The Villain's Story

Chapter 962: Elementals.

Elementals are a bit of a special type of monsters, they appeared on Earth a few decades ago, after the mana density of the planet increased to a suitable level. Elementals, are monsters with only a single affinity, and are also closely related to spirits.

Almost all of them have incorporeal forms, immune to pure physical attacks. Of course, coating your weapon with any type of energy will still deal a good blow. Elementals, individually, are quite strong, however, are quite stupid.

Elementals lack intelligence, since they are quite literally mana taking the form of a monster. They only begin to possess intelligence after S-rank and beyond, and even then, in limited forms. Elementals, beside the lack of intelligence, also have one profound weakness.

The single element they are born with, can easily be countered with the opposing element. A fire type elemental is heavily disadvantaged against a water affinity awakened. There is only so much pure power can cover below the ranks of transcendence, and in most cases, the elemental weakness spells doom for the elementals.

Which brings us to the situation at the Grand Canyon, previously, this place was an amazing mine, a natural treasure beyond worth, however, when the mana density of the planet surpassed a certain threshold, the Grand Canyon began spawning elementals.

A bunch of Elementals, of the most irritating element as well, one that was incredibly well-rounded, the element of Earth. An element that didn’t really have any weaknesses among the four basic elements, unless it was subjected to quite a lot.

The earth element didn’t have many weaknesses, the only one it did have was to the element of poison, which had many branches of that specifically targeted Earth.

Earth Elementals have a lot of vitality, a stupendous amount of it. They are also larger than the average elemental, and one of the few that can be harmed with physical attacks. A fuck-ton of physical attacks, that is.

They are giants the size of trucks spawning in the thousands within the Grand Canyon, leading it to become a monster zone. Initially, the Elementals were not a problem, and were celebrated as a great hunting spot, however, a decade earlier, when the mana of the planet surpassed another threshold, superior elementals began to be born.

Elementals of the nature affinity, or life affinity, as some called it, which were amazing healers, and also elementals of the metal affinity, which were far stronger than the average Earth Elementals. The danger rating of the zone increased, but the final nail in the coffin was the birth of an SS+ grade elemental, one born right next to the natural treasure.

It was intelligent enough to cause the other elementals to rally to it, split them in parties, and coordinate them, and finally, Humanity decided it was better to leave them alone.

And they would have continued to be left alone if not for the war, another peculiarity of elementals were that they were easily influenced by the [Chaos] affinity, and the Association simply wasn’t willing to risk it when the war came in full swing, thus sending a subjugation force.

A subjugation force consisting of hundreds of awakened from the military, thousands of normal soldiers with specialized equipment and a specialized force from the top three guilds. Titan, Twilight, and Behemoth.

Although, it was unanimously agreed upon that Alan Peccator would be the main force, dealing with the big bad boss in the center of the Grand Canyon. Currently, the subjugation was underway.

Alan sat on a platform made of mana high in the air, watching everyone do their jobs. The military had yet to step in with their bombs, and orders were that it would be preferred if they did not. The awakened hired formed parties of fifteen to twenty people before heading in the area of the Elementals, and battle their parties of five.

The average party of Elementals consisted of one metal elementals, three earth elementals, and a life affinity elemental. One offensive tank, three pure tanks, and a great healer, making them quite annoying to deal with. Other variations were rare.

Alan watched the awakened parties deal with them for only a short while, before he switched his attention to the awakened of the three top guilds. The ones from Titan centered around Elaine, and quite frankly, were good.

They had a balanced team composition, Three tanks, three damage dealers, one mages, two ranged attackers, and a great healer, being Elaine. Several formations were below the area, casted by Elaine which were actively boosting her party.

They were quite good, much better than the other awakened squabble which had teams of twenty and thirty people struggling with one party of Elementals.

Behemoth’s cohort was more offensive, with two tanks barely managing to take care of everything, four melee attackers, one mage, two healers, and one archer, being Henry. They were faster than the party of Titan, but had to rest more. Henry was the main damage dealer of the party, and Alan had to admit, his archery wasn’t a joke.

To everyone but him, anyways. His arrows were powered by the wind affinity, and carried some slight lightning affinity as well. Every time he shot, it was as if a small tornado was released from his bow.

Alan was also pleasantly surprised to see Twilight hanging in there as well. The recruits weren’t a joke, and it brought a slight tear to his eye once he saw that they were actually competent. Twilight’s team was a bit more magical in nature, with four tanks, four mages, and two healers. The healers mainly focused on increasing the mana regeneration of the mages, who bombarded the elementals continuously, safely hidden behind the four tanks.

The average level of power of the awakened from the three top guilds was higher than expected. Almost all of them, besides the healer, could take an earth elemental one on one. The tanks and some damage dealers, with a handful of mages, would fare well against a metal elemental as well.

It wouldn’t be a guaranteed win, but the odds were in their favor, at the very least. Whereas the other awakened were guaranteed to die if they found themselves in a solo fight with an elemental.

Hell, Alan was sure even the life elementals would give them a good thrashing. His eyes wandered off deeper into the canyon, where the mana signatures were off the chart. Alan refrained from using [Dragon Eyes] and immediately going towards the big boss, giving everyone else a chance to get some experience.

If the Elemental was SS+ rank, it would be a normal fight, but if it was SSS-rank, Alan was certain their fight wouldn’t be contained within the Canyon, and he wanted to avoid unnecessary casualties among his own forces. He had already made a telepathic bond with Howard and Richard, the two from the association and world government, so they could evacuate everyone if the elemental was stronger than expected.

He was still going to win, though. Because quite frankly, Alan was the strongest person on Earth besides Ragnar, a genuine epic being. You’d need more than one SSS-rank to bring Alan down, and even then, it was highly unlikely they would actually kill him.

No one could really stop him if he planned on escaping…

Alan watched as the awakened beneath culled the numbers of the elementals, however, they weren’t as successful as expected. Some sustained severe injuries, and Alan had to save entire parties by throwing a few mana bolts sometimes, eviscerating the elementals.

No one really died, and since Alan was there, he could throw down some healing fire as well, making sure they were back in the fight the very next second. A bit of a shame was that he couldn’t heal their mental states, and some of them insisted on taking a break.

Alan wanted to complain, but held himself back as they slowly reached the quota, and when it was finally reached. He stood up on his mana platform, and stretched.

Two white wings of a frost dragon materialized on his back, and Alan flew into the Grand Canyon, any elemental that dared to challenge him was obliterated with a single fist, even the metal elementals.

The affinities present in the area weren’t an issue anyways. Frost, Darkness, and Shadows were resistant to Earth and Metal. Even the life affinity didn’t do anything to his Death affinity, unless he made them hostile.

Death and Life weren’t hostile to one another, they tolerated one another, and would only grow hostile if someone used it with malicious intent against the other. Many a time, Death and Life also empowered one another.

Alan finally activated [Dragon Eyes], obtaining the location of the big bad boss, and promptly flew into one of the numerous caves in the canyon, a network of tunnels with some leading to the area of the natural treasure, where the big boss resided.

The density of Earth mana only slowed down his flight, but was manageable otherwise. Thankfully, the underground was cool, which helped his mood greatly.

He would probably have thrown an entire Glacial Meteor if the underground was hot than be bothered to descend himself, thankfully for the elementals, it was not.