(3rd person PoV)
(At 7 and a half years old)
(The dungeon, 11th floor)
"I'll reach level 2 before you!" Nephelont declared to Eucleia as he made his way into the fog, finding the closest hard armored, the poor thing getting zapped to death by red lightning.
"I won't lose to you, golden bunny!" Eucleia declared herself before striking the temples of an unfortunate orc.
By this time, they both fully filled their parameters. The only remaining thing was to accomplish something that could bring them to new heights. When thinking of something that counts as an accomplishment, they both reached the conclusion of fighting against a large horde of 10th floor-12th floor monsters and coming out without much injury.
To accomplish such a thing safely, they were accompanied by four people each for this dungeon dive. Nephelont was accompanied by both parents, Aria and albert, while Eucleia was accompanied by Welf, Tiona & Tione and surprisingly Bete. Bete would have preferred to nap at this time of day, but the circumstances made him sacrifice his naptime for the children.
(Nephelont-centred 3rd person PoV)
Nephelont continued after killing his first hard armored, soon finding a small group of imps. He made sharp and thin wind blades using his sword, injuring one of the imps and drawing the attention of the others away from Nephelont's direction and onto the injured imp's. Taking them by surprise, Nephelont swept two imps off their feet, stabbing the heart of one using his spear while beheading the other using his sword.
By now, the remaining two imps were wary of him and had their guard up. Seeing as that is the case, Nephelont breathed fire in their direction, forcing them to duck into either side. Showing them no mercy, he threw one of them a smaller lightning bolt as he sprinted towards the other.
Nephelont was taking such advantage of his abilities was a result of Henryk making sure he and Eucleia could be as efficient as could be. They had a long way ahead of them, but they had the skills and magic and utilized it well enough to solo the 12th floor. It was the Henryk guarantee.
"Come here! Monsters!" Nephelont shouted with thrill. He taunted the monsters with such thirst and a crazed smile that it worried his family members behind him. It was especially bad today.
Nephelont did not know why but fighting made him excited. Once he got past the blood, what remained was the joy of fighting and overcoming equally strong foes or groups that could collectively fight him on equal footing. It brought him indescribable joy to be the one who won a fight to the death.
Nephelont's taunting shout drew the attention of a cauldron of bad bats.
{Awaken, Tempest} They quickly surrounded him, trying to overwhelm him with their aerial advantage, only for him to deprive them of the air under their wings. Using the advantage of the now-activated magic, he blitzed by them, dismembering them. He primarily focused on their necks and wings. Most bad bats died or were dying when a silver back appeared.
"Huff! Raargh!" It huffed before roaring and leaping at Nephelont.
Nephelont dashed away from its slamming attack. He dashed back in with his spear held in both hands, stabbing it deep into the silver back's side.
"RROOAAARRR!!" The searing pain of its insides being pierced made the silver back attempt to bash Nephelont with its bulky forearm as it turned around. It watched with frustration as Nephelont jumped onto its arm, running its length towards the silver back's head. The silver back's arm jerked, throwing Nephelont into the air.
"A mistake!" Nephelont shouted in glee as he used the wind to propel himself all the way down with his spear poised to impale the monster's head.
The silver back tried to reach up to hold him, to crush him in its grip, but Nephelont was too quick for it. He avoided its hand and landed his strike, a stab that pushed his spear deep into the silver back's head. Nephelont channeled some mind into the spear as lightning, frying the monster's nerves and neurons. The silverback twitched a little before exploding into a puff of black smoke and dust.
'This somehow feels nostalgic. The first silver back I killed also threw me to the air and tried to catch me' That train of thought made Bell dread Nephelont's first encounter with a minotaur. 'No, he's much stronger than I was at the time. He could attempt felling one as he is now'
Being in the dungeon, Nephelont did not get time to rest. He was now faced with a trio of orcs.
"Grilled pork!" He torched them. He lit them on fire and ran after them one by one to decapitate them. While collecting his magic stones, humming casually as he went about it, his senses flared and he almost lost control of himself.
(Eucleia-centred 3rd person PoV)
After Nephelont went on his way, Eucleia started pelting monsters with metal weights. She went around stealthily to kill them from a distance, unnoticed.
She started the day with a couple of needle rabbits. Her projectiles crushed them instantly and easily. They were some of the softer monsters in these floors.
