Author's Note: So that's another week down. Read, Review, Favourite, Enjoy and please enjoy the holidays responsibly!
Chapter 85: End of Kyo
The enemy forces were broken down as such: The heavy troops consisted of humanoid turtle creatures armed with mimic swords and shields, the calvary forces consisted of centaur like crosses between humanoid cat people and tigers, while the areal forces consisted of red feathered harpy people carrying bows in their talons. There were little mystery to where these creatures came from, with Heroes of both worlds having come to entirely correct but wholly different conclusions.
"He's... weaponized the Directional Beasts! Turned their flesh into a army!" Itsuki was stunned, so much so that he didn't even protest when Naofumi grabbed hold of his jewelled telescope and looked through it.
"Well. Albert did say that he was researching how to clone them to fight off the waves. Yah know, before Kyo sacked him, these... Directional Beast men looks like they could be the follow up to that." Motoyasu stated watching the horrors on the horizon.
"A good guess, but incorrect." Setsuna stated, her tone of voice with some anger in it, She didn't need a telescope to see the bits of torn clothes sticking to the bodies of the enemies.
"Aye." Naofumi let Itsuki have his weapon back, he'd need it after all. "Those aren't clones."
"Alright smart guy what are they then?" Ren asked cocking a suspicious brow Naofumi's way.
"If I had to guess..." Kizuna lowered her scoped crossbow as the situation sunk in for her. "I would say that they're the people of the Mirror country." The other three Legendary Heroes of this world turned a horrified gaze Kizuna's way. "Well. Either Mirror or Book. Possibly both."
"That doesn't make any sense!" Itsuki snapped, not able to process the sheer horror of the situation that they had been sacked with just now.
"It makes perfect sense, when you understand Kyo's Nature." It still didn't stop Naofumi from feeling angry, already he could feel the purification Setsuna put on his shield come undone.
No maybe it was increasing in power now, it had been ever since he came here. He had been under the mistaken belief that Melromarc was corrupt to the point of being irredeemable, but that wasn't the case now was it? No Melromarc was just a consequence of a long standing history violence with a bunch of people they didn't want to be stuck with, a spark of conflict of two completely different cultures and species suddenly having to share a planet that wasn't big enough for both of them and being forced to make do. Their Racism was a by product of that, especially if they only became stuck with each other after the first round of waves hit it was only logical that they would associate each other with them, if you were stuck like that for a few hundred years then you'd probably get something like Melromarc. But this? This was a product of someone who decided that the world and everything in it belonged to them. If you're the only person in the world that matters, then why wouldn't you do something like this.
"What about Kyo's 'Nature' could you think would possibly lead to this!?" Motoyasu asked arm gesturing over the mass of enemies before them.
"Have you ever seen Kyo change his weapon once during battle?" Naofumi asked looking at Motoyasu. Motoyasu has fought alongside both Kyo and Albert before in the past, against the waves and when Motoyasu first started grinding.
"No. Is that so strange?"
"The Power to change forms and whatever unique abilities that come with those forms on the fly during battle is the most dangerous power of the legendary and Vassal weapons." Setsuna stated bluntly. "To not do that means that you either have a singular weapon of such overwhelming power and diverse abilities that all others become irrelevant or you simply cannot."
"What do you mean he can't?" Ren asked not liking where this conversation was going. "In the world we were protecting we've observed the phenomena of individuals who could force the Vassal weapons to give them a fragment of their power, but not gain access to any of the transformations therein but the most self destructive, nor any of their reinforcement methods to strengthen themselves or the majority of the skills that weapon has unlocked." Where the weapons could rebel, they rebelled, to anyone paying attention it would appear to be nothing but off.
"They could just be trying to get the equip bonus for a specific weapon." Ren stated bluntly, speaking as the person who has never fought alongside one of the vassal heroes.
"No. No. They're right, I've only ever seen Kyo use the one weapon form before, and it looks suspiciously like the base form." Motoyasu stated bluntly.
"And lemme guess, there's a bunch of other vassal wielders in you other's guys countries that have little silver accessories with pink gemstones on them correct?" To Setsuna's question they slowly nodded their heads.
"Kill them when you get the chance, unless you wanna deal with this again." And on that note, they commenced with the violence. "Oi Dee Dee..."
"I do not accept that designation." The Demon Dragon stated glaring contemptuously at Naofumi.
"XP." The Shield Hero stated pointing up at the sky.
"Huu. Right you are." And so the dragon took off. "Hey wait we can't just kill them off!" Motoyasu grabbed Naofumi's arm and pulled him over. "These are innocent people not monsters!"
