Chapter 67

Chapter 67

Just like within cannon we peacefully made it within the deep valley that led to the Gate of Moria and after discussing it with the Executives we decided it was best if we fought and killed the Gate Watcher. The large octopus that was drastically misinterpreted in size from the movie if you read the books with the illustrations about it as the strength needed for a creature to literally smash through meters of thick if not magically reinforced rock would be far greater than that monster shown in the movies.

Basically, the plan was for us to stay a decent distance from the main fellowship and then if the monster brings down the ceiling, I can simply fuse our way back in and honestly, I was curious if I could fuse enough of the surrounding rocks to get enough trace elements of mithril to make a few ingots of the fantasy metal as it was quite similar to Vibranium in how it could absorb force. For example, when Frodo was stabbed by a massive cave troll putting all its force into a spear thrust, he didnt vomit up his guts or even break a rib from the blow he was able to literally walk it off like nothing.

Either way things were looking to be going exactly the same as Pippin was throwing the rocks into the lake and awakening the monster as the more perceptive members of the fellowship and with our members already knowing what was coming could see far more ripples in the water moving in odd directions.

While we were waiting for said monster to breach the surface the less perceptive members were trying to guess the password to unlock the magical door and it was only when Frodo asked Gandalf what the elvish word for 'Friend' that Gandalf spoke. "Murlock."

With a loud grinding noise, the glowing archway split in half turning into two doors showing a pitch-black dark tunnel

As the fellowship quietly started making there way into the tunnel, I saw the first tentacle whip outwards and grab Frodo's leg harshly and yanked him to the ground and back outside.

"Riveria freeze the water beneath the monster to give us something to work with." I ordered not wanting to walk or dive into pitch black water without any light to fight a tentacle monster.

She shared a look with Finn, and he nodded at my strategy and then with a minor chant Riveria shot a bright silver beam into the waters as the fellowship members waded into the waters to free Frodo.

The condensed beam of ice magic Riveria sent was easily able to freeze the surrounding water and I was right about the strength of the monster as it was easily able to break through the meter plus thick ice but it was obviously targeting Frodo for the Ring, so it had to go over the ice and leave its deeper waters to attempt to bring the poor hobbit to its yawning maw.

Thankfully the fellowship members weren't simply frozen as they waded into the waters a bit, but they were able to stand on the rough ice and fight with the dozens of tree trunk thick tentacles waving through the air and we weren't just sitting back as me and Bell took to the sky to attempt to save said hobbit from being accidently dropped on the ice as those tentacles were violently swinging him around more than ten meters in the air.

Seeing as we literally weren't mobile enough to catch to Frodo as we cut through the top parts of the tentacles as they weren't all that durable honestly the problem was that it was smart enough to hand off Frodo to another tentacle or otherwise juggle him as we made fly byes attempting to grab him from the monster's clutches. "Alright let's see how hungrily this damn thing is." I muttered and then flew off away from Frodo leaving him to Bell's repeated attempts to grab him as he flew by on his Insect Glaive.

I flew towards the mouth and main body of the creature while dodging the ever thicker swinging tentacles and as I reached ground level, I was finally able to see the Loki Executive's as they attempted to slay the beast and I noticed an important fact as the closer we got to main body the quicker the monster was regenerating as the tentacles Ais cut off at their roots as she attempted to stab the squid in the face, quickly regrew within a quarter of a minute to a size she couldn't simply dodge and had to cut apart again.

I popped the pin and with a quick shout. "Move! I got a bomb!" I threw one of my Holy Hand Grenades into the mouth of the monster and with them knowing how much of a explosion fetish Asfi Andromeda had they quickly side stepped back as a large plum of silver light bloomed out of the creature's gapping maw.

