Author's Note: Sorry for the late posting, lots of work to do this morning. Read, Review, Favourite, Enjoy and please stay safe!

Chapter 51: The Third Wave

The exact time the waves would hit was well known across the Kingdom. After the past two waves The Kingdom made a policy of sending messengers to each of the major towns, villages, bases and other settlements with scrolls containing the exact time the waves would hit, as foretold by the Heroes. Each area in question had thusly taken the precautions subscribed by the Kingdom: firstly, designate a evacuation zone and send all individuals below a certain age or too sickly to fight there alongside any food stock in storage there. If necessary neighbouring villages would even share a evacuation zone, ideally a mine, does not have to be active, or some other form of underground structure. If necessary they would build one, anything to keep the monsters from falling on them and create a choke point to stab them with. They were also assigned to fortify their villages and farms using wood and stone. Priority usually went to whatever village gave out the highest tax rate to the kingdom, so with their vastly enhanced stats soldiers from the second wave were deployed to act as construction units. Out of the three hundred areas that needed fortifications one hundred had been built that could fend off a wave, in a month. Luck was with them during this wave as it had been one of the villages that was already fortified to satisfactory levels. Their walls were entrenched deeply, the catapults and ballista were ready to hurl wooden bolts and rocks the size of bowling balls at the enemy forces, and the fields and houses had sharpened spikes mount in and on them ready to skewer whatever unfortunate creature that landed on them.

"Bunch of lil short guys so far!" One of the spotters stated as he landed a head shot on one of the three foot tall goblins that were charging at the wall.

"Save the heavy shots for priority targets!" The Head man was a active part in the army up until sudden lost of limb excluded him from further service. He knew enough to make some strategic decisions when it comes to dealing with monster attacks.

"Define priority targets?" A smart mouthed young man who was none the less a crack shot sniped.

"Are they going down in one hit?" The headman snapped irritated. Another shot in the head confirmed the Archer's skill and the Head Man's question.

"Yep!" The smart mouthed youth replied chipper.

"Then keep shooting!" The ones who had landed in the village was generously providing projectiles for the ballista in the form of spears, swords and axes. Turns out falling out of the sky and landing on sharp pointy things count as self inflicted injuries, who would've guessed?

"Think I found one!" The smart mouth wasn't so smart anymore, a huge ogre sized creature was approaching the wall, war hammer in hand as he prepared to knock the wall down.

"Ready the stone to fire! Ready! Set!" A shiny green blade was slammed through the neck of the ogre and it fell limp, the headman recognised that blade.

"I've been to this village before! It's the one I've been fortifying for the wave!" Ikki explained having seen the situation through the Crystal Ball sword. Ikki used his knowledge of the area to correctly orient the map while the others made their plan.

"Then we shall leave the village to the shield's party, if memory serves this area should be home to a species of giant spiders." Not good, spiders are ambush predators, time to see what effects the Heroes growth corrections would have.

"Yeah, Yeah I'm on it." Naofumi climbed on Filo's back while Zenberu led the way to the village for most of the party, taking off in two separate directions. Seeing as how the location was already fortified Trash had asked the earth mages as well as Raphtalia, Rifana, Sadeena, and anyone else who could use light and lightning magic to stay behind, why was in the midst of making itself clear.

"""We call upon the origin of power! Push back our targets with a wave of Earth! All Zweite Earth Wave!""" The ground rumbled as the monsters were forcibly picked up and pushed together into a single clump of targets, the mass of enemies roughly the size of a single village.

"""We call upon the Origin of power! Fuse Light and Lightning and Rain down the wrath of god on our targets! Driefach Judgement!"""

Judgement was a holy spell, difficult to pull off. It requires both light and lightning as it's main components, rare magical affinities. The difference can be made up using a relative complex equation. Fire + (Water + Wind = Ice) = Lightning and Fire + (Wind + Earth = Sand + Fire = Glass) = Light, Lightning + Light = Holy + Attack = Judgement. One of the down sides to this though is the sheer mass of people working in sync it takes to pull this off, hence why judgement was usually a army wide spell. If you were lucky enough to some how have light or lightning as one of your affinities you could pull off holy power, but you'd need someone to help with the offensive. In short if you could get two people together with the correct affinities together then you could pull off a mini-judgement, wouldn't be as powerful as normal as you've only got a couple of people poring in their stats instead of a army. Unless of course those few people casting it are insanely powerful for their level for some reason, Then the enemy is your divine shooting gallery.

"Mirelia are you okay?" Trash went over to the Queen to to make sure she was okay, suddenly receiving a mass of XP and shooting up through a lot of levels can have a bit of a effect on you.