"Correction. They were innocent people and now they are monsters." Naofumi pulled his arm away as he stared down one of the incoming tiger-taurs. Focusing the power of the ridiculously named but infinitely helpful 'Animal Friends' skill Naofumi stared down the horde and made them flinch.
Kyo didn't see him do this before did he? He might've thought differently about sending a army of demi-god monsters after them then. No. No matter. Naofumi brought out the voice gengar shield and held the makeshift megaphone over his mouth.
"Kneel." And so they followed suit, even the birds landed from the air to do so, making the eyes of everyone still somewhat human present go wide.
"...what did you feed..."
"It's not a skill." Naofumi interjected bluntly. "It's the reason why I was summoned."
Itsuki caught on faster then anyone.
"A ability?" Itsuki asked his voice filled with trepidation.
"One applicable to animals only. But yes." Which speaks plenty to the state of mind of the invaders. Just to confirm though Naofumi walked up to one of the creatures at the head of the horde. One of the tiger-taurs, the tattered remnants of his silken shirt still present. He must have been a nobleman, before... all of this. "Can you speak?"
"Yes..." The creature rasped looking up at Naofumi in his eyes.
"Then tell me who you were." Naofumi stated, because the names of the people here mattered, and he would collect as many as he possibly could.
"I am... I was... Sir Wendelin Phillip Ireheart, of the Her Majesty Elizabeth Du Mirror's royal cavalry." Naofumi had his shield make a book for him to write down the man's name in, gods Kyo would keep them here all day collecting names like this.
"Men!" The Tiger man shouted causing the creatures behind him to turn up at attention. "Dog Tags! Now!" The animal people started to pass all of the tags around their necks forward and dropped them before Naofumi's feet.
"What are we to do with this?" Naofumi asked picking up and examining the name tags before him. "Burn them." The Tiger Man's statement surprised Naofumi as he turned to look at them all looking for an explanation.
"I... erg... we, will have no monument erected to commemorate the Folly of Kyo." The Tiger Man snarled, fangs barred as he became angrier and angrier the longer this went on. "We will not be buried in the ground, our corpses left to be dug up by future generations! Everything that he is or has ever done will be unmade!"
"You want to help get payback against that rat bastard?" Naofumi stated as he felt... something on the other side of this empathetic link tugging at the other side of the link. "Do it!" Dee Dee as Naofumi called him landed behind him, he was going to scorch the entire army but this was so much more interesting. "Something else is controlling them. I going to go find out what. If any of them move: kill them." Naofumi stated as he put his hands on the tiger's head.
"A welcome reprieve." A concept that he seemed to approve of.
Then the sound of a horn blaring rung in Naofumi's ears.
"Idiots! Idiots All of you!" Naofumi stood at the head of the army of men that had appeared before, the vague presence of the monsters they had become super imposed over them.
"Attack! Attack Already! I did not make a Demi-human army just so that you could sit there and do nothing!" Standing above all the rest was a middle aged man, beer gut present and sick in the face, and spewing Kyo's voice in his usual insults while waving around a badly damaged and worn book chained to his arm. Naofumi floated up to the creature pretending to be human, looked him straight in the eyes and he didn't even pay attention to him. Didn't even know he was there probably. Time to change that.
"I can see you for what you really are creature." Naofumi stated as he clamped his hand around his enemy's throat.
"Gah. Ah..." Ah. So he can stop talking after all? Impressive.
"A fat old man hiding behind a video game controller and a screen." There was something else in here too, a silhouette of something ancient and smelling of brimstone emerging from behind Naofumi. "I guess you can never tell what people really are in video games after all. That is what this is to you isn't it?" Naofumi wondered if he could see him now, then decided that it didn't matter. "Pride... Page of Pride!" The book opened and pages tore out of it. Screaming. In response Naofumi waved his hand. "Wrath." And so the pages burnt up in black flames. And Kyo started screaming.
After Naofumi took a trip to lala land everyone else had grown bored waiting for him to come back.
"Weak." Setsuna had taken to sparring with the other Heroes, if you could call this one sided beating they had been on the receiving end of a spar. "You guys took all of our levels remember!?" Ren growled blatantly irritated.
"And I removed as many of mine as I could without having to deal with the consequences of my body shrinking two inches." Setsuna stated twirling around what looked suspiciously like a spear made by a birthday party clown with only balloons to work with. "And I am literally working with the weakest weapon I possibly can."
"Then how do you keep doing that!?" Itsuki shouted in frustration. Ironic since he had done better than any of them, his ability to alter the shots of his weapon to chase after her had her impressed for a while. Then she backlash waved them, and now they were less so. "Is it a Skill? A cheat!?"
