“Hop on! Let’s fly!”

  “But we need to get down there first…” Giana protested.

  “We can do that after you hop on!”

  “But you won’t fit through the hole Noelle is making.”

  Noelle popped out from the hole she was digging. “Your dragon form is too big! Just stay in human form until we get down there and uhh, don’t you have any clothes on you?”

  “She has been like this since we defeated the sisters… It makes sense but I never realized that dragons are naked in their dragon form and have no clothes after they turn back…” Giana said while looking at the ground as she was inspecting the underground city.

  “How about you make some clothes out of illusions? I will stabilize them. They should also be unaffected by her going to dragon form and back.”

  Giana looked up and clapped her hands. “Oh! Good idea.”

  “Time to make you fabulous!” She pointed at Io and Io suddenly wore a stylish shirt and jeans. She had a cardigan with flame patterns. A stomp could be heard from the hole in the ground, and the illusions locked in and stabilized.

  “Oh wow! It has flames!”

  “You need to go to Yv for better design. She’s our fashion designer.”

  The ground shook as someone stomped. “How deep is this city buried!?”

  “So you and Tox… Kyle are a couple, eh? Did… did you think about the difference of life expectancy?”

  “Yes! We’re going to get at it after this dungeon!” Io said with pride.

  “Wow that’s very direct.”

  “Well. A friend of Agnis and Kyle had been found dead recently. It reminded us of how squishy humans are. If I take too long, Kyle will turn into dust. I don’t want that. But he doesn’t want to retire from being an adventure, so I have to incapacitate him by giving him a lot of babies!”

  “Oh ehh, hmm that is an interesting idea.” Giana said, unsure on how to react to that idea.

  “I know right! I came up with it myself! How long do humans actually live?”

  “Uhh most humans get around 70- 80 years old.”

  Io put her hands in her hair. “Wait what!? He’s already one third there! Noelle dig faster!”

  The ground shook from a stomp. “Doing my best!”

  “So this friend of you that died…”

  Another stomp. This stomp sounded different. “Yes! I got through! Hop in! Which lunatics built a city this deep under the ground?!”

  “Yes!” Io grabbed Giana and jumped in the hole.

  “Huh wait! Noelle made stairs!”

  Io didn’t pay heed to the stairs and let gravity do the heavy lifting. “Hey why are we falling so slow?”

  Io commented on the slow descent unbeknownst to the fact that holdin on to a spirit fox would make one partially invisible to gravity.

  “It’s because you’re holding on to me.”

  Io got annoyed by the slow falling speed s she was in a hurry. “I have no time for this! I now understand why team Hourai did that speedrun!”

  “Those two are unrelated!”

  Io changed to her dragonform and used a [Draconic Divebomb] to reach the bottom faster.

  A fiery explosion went out as Io hit the floor below her and a stomp shook the whole cave system.

  “Hey watch out where you’re divebombing!” Noelle said as she was wading through the molten rock Io’s divebomb had created.

  “Oops sorry. Glad you’re not hurt! Let’s go! We have no time for this!” Io picked Noelle up with her claw and flew up.

  “Nono! Io that way!” Giana made illusions of arrows to show her the way. Io used [Fire Jet] to speed up her flight.

  “Giana what did you tell her to get her all fired up!?”

  “Nothing! I just asked her a question! Up there!” More illusions of arrows showed Io where to go. Flight made the magma chamber quite trivial, but that was assuming they knew where to go. Giana put her eyes to work to direct Io through the most exciting route.

  “Ugh, she’s doing it again. Giana the safest route, not the most exciting one!”

  “Come on Noelle! The heat does nothing to us!”

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  “I’m affected!”

  Giana made an [Ice Cloak] for Noelle, but it melted. “Oh… wait let me try this.”

  She used some of the frost mana she was holding on to make a poor imitation of a [Frost cloak].

  “Wow this needs work but thanks nonetheless. And Io, can you put me on your back? Your claw is uncomfortable!”

  Io threw Noelle into the air. Noelle screamed as she flipped through the air and landed on Io’s back. “You dumb lizard! Couldn’t you be gentler!?”

  “I am a dragon!”

  “Calm down Noelle, she has a point… she is a dragon, what did you expect?”

