Author's Note: Another week down, another week closer to finally getting the Corona Virus Vaccine so that this hell can end. Read, Review, Favourite and Enjoy!
Chapter 44: The Church's Death Throes
Van Reichnott had just gotten out of there with his life. A week ago he received a package in the mail anonymously, a sinister green dagger, being a avid reader of Hero related fairy tales as a child he immediately recognised the design on the dagger as the same cursed weapon favoured by a reputed demon lord with the power of mind control. He like many in his circle of associates knew a cursed weapon when they saw one, or at least a recreation of one. No sooner had he ordered the weapon disposed off then the deliverer attempt to stab him with it. He was put down on the spot, one of the consequences of rescuing most of your subjects from slavery, they tend to have a fanatical devotion to you for it, one that makes it difficult to take prisoners for interrogation especially when they try to kill you.
"Because of course here is where the Church chooses to attack, threat of the waves be damned." Reichnott could only shake his head in irony as he wished Setsuna was here, he'd like to see what the church would do about a dragon from the literal depths of hell.
It was several days before the expected surprise finally came for them, the combined might of the Phillip, Hohenheim and remaining forces of the Three Heroes church and a massive number of monsters they some how managed to either tame or raise came in for the offensive. Reichnott had time to prepare a counter attack and defensive measures, walls made out of earth and stone erected using earth magic, topped by what demi-humans they had that had range magic and archery ability, underground bunkers for the bulk of the civilians to hide in to protect them from the churches blasted Judgement spell finally the rebuilt trebuchet to drop rocks from above when they exposed their heads.
Demi-humans had been strapped with explosives as they charged the walls in a suicide attack, doubtlessly not under their own power. With reluctance Reichnott ordered that they be dropped with a single shot to the head before they reached the walls, then came the armoured archers on the backs of large armour plated boar like monsters domesticated for food, because of course more value was placed on actual animals than the demi-humans. The arrows flew into the wall as Reichnott recalled his people to prevent mass casualties.
"""We call upon the origin of power, skewer our targets with a wave of earthen spikes. All First Stalagmite Wall!"""
The basic offensive earth magic was effective against the unarmoured underbellies of the boars, especially when cast in mass. The terrain in front of the wall was now even harder to cross now that the field had been converted into a mass of spikes. That said foot soldiers still weaved through the maze of stone spikes heading directly for the walls, with ladders.
"""We Call upon the origins of power! Summon a gust of wind to blow our targets away! All First Wind!"""
The men were blown off of the walls and fell upon the stone spears that were made manifest by the first spell. The ones that survived the process proceeded to get back up on the walls. Credit where it was due, these people just didn't quit.
"Oi is that the real one this time?" Ikki asked looking down at the pope on the back of a war-Filolial as he looked down at the wall excitedly. "I felt bad enough about beating up a old man last time."
"Hang on... no sign of mind control magic on that one, a rather impressive feat I might add considering the sheer number of affected around him, and he has the legendary replica, though I don't know if that's part of it."
"Drop me." Ikki used one of the enemy soldiers as a landing pad the illusion Intetsu in one hand and a newly unlocked holy water sword in the other which after some basic experimentation they learned it would be enough to drop these cursed buggers if they hit them enough time. Luckily 'More dakka' was one of Tatsuya's area's of expertise as he combined meteor shot, his holy water bow and arrow rain to rain down anti-curse shots on the heads of the enemy.
"Pope Biscus T. Balmus!" Ikki shouted as he cut the tendons of whatever soldier came up to him, even as their brainwashed compatriots dumped healing magic on them. "For Crimes against Queen and Country you have been sentenced to death!" The butt of Ikki's sword smacked aside one of the soldiers who had come to attack him from the side. "Will you come peacefully and end this madness? Or must I tear through every single person that you have placed under your control first?" Credit where due, Ryuteimaru was stealthy for a overgrown lizard, or it could just be that everyone was just so fanatically focused on the enemy that they didn't notice the embodiment of death sneaking up from behind on them, either way the pope wasn't stupid enough to call Judgement on top of himself, nor was any of his brainwashed minions smart enough think of doing it.
