I do not own Familia Myth or any of the characters.
Thirty Seven
Ethan deflected a Lizardman Elite's milky-white, bone-like, stone sword over his head with his Xiphos, then spun, stepping past the reptilian, warrior-type monster on its left, his sword whipping around and separating its body at the chest, killing it. As he finished, he glanced at Ryu as she plunged her sword into a Loup Garou's chest and withdrew it again, her arm moving in a blur. The Loup Garou collapsed into ash, as had the two before it. This was their seventeenth battle. They were doing well on the combat front, having both Ethan and Ryu on the front line, though Ethan, being only Level Three, was relying on keeping Berserk and Guardian Heart both active constantly just to be able to survive long enough to know there even were enemies. If not for his Regeneration Skill constantly healing the small cuts and scrapes he'd suffered, Ryu would have forced him to let her be the vanguard. Along with that, however, was the added benefit that they both accepted that while he was in the vanguard, it was easier for him to make his Guardian Heart respond, since his job there was defending Bell and Ryu.
However, despite doing well on the combat side of things, on the navigation side, there was much left to be desired. They'd found countless dead ends, had had to fight through two clusters of monsters in order to back-track, both groups having been half a dozen monsters each, and still had no idea where they were.
"I've been meaning to ask," Bell said. "Are there any especially dangerous monsters on the Thirty Seventh Floor?"
"Lambtons, for obvious reasons," Ethan said, gesturing around at the countless walls for a Lambton to use in a fight. "But I doubt we'll meet one. Aside from that...I'd say the Peludas."
"Spartois, as well," Ryu added.
"And obviously there's the problem of our friend from floor Twenty Seven, but he's not native," Ethan said.
"What's special about those two?" Bell asked.
"Spartois are the most skilled of the warrior-class monsters," Ryu said. "They're spawned with bone weapons, some even having javelins. As for Peludas, they attack with poison. If we meet a Peludas, we should immediately retreat. Especially you, Ethan, since you don't have Abnormal Resistance yet."
Ethan nodded in agreement and they fell silent, continuing to make their way through the dungeon, several more groups of monsters attacking them at random. Finally, they stopped as they stared at a massive wall ahead of them. It stretched up into the darkness above them far too high to see the top, then extended out of sight in both directions. After a moment, Ryu had determined that it was the third Ring Wall in the set of five from the outside of the White Palace, where they needed to get, and the center, where the Udaeus, the Floor Boss, would spawn. Then, by trailing her hand along the wall for a moment, she had determined that they were inside of it. They chose to follow the wall to their right and began to walk, only to stop inside of ten steps as a monster's shriek of pain and dismay rang out from somewhere deeper in the labyrinth. All three stopped.
"Adventurers?" Bell asked.
"No," Ethan said. "If it were Adventurers, there'd be roars first, and the shriek would sound more angry."
"Then...what was it?" Bell asked.
Ethan and Ryu glanced at each other. It might be an Irregular. It might be a non-Xenos monster feeding on other monsters for power. If that was the case, they needed to flee, fast. They all hastened their steps, Ethan tightening his grip on his blades. After a long while, they reached the top of a staircase and turned back to the small monster party they'd gathered along the way when they were swarmed by too many to battle safely in an open area. The staircase was narrow and steep. Climbing it sucked, but now that they were at the top, the monsters could only attack in sets of two. As Ethan was in the front, however, he was the first to reach the top and immediately moved to deal with the pair of Spartois they'd accidentally stumbled upon, Ryu seamlessly moving past Bell to help, leaving Bell to cover the rear. He'd stepped in more than a few times to help fight since they found the Third Wall, and Ethan and Ryu had given him pointers about fighting, such as using terrain, like the staircase, to lead the monsters' movements into more advantageous positions for him, or that when he's nervous or stressed, his right arm drifts upward, exposing himself. Now, using their advice, he covered the stairs flawlessly, not a single monster getting past him and the Durandal sword Ryu had lent him for the extended reach, using her tanto in its place to fight her Spartoi.
