Majimonsters: Rosewood Journey - Chapter 177

In another corner of the room, a furious battle between an Amphiboil and a Ferroena vs pair of strange clay majimonsters, one looking like a strange turtle-man, the other looking like a snake-man.

[Alto, Leap]!

[Valdos, Fury Flow]!

HISSS!

GOOOO!

The turtle-man Terrorcotta Soldier’s shell-shield arms glowed with the power of the Earth as he slammed both of his fists into the ground. The ground began to bubble and swell from the sudden injection of aether, before launching forward as a torrent of rock and dirt at the Amphiboil.

As the wave of rock and dirt came rushing towards him, Alto the Amphiboil began to condense aether into his legs, strengthening them to an absurd degree.

Right before the Earth technique could hit him, Alto leaped into the air and towards the turtle soldier, repositioning himself to be right behind him.

At the same, the snake-man Terrorcotta Soldier’s tail glowed for a bit before the very tip of it became covered in an jagged obsidian shell.

In response, an orange aura began to envelop Valdos the Ferroena as a strange, savage focus began to overcome it’s mind.

The snake-man began to rapidly stab at the Ferroena with it’s new tail, releasing a flurry of blows reminiscent of a wall of shifting spear.

However, none of the spears met it’s mark.

The Ferroena was nimbly avoiding the obsidian spear tail as it made moves to rush pass the snake-man. A few stabs did hit him, but nothing fatal and leaving only the faintest of scratches upon it’s hide.

Valdos had managed to rush pass the snake-man’s attack and was now standing side by side with Alto, who had landed at the spot a little earlier.

The two were surprisingly nimble in their ability to avoid their opponent’s techniques, but they couldn’t keep this up forever.

Alyra and Boleros both knew that they had to take down these two Terrorcotta Soldiers, or else they would interfere with the other battles raging around them. The problem was that both of these soldiers were their own monsters’ natural enemy.

Even though elemental affinity plays a role in determining the ultimate and loser in a battle between majimonsters, sometimes it’s the more natural and martial elements that render these advantages moot.

Neither side had a clear affinity advantage over the other, but they did have bad match-ups.

While the turtle-man was slow and made it an easy target for Alto’s ranged techniques, it’s turtle shell armor made it borderline impossible for any of Alto’s attacks to do any real damage. Combined with the fact that it could fire back it’s own ranged techniques meant that it could easily outlast Alto in a battle of attrition.

On the flip side, the snake-man was a softer, larger target meaning that Valdos could inflict some serious damage with his techniques. The problem was that it was surprisingly good at rapidly moving parts of it’s body in strange, evasive ways. Due to a majority of Valdos’ techniques being melee, everytime Valdos tried to strike at it, it could simply avoid it and counterattack.

In essence, the siblings would lose this battle…if they stuck with their respective opponents.

One of the mains reasons binders are encouraged to travel the Wildlands in teams as opposed to solo, was due to the simple fact that not every binder is equipped to deal with secret single problem that can occur.

Sometimes the best solution, is let someone more qualified take over.

Despite the Fog of War engrossing their senses to battle, the siblings managed to get a brief window of time to quickly convey their thoughts with one another.

[Alto, Steam!], Alyra commanded

At Alyra’s command, Alto released a mighty croak as his throat sac expanded. His whole body began to glow with the power of Fire aether, an unusually sharp contrast with the blue Water symbol forming on his throat.

The Amphiboil released a huge cloud of steam that blinded both of the Terrorcotta Soldiers while enshrouding himself and Valdos with it.

Sensing the incoming danger, the turtle-man and the snake-man went back to back in order to limit their bindspots.

As they waited for Alto and Valdos to make a move, the two Terrorcotta Soldiers prepared their own techniques to counter when they could.

[Ember Bolt! Aim for the head]!

The Amphiboil’s red outline manifested directly in front of the snake-man, followed by a missile of ash and smoke that flew directly at it.

The turtle-man tried to rotate and intercept the incoming missile, but was soon interrupted by a charging Ferroena.

[Red Line! Rage Fang]!

Valdos’ body began to glow dark orange as, red pulsating veins began to appear on it’s body.

In the blink of an eye, before the turtle-man could even think to launch an attack, the Ferroena had already charged into it and bite into it’s neck with it’s Fury infused iron fangs. The Terrorcotta turtle tried to use it’s arms to break free from the death grip, but alas, it’s defenses were built to withstand ranged techniques, not the furious strength of a hyena.

With the shield out of the way, Alto’s ember missile flew fast and hot at the snake-man’s head. The snake-man used it’s usual tactic of quickly moving segments of it’s body, but didn’t account for the fact that missiles tend to still hurt even if it misses it’s intended target.

The ember missile did not hit the snake-man’s head, but had impacted it’s tail and had caused some decent damage with scorch marks to boot.

[I just had an idea! Ember Bolt barrage]!

Alto was initially confused at his master’s command until their bond had managed to convey what exactly she had in mind. A cruel smile grew on his face, pleased by the idea.

The Amphiboil began to use the [Ember Bolt] technique again, but just before he let the missile loose, Alyra began to channel her aether into him.

[And…now]!

CROAK!

Alto released a mighty croak as he spat out a huge, surprisingly slow glob of burning embers at the snake-man.

It was all set to dodge the slow missile, but it did not expect that the glob of embers would suddenly explode mid flight and go from a single, easy to dodge missile, to a literal barrage of fire and doom.