Real quick, I made a numbers error last chapter. The final overview of Izuku's Stats listed his Shadow count as 9132 or something like that. In reality, the number was supposed to be 9873 with the 741 Maker Seraphs that were added on. Sorry bout that, it should be fixed now! Hope everyone had a great holiday! Enjoy the chapter!
"Come on!" One of the American S-Ranks was yelling, "We've gotta get this garbage offloaded before more of those fuckers show up!"
"Quite the vulgar human, isn't he, my Liege?" The lead Seraph Maker, who Izuku nicknamed Masamune, asked.
"You could say that," Izuku responded as he yelled over to the man, "That "garbage" is the only thing that's going to keep us fed, unless you wanna hunt for polar bears!" It was lucky that Izuku had taken the time as an E-Rank to learn English, most of the Heroes here spoke it.
The S-Rank rolled his eyes, "Sorry, but I'm not looking to get caught with my pants down because they were slow to get this stuff!"
Izuku nodded, "It's okay, I don't sense anything that isn't over an hour away."
"Which begs the question… why hasn't Razar sent anything?"
Izuku held his hand up to his earpiece and contacted the other three leaders, "You guys encounter any more Angels?"
"Nothing yet."
"We're almost done cleaning out the Angel Blacksmiths here," Tsukauchi said.
"I'm clear too."
Izuku shook his head, "Everything about this is wrong."
"I agree."
Ryukyu and Tsukauchi were left somewhat in the dark as Yaoyorozu and Izuku went back and forth.
"All of the Rulers' armies should be through the Gates by now, so if he isn't sending anything our way it means he's going on the defensive and waiting for us."
"Then why not keep Correnic's forces with him? Build up a couple dozen of those cannons, barrage us from afar and have the more physical based Angels protect them."
Izuku shrugged, "Any chance it was a mistake?"
"Razar's crazy," Tsukauchi clarified, "He's not stupid. He did it for some reason, so stay on guard."
"Right. I'll be making the rounds soon to extract the rest of the Angels."
"Got it. Report if you see anything crazy."
Izuku clicked off his mic as he turned to Masamune and the nine-hundred other Seraphs standing behind him. "So, what can you guys do?" They were all Commander-Grade, meaning every single one of them could speak and had enough Mana to far surpass anything near S-Rank.
"My Liege, we are the weapon makers of the Rulers. With enough time and energy, we can assemble almost anything you wish of us. Our skills are not quite on the level of Lady Correnic, but we are no slouches."
"Almost anything?"
"Indeed. We can construct weapons far greater than that misshapen sword you hold in your hand."
Izuku looked down at the Corrupted Blade, "Misshapen?"
"Ah… forgive me, Liege. I should not have spoken so loosely about your weapon, I'm sure you treasure it."
Izuku held up his hands, "No no, it's fine, I was just surprised. This is one of the strongest weapons I have, if you can make something much stronger, than by all means, go for it."
Masamune bowed, one hand over his chest, "Is there anything else you would like to request from us? Armor? Artifacts?" He gestured to Izuku's chest, "If you would like, we could take that and make it into an armor more befitting someone such as yourself, my King."
Izuku shrugged and unequipped the armor, "You guys know far more about this than I do, so I'll leave the armor up to you, though I'd like to keep the Draconic Fusion Skill if possible."
"As you wish."
"Actually… there is one more thing. You said you could make artifacts. Could you make something that decreases or completely eliminates the cooldowns for my Skills?"
"Hmm," Masamune thought to himself for a moment, "We could create a passive artifact that decreases the cooldowns, or we could create an active artifact that draws upon your own Mana to instantly reset the Skill."
"So even they have their limits. They can't just make something that completely negates my cooldowns without there being some sort of cost."
"I'll take both, just in case."
"Of course. Is there any specific type of weapon you would like us to build?"
"When fighting Monarchs, I tend to revert to my gauntlets, so I'd like something for dealing with large crowds."
"It shall be done. The whole process will take us around an hour and a half. Unfortunately, these types of items take immense amounts of delicate work and craftsmanship, we cannot brute force their crafting with mere numbers."
Izuku nodded, "That's okay… but… out of curiosity, how long would it take you to fit all of the Shadow Army with armor and weapons like mine?"
"Oh… such a task would take… several months. To create armor like yours from scratch requires too much energy to do it on short notice, especially when it must be done for eight-thousand. We can do our best-"
"Sorry, it was just a hypothetical. However, if possible, I would appreciate it if you could arm the Shadows that don't yet have anything to wield."
Masamune nodded, "I will have my soldiers tend to it. I shall personally oversee the forging of your armaments."
"Thank you."
"No, my Liege. Thank you. You have freed us from the disgusting influence of the corrupted Ruler."