"Ignore the false Hero! We are the true servants of-"
"Thousand Swords!" Ikki shut down the old man's bull with a thousand blades of Spiritual power. "Change blade: Holy Water sword!" The blades changed form into the familiar gold laced blades and Ikki sent them flying taking down brainwashed mooks by the dozens and pinning them there, letting the holy blades begin to neutralise the effects of the curse that with any luck would get people on his side soon. Ikki let the power of Ittou Shura pumped through his veins as he charged at the pope, who in turn ran. Didn't run far enough as a bolt to the head killed his bird and sent him tumbling down the hill he had parked himself on.
"Well would you look at that..." Van Reichnott watched in awe of the power Ikki and Tatsuya had put on display, the dragon had landed briefly to deposit Ikki's party before dropping down in between the brain washed horde and his make shift wall, notably without the bow hero who was flying out of reach of the enemies arrows and magic while dumping stacked skills on top of the enemies heads and for his trouble a few snapping out of it because they got the hell out of there.
Ikki on the other hand had taken some kind of magic which seemed to notably increase his stats, his attacks sent men flying now and under the influence his blades people were being snapped out of it left and right notable the four dozen or so that had been pinned down earlier. Oh and the Pope was good to note, especially the part about him being in range now.
"Target the pope." The trebuchet flung a boulder the size of a carriage and it sailed through the air over the wall. The panicked pope only had time to fire off a single shot with the bow destroying the stone in the air in the process.
"All of you on the False Sword Hero!" The pope shouted as the brainwashed horde massed on Ikki in a wave of bodies.
"One!" Ikki snapped as he renewed his thousand holy swords and had them twirl around him in a storm of blades smacking aside the tide of bodies as he ran for the pope. It didn't take long, Hero born stats had met with the power behind Ittou Shura and allowed Ikki to close the gap in a instant, forming a circle of crossed swords around himself to keep the enemy out of his way. "You got two more charges on that thing discounting the shield. Wanna use em?"
"Damn you heathen!" The pope swallowed his pride as he brought up the gold and white form of a shield to defend himself from Ikki's attack.
"Oh please. I've seen the real thing in action." Ikki mentally commanded one of the blades behind the pope and sent it flying at him who narrowly ducked out of the way in time for the blade to sail past him. "Huh, Tatsuya looks like he's mopping up 'your army.'" Stolen minds and robbed lives, Ikki stepped over the corpse of a demi-human with a length of explosives wrapped around his chest as he approached the pope who had switched over to that thing's sword form, Ikki would see to it personally that his death would not be the likes of which that he'd enjoy.
"Excalibur!"
"Sword Prison!" Suddenly a cage of criss crossing blades appeared around the pope keeping him from swinging the blade as the skill fired off harmlessly into the air. "Two down, two left to go." Ikki walked forward making the pope back away until he was pinned down against the wall protecting the Reichnott territory from his madness.
"Die." Ikki's order carried a weight of absoluteness as the blades gathered over his shoulder to skewer the mad man in front of him.
"Aegis!" The pope shouted out the name of another skill as the weapon once again took the form of a shield and produced a golden holy barrier in front of him pushing Ikki back.
"Three." Ikki muttered as he glared contemptuously at the barrier in front of him. "I'd think carefully about how your going to use four if I was you old man!" Tatsuya floated down to Ikki's side. "How's it going?"
"We were able to purge every one who was under the influence of the brain washing magic." Tatsuya stated eyes already calculating how he was going to take apart that holy barrier. "He's the only one left we need to deal with now."
"Well then, I guess I don't need this anymore now do I?" Ikki asked as he swapped out the holy water sword in favour of Intetsu. "Thousand Swords." Ikki renewed the skill for the third time today, though there was no sign of the holy water that had typified the previous form the blades had taken. "Dynamite Blade." The oversized spirit blades changed form into a crimson red with smoke coming out of the handles, Ikki sent the thousands of pounds of TNT he conjured out of thin air flying at the pope as Tatsuya grabbed him and flew back prompting one final panicked struggle.
"Brionac!" The two skills slammed into each other in mid air shattering the barrier in a loud explosion. Out of followers to hide behind or re-charge his weapon and out of attacks the pope took a third option and fled. The pope's face bloodied as he slammed face first into a black wall off to his side and looked up in horror at the black dragon that had cornered him on the ground.
