Abyssal Awakening?

I bounce off a wall and land on the ground, managing to pick myself back up again. I mentally kick myself. I should have known better than that. Stay focused on the fight. The Lynel hesitates for a second as it turns to face me, and I see no better chance than now to activate the skill.

The burn marks on its face start to glow a bright purple and in an instant, the Silver Lynel is engulfed in a layer of pure purple arcane energy. I have a full ten seconds to reposition myself, and I use the time to sprint around behind the creature. It thrashes its arms around wildly, but seems to be frozen in its place on the floor.

The timer in my head nearing zero, and thinking quickly, I spring up into the air, just as the timer hits zero and the layer of purple disappears. The Silver Lynel is covered in arcane burns, clearly wounded. My leap takes me up and over the Lynel’s hind legs, onto its horse back. The reaction is immediate.

With a roar, it begins trying to buck me off. I hold on tightly, grinning wildly. I manifest a large dagger of ice and start to stab into its body. It might be immune to magical ice damage, but it’s not immune to being stabbed. Once, twice, three times, I keep going as it tries in vain to buck me off. Blood starts to seep out of its body but I don’t let up. Eventually a particularly strong kick sends me hurtling over its head, towards the ground in front of it.

Thinking quickly, I manage to turn in the air towards the Lynel and throw out a thorn chain. The chain digs in and I yank myself back towards the boss, avoiding its already started downward swing and sliding under its hooves. Immediately I roll out from under the bosses feet as it starts to stamp blindly in an attempt to catch me. Dive rolling away, I come to my feet and back away a few paces.

It turns to me and roars loudly, upturning its sword and slamming it into the ground, sending out a shockwave of flames. Thinking fast, I create another shield of ice in front of me, reinforcing it the best I can with my magic. The flames break on my wall of ice and I sigh in relief. That looked like it could have been devastating.

It’s another realisation that the Silver Lynel can use fire in its attacks, and an annoying one at that. My ice magic should be enough to neutralise it, from what I’ve just seen, but its still one more thing to think about. Just as I reach the end of that thought, it charges up again and shoots fireballs from its mouth.

I make myself as small as possible and reinforce my existing ice shield to prevent the fireballs from breaking through. All three fireballs dissipate with my magic, the third one cracking and splintering my construct. I check my mana bar and unhappily realise it’s only down to about half. I need to end this before my mana depletes too much as I really don’t want to have to rely on melee combat to defeat this thing.

I go on the offensive again, running towards it and firing off another mana bolt as a feint. The boss takes the bait and moves its shield downwards to protect against the arcane damage, its body now fully understanding the threat of the glowing purple spells. I follow it up immediately with two more spells to the face, building up two more stacks of Torrent.

Utilising the same strategy as before, I keep close enough to bait out its melee attacks, while not too close that I can’t dodge them. Every time it swings, it opens itself up to another hit from me, and another stack closer to using the full power of my spell. On the ninth hit, I’m too close and can’t manage to dodge well enough, tanking the hit instead. Another 500MP evaporates and I’m in a really dire situation by this point.

One strategy that could have been useful if I had more HP is sacrifice my health bar to preserve more mana for attacking. Something to think about for the future when I raise my endurance. Instead I land the tenth mana bolt and without wasting another moment, activate Arcane Torrent. The Silver Lynel howls as its once again enveloped in a layer of pure mana, thrashing around in an attempt to avoid the magical burning.

I position myself behind it once more, since that seemed to work pretty well last time. As the timer runs out, I launch myself onto its back, gripping onto it and manifesting that deadly dagger of ice. I plunge the dagger into it again, determined to end it this time. The creature howls in pain, bucking and flailing in vain. Just as I feel my grip slipping, I stab the creature one last time, and the blade goes straight through as it dissolves into dust.

I fall to the ground from where I’m perched on its back, landing on my feet easily. I take a moment to process my victory, a broad smile making its way onto my face. I’ve won the challenge and as a result, Emma will get mana and we’ll get to spend some more time with her and Lena, while being able to protect them from some of the horrors of the Sydney abyss.

I take one last look around the dungeon as it fades from existence, replaced with the small loot barrier that I’ve gotten used to. There are shelves within the small barrier, each labelled with different rarities for the loot the boss dropped. If I don’t want to keep something, Gaia has included an option to drop the item down a chute that automatically lists it on the abyss auction for me, which is really nice.

I got all four gemstones from the boss, a topaz, ruby, diamond and sapphire. All are quite large and contain trace amounts of mana in them, though not much else. I drop them all into the auction chute. I’m thankful that the Lynel Guts that dropped are encased in a container. With them being a fairly weak crafting material, I drop them into the chute as well.

I’m unsure exactly what to do with the Lynel Hoof and two Lynel Horns that dropped. They seem like decent crafting materials, so I hold onto them for now. From the Epic category, the only thing that drops is the Star Fragment. That’s also a pretty powerful crafting material, so I hold onto that.

I’m very happy to see that I got both Legendary drops, the Silver Lynel Blade and the Silver Lynel Shield. I have no idea who’s going to use them in my guild, but I’m definitely keeping them until somebody wants to. With all the loot picked up, I turn to exit the barrier back into the snowy landscape of my Kingdom.

Ivy is waiting for me as I walk out, and I can’t help but smile as I see her. My armour turns into a set of casual clothes as I walk towards her. She knows the result already, thanks to being inside my head. Wordlessly, grinning madly, she picks me up and spins me around. I burst into a fit of giggles, and she laughs with me, happy as can be.

Putting me down, she kisses me on the forehead. “I’m so proud of you babygirl. You did such a good job.” She tells me. I kiss her on the lips, then nuzzle into her chest. She holds me there, massaging my back gently. “Thank you.” I tell her, suddenly feeling tired. Ivy starts to lead me back inside, to where the others are relaxing in the living room.

Mia and Paige are playing cards, Skylar is scrolling on her phone and Olivia is reading as I walk in. They all look up at us as we walk in. “I did it. Emma will be an abyssal 24 hours from now.” I say, grinning. Mia cheers and whoops happily. “Good job Gem, we’re so proud of you!” She speaks the sentiment for the group.

“Victory orgy?” Paige pipes up, then immediately looks around to Olivia, remembering she’s there. The shy terramancer blushes and hides her face as she realises what she just said. Olivia smiles at her gently. “It is okay dear, I do not mind. Go have fun.” She encourages. Paige looks around at the rest of us, and I find my tiredness fading.

The five of us steal excited glances at each other. Even Skylar is perked up at the idea. I take the lead. “Last one to the bedroom is a rotten egg!” I declare, breaking into a run towards the stairs. Mia, Paige and Skylar shoot up from their seats, sprinting after me, the giggles of my lovers filling the air.