(The day before their 11th birthday)
(3rd person PoV)
Nephelont was playing with Albert today. While playing, with Nephelont sitting on Albert's shoulders, Nephelont had a question he thought he needed to ask to his grandpas.
"Grandpa, would defeating the goliath count as a great feat?" Nephelont, in his great innocence, asked a question that nearly gave Albert a heart attack. Albert would never have wanted to hear that.
"W-what do you think ab-about defeating some- some minotaurs at the same time i-instead?" Albert said with a voice shaken with worry. He was so worried that he stuttered and jumbled some words. He failed to protect his wife and child once before, he is paying the culprit back mind you, and he would not like to have that happen again, not the slightest bit. Forget that he could vaporize the goliath should it prove any threat to Nephelont's well-being; he simply did not want to risk it at all. To that purpose, minotaurs were far too weak by his personal assessment that Nephelont would not be at any risk unless it was an entire horde.
"Frit not, grandpa! Nephelont's strong! Uncle Henryk said that I could defeat the goliath if I pushed myself to the limit!" Nephelont said, unbeknownst to him, throwing Henryk into a deep ravine. "Not to mention! Nephelont already defeated a horde of minotaurs the last time!" (AN: Sorry, I found no better replacement to throwing someone under the bus)
"..." Albert put Nephelont down calmly. As soon as he let Nephelont's feet touch the ground, he disappeared with a gust of wind.
"Wow! Grandpa's cool!" The speed at which Albert disappeared impressed Nephelont so much that he forgot that he said something that entangled Henryk in life-threatening trouble.
(That evening)
Nephelont was following Henryk into the dungeon. They were headed towards the seventeenth floor, aiming to catch the goliath. The Loki familia made an announcement both up on the surface and through the dungeon down to the eighteenth floor. It was an unlikely coincidence, yet the goliath respawn timer was today. They, except Albert, wanted Nephelont to achieve his desired rank-up when he had such high spirits. They could not bring themselves to disappoint the little kid.
Although, some might think that "little kid" is inappropriate at this point. Nephelont was already nearly as tall as Ais, just an itsy-bitsy bit shorter than her. In dragon form, he stood up to the height of approximately 13.75 Ottars tall (27.5 meters tall)..... at the shoulders. Yep, Nephelont graduated from being a little kid. He is now a tall kid, much to his dismay. Henryk made sure to consistently remind him of it.
(AN: For those wondering, Ais is now 168 cm tall or 5'6", while Nephelont is 162 cm tall or ~5'3.78". Bell hit another growth spurt in his teenage years, reaching 172 cm or ~5'7.72")
"To review the plan, we need to revise the goliath's move set, which isn't set in stone. Shall we?" Henryk said, sporting a black eye from the earlier altercation with Albert. He managed to convince him in the end, which he counted as a win. One of the conditions Albert forced upon Henryk was to never heal that black eye with potions or magic.
'He underestimated my magic's limits. While I can't heal the bruise directly, he forgot that my body's natural healing ability has been hastened such that this kind of bruise will disappear by lunchtime. Now, unto the goliath's move set' Henryk internally sneered.
One other condition is that Albert will be tailing behind them just in case. If he deemed it too dangerous, he would step in.
"The goliath's move set is irrelevant to you" Henryk dropped a bomb. "In dragon form, you're simply too large for it to be much of a threat anymore. Maybe some bruising or a broken limb or two. As long as you're alive, I can heal you back to full health no matter the injury, and the Horrors could whisk you away from the fight should it prove too dangerous for you" As Henryk mentioned them, two of the Horrors popped into existence and walked beside them silently.
'I forgot about them' Albert berated himself. 'How could I? They nullify my worries with the speed at which they move. None could keep track of them or prevent them from reaching their intended targets once they moved'
"Cool! Then I can go all out?!" Nephelont has been holding back a lot. The amount of mind stored in his scales has only skyrocketed the more he ate other dragons' magic stones. Not using it made him feel the same kind of discomfort as being too full of food. There was that one incident when his mind went wild, firing lightning everywhere and spitting out fire from his mouth at all times just to discharge some of his oversaturated reserves.
That conversation ended there. They continued walking in silence until they reached the largest room on the seventeenth floor, the room containing the Big Wall of Grief. (Yes, that's its legitimate name, given to it by the adventurers)
"Lucky" Henryk said. He pointed his hand to a far end of the room. "The goliath already spawned" There stood the goliath, a monster towering over the vast majority of adventurers. Well, that has the exception of Nephelont and Eucleia in dragon form.
"Clothes?" Nephelont asked the obvious.
"Ready for when you rip your current set of armour apart" Henryk pulled out one of many sets of clean clothing. Eucleia was fortunate enough to stumble on her skill, unlike Nephelont, who suffers from ripping his clothes apart every time he transforms.
Nephelont did exactly that, transforming as he flew towards the goliath, masking the sound of his approach by displacing the wind directly in front of him to the back as he goes forward. He had to practice with Henryk's help for over a year to produce this result, an impromptu stealth skill that may or may not work. His mastery over this one was barely enough to get within 30 meters of his target undetected, after which he produces enough noise to be detected through his self-made cover.