Between herself and Ethan, who forced his Guardian Heart to work at nearly full capacity, they finished Spartois within thirty seconds, just in time for Ethan to spin and hurl his Xiphos into the chest of a Loup Garou that tried to leap over Bell. Bell used his left hand, which he'd left uncovered by the Goliath Muffler wrapped around the rest of his left arm, to catch the weapon and tossed it over his head. Ethan caught it and prepared himself to heal Bell as necessary. He'd managed to regain a decent amount of Mind thanks to his Spirit Healing, and his Regeneration had gotten him about as close to fully recovered physically as he could expect to get in the Deep Floors. His body ached and protested from the exertion of continuously fighting monsters higher than what his natural level should allow, and constant use of Guardian Heart was beginning to cause extra strain on his body in the form of a headache and his body growing fatigued, but he could still manage for a time before needing to swap out with Ryu as vanguard. And since Bell had the stairs covered with Ryu as support, he allowed Guardian Heart to deactivate. The fatigue instantly weighed down on him, so he leaned on the wall, wiping sweat from his forehead, but Ryu and Bell payed him no mind, trusting him to warn them if he was in danger of collapsing.
He got about three minutes of rest, enough for the headache and about a quarter of the fatigue to fade, before a monster roared excitedly from down the passageway opposite their group from the stairs. He glanced toward the sound and his eyes shone crimson as he shoved off the wall and moved to meet the swarm of Lizardman Elites charging them. Their front line was still small, which was a blessing, but there were a lot, and no stairs to use. As such, Ryu moved to stand beside him with her tanto, warning Bell that he didn't have support for a few moments. Then, they charged. Ethan moved in first, using his sword to deflect both of the lead Lizardman Elites' blades before slashing one diagonally up the chest, splitting its Magic Crystal as Ryu stabbed the other's, the strike and withdrawal once again being only a flash of movement. As those two burst into ash, the two Adventurers pressed forward, using the ash to shroud their movements before striking from odd angles, then moving on. In this way, they made quick work of the Lizardman Elites, those toward the back charging into the cloud of ash as though they thought they were advancing, not the next in line to die. Thanks to the cramped passageway, the air became clogged with a cloud of ash like a smokescreen, allowing Ethan and Ryu slightly more cover to use to their advantage. And then, after only a few moments, the last Lizardman Elite disintegrated from a stroke of Ethan's sword. Both immediately returned to Bell, only to see him kill the last of his prey. Then, just as Bell turned to speak, a crack split the wall to Ethan and Ryu's left. Both leapt away as a massive arm with black skin and red hair along the outside burst from the wall, swiping at them and only narrowly missing.
"Barbarian!" Ryu warned, as the rest of it separated from the wall.
Ethan gulped. He'd heard of them. He'd made sure to learn about all of the minotaur-esque monsters in the Dungeon. The Barbarian was, for lack of a better word, the Minotaur of the Thirty Seventh floor. It had black skin exposed on the insides of its arms, its hands, the front of its torso, the knees of its legs, which were the same as a Minotaur's, and its bull face, red hair covering the rest, large claws on the fingers of its over-sized hands, and horns that extended out to the sides then curved upward and back out like a "Z". The Barbarian glared at him and roared, all but leaping toward him, only for Bell to flash past below it, Ryu's sword slashing it across the chest and deflecting it to the side so that it crashed into the wall. Then, Ethan drove his sword into its core and it disintegrated.
"So, those are Barbarians," Ethan said. "I'm glad there was no ax."
"Agreed," Bell said, Ryu nodding.
"Let's rest for a minute," Ryu said. "You need to let your Guardian Heart cool down, and Bell could use another break."