After walking for some distance, being wary of interfering with a very loud Nephelont, she went the other way. In her search for something to slay, she stumbled upon a group of around 7 imps heading towards Nephelont.
'I won't let you get closer to golden bunny' Eucleia readied her sling and positioned her satchel to be ready to retrieve the next projectile quickly. She started by blasting the leading imp head on, still hidden behind the fog. She then repositioned so that she is not found by the imps.
'I must thank Henryk for training them when he had the time' Welf said, pleased by how Eucleia hid her position by repeatedly changing it.
Much to further Welf's satisfaction, Eucleia sneaked up behind the imp farthest back. Once she silenced it without the other imps noticing, she retreated. Eucleia then angled herself to allude to them being surrounded once the third attack arrived from a different direction than the first two.
Once panic clearly settled in, she comfortably took them out with her sling until only two remained. The last two were taken in melee, preserving her some metal weights for emergencies.
Shortly after killing the last imp, she got no time to rest before a several orcs showed up.
{By the will of Vulcan, thou shalt be set aflame!} {Sklírynsi Flóges} She enchanted one of her projectiles before slinging it at an orc's head. {Incinerate!} Calling the spell key, she made the orc get burned much more intensely, killing it briefly after.
"Oink?!" The 5 others were puzzled and somewhat scared. Fire was a scary thing for it cause pain even when not touched directly. Just looking at a fellow orc be burned alive, reduced to nothing but ash after screaming in excruciating pain, discouraged the others a bit.
Because she was still hidden, the orcs did not get to underestimate Eucleia for her small stature in comparison to theirs. She went about burning them, though she conserved her mind by not applying the spell key. One orc got a hit on the back of a knee and fell to its face. Another got a good hit to the back of the head, knocking it out for a while. A third got hit to the back, paralyzing it by frying its nerves with fire, still conscious to feel the pain unlike the first orc, who died too quickly to feel much of it. The remaining two got body hits that made them flee in great pain and distress.
Eucleia wanted to follow the fleeing orcs, but she got magic sones to gather and more to carve. Welf told her repeatedly that she should never leave magic stones unattended. That could easily backfire when a feral monster stumbles upon them.
"ROAR!!" Eucleia heard the roar of... something. She knew of Amber, an infant dragon among Henryk's children. She heard her roar with laughter a few times before. This one was different. This roar was much madder, resembling those of a monster.
Everyone agreed to go check it just in case. Eucleia was carried in Welf's arms after picking up her projectiles and magic stones. They needed to make sure nothing happened to Nephelont, since this sound came from the direction he went in.
(3rd person PoV)
After Nephelont felled the orcs and pocketed his magic stones, resisting the temptation to just eat them, he smelled it. A scent so strong it irritated him and made him hungry at the same time. A scent so irritating he could not resist some urges he instinctively repressed.
Once in the past, one of his claws accidentally scratched Ais, making Nephelont very careful not to morph into a dragon in her presence in fear of harming her. He loved her so much such that he limited himself to using the form he did not even know in its entirety only to times when he was alone with Eucleia. It was also limited to a hand to be able to cast spells, nothing more.
Nephelont did not know what his other side looked like, or how to control it. That was his downfall when he smelled another dragon, a monster who was not Amber. A dragon who was a feral monster that was heading his way with ill intent.
Ais watched as Nephelont's pupils narrowed vertically, becoming as thin as needles. Ripping his clothes, his body enlarged as he grew two sets of wings, a tail, horns, and his limbs changed proportions and posturing. His skin grew greyish-white scales, a second, almost transparent layer of scales covering them. (AN: Except for the eye colors and the gleam of the extra layer of nearly transparent scales, Nephelont looks like a typical Ancient Dragon from Elden Ring)
Nephelont was standing on all fours and looked feral, much to Ais's horror. Bell himself was very hesitant to step in when Nephelont growled at the fog, as if warning something just out of sight.
"Son?" Ais called for him but got no answer. Instead, Nephelont started salivating as if looking at delicious prey. It increased her worry. That only got worse when they heard the tell-tale thuds of a running infant dragon approaching. Nephelont got agitated and started running at the source of the approaching thuds.
