Chapter 50 - Floor Boss

They had discovered three things during the time spent working with Ash's Spellweaving skill. First was that certain combinations of words could combine to create specific words. Strike and Target had combined to form the word Arrow, giving Ash the building block for precise elemental attacks.

Second was that the order of words mattered, found out when two different orders to a spell had been proposed and Ash had tried each. She'd ended up with the spells Star Armor and Aurora Shield. Star Armor was a single target spell made to take a specific amount of damage before it fell apart unlike Starcloak, which took a specific number of blows before failing.

Aurora Shield cast Starcloak on the entire party, letting them get through a single blow unlike its normal casting's two blows. Just like Starcloak had during the fight with the Grave Wolf, though, it could be broken ahead of time by an overwhelming amount of damage.

Third was that developing new spells strengthened her Spellweaving, allowing her to work with more words or create new words by combining them. Had she attempted to create the arrow spells before, she'd have ended up with a higher mana-cost version.

Waving away all of the notifications, including the one that her Spellweaving had advanced once more after the number of spells they'd created, they made their way to the stairs. Unlike before, where Fel led, Yarrow took point and Fel slid into place behind him. Once they left the small corridor at the end of the stairs, whatever monster awaited them would strike.

He cursed as soon as he stepped off the bottom stair, "Ash, swap to your precise target light spell. Keep Starcloak in reserve as you've been doing," he instructed, "Gardenia, Enchant Fel's weapon and mine with light damage. Fi, be ready, we haven't dealt with this type of enemy before so I'm not sure what to expect."

As the rest of them joined him in the small corridor Ash finally got a glimpse of what they were dealing with and scowled. She knew the creature in question and it was going to be a pain for their party.

"It's a type of living armor," she said, appraising it quickly, "Phantom Armor. Weak to light element. I can't speak for this one since my appraisal skill isn't strong enough to tell me a lot about it but the ones I've encountered tend towards physical attacks and weapon enchants. Need to strike in the gaps of the armor, though, or break through it entirely to really do any damage."

Yarrow nodded once and motioned the party forward, stalking slowly into the room with his shield ready to take a blow. The Phantom Armor remained completely still as they approached, as if it was just going to let them pass.

"It seems - ow," Fel's sentence was cut off by Fi elbowing her roughly. Just behind the Phantom Armor was another small corridor that clearly contained stairs rather than the chest that was expected on the final floor of the dungeon. Fel had clearly already jinxed them once and Fi wasn't keen on it happening again.

As soon as Yarrow was in range, the Phantom Armor moved with speed that seemed entirely at odds with its massive size and the giant axe it wielded. Fi's shield spell caught it first, cracking to pieces and Ash's shield fell apart as well. Between the two, though, they'd managed to take enough momentum out of the blow that Yarrow could take it without being sent flying.

It was a dangerous opening move, liable to leave a party facing the monster entirely without their tank to defend them. Yarrow forced the axe back and rushed forward to slam his enchanted blade into a gap between the armor's torso and leg. It was missing a piece there as well as in a few other places to expose a deep dark colored magic that seemed to swirl between the emotions of rage and despair.

As soon as everyone was certain its attention was entirely on Yarrow, they launched into action. Yarrow defended physically while Fi kept him healed and used her shield spells to curb the damage being dealt to him. The opening blow had clearly been something it couldn't repeat back-to-back as it moved much slower suddenly. Fel darted in whenever she could, blades sliding into gaps in the armor to slice the dark magic that was the actual monster inhabiting the armor. Gardenia and Ash both launched spells, having to wait for moments where it was still to do so to keep from wasting their mana on useless strikes.

They had the upper hand though they remained ready for things to change. Eventually, the armor repeated the first attack and both Fi and Ash cast their shields onto Yarrow. Ash got a strange feeling even as she finished her cast and quickly formed Aurora Shield, casting it on everyone just in time. Yarrow once more managed to hold against the blow, only to stagger backwards as a wall of magic slammed into all of them. Aurora Shield took the worst of it for all of them, but they were all left wounded by the force.

Yarrow rushed forward again, making sure his aggro ability kept the armor's focus on him even as Ash slammed all of her waiting spells into a gap in the armor. They didn't have the mana or the time to focus on individually healing all of the damage that had just been done and her skill kept them from having to do so.

Fel's blades slammed low, going through a gap at the back of the armor's kneecap and knocking the front part of its leg armor away in the process. Gardenia took full advantage of the opening and attacked with a higher damage light spell that wasn't nearly so accurate as the one they'd been using.

The magic in the lower part of the stricken leg dissipated suddenly and the armor fell, missing a limb to hold it up. They remained relentless in their attacks, not giving it a chance to rise again.

It moved its axe to attack, a wide swipe that should have been relatively harmless. Both Fi and Ash defended against it with spells. Fi crumpled to the ground suddenly, a status effect jumping through the mana still attached to her through her shielding spell. The blow held even more force than before and managed to send Yarrow flying.