Grey Vritra
Finishing the first zone, we made it to the second zone where a maze was located. I came to the conclusion that the relictombs not only adjust the difficulty of the zone to the strength of the ascenders but also influences its type with the said ascender's knowledge. Why did I think so? Because the zone is the labyrinth with a minotaur chasing us.
The labyrinth in Greek mythology back on earth is a masterpiece created by Daedalus to imprison the Minotaur by the orders of king Minos. The zone itself is hard to solve and made us stay there for at least a day but in the end, Cecilia just destroyed everything and a portal appeared out of nowhere.
After that, the four of us are brought to a sanctuary room where we rested for at least half a day in my estimation. Now we're all in front of the portal again with Cecilia trailing from behind, after finishing uncasting the room made of earth she made for us to rest properly and clean ourselves.
“Haaaah, I feel so refreshed. I'm so glad Cecil is with us. Now we can shower whenever we want, right Grey?" Caera said to me while stretching her arms up.
“tsk, I can do that too you know." I muttered under my breath enough for Caera not to hear.
“Hmm did you say something?" She asked tilting her head sideways.
“No”
“Okay" she said, with her eyes narrowed, eyeing me suspiciously.
“Lover's quarrel again?" I heard a voice from the back, it was Nico.
"Nope" I replied
“Oh, what a tsundere."
“A tsundere? What's that?” Caera asked
“You better shut your mouth or I'll send your crying ass back to Cecilia." I said and glared at him. This bastard is sounding more and more like Agrona.
“Heh" he said giving me 'that' smirk.
I clicked my tongue and he immediately raised his hands up. I smirked at him and entered the portal.
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Arriving at our third zone, I immediately raised my guard up. Darkness, all I can see is darkness. I conjured a yellowish-white fire to brighten up the surroundings. All I can see are concrete walls, we're all inside a big cube like room with nothing inside except the four of us.
“Just what the hell is wrong with us that the relictombs are giving us the most random zones possible. What the fuck are we even suppose to do here?" Nico grumbled in frustration.
Just as Nico spoke, a white almost gray ball appeared out of the wall. The ball is as big as a basketball and has two pairs of wings on the front but instead of it vertically attached it's horizontal?
“What's that? It looks disturbing." Cecilia said and she conjured a ball of fire to brighten up the room even more.
“I don't know, just don't go near it for now." I said and conjured a small water ball fused with decay mana towards it.
The ball smashed into the creature and it started to glow in many colors. It continued to glow, producing a weird sound from its non existing mouth, but it looks like I spoke too soon.
The creature finished glowing and it looks like it somehow evolved? It now have a mouth and a tail like part on his head.
"Eh?"
“What the fuck?"
Caera and Nico said at the same time. The creature then threw itself towards us and I kicked it back instantly and it crashed on the wall. But just a few seconds after that, the creature jumped towards us again, but unlike the first attempt, it's now faster.
Cecilia blasted it with wind magic and Nico immediately wrapped it with metal after it landed on the floor. I still have an uneasy feeling about it so I sent a regular water ball to it and after it hit became a block of ice wrapping the creature with ice and metal.
“How can we get out of here? Should we just kill that thing?” Caera asked me but I replied with a shrug because even I don't know.
“Then should we try killing it?" I asked the three. “If we're going to kill it, we'll use the most safe and sure way.” I said conjuring soul fire in my right hand.
“We've been here for like 2 days so why not. Agrona said that we need to get back after two or three weeks. So why not return after this zone." Nico suggested
“In the records, it is said that time in the relictombs varies depending on the zone, so we don't really have any idea how long have passed outside. We can make assumptions though.” Caera explained to us.
“I think it's been at least a week or two outside. I believe it would be good to finish this zone move on to the next one and then return outside. That's my suggestion." Cecilia announced her opinion as I looked towards Caera.
“Caera, even though they said it varies. There should always be a statement or theory about how much most of the zone's time works. Do you know what it is?" I asked her and she replied with a nod.
“Yes, it's written that a day in the relictombs is probably a week outside. Well that's only based on the majority of ascents recorded, some are still different but that is what they think the average time conversion here and outside."
“If that's true then we'll follow Cecilia's suggestion." I said and saw Cecilia chuckling while looking at Nico's defeated face.
Without even a warning I conjured a good amount of soul fire and fired it to the now frozen creature. The ice and metal eventually melted and soon the creature screamed in pain. Hearing this I sighed in relief, thankful that it's working and damaging it. But again I spoke too soon and the decision that I made is soon will be a decision I will regret.
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It's been a few hours and the creature melted out of existence because of the soul fire yet we still can't get out of this zone. The four of us are now playing the cards that Nico brought. The cards are inspired by UNO from earth and Nico just made it with metal and claimed it again as his own creation.
The game is about to end with Nico now itching to drop one of the two cards he currently has, but that is about to change. It's now Cecilia's turn, after her is me, then Nico then Caera. But Nico doesn't know that I have a skip and reverse card on my hands right now.
Cecilia threw a 6 red and now it's my turn. I immediately dropped the skip card and Nico's smile disappeared. He looked at me and glared like a madman. The game continued with Caera throwing red 9 and Cecilia throwing 3 red. Nico again is now excited for his 'revenge' but I threw in the reverse card which reversed the direction of the play.
“Grey you mothe-
Nico's cursing was cut off by the weird sound we just heard. The sound is exactly the same as the ones produced by the creature.
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3rd person's
Grey, Caera, and Cecilia froze up after seeing the creature standing a few meters away from them. While Nico didn't mind the noise and collected his cards and stored them back in his ring. “What the hell Grey, you said the safe and sure way but that thing is still al- Grey?" Nico said as he saw the three frozen in place.