I couldn't help but gag at the smell of the burnt monstrosity and worse it wasn't even dead as its regeneration was obviously even stronger within itself as within a couple seconds of harsh twitching it then changed tactics and instead of a whirling tornado of chaotic limbs being thrown around, I was smashed bodily into the ice making it crack and lost all my breath as the monster made a literal wall of tentacles and brought them down on me with no mercy swatting me like a fly out of the air.

"I got Frodo! Get Jake out of there!" Aragorn cried out as even as I crawled back to my feet on the wet ice from the water seeping in from below.

"Get inside the tunnel we will join you after we slay this beast! What if it follows us inside!?" I asked rhetorically and honestly it was a stupid question as said monster was plainly too big to get inside but it still gave them the direction the needed to take the frankly useless hobbits into the dark tunnels.

Seeing the natives out of the way finally Finn and the rest of the executive's moved back with Finn yelling. "Get back! Riveria is going to use her boosted spell!"

Hearing how she was going to use the special effect on her staff and guessing she wasn't going to condense her magic into a ray of magic, it was likely going to be a massive area of effect spell so me, and Bell franticly flew out of the battlefield and as I looked around I saw Lili was doing her own thing having climbed up the rock wall a bit and was chilling there just shooting massive bolts into the poor monster's face looking way too relaxed as she did so if I was honest.

Riveria started chanting and her loud voice carried all throughout the valley as she and the staff's treasure stones glowed brightly. "The flame will soon be released. Creeping war, unavoidable destruction. The horn of battle sounds aloud, the cruelty of conflict will envelop all. Come, crimson flames, the ruthless inferno. You are the avatar of hellfire. Sweep completely, bring a close to the great war. Burn them through, Sword of Surtr - My name is Alf!" She cried and then a massive sword of fire formed within the sky and slowly dropped with all the coming dread of an atomic bomb being dropped and even literally thousands of feet away from the fire sword I could feel the ridiculous heat through my armor as it flash dried all the water off me.

"Get in the tunnels!" Riveria called out and I could hear an awkward tinge to her voice as she grabbed Ais wearing a dumbfounded expression and sprinted into the tunnel as Finn and the others followed.

Lili only had to slide down the cliffs wall allowing me and Bell to simply fly into the tunnel and keep running deeper into the tunnel as a massive explosion shook the mountain we were already under, and I could faintly hear a series of loud rumbling coming from the way we came, and I could only laugh within my mind at how we were still technically stuck within here as all the light from the fire outside was sealed away leaving us in total darkness.

"We all ok?" I asked and soon got affirmation's as I lit up a small fireball in the air to provide light but I didnt make it powerful as I was honestly a bit worried of running out of air in this part of the mines with no other entrance or exit. nove(l)bi(n.)com

"Bell, you stay in the back to make light while I lead the front." I ordered because frankly without Riveria wasting a massive amount of her mind to make herself glow in preparation for a spell we had no other light source other than me and Bell's fire abilities.

"Riveria think we killed it, or should we go back out and check?" I asked and saw her shadowy face sheepishly shrug.

"I am fairly sure the creature is dead even with its regeneration and I apologize as I didnt foresee a full chant spell of mine being so powerful with my new staff. Seeing as the Loki Familia hasn't gone on a deep expedition, I haven't had a chance for me to try it safely or without destroying the surrounding's land of Orario which would bring trouble to my Familia." Riveria answered valiantly throwing on a nonchalant expression even with Bete called her as airheaded as Ais which earned a swift rap on his head from her staff.

Fair enough, honestly Orario has been a massive mess since I have come here, and I can't blame Loki's Familia from not wanting to leave the city to probably burn down in their absence.

"Let me go collect the body of the creature as it will only take a couple minutes." I said and started making my way back as Riveria followed me and I had to wave down Lili to stay with the group as Bell looked uncomfortable with everyone hovering over him as the only other light source in the pitch darkness.

I soon reached the rubble of the collapsed tunnel and I started fusing all the debris into the ceiling to hopefully strengthen it and also leaving decent sized pillars within the middle of the tunnel as we made our way towards the entrance.

