Chapter 16: Explosive Resolve
It was now morning in Melromarc's capital. It was a confusing and conflicting time for the citizens of the city, after all of the fighting last night and the large army now occupying the city and castle, it was hard for everyone to have a cohesive mind.
And the rumors have already spread on the King's disappearance and the ones controlling the area and the occupying army was none other than General Richeart and Lord Reichnott. Many are concluding that Reichnott has overthrown Aultcray and has taken over the kingdom for himself. But what does that leave there Queen who is not back yet?
People continued to gossip all morning about all of this, lacking any answers. That was until the citizens have been requested by the guards and public messagers to be gather at the areas where groups of mage soldiers were holding onto crystal balls.
Many concluded that Lord Reichnott himself now wants to set things straight from a crystal ball message that will be broadcast throughout the kingdom.
Once enough people gathered around the mages they finally began to activate the crystal balls that projected large images up high in the air for everyone to see, and within the projections was the inside of Melromarcs throne room with Lord Reichnott himself standing up in front of the 2 monarch throne chairs.
After pushing up his glasses Reichnott finally spoke from the broadcast, "Dear people of Melromarc, I'm sure you might've been hearing rumors about what happened last night at the capital and are wondering what is going on at your seat of government. To set things straight, it is true, Me, the army, and the rest of Melromarc's nobility have indeed enacted a coup, and King Aultcry is no longer the sovereign regent of this nation, while he is not dead and had escaped from the authorities along with Princess Malty and the cardinal bow and spear heroes, he no longer holds any power here in Melromarc anymore."
With the numerous crowds all across the country hearing this, many groups of people were already gossiping on the news with them discussing how some of the rumors were confirmed to be true. It wasn't surprising to some people though, like Sir Erhart at the capital, "I figure the old king had pushed everyone's buttons too much. If he couldn't stop the shield or sword hero, I doubt he had a chance against the rest of the kingdom." he says out loud to himself.
Back at the projection broadcast Reichnott continued, "I know some of you are wondering if I did this out of my own ambition to take over the kingdom after overthrowing our old ruler. Well I'm here to answer that can't be any further from the truth. I and the rest of the Nobles and land leaders of this country have agreed that Aultcray and his insane bias mind and pride have made him too dangerous to be allowed in power anymore, from him trying to declare a major war in the middle of the wave crisis with little evidence, wanting to start a civil war on the nation who wouldn't agree with his insanity, and attempting to arrest the sword hero to enslave him. But I'm sure some of you still don't believe me, thinking I'm making things up. Well then, let me show you some moments of how your king runs his nation."
Reichnott then signaled a knight with a crystal ball to come forth to be front and center of the magical broadcasting. He then activated the magic ball and it began to show various moving images and voices of Aultcray from the noble assembly meeting where he threatens on arresting the opposing nobles and wanting to start a civil war, as well as throwing the sword hero under the bus for not agreeing to join the war with him and the other heroes, the other nobility meeting a few days ago where Aultcray continues to antagonize the noble leaders and yells at General Richeart to send all the escaped human slaves back to Siltvelt, and last was from a crystal ball that was found last night in the meeting room where Aultcray and the bow and Spear heroes were discussing on where to find and capture the sword hero than afterward somehow enslave him.
This continued to spread even louder gossip among the people of Melromarc as they watch on as the once-proud King that saved their nation before, had now become a tyrannical warmongering madman, with Erhart himself shaking his head to all of this.
After that was done, the soldier holding the orb got himself out of the broadcast, Reichnott comes into the picture once again to say more, "I'm sorry you had to see such things from your former King, but this is now the true side of your once great hero. Some of you still probably don't trust me on this and still think this is a hostile takeover of the country. Well then, I say if you can't take my word for it, allow the true ruler of this nation to explain. Here is her Majesty, Queen Mirella of Melromarc."
Everyone was now surprised to hear that the Queen was going to speak despite the fact they haven't heard of her coming back to the country yet. So they wonder how this was going to be the case.
Reichnott then moves away from the broadcast and once more another Knight with a different crystal ball comes fourth and this time places the ball on one of the throne chairs.
The ball then activates itself and after a few seconds out came the image of a beautiful Noblewoman, with dark purple hair and eyes and a high crown on her head. It was indeed the Queen of Melromarc herself, Mirellia Melromarc.
And through the crystal ball the Queen finally speaks to her nation, "Dear people of Melromarc, I apologize for being gone for so long in such dire times. This is due to the acts of former King-consort Aultcray Melromarc, I was forced to remain outside the country to help protect Melromarc from war breaking out with the other major powers. I would've addressed this to all of you a lot sooner, but after the death of the true regent lord Seaetto, Aultcray took his place without my permission and had taken control of the country and ruled it unfairly and incompetently. While at the same time was manipulated by my spoiled and ambitious daughter Princess Malty who herself is guilty of many crimes against the nation. The two of them have done no good for this country and all of their actions will be condoned. As of this moment, I declare Aultcray and Malty Melromarc as traitors and fugitives of the crown. There is now a bounty of 100 gold for both of their captures and will later be sentence for their crimes. Anyone who dares help or protect them in any way will also be arrested and will be sentenced for the crime which will range from life in prison or to even execution. I'm afraid to also apply this with the Spear Hero Motoyasu and the Bow hero Itsuki, if you two are listening to this message now or later. If you wish to not suffer from the major consequences from this event I recommend you to stop this game with those two and hand them over to the law, if not then you may suffer from similar punishments as the two traitors. I also want to state as of now, any insane crimes or charges Aultcray and Malty set up for the Shield hero Bakugou or the Sword hero Ren before will be completely dropped and will be given full pardons, if you two are listening as well, I am on your sides and wish to help you both in any way I can, and I'm deeply sorry for what my family has done to the both of you."
There was now more gossip and talk amongst the people of Melromarc as their Queen confirmed all of Reichnott's points.
After taking a deep breath Mirella then finishes up her speech, "Thankfully people of Melromarc, I am almost done from where I'm at now and will be returning in person soon. Until then I officially appoint Lord Reichnott as the new regent of the realm and I want all of you to respect him and his authority as of now. And any who don't will be answering to me. Bless all of you and may Melromarc's scars finally heal." Mirella finishes as the crystal ball turns itself off.
After that Reichnott appears on the magical projection once more, "As her Majesty said before, any who can provide help or advice to track down Aultcray and Malty will be granted a 100 gold reward for their service. But other than that, I wish all of you to go back to your normal lives again, I hope to not change anything major or abuse my power as Aultcray has done before. Bless all of you and may Melromarc grow stronger and prosper together." Reichnott finally finishes speaking as the image on his end turns off, ending the nationwide magic-powered broadcast.
While there continued to be a lot of gossiping from most of the townsfolk across the nation. They all took the word of their queen and her new regent and went back to their normal lives. All intending to respect their regents authority, and will now be on the lookout for Aultcray, Malty, and the Bow and Spears heroes.
And in all the towns around the country, the soldiers and guards were already tearing down any wanted posters of the shield hero and his team, as well as the sword hero and his bird monster. Now being replaced with wanted posters of the former king, princess, and the fallen cardinal heroes and their team members.
Things have now radically changed in Melromarc as the search for their former king and princess continues.
Back at Melromarc's castle in the capital, Reichnott after finishing up the broadcast walks away from the throne room toward Aultcray's former advisor who had fully defected from the King's side.
The advisor speaks up toward his regent, "That was quite the address, hopefully the people will understand it."
Reichnott nods toward the advisor and the two walk down a hallway, "It's better they know the truth now than to keep them in the dark with secrets and lies. But the most important task now is to arrest Aultcray and Malty before they try to flee the country. Are there any updates on that front?" he asks the advisor.
But the advisor just shakes his head in disappointment, "Unfortunately no luck so far, the most we have is some reports of people who might have seen them fleeing into the forest last night during the coup, but we haven't gotten any other word sense then. But the border is already being enforced at the very least, General Richeart is making sure of it as well as making sure the rest of the military is doing what they are order to do without protest, and stamp out any those in the ranks who still support Aultcray or the two other heroes."
Reichnott still didn't like that they have no leads on the king's whereabouts, but he knew they must prevent him leaving the nation at any costs to prevent any war from breaking out, especially with the Demi-human nation's, that Siltvelt will no doubt latch on to support with any sort of excuse to go to war with Melromarc, "That's disappointing, but at least he won't have any support for a countercoup or a rebellion to take his throne back. But speaking of heroes, what of the reports of the sword heroes whereabouts?"
"Just as the same, we have no idea where he vanished to after his reported appearance at the Rabier territories." the advisor explained.
Reichnott then asked, "What of Pope Balmus, and the church?"
"The main cathedral is still being occupied by our forces, but the only ones there is the small group of church members giving the same answers as to where the rest of the church members are at. This also seems to be the case with almost all of the churches around the nation with most empty now, with the priests and those who directly work for the churches are of on there journeys to pay their respects to the supposedly still injured Pope Balmus. But they won't say where or for how long they will be gone." the advisor explains.
Reichnott still didn't like any of this and suspects the church of something, he will have to inform his queen of this later once there is more information to bother her with. He then changed the subject to ask, "What of the status of the refugees?"
"General Richeart sent off reinforcements to help out in the camps, and many lords are already offering places to live at for a good number of them, though in my opinion, we may have to start up some new towns just to give many of them a place to live at." the advisor answers.
The two were continuing their discussion of other affairs until they were near the main hall toward the entrance of the castle, as the army led by lady Seaetto Enclair now mostly recovered from her malnutrition were cleaning up the area from the intense battle last night where so many loyalist knights gave up there lives pointlessly to protect their mad king.
He then heard, "Master Reichnott!", the newly appointed regent turns around toward the sound and smiles once again to be seeing his protegee's Raphtalia, Rifana, and a newly dressed Kiel finally making it to the capital.
It was still an odd sight for the knights to be seeing Demi-humans in Melromarc dressed up like this, but other than some odd stares the knights had kept to themselves and continued their work.
Once Raphtalia and her friends were right up to her teacher. Reichnott himself kneels and hugs Raphtalia, "It's good to see you 3 again. I hope you had a smooth journey."
"We did sir, but are you sure we're allowed in the castle?" Kiel asked as he looked around to see some dirty faces from some of the soldiers.
Reichnott then nods happily, "Of course you three are welcomed here. What better way to know politics than at the nation's seat of government. From now on, your three's studies will take place here. But I won't be your only teacher." he then signaled Enclair as the noble swordfighter heads her way to Reichnott and the group of young demi-humans.
Enclair makes it up to the group as she smiles down at the 3 properly dressed Demi-humans, "So you're the three apprentices that Reichnott told me about. It's a pleasure to meet all of you." she welcomes and kneels to them with respect.
Then both Raphtalia and Rifana bowed with their dresses back at the noble warrior, Kiel did the same with a delayed reaction still getting used to this kind of formality stuff.
After the 3 apprentices and Enclair finished their greetings there eyes went back to Reichnott as he pushed his glasses, "While you 3 train with me in the castle on governance and politics, Enclair will train you more in the art of combat and advance your levels, more than I ever could."
Enclair nods back approving of the decision, "Of course, I'll help and teach you three how to be proper fighters. But I won't push you too hard, I know you are still kids at heart."
Raphtalia and Rifana nod in approval of this, wanting to learn how to defend themselves with a master.
Kiel though was looking around the room and he notices some of the knights were looking back at him and his friends with distaste or disgust with the fact demi-humans were wandering in the castle and not as enslaved servants or were just turning their heads away from the three like they were nothing. It made Kiel nervous still remembering his experience from Rabiers clutches, "Are you sure we will be okay here? Wouldn't we be better off back at the estate?" Kiel expresses concern with Raphtalia and Rifana feeling bad for their friend understanding his distrust of this place.
