BOOOM BOOM BANG
PZZZZTTT SPPZZZZ FWOOOSSSH
The back and forth exchange between Cecil and the Orobos went on for about another 5 or 10 minutes. Cecil was constantly dodging and landing his powerful kicks onto the monster's shell to the point where the exterior was all cracked and broken in many places.
He didn't let up and constantly pulverized the monster with kick after kick. Many of the protruding spikes were already shattered and broken from the boy's kicks. Throughout the entire fight, Cecil kept to his words and never once used anything other than his legs to attack the monster, although he did kick debris or any broken spikes back at the Orobos as a form of ranged attack, but he still kept using only his legs to execute the action.
The Orobos was constantly screeching in pain and agony as well as frustration. Since the start of their fight, it hadn't once landed an attack on Cecil. The boy was constantly flickering around the monster and dodging its beams that only came from the single opening of its shell and when it tried to attack with its tail, Cecil would always flicker to its blind spot and evade the attack very easily.
As the fight ensued, the cracks and destroyed parts kept piling up on the Orobos's steel-like exterior. Cecil pushed all the mana in his Mana Point into his legs and kept up the intensity, not once backing off to take a quick breather. He felt pain coming from his legs, but the boy only gritted his teeth and continued his onslaught.
'Crap... it's hurting more and more.'
Cecil began to grimace when he landed another blow onto the Orobos's shell. His pathways felt like they were about to split apart and his legs began to tremble in pain. He channeled more mana into his legs and landed a heavy follow-up kick on the Orobos, sending it flying into the far wall of the room and embedding the monster deeply into it.
After Cecil did this, he quickly backed off to the other side of the cavern and took a quick breather while inspecting the condition of his legs. Meanwhile, the Orobos started struggling to get itself out of the wall. It thrashed about and fired off multiple laser beams from its eye.
"Uhh..."
'I...don't think it's supposed to look like this...'
Cecil activated his Mana Sense and examined his legs' Mana Pathways...and the sight was a little ugly for him to witness. The pathways were practically crumbling with many gaps now forming in his originally connected pathways.
'No wonder I felt that my mana was leaking out more than usual... is... is this a bad sign?'
This greatly worried him. The documents that his foster mother had sent him stated that his pathways would strengthen and mend itself, forming a stronger link and transforming into the Mana Circuits, which would then lead to a decrease in mana wastage and leakage. The gaps in his broken pathways suggested otherwise, so he felt seriously worried about this.
Not to mention that his legs were throbbing and aching in pain as he kept his Mana Burst active. The coursing mana in his pathways also leaked out much more than before. Cecil felt like instead of helping his pathways evolve, he had instead just crippled them.
'Crap, this is bad... maybe mother was right? I shouldn't have rushed things!'
GHHHHHHRAAAOOOOOOAAAAAARRRRRR
While thinking as such, the Orobos finally freed itself from the wall and began thrashing around in fury. It turned its body and its big, red, crystal eye glared furiously at Cecil. It roared once more and a changed appeared on its crystal eye. The ruby red crystal began to crack apart and just like how you would peel an onion, the top red 'layer' of its eye fell apart and a new amethyst purple 'layer' took its place.
Cecil widened his eyes a little, astonished after seeing the change. He quickly took a stance and prepared to fight. The Orobos, with its new purple eye, only glared at the boy and once again it roared. The red broken crystals that had fallen onto the floor began to levitate into the air and fly towards the monster. The crystal fragments smashed into its shell and embedded themselves in it before a transformation took place as the crystals started expanding to cover the Orobos's body.
The new form the Orobos took on was much more intimidating now. The mana it was exuding had also visibly increased and Cecil could see that through his Mana Eyes. He quickly took out the potion medicine that his foster mother had given to him and downed it.
'It's supposed to heal and mend the pathways, I hope it helps.'
He directed his Mana Sense to check on his broken pathways and saw the medicine working its magic. Indeed, just as Anna had stated in the documents, the medicine did heal the pathways. Seeing this, Cecil immediately took another 2 vials of the medicine and quickly gulped them down.
"Phew, let's go! Round 2!" Cecil shouted.
Once more, he kicked off the ground and flew straight towards the Orobos.
"HHRAAAAAAAHHHH!!!"
********
As Cecil was intensely fighting against the Orobos, Jena's party had finally arrived outside of the mines. They quickly dashed back towards the Liyan Valley's Adventurer Guild and when they arrived, a large commotion was currently ongoing inside the guild hall. The source of the commotion was from the rowdy adventurers who were now questioning Milla, one of Jena's party members who had gone ahead of the rest.
"What do you mean the Silent Sword is attacking the Orobos?"
"Hey, Milla! We know you've been active here for a while, so why the hell didn't your party stop him from fighting that monster?!"
"Are you crazy?! How could you let him throw away his life like that?"
The adventurers were constantly shouting and yelling at the catkin girl who was now on the verge of tears. Jena immediately rushed forward and yelled, "STOP IT!"
"You!"
"Jena! It's you! How could you people do this??!"
"Let me explain, you idiots!"
The receptionists were helpless in keeping the rowdy crowd of adventurers in check when they heard the sudden news. They kept bombarding the catkin, Milla, with questions and criticism, but now at Jena's sudden shout, the entire crowd immediately settled down.
"Silent Sword—no—Cecil...he stayed behind to block the monster, so that we could escape."
"Yeah, we heard that already. But why in the world did you guys even go down that deep?!" An adventurer yelled.
"It wasn't my idea! Silent Sword had a quest to do that required him to obtain an Earth-source Magic Stone!" Jena countered.