Ethan nodded and they followed the passageway until they found another small room where they could rest. They quickly remodeled with their weapons before sitting down, Ryu being technically on guard, but none of them sleeping this time. As they sat there, Ryu explained to Bell, and to Ethan in a bit more detail than the last time, about Fels finding her after her Familia was slaughtered by the Juggernaut, swearing her to secrecy, and offering her freedom as a Hostess of Fertility waitress in exchange for her silence. She'd been blacklisted, but the Guild had never arrested her, and anyone who'd identified her to the Guild were shot down immediately and told they had already investigated her and found that she wasn't Gale. However, when Bell began to ask about Ryu's previous encounter, Ethan interrupted him almost immediately by announcing the presence of monsters. Bell relented, and the three of them returned to the task at hand of finding a way out.
Ethan swore as he deflected several bone sword, then allowed a bone javelin to tear a gash in his side in exchange for killing its wielder. They had been making goon progress, so in exchange, as they were passing through a decently large room, the Dungeon had spawned a Monster Party from beneath their feet consisting of exclusively Spartois. And the ensuing, and continuing battle, had drawn in more monsters of every kind, including a handful of Obsidian Soldiers, one of which had all but nullified Bell's Firebolt. But, apparently, that wasn't good enough.
"Peludas!" Ryu all but shrieked in warning.
Ethan swore, glancing around desperately. There were three, and almost as soon as they appeared, they fired their venomous spines. As one, Bell and Ethan grabbed Ryu and threw themselves behind a Spartoi with a full-sized shield, rather than the kite-shaped buckler shield the rest all had. The moment they were behind it, the spines began to deflect off of it with a high series of impacts. Ryu instantly slashed the arm off of the Spartoi and Bell caught the shield as Ethan carefully slashed on their other side, forcing the Spartois behind them back. A Loup Garou and a Lizardman Elite were struck by the spines and collapsed, convulsing and shrieking in pain, their skin rapidly blackening from the poison as black blood leaked from their ears, eyes, and mouths.
As Ethan turned back toward Bell and Ryu, preparing to use a Lightning Spree the moment the seemingly endless stream of spines ended, Ryu glanced at him, opening the fingers of her left hand to display an intact Inferno Stone sphere. He nodded just as the Peludas gave up on their spines and instead spewed a sea of flames. It parted around the shield, and Ryu shouted a warning to Bell before lobbing the crystal into the sea of flames. The explosion hurled the three of them, shield and all, backward. After several seconds, all three scraped their battered bodies off the floor and stood, looking around.
"Did that do it?" Bell asked.
"At the very least, the monsters nearest to us were taken out," Ryu said.
"Restoration," Ethan said, the various wounds they'd suffered in the ambush healing, though it was more draining than Ethan had expected, and he sighed, deciding it was easiest to just start his self-mandated wait time for his healing spell from ten minutes again. "As long as we got the Peludas, we can probably manage the rest, or at least escape."
Ryu nodded in agreement. Then, a spine burst from Ethan's right bicep. He didn't even have time to scream before collapsing on the spot, writhing in agony. He could feel the poison rapidly invading his body, as the pain had forced his Guardian Heart to deactivate by wiping all thought from his mind, leaving him fatally susceptible to the toxin. Then, a blade drove itself into the wound the spine had made and a scream forced itself from his lungs. However, after a moment, his vision, previously bleached white by the agony of the poison, began to return, blurry at first, then sharpening. After a moment, he recognized Hakugen, stained black by the poison. However, as he watched, the poison was drawn further into the blade and purified, eventually leaving the blade its usual gleaming white as Bell pulled it free of Ethan's arm.
Ethan groaned, holding a hand to his arm and reluctantly muttering the name of his healing spell again. He needed his dominant arm, and as long as he focused on the arm's wound itself and not the damage the poison had managed to do, it wouldn't be too draining. Sure enough, the drain on his Mind was minimal, and he was able to avoid nearing Mind Down.
"I fucking hate this floor," Ethan growled. "Thanks for the save, Bell."
