life ran just a bit shorter, and eventually, the drake would go poof, throwing everything off. Honestly, they were lucky so far that they had all dodged everything since if any of them had taken damage and thrown their rhythm off, things could have gone bad.
So, Alyx needed to disrupt the flow, but, in a way, that put the elemental on the back foot to make it reveal its full power because Alyx knew the elemental was still hiding something. The fight so far had been way too simple and easy, and even if it increased to its full power, the party could still take it on even without Drex. However, Alyx wasn’t sure for how long. Actually, Alyx reminded himself that the goal wasn’t to kill the elemental but to weaken it enough that he could store it in a C-rank ring without too much issue.
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More importantly, Alyx had to remember that any plan included Tesilim’s Chaos Mana, there could be a factor that threw everything off. So, Alyx needed to start there.
Alyx dodged another set of cheese slashes as the party had gone for yet another full circle and he once again began his chant as Drex unleashed a torrent of flames at the elemental. The breath left burnt cheese behind, which just fell off, and the drake was forced to twist at an odd angle to dodge the incoming cheese blades. Meanwhile, as Alyx chanted, he also spoke with the party via telepathy.
“Tesilim, I want you to hit the elemental with a fully Chaos Boosted Ice Magic Missile. Give it a good chunk of mana, but wait for Jasmine’s bind. Jasmine, I am sure you have noticed the rhythm, two circles from this one that I am about to dodge, spend some mana, and bind the elemental—Rose, when you see the binds, back off. Guys, use the moment to drink mana potion, wait for whatever will happen to happen, and then start hammering this thing. Remember, our goal is to weaken it, not kill it.”
Right as he finished his message, Alyx unleashed his new barrage of ice missiles, boosted his enhancement, and felt Jasmine boost his speed further. Then he dodged the cheese slices like always and pushed his mind hard as he began working on two spells at once.
One spell he chanted like usual, while the other he drew using his will. His chanted spell was a message spell directed at Drex to inform him of the upcoming plan, while his will spell was the ice missile he had been using so far. The only reason his current feat worked was that he knew both spells incredibly well, and he had practiced multi-spell casting; otherwise, everything would have fallen apart.
Either way, he finished the message spell right as it was his turn to unleash his usual barrage. The message had been simple and just told Drex to back off when he saw the bind.
Anyways, as usual, he dodged the attack from the elemental with the help of Jasmine, who blocked one of the blades that was going to hit him with one of her pop-up shields. Then, after dodging, he began another chant so he could hit the elemental along with Tesilim.
Tesilim saw Drex spray the elemental with some acid and followed it up with a water slash before he teleported to his dagger, dodging the waves of cheese. A second after he appeared, he began chanting as he watched Lili unleash one of her dark waves of power.
"From my hand, let frost take flight;
With icy force, scatter their might;
Frost missiles, heed my call;
Strike my foes with bitter frost."
He knew the spell fairly well now but wasn’t still confident enough to draw the circle in battle.
Jasmine waited for Rose to go in as usual before she activated her technique, pouring a good bit of semi-dilute godly mana into it.
“Binding Light.”
Drex felt the tug in his soul as his connection to Tesilim told him he was using their Chaos Mana. He didn’t need to see any chains because he already knew it was coming and instantly started backing off.
Rose had finished her slash as she saw the chains begin appearing all over the elemental, and she heard a sizzle. However, she wasn’t sure if it was the elementals heat melting the chains or the chains burning into the creature. Either way, she jumped back.
Tesilim spent 75 Chaos Mana of his available 93 along with a bit of pure mana. The two mixed and infused the spell as he tasted the usual flavor of fruits while small bolts of ice shot from his hand. There were half a dozen in total, and at first, he was very underwhelmed, but then they began growing at an alarming rate.
The bolts went from the size of his middle finger to the size of his hand in one blink, and then in the next, they were the size of basketballs.
Blink. Watermelons.
The watermelon-sized ice bolts flew toward the chained cheese elemental, who, at that point, looked more like some sort of chain creature due to the many chains covering its body.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Each bolt struck the elemental one after another. Each explosion sent a wave of cold throughout the area. The heat that had come to consume the forest quickly replaced with a slight chill as the elemental became covered in ice. Its body was no longer twisting and now appeared to be frozen solid, so much so that it slumped over, landing with crunching sounds on the frost-covered ground.
Alyx’s own ice bolts had been lost in the massive explosion but they had struck. Not that it was important and he quickly reminded everyone of the plan.
“Drink up, guys, and make sure you are ready for what’s coming.”