Author's Note: I'll officially be on Vacation as of Monday afternoon, which is rather important sense I'm a wee bit behind on my writing and have been for a little while. Read, Review, Favorite and Enjoy!
Chapter 37: The Enemy Calvary
Zesshi didn't know how long they had been fighting, she was missing teeth and her face was swollen from repeated blows. She started to wonder if her enemy was some kind of undead underneath his armor the way that his stamina hadn't run out, then again Zesshi was more sore then tired. Still she swung down her scythe like a war pick trying to go for the lion's share of Kieran's organs, for her trouble said pick was grabbed and she was slammed into the ground by it. She stuck the landing and attempted to throw him, Kieran instead let go of the weapon and ran Zesshi through using his own sword before kicking her body clean across the dimensional space. Kieran got her through the spine thereby crippling her, Zesshi knew self healing martial arts but unfortunately for her Zesshi couldn't use them inside of this dimensional space, she had been beaten in a contest of pure power. Ever merciless, Kieran walked over to the half elf, and stomped on her face until she was unconscious.
"Kori! I'm done with her now, get me out of here!" Silence. "Kori!" Great, someone had popped up to keep Kori busy. "Well I better make sure you don't have any of your equipment when you wake up."
Aura was having quite a bit of fun playing rope a dope with the converted Hippogriff in the arena, letting it charge into walls, using her whip to launch retaliatory strikes off to the side. They had been going on like this for some time now, but the mutated beast still hadn't learned the futility of it's actions, as Koriander noted while she looked down at the battle from the balcony.
"Well I guess that's the pride of the unicorn showing through, unlike those good boys the Soul Eaters these beasties don't wanna listen to anyone." Koriander commented having grown bored.
"Perhaps it would be better to break them down into raw biological paste and birth new ones from the raw material? At least then we can train them from birth and turn that stubborn pride to our advantage." Demiurge suggested as he leaned to Korianders side.
"Not a bad plan. Have we heard from Kerry yet?" Koriander asked her mind wandering to the topic of her brother.
"As predicted, the cut off is hampering communication severely. Unlike in the battle against Shalltear we do not have the benefit of a interface with Shalltear which will inform us of her defeat or death, we can only track to see if master Kieran is still among the living."
"Do we know if the Slane Theocracy has their own interface for their Ace?" Koriander asked aware of the fact that they have seized that territory and that it is currently under the control of her undead summons.
"No, it doesn't seem that they do." Demiurge stated a frustrated look on his face.
"Let's review, we know that she came from the Slane Theocracy and that she's strong enough to use Super Tier attacks. Hmm." After moments thought, Koriander smiled broadly. "There's nothing to worry about." Demiurge was legitimately surprised by Koriander's statement. "Even if we assume that their base stats are the same, that half elf was just one spectacularly huge outlier among the Slane Theocracy, I was able to confirm that much when I unleashed by adorable dark children on them." Koriander continued to giggle like a little school girl as she explained what was happening. "Unlike Kerry who has people like Shalltear and Cocy to train with, that lady has no one on her level. So even though her base stats are monstrous her skills are severely lacking. Since Shalltear, who was beaten by Kerry in spite of being made to take him down, only lasted a hour, I say we give this one a hour in a half." Koriander wasn't in a big hurry, thanks to the Shining Justice's ignorance of their presence they had neglected to bring out their big guns yet. Thus as long as they were able to hide their presence and continue to pick off the Shining Justice's forces they would eventually figure out that this place wasn't worth the effort and focus their attention where they thought it mattered.
Inside of the Capital of Arwinter, a magic ceremony was taking place. Fluder watched as a large scale summoning circle brought forward individuals from the other continent.
First among them was eight legged Unicorn with four wings of a Pegasus, likely some kind of cross breed between a Sleipnir, a Pegasus and a Unicorn, a combination of beasts thought to be divine in origin, additionally it had golden colored veins, like instead of blood it had the essence of the golden itself flowing through it's veins.
The second individual to emerge from the summoning circle was a seven foot tall man with six arms and three faces dressed like a monk, a Asura, a divine class being who possessed vast physical strength. Second among the ones who came through from the other side was a long snake woman with a head of snakes and a blind fold over her face, a Gorgon.
Third to come through was a woman who wore heavy armor but had a pair of large eagle wings draped behind her.
Fourth was a Elven man who had large portions of his body composed of stone, a half golem. Finally there were a pair of short and squat dragon creatures dressed as dwarfs.
"Is this everyone?" Fluder asked as he sized up each and every creature that had been brought before him.