Reichnott saw it too and decided to kneel himself down on a knee to comfort the scared child, "I understand why you don't feel comfortable here Kiel. But I promise you will not be harmed under my watch. Unlike many other nobles, I will not tolerate anyone who looks down or tries to harm you in any way. If anyone whether it be a servant, noble, or a soldier does or says anything that hurts you, I'll be sure they will be answering to me and will be punished severely." he comforts the demi-kid as he moves up his head with a stern expression out toward the knights, they could tell the new Regent meant it to them and quickly took it to heart in fear of what he might do to them if they did or say anything to the demi-humans.
Kiel felt a little better though he still looked nervous, which made Reichnott continue his talk, "I know you're still scared, but that's part of the reason we're here, to set an example for the rest of the kingdom, whether human or demi-human, we are all living beings that should not be treated like cattle. One of the reasons Raphtalia wanted to be my protege was to grow herself and to one day help more children like you, her, and Rifana to never suffer or fear so much ever again, to bring a bright future to everyone. But if you truly don't feel comfortable being here Kiel, you're free to go back to my estate at any time, your not my slave, and I will not force you to be here."
Kiel started to feel better about himself again, believing in the kind man's words, while he was still scared he wanted to better himself with his friends and bring change to the future for kids like him to not suffer as they did ever again.
Raphtalia and Rifana then went up to hug Kiel slightly surprising the kid, "Don't worry Kiel, this time we'll be together and we'll also grow alongside one another. If we can learn to fight for ourselves, we won't have to worry about such evil men again. Let's learn to get stronger for our village." Raphtalia inspires Kiel which made him shed a tear in happiness to have such good and comforting friends as he embraces their hug.
After the hug finished Kiel finally gained his smile back and was now more motivated than ever, "Yes, let's all get stronger together. For not just us, but for all the future kids all over Melromarc or maybe even the world."
After that, the group playfully laugh together.
Reichnott then pushed up his glasses once more as he smiles, "Ok then, let me give you three a tour of the castle and where you will be residing at, and what your schedules for training be." he finishes as the 3 demi-kids nod together in approval and the group move on from the castle gates for there tour of Melromarc's castle.
Out in a forest in the middle of Melromarc was a camp of resting fugitives. The fugitives are none other than Aultcray, Itsuki, Motoyasu, and their respective parties. Setting up a camp once more to rest and eat.
They were all exhausted and tired from all the traveling since last night. They only had a few hours of sleep, sleep that had to be done on the cold ground with dirt and bugs without any soft pillowing, none of them bothered to equip themselves with sleeping bags, tents, or anything practical as they were used to sleeping at expensive inns with beds. It was a miserable time for all of these privileged former aristocrats and spoiled heroes.
They were all around in a circle of a cooking pot as Motoyasu distributes bowls with food he made himself. As they discuss what they were going to do.
Aultcray was the first to speak up, "Ok we've gained a lot of ground, we should be a good distance from any troops. But we must not drop our guards now, we are still a few days away from the border. About a half an hour after we finish eating we'll head out again to make up for lost time."
"Father! We've been on the move all night and only had 3 hours of sleep. We must get our energy restored or when we do encounter the traitor's forces, we will not be at our best to fight!" Malty whines, already missing her luxury life, even she would prefer to sleep at a budgeted inn than spend this long in the woods and sleeping on the ground.
Aultcray just shakes his head in disapproval, "I'm afraid we can't stop now my dear, if we are to save your sister and clear our names we can't waste too much time and risk Reichnotts forces catching up."
Malty then pouts in anger again, 'Melty this! Melty that! I can't believe this whole damn thing still revolves around that stupid brat! If there is anything to benefit from this insane quest, I'll get to kill that tiny brat myself and the crown will be guaranteed mine!' she yells in her mind in anger.
Motoyasu didn't like any of this either, especially since he and his party now lacked any sort of privacy with Itsuki and his party. But he respected Mynes father too much to complain, as well as thinking doing so would upset Myne, when the opposite was the truth.
Itsuki on the other hand was happy to complain out loud, "Well I'm getting tired myself of the constant traveling when we don't even have a solid plan in mind. What is even our strategy anyway when we get to Siltvelt to kick Bakugou's ass and save the princess?" Itsuki himself was starting to doubt the King, he may have joined in on this plan just to get away from the authorities and get revenge on Bakugou and later on Ren, but their lack of any sort of plan when they get to Siltvelt was making him impatient with there suppose expert strategist.
Aultcray sighs, starting to grow tired of these young people constantly complaining about this whole journey, he never felt this much resistance back in his cane hero days with his comrades, "I'll think of something when we get into the damned country itself, it's been ages since I ever set foot there, so I imagine a lot has changed so it might take time for us to find Melty in that oversized pigpen and rescue her. And if that damned Prime minister and his little council laid a single hand on her, their heads will be reuniting with their old king soon."
"So what your saying is you don't have any actual plan at all. And we are going to be heading into enemy territory blind?!" Itsuki aggressively questions not liking where this whole thing was going.
"When you are at war lord Itsuki, you won't have all the information immediately available to you, there are many factors I have to take account of," Aultcray responds back, still not liking how he is being questioned again despite his strategic mind once saving millions of lives before.
But Itsuki wasn't in the mood for Aultcray's games as he scoops up a spoonful of Motoyasu's stew and eats it, "Of course, but I'm making a big risk going all this way to this nation and you expect me to-... BLLAAAHHHHH!" But suddenly Itsuki's face turned green and immediately pukes out his stomach after swallowing only a single spoonful of Motoyasu's food.
And as if it was on cue, the rest of Itsuki's team either puked or spit out Motoyasu's food in disgust after just taking a single spoonful of it.
Motoyasu himself looked confused, 'What's happening to them? Maybe they all have an allergy to an ingredient I put in?' he rationalized himself, not realizing this had nothing to do with allergies.
After Itsuki finished coughing himself to get the terrible taste of out his mouth, he immediately stares at Motoyasu pissed off, "What the hell was that!? You call that food!?"
"It's beef stew! What the hell was wrong with it!? I'm sorry what I cooked wasn't up to your taste, you shouldn't be so picky, it is a very-OW!" Spear hero defends himself until Itsuki threw his bowl at Motoyasu's face, now covered in his own hot awful food.
"It tastes like rotten garbage mixed with toilet water!" Itsuki yells back.
"How would you even know what toilet water even tastes like unless you actually drank it yourself. Though considering how much of an ass you already are, I wouldn't be surprised if you've dunked yourself in toilet water before!" Motoyasu insults back defending himself, but before he could say more he was forced to dodge three other bowls being thrown at him from the rest of Itsuki's team other than the green-haired girl who just looked sickly from puking out the terrible food.
Motoyasu continued to look angrily at Itsuki and his equally pissed-off crew, "Hey you ungrateful assholes! I was kind enough to make all the food with my own supplies and without the expectation of payment! The least you can do is be grateful for that!"
"Grateful!? If I knew your cooking was this terrible I wouldn't have bothered to take a bite of it! I rather be eating the dirt! It's no wonder why one of your little girlfriends dumped you! She said it herself that she couldn't stand your cooking either!" Itsuki insults back with the last part tugging at Motoyasu heart hard, to be thinking about Rino again.
But despite the dig, he continued to defend himself, "Well maybe it's just your tastebuds that are terrible, I don't know what was up with Rino, but I cooked all the meals for my other girls and they eat all of it without a complaint! Isn't that right Myne?" he turns his head at Malty.
She and the two other girls in his team, Lesty and Elena, were forcibly smiling back, "Of course Sir Motoyasu we always appreciate you cooking for us." Malty lies with the other girls ungenuinely nodding with her. Course little did Motoyasu know while the arguing started she and the other girls had already dumped away the awful stew as they did with every meal Motoyasu makes.
Itsuki sees through the obvious lie easily, "Well I don't care who else thinks about your cooking. I think it's absolute shit and I don't ever want you to cook for me again!"
"Yeah lord Itsuki is right! I lost my appetite now because of your incompetence in making worthy food for us!" The large armored man of Itsuki's team yells out with the rest of Itsuki's team now yelling back at Motoyasu who was getting pissed off at Itsuki again. While the bow hero smugly smiles at the whole thing.
"Enough!" yelled Aultcray now getting involved, "We should not be arguing with each other over something as petty as the taste of food right now! If we are to take on Siltvelt we must stay together and get along. We shouldn't be fighting over trivial things."
While Motoyasu didn't argue with the king, Itsuki and his crew remained silent with an increasing amount of doubt emitting from the bow hero himself, "You don't even have any real plan to take on an entire nation. Why should you even be talking to us like this now?"
"I told you already I'm thinking of something. You can't rush good plans or strategies out like that without them being sloppy or easy to counter back. We must still work as a unit, if we remain divided, our unit will fall apart and all of us could be enslaved or killed off by those animals. I don't want to hear any more about this from the two of you and I expect complete cooperation from now on. Got it!" Aultcray lectures the groups.
But Itsuki was barely tolerating this anymore, 'Says the grand strategist who allowed himself to get overthrown in his own kingdom'. He says in his head.
Now thinking the bow hero had listened Aultcray nods in approval as he takes his spoon to the stew, "Excellent, now after a few more minutes we eat, we'll continue on our way to the border where our next obstacle will be at. We need to still make steady pace to get to the wall before they start to reinforce it more than before by the traitors." he informs the increasingly tired groups as he eats some of the stew.
And instantly regrets it as his face turns green and spits out the food back in his bowl not caring it would ruin the food, "Er... But you know what, for now on, we should cycle through cooks for the rest of our journey together. To maintain comradery of course." Aultcray comes up with trying to make up whatever excuse he could to never experience Motoyasu's terrible cooking ever again.
But even then Motoyasu still looks down disappointed that even his supposedly future father-in-law didn't like his cooking either.
Deep in the dungeons of Siltvelts castle stood up the Shield hero Katsuki Bakugou, still encased in ice with only his head freed after he wakes up from sleeping since getting stuck in it.
Once fully awaked and realizing where he was at, a dark dungeon room with no windows with only torches from the walls providing light, where he also sees numerous guards and mages around keeping an eye on him.
Bakugou immediately struggles to get himself out of there and find and save his sidekicks and friends. But despite all his strength, he is unable to budge out of the thick magic ice. Any sweat he produced almost instantly freezes and his gauntlets were not only still empty, but are also encased in ice preventing Katsuki from using his quirk along with his shield. Thankfully due to the ice's magical nature he won't have to worry about frostbite like normal ice, but it still kept him trapped either way.
His fast travel won't work either since not only is he can considered indoors, but was also surrounded by hostiles, preventing him from just magically traveling elsewhere. Nor did he have access to the map shield anyway with the shield still in ice.
Bakugou continued to yank himself around trying to bust out while yelling and screaming, "You bastards! Come and fight me like a real man!" but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't get out with his guards just watching him struggle.
Bakugou continued to try to force himself out, he was the leader of his team and he knew this whole thing was his fault, he knew it was his responsibility to rectify this whole thing.
Then suddenly the locked cell door of the dungeon opened up, and a figure came in. And once Bakugou had a good look at the figure, he growls in anger as he sees the man responsible for all of this himself.
The Prime Minister of Siltvelt, Trinock. The giant orange Tigerman approached Bakugou with a smug smile on his face as he lowers himself a bit to be right at Bakugou's face as the hero continued to struggle to get out of the ice, "Good to see you again Lord Bakugou, are you enjoying your stay here?" Trinock mocks the hero now happy things have finally gone his way as he continues to watch the pissed-off hero yanking his head around.
"YOU DAMNED STRIPED BASTARD! Get me out of here and fight me you coward!" Bakugou screams wanting to bite the Head of State's whiskered nose off, only to be just out of reach.
Trinock just laughed at him, "Hahaha, not so invincible now hero. You thought you can just come to my Kingdom and attempt to destroy it from the inside out after I spent decades fixing it!? Well look at you now, you're no different than a mad caged monkey like the rest of your kind. And it amuses me to no end."