"Yeah! And please remember that the Orobos randomly appears inside the dungeon, so being on the 1st or 10th floor wouldn't have even mattered! We were just unlucky!" Earl, the only male member of Jena's party, immediately shouted in support of his party leader.
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"Tsk... still... bah, never mind..."
"We could only say that it was their bad luck..."
"Yeah... the Orobos hasn't been spotted for weeks already, so it was bound to be somewhere... who knew it was on the 10th floor..."
"That's why no one has spotted it yet! No adventurer party has dived down that deep recently!"
Jena raised her voice once more to stop the crowd from their discussions, "Enough! Right now, Silent Sword is still probably fighting that monster as we speak! We have to go down there and support him!"
"...who's to say that the monster hasn't already taken care of him?" A skeptical adventurer voiced out.
"What's that?! Hey! I'll have you know that the Silent Sword is a strongly renowned adventurer! His rank is already enough to prove that he's abnormally strong! AND! We've seen his strength already when we were traveling together earlier!" Jena shouted back.
"..."
"We have to help him," A largely built bearkin adventurer said. He had just come down from the 2nd floor of the guild.
"Yeah. No matter what, he's an adventurer. He's one of us!" Another echoed out in agreement.
"Let's go! Those in favor of going, quickly gather outside of the guild and we'll set off together right away!"
The bearkin adventurer whispered something to the guild receptionists and one of them immediately opened her mouth and shouted, "The adventurer guild has also sent out an emergency quest for search and rescue! Also if you're able to destroy the Orobos, there's an additional reward and any participating adventurer will be rewarded 100 gold credits for the successful rescue of Silent Sword Cecil with an additional 1,000,000 gold credits for the party or individual that subjugates of the Crystal-Eyed Orobos!"
The receptionist's announcement immediately caused the adventurers in the guild to roar and many in the hall walked forward to register for the quest. After quickly registering, the adventurers immediately grouped together in front of the guild. Jena was in front of everyone as well as the bearkin adventurer from earlier. His name was Douma and he was like the older brother of every adventurer that was active in the Lian Valley Mining Town.
"Let's go Jena! You lead the way!" Douma said.
"Okay!"
The large group of adventurers immediately set off towards the mines as fast as they could possibly go. They encountered many monsters along the way, but the front most adventurers, other than Jena and Douma's party, would break away from the large group and hold them off and then the larger group would keep advancing forwards.
It took a whole 30 minutes for the large group to finally arrive at the 10th floor, which wasn't too slow nor too fast because after the Orobos had awoken from its slumber, the monster activity in the dungeon had considerably increased which hindered a lot of their progress. During the journey, the large group of adventurers was also reduced to only a group of 20, which included Jena's party and Douma's party.
3-4 parties were left from the previously large group of 80 or so adventurers. Their group was cut down by three-thirds of their original number since many of them had to break off from the group to deal with the monsters that they encountered while going down the floors of the mine, so only 20 people were now left, but these people were the strongest of the adventurers currently active in Liyan Valley that had participated in the emergency quest.
After the group had arrived at the 10th floor, they noticed that it was oddly quiet. Jena and everyone thought that they would hear the deafening sounds of combat when they arrived, but it was strangely quiet to the point of it being unsettling. Jena and her party members immediately paled when they thought of the worst case scenario, but when Douma saw this, he immediately reassured the party.
"Don't give up yet! He may have not lost, but has only temporarily retreated! We won't go back until we can confirm his corpse if he's dead or until we can bring him back with us if he's alive! Now chin up! Hurry and lead us to where you last saw him!"
"Y-Yes! Th-Thanks Douma," Jena and her party thanked.
"No problem, but let's hurry! Every second counts and it already took us quite a bit of time to get here!"
Jena nodded and quickly led the group towards the large cavern room that they last saw the Orobos. When they arrived, every member of the group was left astonished at the scene in front of them. The entire room was completely devastated. Debris, deep gouges, craters and large cracks decorated the cavern's ceiling, floor, and walls. They walked into the place cautiously, but they couldn't sense nor find Cecil or the Orobos anywhere.
"D-Douma! Come here!" A member of Douma's party quickly called out.
When he came over to him, Douma saw that his party member was currently holding a large red crystal fragment in his hands and he exclaimed, "I-Isn't this a fragment of the Orobos' eye?!"
"N-Not just that boss... Look over there," His party member said as he pointed at a location at the far side of the cavern.
When the group walked over to the location, they saw many crystal fragments littering the ground. There weren't only red colored fragments, but also purple and black colored fragments as well.
"...Just, what in the world, happened here?" A member of the group softly asked in wonder.
"...Jena...over there, look," Earl pointed at a crater in the wall close to them.
"Oh my gosh!" Jena exclaimed with widened eyes as she covered her mouth.
Everyone in the group also gasped in astonishment at what they saw. Inside the crater in the wall, was a large, black metal sphere that had many of its areas broken and crushed. The most notable thing was that it looked as though something had blasted through the sphere from one side all the way to the other. This broken sphere was undeniably the monster that they had all feared, the Liyan Valley's Crystal-Eyed Orobos, but it was now dead and from the looks of things, its ending was an extremely gruesome one at that.
"...it's the Orobos..." Douma solemnly said.
"It's corpse to be exact..." Another member chimed in.
"The Silent Sword actually beat it!"
"Yeah... but where IS the Silent Sword?" Douma said as he looked around the cavern.
The cavern was totally empty. There was no sign of Cecil and the only thing that was proof of his existence was the destruction caused by the aftermath of his fight against the now dead dungeon boss.
"Could it be...mutual destruction?"