Bell nodded, helping him to his feet, and Ryu threw her arms around both, thanking Bell repeatedly in the same breath as begging Ethan not to scare her like that again. Finally, she managed to calm herself and pulled away, Ethan grimacing. Ryu nodded instantly.
"I'll take vanguard with Bell as support," Ryu said. "You need to recover."
Ethan nodded in agreement, having been about to request exactly that. However, after a few moments, Ethan noticed a change, both in the terrain and in Ryu. They were climbing a long string of staircases only going upward, where as before, the stairs up and down were roughly equal. As they did, Ryu went stiff, and when Bell asked Ryu if she'd had any luck figuring out where they were, Ryu's reply was a curt "Yes." and nothing else. Ethan stopped walking.
"Ethan?" Bell asked.
Ryu stopped, staring ahead for a moment before looking back at him knowingly.
"What is it?" Ethan asked. "Where are we?"
Ryu hesitated for another moment before heaving a heavy sigh. "The Colosseum. It's a place where monsters are spawned without limit. However, just past it is the main route, and it's our only option without wasting hours."
"Then we'll waste hours," Bell said.
"No," Ethan said emotionlessly. "She doesn't know how to get from this side of the Colosseum to the main route. If we leave here, we'll be swarmed by who knows what. If we cross...We have to cross."
Bell swallowed hard. "We should rest first."
"There's nowhere to rest," Ethan said, forcing his Guardian Heart and Berserk to activate as fully as he could. "Be ready, Bell. This fight will probably be harder than the one against the Juggernaut."
Bell swallowed hard and nodded, gripping Hakugen tightly in his right hand, his left curling into a fist. "Should I charge?"
"Not yet," Ethan said. "What's the layout?"
"You'll see," Ryu said, continuing up the stairs with the other two.
As they reached the top, they stopped and immediately lay down on their stomachs, staring ahead of them. The room was at least as bigger as the cavern containing the Great Falls, probably larger. There was a massive pit filling most of the room with a thin bridge leading from them to a massive structure in the center, the bridge spanning the fifty meter gap between them and the center. Ethan glanced down below them and sighed. The floor of the cavern, almost a hundred meters below, was completely covered in a field of black spikes, probably a kind of rock, and they were as close together as if an army were holding spears in the air. The structure in the center, if Ethan was seeing it from his low vantage point correctly, was a large round part, like a truly massive pillar that had been sheered off, except that the center of it seemed to dip down like the Amphitheatrum on the surface. And currently, it was entirely silent.
"So, I'm assuming a there's another bridge on the far side?" Ethan asked.
"Yes," Ryu nodded. "There are four doors, but I managed to orient us. We're by the northern door. We need the southern one. Straight across." Her eyes narrowed suspiciously, her voice trembling worriedly as she spoke again. "Something's wrong. Normally, you'd be able to hear the monsters. It's deserted."
"I'm assuming that doesn't happen often?" Ethan asked.
"Never," Ryu said.
Ethan nodded and took a deep, barely-calming breath. "We should try to break through in a single push, then I can blast the other bridge behind us with Lightning Spree."
Ryu nodded, but no one moved. "It's a trap."
"Oh, definitely," Ethan nodded. "We'll probably be fighting exclusively Barbarians."
"Your curse?" Ryu asked knowingly.
Ethan nodded.
"I thought your curse was Minotaurs," Bell said.
"So did everyone," Ethan said. "But I've never been to a floor with a monster like Minotaurs before, so I've never been able to test it. However, if ever there was a perfect place for my curse to rear its head, this would be it."
Ryu nodded. "If it's not your curse, we'll fight all forms of monsters."
"Given Peludas, I hope it's my curse," Ethan said.
Ryu nodded. "So do I."
"If we run as fast as we can, we should be able to make it, right?" Bell asked, not getting an answer. "Right?"
"Ready?" Ethan asked.
Bell's face fell, but he nodded, Ryu doing the same.
"Give me five seconds to prepare, then we sprint," Ethan said, closing his eyes and focusing.