"I'm sorry it had to cost your bodies."
"We would have paid any price. This existence is a gift. Do not feel the need to apologize, my Liege, please."
"Okay then." Izuku turned around, "Beru, I'm gonna start gathering the Shadows of the other attack points. I'll be stuck in one place in forty-five minute intervals, so you're in charge until I get back. Keep everyone safe."
"As you wish, my Great King."
Izuku ignored the title and singled out one of his basic human Shadows in the east and then, he spoke, "Shadow Exchange."
[Shadows able to be saved: 10888/13582]
"Getting a little too close to that limit. Gonna have to find a way to surpass that. I'll need to take far more than four-thousand of their blacksmiths to win this." Izuku pondered as he extracted an additional one-thousand and fifteen Maker Seraphs from the Eastern "Front." He'd have just under seven hundred spots left once he was done collecting the Maker Seraphs, which was next to nothing compared to the ninety-four thousand Angels still hovering around the continent. It was possible to dismiss plenty, but Izuku didn't want to do that. He'd grown attached to most of his Shadows and he'd regret losing any of them if they ended up being super useful.
"We're unloaded," Yaoyorozu said next to him as she held his hand, Miruko happily holding the other.
Izuku nodded, "Beru just told me the same thing," He spoke into his earpiece, reporting to the other two fronts.
"We're all set here."
"North is ready to go. Are we marching?"
"March away. I'm still not happy about how quiet it is, but we can't stay here forever just waiting." Izuku then repeated the order to Beru as Yaoyorozu yelled to Thomas, who yelled to the rest of the forces.
"Shadows in the North and West, leave one human Shadow behind for me to Exchange with."
"Maybe the bastard held his forces back cause he thought we'd take the cannons and use them against him."
"Nah, I checked with my Shadows, the cannons weren't designed to be able to turn all the way around, they could only fire out into the ocean." Izuku responded, "Honestly, I'm kinda glad they were built that way, cause otherwise, it would've been embarrassing to have destroyed all three."
"We should get moving too," Yaoyorozu said as the three were basically left behind.
But Izuku pulled both the girls close to his chest, hugging them tight, "I wouldn't worry about it. They've got at least seven days before they reach the South Pole. At full speed, we could catch them pretty quickly. So why not just wait until Shadow Exchange is ready?" The two smiled and leaned in closer, "Who knew you could feel so warm in Antarctica?"
After two more jumps between points, and increasing his Shadow Army by another 986, Izuku ended up back at the Southern Front, with only the Western Angel corpses left to extract. He came back to his Shadows, who were steadily marching, because Masamune was done with his requests.
"It is my honor to present our Shadow Monarch with the finest armor our kind has constructed in some time."
A/N: I'm gonna try out some new formats to see if I can find something that can be read easier for when I need to present new items, I hope it's not too confusing for everyone. If you're reading this on Wattpad, sorry, that site doesn't like line breaks for some reason.
[You have obtained the Shadow Monarch Armor.]
[Item: Shadow Monarch Chestplate.]
Item Class: National
Item Type: Armor
+125 Strength
+125 Vitality
[Item: Shadow Monarch Leggings.]
Item Class: National
Item Type: Armor
+125 Strength
+125 Agility
+50 Vitality
[Item: Shadow Monarch Helm.]
Item Class: National
Item Type: Armor
+100 Sense
+125 Intelligence
+25 Vitality
[Item: Shadow Monarch Necklace.]
Item Class: National
Item Type: Accessory
+200 Intelligence
+50 Sense
[Item: Shadow Monarch Rings.]
Item Class: National
Item Type: Accessory
+50 Intelligence
+50 Sense
[Item: Shadow Monarch Boots.]
Item Class: National
Item Type: Armor
+75 Vitality
+75 Agility
[Item: Shadow Monarch Gauntlets.]
Item Class: National
Item Type: Armor/Weapons
+1000 Attack
Combined with an Evolution Core, these Gauntlets permanently have the ability to triple the effectiveness of any magic and to evolve any Shadow upon successful Extraction. The Gauntlets also have the ability to grow and retract razor sharp claws at any time.
[Set Bonuses have been unlocked!]
Set Bonus 1: Skill: Shadow Blending. An upgraded version of the Skill, Draconic Fusion. Now any 2 Shadows can be fused and the Dragon Gods retain the option to fuse any combination of the six. Costs 5000 Mana for each Fusion,
Set Bonus 2: Skill: Cooldown Elimination. By using Mana proportionate to the power of the Skill, the User can completely eliminate the Cooldown. This Skill has no Cooldown.
Set Bonus 3: Passive: Proficiency. The Cooldown of any Skill is reduced by 25%.