Nico slowly looked towards the direction where their gazes are and saw a creature, Almost eight foot tall, white grayish muscular body with a mark on it's chest, a blade attached to its right hand, and a face with four horizontal placed wings, under it is a mouth, a tail on it's head's back part and a great golden wheel floating on top of it's head.
The creature stomped and the whole room expanded. And in the middle of the room is a small cube, bathed in a purple glow.
Grey being the most battle experience immediately realized what it is and used eclipse step to attempt to grab the cube.
While Cecilia seeing Grey's reaction moved even faster as she conjured ice around the ice in an attempt to secure it.
But the fastest was the creature as it teleported in front of the cube predicting Grey's move and grabbing him, throwing him towards Cecilia with a force strong enough for her to cancel casting the ice on the cube.
Nico immediately covered them, sending a barrage of metal spikes to the enemy, while Caera engaged with it in combat with her sword 'grace" covered in soul fire.
The creature and Caera fought with Caera on top, as she dominated the creature with her sword skill but the soul fire seemed like it wasn't damaging the creature. Caera jumped back and waited for Grey for him to assess the situation. Caera knows that she's the weakest and the most inexperienced so she won't do things without the other's opinion.
“Grey! that thing is immune to soul fire!" She shouted towards him and Grey finally stood up, having much more understanding about the enemy.
'This thing... is adapting.' He thought and summoned a giant ball filled with Vritra enhanced water and fired it to the creature. Upon contact, the water exploded and became black ice engulfing the creature.
The others waited for it to come out but Grey didn't, he charged full throttle with 'grudge' on his hands towards the creature.
“That thing is adapting to our attacks!"
Cecilia! Combine your magic and create a very powerful attack! Just use normal elements!
"Caera! Conjure blue fire to the creature once I say so!
And Nico! Get your ass here and hinder this bastard's movement!"
Without any hesitation, the three moved obeying Grey's orders. Cecilia gathered some distance and poured almost half of her mana reserves into a giant ball of blue fire.
While Caera moved her hands forward conjuring a ball of blue fire ready to shoot it to the creature the time Grey signals her to shoot it.
Meanwhile Nico somehow pulled an RPG out of his dimension ring and aimed it towards the ice coated enemy.
Grey who's now running towards it noticed the cracks appearing in the ice. “Nico! Shoot that thing on my signal! " The cracks grew bigger...and bigger. Until a hand broke out of it. “Now! Nico!" As Grey commanded Nico fired the RPG towards the target and got blown away by the recoil of it.
Grey used eclipse step again to get away from the creature and watched the rocket hit it.
Click*
BOOM!*
Grey felt some uneasiness when he heard something like a click before the rocket hit the creature. Even though he had those uneasy feelings he continued with a plan and pointed his hands towards the smoke where Nico hit the creature.
Finishing what he did, Grey increased his guard as he heard the weird sound again. Something fast flew towards Grey's direction and Grey blocked it with his sword. The creature attacked Grey with the blade attached to its arm and Grey parried it with 'grudge'.
The sword glowed white and Grey sensing danger jumped back and activated his realmheart for a second scanning what the enemy just did.
'The sword! It destroys mana that it touches!' Grey even if it's only a second manages to see the anomalies around the creature's sword and he didn't hesitate to inform his group about this danger.
“Don't let that sword touch you! One touch and you're dead!" He shouted and used eclipse step again and engaged the enemy.
He thought that he could overpower the enemy with only his sword skills because he's just the better swordsman but he is surprisingly wrong. The creature is adapting and catching up to his movements at a rapid pace.
'This thing already adapted the way to counter swords. It adapted after it fought Caera, and Caera and my sword style is similar so it's easily figuring it out." Grey thought as he kicked the creature away from him, creating some distance.
'There's a possibility that this thing adapts only to a certain type of move or all moves like that in general. If my plans with Caera's blue fire won't work and it adapted to fire not only soul fire then we're done for. I don't have a choice but to do 'that'. It's risky and I haven't tried it yet but that will easily kill this thing."
Still distracted by his thoughts, Grey gets startled with a blade already a few inches away from his face. Grey being him still managed to block it but the creature immediately followed it with another attack.
Boom!
The creature's head fell down when an unknown projectile hit its head. Grey looked at the direction where it's from and saw Nico holding something that seems to be a sniper rifle.
"HEHEHEHE the rpg and sniper worked hehehe what about the others huh?" Nico with an insane smile painted on his face watched his rifle with a glint of happiness in his eyes.
Grey eclipse stepped towards the creature and kicked both its body and head to a pool of liquid melted from the ice which is acid that Grey made earlier with his Vritra magic. He then used gravity magic making the gravity around the creature increase to multiple folds.
"Caera now!"
Caera finally after waiting for minutes heard the command and shot the blue fire towards the creatures. The acid and fire combination combusted resulting in a giant explosion of fire.
Grey watched the fire swallow the creature and after a few minutes the creature escaped the fire. Some of its parts are burned, some are melting, while some are literally evaporated.
Seeing that it didn't adapt to fire but only soul fire Grey immediately looked in Cecilia's direction.
“Cecilia! No-
SWISH*
A white arrow made of concentrated flames flew towards the creature destroying it permanently. The wheel on top of its head dropped to the floor but it didn't disappear. Grey seeing this eclipse stepped to the cube and grabbed it as fast as he could. He looked at the wheel and saw it turn to ash.
A sigh of relief escaped his mouth and he fell down to his butt. “I think we'll take Nico's suggestion. We'll exit the relic tombs right now. " He said with a smile.
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12-29-23
JJK anime is finished and lobotomy kaisen trend on the manga is killing me.
Belated Merry Christmas and Advance Happy New Year people of wattpad!