He called on all his rage, every memory that infuriated him and every ounce of his desire to protect someone. Ryu, Wiene, his Familia, his sister. Finally, he opened his shining eyes and nodded. As one, they shoved themselves to their feet, charging as they drew their weapons, Bell choosing Hakugen again, still with the Goliath Muffler around his left arm. As they ran across the bridge, Ethan glanced down, spotting numerous skeletons impaled on the stone spears below. He returned his eyes to the Colosseum. It looked like it was the diameter of Babel. He swallowed hard. Plenty of room for hundreds of Barbarians to attack them. And yet, still there was nothing. No sound besides them. They reached the edge of the Colosseum and Ethan narrowed his eyes. There were six six enormous plates arranged like steps or seating, as the plates wrapped all the way around, and then the bottom was perfectly flat and completely deserted, as Ryu had said. They all braced themselves and turned left, taking the Eastern side of the top layer. To their right on the Western side, three spiraled pillars rose on the edge, the top three rows missing. The fastest way would be straight across, but they had all agreed by silent consent that if they went straight across, they'd be ambushed the moment they hit the bottom level. However, just as they hit their tenth step along the eastern side, cracks split open all the way around not only the top step, but all six.
They all launched themselves from the steps, landing in the center of the arena just as Barbarians began to break free of the cracks. Ethan had been right. It was universally Barbarians. Ethan swallowed hard, clenching his teeth as they all pressed their backs and shoulders together, facing outward at the army of Barbarians swarming toward them, more spawning behind them.
"Enough!" Ethan snarled, his Berserk activating still further, as well as Guardian Heart. "I'm so sick and tired of this GOD DAMNED CURSE! ! !"
A light blade blazed to life around all three of their weapons, Bell having drawn the Hestia Knife in his right hand and shifted the Goliath Muffler to leave his left hand uncovered to wield Hakugen in his left hand. Then, as the Barbarians reached them, they all unleashed a battle cry, one part determination, two parts fear, and struck. Barbarians burst into ash and more immediately appeared from the ash clouds, and then exploded. More appeared, and exploded. A Barbarian leapt into the air, falling toward them from above, and all three scattered, slaughtering their way into the army of Barbarians just as the Barbarian exploded down in a crater.
"Head for the bridge!" Ethan roared as his Xiphos removed a Barbarian's arm before he spun in a circle, his sword slaughtering a ring of Barbarians.
A tongue shot out of the ash and licked his right cheek with all the force of a punch from Ottar, sending him flying backward. A Barbarian's fist exploded down on his back, not breaking anything, fortunately, but smashing him to the ground. He stabbed backward with his Xiphos and a flood of ash washed over him. He launched himself up from it and hurled himself toward the southern bridge, slashing his way through three Barbarians before landing in time to lean to the side and slash a tongue off with his Xiphos.
"Disgusting freaks," he growled, then slashed the Barbarian whose tongue he'd removed.
He charged again, arms moving in a blur as he glanced to the side. Ryu and Bell were both working their way toward the bridge, but Ryu was the furthest away and had to go through the arena, where a mass of cracks were spitting out a continuous flood of Barbarians, though she couldn't see that through the ash and army before her. He cut right, hurling himself toward her, shredding a trio of Barbarians on the way. Then, he landed beside her just in time to grab her and leap away from a sudden surge of Barbarians, one of which managed to slash several gouges in Ethan's left side, just below his armor. Ryu slashed a line of Barbarians where they were about to land and Ethan set her on her feet, then spun, slashing a group charging at them from behind. A moment later, Bell slammed into another's back on the tail end of having been thrown by a punch and rolled backward, landing beside them in time for Ryu to slash the Barbarians chasing him, Ethan slashing a huge arc on the other side.
"Bell, shoot this!" Ryu shouted, hurling an Inferno Stone toward the lower stairs by the southern side of the arena.