  “Ugh…” Noelle shook her head.

  “Look you can take it out on those spirits there.” Giana pointed at the fire spirits.

  “Wasn’t water their only weakness?” Noelle said, wondering how they should defeat them.

  “I can’t use water magic here…”

  “Haha you idols are silly! We just ignore them! More [Flame jets]!” Io got clad in flames and sped up. She flew past the spirits because they couldn’t do anything to a speeding dragon.

  “You can slow down Io. We still have 15 minutes.” Giana said as she made illusions of crosses to indicate that Io had to slow down.

  “Kyle will be an old man by then!”

  “Noo humans don’t age that fast!”

  “Hey Giana, how did you control her against the sisters?”

  “I had to heal and protect the sisters until it was time to defeat them…”

  “I see… it seems you had it rough. You might have to do the same, although this one should be resistant to fire. Hey lizard, what can you use besides fire magic?”

  “Smoke!”

  “Anything that does damage?”

  “I’m an assassin!”

  Io neared the boss room, which was an empty arena with magma walls.

  “I guess it’s just me then, this lizard is situationally useful as expected.”

  “I will give you my strongest water attack and the accompanying buffs.” Giana said as she started to sing and hit Noelle with her strongest [Water blast]. She had retrieved some water from he dimensional pocket adn had used it to fuel the [Water Blast].

  “Thanks for the refreshment… lil’ bro has to really teach you how to deal damage.”

  Noelle had used [Polygonic Armament]. Although it was weak, she could deal water damage.

  Io raced toward the guardian, Ira. Io was spitting fire and throwing various fire attacks at Ira, but no fire-based attack dealt any meaningful damage.

  Noelle jumped down, her weight increased, and she crashed into Ira while augmented with water.

  “Haha, burn!” Io roared.

  Giana rolled her eyes as Io hadn’t noticed that fire attacks were useless against this opponent.

  Noelle sent water crystals at Ira, but they all evaporated. Fire attacks hit Noelle but didn't leave a scratch. Nobody seemed to be able to damage to the other.

  “I think I have to go 7t mode!”

  “Go for it!”

  “Huh? What is that? 7t mode? Is it meat?”

  A mana wave erupted as a grid appeared on anything that was connected to the ground. The grid disappeared, but polygons started appearing around Noelle. The polygons bunched up together and started creating a shape. The polygons disappeared and turned into a large appliance with a hose.

  “Have a taste of this!” Noelle grabbed the hose and turned a valve and a massive high-pressured waterblast shot out. It blew a hole through the great sword that Ira had used to block the attack. Ira discarded her great sword and tried to act, but a small mountain fell on her.

  “Time to choke out that fire! More buffs!”

  Giana sung another song. The polygons shot into the mountain, turning it into a collection of polygons. The polygons rearranged and formed a box around Ira. Pounding could be heard on the walls of the box. The polygons disappeared, and a large metal box took its place.

  “Giana, what is the strongest water move you know of?”

  “I think it’s [Tsunami] but I think I saw Agnis use a blue spear. It seemed quite strong.

  “Oh that spear, it looked strong yeah, it’s a bit more practical.” Noelle held up her arm and polygons appeared and formed into the shape of a spear. The polygons disappeared, and a spear made out of rapidly moving water appeared.

  “I hope this is enough!”

  Noelle put her back into the spear throw. The spear flew at the box. A hole opened up to let the spear through, and it hit Ira in her torso. The box prevented any movement, which meant that Ira had no choice to take this attack. The root appeared as Ira disintegrated.

  “More [Fire Jets] and then [Inferno]!”

  “Wait! I’m still on your back!” Giana jumped off Io’s back as Io sped up while engulfed in flames and crashed into the root. An enormous ball of red-hot plasma exploded from the root and vaporized whatever part of the root that hadn’t vaporized yet.

  “I guess that worked.” Noelle said as she canceled her 7t mode.

  “It still needed you to get into 7t mode… our group was suited to get here, butt not to fight this guardian. If I could only use offensive water skills…” Giana said disapointedly while lookign at her hands. she was disapointed in herself.

  “Don’t worry about it. We still got the job done.” The idols sat down as they waited for the scene to change.

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