While Bakugou continues his attempt to bust out of the ice he shouts, "Well what the hell are you going to do to me you living rug!? Your planning on killing your people's God?! Your only means of stopping these waves that I already saved your ass from one before!?"
Trinock just shakes his head in a smug matter, "No, why would we kill off our prized Bull? No matter how ill-tempered or violent it is, it must be put in its place and become docile to his masters."
"Screw you and the damned oligarchs! I'll never be your fucking puppet! You can shove that bullshit back up you damn assholes before I blow it up!"
Trinock just shakes his head again with his smug smile not disappearing anytime soon, "Despite you being a damned human Bakugou, you had the chance to live like a god, I was willing to do anything for you, something I would've never bothered with any other human. And all you did was continually bite the hand that feed you, making a fool out of me! Me! The true power of Siltvelt! Well Shield hero, I'm done trying to be nice to you! Now I shall treat you as I would with any other stupid human."
"Do whatever the hell you what with me you rug! I'll never break to the likes of you! Give me your best shot!"
Trinock just laughed once more, "Hahahaha! Oh I will. I'll break your mind and re-mold it as I want it to be. And this will be the start of it." Trinock then snapped his fingers, "Drag them in." he orders his soldiers.
His men then forcibly bring in three individuals who were struggling with the soldiers while handcuffed and restrained with magic nullifying cuffs and chains. And to Bakugou's horror, these three were none other than Neia, Rino, and Daven out of the ice prisons but still no better than they were before.
"Sir Bakugou!" Neia yells out, as she and Rino attempt to get out of their chains, but it did no good as the Shield hero was forced to look on.
"Let them go you damned bastards! This is between you and me!" Bakugou yells trying to get his sidekicks out of here.
"No Sir Bakugou don't!" Rino then shouts not wanting to abandon her hero and leader.
But Trinock continued his smug grin, "I'm afraid I'm done taking requests for you my Shield hero. I need you to start cooperating with the Siltvelt government, and after your little "surprise" I don't trust you with anything anymore. As I said before I'll remake your mind to be a proper attack dog, one who is obedient to his masters. This will involve taking your toys away."
"Tough love!? Toys away!? What bullshit are you spewing out now!?" Bakugou yells confused with the others confused as well.
Trinock then approaches Neia and Rino, "Simple, an unobedient dog needs to be properly punished. Starting with getting rid of the bad influences. Later today you two will be off for a public execution."
The shield team including Bakugou himself widens their eyes in fearful surprise once they heard that.
"Execution? Today?" Neia remarks now showing some fear in herself, but rather than balling out crying she would've done in the past she continued to show some resolve after being with Bakugou for so long and kept her cool despite the situation.
"You can't do this to us, not without making your government look bad with the people, by killing the shield heroes partners." Rino points out who was also scared but was maintaining her cool like Neia. She still remembers that joke of a trial with Bakugou not long after he got summoned to Melromarc, but in her home country, Bakugou was still seen as the devil, while here in Siltvelt he is supposed to be their god.
Trinock just smiles as he waves his clawed finger back and forth, "Oh the people won't be feeling bad for you when they are informed of the shield heroes companions betraying and poisoning poor Bakugou in his sleep, a plot King Janio and I managed to stop before it was too late, while the shield hero remains in the castle to recover. And who do you think they would believe first, a Melromarc witch and a low caste con artist nobody, or their Prime Minister?"
Bakugou now extremely pissed off to be hearing this, rattles around more to get out, but still doing no good, "YOU LEAVE THEM OUT OF THIS YOU BASTARD! IT'S BETWEEN YOU AND ME!"
Trinock just laughed again, "ha, it's no longer just between you and me, considering they were directly involved in your little slave exodus and putting us in a coma. If they were smart, they should've token my bribe from before and been off on their way over a week ago, and look at what their stubbornness got them into. Same with that little brat who takes after her mother too much."
"Melty!" Neia yelled out when he mentioned the princess, "Where's Melty at!? She's just a little girl, don't involve her in this either!"
Trinock then pointed to a servant with a crystal ball who then approached his prime minister, "A little girl who will be the future ruler of that damn tumor of Melromarc. I will not pass up the opportunity to take her as a war hostage? She is safe for now, but she is long gone out of the castle. She is under an armed convoy toward a fortress far away from any border. She will be taken good care of until we find some use of her, either to be taken advantage of in the war soon or be used as a bargaining chip with the King of Faubrey once he needs a new wife again."
A guard with the crystal ball then showed off the image of Melty looking depressed sitting down in a cage inside of some wagon with chains on her arms to show he wasn't lying.
The Shield team felt even more guilt, to be imprisoned themselves is one thing, but it was another to let a young girl, princess or not to be taken away as a prisoner for just who she was, it made them all sick in their stomachs.
Trinock then waved his hand toward the crystal ball holder to turn the image off, he then turns back to Bakugou, "Oh and that little dragon of yours was also shipped off, like you, he'll be forcible tamed then be breed for his offspring, to have an army of powerful pureblood dragons will make Siltvelt invincible."
"BASTARD! BASTARD!" Bakugou yelled again once more hoping his anger would be enough to get out.
Though Daven thought one thing was off, "And what about me? You didn't mention me being sent off to public execution?"
Trinock then snapped his fingers as 2 different figures from the shadows began walk up toward the rogue, "Of course I didn't forget about you. But since you were once a part of our spy corps, we can't risk making our government look bad, if the people or the other nations know we have weak chains in our own espionage force. No, they'll be handling your punishment themselves, they volunteered to do it." Trinock explains and points to the approaching figures.
And now in the light, the figures were now visible, it was Daven's father Allen, alongside Mellia making their own smug smile similar to Trinocks, "You've been nothing but trouble boy, I figured others would take care of your bad attitude, but that seemed to fail, so I think it is our time to properly disciple you. That is if you live through it anyway." Allen mocks his son, with Davens only reaction was to stare back in contempt of the two.
Another figure came in from the shadows to reveal the shield crew to be King Janio himself.
Trinock then looks back at the struggling shield hero, "You're docile therapy will start now. King Janio will be supervising you while I set up the public executions, you'll also be his entertainment until we can get him some more slaves during the war soon."
King Janio nods in agreement, "Sounds perfect, I'll be sure to supervise the shield monkey very well. Haha." he then mocks the hero
Trinock then continued, "I'll be sure you will see the beheadings yourself from a crystal ball, now that be torture, to watch on display of your failures. I call it good karma. Hahahaha!"
"NO! NO! DAMN YOU! DAMN YOU!" Bakugou screams once more struggling to bust out.
Trinock then waved his hand toward some guards as Bakugou continued to scream, "Ok, I think I've had about enough of this, shut him up now."
And with the order two mage guards began producing and then fires electricity magic on Bakugou to force him to stop. The magic ice made Bakugou feel the full pain of the electricity that was passing through his various resistances, "AHhhhh!" Bakugou yells in pain as the mages continue as this would be the start of Bakugou's "therapy" to mold his mind in the Siltvelt governments favor.
"Have fun Janio." Trinock says to his king now satisfied with his gloating, Trinock then turns his way out the exit, "Take them away as well." he orders referring to the sidekicks.
"No! NO! SIR BAKUGOU! SIR BAKUGOU!" Neia yells but despite her, Rino's, and Daven's own struggling, the three were dragged off away from the dungeon with Neia and Rino together, while Daven was sent off to where his father intends to have good "fun" with him in private.
The shield team was now forcibly torn apart as Bakugou continues to be electrocuted. But the pain on the outside does not compare to the pain inside of him, of his soul, 'Why?... Why?... Why am I now so weak? How did I fail to save them? Why was I ever dragged here in the first place? Why am I even the shield if I can't protect anybody with it?!'
Far from outskirts of Siltvelts capital, in a mountainous valley region with numerous high cliffs around the roads, with some wild filolia's grazing the area, a large covered wagon convoy was being hauled with 4 horses under the control of a coachman wiping them, along with numerous soldiers riding on horses on their way to their destination with their package.
And the package was none other than the princess of Melromarc herself Melty, still chained up in a cage and looked depressed. She was saddened to be in this state as a war prisoner, but she was sadder to know what has happened to her friends, Bakugou, Rino, Kirishima, Daven, and even Neia who she had just reconciled with were now all prisoners and judging what some of her guards were discussing earlier they were being set for execution today. The thought of it all started to make her cry as she starts sniffing and tears up.
"Oh shut up you brat! I'm bored as it is! I don't need to hear your whining!" The guard in the wagon yelled at Melty, who was another large rhino demi-human who was in the cart with her to keep an eye on the princess while she was stuck in the cage. The Rhinoman may like that this job will get him a big payday for just keeping an eye on the highly valuable prisoner, who was just some child, but at the same time, he was tired after he spent most of last night playing cards with his buddies and just wanted to sleep.
And fearing for the guard's wrath, Melty was forced to suck it up and not be as loud, which didn't help her mood at all, and still felt awful inside.
"Hey don't lay a finger on her while she is caged up! Or I'll kick your fatass off the cliffs myself!" Yelled the coachman of the wagon, a bull demi-human who was in charge of transporting the valuable prisoner and the job alone will get him lots of money and prestige that he wasn't going to lose on from a random lazy guard.
The Rhino guard shrugs and decided to go back to sleep. While Melty continues to sulk in her sadness.
After a few more minutes of traveling the coachman was approaching near a large bridge where they will be able to bypass a large canyon that goes down hundreds of feet deep with a river at the bottom.
The coachman was eager to pass knowing his task was on its way to be done, "Perfect, once we pass the bridge it will only be 2 days until we're at the prison, and the brat will be off my back and I can finally get that new beach house I wanted. This job isn't as bad as I.. What the!?"
The coachman was in shock once he got a clear view of the area bridge and saw numerous soldiers and nobles gathered around the start of the bridge setting up barricades and traps for whatever reason. He wasn't sure what was going on, but he knew he won't like it at all.
Once near the start of the bridge, the coachman and the surrounding guards were forced to stop. The coachman then the soldiers under his control jump off their horses and the wagon cart, all but Melty's sleeping rhinoman guard.
The coachman with his small army of guards then march their way to a white tiger man Hakuko noble who looked to be the one coordinating the whole thing.
The coachman finally spoke out, "What in the hell is going on here!? What are you doing to the bridge!?"
The tigerman looked back that the coachman unamused, "You'll refer to me as Lord Syne, and we're trying to kill a demon lord here, don't waste my time with whatever you're here for."
The coachman was baffled by that answer, "Wha..what?! A demon lord, what in the hell are you even talking about?!"
"The sword demon was recently discovered in Siltvelt, thanks to the Lord of Selope getting the word out. Almost all the local lords including me and our men have been trying to kill him all night and we got word he is heading his way toward this bridge. So once he finally gets his ass here, we'll have him cornered and as he crosses the bridge itself, Boom! He's vaporized. Killing the demon bastard for good, our names will go down in history, and the display of force will get our peasants back in their places." Lord Syne answered back.
But the coachman just rolls his eyes thinking he is dealing with a zealot nutjob, one he doesn't have time to deal with, "Ok whatever, just let me and my men pass through the bridge and you can get back to whatever you're doing to kill the "sword demon".".
"Absolutely not! We already set up most of the magic traps on this old thing. You'll fuck it all up and destory the bridge before the sword demon shows up." Syne responds back
"Well then turn them off and turn them back on when we get across, I don't have time to deal with this nonsense!"
"Do you have any idea how much mana we applied on these traps? It'll be all wasted if we just "turn them off". Just leave and go find another way to your destination."
"Are you kidding me! It'll take me 2 days just to get down from the canyons and it will take me 3 more days to get back on track to the main road to the prison! I'm not wasting 5 extra days of my life because you want to kill this stupid sword demon, who is probably just some human shit flinging prankster!"
"I could care less of what you think, you're of lower caste than me anyway, so I and the rest of the nobles here can just ignore you. And that's what I'm doing now."