"Technique, you ignorant child." Then Setsuna kicked him in his jaw and sent him flying. "Ki is the form of Spirit and Mana before the two are separated." Setsuna's hand glowed with a bright white power. "It is raw power in it's purest and most powerful form." Then Setsuna flicked Ren as he ran up with his blade drawn. "I had my entire life to learn it's ways, and one of the most potent practitioners of it's use as a teacher, plus a natural affinity for it." Setsuna cast Healing magic on all of them once more snapping broken bones back together. "We however have none of that, and so must make do."
"By beating us up?" Motoyasu asked healed by pulling himself to his feet. "By injecting raw Ki into your bodies until you learn to recognise and manipulate it." And then Motoyasu's face slammed into the ground again by virtue of Setsuna's fist. "Until we find Kyo I have nothing better to do."
At some point in time Kizuna, already familiar with manipulating Ki, had set up a fishing hole on the ruins of a destroyed building and was now collecting fish, much to the appreciation of the refugees still without homes or food thanks to Kyo's Initial attack.
"We could help defend the other territories under attack!" Itsuki spat out a broken tooth as he glared at the dog woman who had been bullying them, though it sounded like he was looking for a excuse to get away.
"That isn't necessary." Kizuna stated as she nabbed a shark like monster and fillet it. "Those three are a billion times more useful than you."
Glass downed another bottle of Naofumi's spirit potion and wiped her lips. Man that was good. She was going to get addicted to this.
"Rondo first Stance: Turtle Shell Cracker!" And so Glass started to fire off a rapid fire series of spirit energy blasts shredding through the enemy forces.
"No idea what you did kiddo but I like it!" L'Arc had a big smile plastered on his face as he jumped above the enemy forces. "Therise!"
"Jewels of galling peaks!" Therise had Naofumi make her some Accessories during what little down time they had, her new earrings were made from amythests taken from a mountain top which gave them lots of opportunities to soak up the wind element.
"We Therise Alexandrite and L'Arc Scythe'Berg are your Friends! Lend us your Power!" Wind wrapped around L'Arc's wind up swing. "Combo Skill: Scything Pinwheel!" And L'Arc released a hurricane with blades sticking out of it on the enemy forces not unlike the attack that slaughtered the Whale during Cal Mira's wave.
"""We the allies of the Heroes call upon the origin of power!""" The latest unlock from the boss of the wave spat out a ability called 'Carrying Bonus' which increased the stats of everyone that you happen to be carrying with you. """Combine Light and lightning to unleash the wrath of god upon the heads of our foolish enemies!""" A boost that Rishia and the lightning affinity man among Kizuna's forces was putting to good use as they swirled death in the sky atop Ethanobolt's boat. """Driefach Judgement X!"""
And entire chunks of Kyo's army was out right deleted under the wrath of god. Course the fact that something was attacking the animal side of the enemy consciousness and keeping them from acting was a massive boon to them. The fact that Kyo's fellow reincarnators didn't take kindly to him launching a unprovoked attack on them and were just as vicious with just as many cheat abilities and knowledge was Hyper Convenient for dealing the the rest of their forces, as was the fact that the other countries have long since learned to compensate for incompetent Heroes.
"Why... can't...?" Kyo saw entire chunks of his army disappear before his eyes.
"For a 'Genius' you have severely underestimated us." Naofumi stated eyes glowing with a crimson luster.
"You're... killing... thousands!" Kyo tried and noticeably failed to Hypocritically reason with Naofumi.
"No one wants to hear that from you! They're being put out of the living hell that you put them into." Naofumi countered without a beat.
"How...?" Kyo asked desperate for a way out of this, struggling, which against a shield shaped like a camp fire had been a mistake.
"It never occurred to you that someone who isn't blessed by your 'god' wouldn't have a few tricks of their own up their sleeves did you?" Naofumi's smile was full of malice as Kyo's body was burned further, but he wasn't letting him go yet. "Tell me about them. The 'God' that decided to give you this world." Naofumi tightened his grip as he got down to business.
He was getting to the root of the mess, and as soon as he got there he was dropping a bomb on them.
"She'll... kill... me..." Kyo pleaded as... blood? Something came out of his eyes from the sheer amount of strain being put on him.
"What a coincidence. I was planning on doing the same." Naofumi intensified the flames by sinking a little bit of Ki in to the dark fire, causing Kyo to shriek in pain. "How much do you wanna suffer before then?" Kyo glared at Naofumi, he already gave him a clue when he brought up gender and for that crime alone he could already feel his patron dig her claws into him. So with one spiteful glare Kyo opted for suicide.