Set Bonus 4: Passive: Pure Darkness. All Shadow-related Skills will be upgraded.
[Shadow Pulse Lv. Max. Stat debuff increased from 75% to 90%]
[Shadow Essence Lv. Max. By putting more Mana into the Skill, it is now possible to fool much stronger beings than before.]
[Shadow Extraction Lv. Max. The effect the Intelligence Stat has on this Skill has increased. Shadow Extraction Limit increased. New Limit Without Stat Calculation: 50000]
[Shadow Save Lv. Max. By spending mass amounts of Mana, it is now possible to force Shadows to evolve to their next form, possibly increasing their Grade in the process. The effect the Intelligence Stat has on this Skill has increased. Shadow Extraction Limit increased. New Limit Without Stat Calculation: 45000]
[Domain of the Monarch Lv. Max. There is now no delay for activation.]
[Shadow Exchange Lv. Max. Cooldown decreased to 30 minutes.]
Izuku Midoriya:
Level: 172
Strength: 496
Vitality: 418
Agility: 474
Intelligence: 737
Sense: 417
[Mana: 351945/351945]
[HP: 104853/104853]
[Shadows able to be extracted: 74019]
[Shadows able to be saved: 11874/67125]
Izuku smiled wide, "Masamune, I could seriously hug you right now."
The Shadow bowed, "Oh, my Liege! That brings such joy to my ears! But it was not just I who was responsible for that masterpiece, my brethren gave up most of the Mana many times over to help it's construction!"
Izuku nodded, "You've all done well, this was exactly what I was looking for! In fact, I didn't even know I was looking for some of this stuff! I seriously owe you guys one."
"Not at all my Liege! If anything, we should be considered for attempting to attack you earlier! Besides, we haven't even gotten to the unveiling of your new weapon!"
Izuku shook his head, "No. I'm serious. This is above and beyond what I could've hoped for. If you ever want something, I'll do everything in my power to help you."
Masamune and the Shadows behind him were overwhelmed with emotion for a moment as they all, in one neat motion, kneeled, "Then, my King, we beseech you. Help us free our brethren from their slavery and give them a happy life amongst the Sh-"
"No," Izuku interrupted, "That's already my goal. I'm going to do that regardless of what you want, so please, think of something I can do specifically for you."
"Of course, my Liege. We shall think on it and ask when ready."
Izuku was glad that he and the Seraph Makers were left behind at the cannon site as everyone else continued to march on towards Razar, this much attention and reverence would've been embarrassing in front of a crowd. "Good. Now, you said something about my weapon?"
"Indeed!" Four of the Seraphs stepped forwards, carrying something wrapped many times within a blanket of Shadows. Slowly and carefully, Masamune pulled off the shawl, revealing a beautiful weapon.
It was a battle-axe, about as long as Izuku was tall. Made from the same smokey material as his Shadows. The front of the axe had a giant cleaving blade, and on the other end of the blade was a hammer's head.
A/N: Think Iron's axe from the Webcomic
Emerald light ran through the entire weapon, forming what looked like an energy blade just over the Shadowy part of the axe head.
[Item: Nebular Waraxe.]
Item Class: National
Item Type: Waraxe
+1200 Attack
Ability: Cleave: Attacks made with this weapon reach farther and wider than they might visually appear to.
"With all this… there's no way I can lose now!" Izuku took a few test swings with the axe, finding it to feel a lot lighter than he thought it would be, but just heavy enough to have some weight to it so he could feel the power of each swing. "This is perf-"
"My King! I sense the approach of thirty-thousand Angels, all fully armed. Their Mana is far greater than that of the ones now part of your Army," Beru telepathically reported as Igris chimed in.
"They are thirty minutes away from our attack force. And judging by my estimations, they will be enough to wipe out eighty-seven percent of the humans in this squad."
Izuku calmed his initial outburst of panic, "Understood, myself and the Seraphs will teleport to you right now."
"All points, the Southern Attack Force is thirty minutes away from an engagement with thirty-thousand Angels, all far stronger than the ones that were manning the cannons!"
Tsukauchi was the first to respond, "We've only got around one-thousand coming for us… but I sense the presence of a Marshal in their midst. I'm the only one who can handle it. I will not be able to Gate over in order to help."
"Same here," Yaoyorozu declared.
Ryukyu confirmed the same thing with her. "Sorry, but you're on your own."
Izuku used Shadow Exchange, paying twenty-thousand Mana to eliminate its cooldown. He emerged in front of his army, standing next to Beru as they looked up into the sky as the white cloud of Angels moved closer, "That's fine by me." He donned his dark and smoking armor and weapon, "After all, I'm enough on my own."