"For your information, I'm on an important mission by the order of the Prime Minister of Siltvelt himself! If you don't cooperate now, you're going to be suffering from his wrath soon!"
"Do whatever, I and no one else here is still going to change our minds. We are not going to let this opportunity pass us because of some grass-eating whiner who has no business in bothering his superior."
The coachman finally groans to himself as he orders one of his guards around, "Get me the damn crystal ball!? If this fool won't listen to me, I'll get Trinock himself on here and mr. "I'm your superior" will be answering to him!"
While the coachman tries to get in contact with Trinock, all of his men remain on guard watching over the other soldiers under the control of the nobles who were doing the same, standing their ground with watchful eyes at each other, standing and remaining vigilant if the lords or the coachman tried anything on each other.
But as the coachman's guards contiuned to keep their eye on the other soldiers, they had been ignoring their important package. Which Melty was noticing herself as she looks out through the bars of her wagon's cell window. She can see that they were not looking in this direction anymore and were busy with their little situation while the horses were left unattended, including one horse at the back near the wagon's door that would be out of sight of the guards.
She knew this would be extremely risky, but Melty knew this could be her only chance to escape and allow her to get back to the capital and find a way to save her friends.
The only issue now was her chains and cage, but as she turns to her only sleeping guard, she saw the keys to her chains and cell just laying out on his side. Melty knew she would be in a lot of trouble if her guard wakes up and sees what she was doing, but if she was going to escape, the princess had to get out now.
After one more look outside to make sure the guards were still distracted as the coachman was struggling to get the crystal ball to work, Melty slowly tiptoed as far as she could on the chains. Her hands were out of reach with the chains, but thankfully her feet weren't chained up as she was careful to extend one foot out through her caged bars as she gets her small shoe to go through the large key chain ring, being as slow and careful as possible while the rhinoman snored a storm.
Melty gently yanks the key chain ring away from the sleeping guard, she had a close call with the yank nearly waking the guard up, but he quickly went back to sleep as she remained quiet again for a few seconds.
And after that she quickly but quietly started using the keys to unlock her chains and once out of them she went up and unlocked the door of the cell. She then tiptoed out, with the last key she being used to open the wagon's back door.
After a quick look around outside, she leaves the wagon quickly and went up toward the unattended horse and pet it gently, "It's okay little one, we're going to be leaving now. Just let me on and we're out of here." she talks softly to it so the horse wasn't alarmed as she then climbs herself on it.
While that was happening the coachman was getting aggravated as the crystal ball was acting up as he repeatedly hits the orb, "Why won't this damned thing work! It worked earlier to show the brat off, why won't it work now when I actually need it! Turn on!"
The crystal ball's magic inside then starts to go crazy as it blinks on and off until it started making a loud screeching sound that hurts some of those with sensitive ears in the area.
It was also loud enough to wake up the rhino guard in the wagon. While still tired he quickly saw something was wrong, as he noticed his prisoner was gone with the cage open having only just empty chains in it, but as he looked forward he realized what was going on as the prisoner he was supposed to watch was now on a horse and was ready to escape.
"Oh shit!" The guard yells now fully awake and alert. Which Melty hears to her horror.
"Get back here you brat!" the guard yells as he runs up toward the princess to grab her.
But Melty knowing a bit about horses hit hers on the right spot, with it neighing, and just right before the rhino man could grab her, the horse kicks with its back legs with its metal horseshoes at the large rhinomand face that knocked him away from Melty.
Dazed in deep pain from the kick with broken facial bones and losing some of his teeth, the rhino man falls back and slams on the wagon floor now knocked out cold. And with the large fall causing a lot of noise Melty knew that was her signal to get out of here right now. She grabs onto the horse's reigns and makes the horse gallop away down the road as fast as possible.
And the loud crash from the wagon did alert the coachman and his guard as they turn themselves back toward the noise, "What in the... OH NO THE GIRL!", the coachman screams as he witnesses Melty making a run for it on a horse, making him drop the crystal ball as it shatters, "After her! Now! NOW!" he screams at his men as he and the guards rush for there horses and the coachman on his wagon.
With them all turning themselves around they then start the chase to recapture their escaping prisoner. All but one, as the unconscious rhino guard falls out of the wagon's open back and was left behind still out cold.
As they got out of sight, the noble Tigerman Syne sighs in relief, "Finally they're gone, now we need to.."
"The Sword demon is here! The Sword demon is here!" shouted a soldier across the bridge signaling his superiors.
The white Tigerman quickly smiles at this news, "Perfect timing, now time for the death of a demon lord!"
"Keep firing! Keep firing!" shouted the leader of a force of horse riders as they continue to chase the "sword demon".
And the so-called sword demon himself Ren Amaki and his queen filolial Scarlet continues to dodge all of the constant attacks while continually running away from the chasing troops.
They had literally been doing this all night, it started just with the lord of Selope and his men chasing them. Then slowly but gradually a bunch of new lords and their men began to show up and pursue. The soldiers and nobles had all been determined to kill them without any sort of hesitation.
The sword team were getting tired of it, but they persist, Ren had before done a few all-nighters back in his old world so being up all night was nothing new to him and birds don't need too much sleep to begin with, so Scarlet's health wasn't that effected either, but even the two knew they had their limits and hoped they finally get to Bakugou soon and hope to the gods he or his party will cooperate with them and help stop these nutjobs.
They continued to run on the roads that were heading toward the direction to where Fitoria pointed toward and hoped they are getting near to Siltvelts capital, which no doubt means an even bigger army is there to greet them. Ren shutters to the thought of it, but he wasn't stopping now, not after he and Scarlet come this far, after his promise to Fitoria.
Soon enough they were finally now out of the woods and are now at a giant canyon gorge area with what appears to be a single bridge to allow anyone to cross the canyon. Course he also sees the numerous soldiers that were awaiting him at the end of the bridge. Ren knew this was no doubt a trap, but as he looks at his sides he also saw numerous barricades and fortifications on both sides and behind him was still that large squadron of soldiers chasing him down, he knew going through the bridge was his only option no matter how obvious a trap it was.
Course who was to say he needed to run across the bridge normally, and Ren knew it, "Scarlet jump to the side of the bridge and cling on the metal pillars!"
"Yes master Ren!" Scarlet responds and on the edge of the cliff near the bridge, the bird monster jumps away from the ground and with her wind magic blows herself on the side of the bridge and clings on the metal pillars as the two continue to run on the sides of the bridge and ignored all the traps in it.
The same can't be said on many of Ren's pursuers, who continued to chase Ren on the bridge proper as they kept up the chase, unfortunately for them, they've been activating every trap on the bridge that range from explosions, spikes, fireballs, bees, etc that injured, maimed, or killed the stubborn pursuers.
This greatly angered Lord Syne along with the other nobles and their men as they watched their hard work be wasted. As Syne watches the Sword hero getting closer to the other side, "Damn it all!" he shouts then turns his head to a group of mages, "Activate the bombs! See if the sword demons little birdy can fly!"
And with that order, the mages then casted the spells which will activate the various magical bombs set up under the bridge.
And in just a few seconds the bombs finally began to go off,
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
One bomb after the other began to destroy the bridge as each one compromises the stability of the structure.
Ren quickly saw what was going on and pointed toward the cliffside, "Scarlet! Jump there now!" he shouts with Scarlet immediately following it through as she jumps away from the metal pillar of the bridge's side as it gets consumed in flames by another bomb.
Eventually, the damage was enough to destroy the bridge's support and the flaming bridge then crumbles apart with the entire thing collapsing down into the deep canyon below, with any of the surviving pursuers falling to their deaths with it.
But despite the bridge collapse and the distance from the cliff, Scarlet had barely reached the end of the side of a cliff as Ren clings on her collar for dear life while still being a good distance away from the top of the cliff.
Lord Syne continued his mission to kill the sword demon, "Pelt this bastard with whatever you have, now!" he orders, and from the edges on top of the cliff his men started attacking the two heroes, now shooting arrows and magic attacks at the clinging bird as Scarlet continues to dodge them despite how dangerous of a position they are in as she runs up the cliff.
And on the other side of the gorge, the soldiers there were doing the same trying to hit the sword demon across the canyon wall.
Ren was about done with all of this though, "Thunder blade!" he shouts and with his sword, he lets out a lightning attack with his sword and blasts below the cliff of the soldiers on the other side.
The attack destroys the ground of the cliff's edge and crumbles, sending most of those soldiers to their deaths as they fall into the deep canyon.
"Master Ren, I thought we weren't supposed to kill the soldier guys?" Scarlet asked remembering her master's order.
"Well I didn't kill them, gravity did. let's just get out of this canyon already." Ren makes up his excuse, he was honestly just getting tired of all the damn chasing and holding himself back, he was happy for fewer maniac soldiers to worry about. He hoped though this won't affect his chances of getting to Bakugou, but it would be something he had to deal with later. Right now, he just wanted to not be holding for dear life hundreds of feet away from the ground.
Scarlet continues her way up as she still avoids the attacks or are blocked off and deflected with Ren's sword.
The soldiers were getting nervous as the sword demon closes in on them. But the Tigerman noble had one more card to play, "Pour down the boiling oils!" he orders with his men picking up several large pots of said boiling oil.
They then did what they were told and dumped the various pots of hot oil down the cliff.
Scarlet was able to avoid the boiling liquid as they were being poured down, she was avoiding the parts with the boiling liquid still sticking onto the cliff.
But then the soldiers on top either fired flame arrows or flame magic at the oiled parts of the cliff, causing intense fires to appear on the canyon sides.
Ren had made Scarlet avoid the intense fires, but it bottlenecks them at one part of the canyon as the soldiers continue to fire down with Ren and Scarlet having less room to dodge it all.
But Scarlet was approaching the top of the cliffside finally allowing the two to escape this death area.
Fearing was approaching the nobles and their soldiers, Lord Syne quickly turns himself again as he goes for his last resort, "Pour the last pot of oil down! He won't have any room left to dodge this!" He orders his soldiers as they pick up the last large pot of oil.
But Ren was close enough to the clifftop to hear that and knew what they were doing.
Ren wasn't sure what the direct repercussions of this will be to able to get an audience with Bakugou, but at this point combined with his tiredness, he was about done with this nonsense.
He sees the men finally bring the pot at the cliff and were about to pour it down on the sword hero.
But before they could, Ren raises his sword out and shouts "Thunder blade!" and lets out his energy attack.
Lord Syne knew what that was and jump away, "Hit the deck!"
Boom!
Ren's attack combined with the flammable oil explode the top of the cliff, either knocking away the soldiers or sending a few falling to their deaths down the cliffs, "Is this gravity's fault again master Ren?" Scarlet asked.
"No this time it's self-defense, I don't regret it at this point." He responds, but knew after that he'll have to be more conservative about his kills or he might never get an audience with Bakugou.
Finally, the two get on top of the cliff and continue with their run to get to Siltvelt's capital and to get away from their pursuers.
And said pursuers including lord Syne after they recovered themselves from the explosion, they were not going to give up the hunt for the sword demon yet, "Get on the horses now! And don't let this bastard get away!" the lord yells as he and his remaining men run off to there horses to continue the chase of the sword demon.
Ren and Scarlet themselves continue to run deciding to now avoid the main road to get away from any more of these pursuers but to still keep on heading in the direction of toward the capital.
But then suddenly a group of wild filolial gathered in front of Ren and Scarlet, forcing them to stop as the two stared at the birds with curiosity, "Scarlet what are they doing?"
"I don't know?" She responds just as confused as Ren.
One of the birds began squawking toward a direction and it and the rest of the flock head the same way, "I think they want us to follow them." Scarlet concludes.
Ren still wasn't sure if he should bother especially with his pursuers going to gain ground soon. But then he remembers Fitoria again, and recalls that she has command over many of the world's wild filolial's, 'Could this be something from there queen?' he thinks to himself.