"No weapon." Ikki elicited a scream as he chopped the Pope's weapon arm off and handed it to Ake who finally managed to catch up to him just now. "No allies." The Pope's once loyal army of brainwashed thugs now surrounded him glaring down at the pope contemptuously. "No escape." Ryuteimaru glared down at the old man in contempt his sheer bulk cutting him off on three sides. "No hope." Ikki allowed the weight of the pope's situation sink in as his mind desperately scrambled for a solution to this problem and found himself wanting.
"YOU ARE ALL GOING TO ROT IN HELL FOR THIS! EACH ONE OF YOU ARE A TRAITOR TO YOUR RACE! MARK MY WORDS OUR SPECIES WILL BECOME EXTINCT BECAUSE OF YOU!" Ikki ended this farce with a strike to the back of the old man's neck dropping his head to the ground and his body shortly thereafter.
"Are you okay?" Tatsuya asked though he concluded the answer was no. "I need a long nap." Ikki had been using Ittou Shura on and off again for the better part of the past two days and without a wink of sleep or bite of food to show for it. "Can I leave them to you?"
"It won't be a problem." Tatsuya, Rishia and Ikki's party was already stripping the explosives off of the corpses that Ikki and the pope had been dancing on disarming them before Tatsuya proceeded to revive them and then purge their brainwashing. Ikki dragged his feet into Reichnott's barn before he collapsed into a pile of hay mental exhaustion having finally gotten to him after all this time.
"It seems that Shieldfreeden is requesting our aide to manage the situation over there." Ikki slowly stirred awake in the middle of a meeting between Tatsuya and the king.
"The wave or is it something else?" Tatsuya noted that Ikki was awake now as Rishia brought him over a serving trey filled with food.
"If you're here I should assume the situation has been resolved?" Ikki asked as he clapped his face awake.
"You'll have to forgive me for the delay, the church sent a detachment of brainwashed demi-humans to attack the capital, doubtlessly in order to justify their attack on Siltvelt we interrupted." The King explained his tone of voice a little more smug than it had right to be. "If not for the Hero stat army we all put together, we wouldn't have been able to handle them so deftly?"
"Dead?" Tatsuya asked suspiciously.
"Sanctuary, large scale ritual barrier magic which automatically removes and suppresses curses." Yep, that would do it. "Your demonic ally has gone on a rampage over in Shieldfreeden. According to the report I received she attacked the Hero of the Whip, invaded the royal palace and took it hostage, is currently knee deep in the thrall of a cursed weapon and now another one of you, the Shield, have been sent over to try and manage the situation." The King explained prompting a confused squeak from Rishia.
"Demon? Do you mean the Shield hero?" Rishia stated recalling that the Shield Hero was supposed to be absolved of his crimes, and was a he. The accusation of rape would have been difficult otherwise, not impossible though considering the Princess's 'wonderful personality.'
"You've been locked in that room too long." Tatsuya stated narrowing a glare at Rishia. "Setsuna, Hero of the Spear, is the demon." Rishia was so confused now. "Half demon to be more precise. Or so she claims. I want write that off as a quirk of her culture or some sort of racial self depreciation but honestly the giant demon wolf form and the fact that her blood and hair cursed the spear when she fed it to it makes it hard to argue against her." To Tatsuya's explanation Rishia's mouth hung open in awe inspired terror. "That was kind of our reaction too, or at least it would be were she not trying to kill us after going into a curse inspired rampage."
"And lemme guess? The two of us have to go over there to keep her from trying to wipe the whole country off the face of the map?" Ikki asked as he began inhaling the contents of the bowl of porridge in front of him.
"I hold no love for Shieldfreeden and they none for me, but eventually they're going to get mad enough and put enough personnel together to kill her." This feels unlikely. "The two of you seem to be the only ones who have weapons capable of nullifying curses." The king explained as he gestured between the two heroes. "I would rather the Spear Hero be incapacitated before she decides to bring her bloody rampage here."