Raphtalia and Rifana looked suspiciously at the King, the lecture from Kyubi on magic told them that one's magic affinities were genetic, meaning that either Malty's fire magic or wind magic should've come from Trash. Yet he just casually spat out Earth, Lightning, Light and Attack magic, most of it all at one time. Something was definitely up there. Sadeena on the other hand seemed to know exactly was up and simply told them to let it go. Once they were confident that the situation was in hand the Heroes wasted no more time. Tatsuya took off into the air, Setsuna followed him on the back of Yuki while Ikki ran through the field on the back of the Kirin cutting down every monster that he could find with the unreasonably long blade he just turned his sword into. If the enemy was on the ground, Ikki would find him between his unreasonable speed and the use of the thousand sword Crystal ball combination, if they were in the air Setsuna's and Yuki's razor sharp instincts and senses would find them. Hopefully, they would find them as easily as Tatsuya had found the boss, or more specifically the ghostly ruined tall ship that had no business floating let alone flying through the air!

"I've found the boss, moving for interception." Tatsuya fired Meteor shot at the ship but a cloud or shadow or some sort moved to intercept the blow and followed that up with retaliation by ghostly cannons. "Breaking off." No one could really hear what Tatsuya was talking about, he mostly spoke into the built in radio of his helmet out of habit, even if no one could hear what he was talking about. Then he found a new asset.

"Zenberu! It's called aim and fire, not fire, fire, fire! Let your spotter pick your targets before you shoot them!" Naofumi barked noting the Ballista that was suppose to be hurling rocks at the big targets just hit the same one three times.

"Apologies Master!" Zenberu stated as he switched from operating the rock chucker to defending it from falling monsters. Just because they landed on the spears sticking out of the ground does not mean he was passing up on free experience points.

"You lot! Get those pricks pinned down first, then eat!" The villagers were surprised, to say the least, to witness the spiders that had been terrorising them for decades suddenly bound out of the woods webbing up the enemy and having them for a snack. Thanks to the four heroes beast growth corrections the spiders stats had sky rocketed. At one point they saw one of the spiders lasso a group of enemy forces and flailed them around into other monsters and created a big huge ball of them. The monsters were getting wise and backing away from the village. "Now you can eat." The Spiders obliged, they needed food to produce all of this silk, and the screeching monsters made for good eating. Their bellies full the spiders laid down a field of webbing to tie up any of the incoming monsters before they came and dug in to have another snack.

"This is so surreal." Fohl was just staring at the mass of arachnids and goblins that had formed on the battlefield stupefied. When precisely had his life turned into something so weird?

"Alright lets see what kind of powers these things have." Atla was riding on Naofumi's shoulder throughout the fight. He hadn't opted for the meteor shield this time, not so long as ammunition was still raining down from the sky and landing on the sharpened stakes. Naofumi was waiting until they stopped dying immediately before he busted out the meteor shield.

'Conditions met. Goblin Shield unlocked. Equip Bonus Shadow Blend. 4Hours'

The time it took to unlock new equip bonuses stopped going down a few days ago, Naofumi assumed that meant he reached his limit on that. He'll figure out what Shadow blend meant later, for now Tatsuya had landed in front of him.

"I don't see the boss around here." Naofumi stated bluntly as he watched Tatsuya grab hold of the ballista that Zenberu had been manning.

"It's flying in sky, surrounded by a curtain of shadows, I need fire power to break through." As Tatsuya said that he copied the Ballista without problem.

'Weapon Copy Activated. Spider Silk Ballista. Equip Bonus +100 Attack 4Hours Main Ability Stone Throw.'

"Yep. That'll do it." Tatsuya carried the newly copied ballista into the air and took aim at the ghost ship flying through the air towards the village. "Sky Vision!" It was the latest milestone skill Tatsuya had gotten, a skill that let him look down on the battlefield from the sky and pick his targets from that bird's eye view. "Arrow Rain! Meteor Shot! Stone Throw!"

The Boulder materialised in the sling of Tatsuya's weapon and was flung out over the battlefield above the ghostly ship, Kraken's tentacles sprung out from the hole in the side of the ship and gathered the shadows in a series of lashing whips. The Shadows moved just in time to block the falling stones, the figure that had sneaked aboard the ship ducked for cover as the shadows formed a protective canopy. Rock rain might be the more appropriate name, boulders made of Sp fell from the hole Tatsuya had opened up each of them coated with the explosive might of Meteor shot shredding through the masses of shadow, before the man who fired that combination of skills off touched down on the deck of the ship. Tatsuya was reasonably certain that the boss was here, there weren't any other ghost ship's flying around in the sky, but he wasn't getting the notification.

