Archon of Danmachi

The Udaeus, monster rex of the 37th floor. It was a horned skeleton monster with a black body, is a large version of a Spartoi which were like skeleton soldiers it could also summon to assist it.

Spawning every three months, it had no lower body but was fuse with the ground, being able to spread its attacks through it. It was graded as Level 6 in terms of prowess.

Later in the original series, Ais fought it alone, being the first person ever to do so and discovered it summoned a huge black sword when that was the case. This sword then became a drop item, though much smaller when compared to the one wielded by the Udaeus.

This battle however, was one to be taken as a team so the world would remain ignorant of this secret for the time being.

"Gareth on the front, me and Bete for distraction, Ais as the main attacker, Riveria and Nox with long range magic support, wait for us to engage before firing, Tione and Tiona will guard the back row and support the front when called to do so. Let's go!"

Finn quickly shouted everyone's orders and they got moving. Nox and Riveria stuck to the edges of the room with the amazoness twins guarding them.

Gareth charged straight for the Udaeus, shield on one hand and a huge heavy axe on the other, drawing its attention.

Finn and Bete ran and flanked the monster while maintaining a reasonable distance, they would be doing hit and run attacks to harass the monster rex, dividing its attention.

Ais stuck behind Gareth but at a safe distance, roughly midway between the walls of the room and the Udaeus in the center, ready to deliver punishing strikes whenever she spotted an opening.

It was also the first time Nox had an actual role in battle other than the escorted supplies. With Finn's orders, he could now unleash all of his magical prowess in attacks while safely under the protection of the other party members.

Truth be told, he was quite excited. Never had Nox been able to fire off his magic without worry of the environments and possible counterattacks or ambushes but now, with other taking cared of those things, he was utterly free to cut loose and unleash devastation.

As Gareth charged on it, the Udaeus swung its enourmous arm in an attempt to claw at him.

The dwarf blocked with his heavy shield and kept pushing forward, challenging the monster in a contest of strength.

Riveria began chanting her attack magic while Finn and Bete struck simultaneously from each of the Udaeus' sides.

Using its other arm, the monster swung at Bete, forcing him to retreat while Finn successfully struck it, breaking several of the bones that composed its body but having missed the magic stone inside its rib cage due to the monster's movement.

Having struck the monster, Finn immediately retreated before the counter attack came and the Udaeus unleashed countless spikes from the ground forcing all three of its attackers to run and dodge, with Gareth electing to block a few rather than dodging everything.

Knowing it was vastly outnumbered, the Udaeus summoned its Sparoi minions, armed skeletal warriors that fought like adventures rather than monsters.

But, just as these minions were emerging from the ground, destruction rained down upon them.

'Salamander Missile'

Fire magic circles appeared all around Nox and under his feet. From them countless projectiles were fired, flaming orbs flying through the air in curved trajectories, leaving trails of fire behind them as they seeked their targets with unerring accuracy and destroyed all the summoned Spartoi.

The Loki familia members paused a little in shock at both the power, speed and proficiency with which Nox unleashed his magic.

It was a supercharged spell with serious amounts of Mind put into it, two or three missiles were enough to destroy the spartoi whose potential was around Level 4.

This was only because defence was not their main deal and they were also quite small, otherwise, it would have taken much more to kill them.

Quickly gathering his wits, Finn shouted.

"Press the attack!" Commanding all members to put pressure on the Udaeus so that it couldn't direct its wrath at the spell casters.

This time, even Ais joined in with her Ariel spirit wind magic boosting her prowess.

Facing a simultaneous attack from two Level 6 an two Level 5 adventurer, just after it had use its power to summon minions, the Udaeus took a significant amount of damage.

In the meantime, Riveria finished her chanting and, as the four attackers ran for their lives, the graceful high elf unleashed it.

"Rea Laevatein!"

Veins of fire covered the room's floor, wall and even ceiling, bursting into a glorious firestorm that burned the already damaged Monster Rex to ash, thus ending the battle.

The party members all gathered at the center of the room where the Udaeus once stood and then, collectively turned to Nox.

"So, mind explaining?" Finn asked him.

"Explain what?" Nox asked back with confusion.

"Your magic . . . I knew you did not need chanting but I had no idea it was so powerful." Finn clarified.

"Eh!?" Nox was surprised.

"What?" Finn said back as the others just listening in.

"I mean . . . That was not even close to my max firepower. I was going for precision so no one was caught in the spell's area of effect." Nox explained.

"In other words, you can still output more power?" Riveria inquired.

"Yes but it's easy to lose control and I usually don't do it since it will leave me weakened which is a problem considering I dive solo most of the time." Nox said.

"Then how big can you go?" Tiona asked with excitement.

"Don't know, never really tried. didn't want to cause damage to the Dungeon and get a Juggernaut on my tail." Nox replied.

"Then . . . Why don't we let you fire off your most powerful spell on the Balor of the 49th floor?" Finn suggested.

"True, there is enough space for the kid to release all his power without worries and we'll be there to protect you afterwards as well" Gareth supported.

"Sound good." Nox agreed.

"Then let's go!" Tiona shouted.

Indeed, Nox had never gone too far with the magic so as to not damage the dungeon. Juggernauts were particularly dangerous opponents for him and, as such, he didn't want to face one anytime soon.

Assassin type monsters with ridiculous speed and claws capable of tearing through any defence along with a powerful resistance to magic made the Juggernaut a hard counter to Nox.

But now, thanks to his mighty seniors, Nox was about to get a much awaited for chance to unleash all of his magic onto a powerful target without fear of repercussions.

First though, they had to get to the 49th floor where the Balor awaited.

Since everyone was pretty excited to see just what Nox's limit was, himself included, perhaps even more so than the others, the group cut through the floors at record speed after resting a bit of the 39th floor, the last safe floor before the Balor.

The floors in the forties seemed to be dark and flame based with the 44th floor, one of the only two shown in the LN being a volcano area made of black volcanic rock and having multiple flame based monsters.

They stopped there for a bit to gather a drop item from the Flame Rocks, golem like monsters with red veins of fire running through their bodies.

The item in question was the kaenseki, an explosive rock that was quite rare and the Nox needed a good quantity of for less than safe experiments.

Other than that though, that went straight towards their goal.

The 49th floor, also known as Moytura, was a barren wasteland with no grass or trees growing the the desolate ground. The rocks and sand that composed it were all of a reddish brown color and this was the home of the Monster Rex Balor.

Finding him though, despite not being so difficult, was not so easy either. the floor was enormous, far bigger than Orario and huge herds of monsters called Fomoires traveled around it hampering search efforts.

It was far easier to cross into the next floor than to find the Balor so, the group decided to head there and set up cam, have a good night's sleep and fully recharge before setting out to find the monster they seeked.

After walking for a good while, the groups reached the entrance for the 50th floor and went down.

This safe floor was covered entirely by trees with only a small clearing at the entrance to the next floor. Like veins through the ground, numerous rivers ran through the place with a crystal ceiling like that of the 18th floor marking night and day cycles.

It was actually quite the pleasant place if one ignored the fact that monsters from either the floor above it of bellow it could run in at any moment.

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