"So, think that monster was enough for you to level up?" I questioned making the elvish princess hum in thought

Finally losing patience hearing the battle cries from the dwarves' tomb room, which seemed to be reaching a crescendo I for the first time activated the space splitting ability of my sword and I could literally feel a whole quarter of my mind reserves instantly drop as white crescent blade was launched from my own blade and cut the trolls club in half as well as cut deeply into the chest of the troll.

The troll roared in agony stumbling back as it cradled its chest and I could see how rumpled the back of the monster was as the back layer of Mithril was able to stop my space blade from cutting all the way through, but I saw the monster was dying quickly as it collapsed to the ground. I then sprinted into the tomb to try to kill the last troll seeing as Bell was doing fine and was giving his troll a death of a thousand cuts, but it wasn't needed as the Loki Familia was able to use their greater strength to simply strangle the poor beast with the chains used to guide the beast as I could still see Bete, Finn and the amazon twins doing so while the troll was about ready to expire.

'Well, that's one way to get around the armor.' I mused as I helped clean up the remaining orcs and such within the tomb and while the Fellowship and the Loki Familia ran outside the tomb, I quickly stuck the Mithril armor within my space ring and did the same to the trolls outside and gleefully ignored the looks of the people as I stole the filthy chainmail and plates off the trolls.

But with all the fire still sticking to the half-burnt corpses that managed to escape instant deaths from me and Bell's inferno's the other Orcs and Goblins stretching from every wall and up and down every pillar supporting this massive tunnel were nowhere near as confident as in the movie as they tried to crowd in on us and it was only their pure numbers and suicidal charges that allowed them to press towards us despite us higher level adventurers slaughtering dozens of them every second.

A large and guttural roar was what stopped the charnel house of slaughter as an ominous glow appeared down the hallway and all the monsters paused obviously terrified as they screamed fearfully and retreated back up into the pillars or into the cracks in the ground.

"Jake that thing is definitely stronger than the monster rex Cadmus..." Finn muttered obviously steeling himself for our battle against a true demi-god even if fallen though I don't know how much that would have affected its power to be honest.

I could only take a deep breath after chugging a couple potions to start refueling my mind before answering. "You wanted a great battle... Well, here is the closest thing you can get to fighting a berserk fire god." His expression screamed that he wanted to kick me through a wall, but it was Ai's words that made him sigh nostalgically.

"We must brave the greatest battles to become the greatest adventurer." She said solemnly and all of the Loki members could only nod at her words.

But I had to ruin it as I couldn't help but mutter. "Maybe for you guys but I level so fast I can't even decide on which development ability to work towards or even qualify for." The looks of pure loathing at my first world problem will fuel my dreams for a long while....

"Gandalf, Frodo, the rest of this Fellowship. We all thank you for the company through this journey. But here we will make our stand and kill this coming abomination!" I yelled making Gandalf sigh seeing how adamant I was, and it was a literally earth-shaking roar that seemed to answer my challenge and deny anything he had to say in goodbye or challenging our plans.

"Run!" Gandalf yelled and pulled Frodo to leave us, and the rest had no choice but to follow the ring bearer as Gandalf led them into the darkness and out of the coming monster's glow even if Aragorn clearly didnt want to abandon us to our fates he still followed them.

With a loud crash the demonic monster smashed around a corner and collapsed one of the huge pillars holding up the tunnel and I could only grimace at the thought of our battle bringing down the mountain on our heads but we didnt have much of a better choice than fighting here in this massive tunnel that was clearly well reinforced.

Riveria already started sending large blasts of ice magic at the monster as obviously fire magic would be completely worthless seeing the massive monster cloaked in fire and it seemed that the massive explosion, we caused outside may have brought worse attention as the Balrog had armor on its skeleton frame like the trolls did but the biggest problem I could foresee was the lack of recognizable weak points as its eyes were literally suns within its pits that hurt to even look at and Bete and Finn were practically worthless with being unable to get close to the Balrog's cursed flames but Ais was able to use her wind magic to disperse its flames to land deep scratches against its armor and bones that were uncovered.

