(At 17 years and 6 months old)
(3rd person PoV)
"Engagement?" Nephelont asked as soon as they woke up.
"Marriage?" Eucleia replied.
"... Marriage..." Nephelont wondered absentmindedly.
(A month later, mid-morning)
"You may now kiss each other" The officiant's, Hestia's words snapped Nephelont back to reality. He was startled to find himself here, a place he does not remember coming to. A moment later, the haze covering his mind receded. He remembered that he spent the past month debating if they were doing all of this too quickly. He then thought that they already knew what the other is like better than even their own parents.
'No matter, we have crossed a line of no return' Nephelont thought. He did swear that he would stay with her in the thick and thin of it. He leaned in to kiss Eucleia, who was waiting for him with closed eyes and a lot of hope.
(Some Days Later)
Nephelont woke up, challenged the sun, then woke Eucleia up and got ready for the morning. They had a busy day ahead of them, planning to go down to the last floor, the 100th floor, for the second time.
The first time was already life-threatening; the second was sure to be thrilling. The preparations and hands-on knowledge they had of the floors leading to it guaranteed them a somewhat safe journey.
(Days later, Floor 99th)
"A year ago, we had help from others!" Nephelont said with his back to the monster rex's room. He was giving the other four and two supporters a motivational speech. "Today, we reached it without their help! Today, we slay Echidna with our own hands!" He raised his spear high, receiving the loud shouts of the six people with him in support of his idea.
As he turned around, he already started transforming into the mixed dragon form he preferred by now. He has learned how to manifest certain traits from multiple dragons and stack them together into one form.
He started by taking the form of an Ancient Dragon as his blueprint because he was most familiar with that body's mechanics. He then used the Infant Dragon's wingless trait. He noticed an increase in the range of motion for his arms and more strength he could put into them. He used Amphisbaena's sea-blue scales, which turned out to be a navy-blue color. The Black Dragon's black scales were used to replace the gravelstone scales. The Green Dragon's scales were used on Nephelont's own mutation of crystal scales, making them green crystals. He used Cadmus's thick skin. Having hypodermic needles as it is in the form of an Ancient Dragon, he replaced them with the poisonous hypodermic needles of a Peluda. He also replaced his foremost fangs with the fangs of the venomous Basilisk.
When Eucleia transformed, she took a form in his likeness, having her dragon form based on her wish to be the same dragon as he is. The only difference is that she wanted red scales to resemble her hair color.
Facing them and their party, there stood Echidna, the mother of monsters, her arms chained to the dungeon's walls by chains of unknown material. It was a monster with the upper body of a strikingly beautiful woman and the lower half of a snake. Echidna had a gigantic stature, standing at the height of the tower of Babel itself. From its body, and from multiple places at once, Echidna birthed many a monster. From what was considered the weakest to what was considered the strongest, Echidna ordered them to attack the party.
In the first wave, there were some goblins and kobolds, some spartoi and skull sheep, and then there was Udaeus. Nephelont and Eucleia teamed up against Udaeus, dispatching it with ease. The rest were dealt with by the triplets.
As they dealt with the first wave, Echidna was already done giving birth to the second wave of monsters. The second wave was not so forgiving, as Echidna gave birth to swarms of Gun Libellula, Sword Stag and Deadly Hornet. There were also some Blue Papilio and Purple Moth. Last but not least, Balor was the last to touch the ground.
Torrents of flame and fields of fire helped, especially Amphisbaena's Blue Flames. Leaving the burning, weakened swarms for the triplets to clear, Nephelont and Eucleia made sure to destroy Balor's eyes first. That eye was able to deliver the nastiest of curses if one was not careful. After destroying its eye, they kept attacking it until it died.
They were now closer to Echidna.
The third wave contained Loup Garou, Peludas, Oozes, Fomoires, Black Rhinos, Cadmus and Kur, the draconic tortoise level 8 monster rex.
'I hadn't eaten Kur's heart yet' Nephelont was momentarily distracted. He got a tail whip from Eucleia to help him focus.
As with the previous wave, they started by setting every monster on the field on fire before rushing down the monster rex of the wave.
Kur was a greenish-brown dragon-like tortoise. It had a brown shell that was slightly darker than its skin. Light-blue streaks ran across the shell, crisscrossing wherever they met.
"Clamp down its neck! Its Boiled water cannon is not to be used! I'll destroy its lungs in the meanwhile!" Nephelont said as they approached the monster. For how large they were, even they had to look straight to meet its eyes. Thankfully, it had a neck that was not too thick, barely fitting in their maws.
{Awaken, Tempest} Nephelont activated {Ariel}, boosting the strength of his wind attacks as well as the strength and speed of his body. He started with generating blades of air in the cavity of its lungs, which were so big they fit more than a building inside each of them. As that was happening inside of it, Kur was getting its front limbs maimed by Eucleia and its hind limbs by Nephelont. As he reached deep enough into one of the legs, Nephelont stuck his claws into it and discharged lightning inside. The amount of lightning he discharged reached the base of its spine, paralyzing it.
Nephelont dug his way into its shell and ate its heart from the inside. When he was done, the Kur was dead, exploding into dust and ashes as Nephelont went back into his dragon form.
Now, they were standing right below Echidna's massive body. They killed the monsters as they were getting born while the others rested a while. Once they recovered, the triplets were tasked with dealing with the monster waves as Nephelont and Eucleia flew up to kill Echidna. They were to target its chest, to dig into it, and reach as deep as to see either its heart or magic stone. They were to destroy either one when they came upon it.
"Begin!" The operation began. Nephelont and Eucleia flew and did as they saw it done when their helpers killed Echidna for them in the final step.
