As the nearest fire elemental closed in, Chloe fired her Divine Blast. The beam tore forward in a straight line, slicing cleanly through the heated air and striking the elemental before it could react. Its head vanished completely, disintegrated into nothing as the light passed straight through. For a second, the rest of its body remained standing, frozen mid-motion.
Then cracks raced down its torso, splitting through the hardened crust of its body as the molten light inside destabilized and burst outward in uneven flashes. Its weapon slipped from its grip and hit the ground with a heavy clang. The massive body swayed once, unsteady, before falling to the ground.
[You have killed: Greater Fire Elemental Level 68)]
[Experience Awarded]
The good news was that her attack had worked perfectly, because that one fire elemental totally got smoked. The bad news, though, became obvious almost immediately, because the rest of the fire elementals did not take one of their buddies dying very well.
Chloe could actually see the change happen as their bodies flared brighter, until the cracks along their armor burned almost white-hot, and then they started moving faster. Actually, they moved a lot faster.
“Uh oh,” Chloe muttered.
She glanced past the fire elementals rushing her and spotted one further back which was changing its weapon. The flames around its arm twisted and reshaped before reforming into a massive bow made of fire. It drew the string back, and an arrow formed out of thin air, glowing brightly as it locked onto her, clearly intending to turn her into an extra crispy zombie. Luckily for Chloe, she had a way out of this mess.
As the melee elementals closed in and swung their weapons down at her all at once, Chloe used her Wraith Form just as the burning blades passed through where she had been standing. The attacks cut through empty air, and she phased right through them in return, snapping back into form once she was behind them a split second later.
After reappearing, Chloe dropped low, ducking just in time as the flaming arrow shot past her head with a sharp hiss. It slammed straight into one of the elementals behind her, the impact bursting against its body in a flare of fire that knocked it aside.
After that, sparks of lightning snapped around Chloe's feet as she pushed off the ground, copying that trick she had seen Sabine use before. For a split second, her body blurred into a streak of light, her movement so fast it almost looked like she disappeared completely. Then, she reappeared right beside the bow-wielding elemental as if she had just teleported across the room.
“Hi,” she said brightly.
Chloe quickly her knuckles with earth magic making them into spiked knuckles. She pulled her arm back, twisting her body slightly as she leaned into the strike. Time for the Chloe Combo.
Her first punch slammed straight into the elemental’s torso with a sharp impact. The hardened crust of its body split instantly where she hit it, magma bursting through the fracture. Chloe kept up the attack by throwing a second punch, striking a different point, then a third, then a fourth, each hit landing in quick succession.
The elemental tried to react, but Chloe stayed right in its space, hammering into it over and over without giving it a chance to recover. By the time she pulled back, its upper body was already falling apart.
To finish the job, Chloe coated her leg with lightning as she twisted her body and drove a kick upward with all the momentum she had built. Her foot connected cleanly with where its head should have been, the impact exploding in a burst of energy as the lightning discharged on contact.
The head shattered instantly as molten fragments scattered outward in a spray of glowing debris. The rest of it couldn’t hold together after that. Its body collapsed in on itself, breaking apart as it crashed to the ground. Chloe landed lightly, shaking her foot once like she’d just kicked something mildly annoying. Man, that felt great.
[You have killed: Greater Fire Elemental (Level 69)]
[Experience Awarded]
She barely had time to enjoy that small win before the rest of the elementals decided to be annoying. The remaining fire elementals charged in immediately as they tried to overwhelm her from multiple sides. At the same time, a few of the ones further back shifted their weapons again, flames twisting into long-range bows and throwing spears.
A halberd came swinging toward Chloe from the left, carving through the air with a burning hiss. She leaned back just enough to let it pass, then stepped in instead of away, her knuckles slamming into the attacker’s side. The impact cracked its armor open, magma spilling out as it staggered.
Another one came from behind, raising its greatsword. Chloe twisted her body and ducked, the blade slicing through the space above her head before it slammed into the ground. She pivoted on her foot and drove an elbow into its midsection, cracking its body. As it turned out, her elbows were pretty strong. Man, wish I had elbows like these back when I still had gym class…
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But then, fire arrows streaked toward her from the backline. She slipped into Wraith Form for a split second, the projectiles passing cleanly through her before she snapped back into place mid-step, right in front of another melee elemental that clearly hadn’t expected her to still be there. She coated her fist with lightning this time and punched the elemental, the impact sending cracks racing up its torso.
After that, Chloe fell into a rhythm and absolutely beat the living daylights out of the remaining elementals, moving fast and hitting even faster. One tried to stab her with a spear, but she caught the shaft mid-thrust, yanked it forward, then slammed her head into its chest hard enough to crack it open. Another lifted its weapon for a heavy swing, only for her to duck under it and sweep its legs out before she stomped its head after it fell.