The goliath heard the whistle of wind growing louder behind it. It turned around to find a beast larger than itself barreling towards it with its maw open. Holding its hands in a wide horse stance to steady itself, the goliath stopped Nephelont in place after sliding on the floor for a bit.
Holding Nephelont's maw open, the goliath was in point-blank range of his fire breathe. He did not miss the chance to burn it a little.
'Remember, the goliath is resistant to fire by nature of its skin. Above that, it is still a level 4 monster and a monster rex. Be ready to have it resist or outright negate your elemental attacks and brush off some of your physical ones even if it was smaller than you' Henryk's words rung in his head as he dematerialized and escaped the monster's grasp.
Standing up would only expose him, so Nephelont did not do it. Instead, he remained on all four, with his head directly pointed at goliath.
Goliath roared, getting interrupted by a lightning bolt to the mouth. It singed its mouth a little, making it hold its mouth in pain. Now doused in anger, it charged at Nephelont with all of its might.
Nephelont dematerialized again, appearing above the monster, claws covered in red lightning and wind alike.
'I should be able to use this in combat easily now' Nephelont thought, finally using {Nephelont's Lightning Claws} in a fight for the second time in his life.
"KHAA!!" He intended to shred its back, but the goliath's skin was thicker and more resistant than he expected, only allowing him to make somewhat meaningless marks. It still bled, however, and made the goliath roar in pain.
'If his skin is this thick and he was strong enough to stop my entire body and its mass in place, then I better engage in a battle of attrition at long range' Nephelont made his judgement for this fight.
The goliath tried to get a hold of him and failed many times. It made so many tries that it was now riddled with so many superficial wounds that it was almost driven mad. The next time Nephelont appeared, the goliath was already stretching an arm towards him as it was turning around.
'Noo! It learned that I always ambush it from behind!' Nephelont thought before a fist connected with his nose, breaking some of his scales off and making him slam into the goliath.
As they fell to the ground, Nephelont disappeared again, frustrating the goliath. It roared in anger. Its opponent disappeared again when it almost had a hold of him.
Nephelont materialized up under the ceiling, clinging to the crystal spikes like a bat.
'How should I deal with this?' He thought as he watched the goliath break a slab off of the wall and throw it around while voicing its frustration.
'Electricity and water do not mix' Nephelont remembered one of Henryk's lessons on physics.
'And what does blood contain again? Wasn't it composed mostly of water and other liquids?' Nephelont also remembered another lesson on biology.
Linking these two facts together, Nephelont thought of injecting as much lightning into the goliath's system, not before digging deep enough into its skin for that to be effective.
'Ah! I just had a thought!' Henryk could swear, Nephelont appeared to smile, a sinister smile. 'Uncle Henryk did warn me not to use lightning to hit some's head or spine in particular! Since that's the case, I'll target those this time!'
Nephelont went to work. He started throwing lightning claw projectiles on it from afar, making superficial wounds.
'Those won't do. I might need to try that' Nephelont did not touch on it, but he always felt that there was room to inject more lightning into the lightning claw projectiles than he already does. He decided to gamble on that now.
Disappearing into a moving cloud of gravel dust and lightning, Nephelont charged the attack as much as he could, injecting twice the original amount of mind. Now, this attack has done something. It dug deeper.
'What if I slowly used my claws themselves to dig even deeper?' And so he did. The second charged attack made the gash deeper, deep enough for blood to gush out.
"An opportunity!" {Awaken, Tempest} Nephelont, with newfound speed, stuck his claws into the goliath's wound, right besides its spine, and injected all of his mind as red lightning into that area.
The goliath tried to reach for him, to twist around to maybe throw itself out of this attack's range, but it failed as Nephelont, with his claws stuck in its back, raised it far above his head, making him out of its reach.
'Yep, a cute monster, but a monster, nonetheless. Nephelont has monstrous cruelty when fighting someone he wants dead' Henryk was reminded of the cruel side of this child, a side that's thankfully only out during battles to the death. 'Is it an ancient dragon's wild instinct kicking in? Only if I had a gentle, safe method to make sure of that'
The goliath, even through its resistances, was fried inside and out. After all, who could withstand the full might of a lightning strike injected directly into their body? As for Nephelont, he expended all of his remaining energy during that attack. He was now experiencing another Mind Zero. He was now unconscious besides the fried body of the goliath, rapidly flaking off as the wind of Nephelont's massive body falling dissipated.
Those on the seventeenth floor could swear that there was a minor earthquake that day, no matter how impossible and nonsensical that was inside the dungeon.
"See? He's more than capable" Henryk smugly said as he gestured towards Nephelont. Albert begrudgingly nodded. He did not want to admit it, that he underestimated his grandson, but he has to. Nephelont grew up strong enough to protect himself.
(Line Break)
Name: Nephelont Cranel
Familia: Hestia Familia
Level: 3 → 4
STR: EX1999 → I31
END: EX1999 → I34
DEX: EX1999 → I15
AGI: EX1999 → I28
MAG: EX1999 → I12
Hunter I
Eidolon I
Magic:
Dragon Heart Magic
Ariel
Skills:
Drakókardi:
(Corrupt text description)
Drakónteia Thysía:
(Corrupt text description)
Evlogía tou Aiólos