"Skeleton Pirate Captain." Tatsuya idly noted blocking the skeleton's rapier with his bow before taking the opportunity to put an arrow through it's head at point blank range. "Squid." Tentacles lashed out as Tatsuya side stepped them and pinned them to the floor of the ship, his description could be inaccurate considering the fact that he couldn't see the rest of the creature, it could some how be using the ship as a shell, though he didn't know how or why. On that note the Skeleton gut up again. "I see, so I can't kill you." Tatsuya put the skeleton's sword arm into a joint lock and proceeded to break it before pushing him back. The skeleton looked at it's limp and broke arm and the fact that it wasn't healing. Tatsuya noted the same. He proceeded to take each limb of the skeleton and methodically break them before dragging him over far away from struggling tentacles. It wouldn't do for the monsters he just incapacitated to free themselves.

"Hmm. The monsters down below all look like goblins but everything up here is undead. If I assume the boss is as well..." Tatsuya looked up to the air and whipped out the holy water bow. "Arrow rain! Holy Shot! Meteor Shot!" A second three part combo was loosed up at the air releasing a storm of holy arrows on the ship. Not fond of shooting himself Tatsuya flew off of the ship at the same time as the unseen stowaway. Explosive masses of holy power slammed all over the ship and soon enough ghostly figures started to trail up all over the ship grinning sinisterly as they formed into one entity.

"Huu. Intelligent, powerful and decisive. Why can't we have any of the good ones?" The stowaway sighed as he scratched the side of his head.

'Each wave spawns a unique 'boss' monster. It is the alpha of the pack and the strongest off them all. Defeat it to end the wave.'

Tatsuya noted there was something vaguely familiar about the ghostly fish in front of him with it's jack-o-lantern grin but he made two observations. The first is that he really didn't care, and the second was that Rishia was currently flying straight at it clinging to the rocket spear for dear life while the floating shields deflecting monsters from falling on her.

"FFFUUUEEE!" Rishia crashed into the boss spear tip first harpooning it and smashing it into the deck. "You okay?" Rishia was currently holding on for dear life to the spear as the fish monster flailed around, doing it's best to expunge her and by all accounts, failing miserably. She did however managed free up the squid who was now in the process of 'thanking' her by pulling her off of the boss with it's tentacles. "FFFUUUEEE!" Enough was enough.

"Rishia, you're stronger than that thing. Pull yourself free." Tatsuya stated noting that in spite of the tentacles best efforts Rishia wasn't receiving a single point of damage. Noting that she wasn't responding Tatsuya used the slave seal this time and after literally the least amount of effort possible the tentacle burst in a mass of light and Rishia was dropped to the deck and landed on her posterior. "Are you okay now?"

"No. I've been traumatised all over again, I'm going to be having nightmares about this day for the rest of my life..." The flying fire powered spear? Not Rishia's favourite weapon. Molested by tentacles, not her favourite past time.

"This is my fault, I've been negligent in your combat training, I gave you weapons of incredible power but have not taught you how to use them. I will endeavour to correct this egregious oversight when we are finished with this wave." Tatsuya stated, his tone of voice not making Rishia happy in the slightest. "For now buff me, stay out of range of the tentacles and use wind magic to chop as many of them off as possible. Oh and try to avoid the skeleton." The pirate captain was using his jaw bone to crawl forward, he managed to get some pretty good distance too. "He looks like he wants to bite our ankles off, and if he dies he'll revive with all of his limbs intact."

"Can't we tie him up?" Rishia wined in despair.

"...possibly." A few moments later Tatsuya was shooting at the boss while Rishia threw the skeleton captain overboard a very short noose tied around his neck. It wasn't long enough to actually snap it, less the mass of bones regenerated and climbed back aboard.

"Ahem. I call upon the origin of power! Cut my target with a blade of wind! Zweite Wind Cutter!" The mass of wind shot out of Rishia's hands and severed all of the tentacles like a great cleaving blade. Then they grew back. Like everything else on this ship it appeared that they have a auto-repair function built in. "Fuuee!"

Tatsuya had already switched over to the rope bow and left several arrows in the fish monster's tail connecting the two of them via rope. With his prisoner secured Tatsuya took off through the air flying around the ship slamming the enemy against it's hull repeatedly, shooting it with holy arrows before shoving it directly into the maw of the Squid as it tried to lash out at him and telling both of them where to shove it with another Meteor shot.

"Hmm. Need to hit it with something with more bite to it." Tatsuya had a look around at the ghost ship, the cannons were loosing supernatural green blasts on the battlefield below scattering the men like rag dolls. Even with the growth bonuses he'd have some regrowth to do after this. Still those cannon's had some power, hence why Tatsuya went over to one and copied it.

'Weapon Copy Activated. Eldritch Cannon Level locked 80'

Well, easy come easy go.