"Get back!" Riveria called out and instead of a massive freezing ray she would shoot normally, she focused on making an extremely thick blocks of ice around the Balrogs feet even as we could hear the ice boiling off it as the Balrog roared in irritation.

But it's roar was cut short as it choked as one of Lili's bolts from the massive Bow Gun was shot into its mouth.

I meanwhile grabbed onto the Balrog's armor from its back and fused it into an ingot of Mithril I had from running around I could still hear Lili yelling. "Choke on a dick!" making me chuckle as how the Balrog was clearly doing so for a few moments, but it was clear that the insane temperature within the beast quickly melted her bolt and let it move inhibited soon enough as it shattered the large ice plates Riveria made to try and immobilize it.

But now with all the distractions I was able to literally steal the armor off the chest and head of the Balrog as I wasn't stabbing or likewise hurting the monster, I guess it simply didnt notice my presence on its back till Ais rammed a fully power stab into its uncovered chest.

I had then been noticed by the Balrog with the loss of it's armor and had to franticly blast off the creature's back as it beat its powerful wings of fire franticly behind it and I saw one of those length of bones and sinew crash through one of the surrounding pillars so I certainly didnt want to be pummeled by one of them.

But I wasn't lucky enough to dodge all of them as one of the bone structures making up the wing and holding the flames together was about to tag me so I wreathed my sword in space energy and cut it off the body of the Balrog rather than take a blow that could shatter tons of stone.

A large crack rang out as Riveria shot a massive icicle through the chest of the Balrog and I could see the flames wreathing its body dimming as Riveria was clearly pouring her mind into strengthening the icicle impaling the monster.

Both Bell and I took this chance as the Balrog bent over slightly to pull out the ice impaling its body to slam our weapons into the back of its head, and we managed to crack its bone horns surrounding its head, and then I could feel the Balrog literally get knocked up into the air as the combined blows of Finn and Bete launched the creature into the air by a couple meters with me and Bell still on its back.

With my sword still lightly stuck into the bone head of the Balrog I started pushing the space cutting magic of my sword into the head and I could slowly feel my sword sinking the now convulsing Balrogs skull and then suddenly it sized up and fell to the ground with a violent crash, no longer moving.

"Ughhh finally this damn thing is dead..." I groaned out and then helped Bell pull his glaive out of the monster's skull and then he helped me do the same.

"You guys ready to get the hell out of here?" I asked the clearly exhausted Loki members, and I could see they all with the exception of Riveria were pretty badly burned and could only nod silently as they looked just as exhausted as I was.

I then threw the Balrog's corpse into my space ring and with the room going silent I could already see little heads of the damn goblins and orcs climbing out of the cracks in the walls as they could see our weakened state. "Yeah, fuck all you smelly fuckers" I flipped off the goblins as the world surrounding us was wreathed in dark smoke and after I centered myself it took a couple minutes till, we appeared within the church with Loki and Hestia starring at us dumbfoundedly at our entrance.

I could only collapse beside her on the bench she was sitting on and before I knew it Hestia was hugging me tightly and Haruhime somehow managed to hear us from downstairs and likewise hugged me while Bell and Lili dropped their exhausted bodies into neighboring seats.

"Wow Jake you ran my children ragged didnt you?" Loki asked rhetorically and I couldn't help snorting at how only Riveria was still in decent shape but now that we were out of the darkness, I could see she was covered in soot and dust which was better than the rest looking like they were heavily sunburnt.

"Yeah, laugh it up, but I can't wait till you see the gains they made under my care...."

With that ominous statement, she disregarded propriety and even secrecy as she demanded Finn to lose his shirt so she could see the bullshit we got up too without them.