Chapter 28: The Third Wave

Just like the last time, the transport was instantaneous. We looked around trying to get our bearings. I think this was near where the village with that guy who was bringing medicine for his mother, and there was another that was in the wave's area. It would take Blake the better part of a day to get here from the capitol, two for a normal filolial, so I doubt we will see any reinforcements until it is long over. I saw the other heroes running towards the rift. Those idiots didn't even bring any soldiers.

We got in the carts then Blake and the other filolial brought us to the closest village while I had a clone run to the other. Some of the soldiers were a little wobbly from their first time with Blake, but they recovered quickly. When we got there, the village was starting to be overrun by this wave's monsters. I didn't see any undead but there were some black birds, wolves, goblins, and something like lizard-men but more evil looking. They all had interdimensional and shadow in their names and disappeared when defeated. I cast several support spells on the soldiers and my party as we were getting closer to the village, so they were able to handle themselves well. As we were clearing out the monsters, we came across a surprising sight. An old woman, who as I recall was that man's sick mother, was taking out monsters using a hoe of all things.

"Ah, Shadow Saint! Thank you for your help in the past." She took the time from her combat to bow before finishing off the last lizard shadow.

"There are still more monsters coming, it's best to get anyone who can't fight to safety until it's over." The soldiers I brought were organizing the villagers that could fight, and that old lady was taking out more than her share of monsters. She may actually be the best fighter I've seen since coming to this world, save perhaps those I trained. "Get anyone who's hurt into the cart and keep the monsters from getting to them." I could heal most of their injuries with a single medicine thanks to the range boost.

"Shadow Saint! It looks like there are some odd ones coming!" The old lady pointed to the edge of the village. It looked like some larger versions of the lizard-men were showing up, similar to the bigger zombies in the last wave.

"I'm going!" The lead soldier charged at the oversized lizard-man. Who then turned to him and tried to take him out with his giant sword. It was too far, I had to shift into the Lord and run as fast as I could just to get close enough to use [Air Strike Shield] to block the attack. "What?" The soldier look a bit confused.

"Don't go charging off on your own, your valor is meaningless if you just end up dead." I pulled the solder back and Seb launched several icicles at the creature as my skill ended.

"Wow." The soldier rejoined the rest guarding the civilians. There wasn't anywhere to evacuate them to, so they were more or less just having the fighters surround the injured and non-combatants.

The skilled elder lady turned to me seeming somewhat confused. Then her expression changed and she started to chuckle, all while continuing to fight. "Well now Shadow Saint, I suspected that you were actually the Shield Hero back when you helped me before, but to think you had an energy technique like that up your sleeve is truly impressive." Energy technique? That a new term that I am going to have to ask her about when this is over.

It looked like things weren't going too well in the other village. My clone was able to kill plenty of monsters, but more kept coming and for some reason a building was on fire. "There is another village in the area; I'm going to leave some medicine here and head over. You think you can handle things here?" I asked the elder lady since she seems the most competent.

"Just leave it to me; we won't go down that easy." She had the smile of a battle-hardened veteran who was able to use their skills for the first time in far too long. Just in case, I created another clone to stealthily help out here.

I had 6 of the soldiers stay and help here while the rest got in Blake's carts and she brought us to the next village. "Gather the injured and hold back the monsters." The soldiers rushed into action, or tried as well as the motion sickness would allow. Even with my clone fighting, there were a lot of monsters and already several casualties.

It's been over three hours since the start of the wave. We managed to gather most of the villagers and stop the fire from spreading. I looked at the soldiers and realized that their leader was in the group that stayed at the other village and they probably wouldn't hold out against one of the big lizards if we all left to help kill the boss. "Sebastian, we're staying to defend the village. Raphtalia, Blake, I want you and the other one heading to the boss to help fight it."

"Right." (Raphtalia)

"Ok, get on." Blake changed to her queen form and let Raphtalia and my clone get on her back before running off towards the rift.