"This isn't the time to go shopping anyway." Tatsuya flew back to where the tangled mess of squid and Boss fish thing was working to separate themselves and in order to deal with them Tatsuya whipped out the familiar form of the Ballista and used it's sheer mass to violently pin the fish monster to the flailing tentacles. "Please die now. I'd like whatever abilities your corpses will give us before the night's out. Stone Throw." The Boss's eyes nearly popped out of it's head after the first rock slammed into it's guts. "Pretty tough for a fish monster. I hope you at least provide Naofumi with a good shield because from what I can see your offensive abilities are somewhat lacking. Stone Throw. Stone Throw. Stone Throw." Tatsuya repeatedly fired the chunky skill into the monster until he noted a XP notice that appeared within his vision, at which point in time he took advantage of the fact that his weapon's jewel was pressed up against the monster to suck it into storage. This sadly freed up the Squid who thought the best way to try and kill Tatsuya was to wrap itself around his weapon trying to wrest it away from him. A mistake.

"Meteor Shot." Said tentacles were blown off, some were absorbed into the oversized crossbow while the temporarily defenceless squid monster was in for another surprise as Rishia approached it from the other side.

"I command the origin of power! Gather the power in the sky and strike my target down the wrath of gods!" The clouds in the sky suddenly turned stormy as they became electrified by lightning. "Driefach Lightning Strike!" The lightning formed something similar to spider web as it all crashed down on the ship causing the creature incredible torment until the light's in it's eyes finally disappeared. "Fue... It's finally over." Rishia stated as she let out an exhausted sigh. Then she noticed the ship dropping altitude. "Fue...?"

It seems that the squid, or rather the inter-dimensional kraken as Tatsuya was observing from his monster book, was the only thing keeping the ship afloat. And now it wasn't.

"FFFUUUEEE!" Rishia ran off of the ship as it suddenly started to drop like a sack of hammers and grabbed hold of Tatsuya around his waist.

The soldiers scattered as the mass of wood came crashing down, skidding across the plains as it rapidly approached the village Naofumi had been defending with the aid of his spiders.

"'Leave the boss to me. I'll take care of it.' Meteor Barrier. Extend Range. Extend Range Medium." Muttering under his breath Naofumi spat out a barrier and had it form around the village while using the monster ball to cushion the crashing ship against his barrier. "Next time, I'm gonna go after the boss myself, and you guys can worry about dealing with the fallout."

Tatsuya looked up at the sky, the holes indicating the wave's breaches had not yet gone away, now indicating a spirit or whatever inhabited that world was loose in this one.

"Wow..." Tatsuya's attention was drawn to a figure, with rabbit ears no less, standing on a floating platform of some kind looking down at the wreck of the ship. "You guys are scary..."

"And who might you be?" Tatsuya levelled a questioning glare at the rabbit man.

"Oh sorry, Ethanobolt, at your service." Tatsuya looked around at the rabbit eared man suspiciously.

"And where do you come from?" Tatsuya had a sinking suspicion that he wasn't going to like this answer.

"Um... The Library, though that doesn't mean much to you." The rabbit man looked up to the sky and squinted. "I came to this world through one of those." Great. The other-worlder, once again camping out the boss looking for Heroes to kill.

"Where's your weapon?" Tatsuya stated glaring at the rabbit and finding nothing with the small gemstone where they feed bits of monsters to for weapons.

"Yes. I suppose it is hard to realise if you're not looking. Well if nothing else your companion looks like she would appreciate something to stand on." Suddenly the platform, largely a single massive jewel, that the rabbit was standing on transformed and grew, taking on the form of a ship's steering wheel while the very same ship that Tatsuya had been bludgeoning the boss with formed underneath their feet.

"Ship Hero." Tatsuya stated as he disregarded the how and why and focused on the here and now.

"Boat to be more accurate. A boat can carry a person, but a ship can carry a boat. But I sense the specifics are not what you're after here." The skeleton Captain appeared again, Ethanobolt had it get down on it's hands and knees and sat on it, then had one of the Squid's tentacles lowered down for Tatsuya to sit on. "I would like to, before we all begin killing each other anyway, talk with you for a bit." Tatsuya looked around, made Rishia let go of him, and then had a seat on the offered tentacle.

"Fine then you, let's talk."

Review Section:

Dakota Bruder: I am familiar with it yes, and I have plans on how he's going to get it.

RonaldM40196867: No idea what you're talking about but okay. They aren't going to get better that's for sure.

superpierce: Thank you for saying so.

Dcraus: Still gonna be a while before you see the first chapter if at all.

Halo: To trace the reason for Trash's changes. It's mostly my own preferences truth be told but while not exactly a new character you may be surprised by who was responsible for his change in attitude non-the-less.