All the Loki familia members tensed at that.
"Are you threatening us?" Finn asked with a sharp look.
I chuckled "Nope. I don't need to threaten you. You should be very aware of how fucked you'd be if I actually turned hostile. That said I am both the healer and carrier of supplies for this trip so playing nice is in your best interest. Just saying." I said before turning my attention back to the stew that was getting to a boil.
They sat tensed in silence after that as the stew was distributed and we ate before turning in for the night. In the morning or at least when we woke up we ate some fruit leather for breakfast before setting off. We crossed the fiery floor and soon entered the dragons vase floors.
"I'll go first to draw the fire, follow after about three minutes." I said as I dashed across the stone of the fifty second floor while waiting for the first shot of the Valgang dragons breath to come.
Once a hole was opened up I shot threw the hole using my flames to accelerate and hit the dragon mid charge up at max speed causing it to explode in gore and scales before it all turned to smoke as my momentum smashed into the stone in it's chest. I moved fast as already beams of hot breath were shooting towards the spot I was at. The others dropped down the hole as planned three minutes later while I annoyed the dragons that couldn't hit me like a mosquito you just couldn't swat for some reason. Falling damage wasn't really a thing for level sixes and beyond, terminal velocity was no longer fast enough to harm most of them save the mages who tended to be especially squishy.-
Even in the case of said mages no amount of height was enough to kill them. This meant there was nothing wrong with dropping several miles and landing on your feet and taking off with a sprint. I had to admit that they were all pros though as even the most ungraceful faller in the form of Shakti did so without much downwards turbulence. In her case she was ramrod straight as she fell which she'd soon learn was going to ache like a bitch when she hit the ground, absolutely hell on the knees.-
Ottar had to be the most daring though as he was falling face first and had his massive black sword(curtesy of yours truly) held like he was going to throw that bitch. As I soon found out that was because he was. He straight up launched the damned thing like a spear and skewered one of the dragons before somersaulting mid fall and crashing into the ground in a deep crouch. Badass is what that was, made the rest look like scrubs as they hit the ground and immediately scrambled as the dragons focused on them.-
"Ottar!" I called as I retrieved his sword and threw it back at him.
He sidestepped it, caught the handle and spun to bleed off the momentum all in one fluid motion. With another he stomped and shot towards the nearest dragon while I distracted it. With roar he swung his massive blade and removed the dragons head and already locked his gaze on the next. The others weren't idle either as Finn, Shakti and Bete tag teamed the dragon furthest from me and Ottar while Riveria and Gareth hung back with the former starting a spell incantation and the latter guarding her.-
I casually dealt with another three dragons while Ottar dominated four others in the time it took all of them to kill three. One of them had only died because it got directly hit with Riveria's spell. All in all their weakness couldn't be more obvious but comparing them to Ottar and I was already rather unfair. Ottar is at the peak of his stats with SS across all but magic since he didn't use it and was on his way to level eight while I was already as strong as a level eight who'd been there for a short while.-
Not new to the level but not quite midway through it either. In other words we were basically comparing two level eights against peak sixes. Obviously the eights would see the sixes as weak by comparison.
"What the hell was that eh!?" Bete demanded angrily after the fighting was over.
"You mean the warm up?" I asked with a tilt of my head.
"The fucking what!? You calling Valgang dragons a damned warm up!?" he yelled with a red face.
"Yeah, Not even enough to make Ottar or I break a sweat. What do you call that but a warm up?" I asked with a raised eyebrow.
"I think what he's getting at is we went into this without a plan. We would be much more effective if we had coordinated." Finn said mediating.
"Did you forget? We are here to challenge ourselves, not overcomplicate everything we don't need to. The plan here was kill the big fucking lizards, that's it, end of plan. Get comfortable with that idea or this trip is going to leave all of you wishing you'd not come." I said firmly and Ottar nodded in agreement.
To little surprise they grumbled about it a lot since it was outside their comfort zones but that was the whole point of the trip so they dropped it in the end. Finally we hit the glacier floors of fifty nine to sixty four as far as anyone knows. The dungeon had taken the jungle that was here before over as it was all covered in ice with those damned ice shadows moving through the crystalline structures.