Tina felt like her world got rocked when she impacted the ground. Physically, she suffered close to no injuries, having successfully cloaked herself in the Force like a protective mantle just before hitting the ground, but emotionally, she was a mess of fury and rage.
"Hrrr..." She growled out audibly as she stood back up, dusting herself off only to notice that her armor was shattered and cracked in most places, exposing her skintight undersuit and her red skin. She immediately looked over herself to scan how bad it was and... well... it was as if she never wore her armor to begin with.
What little of it remained was close to breaking off from her body by itself, pauldrons and plates falling off from her form.
Everyone had some kind of reaction to witnessing her now exposed form.
"What...?" Riveria questioned, eyes wide in both shock and curiosity, her researcher's mind fully awakened upon seeing a new sentient specimen.
"Is that... red skin?" Hermes noted from afar as he observed from a safe position.
"How peculiar..." Finn commented from his own point of observation.
"A new race, never before seen... it has to be" Asfi noted.
"How fascinating!" Tione exclaimed in her usual jovial tone.
As for Tina... she was livid, completely and utterly consumed by the wrath within her.
And her expression was one of pure rage.
She had wanted to guard her identity as a Sith Pureblood closely, to keep only a select few in the know how when the time felt right. But now everyone could see her. And it completely and utterly infuriated her to no end.
"RAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!"
She roared out in blind fury, Sith Lightning encompassing her figure like a storm, whirling and thundering like crazy and expanding fast, meter for meter, forming a large lightning storm around her.
"YOU DARE!" She howled before unleashing the full might of the storm onto the Abberant Goliath, scorching its skin all over and forcing it to fall back a couple steps, making it roar out in acute pain as it was having its skin and muscles fried from literal shock.
"What power!" Riveria noted, observing as closely as she could, she and Ryuu closing the gap as much as they could. "And yet, I didn't sense a speck of magic from it. What kind of strength is that? Where does it come from? How does she utilize it?"
"What does it matter!?" Bors, the leader of Floor 18's provisional village Rivira, voiced. "She's holding one thing back while utterly frying the other! She's a powerhouse!"
"I..." Ryuu started, trying to find words to express the surprise and awe at seeing someone solo the Juggernaut.
Tina for her part returned her focus to the Juggernaut, drawing her blade once again while gritting her teeth, her unrestrained fury burning upon her face, her sith yellow eyes glowing with malicious intent.
"I won't let any one monster live after this! You vermin will be my stress balls with which I vent my anger and frustrations!"
With her words of fury spoken, she channeled a second storm of sith lightning, preparing to scorch the Juggernaut like she scorched the abberant goliath just now. However, mid-channel, the Juggernaut dashed at her and she could not fully commit to the attack, raising her sword to defend herself and deflect the claw swipe, causing the Storm to destablize and dissipate harmlessly, the bolts of lightning turning to nothingness.
"GRRRR!" Tina growled through grit teeth as she used the Force to empower her muscles and limbs full force, driving the Juggernaut back before she shifted her form from Vaapad to Juyo, sacrificing moderation and balance for a complete succumb to the dark side, letting it flow with unrestrained might into her very being.
As such, each blow from her was simplified, less complex and structured, but much more devastating in itself. Each strike cratered the ground as it drove the Juggernaut to step back bit by bit, its claws gradually taking damage from the sheer force behind every blow, its exoskeleton further cracking and damaging itself from the attacks.
The Juggernaut, in a display of intelligence, stepped back further and used a hole in Juyo's overly aggressive form, piercing past Tina's guard with its tail and puncturing her shoulder with the tip. However, due to the sheer immense flow of the Force, the tailstrike failed in its original intent of lopping off the limb fully and instead only left a moderately deep cut in her flesh.
Tina growled once more and let her sword go for a moment, grabbing the tail with both hands and pulled at it, heaving the Juggernaut off the ground before slamming it down full force. She then repeated this action a dozen times, slamming the Juggernaut from one side to the other into the floor, making the beast suffer more extensive damage this time around.
After a few such slams, she leapt into the air with both hands holding the tail before delivering one final slam down into the floor, burying the Juggernaut completely.
Then, using the Force, she summoned her blade back to herself, making the object fly seamlessly into her hand before she began to charge another lightning arc, heaving the weapon back with both arms.
With a mighty roar, she released a full powered Lightning Arc downwards.
The Juggernaut, unable to move for the moment, was forced to take the full brunt of the attack head on, roaring out in defiant fury as the lightning engulfed it fully.
Tina however wasn't yet satisfied and decided to charge once again, this time recreating the lightning storm from before. However, this time, she compressed all that lightning into a singular point of focus, creating a small ball of lightning so concentrated that it burned the matter at the core of the focal point, creating a vacuum through which the electrons moved with their full velocity.
She then fired that highly concentrated ball of lightning down. It traveled with deceptive slowness downwards into the ground, and when it made contact...
It went off like a bomb.
Lightning surged with such explosive force that it created a crater tens of meters wide and deep, a perfect semi globe, thunder and lightning storming around the area for an extended period, each bolt so vicious and so destructive that it scorched the ground and passively created lightning balls by igniting the air around itself.
It was like someone unleashed hell itself in the form of a storm upon the area.
"What... what power..." Riveria mumbled, fascinated and awed in equal measure.
When it finally calmed down after an extended moment, the Juggernaut emerged from the crater, but it was worse for wear.
It missed both its front claws and tail entirely, its exoskeleton had completely burned off, revealing a white frame underneath it. Using its hind claws, it moved slowly, clearly in so much pain it barely could move at all, twitching and convulsing involuntarily from the shocks coursing through its system.