POV: Clone

We were heading through the woods on our way to the rift, eliminating any monsters we passed on the way, when Raphtalia asked me a question. "Master Endou, why did you choose to have Seb stay behind with your main body and only sent a clone with us to fight the boss?"

"I needed someone who was capable of taking out the larger wave enemies to stay since the soldiers would probably die trying and, no offence, but he is better able to take out the flying enemies than you are. On the other hand, you have the strongest single attack which is likely to be of use against the boss. Then there is the oddity with the Legendary Weapons that prevents experience accumulation when in close proximity to each other, which means it is best if my main body is separate from the other heroes."

"Oh, so that's how it is."

We eventually came out of the woods and saw what I assumed was the boss, a large creepy ship floating in the air that had a weird presence to it. It was made of wood and there was so much damage to it that it didn't look like it would be able to float in water, but magic does weird things and this one can apparently sail through the air. Nearby we saw Itsuki shooting at it from the cliff with a few of his party members adding ranged magic to the mix, while Ren, Motoyasu, and their parties were nowhere in sight.

"Itsuki, where are the others?"

He looked at me with contempt and continued shooting. "They're on the ship, I told them we need to destroy it to spawn the Soul Eater. But they went ahead and boarded it anyways." Soul Eater? Does that mean that the ship is just a pre-boss or something?

"Is the Soul Eater important?"

"Of course, it's the boss of the wave! We need to kill it so we can close the rift!"

"Maybe the games they played had different methods to spawn the Soul Eater, or maybe ways to weaken the ship's defenses?"

"There's nothing like that in Dimension Wave!"

"Just because you all played games that resemble this world doesn't mean the knowledge from them is always going to be accurate here. The miracle seed and dragon corpse epidemic should have made that rather clear. Besides weren't there parts of the chimera fight that were different from your game?"

"What? How did you know about that? You weren't even there. Anyways you can't damage it so stay out of my way."

"I guess I'll just have to ask the others what their take on the situation is." Blake got a running start and jumped towards the ship as I heard Itsuki yell something from behind us. I used a little gravity magic to adjust our trajectory so we landed on the deck.

I went over to Ren and his party, who were helping fight what appeared to be a skeleton dressed as a pirate captain. "So why is it that each group is fighting a different enemy?"

"Endou? What are you doing here? Don't get in my way."

"Not getting in the way, just asking to figure out what's going on here."

"We need to kill the captain to spawn the Soul Eater. Motoyasu thinks you need to kill the kraken, even though it wasn't even in Brave Star Online."

"Itsuki seems to think it's the ship that needs to die. Sounds like your games all gave different info. Hmm…" The weird presence I felt coming from the ship seems to actually be several identical presences hiding in various places along the ship. "Ah, so that's how it is." I drew a sword and stabbed one of the pretenses I felt hiding in a shadow.

A ghostly white fish thing with large fangs emerged from the shadow. I tried cutting it but my blade passed through harmlessly and it actually managed to take a bite out of my arm. It hurt like hell but was different than a normal injury, besides my clone body is made up of mana and can be easily regenerated. However, even as a clone my defense should be high enough that something that size wouldn't be able to do more than scratch me, but maybe this thing has some sort of mana stealing effect which would explain how it hurt me. I suppose if it is a soul eater then it's possible. The ghostly fish creature came around for another pass but Blake went in and swallowed whole.

"A bit slimy, but it tasted good."

I turned to Ren. "I don't suppose that was the Soul Eater, was it?"

"No, it had similarities, but the Soul Eater is much bigger." Ren said as he killed the skeleton captain, which then healed back to full health. "And I though you couldn't use other weapons."

"There are a lot of things you don't know about me. Raphtalia see if you can light up the shadows."

"Right. I am the source of this power, and I command you to heed my words. Light spring forth! [Erst Light]!" As she cast her spell a ball of light was created that lit up the entire ship. It then became obvious that there were unnaturally sinister shadows everywhere.