He then quickly decided to follow the wild filolials. Eventually, the wild filolial's lead them to the edge of a cliff that looks down to the main roads again, that was also surrounded by other high cliffs that could mean death to those who accidentally fall off of them.
Ren still wasn't sure what the point of this was until he sees the wild filolials pointing in a particular direction. Ren turns toward where they were pointing at and from a distance he saw what looks to be another chase of a lone horse rider with a wagon coach and a large squadron of soldiers pursuing it.
It was a familiar sight to him as that has basically been him the past day, but he can't tell who was being chased from how far they were. Ren quickly takes up his binoculars he got from the supplies the Melromarc Queens shadow gave him. He looks into them and looks back at the person being chased.
"What do you see master Ren?" Scarlet asked with curiosity.
"It looks like a human girl, like she looks barely above your age with purple hair and... Wait a minute, why does she look familiar?" Ren says to himself as he puts down the binoculars and as he turns back to the wild Filolials he noticed one was holding a poster in its beak, a poster he remembered seeing before back in Melromarc, the poster says, "Missing: Princess Melty of Melromarc." with the illustration of a purple-haired girl that was the spitting image of the other girl down there.
Ren quickly put two and two together, "Holy shit! That's the missing princess down there!?" he concludes with the wild filolials nodding in approval, with Fitoria's message getting through.
"So that's the girl that went missing at the other country Sir Ren?" Scarlet asked
"It appears so and she may be in the same position as we are," Ren responds.
"So are we going to rescue her?" she asked
"Yes but were going to need to hurry, it looks like whoever is chasing her are catching up to-"
"RAH!" Screech one of the filolials, as Ren turns around a bunch of energy attacks are fired at them and exploding at the ground nearby alerting the two heroes.
"Kill the sword demon now!" shouted lord Syne with him and his men on their horses making their charge toward Ren.
"Damn it I forgot about them!" Ren shouts and he immediately jumps on his filolial, "Scarlet let's get down there to the princess now!"
"Yes master Ren!" she agrees and Scarlet jumps from the cliff as they run down the somewhat steep slope to not only get away from their pursuers but to save the princess from her pursuers.
Down at the canyon, an intense chase was afoot with Princess Melty trying her best to flee from the coachman and his troops. With the coachman riding his prison coach whipping his horses to pull the wagon faster while the rest of his men, riding on single horses were going as fast as they can to recapture their important prisoner.
"Come on you beasts of burden! Faster! Faster! Don't let her get away!" the coachman yells as he keeps whipping at his horses.
Ahead of them, Melty was trying the best she could to get away from her pursuers, but despite her headstart, they were starting to catch up with her.
Melty then uses her water magic on the ground behind her, making it slippery that made a few of the soldier's horses trip on themselves and fall over, forcing the coachman and the rest of his men to slow themselves down until they were past the watery road which allowed Melty to get ahead again.
"The brat wants to play with magic? Ha, well then why don't we play back." The coachman shouts to himself then turns to his sides to order his men, "fire a few magic spells around the princess and see how she likes it."
And with the order, some of the soldiers started to fire magic attacks near the princess to slow her down or possibly knock her off the horse.
The many attacks were now making Melty force her horse to dodge and slow down.
Though some of the attacks were blowing up close near her, making the coachman uncomfortable, "Careful you idiots, I said around her! we need a live prisoner, not a flaming corpse! Keep it to her sides!" he orders with the magic attacks now more distant from Melty but it was still making the princess uneasy and forced her to slow down a bit.
One of the soldier horsemen, a fox demi-human soldier was making his horse go faster than the other guard's horses. He was now catching up to the princess further than the others.
But despite this, the princess was still at a good distance away from them even with the constant magic attacks.
The coachman then looks toward his side to see one of his men setting up his bow on horseback, "I think I got a good enough shot from here at just the horse. Give the go-ahead and this should stop that brat for good." the archer asked.
The coachman groans to himself still not wanting to believe he was stuck in this sort of situation in the first place but answered back, "Fine do it now! But only the horse, do not aim for the girl!" the coachman ordered.
And with his permission, the archer pulls back his bow and despite the shaking of his galloping horse, he has a clear shot for Melty's horse. He then lets go of the string and the arrow launches out.
And despite the distance and moving target, the arrow manages to stab right through the horse's leg. The injury instantly makes the horse neigh in pain as it trips over, forcing Melty to jump from her side to save herself as the unfortunate horse rolls over from the trip and the momentum until it falls off the cliff which no doubt ends up killing the poor thing.
Melty was fine, except for her side from the fall causing deep pain. But Melty knew she couldn't sulk in the discomfort now, as she just lost her horse and sees the squadron of soldiers heading right for her with the Foxman coming at her the fastest.
Having no other option, the princess just makes a run for it herself on foot, she had nowhere else to turn to, on her right was a cliff edge that goes down hundreds of feet and her left was a steep cliffside to flat for her to climb upon it. She had no choice but to run forward down the road to somehow escape.
But after each second that became less and less likely as her pursuers were almost right up at her. With the Foxman now reaching his arm out with his fast horse ready to grab the princess, "Your mine now you spoiled little monkey! Time to get back in your cage."
Melty kept running and running but no matter how hard she tried she was not faster than a horse.
The horse was now right up to her and the Foxman was about to reach out and grab her.
But...
*Smack*
Out of nowhere from the left, the Foxman and his horse gets kicked away from a giant bird foot out of the road and off the cliff, "AHHHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhhhhh!" he screams as he falls to his death.
"What in the hell!?" the coachman down the road yelled as he and his men stopped in confusion from what just randomly showed up.
It even made Melty pause and she was surprised to see what just saved her. She couldn't believe her eyes, but she recognized that face riding on the back of the giant bird, it was the cardinal Sword Hero himself Ren Amaki on a giant black queen filolial as it slides itself on the ground from the momentum of the attack stopping just near the cliff.
It seemed too good to be true as Melty rubbed her eyes in surprise, "Sir... Sir sword hero!" she asked him
But there wasn't any time for formalities as Ren looks forward toward the road, "Scarlet head that way!" and without a word, the giant filolial starts running again.
"Sir sword hero!" Melty waves toward Ren to get his attention.
Ren then reaches out his arm toward her, "Princess! Grab my hand quick!" he shouts toward her.
And without hesitation Melty grabs his arm and Ren quickly lifts her up on Scarlets back as the bird continues to make a run for it.
But back with the coachman, the initial shock from that random event despite it being only a few seconds had finally cleared up, and he forgot what was happening with his important prisoner as he shakes his head to snap out of it, "Stop that bird! After them!" the coachman orders and he and his men continue there chase again.
The chase then continued as Scarlet went on to run down the road as she also dodges the magic attacks and arrows being shot at her, thankfully for her, she has better reflexes than a horse and has been able to dodge the many arrows aimed at her leg.
And while she gripped on the armored coat of her rescuer, Melty had a million questions about all of this, "Sir Sword hero what are you doing all the way out here in Siltvelt!?"
"It's a really long story and I prefer to tell you when we are not in this crazy situation!" Ren answers wanting to focus on getting out of this place as soon as possible and get to Bakugou to hopefully stop all of this.
Up ahead Ren saw a two-way roadway and was about to go toward the left road, only to see something he wished he didn't have to see.
"There's the sword demon again! Told you the shortcut would work! Get him!" It was Lord Syne again along with him were the other nobles and their men on horses, still intending to kill one of their religions devils today.
"Damn it, not them again!" Ren shouts out loud as he was forced to turn to the right road which was the way to their destination anyway.
And with that turn, the coachman and Lord Syne follow suit.
The two groups were now together both going after the giant bird to get their different targets.
As the chase went on, both group's men kept firing attacks at Scarlet wanting to kill it or just knock the bird down to get its riders.
Melty also continued to use her water spells to attack some of their pursuers even knocking a few of them out from their horses.
But the two forces were numerous and were both determined to get the princess or the hero.
The coachman was still throwing his whips growing tired of this, "Damn it all! This is ridiculous! That bird has to tire out soon!" he shouts out loud still whipping his coach's horses.
"That damn bird has been on it all night! We won't be getting them at this rate.", Lord Syne responds out loud getting the coachman's attention. The Tigerman then grimly smiles, "But, Hahaha I do have a contingency plan that will do the trick."
"What contingency plan are you talking about?" The coachman asked knowing he was not going to like it.
Lord Syne's left hand then glows with magic as he makes a wide grin, "haha, theirs another bridge up ahead. I knew just in case if something like this happened with the first bridge plan failing, I had set up more magic explosives below and at the sides of this bridge, armed with my magic. All we need to do is allow the demon and his bird to run into the middle of it that I had marked, and with a single snap of my fingers. BOOM! The bastard will be blown to smithereens and falls with the bridge into the valley, and this time there will be no sides or cliff walls for him to jump on to safety especially when he is in the middle of it." he finishes explaining as he now sees that very bridge up ahead on the road.
The coachman however was horrified by that plan, "Are you crazy!? That will also kill the girl!?" he knew well if Melty was dead, he is as good as dead himself when Trinock finds out.
But Syne could care less about it "So what? One less shit flinging monkey to worry about."
"I need that monkey alive! Do you have any idea what Trinock will do to me if something happens to that girl!?"
"I could give even less of a damn about you! I need that demon dead than anything else, my peasants are protesting and are refusing to work! I need this to get them back in their places! So piss off!"
The Tigerman then got his left magic hand wrapped around by one of the coachman's whips, "What the hell are you doing!?"
"I told you I need her alive!" the coachman yells back.
"And I told you to piss off, let me go!" Syne yells again, The two then struggled and argued as they pulled each other back and forth.
But unknown to the two, Scarlet with her good sense of hearing heard the whole conversation, "Master Ren, they're more bombs at the bridge. And the tiger guy will do something with his hand to activate them when we get near some marker on it."
Ren looks ahead and saw the bridge she was referring to and after a closer look at it with his binoculars he noticed some random green glow at the side of the bridge, knowing those must be the bombs she is referring to.
Melty was now getting scared, "Sir Sword hero, what are we going to do?"
Ren turns his head back to see the leaders of the pursuers were fighting with each other. He looks back at the bridge once more to see what marker Scarlet was referring to, and at the middle of the bridge, he saw a large plank marker, obviously planted there for the lord to know where to activate the bombs where they would be too far away to escape the explosions on either side. Had Scarlet not warned him, he would've paid no mind to it. Now he had a plan, "It looks like we're going right for the bridge."
"But isn't that where the bombs are at?" Melty loudly questioned Rens thinking.
"I know, and I'm counting on it. Scarlet faster to the bridge!" he ordered with Scarlet running straight at the long bridge.
And back with the pursuers, the coachman and Lord Syne continued to struggle with each other trying to stop one another.
"Damn you grass eater! Let me go!" Syne continues to yell.
"Screw off, you privileged cat! You will not kill her!" the coachman yells back still holding onto his whip.
"That's it!" Syne then grips the whip and with all of his strength pulls the coachman off his moving wagon.
The coachman falls on the ground, "AHHH!" he yells in deep pain as his back gets rolled over on both the wagon wheels losing his grip on the whips. Said wagon then loses its horses with the prison wagon speeding right off the cliff falling into the deep valley below. Despite the pain being enough to break his back, the coachman looks on in horror at the stampede of horses of Syne and the nobles soldiers and his own men, "Wait! WAIT! STOP!" he shouts only to be trampled by the stampede of horses crushing his bones and skull killing him painfully and quickly.
And no one mourned for him as they continue the pursuit, with Lord Syne hand now freed as he throws away the whip, he was now ready to be done with the chase as the sword hero approaches the bridge, "Now is the time to send you back to hell sword demon."
And with the hero team, they make it to the bridge as Ren had Scarlet continue to run on it despite the bombs, while at the same time the sword hero looks back at the Tiger lords arm as he held it up knowing he was about ready to activate the bombs, he knew the lord was just waiting until they would be near the middle of the bridge at the marker to be far enough away from both sides of the bridge to trap them in a fiery explosion.
