With the faint dings of clashing iron echoing through the stone brick-walled chambers, Yai sent the last of the swarmer loot into her Inventory. She raised a hand to her head, lightly caressing her forehead as she swiped the non-existent sweat off her body, and exhaustedly exhaled.
"What are you doing?" Zalroth asked with an unamused and slightly confused tone. Yai flinched, a faint grumble escaping her lips, and pouted defeatedly.
"All that effort and we didn't get any cool loot," Nakamai whimpered with a slight tinge of emotion in her otherwise usually neutral one. The two girls held their heads low, swaying defeatedly like grass in the wind, and sighed in extreme disappointment. Zalroth rolled his eyes in response to the girls' complaining as he looked at his clasped fist.
"I wouldn't say we got nothing," Zalroth remarked. Like the winds of a violent hurricane, the two girls rushed over to Zalroth and gathered before him to see what he had in hand. The two stared in awe at the sparkling item in Zalroth's hand; it was a ribbon woven from golden threads and sparkled under the ever-present light of the dungeon.
[Return Ribbion(Stella)]
-A golden ribbon which when used allows the user and anyone nearby to instantly return to the area around the dungeon arch they are in-
-Doesn't function if dungeon arch has been cleared-
"Seems this is an unlimited get-out-of-trouble ticket?" Yai asked while Regal clung to her back like a backpack.
"Seems like it," Nakamai remarked, her face displaying a mild hint of disappointment at seeing the item wasn't cooler. As she stared at the Return Ribbon, a thought occurred to Yai before she smugly smirked.
"Didn't claymore lady say stella was the highest rarity, so this has gotta be uber rare given we...," Yai said. As she was mid-word, Zalroth placed his hand over Yai's face, grabbing her head as gently as possible, and lightly shook her head to shut her up.
"If you want one, you'll quit your complaining and I'll give you the one Yai's getting, got it?" Zalroth asked with a mild vexation accompanying his voice. A sweat drop formed on Yai's head, an odd sense of impending doom filling her as she felt she should choose her next words very carefully.
"Ok...," Yai uttered with a slightly strained voice. Zalroth nodded in contentment, releasing Yai's face, before he turned away from the duo.
[Yai Gain A New Skill]
[Monster Leigon]
-The user can form their monsters into groups and can communicate with their monsters mentally at any range-
"A new skill?" Nakamai asked while the two girls looked at the pop-up while Zalroth gazed up to the ceiling with a serious glare.
"Your Hexa Proficiency was fifty right?" Zalroth asked, keeping his focus glued to his target. Yai raised an eyebrow at Zalroth's question.
"Yeah?" Yai mumbled while waving her pop-up away while Nakamai stared blankly into space, wondering when she could get more food.
"Good. Now if you don't want to fight, I suggest you take cover," Zalroth instructed sternly. The duo wondered what Zalroth meant, confusion littering their faces as they thought he was threatening.
"What are you sa-". Yai paused mid-sentence before swinging her head up as her Detect(Creatures) skill went off, sending a shocking sensation through her spine. As the two girls spotted the large creature looming above. The monster rocketed down from above before coming to an instant stop in front of the trio and unleashing a violet torrent of wind. The raging wind of the monster surged through the air, almost knocking the trio off balance. Zalroth stared down the monster and braced himself as he got a better look at the monster; the creature bore a striking appearance to the rare swarmers aside from it being the size of a hippo, being bulkier, and its exoskeleton being covered in more plated shells.
[Activated Skill: Appraisal(Level: 3)]
[BOSS-Armoured Swarmer(Rare)][Level: 255]
[HP: 5000][Hexa: 250]
[Vitality: 250(250)][Stamina: 50]
[Attack: 120][Hexa Attack: 82]
[Defence: 250][intelligence: 250]
[Agility: 181][Speed: 100]
"Is that above our pay grade?" Nakamai asked emotionless while clinging to Zalroth's legs and flapping like a flag from the surging winds of the Armoured Swarmer; on the other leg, Yai was strapped to Zalroth's leg, clinging to it for dear life like a koala, to keep herself from being blown away.
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"Even with my ability to lower its defence, that health pool certainly will give us some trouble," Zalroth mentioned as he grabbed the two girls before leaping away from the Armoured Swarmer, and landing on a Seraph Step platform far off the ground.
"Do you think we should use the ribbon thing?" Yai asked as Zalroth placed her and Nakamai on the platform. Zalorth stared at the Armoured Swarmer, each of its wings changing colours as an elemental effect coated them; ice on the left wing and wind on its right wing.
"I take it you don't want to fight then?" Zalroth asked. Yai glanced to her feet before clasping her fists and raising her head, a determined sparkle in her eyes as she steadied her conviction.
"No. I want to help this time!" Yai exclaimed with vigour as she clasped her fists and punched them together while Nakamai gave a half-hearted thumbs up.
[Activated Ability: Material Coating]
Zalroth watched as the oversized short-sleeved shirt on Yai turned from white to iron. He smirked, twirling his silver combat knife in his hand, as the Armoured Swarmer rocketed above the trio before unleashing a torrent of ice and wind projectiles. The torrent of elemental projectiles descended straight for the trio with the deafening whistles of the wind projectiles ringing in their ears.