"I got it! Shooting Star Sword!" Ren struck the shadow of the skeleton he'd been fighting.

Motoyasu followed suit and started spearing all of the shadows near him.

As I stabbed another shadow and more fish ghosts started coming out of the other shadows and swam up merging into some sort of bigger ghost fish. I guess that's the Soul Eater.

"Finally, I caught up with… That isn't how the Soul Eater showed up in Dimension Wave." Itsuki jumped onto the ship as it passed by the cliff. Ok, now all three of them are here and the boss has been spawned. It seems like the villages can hold out long enough for us to kill it, but I have a bad feeling it won't be simple.

The 3 heroes and their parties all started attacking the Soul Eater, but weren't doing much damage. "I am the source of all power, hear me and do as I say, cut my target with dark power. [Erst Shadow Blade]!" Huh? I haven't seen Blake use that spell before. Unfortunately it seems to be about as effective as the others' attacks.

At this rate it would take hours for the thing to go down and it seemed to be gunning for Raphtalia for revealing it. Luckily it didn't seem to do anything other than charge (swim?) head first at its target and she could dodge as well as any Haulia.

Seems that this beast is tired of missing and is going to unleash a special move. It opened its mouth and started forming a black ball of magic energy. For their part, the other heroes took the opportunity to use their big moves. Unfortunately they didn't seem to do much damage.

"Do you know if this creature has any sort of weakness or resistances?"

"It can only be hurt by skills, magic, or magic weapons." Motoyasu said after firing off the same lightning attack he used in our duel. It's been over a month, shouldn't they have been able to get better attacks? They aren't even using any chimera weapons and that thing gave me the strongest shield I've found so far.

The Soul Eater launched its attack, the magic shot out of its mouth and exploded on the deck. Blake, Talia, and I jumped and grabbed onto the ship's rigging to avoid it, but the others took it full force and weren't looking too good. The Soul Eater immediately started charging up the attack again. I suppose it is more effective to just use what works, but that is still annoying. If it can only take damage from magic, let's see how it likes my swords when I channel mana through them. I launched myself at it and cut through easily, but it still didn't take out more than 1 percent of its HP. I may be more effective than the other heroes, but this thing doesn't seem to have any vitals to hit.

"How is he doing that?" (Motoyasu)

"So much for not being able to turn his shield into other weapons." (Itsuki)

"This guy is seriously bugged." (Ren)

"Why are you all just standing around? Keep attacking!" Raphtalia scolded them for their pause in combat.

"Damn it. I won't let you show me up, [Crimson Sword]!"

"I will find out what you're hiding. [Wind Arrow]!"

Motoyasu was about to launch an attack of his own when Malty intervened. "Sir Motoyasu, you're not actually planning to help the criminal shield, are you?"

"Do you have a better way to take down that monster?" (Ren)

Malty scowled at Ren. Motoyasu reminded her "Killing the monster is out job, we can't stop just because you don't like who else is helping." He joined in the attack against the Soul Eater and it fell to 90% before its next attack was ready. It wasn't hard for me to continue attacking it while avoiding being hit by the attacks coming from the other heroes and our parties. Though Raphtalia seemed a bit disappointed that all she could do was maintain her light spell to keep it from going back into hiding.

It seems that the Soul Eater realized that I was the one doing the most damage and started to aim the ball of energy at me. I ran up the mast of the ship so that the others wouldn't get caught in the blast, then jumped away as he fired it. Not the dumbest monster I've fought, though not smartest the either.

I've seen how much damage my blades can do to it, let's try magic. "Crawl on the surface. Be embraced by god's thunder and hell's fire! Fire-Lightning combination escape - Lightning Flame Serpents!" I stabbed my sword into the Soul Eater and several snakes made of fire and lightning came out of the wound, crawling along the beast causing damage wherever they touched. Its health was dropping much faster now.