"M-AAAGGGHHH!" And so Kyo exploded, knocking Naofumi back into his body in the process as he started working to suck oxygen.
"Well... that was unpleasant." The moment that they were back in friendly territory Naofumi was putting an army of linguists, archaeologists, and whatever other kind of 'gist' there was to figure out who 'M' was and how to stab her repeatedly until she dies.
"Naofumi-sama?" Raphtalia leaned over and sat down in front of Naofumi. "Are you okay?"
"Call off the attacks. Kyo's dead now." As for his surviving victims, Naofumi did what he could, turns out splicing DNA from completely different creatures into your genome hurts a lot: go figure, so he distributed healing potions to the masses. Anti-virals to remove as much of Kyo's gene-splicing as possible, and healing potions to fix as much damage done to their bodies as possible.
Ethanobolt and Raphtalia went off to find Kyo's base and found it under a illusion the Book country. It didn't matter to them how useful the technology he developed could be, they destroyed all of it, the asshole didn't even have the tech to undo what he had done. After that came the exchange of information and technology with their otherworldly allies. At Therise's request Naofumi gave them all of the materials he had on him which unlocked or enhanced crafting for accessories, for Glass he gave her a recipe for a reverse engineered version of the Spirit Potion made using materials of her world as well as materials to unlock potion crafting and enhancement weapons for her fans, for L'Arc a bottle of the highly convenient slave ink to be reverse engineered, for Naofumi he received the magi-tech that turns the Dragon Hourglasses into a teleport network for both the heroes and the masses, the method to manufacture Shikigami's, and you can bet your sorry arse he was taking full advantage of that shit.
"Naofumi Sama. You have that look on your face again." Raphtalia stated by now knowing by heart when Naofumi was scheming something.
She wasn't wrong, the idea of the various churches of this world being demolished and replaced by market squares put a smile on his face, well they'd have to be heavily armed market squares less someone take advantage to do something unsavory, but that was just the price of business.
'Would the Hero's like to be returned to their world now?'
"Is everything going to be okay with us just taking the Katana with us when we go?" Naofumi asked looking at Raphtalia's weapon suspiciously.
'The Vassal Katana will be returned to it's rightful resting place when it's no longer in use.'
"Well that's ominous." Raphtalia commented looking a little bit concerned with the notification that the weapon had sent her. Everyone accompanied the returning other worlder's into the sky, Naofumi somehow ended up cooking a going away party for them. Finally they were high enough in the air for this to work.
"You guys going to be okay gathering XP for that Demon Dragon Prick?" Naofumi asked looking at the group questioningly.
"Don't worry about us!" L'Arc stated fist pumping and showing off bulging muscle that was in no way human.
"You've done more than enough for us as it is." Therese stated wearing the proof of that statement on her body.
"For the time being you need to return to the world that you left and work to resolve the crisis over there." Glass stated a genuine smile on her features. "Stopping the wave from this end holds no real meaning if we end up linking back to that world in the first place."
"Appreciate the concern. Kizuna, you know what to do if they try and shove you back into that cage again?" Naofumi asked cocking a amused brow at Kizuna.
"Oh don't worry." Kizuna tossed a bundle of bio-plant seeds up and down in the air. "I'm just glad you finally made those three knuckle heads listen for once."
Meanwhile down below on the surface.
"Well, that event came out of left field." Itsuki commented watching as the wave-like portal for the other world opened up and Naofumi's group jumped through.
"Still that was a nice power up we all got." Ren commented looking down at his sword.
"New Game + bonus." Motoyasu stated the look on his face someone who just learned a new feature for his favourite game. "It must be, there's no other logical explanation."
"Welp. I'm going back to Jewel to get ready for the waves to hit again." Itsuki stated as he headed off for the boat.
"Better get ready, New Game + means stronger and nastier versions of enemies from before." Ren stated as he went on his own way as well. "I'm looking forward to all the good times I already had." Motoyasu stated as he fondly remembered his first couple of nights in this world before the waves picked up in intensity.
The three Legendary weapons appeared to let out a exhausted sigh as they left with their ignorant idiots.
Review Section:
ReviewDJW: Sorry you're not enjoying things.
RonaldM40196867: True. I'm hoping we'll get to see a more direct confrontation between the one currently behind the waves and our heroes.
1736248319: Not really. The cursed series eat away at their users either correcting them of their defects or killing them with their curses. It seems like a highly effective way for a weapon to dispose of users they don't like.
Nightshadegirl: Answering the most non-spoilery question first: at the moment Filo is not a Filolial, when she travelled to the other side, for reasons I don't entirely know either but I assume was the writer's decision, she got transformed into a creature native to that world called a Humming Falcon.