"Yes." With a loud snap the Shining Justice's leader broke the neck of Fluder and allowed him to be dropped to the ground unceremoniously. "My apologies, I needed a moment to deal with this traitor." He was aware of Fluder's meeting with Rose and his providing her with intelligence on their people since they had first met, after all his vast control over the golden made him aware whenever someone with it's power went against him, but it was necessary that Rose be led to believe that they had fooled them, when in reality the so called Overlords had fallen into their trap.
"What is the situation?" The asura asked cocking a vaguely interested brow.
"One of them has been trapped in front of the opposing Kingdom using World Break." The knight explained as he pulled up a chair and sat down in it.
"You found someone who can use Super Tier in the new world?" The Gorgon asked looking shocked.
"She isn't as strong as we are, but she did trap the warrior. If we can find the mage before she releases him..." The expedition leader explained letting his comrades fill in the gaps.
"Our window of opportunity is small: finding the mage is now our top priority." The twelve limb unicorn stated prompting those around him to nod in agreement. "Given their hatred of my species they will seek any chance to wreak their vengeance upon us that they can find. Have any of my brothers been taken lately? And if so, can you track to where?"
"A area within the Katze plains, no doubt the Minions are up to their tunnel digging ways as usual." The expedition leader stated as he looked at the Unicorn. "As long as we're talking about priorities-"
"-Then we must find their sister." One dwarfish dragon started while the other one finished.
"Take out either the warrior or the half elf and they lose a soldier-" One brother once again started.
"-But take out the middle one and they loose the delicate hold they've built over their abominations." And the other finished.
"Indeed, Stheno, Raphael, Shikinai, you three go and find the middle sibling, I will take Sparkles, Kili and Fili to raid their base of operations." The expedition leader explained as he stood back up.
"Do you know where the middle one is located?" Stheno the Gorgon asked as she cocked a vaguely interested brow.
"The defenders of the forest put up a surprisingly effective defense, I'd guess that they have a rather competent strategist on their side." Saying that the two groups split up the expedition leader along with his two draconic dwarfs riding on the unicorn hybrid while the Gorgon, half golem and the Asura went into the forest.
Balloma was having the Baharuth empire soldiers, both living and dead, transported into Nazarick. Many of them were still alive, once they were systematically purged of the golden they could be converted into Dwelf Dhampires. As for the dead ones, Koriander will likely convert them into undead troops as part of their army of the undead, she should probably call in our forces at the Slane Theocracy to do that, compared to repeatedly killing someone, converting them into undead, then reviving them, simply turning them into undead seemed to have the better result. The most promising of what they had obtained from that battle field though was the Unicorn hybrids. While thinking about these things as she drank wine Balloma took notice of another disturbance in the forest, a large number of birds were running away from a large force.
"It would seem that we haven't killed enough of their people yet today." Balloma stated as she nudge the nearby troll monks who were meditating into action.
When Guu, the quote on quote giant of the East, was first brought to Nazarick Demiurge was given one job, make him better, then mass produce him. Within days Demiurge had used magis to sheer the flesh off of the troll with sheer brute force, then he took those meat chunks and dropped them in vats full of healing potion and liquid magic. After the still living chunks of flesh 'healed' into fully grown War Trolls they were taken aside and trained by the Silent monks, while they're not on their level they have mastered metal skin to the point that their skin is roughly as strong as steel, and Koriander has already tattooed magic protection against the bane of regeneration, fire directly onto them. If some manages to defeat the combination of super strong steel siege engines with high speed regeneration then they really would be in trouble.
"Call back the strike team, we'll need all the help we can get."
"Okay." Crusch flew off into the air to go and retrieve the other monsters that Koriander had evolved into stronger forms.
Based on the sounds coming from the other side of the forest either the trolls had managed to one shot the new opponents and were coming back or something had managed to one shot them and were now approaching them unimpeded. As this was considered a worst case scenario Balloma took preparations having bombardment type reds position themselves to strike. Imagine then when what emerged from the tree line that surrounded the clearing was both ally and enemy in one, the trolls whose bodies had been turned into stone and which were then turned into golems.
"Cute. Stheno, Shikinai I know you're over there!" Indeed, the Gorgon and the half golem in question were the obvious suspects, and they made no secret about their presence emerging from behind the two former trolls. "I don't see that spider horse around anywhere, did you leave that freak of nature at home?"
"Do not insult the great Sparkles whore!" Shikinai stated as he pulled out a sword from behind him.
"Anyone who seriously refers to themselves as 'The Great Sparkles' deserves to be insulted." Balloma countered noting that she didn't see the spread of the Golden coming off of the two of them. "So this isn't a conversion but a assassination."
"Of course, unlike your siblings your asset lies in your mind, if we take that away from you then you'll be useless to us. Comparing the cost of converting you to the profit gained it would just be better to kill you." Shikinai explained tapping a blade against his shoulder.