By the time the last elemental tried to retreat, Chloe blitzed forward in a burst of lightning, closed the distance in an instant, and drove her fist straight through its core. The light inside it flickered once, then went out, and its body collapsed a second later, breaking apart as it hit the ground.
[You have killed: Greater Fire Elemental (Level 69)]
[...]
[You have killed: Greater Fire Elemental (Level 69)]
[You have killed: Greater Fire Elemental (Level 69)]
[Experience Awarded]
With the last of the fire elementals down, the doors at the end of the chamber finally opened. There was a deep, heavy rumble, like stone grinding against stone, and Chloe's head snapped up just in time to see the massive doors slowly creak open.
Chloe didn’t waste time after that. The heat in the chamber was still intense, the magma around her bubbling and shifting like it was just waiting for her to mess up, and yeah, no, she really wasn’t in the mood to fall into that. She hopped lightly from one stable patch of ground to another, occasionally glancing down just to make sure she wasn’t about to step into glowing death.
Yeah, nope, not dealing with that today. She thought, sidestepping a thin crack that suddenly flared up beside her.
The doors loomed closer with each step, maybe a bit too dramatic for what they needed to be, but Chloe didn’t question it. She just kept going as she knew it was a matter of time before she found the Sun Boss.
The moment Chloe stepped through the doors, the heat dropped just enough to feel like a reward, and the space actually looked like a normal dungeon again. It was the usual deal, cracked stone corridors, bits of broken walls, the occasional skeleton tossed in like decoration, and some dusty spider webs for extra atmosphere. Nothing was actively trying to melt her anymore, which was nice.
As she walked, something clicked in her head. Oh right.
If she wanted to find the secret room that leads to the Sun Boss, she would need to find this little creature called the blaze gecko and follow it. She was pretty sure that someone had definitely explained that to her at some point, and she had definitely listened. Probably.
Chloe clicked her tongue and started walking again while looking around. She checked corners, peeked into side paths, and at one point even crouched down to stare at the floor like the gecko might be hiding under something, even though there were no rocks, just flat stone. Still nothing.
“Hello?” she called, cupping her hands around her mouth like that would help. “Blaze gecko? Little fire guy? Where are you?”
Despite the lack of a response, Chloe kept moving anyway, though her path quickly turned messy and aimless as the corridors twisted and branched in ways that made absolutely no sense, and after a while it started to feel like she was just walking in circles. She eventually stopped in the middle of a big hallway and dropped onto the floor with zero grace.
She sat there for a bit, wondering how in the world was she going to find this stupid lizard, until something suddenly felt… warm. Chloe blinked as she moved a hand to her head. “Huh?”
Her fingers brushed through her hair, and she immediately felt something hot was on top of her. Before she could react, something small and glowing dropped right off her head and landed on the ground in front of her with a soft tap.
It was tiny, no bigger than Chloe’s hand, but it glowed super bright as its whole body was made of flames. The lizard's head was small and slightly pointed, with two ember-like lights where its eyes should have been.
Its body was slender and smooth, constantly rippling like a steady burn, while its thin legs ended in tiny points of concentrated flame that touched the ground without scorching it, leaving behind faint sparks that quickly faded. Its tail was longer than the rest of its body, tapering into a brighter tip, and it swayed slowly behind it.
Chloe blinked as she stared at the admittedly kind of cute looking gecko. “You were on my head?”
The blaze gecko, of course, didn’t answer and simply turned before trotting off down the hallway, and Chloe stared at it for exactly one second before scrambling to chase it. “HEY, wait, wait, wait!”
The gecko weaved through corridors, slipped around corners, and squeezed through gaps that Chloe very much could not fit through without effort, which meant she ended up taking the long way around, sliding across the floor, and at one point running directly into a hanging web that got stuck to her face for a full three seconds.
“I hate this dungeon,” she mumbled, peeling it off as she kept running, only to immediately stub her foot on some dumb rock.
And then, of course, the gecko just dove into a hole. Chloe skidded to a stop right in front of it, stared for half a second, then immediately dropped to her knees and leaned in. And without thinking it through at all, she dove in after it.
There was a lot of bumping, a lot of hitting things she couldn’t see, and at one point she was pretty sure she spun at least halfway around before landing, but eventually she tumbled out of the passage and hit the ground, sliding forward slightly before coming to a stop.
Chloe groaned, then pushed herself up, brushing off imaginary dust as she looked up and froze. In front of her stood a massive set of doors with a large image of a stylized sun etched across the surface. Finally, yeesh.