And he was closing in on the marker as lord Syne and the rest of the soldiers slow down and stopped right before the bridge, as he held his magically powered hand up and was ready to snap his fingers as he gives a smug smile, knowing victory was at hand, he then counts down as Scarlet approaches near the marker, "8...7..6..5..4..."
"Scarlet use wind jump!" Ren shouts
And with her strength and wind magic, Scarlet launches herself high in the air now far above the bridge, while Ren and Melty hold on for dear life as Scarlet propelled herself forward.
The soldiers and lord Syne were in shock from that display, "But no! That's impossible!?" he whines as his plan was now ruined as the hero group was now above and out of range of the bomb blasts as Scarlet flies over almost the entire rest of the bridge.
She was starting to fall back down but was still within the bridge's range, with Syne holding out his hand again ready to activate the bombs once more hoping to still activate them while sword hero are still on the bridge itself.
Ren notices that this and he turns to Melty quickly, "Princess if you have any magic that can help us push forward, now is the time to use it with me!"
Melty nods quickly understanding what he meant by this and with her and Rens magic they firing off forceful blasts helping to propel themselves further enough to be sure they're off the bridge for good.
Scarlet finally lands on the ground and thankfully just on the other side of the end of the bridge and continued on running.
This ends up really pissing off Lord Syne, "DAMN THEM! DAMN THOSE STUPID MONKEYS! AFTER THEM AGAIN!" he screams and orders the soldiers, and they quickly all go back to their chase now crossing the bridge to continue their pursuit of the Sword demon and Princess of Melromarc.
But that was exactly what Ren planned, he turns himself back toward the bridge and once the soldiers were close to the bridge's marker, he shouts, "Meteor blade!" and fires a large energy attack toward the bridge.
Syne and the soldiers saw the attack but the lord didn't think much of it, "Ha, he must be getting sloppy with his aim, that doesn't look like it will be getting anywhere close to us!" he mocks the sword hero.
But a horse rider right next to him taps his shoulder, "Uh, boss." he then points down on the bridge's edge where the marker was at and he can see his own bombs glowing aurora forgetting about his own traps.
And as he looks back to where the sword hero's attack was heading toward, Syne realized what the sword hero had done.
"OH SHI-"
BOOOM!
Ren's energy attack made direct contact with one of the bombs, making it explode and then causing a chain reaction that sets off the rest of the bombs on the entire bridge.
The entire structure was annihilated along with most of the pursuing soldiers, any that didn't get vaporized in the explosions end up falling to their deaths hundreds of feet below.
Back with the sword hero after some more running Ren finally made Scarlet stop herself, with Ren and Melty jumping off her back with the 3 now catching their breaths after all they went through.
Ren even threw a health potion at Melty so she could recovered from her fall from the horse earlier.
After a minute for them to catch their breaths, Melty finally decided to speak up, "Thank you so much for saving me Sir Sword hero.
Ren nods to the princess, "No problem, and the names Ren Amaki. And your Princess Melty from Melromarc correct?"
"Yes indeed, and if you prefer to be called Ren, I would like to be referred to as just Melty if you don't mind," she responds with Ren nodding again in agreement.
The princess then turn to Scarlet who was extremely tired as she sat herself down. Melty didn't get a good look at her before, being more concerned about escaping the Siltvelt soldiers than anything else, but now she can admire the beautiful creature before her.
"Wow is she really a filolial queen?" She asked as Melty moves closer to the large bird monster.
"Yes, her name is Scarlet, she's friendly. Mostly." Ren comments as he can tell this girl really loves filolials as Melty approaches Scarlet.
"I remember you speaking earlier, are you a real talking Filolial?" Melty asked with some excitement in her tone despite the serious situation that happened a few minutes ago.
Scarlet nods to her, "Yes, I'm actually a princess myself, princess of the filolials." she responds, the young girl was all willing to brag about her new title as much as possible.
Melty then becomes wide-eyed excited to be seeing one of her biggest dreams coming true, "Oh I've always dreamed of talking with a filolial and now here I am doing it!" she shouts excitingly now acting like the young kid she was.
The excitement shocked Scarlet at first then after a few seconds Melty runs up to her and hugs Scarlets' large soft black-feathered body, "Oh it's so soft, softer than any pillow I ever slept on." Melty compliments as she lays her head on the feathery body. It continued to surprise the bird girl, but after a few seconds, she started to warm up to it. It was actually nice for her to be with someone who likes her for once other than Sir Ren and his other companions.
But after a few seconds of rubbing her head on Scarlet's body, she immediately realizes what she was doing as she lifted her head, "Oh no, I'm so sorry about this, I didn't mean this to look weird. It's just you filolials are some of the most wonderful creatures on this planet, and I never got to see a filolial queen before, I just... I just got carried away and... and..." Melty tries apologizing with her face red with embarrassment.
But Scarlet just smiles back at the young princess, "No need to worry miss Melty." and with a puff of smoke Scarlet transforms into her human form with her tiara crown as she looks back with a smile on her face, "I'm happy that you think of me like that. Thank you for your nice words."
Melty then got excited again after the transformation, "Oh my goodness! You transform too! This is even better than I thought, can you really transform whenever you want?" Melty continues fangirling over her obsession with Filolials.
The girls continue talking and laughing with each other, getting along, and becoming friends quickly.
Ren watches on, despite the situation they were in, he was happy to see Scarlet still in a good mood and having someone that she will like to be around, rather than clinging on to him all the time.
He let this go on for a few minutes as they all rest, but eventually he knew it was time to get back to business.
Ren finally asked, "Ok princ-Melty, I think it is time for me to start asking questions?"
Melty was enjoying her time with Scarlet until she stopped herself after she heard what Ren said. After she turning herself back to Ren and coughed herself to clear her throat she speaks to the cardinal hero in her serious demeanor, "Of course Sir swo-Ren, what would you like to ask me about?"
"Well first I like to know what were those guys that were chasing you earlier?" Ren asked referring to the coachman and his men.
"Oh you see they..., OH NO I ALMOST FORGOT ABOUT EVERYONE!" Melty shouts now remembering her friends are in danger.
"What is it? What are you talking about?" Ren asked with concern
"It's Sir Bakugou, Neia, Rino, Daven, and little Kirishima! They're all in huge trouble and they need to be saved before it's too late!" Melty responds with greater concern.
Hearing that surprised Ren, especially since he had been hearing that Siltvelt is supposedly the place where the Shield hero is worshipped at, and yet he is now in danger in the same nation. It was making him perplexed about this whole thing, "What's going on Melty? What has happened with Bakugou and his team?"
"It's a long story, but it all relates to what we and Sir Bakugou have done in Siltvelt to get us in this situation in the first place including my imprisonment. But before I say anything else, it should be fair if I ask some of my questions as well. What are you doing here yourself Sir Ren? And are the other cardinal heroes with you as well?" Melty answers and asks back hoping there would be more reinforcements willing to help them out.
Ren sighs to himself knowing he would have to do a lot of explaining as well, and they would need to be quick about it if Bakugou and his sidekicks are in real danger, "Unfortunately no, it's just me and Scarlet, and like I said before that is a long story as well. But I guess since I'm the one who asked first I'll explain my side first. It all started not long after the last wave in Melromarc when..."
"There they are!" shouted a random voice far away that grabbed the three's attention and a good distance away over a hill was a different set of knights and nobles heading their way to kill their sword demon, bigger than the group that was originally following them if you can believe it.
"Damn it! How many of these nutjobs exist in this nation!" Ren groans, he then turns toward his bird monster, "Scarlet transform!"
"Yes Sir!" Scarlet responds as she transforms back into her bird form.
And Ren and Melty immediately jumped back on her back, "Ok let's just get to Bakugou now. Melty you and I can answer our questions and tell our stories together on the way there!" he shouts to Melty who nods in approval, she knew they needed to get going anyways to save Bakugou and everyone else before it's too late.
Melty then points out her finger toward the main highway, "I agree. Follow this road and we should be at Siltvelts capital in a few hours."
Ren nods back and shouts, "You heard her Scarlet! Follow the main road!".
Scarlet nods and the giant bird sprints herself down the long highway, with a new set of nobles and knights pursuing them. Thankfully this batch of crazed and desperate nobles are further enough away from them then the other group, so Ren and Melty will be able to properly communicate with each other and tell their big tales on what happened with each other respectively. And all the while they had their way to Siltvelts capital and hopefully they won't be too late to help.
Back at Siltvelts capital, Daven was dragged off to a tower that was separated from the castle. Trinock wanted the Shield heroes party as far from each other in any way possible to not interfere in Bakugou's "therapy". He's thrown in a room at the top of the tower with 10 guards watching over with 2 of them dragging him to a set of magic restraining chains in the middle of the room. One connected to the ceiling and another one on the floor, though the floor chains looked like they were all rusted, something that no doubt was left like that to make it more painful for long term prisoners.
Though as he approached the set of chains Daven quickly noticed a small sharp scrap of metal on the floor that might've been once part of something used to torture the poor saps that were here before him. He intentionally trips himself to kneel on the ground, and with his tail he snatches up the metal scrap piece.
"Get up now you traitor!" the guard yelled and dragged him up, unaware of what Daven did.
The guard then went to chain up Daven, first with the floor chains then with the help of a stool they string him up with the ceiling chains. Now forcibly hung up with his arms and legs out, with only his tail freed, none of the guards were making much of it thinking it was eventually going to be chopped off anyway.
After that Daven's father Allen and his stepmother Mellia came into the room with smug smiles on their faces.
Mellia then spoke first, "Looks like someone is in big trouble." she mocks waving her finger.
Allen nods and walks up to Daven, "Yes, I've been too easy on you for all of these years, it's time to face the consequences of your actions brat!"
Mellia continues to smile as she waves her fan as she walks toward the hall to the exit, "As much as I would like to see your guts being slowly ripped out of your body, I don't like my dress getting blood on it nor get the smell of you body fluid on me. So Allen dear please get this recorded on a crystal ball while I go and watch the executions of his little buddies."
"Will do sweetheart." Allen agrees and blows a kiss
"I just want to say one last goodbye to my little step-son. Well then Daven, ... Goodbye." And just like that Mellia just casually leaves the room and heads her way out of the tower without a care in the world, and was off to see the public executions coming soon.
And once she was out of sight Allen turns around back to Daven as a guard pushes in a cart full of torture tools, "I'll be enjoying every single second of this, this will teach you for trying to screw me over. And once I'm done with you and Trinock fixes everything with the shield hero, including getting these stupid brand marks off of our cheeks, Loria will be next. I'll make sure that bitch will be done for good, along with that other little brat of her's as well."
Daven continues to stare angrily at his father to hear such things he wants to do with his own family including his young daughter, "What the hell did little Katherine ever do to you? A 6 year old girl?"
"I don't want any more of Loria's brats of hers to fuck with me again. I would've never bothered with either her or your little sister if you didn't do all of this bullshit. So keep that in mind before your passing, their deaths will be on your hands." Allen explains which just made the teen rogue madder.
"Why did you do all of this in the first place? You had a wife who genuinely loved you and 2 children. And you just throw them to the side! How was being married to a lord not good enough for you?" he questioned his father wanting answers out of him.
Allen then shakes his head in disappointment, "You don't get it, do you? I was nothing more than a spouse of some unambitious nobody of a landowner while other much more powerful and ambitious lords who had their eyes on hers lands. I spent years scrubbing the floors of the damned church while the high priests get drunk on their wine in their croquet matches. Getting a naive local lord to marry me was my big break to finally get out of there and have a position of power for once. I was fine with it for a few years, but in the end, I was not empowered with anything, as I said already I was nothing more than the breeding stock of some bitch who never wanted to advance her political standing and kisses up with the low caste louts and dirty humans. It was no longer an honor, it was now an embarrassment. She was going to lose everything soon anyway. So yeah unlike her when the opportunity for me to go up in the world came up, I took it with Mellia."