Bell fired off a Firebolt, but at the last second, a Barbarian jumped, blocking it with his body and sailing out of the Colosseum. Ethan swore and slashed another line before extending his left hand and gritting his teeth as he fired a weak Lightning Spree. A trail of destruction tore away from them, revealing the crystal, which Bell blasted instantly. And suddenly, there were only five in the way. They charged. Cracks spread along the first through fourth step as Bell and Ryu slashed the Barbarians out of their way. There was the bridge. Ten more feet. Five more feet.
A Barbarian's arms wrapped around Ethan as it leapt out of the Colosseum, taking him with it. Ryu screamed, but Bell dragged her onto the bridge. Ethan looked to the southern passageway and time slowed. More Barbarians flooded from the passageway. It was too late. They were dead. He squeezed his eyes shut as fury flooded him. No. No more. He refused to let this curse claim any more of his family. No more victims. He stabbed the Barbarian holding him, killing it and flipped, holding his hand downward and praying to avoid Mind Down. Then, before he could fire another Lightning Spree, a pair of hands grabbed him, yanking him into the air with the sound of huge wings beating hard. He glanced upward and he jaw fell open. Wiene. And despite the tears of fear flooding from her eyes, she looked furious. She dropped him on the bridge beside Ryu and Bell just in time for Ethan to slash the front line of Barbarians across the abdomen, knocking them backward and starting a domino effect with the rest, knocking countless off the bridge. Then, he spun, staring at Wiene as she let out a furious shriek, then began to expand. Her legs shot backward along the ground, thickening rapidly and fusing into a serpentine tail, her arms and torso elongated, her wings expanded, her skin darkened rapidly, and her claws elongated. Her black cloak remained around her neck, unlike the last time she took this form, and hung between her wings, though in this form it barely reached past her shoulder blades. Then, she swiped an arm and sent Barbarians flying, several disintegrating but the rest knocking down those trying to charge across the bridge. Then, Wiene shot sideways off the bridge, only to wrap around it to the top again and streak across it, scooping up Ethan, Ryu, and Bell, before flattening the Barbarians still on the bridge. Ryu hurled another Inferno Stone at the Bridge and Bell shot it. An instant later, the bridge had been blasted into rubble, halting the pursuit of the remaining Barbarians. In their rage at being blocked, they instead turned on one another.
Ethan looked up at Wiene and she smiled down at him, her Vouivre Tear catching the light of the walls in her forehead. Then, after a moment, she shot down a side passage into a tiny room and coiled up before setting the three adventurers in the cent of the room before beginning to shrink. Within seconds, she had retaken her child-like form and threw her arms around Ethan and Ryu, who both hugged her instantly, Wiene sobbing in relief.
"You saved us!" Ryu smiled.
"How did you get down here?" Ethan asked. "How did you find us?"
"I heard your voice from one of the holes on the Twenty Seventh Floor, so I flew down it to this Floor, then heard you screaming in pain, so I followed the sound," Wiene explained. "It was hard because the sound was bouncing around a lot in the maze, but I managed to find you!"
Ethan hugged her tighter. "Thank you, Wiene! Thank you so much!"
Wiene smiled, squeezing him before he and Ryu glanced at the passageway they'd just followed. After a moment, Bell charged a one-second shot from an Argonaut Firebolt and blasted the roof of the passageway, collapsing it. Ethan sighed, shifting to sit against the wall with Ryu and Wiene, all three holding each other while Bell sat a short distance to the side.
"We survived," Ryu said. "I can't believe we survived."
Ethan nodded. "We just barely made it. And it's all thanks to Wiene."
Ryu nodded, smiling. "How did you know you could transform like that?"
"I didn't," Wiene said. "I just tried, and it worked."
Ryu smiled, hugging her. "I love you so much, Wiene."
"I love you, too," Wiene smiled.
Ethan squeezed them both, then glanced at Ryu, who nodded knowingly. Then, he allowed his Guardian Heart and Berserk to finally deactivate again and slumped against the wall, unconscious.
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