When the bestial thing glanced up from its position, it saw Tina, blade lifted with both hands in a reverse grip.
With a single thrust downward, she buried the blade into the Juggernaut's skull, piercing its brain fully and killing the creature for good.
However, despite having unloaded hell on earth upon the Juggernaut, Tina could not rest. The Juggernaut was only one of two creatures that had been summoned by the Dungeon after all.
The Abberant Goliath displayed absurd regenerative properties, having fully healed from the lightning scorching it had received and was on a warpath against Tina, approaching her with thunderous steps, howling out loudly as it cocked back its fist for a downward punch.
But before the blow could strike, numerous spells hit it from behind, making it stagger once more and even fall down to one knee.
Tina used the opportunity and leapt up with full might, delivering an uppercut to the Goliath, making it rear back its head as it was knocked onto its back.
Tina knew that her powers were not sufficient to completely destroy it. Well, they were, but the condition would be to use the Force to internally rend the crystal and kill it that way, but she wanted to preserve the crystal and make a pretty penny out of it, so she forced herself to abandon that idea.
As such, they needed such overwhelming power for an outer attack that it could not regenerate from it. Something to annihilate its form in its entirety while preserving the crystal.
And for that, she needed to find Bell. Only a combination attack between her and him could achieve something like that.
She began to sprint towards a nearby clearing where Hestia Familia was gathered around the unconscious Bell, having been knocked out by the Goliath earlier. She could feel his consciousness battling, close to awaking, so she decided to not force her hand in any way and let Bell come back naturally.
"We need to immobilize the Goliath. Me and Bell will deal a decisive strike, but it will be a charged, slow attack so the beast mustn't dodge it."
The Hestia Familia members, still bewildered by her earlier display, nodded their heads slowly.
Just then, Riveria and Ryuu arrived, having overheard her.
"We can arrange for that" Riveria spoke, holding her staff in both hands, already preparing to channel her frost spell. "But in exchange, we'd like some questions answered about you, if you do not mind..."
"Later" Tina spoke, pointing at the recovering Goliath which was getting up on its feet. "First, we deal with this piece of shit" she spoke, not hiding her distain for the Goliath at all.
"You heard her" Finn spoke as he too joined their group, and the Loki Familia right behind him. "Arrange for distractions, disability maneuvers, target its legs" he commanded, giving strategic orders to the members, who immediately reacted and went to do their jobs, rushing down the clearing and running up towards the Goliath in order to fulfill their orders.
Tina then turned to Bell, who was beginning to slowly stir awake, getting up from unconsciousness. "Wha..."
"Welcome back, Bell" Tina spoke and reached her arm out for his, which the boy accepted by grabbing it. It took him a moment, but he realized that she was uncovered.
"Tina! You-"
"No time for that. Can you ready your strongest attack?" She asked, straight to the point.
Bell slowly nodded his head looked over Tina's shoulder to the Goliath, seeing it engaged in fierce fighting with the many adventurers, though it struggled to move from its spot.
"Yeah, I think I can..."
"If you're gonna do what I think you are..." Welf suddenly interjected and revealed a large greatsword which he had been saving up. "You might want to use this, partner."
"Thanks, Welf" Bell said and grabbed the broadsword with his hands, lifting it up as he approached the edge of the clearing.
Tina took stance beside him and together, they took stance. Tina heaved her sword with both hands towards her right, while Bell swung the greatsword to his left, so the weapons would meet in the middle if they swung at the same time.
Bell then focused inwards and channeled his heroic desire, activating his skill Argonaut, a telegraphed channel that focuses all his mind power and physical stamina into a charged attack, multiplying its force by hundreds of times if fully channeled. Its channel duration was 1 minute per level up maximum, with a minimum channel timer of 3 seconds.
Bell continued to channel, feeling his reserves gradually draining as it all went into the charged attack, causing the broadsword to begin glowing a bright light of pure white while the sound of a grand bell ringing began to echo.
Simultaneously, Tina began to focus all her powers into her sword, creating pitch black, dark lightning from her form which coiled around her like a storm, gradually collecting and concentrating itself into her weapon.
Together, the two charged for as long as Bell needed until the final gong emerged and signalled that he was fully charged.
Then, the two swung their weapons.
Blade met Blade halfway over the swing, their abilities merging together.
"FORCE-!"/"GRAND BELL-!"
"SOVEREIGNITY!"
Their two callouts simultaneous as their attacks merged together, creating a massive sphere of pure condenced mind power and sith lightning so concentrated it passively generated plasma. The sphere traveled rather slowly towards the Goliath, as if waiting for the massive monster to dodge.
Once the Goliath saw the attack coming, it tried to evade, when suddenly.
"NOW! WYNN FIMBULVETR!"
Riveria finished her chant and unleashed her large scale frost spell, enveloping the Goliath's legs entirely in ice and immobilizing it completely.
The Goliath struggled as much as it could, trying to free itself, but it could not move.
With one final, defiant roar, it met the attack head on, before being engulfed in a light so blinding that once the attack collided with its target, the resulting explosion lit up the entire 18th floor, blinding any and every onlooker across the whole plane.
The entire floor shook and rumbled from the sheer force of the impact. The rumbling of the floor took a long moment, and when it stopped, and the light began to dimm, the adventurers began to glance up one after another, seeing that the Goliath's form had completely disappeared...
Only its Magic Core remained. Unresponsive, filled with passive magic energy which did nothing.
The crisis was thus officially over.