Archon of Danmachi

The big orb of light flew towards the Balor at a deceptively high speed.

Balor, recognising the threat, prepared to use his own magical abilities to counter but, before the orb reached it and even before it could mount its defence, the orb shined bright and simply . . . expanded at a drastic pace.

It was massive! The expanding, spherical spirit light fully engulfed the Balor as it expanded, the brightness of it preventing one from looking at it directly and earning the attention of three separate herds of Fomoire.

Finn was worried about this but soon, he realised such worries were quite unnecessary.

The expansion slowed down until it stopped at roughly fifty meters in diameter but after slightly contracting to around 4/5 of its size, a massive sense of threat welled up in Finn's heart.

"Riveria barrier now!" He shouted.

"Riveria had long started to chant her most powerful barrier magic and, by the time Fnn shouted his command, it was ready for casting.

"Via Shilheim!" The high elfess shouted as a barrier that protected those within from all physical and magical harm emerged around the Loki Familia party.

This proved to an extremely wise decision as the contacted sphere of spirit light suddenly exploded.

The herds of Fomoire unfortunately close enough to witness the spectacle were annihilated as the blast covered massive amounts of ground in an instant and impacted Riveria's barrier, hundreds of meters away.

By then though, much of its power had waned and the barrier help strong without too much strain, letting everyone, Nox included sigh in relief.

"A little too much eh Nox?" Tiona nervously said as she gulped at the raw magical power she just witnessed.

Her sister nodded in agreement as Bete just started at the epicenter, even as waves of light still prevented one from seeing it.

Gareth slapped Nox on the back and heartily said.

"That was one hell of a lightshow young'n!"

Following the statement with laughter.

"Indeed." Finn calmly added from the side, thinking of ways to take advantage of such power in future expeditions.

'Having Nox as just a high performance porter would be a criminal waste of resources.' He thought.

"We're having a serious talk once we get back." Riveria said to Nox.

The individual in question however, was fixing on the Balor's previous position while measuring the results in his mind.

'Clearly Decimation is not appropriate for such large scale use since its radius easily supersedes its range.' Nox pondered.

'Adjustments are needed and new spells for the lower floors must be designed to contain such large amounts of power in smaller areas. That however, requires control that I do not yet possess so, until I manage to acquire it as I grow stronger, I better hold back on the firepower . . .'

'Still . . . The Balor must have died from that right?' He thought.

Reality though, seemed to want to disappoint him as, after the waves of spirit light subsided, the Balor could be seem very much still alive, most of it anyway.

Its skin was utterly melted and all three of its eyes seared beyond recovery but its tough build meant it still had the majority of its physical power, even if blind from madness and lacking actual eyes.

"Looks like it survived but we shouldn't have problems taking it down now." Finn declared.

"Wait. I'll hit it again." Nox said, dissatisfied by his target's survival.

'Damn it! Too much of the power was dispersed alright. Decimation is great for annihilating swathes of enemies but far too dispersed for powerful Monster Rexes.' He considered.

"What do you mean? aren't you on the verge of Mind Down?" Riveria asked.

Nox didn't respond and just activated one of his blood arts.

'Blood Conversion'

His Mind Pool quickly refilled and Nox prepared to attack gain.

"How did you do that?" Riveria asked in shock.

"What?" Finn asked.

"I refilled my Mind Pool." Nox explained.

"Well, leave it to us anyway. Even if you attack again it won't be enough to kill it. The power of the spell is dispersed over too large of an area" Finn declared.

"I can make it more powerful." Nox insisted.

"Then we'd be in danger Nox." Riveria countered, wondering on how he could unleash even more powerful magic.

Nox groaned in response but relented.

"Okay then . . ."

"Don't get too disappointed Nox. In light of your efforts, we'll give you the drops alright?" Gareth consoled.

"Seems fair to me." Finn supported.

"I support the captain!" Tione immediately exclaimed.

"Let's get to it then!" Tiona was raring to go.

Against a blind and seriously injured Balor, the Loki Familia party faced no real trouble and soon, the monster rex was defeated.