"Well three weapons." Tatsuya gripped the coronacht form of the legendary weapon replica before he tossed it to Rishia. It took a moment for her to process the act and let out a horrified 'Fuu' in response. "That thing seems to work on the same principles as a C.A.D. or our legendary weapon, as soon as I tune it to her it's efficiency should go up." Rishia loosed another horrified 'Fuu' at the statement.
"Still don't trust us with the replica's full power?" The King was aware of the increased fuel reserves the army of this nation enjoyed from their brief jaunt as the four heroes party members during the wave.
"Considering the fact that it's dangerous enough without people being able to fire off it's shots in mass? No. We will be keeping it firmly within our wheel house." Tatsuya stated prompting the King to let out a sigh.
"At least one of you should consider staying put while the other one goes to calm the Spear hero down?" The King sighed as Ikki and Tatsuya looked at each other and came to a agreement.
"I'll work on the replica and have it ready for when we need to use it." The Bow Hero sharp eyes looking for confirmation.
"Then that leaves me to go bludgeon Setsuna into submission before she kills either this Whip hero or Naofumi." Ikki stated letting out a exhausted sigh.
"Let Ryuteimaru carry you, he's not as fast as you are but your magic reserves won't be exhausted by the time you get there." Tatsuya stated spitting out annoyingly sound reasoning.
"No argument here." Ikki let out a sigh as he climbed out of the hay bail. Reichnott provided a spare carriage which then had Ikki's party members loaded onto it including the old lady before being carried off by the black dragon.
Granny said she planned to reset before the wave in Shieldfreeden hit, then shortly after being added to everyone's party Ikki would simply slaughter enough monsters to max out the first level cap and then she'd be able to rejoin the fight with way more power then what she had going in. First thing is first though, they'd need as much power as they could feasibly get their hands on if they wanted to stop a rampaging Setsuna which actually led to another subject Ikki wanted to ask about.
"You think the Spear Hero is using abilities similar to the Hengen Musou style?" Granny asked looking at Ikki confused.
"She used something to clobber the adventurers the King brought us the first day we came here, she didn't have any skills yet, didn't know any magic either, so it had to be something else. You have something else." Ikki stated bluntly explaining his logic.
"What were the techniques she used?" Granny asked looking at Ikki curiously.
"Wind Scar and Backlash wave. One apparently weaponizes the friction between clashing auras and the other can catch attacks and punt them back where they came from." Both techniques which relied on the enemies power to attack, Ikki still remembered how badly that Naofumi wanted to learn the techniques considering his appalling offensive power. It also carried the root logic of the Hengen Musou technique which basically amounted to weak individuals being able to go toe to toe with stronger ones which is what made Ikki think they were related.
"I'd have to see them in action." Granny admitted as she let out a reluctant sigh. "I'm not nearly as skilled with the Hengen Musou style as some people would have you believe. For all of the talk of me being able to take entire armies you might've heard I never had as much talent for manipulating Ki as some of my classmates." If she was as skilled as that one punk then she could've just killed the bastard and all of her friends and teachers would've gotten to live long and fulfilling lives. "Defending and countering attacks, especially the way that your friend seems to be able to do it, is vastly more complicated then just pumping a little Ki into their bodies to bounce around their insides." Speaking as someone who had invented a entirely original technique specifically for the purpose of taking the momentum of a opponent's attacks and then swinging it back around in a attack of his own: yes this would be a very complicated technique.
"Is there anything else we need to know?" Ake asked as he looked at Siltvelt's capital, and more specifically the pillar of flame that looked like it reached into the sky.
Review Section:
RonaldM40196867: True. The world has been in danger for over a century, ever since the onset of the first world war. The various nations of the world have stock piled enough weapons of mass destruction to destroy the world, consumption of limited resources has led to large scale environmental destruction and we are currently in the middle of a global pandemic. In comparison to that a convenient and easily eliminated enemy like the waves is easy to deal with. Zenberu and Kyubi.
MarauderPrime12: Hope I didn't disappoint.
Azure-Star-Dragon: I don't disagree. But I do believe he's never had a proper romantic relationship, there is the Otaku stigma for instance, combine that with the fact that his parents had seemingly given up on him and a much more successful younger brother to be compared against and it's not hard to figure out.
superpierce: Thank you for saying so.
Necrogod: Your welcome.