CHAPTER 169: DEFEATING THE ELEMENTALS

The metal threads were perfect. They conducted electricity beautifully without vaporizing, and Jax could create them faster than the previous water ones. Silver strands flowed from his fingers in an endless stream as Lucille and Ning kept up their barrage of conductor arrows.

"It’s working!" Lucille shouted as another burst of electricity coursed through the metal threads into the water elemental. The creature was definitely weakening now, its form becoming less stable with each hit.

The elementals fought back desperately. Water sprays and lightning bolts came at them constantly, but with their earth thread protection and better tactics, they were managing to stay ahead of the damage. Roman’s healing kept them going, and slowly but surely, the water elemental began to collapse.

Finally, with a sound like a waterfall drying up, it dissolved completely.

"One down!" Melayne yelled, happy. But then Jax noticed something troubling.

"We need to do this quickly. We don’t have much time left," he called out, still swinging his metal threads at the remaining lightning elemental.

Lucille checked the countdown. "Shit. Maybe three minutes. We spent way too long figuring out how to kill the first one."

The lightning elemental, now without its sibling to protect or coordinate with, was actually much easier to handle. It could only attack one person at a time, and they’d gotten good at dodging its ground-based lightning strikes. The real problem was time.

"We can do this," Jax said, pouring everything he had into his attacks. The lightning one was resistant to metal, but his threads still count as bludgeoning damage. All he really had to do was just need to hit it harder and faster.

His metal threads lashed out like whips. They would likely have counted as slashing damage at the speed he was hitting them if they were just a bit thinner.

With Earth threads wrapping his palms, it stopped the electricity from fighting back.

Everyone threw everything they had at it. Lucille’s fire, lighting, and arcane spells, Melayne’s arrows, and Jax’s relentless metal thread barrage.

With thirty seconds left on the clock, they pushed themselves as much as they could, fighting back with little care for their own wounds. Then, after what felt like a long time, the lightning elemental finally dispersed in a shower of sparks.

When the notification came that he had defeated the boss, Jax was still barraging the empty sparks with his threads. He only stopped when he saw nothing else remain before him.

"Dear god, that was close," Roman breathed.

But before they could even think about the loot scattered around the arena, five lights descended from the sky. They looked up in confusion first, and then in surprise as they realized what it was.

"Three-star tickets," Ning said quietly, almost in disbelief.

They each caught their ticket as it floated down, and for a moment nobody spoke. They had nearly forgotten this was what they had fought for all this time.

"Holy shit," Jax said, turning the ticket over in his hands. "We’re so close."

"Is everyone fine?" Melayne asked. "I know we want to continue, but given how tired we are, it might make sense to cash these in. Things might not get any better."

They all looked up at the sky instinctively. The number of glowing names had dropped dramatically during their fight. Maybe fifteen were left, their own included. ’The Transcendents’ was still shining brightly among them.

"You know what?" Roman said, surprising everyone. "We keep going."

"Really?" Lucille raised an eyebrow. "You were the one telling us to quit while we were ahead."

"That was before we beat two bosses at once," Roman replied with a grin. "If we can survive that clusterfuck, we can survive anything. Besides, we’re just moments away from getting the 4-Star ticket."

"Four stars," Melayne said slowly. "Maybe even five if we’re really lucky."

Ning went to gather the loot while they rested. Jax got another Lightning stone, which he pocketed for later. There was also a bracer that looked pretty impressive.

"Water elemental resistance, boosts elemental damage overall, and heals you for a percentage of any water damage you take," Melayne read off the item’s properties. "That’s actually amazing."

"I don’t believe I need it," Lucille said. "Melayne, keep it. Your flaming sword can make use of it."

Melayne strapped the bracer onto her arm and immediately looked relieved. "Hopefully it helps."

They pulled out their potions to heal up, but Jax had to abstain. The metal threads were still flowing from his fingers in a steady stream, and he needed to completely absorb the stone before he could stop. Drinking the wine while his Navi was fluctuating could be dangerous.

"I’ll be fine," he said when Roman offered to use more healing magic. "Just need to finish processing this stone."

As the next round’s countdown began, they looked up at the sky again. The number had dropped to twelve.

"Just a little longer," Lucille said softly. "We’re so close."

"Twelve people left," Ning said, shaking his head. "Out of tens of thousands. That’s insane."

"We’ve come this far," Jax said, finally feeling the last of the metal stone integrate into his system. The threads still flowed non-stop. "No point in backing down now."

They all nodded, gripping their weapons tighter. Three-star tickets were good, but four-star tickets were life-changing. And five-star tickets... those were the stuff of legends.

The countdown hit zero, and they started fighting again.

They were used to fighting multiple monsters by now, each one of doing the best they could to keep going.

The rounds passed by quickly.

61, 62, 63...

Jax’s Metal threads finally stopped flowing, and he brought out a Navi stone in order to recover normal Navi that he could then use for other threads.

The names in the sky lowered one by one as well, until less than 10 remained.

On round 66, they got their 4-Star ticket. And still, they continued fighting.

And then, 15 minutes later, only 3 remained.

At the same time, the 7th Boss of the Trial made its appearance as well.