"Golden bunny?" Even after his massive change, Eucleia recognized Nephelont from his hands. She saw him use those same hands to cast spells during training with Riveria for so long. Seeing him, taking notice of his eyes, Eucleia spent no more time thinking before teleporting on top of his back.
When Eucleia landed on Nephelont's back, he was now as big as a large horse, allowing Eucleia to latch onto his wings comfortably. Nephelont's neck bent back just for a moment, and the look he gave Eucleia made her choke on air. It was merciless, almost. The little recognition he had of her made him pay her no mind as she laid face-down on his back, galloping forward without hesitation.
When the vague silhouette of the infant dragon came into view, Nephelont kicked into the air.
"KHAA!!" He roared as he summoned red lightning all around them, most of the residue arcing between the small epidermic spikes jutting from between his scales. Eucleia was mysteriously spared the pain of electrocution. Nephelont made it a point to avoid red lightning arcing her way.
"Ais, I want to interfere as well. However, in our son's current state, interfering might do more harm than good" Bell said somberly, a hand resting on Ais's shoulder.
Nephelont was now holding a stake of lightning larger than what was thrown at Bell the last time, this one being at least twice as big, and looking more than twice as dangerous. Its red coloring was also richer and more pronounced this time, some lose electricity trying to escape the suffocating confines of its shape.
After getting hit by a surprising lightning spear from above, the infant dragon seized and was unable to move to avoid the next move.
Nephelont landed back down on the ground, claws charged to the brim with mind.
{Awaken, Tempest!} After casting {Ariel}, Nephelont channeled his red lightning into his claws as he brought them down, producing an azure wind blade charged with red lightning.
Luckily, the {Ancient Dragons' Lightning Spear}'s trace electricity stopped the infant dragon from moving long enough, allowing Nephelont's second hit to land. Nephelont's claw attack extended the duration of the infant dragon's paralysis and opened some shallow wounds on its side.
The smell of the infant dragon's blood drove Nephelont further from sanity. He lost what little reason that remained in him till now. Nephelont lunged at the infant dragon's neck like a wild animal, trying to suffocate it to death, wrestling it to the ground in doing so.
Nephelont kept suffocating it and clawing at its side as the infant dragon's paralysis ended.
Once the infant dragon started to struggle against him, Nephelont, in a moment of rage, breathed fire onto its wound. The fire cauterized the wound very crudely. The pain of the fire and the burn wound made the infant dragon flinch.
The infant dragon tried again to free itself, biting back at Nephelont's neck, almost sinking its teeth in. It was rightfully surprised once it bit on gravel, gravel that disappeared from its mouth a mere moment later.
Ais fainted when she saw Nephelont, all of him, crumble to dust. Bell could only hope for her to remain sane once she woke up.
"Bell, calm down. I am shocked too, as is everyone else" Welf said to console Bell in this trying time. "Think about it, why did he crumble so easily? And why is it specifically what looks like gravel?" Welf felt a tug on his trousers; Eucleia, having teleported back since Nephelont disintegrated, was pointing at the direction of the fight. Welf had a good look at the gravel that Nephelont crumbled into starting to move around and gather above the infant dragon, a cloud of gravel and lightning. "Also, the gravel moves as if alive. Nephelont isn't dead yet" He gave Bell a pat on the back before focusing back on the fight.
"KHAA!!" Nephelont landed atop the infant dragon, and without delay, unloaded all of his red lightning unto the monster. If he were any stronger, its magic stone could have disintegrated under the pressure of the sheer amount of loose mind flowing into it. Nephelont's scales, numbering in the hundreds, fully unloaded their mind reserves into the red lightning.
The infant dragon, at death's door, felt Nephelont's teeth gnawing at its hide, shredding it, tearing apart its flesh, and when it came turn for its ribcage, Nephelont used his remaining energy to batter it with his hands until it broke open. He was weak, leading to the infant dragon suffering the cold touch of death while alive, to feel death getting closer with each pound on its creaking ribs.
*CriCK* When its ribcage finally gave in, Nephelont relished in the delicacy that was its living heart, and the empowering feeling that surged through his being. With his mind reserves emptied, his judgement was gone. He got carried away and continued to eat away at the still-living infant dragon until it no longer was anything but dust and ash.
Nephelont stood up dazed before promptly l unconscious after his savage display.