"What do you mean to lose everything anyway? And how are you any better now than before? You know she is just using you as a tool?" Daven continues to question his father's logic.
"Mellia can have whatever motivation she wants, in the end, the land is under my name, and her social position and family strengthen my claims to Loria's lands in the divorce, and if with the new war coming up soon, there will also be plenty of new land in the empire that needs new lords to run them, and I be up for the opportunity and my chance of getting new supply of free slaves."
"Is that all you cared about? Power? You are so petty that you would screw everyone around you just so you can have a higher social standing? And you didn't answer my first question, how was mom going to lose everything anyway?"
Allen shakes his head and went on to explain, "Of course, it's the only way to advance in the real world, not like it mattered with Loria anyway, who didn't see the writing on the wall. Mellia's family wanted Loria's land, they were planning on cutting off trade by strong holding the other bordering lords with blackmail or cashing in favors with them to end any trade deals with Loria's domain and hire mercenaries to raid and scare away anyone else. And with Loria's policies going against the councils and church's doctrine, as well as not being one of the races of the council unlike Mellia, she was going to get no help whatsoever. Eventually, she would've gone bankrupt once the food shortages come along and she would be forced to sell everything or her own peasants would've revolted and hanged her in the street when they start to starve. I knew Mellia's family had the power to do so, and I would back from being the spouse of a lord to a penniless nobody again, or as a corpse."
"So your solution to that was to sell out your family?!" Daven scolded him, even if any of that was true about Mellia's family, he knew that there could've been other ways to deal with such a situation. But Allen didn't care about other ways, he only took the easy way. This was no more than an excuse for Allen to justify his evil actions.
"When Mellia cut a deal with me to divorce Loria and marry her to take Loria's lands and that we would directly control them together, a win/win deal. Hell yeah I took it, and now I was the one in charge. It has always been the way things work in Siltvelt and nothing will change that. You and that damned Shield hero attempted to change the rule of the lands and ruin me and Mellia along with it! And look what happened to you and the shield brat. Life is unfair and the only way to keep up with it is to push others down."
"You're no more than an evil bastard making up excuses. And you're going to be the one who will suffer soon. Forever." Daven angrily declares back To his father.
Allen just laughs as he goes for the torture tools, "Yeah yeah say whatever you want to me. It won't matter as your body parts get slowly ripped apart." Allen mocks his son as he looks through the cart until he finally got what he wanted, a large pair of sharp bladed tweezers, "I think I'll start with your balls boy, the only reason I kept you around on my side this long was for my legacy to continue after me, but you're not worth the space anymore. I and Mellia have already talked about having a child together soon and they will be born of a higher caste than you or Loria's other brat, so you're just dead weight to me."
He then started to approach his son with sadistic glee. But unknown to him, Daven was still holding something sharp with his unchained tail.
Allen with an evil grin was finally up to Daven as he snaps the large tweezers in the air, "Time to start the spaying.", Allen then reaches his hand out toward Davens pants.
But with a swift turn of his side, Daven's tail swings, and the broken shard of metal cuts right at Allen's hand.
"Ahhhh! My hand! My fucking hand!" Allen screams as the metal shard craved a ghastly cut in the middle of his hand forcing him drop the giant tweezers.
Two of the guards immediately reacted and attempted to stab Daven, but with his careful timing and reflexes, he sucked in his torse and bend his back enough to dodge the blade that accidentally stabs through another guard's head.
And taking advantage of the confused guard Daven used his tail to stab the metal piece into the guard's eye, he then grabbed the sword after he dropped it to cover his eye, and with the strength of the sharp blade Daven breaks his bottom rusted chains.
And with that his legs were now free, while he still hangs from the ceiling, Daven was now able to move and swing around the room.
Allen did his best to med the bloody cut, but was now really pissed off by this whole thing as he looks around his stunned guards, "Don't stand around you idiots kill this damn brat already!" he orders, so pissed off he no longer cared of wanting to torture his son anymore, now he just wants him dead.
The remaining nine guards immediately got out of their shock phases and all tried to attack the swinging cat rogue.
But Daven took full advantage of his newfound mobility as he swings himself around the room dodging and avoiding all the guard's swings and attacks. Taking any opportunity to kick the guards in the heads or make them accidentally attack each other.
One guard attempted to swing his sword at Daven only for the cat rogue to throw himself up in the air making the guard accidentally cleaving the head of another guard off.
The eight guards continued their attacks while Daven kept his swings dodging every attack and getting every opportunity to kick their faces.
He kicked one hard enough it knocked him on the floor, who happened to be the same one he jabbed out his eye. Allen who was still wrapping his wound up turns his head to the down guard, "Go get reinforcements now!"
And without hesitation, the now one-eyed guard made a run for it out of the room to do what he was told.
The guard kept running through the hallway now out of sight of Allen and his men.
He was about to approach the door then,
*slash*
Before he can touch the doors nob his throat was sliced by an unknown individual and quickly drops dead on the floor.
Back in the prison chamber, the remaining seven guards tried their best to kill their supposed prisoner who was making a mockery of them.
Daven then swings himself to a wall and with a powerful jump he kicks one guard into another guard's sword right through his heart.
And from the stabbed guard, Daven managed to nab his sword with his feet as he continued to dodge the other guards.
And with the thrustful throw of his legs, Daven throws the sword in the air as it stabs through the ceiling chains.
Daven finally lands back on the ground again now free from the ceiling, but his handcuffs were still impeding his magic preventing him from using his teleporting or dark magic so he still had to fight what was left of his guards and get out before reinforcements show up.
Five of the guards attack with their swords but Daven continued his dodging as usual now with more flexibility than before and used his handcuffs to block them when he could.
The sixth guard goes to jab him in the back with Daven managing to block it off in time and manages to jump himself on over the guard with some of his handcuff chains, and with his strength, he breaks the guard's neck.
Daven then steals his sword and despite being forced to fight with 2 hands together with his cuffs Daven was still able to fight well against his remaining five guards.
Allen watched on pissed off that his son continues to make a fool out of him, after mending his wound he decided to grab a sword himself from one of the dead guards, "Your all morons! I'll show you how to use a sword properly!" he shouts as he also engages his son as he is forced to fight six opponents at once in cuffs.
But despite the hectic situation, Daven continues to fight not only to survive but to not let this monster that created him get away with this or go after the rest of his family.
Daven deflects one of the guard's attacks and hits him on the helmet getting him staggered, and quickly sliced his arm off and then his head.
Allen with three of the four living guards attempts to corner him at the cell to start striking him over and over again at once.
Daven once again used his agility to jump himself from the wall corner and launch himself in the air and with the sword slices through the head of another one of his guards killing him instantly.
Daven attempts to attack one other guard who was guarding the way to the hallway, but this one was far stronger than the others being an Ox demi-human and the two clank swords altogether until the two were at a standstill.
Daven decided to do the practical thing and just kicks him in the groin causing deep pain for the Ox, and he quickly stabs the Oxman in the head.
However, the last two of his guards finally caught up and both threw their swords on Daven. But they were no longer throwing anymore swings as they both hold out and push back on the former spy who was now forced to hold them back and unfortunately for him there groins were now far enough away from him to kick.
The two guards now realize they got him cornered, especially with the knowledge of Lord Allen being behind them, so they kept this up as they pushed the cat teen up toward another wall still cuffed, tired, and too close to the wall making him unable to jump back again to break the sword deadlock.
Before either side could overpower the other in the struggle, Allen approaches his son now raising his sword with a mad grin thinking he had the upper hand now and was ready to stab his son while Daven could barely hold the two last guards off.
Allen finally says to him, "Your luck is all out now! time to-!"
*slash*
"Ahhhh!" screamed a voice, but it wasn't from Daven. It was Allen as he looks at his now bleeding stomp of an arm as the rest of his severed limb lay on the floor.
Despite the deep pain, Allen was wondering what the hell happened as there was no way his son could do this, but as he turns himself around he was surprised at who it was, who held onto a large sword. It was his ex-wife herself Loria giving a mad look in the eyes.
"Lo...Loria?" he expresses in complete horrifying shock at this development.
And the only response Loria gave back was to stab Allen right in the stomach with the same blade that cut off his arm. Causing even deeper pain for the former aristocrat, Loria then kicked him in the groin making Allen drop on the floor crying and weeping to himself.
The random act surprised the last 2 guards but the opening allowed Daven to overpower and push the two off and stab one through the head killing him.
The last guard after getting his stance back looked on in fear and attempted to make a run for it, but popping out of nowhere was another grey-furred cat Demi-human spy who instantly sliced through the guards throat and quickly falls dead.
As the random spy turns around to Daven he was surprised it was an old acquaintance of his, "Narel? Is that really you?" he asks the other cat demi-human as Daven uses one of the swords to break open his cuffs now free from there magic restraining charms.
"In the flesh Daven. Long time no see. Oh, and you might be missing these" Narel announced in a friendly tone as he threw back Daven his sai's with the now freed rogue catching his personal weapons and putting them away.
Daven then immediately turns back to his mother. The two run right toward each other to give a big hug together.
After a few more seconds of the hug Loria finally spoke to her son, "I'm glad your safe Davy, I almost thought we didn't get here in time."
"No, you two came by just in time. But Mother how did you get here in the first place and found me?" Daven immediately asked as he was never expecting his mother to appear out of nowhere to help him.
"Your friend Narel told me everything that happened yesterday about how you and the shield hero got captured and what the council and your fa-Allen were going to do to you. With what information Narel had on hand, we together went on a rescue mission, with the two of us bribing and killing guards to get here with a few other shadows cleaning up the messes." Loria answers her son.
Daven then turns toward Narel, "Well I owe you one Narel, though what you did here would probably count as treason by helping me and mom, why did you the other shadows get involved in this?"
"Not everyone in the spy corps supports Trinock or the council, a good amount of us still support the shield hero and his crusade to end their tyranny. As your mom said a few others are out covering our tracks so they won't have proof to implicate us with anything. And besides, I believe I own you myself like 5, so I'm just down to 4 now."
Daven smiles, happy that he still has allies even within Siltvelt's government.
Then the tone of the room started to change as everyone started to hear groaning and sliding. Daven and Loria turn to see bleeding Allen on the floor with the sword still through his stomach as he attempts to cowardly crawl away from the room.
Daven's smile then disappeared as he grows angry again, he then turns to his mother, "Mom, I might do something you might not approve of." He warns his mother as he grips his sai's.
But his mother just nods, "No, I don't disapprove at all, he deserves it. I probably won't watch it though." she responds as she turns her body away from her son knowing what he was going to do.
Daven then looks back at his bleeding father as he gets near the hallway out of the room. But Daven just walks up to him and aggressively pulls the sword out from Allen's stomach, kicking him so he is facing up at the ceiling with Daven stabbing the same sword on Allen's other non-severed arm to keep him in place. The sword stab continues to cause him pain as he cries, but it was the least of Allen's worries as he looks up at his pissed-off son as he takes out and grips his sai's knowing what he was going to do with them.
Allen didn't know what he could do to get himself out of this while he was bleeding out in pain, the only thing he could say out of his mouth was, "Is this the part where you tell me, "I'll see you in hell?", ".
Daven just nods in disapproval, "No, I won't be going to hell. I only ever killed evil bastards like you who deserved it, who won't be causing suffering to innocent and decent people ever again. And not only will I continue to stop more evil people like you and the council, but I also intend to aid and save other people through other means as well, whether demi-human or human alike. I will continue to help the Shield hero with his quest to stop the waves of catastrophe to save the world. When I eventually die, I'll be with mother and later on Katherine in heaven where we'll be together forever in peace. You on the other hand, you're going to suffer forever in the dark pits of hell! But don't worry about being alone, your little wife Mellia, Trinock, Ozsan, and the Siltvelt council will be joining with you soon!" Daven finished his last speech to his father as he finally raised his sai's above himself.
