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Chapter 395 - Going Up
🕑 Added 2022-02-05 13:00:05 +0000 UTCHera saw the snow coming out of the spell. She yelled to Amanda to stop, but the mage wasn't doing anything to the spell anymore. Daskka saw what was going on and hurried back to the necklace to be closer to Hera. As the mountain of snow came crashing down, it swallowed everything, monster, human, and, despite being almost 2 kilometers away from the spell circle, even the launch pad suffered the same fate. Hera tried to outrun the avalanche, even going as far as using her [All In] skill to run away faster. Still, the speed at which the snow appeared was staggering, and eventually, the mass of frozen water overcame her.
She fell to the ground and did her best to protect her face and keep an air pocket nearby. The weight of the snow started to press on her back. Not wanting to be squashed by something like that, Hera focused her mana on covering her body, doing something similar as she did when using her mana reinforcement around her weapons. She hoped that it would lessen the burden on her spine and avoid breaking any bones. Doing that was easier than she expected, and just as the mana was about to cover her completely, Hera used a grease fire to melt the snow around her. However, instead of triggering the spell, the fire mana merged with her own body, turning her entire form into a flaming avatar that quickly melted the snow. Seeing that it was easier to move around, she slammed her hands on the ground and created a large stone wall right beneath her to pull her up, away from the snow.
Unsure of how high she needed to go, Hera just kept pulling the wall up, higher and higher. She felt the snow above her slamming against her body, but most of it melted away before touching her. Parts of the snow were already turning into steam, which even helped turn some of the snow above her into water. The higher she went, the more snow melted, and the more steam was generated, creating a loop that helped her push off the mountain of snow. She was five meters high when she finally managed to break through all of the frozen water, but it was clear that she had to keep going. The avalanche that Amanda started was still going, and more snow appeared in the area. Hera used her pulse to try to find her friends. Her mana spread out through the area, digging through the sheets of white covering the moon until she noticed all four members of her party.
Alex was in the air, jumping on nothing and going higher and higher. She seemed to be struggling, but she wasn't in any danger right now. Tim was in the middle of the snow and wasn't moving. Amanda seemed to have some sort of dome around her, meaning that she should be mostly fine, and Cris was on the same spot she was when it all started, holding her ground while slashing away with her Macuahuitl, somehow that was enough to give her a small pocket of air.
Hera called Nimbus and sent it to Alex, so her friend wouldn't have to struggle so much to keep herself afloat, "I don't know why I didn't call him earlier," she mumbled before jumping towards Tim. She dove in the snow and fell straight to the ground, melting everything in the way. As soon as her feet touched the floor, she made another wide stone wall to push the assassin out of the snow. Because of her worry, the wall was a bit too fast, and when it reached the peak, Tim went flying off to the side. Hera jumped over and grabbed him, unsure if he was awake or not.
"Hot, hot. Your too hot!" Tim cried as her hand grabbed his arm.
"Thank you, I guess. But this is not the best moment for that," Hera replied as another stone wall appeared from the snow, giving them a platform to stand on.
"No, you are literally on fire!" Tim said as he yanked his arm back. Using the floating dust, he picked some of the snow and tossed it on his wrist to cool it off and avoid any burns.
"Oh, am I?" Hera looked over. There weren't flames around her but she could see that odd mirage effect that one would see in the desert around her.
"I mean, it hurts like you are, and…." Tim was about to keep talking, but Hera jumped towards Cris.
"Talk later. Try to figure out a way to stop the snow," Hera yelled. She turned to Alex, who was currently gliding on Nimbus, "That goes for you too."
"Sure, I'll figure out how to stop a natural disaster!" Alex gasped but guided Nimbus to approach Tim, hoping they could figure something out together. Hera jumped into the snow a few meters behind Cris and fell to the ground, getting close to the hunter who swung wildly and managed to create a small cave under the snow just by sheer strength and willpower.
"Cris!"
"Hera? How did you get here? And since when are you an elemental?" Cris glanced back and only saw Hera's entire body glowing red and the snow melting around her.
"I have no idea. I can take you out of here. We are going up. Are you ready?"
"Yeah. My arms are killing me already."
Hera made a third wall high up in the sky. Since Cris was closer to the spell circle, she had to make it around 7 meters tall to stay above the snow. When they reached the open air, Tim and Alex shot out spells to stop the snow being summoned from whatever portal Amanda had created but to no avail.
"Try to figure out a way to stop that thing. I'm going to get Amanda," Hera told Cris and called Nimbus over. Amanda was too far away for her to get to in a single jump, and even with her fire form moving through the snow seemed like a bad idea. Oddly enough, Nimbus wasn't bothered by the heat, and it even seemed to help him stay up in the air. When the cloud griffon got above the mage, Hera jumped off slowly falling into the snow once more. It didn't take long until she touched the ground again without any issue, but getting closer, she found that the dome was, in fact, an igloo made out of snow. As she approached the structure, Hera expected that the heat from her body would be enough to melt an entrance. However, that didn't happen. Even when she tried to hug the igloo, the snow didn't budge, much less open.
"Amanda? Are you there?" Hera yelled.
"Hera?" Amanda opened a small window and saw the explorer glowing with the heat, "What the hell is that?"
"Something new, I think. We'll talk later. Can I take you out of here?"
"Can you?"
"Yeah, I just need you to come here or to open the igloo."