When they reached high enough, Echidna started thrashing around to try and defend itself. Sadly, it was chained and thus could not move.
"AAAAAAAHHH!!" It screamed in pain, producing a sound so loud it could have made them deaf.
Nephelont and Eucleia started cutting and peeling Echidna's thick skin, thicker than a human is tall. Worming their way inside, they reinforced their scales with mind to resist as much of its muscle movement as possible.
It took them a quarter of an hour to finally reach the heart. All the while, Nephelont had to focus and spend energy to provide the two of them with enough breathing air and for Eucleia to clear the torn tissue they tore along their path.
Echidna died as its heart was torn to shreds. It exploded into ashes as the two of them had to get down quickly and scoop the others away from the falling magic stone, which is the size of a small mountain. (For real world measurements, the magic stone is the same shape as the black goliath's but with a length of 425 meters and a total volume of 22k cubic meters)
As they were flying away, with Nephelont lowering the volume of the sound of the magic stone hitting the ground, they heard a different sound. Nephelont bent his neck to look back and was mortified to find a smaller version of each of the three great quests rising from Echidna's ashes.
"Lia" He said while still flying. "Take them and run away. None of them is strong enough to survive an encounter with any of these" He threw Oliver and Arthur her way before turning back and using the Black Dragon's own roar against it. None of the three monsters flinched at all.
"Nephelont!" Eucleia was about to stop when she felt Nephelont pushing her away with his winds. "No! Don't do this!" Eucleia's heart clenched. She had to make a split-second decision, whether to stay and fight but risk the safety of those in her hands, or to keep holding onto them and getting away from these three monsters' range.
With Echidna's death, floors 51-98 spawned no monster as the dungeon dedicates all its resources to respawn it as soon as possible. As for the 99th floor, it had no monsters other than those given birth to by Echidna itself. With it gone, the 99th is clear of any monsters until it comes back.
The problem was that if they let even one great quest monster escape and follow the fleeing party, Eucleia would not be able to face Nephelont after defying his orders to flee.
'But what if I blocked the entrance to the room while they escaped?' Eucleia fought against Nephelont's winds, landing at the room's entrance and letting the others down.
"Run. Go to the surface and tell everyone before it is too late" She turned around and faced the Black Dragon, which went through while Nephelont was occupied with Behemoth and Leviathan. "I will keep this room closed for them while everyone escapes" She slammed her body against the Black Dragon's own, pushing it back. "I will either live with him or die with him!" She said, determined to remain by Nephelont's side until the bitter end.
Arthur carried one supporter while Hugo carried the other. Oliver was tasked to deal with any monster they missed on their way down, seeing as the floors were as wide as the entire continent by the time you reach the 80th floor.
(Inside Echidna's Room)
Eucleia bit the Black Dragon's maw close before it could breathe fire at her. While doing so, she coiled her body and tail around it, preventing it from attacking her. She thankfully had enough raw strength to hold it still for a while, if only barely.
As Eucleia and the Black Dragon were wrestling for control, Nephelont had a struggle of his own.
Nephelont was flanked by Behemoth and Leviathan. The Behemoth poisoned the air with its very presence, forcing Nephelont to ward off the poison with a barrier of wind around him. The same could not be said about Leviathan's pressurized water cannon. At times when he was not looking, he would be surprised by a water cannon on his back. As he loses balance for a moment, Behemoth takes advantage and attempts to bite him. Nephelont's ability to dematerialize helped him avoid those bites.
'I arrogantly wanted to hold all of them off on my own. Look at me, getting toyed with by only two of them' Nephelont thought. In fact, these three were born stronger than their predecessors. It was Echidna's last struggle to defend its life, an attempt to bring back the three great quests. It was fortunate that they killed Echidna before they were fully developed inside it.
As Nephelont was about to dematerialize again, Leviathan fired a water cannon straight at the cloud, forcing parts of his body to remain tangible for longer. That allowed Behemoth to finally land a bite on Nephelont.
'This...' Nephelont knew; his time was drawing near. The poison delivered through that one bite would kill him in an hour. 'The three great quests were supposed to be weaker than this. With our broken falnas, we should be able to toy with them easily. These things, they are stronger than they should ever be'
He remembers the stories of how Zald, a level 7 at the time, singlehandedly killed Behemoth with only one hit. He also remembers how Leviathan was defeated by Alfia and some others, who were then weaker than he is now individually by a large margin.
He looked back. Upon witnessing what was happening back at the entrance, his spirits waned even more.
'Lia' He thought in anguish. The Black Dragon was starting to overpower Eucleia in their struggle for control.
His mind raced as he felt death draw near. In the flashes of memories he saw, one held a fragment of his experimentation with combining abilities. The more magic abilities he tried to combine into one from his draconic forms, the more costly and unstable it became. When attempting to combine the strongest flames among them, he was able to make the "strongest" flame he had. It contained the heat of the Black Dragon's fire breath, Amphisbaena's blue flames and the Valgang Dragon flame funnel and penetrative flames. Along with that memory, he remembered the other corrupted skill.
'Draconic Sacrifice, the sacrifice of a dragon. Since I'm dead regardless, I should sacrifice my very life to make this happen' He thought solemnly.
Nephelont started breathing flames, slowly but steadily mixing all the abilities he preferred. Now that the flame became the least stable it could, he had a narrow window before it exploded on him. At that moment, Nephelont sacrificed his life to give life to his flames.
As he lost his life, slowly turning into a stone statue, he saw his flame take his shape, fighting in his place to make sure Eucleia survived this catastrophic encounter.
The last thing he saw before losing all senses around him was his living flame dragging him and Eucleia out of the room, soaring through the air faster than any of the three great quests could dream to run.