"Well then, time to go back, the objective of this expedition was completed and we even learned some other useful information so I say we return now." Finn declared.

Riveria and Gareth agreed with the assessment and so, the party started making their way to the surface.

Nox indeed gained a lot from this expedition. He had set up mean of travel to the deeper floors without the hassle of actually treading through the dungeon, identified the weaknesses in his magic that he needed to solve and got the chance to test the limits of his current fire power.

Not to mention the portion of drops he got, including the drop for Balor which Nopx considered to be the most valuable to him, its magical third eye. Even further, he had the chance of observing several new monsters and the way they ticked, giving him inspiration for ne spells and curses.

They were far too deep in the dungeon to leave within the day but roughly two days afterwards, the party was finally back in the Twilight Manor.

As arrived, the goddess jumped towards them with Ais, Tiona and Tione dodging and only Nox catching her mid air.

"Uaah! Only Noxy cares about me! What ungrateful children!" Loki sobbed, huggin Nox with her head buried in his chest as he patted her.

"Come one Loki, we have important things to discuss." Riveria admonished.

"Yes mama!" Loki replied making the high elfess twitch in anger.

The goddess then ran inside in fear of reprisal and waited fro them in the meeting room.

A bit later, once again in front of their goddess and now, in a more serious environment, the three executives discussed the expedition with Loki.

"So . . . Noxy proved we got a lot more out of our deal with him than expected." Loki said.

"Yes, his magical power will make him much more important in expeditions than just carrying supplies." Finn replied.

"Ah. My great genius once again led to me making yet another brilliant decision." Loki unabashedly praised herself.

"Truthfully speaking based on his Status, I knew he could've done something like that, even if I underestimated him a little." Loki said.

"His status?" Gareth asked.

"That's between me and him, part of our deal. But his power is more than justified." Loki responded.

They discussed a few more before Loki dismissed them and called Nox in.

"Looks like you made quite a splash." Loki said to Nox, a smirk on her face.

"And you look like you expected it." Nox responded with a look that screamed "I'm full of your crap".

"Aw! Don't be like that Noxy, just tryin' to help" Loki consoled.

"I know! Which is why I'm not resenting you and making plans to screw over the entire Loki Familia." Nox replied with a bright smile.

"Righty, fine then. You win." Loki raised her hands.

"Let's get the status update out of the way shall we?" She offered.

"Sound good to me." Nox accepted.

*

Name: Nox Lyros

Race: High Human

Gender: Male

Level: 3

Abilities:

STR: I-0 -> G-264

END: I-0 -> F-337

DEX: I-0 -> H-189

AGI: I-0 -> G-298

MAG: I-0 -> E-472

Luck: I-0 -> H

Archmage: C

Craftmaster: D -> C

Martial Lord: G

Perfect Body: D

Unbreakable Bulwark: G

Irresistible Force: G

Genocider: H -> G

Tamer: D

Magic:

. . .

Skills:

. . .

*

"Considerin' the short amount of time since yer last upgrade Noxy, I'd say you've been hit pretty hard, something quite unusual fer ya." Loki commented.

"Yer magic shows the most growth as always and you did put up that lightshow on the 49th floor which definitely helped." She added.

"My development abilities seem to be stagnating though." Nox said as he evaluated his Status.

"Noxy . . . Development abilities don't grow that easy, especially in the higher ranks. This is already far too good fer ya." Loki exasperatedly said.

"Ya only got this much cause ya must have created quite a nice set of items resulting in the upgrade of Craftmaster and due to the massacre ya unleashed on the 49th, Genocider also went up."

"I guess you're right." Nox shrugged.

"Yeah, always am." Loki replied.

"Well then ya must have stuff to do with what ya learned this expedition so I won't keep ya longer. Off ya go." Loki dismissed him.

"Thanks Loki, see you later." Nox replied.

"Sure, don't do anythin' crazy." The goddess adived.

Nox just smirked and said.

"Do you really think I'm gonna listen to that?"

Loki just shook her head and replied.

"Not really but it never hurts tryin'"

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P.a.t.r.e.o.n is officially up!

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