Again the other heroes all stopped upon seeing the brilliance of my attack. Ren was the first to find his voice and ask the obvious, "Have either of you seen an attack like that before?"

"Nope." (Motoyasu)

"No… do any of you know anything about it?" Itsuki turned and asked his party.

"Fuee! That spell was unlike anything I've ever read about." A rather timid looking green-haired girl spoke up. It seems odd that someone with such a disposition would come to a battlefield, particularly as she doesn't seem to be very strong. Since I don't recall seeing her with him previously, I will assume she joined Itsuki's party sometime since the last wave.

The Soul Eater was shaking violently to dislodge me and eventually succeeded, forcing an end to my spell. Somehow I wasn't even able to bring it down to half health. It would seem to confirm that magic from Tortus really is weaker here. That or both the Soul Eater and the other heroes are a lot more powerful than I had thought, but judging from how much damage Blake did I find that scenario to be unlikely.

I would have rather not use my most powerful attack, but the longer this goes on the more damage will be done to the villages and the more likely people are to die. It will be hard to pull off with it constantly trying to attack me. "Everyone, I'm going to need a bit of time for this one, hold it off but be ready to get out of the way." Raphtalia and Blake agreed instantly, but the others started to question me.

"What are you talking about?" (Ren)

"Why should we listen to anything the criminal shield hero has to say." (Malty)

"How about you just tell us how to do the attack you just did so we can finish it." (Itsuki)

My main body drank a magic water and my mana, which had been severely depleted by the various spells used for healing, support, other clones fighting, and my last attack was rapidly restored.

Blake hit the Soul Eater with another dark attack while Raphtalia tried to blind it with light magic. That, along with another attack from Motoyasu, bought me enough time to cast my magic.

"The darkness of the abyss extends beyond all limits. Be destroyed as you join those who suffer in its infinite depths. [Nether Burst]!"

As I launched the most powerful form of gravity magic ever devised, the Soul Eater turned look at me. It did not seem to comprehend the nature of my attack, only that it was about to be destroyed. The creature attempted to flee from the path of the magic, but it was unable to escape its fate and a massive hole was created as the Nether Burst passed through. The oversized ghost fish then fell to the deck and wriggled a little before its HP finally dropped to zero. As with previous uses of gravity magic using the spell felt strange. It also causes a noticeable drop in the ambient magic level, which seemed to be rather high due to the wave.

POV: Main

This wave is certainly stronger than the last one, but so are we. It took me a bitlonger than I would have liked to remember that I could add all of the villagers to the battle formation then use [Meteor Shield] to keep them safe while Sebastian and the soldiers fought the monsters. It then took the solders a minute to realize that they could step through the shield to avoid attacks and create openings for their own strikes. Seb also switched his focus to eliminating the flying enemies that were trying to attack the top of the shield. By the time Blake brought my clone and Raphtalia to the cliff, I had to make a third to assist in quelling the monsters here. It is nice that they don't seem to take mana after creation other than to fuel spells and restore them after injuries, but the way I feel the fatigue from 3 clones makes me prefer just paying mana to keep them around. Luckily I had a few Nutritional Beverages which seemed to help a bit, but I could tell I was going to be exhausted once things were finished. There was something else I could try, but it contained items Hajime made and most of those don't work in this world. Besides I only have a few with me and I don't want to waste a trump card if I don't have to.

Interestingly the other village seemed to be handling things quite well. My clone and the old lady were able to eliminate most of the monsters with the soldiers handling the rest. The odd thing is the way that the old lady keeps glancing at my clone even though it should be rather difficult to detect, especially for someone in the middle of a fight for survival. Other than that her technique seemed to do damage in ways other than what they should and I still wanted to talk to her about the energy thing she mentioned earlier.

AN: There is a reason for the strangeness of Gravity Magic and it will be discovered... eventually.