Amanda opened a door and walked off. During the time it took for that to happen, a considerable amount of water already gathered in the groung, enough to cover Hera's ankles. It was good that this spell managed to keep water away from her boots. Otherwise, she would have to deal with soggy socks until they finished this dungeon. When the mage got close, Hera stomped with her foot, and a pillar of stone rose from the ground beneath them.
"Do you have any idea how to stop that thing?" Hera asked as they went up.
"Maybe I can push the snow back. It's supposed to just summon some snow from a dungeon, but never like this," Amanda explained.
"How can you summon something from a dungeon?" Hera had a confused expression. She had never heard anything like that before.
"I don't know. Frostbite gave me this spell. It was supposed to be something new that the New Dawn made."
"Great, are you still spending mana? Like could we just make you run out, and the circle would stop?" Hera asked.
"No, I stopped giving mana to that spell before everything went to shit."
They finally managed to break through the snow. Amanda was soaking wet because of all the water created by Hera's heat. Just as they looked up, a notification appeared.
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You have completed the Dungeon Quest
Danger Beneath the Moon
All the monsters who were endangering the path to the launch pad were killed. The path is now safe for anyone to travel.
First time completion rewards
90 000 gold
Moon Rock box
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"You know, things like this make me doubt the MAZE. How is this safe?" Hera sighed.
"Yeah, but that's not a problem we have to deal with anymore. Let's just get out of here," Amanda said.
Hera nodded, "OK guys, we got the quest, let's bail."
"Can we outrun the snow?" Cris yelled.
"I think so, the snow is going to the other side, and now that it already has a nice pile, it's moving more slowly here," Alex replied.
"Can you all get to the ground, or do you need help?" Hera asked as Amanda and she jumped on Nimbus' back.
"I got this," Alex jumped in the air and started to jump on her wind blades to move around.
"I could use some help," Cris called. Hearing that, Amanda jumped off Nimbus and started moving on top of the snow, almost like she was skiing.
Hera glanced over to where Tim was, but he was also gone. He had a really big issue with voicing what he was doing, but she would only talk about it later. Thanks to Nimbus and Hera's new fire form, they managed to move away from the snow and back to the elevator. It was a shame that all the drops from monsters were now gone, but it was better than having to deal with that avalanche. Running towards the elevator, they only took about fifteen minutes to reach it, unlike the hour and a half that took them to get here. Not having to deal with the Moontlions made a massive difference. As they entered the elevator and it began to rise up towards the moon station, Hera finally took a moment to look at the notification about her new spell.
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Spell Acquired
Elemental Armor
Rank: Advanced
You can cover yourself with elemental mana to increase your physical abilities temporarily. This armor will also give you some elemental attributes depending on the element you use for the armor.
Mana cost: 300 mana per second
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"OK… this is weird. How is something like this an advanced spell?" Hera asked the air as she collapsed on the elevator floor.
"I mean, you had to use fire to protect yourself and make sure it wouldn't hurt or even make you sweat. It's like isolating the effects around a specific area. Maybe that's why," Amanda replied between breaths.
"By the way, since when can you do that?" Alex asked.
"Since ten minutes ago," Hera smiled, "And since when can you walk on air?"
"I've been practicing that. It never worked that well before," Alex smiled back.
"Nice, that can be really useful," Hera turned to Cris, "And by the way, how did you stop the snow from getting to you? I mean, you were just waving your weapon around. It didn't seem like it should've worked."
"That's a skill that I have. It's called safety zone. I can create an area around me that stops most things from getting closer, but I'm locked in place while that is going on. It's not like it can work perfectly with monsters too, but if they are not that much stronger than me it can at least keep them at bay," Cris was stretching her arms that were still sore from the ordeal.
"And you?" Alex bumped Tim's shoulder, "What happened?"
"A chunk of snow slammed me in the back of my head. It took me out for a moment, and when I woke up, I was buried under the snow," Tim sighed.
"Oof, that sucks. But don't worry, everyone has a day like that," Alex tried to cheer him up.
They laughed and talked about what had just happened as the elevator went up. When they were just a few minutes away from the station, Cris spoke up, "We are splitting off tomorrow, right?"
"That's the plan," Hera replied, "But we should go in the afternoon. I still don't want to wake up early in the morning. Why?"
"It just sucks. It's been really fun traveling with you two," Cris gave Hera a sad smile.
"Why are you acting like we are going to war or something? It's not like we are never going to see each other," Alex hugged the hunter.
"She's just bad with goodbyes. You should've seen her during the last day of training. She was bawling her eyes out," Amanda chuckled but had to dodge Cris, who was trying to tackle her.
"Shut up! You're the one who ran away the first time you saw a monster," Cris tried to defend herself but was hit with a snowball in response.
"Wanna say that again?" Amanda was summoning more snow.
"Kids," Hera sighed and decided to try something. She got up and made the mana reinforcement spell around her body, this time using her blinding flash spell in the end. Her armor turned into a massive beacon of white light, "Stop! Don't go summoning more snow here!"
Her intimidation worked. With light coming out of her entire body, it was hard to ignore her, and adding that to her [Chain of Command] skill, everyone was sure to pay attention to what she was saying.
"Oh, right. My bad," Amanda pulled back her mana.
Hera turned the spell off and glanced at Alex. Cris wasn't wrong. Traveling with this group was a lot of fun. However, Alex and Hera were glad that they wouldn't have to worry so much about people on their first trip in the MAZE after this. After all, it was one thing to have been trained for a full year, another to spend an entire year already striking out on their own. Despite Hera telling Alex that they weren't going to be babysitting, that kind of thing happened often, and they were excited about not having to worry about that kind of thing in the near future.