[Activated Ability: Weakening Howl]
[Activated Ability: Weakening Howl]
[Activated Skill: Inferno Blaze]
As two howling shockwaves collided with the Armoured Swarmer, opaque flames erupted out and encased Zalroth's silver combat knife, trailing behind him and splitting into embers at the end of the flame. Zalroth readied his stance to unleash a counter-attack but, before he could, Nakamai dived in front of him as if she were planning to tank the attack. She flopped on the platform in front of the other two, bouncing slightly on the spot, before scrambling to her feet and dropping her head.
After expelling all the air in her lungs, Nakamai swung her head back and inhaled with incredible force, managing to suck in the very air and make it spiral towards her like a whirlpool. The whirling air drew in the elemental projectiles locking them into Nakamai's jet stream. Nakamai effortlessly engulfed all the elemental projectiles as if they were air, leading the Armoured Swarmer to unleash even more projectiles, only for them to easily be eaten by Nakamai.
After a solid minute of non-stop attacks, the attacks abruptly stopped as the Armoured Swarmer's wings reverted to their base mode. A slightly dazed Zalroth scratched the back of his head, checking the Armoured Swarmer's status to see Nakamai had managed to induce enough fatigue in the Boss it went over their stamina, and sighed in utter disbelief.
"I feel this thing's gimmick was to overwhelm us with a bombardment of attack and force us to take cover behind all the debris," Zalroth mentioned slightly disappointedly.
"But Nakamai not only was a perfect counter but was also able to use its gimmick against it," Yai added while holding onto the perfectly spherical Nakamai to keep her from falling off the Seraph Step platform.
"Indeed," Zalroth stated before he activated Particle Warp, teleporting within a veil of white energy above the swarmer. Zalroth realed his flame-covered silver knife back and Yai swung her hands up before the duo unleashed a flurry of their highest level Flame Blasts on the Armoured Swarmer, shredding through its HP due to its vastly reduced DEF.
Being on its last leg and receiving enough damage to induce the Cracked Shell status effect on the Boss, Zalroth jumped on its head before leaping to his Seraph Step platform.
Using his right hand, Zalroth raised his silver knife to the air, its trailing flames focusing around the edge of the blade and giving the blade edge an orangy glow. Deciding to add some flair, Zalroth tossed a sparkling knife into the air with his left hand and made the Armoured Swarmer, along with Yai and Nakamai, follow its rise believing it was the silver knife.
However, as the knife reached its apex a donning revelation stuck the swarmer as it watched the knife's opaque ice coating flake off, revealing it to be nothing but a stone knife and not the silver knife. Even in its fatigued state, the Armoured Swarmer unleashed an unruly screech, its warcry blasting through the trio and inducing nausea in the two girls from the drumming ringing in their ears.
"Don't think your second phase will save you now!" Yai exclaimed as she folded her ears to muffle the screeching while Nakamai held her head over the edge of the Seraph Step platform and barfed up an elemental slurry of ice crystals and Hexa particles. Zalroth scoffed as he passed his silver combat knife to Yai, eliciting a confused yet smug huff from her. She swung her arm up, pointing the knife to the ceiling, and even twirling it between her fingers like the knife were a butterfly knife.
"If you take any longer the boss will die from its bleeding effect," Zalroth remarked snarkily. Flinching and blushing from embarrassment at his remark, Yai angrily swung her arm down, unleashing a concentrated Inferno Blaze slash through the air, and knocking herself over from the force of the attack.
The fiery blade sliced through the air, moving fast enough to create wavey mirages in the air, and struck the Armoured Swarmer head-on. After a brief struggle, the fire blade continued on its path as if it hadn't hit the Armoured Swarmer. Yai raised an eyebrow, a sensation of shame rising in her, and sighed deflated in defeat.
"How'd I mess that up?" Yai grumbled as she handed the silver combat knife back to Zalroth.
"And here I thought, you were a fanatic for dramatic timing," Zalroth remarked. Yai made an audible huhed, passing a puzzled stare to Zalroth before she widened her eyes as she realised what he meant. She turned to the Armoured Swarmer, watching as a bright orange line formed on the Armoured Swarmer. A sloppy pop and crackles emanated from beneath the Armoured Swarmer's shell as the melting line on its body split apart like melted cheese before exploding into a tsunami of red Hexa particles with an ear-piercing bang.
[Zalroth's Level Increased]
[93 -> 143]
[Yai's Level Increased]
[86 -> 98]
[Nakamai's Level Plateaued]
[1 -> 1]
"Guess I don't get much of a boost since I only hit it once," Yai muttered meekly before Nakamai rushed past her. With determination fulled hunger, Nakamai lept off the Seraph Step platform and swan-dived after the Armoured Swarmer's sliced body parts. Zalroth covered his face, dragging his fingers over his face as he noticed Nakamai's increase in recklessness in her pursuit of food and mentioned she wasn't this bad back on Earth.