"Well that is very good to know." Balloma explained as she gestured to the minions. "Otherwise, I wouldn't be able to use these." Balloma explained as she tossed a couple of magic scrolls into the air, which then opened, activated, and disappeared.
Something reached over and grabbed Stheno and yanked her over and threw her back through the clearing they had just made, Stheno wasn't quite sure what it was she was looking at. It was huge, it's large frame, huge claws and hair like metal wires reminded her of a Troglodyte, which was unfortunate since troglodytes being blind were completely immune to her petrifying gaze, but it looked like it was made out of corpses strategically stitched together, and it was thick with demonic aura. One had appeared in front of Shikina too, a giant undead monkey in a restraint jacked and knives for fingers, it's body thick with the negative aura of a demon.
"What abominations have you been breeding!" Stheno screeched witnessing the sight of the disgusting creature before her.
"Nether Ghuls, if what Koriander promised is true then they're the the stuff of nightmares." Balloma commented while she watched the sky.
Stheno moved to slam her tail into her opponent but found her enemy tanking the damage and grabbing the tail, Stheno stymied by a monster with a combination of immunity against her signature attack and brute strength. However Stheno was not short on allies as she called forth the two stony trolls at either side of her and together they slammed their fists into that tailor made monster forcing it to release Stheno. After all the Gorgon was a creature whose battle potential rose with the number of enemies she faced.
Shikinai on the other hand demonstrated the exact definition of the phrase 'glass balista' as every strike of his weapon tore apart everything in the general direction of it's strikes. Understanding that, Shikinai's opponent was a combination of two high agility creatures, A Jack the Ripper, reanimated from a Wukong summon and possessed by a speed demon, a combination of agility and speed with little emphasis on offensive power. Still, despite Koriander's talent they were only stupid summons compared to the enemy who had upper class strength. Perhaps it was for that same reason why Baloma had prepared for a contingency for this exact scenario as she pulled out another magic scroll. Suddenly a figure of unknown origin fell from the sky and landed on her pinning her down by her head, torso and all four of her limbs.
"Ah Raphael." Balloma spat out a lugi of blood and some of her teeth. "I was wondering when you'd show up."
"Call your pets off!" Raphael stated in no uncertain terms.
"Or you'll what kill me?" Balloma asked in a sarcastic tone.
"No. That will be your reward." Saying that, Raphael squeezed down on Balloma's arm until he crushed it.
"RAH!" Balloma quietly gritted her teeth as Raphael destroyed the bones in her arm.
"Ready to talk yet?"
"How about a free piece of advice? Duck?" Confused, Raphael actually did the opposite and straightened out as he looked around.
Suddenly the entire area was hit with a blizzard, not the end fall of the winter kind, but a full blown legitimate blizzard. Against the this harsh cold that he had inadvertently left himself open to Raphael covered his face with his arm, and thus was blind sided as a lance made out of ice was chucked at him with sufficient force to push him off of Balloma and lodge the tip in his abdomen. Using that opening Crusch swooped in and grabbed Balloma via newly developed opposable toes before taking back off into the air. But Raphael had another matter of much greater interest that had appeared before him.
"Imagine. Our. Surprise. To. Learn. That. You. People. Had. Made. A. Appearance." Cocytus stated clacking mandibles together in annoyance. "We. Have. Lost. Many. To. Your. Poison." Cocytus stated accusingly pointing one of those clawed fingers of his at his six armed enemy.
"I don't want to hear something like that from the people who rain down acid on the battlefield." The asura stated accusingly pointing a finger at his four armed opponent.
"Are you two done yet?" Two Shalltear's fluttered down next to Cocytus, with the second one changing form into that of Pandora's Actor.
"So many of your strongest in one place." Shikinai stated as he finally managed to chop the head off of his enemy.
"Aren't you concerned for for your little head quarters?" The Gorgon asked as the summon she was fighting turned to stone and crumbled away under the influence of Stheno's poisonous hair snakes. "Leader, Sparkles and the Twins are probably turning all of the monsters that you've been making over the past nine months as we speak!"
"There's one little thing that they have to get through before they get to anything of important." Pandora stated in a corrective tone with a finger raised into the air.
"And what would that be? Your guard dog is here." Shikinai stated as he grouped with with Raphael.
Smirking knowingly with a prideful look on her face, Shalltear simply said. "The First Three Floors."
Review Section:
rmarcano321: True. Entoma, I've recently started reading a manga with a cute little spider girl. At this point in time I plan on finishing off the war between the Shining Justice and Overlords, or at least this one battle, and then break for while to plan my next move in the story.
Chronos0305: Glad you liked it.