Allen tried one more desperate attempt to save his life, "No wait maybe I can help wit-!"
But Daven had enough and with force, he stabs both sai's into Allen's eyes.
"AAAAAHHHHHHH! AAAAHHHHHH! AAAAAHHHHH!" Allen screams in pain as Daven continues twisting and turning his sai's on his dad's eye sockets causing as much pain as possible as Allen screams and squirms around in pain unable to do anything else as he suffers.
All the while Loria continued to look away, not seeing anything but knowing what was happening, while she winces from the screams, at the same time she was somewhat happy justice was being served for her real family.
This went on for over a minute as Daven continues to make this as painful as possible. Eventually though, it was becoming clear Allen didn't have much life left in him with his screams getting quieter from all the bleeding in his eyeless face and his stub of an arm.
Daven finally lets go of his sai's but kept them in Allen's eye sockets. Daven finally jumped and with his feet landing right on his two sai's with the weapons finally piercing through Allen's Skull.
Allen was now dead. Despite having a family, no one was going to mourn or miss him.
With the act done Daven rips his sai's out from the now fresh eyeless corpse. He also sliced through his throat to be extra sure he was heading to hell now.
After taking a deep breath after that, Daven moves on and walks back to his mother ignoring the eyeless corpse, "Mom are you alright, I know that might've been much-"
"No Daven, I knew it was necessary. He would've continued to try to enact his revenge and hunt us down for the rest of our lives. And besides, I still have you along with Katherine." Loria re-ensures his son who once again hugs him for comfort just happy he is still alive.
After a few seconds though Narel spoke up, "Ok I know this is an emotional experience guys, but we need to start getting the hell out of here before more guards show up. We spy's can only bribe and bluff back so much."
Loria and Daven finish their hug as they turn toward Narel and nod in agreement together.
Narel then explained the plan, "Ok then, once we get out of the capital, we'll be off to the trade port Cellimaria, there will be a merchant ship that will be heading its way to Shieldfreeden. Trinock and the council won't be able to do anything against you when you make it there."
"What of Sir Bakugou and the rest of my crew?" Daven asked
"I'm afraid right now it'll be impossible to help them. The shield hero is back in the castle deep within the dungeons with dozens of guards, mages, and loyalist spies. We have no idea where that Princess is at, the Dragon is now at fort Titan, and as for the elf and mage, their execution is within the hour. I'm afraid those two are pretty much as good as dead. But we need to get you two out of this country now and I and the other shield loyalist spies will try to figure out something to get Lord Bakugou out of his situation."
"No!" Daven responds.
"No!? No what!?" Narel asked back
"I will not be leaving, I will not abandon my new comrades, no my new friends. I will not run away from them when they need me, I have to rescue Rino and Neia, then afterward Sir Katsuki Bakugou."
Narel did not like this at all, "Are you insane?! This is a public execution! There are going to be well over a hundred soldiers guarding the whole area with Trinock and the Patriarch watching the whole thing. It'll be suicide if you tried rescuing those two girls."
"I don't care. I'm not abandoning them to die, they and Bakugou have done so much for me, my family, and so many others. I have to at least try, then afterward the three of us will somehow rescue Bakugou as well, then his dragon and Princess Melty."
"I'm telling you this is suicide. You're just going to get yourself killed!" Narel shouted trying to convince an old acquaintance to not go on with this. But Daven was not going to change his mind. Narel then turns his head to Loria, "Lady Loria can you bring some sense to your son!?" he begged of her.
But Loria nods in disapproval, "No, he is right. I had similar thoughts myself years ago after my divorce and excommunication, I could've run away from Siltvelt as well. But I didn't, I wasn't going to allow more people to suffer by my corrupt government. Me and many others like me in the same situation had we united together and created our charity hospital, and we helped so many since then. If I was in Davy's shoes, I would do the same. I'm going to be following his example and will remain in Siltvelt as well to help bring down the evils of this country for good." Loria responds which just gives Narel a headache. Loria then looks back to her son, "Daven go save your friends and then save the shield hero, don't let these evil bastards get away with this as Allen did for years." She encourages him.
Daven nods once more and the two have one more hug together with Loria hugging extra hard in case this was going to be her last one to her son. But deep down inside she knew Daven was going come out of this alive, the boy she gave birth to was now a man, and a man of skill and strength, a man who won't just help save Siltvelt, but also help save the world.
Narel shakes his head once again after the mother and son stop there hugging, "Ok fine, if you want to risk your lives after going all this way, fine be my guest. I'll still escort you guys out of here. But Daven if you're really committed to saving those 2 friends of yours, I'm afraid you'll be on your own."
Daven once again nods in approval, "I understand Narel, you did more than your part. Just make sure my mom is protected. This will cash in my second favor that you owe me."
After that Narel nods in agreement, "I will Daven, and good luck out there, you're going to need it. Alright now let's go!" he finishes and shouts and the three finally leave the room toward their way out as they step over Allen's corpse like a mat.
The three were on their way out of the tower and Daven had to think of some sort of plan soon to save his friends and hero and rescue them.
At the center of Siltvelts capital, there was a large gathering of demi-humans citizens of all shapes and sizes surrounding a large wooden platform, and on the deck were 2 guillotine's, a public execution was near.
Usually at these events, most of the public would be cheering for blood on supposed evil people to get what they deserved. But the ones set for execution right now were the Shield heroes companions, Neia and Rino. They were surrounded by guards without their weapons and were wearing magic restraining cuffs. They still had their armor and magic clothing on them, but it won't matter once their heads are removed.
And not far from them was a large multi-story building where on the roof Prime Minster Trinock looks down from the safety bars of the ledge with a grin on his face, and right beside him was Patriarch Ozsan. There were also a couple of other nobles on the same roof watching from up there, including Mellia who was waving her fan at her face giving her own smug smile to enjoy the show.
Things remained relatively quiet for a bit as the people of Siltvelt gossiped with each other.
But that quietness ended when Trinock finally speaks up from the top of building "People of Siltvelt, I'm here to inform you that the Shield hero was attacked today!"
This started even more gossip with the worried townsfolk.
Trinock then continued, "Thankfully Lord Bakugou is still alive, he is under the care of our best doctors. But I'm sure you're wondering what has happened? Last night he was poisoned and was nearly murdered in his sleep by these two! After our thorough investigation we found out the blue one is a spy and saboteur for the rebel state Shieldfreeden and the other a human witch assassin under of the pay roll of evil witch Queen Mirella of Melromarc, telling lies and getting close with the shield hero until the time came to try to kill him and then sabotage our nations defenses." Trinock lies and points his finger out down toward Neia and Rino.
Rino tried to speak the truth, "Don't listen to him, Sir Bakugou is-AH!"
But she was interrupted by a guard pushing her to the ground.
"Rino!" Neia shouts
It gave a mixed reaction to the common citizens, one group was confused by this news, others were suspicious of this claim from a government they don't trust, others outright think this was a conspiracy, especially those who are a part of the strikes and protests. Though there was also the crowd who were thirsty for the blood of an execution especially those from the church after Bakugou had screwed them all over with his "reforms".
But in the end, it didn't matter who thought of what, Trinock was going to have his executions and he was going to enjoy it, "For their crimes of attempted murder, treason, and numerous other crimes against the shield hero and the nation, I hereby declare you two guilty and your sentence will be... death!"
"Neia! Rino! No! No! AAAAHHHHH!" Bakugou screams as he gets electrocuted once more by his guards.
Back within the dungeons of Siltvelt's castle, the helpless Shield hero was forced to watch from a crystal ball of his sidekicks and friends going to be executed in public. And at the same time, he was randomly getting electrocuted by two guards using their magic, whenever the king felt like it.
Speaking of said king, in the same dungeon room was King Janio sitting on a throne chair to watch over Bakugou's suffering while a servant girl continues to feed him grapes. This same dungeon was where Janio always got to see many other human slaves get tortured in various ways for his entertainment. But as of now, the castle lacked any slaves after Bakugou freed them all, so Janio was going to savor all of his time with Bakugou until the war starts and new slaves come in.
The rest of the room was still surrounded with numerous guards keeping a close eye on Bakugou as well as any passageways into or out of the dungeon, making sure there would be no way for anyone to bust in to help free the shield hero.
"Ha! Nice scream. But it could be louder. Zap him harder." Janio order
"AAAAAAAAAAHHHH!" Bakugou gets electrocuted once again, pissing him off more and more, "YOU EVIL SPOILED BASTARD! I'LL GOD DAMN KILL YOU! YOU HEAR ME! I'LL-AAAHHHHHHH!"
Janio just found it entertaining, "Hahaha, you don't know how many other monkeys have said the same thing when I have tortured them or their loved ones in front of their faces, but all the same they can't do a damn thing to me and you'll be no different. Though lucky for you, I won't be seeing any brain matter coming out of you. If you had any at all." the king brags as he sips on his wine.
But Bakugou continued to struggle all he could, either to break the ice, use his quirk, or use any spell he could think of, but it did no good as the shield hero struggled while suffering physically and emotionally, "RRAAAHHHH! LET ME GO! LET ME GO AND FIGHT ME LIKE REAL MEN! AAAAAAAAHHHH!"
Janio once more sips his drink then points his finger to the servant holding the crystal ball, "You there, I think the monkey saw enough, turn it off." he orders the servant who does what they were told and turns off the crystal ball.
"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING YOU PIECE OF SHIT!" Bakugou yells back again.
But Janio just laughs, "Oh it's a funny thought. What better torture to know your little whores are going to lose their heads soon and you won't even know when they're finally dead. Hahaha, but I'll be sure to throw you their heads back at you later today, hahaha!"
"FUCK YOU! YOUR DEAD! YOUR ALL DEAD-AAAAAAHHHHHH!" But once more Katsuki's threats get overpowered by the screams of his suffering.
"Haha, and once more I pull the string and the toy speaks his line. This is going to be a fun fun day, Hahahahahaha!" Janio laughed once more as he watches the shield heroes suffer.
Bakugou continues to struggle and struggle and struggle to somehow get out of his ice prison. But once more it did no good.
After another zapping of the guards with Janio laughing, Bakugou finally gives up. His anger then turns into despair, he even started to cry. Then starts to speak in his head, "Why? Why am I so weak? I was born with a powerful quirk, I was set to become a hero who would surpass All Might himself both in my world and this one as well. Now look at me! I failed everything. Even back at home, I couldn't pass a stupid licensing exam while Deku, that stupid nerd was able to. And All Might himself, he lost his quirk because of me, if I didn't get captured at the training camp all of that stuff in Kamino would've never happened, I'm the reason we lost the true number one hero, me. Why did I get sent here and not Deku or anybody else? Why did this stupid shield pick me? I can't defend shit! My sidekicks, Neia, Rino, Kirishima, even the princess Melty and Daven, they're all going to die, all because I'm a failure of a hero. That's all I am now, a failure.'
Bakugou continues to cry as the guards electrocuted him once more, but this time, his sorrow was now greater than any physical pain and was now just ignoring them. But as Bakugou cried more, his sorrow then started to turn into anger again, 'Failure! Failure! Failure! How could've I let this happen? To allow all of those bastards get away with this? Those evil Oligarchs, abusing their powers and kicking those on the floor for the fun of it. That striped prime minister piece of shit is responsible for all of this, all to use me as a tool, that's all he ever saw me, a tool he can abuse whenever he felt like it. Just as he used this king, this spoiled monster who sees everyone else as a toy he can break for fun! These people should not be allowed to live!' his anger grows greater when starts to think more about this, about all of the people he truly hates, 'And it's not just them either, there's also that consort piece of shit who dragged me out here in the first place! He forced me to be this world's hero and then he treats me like fucking garbage! And his bitch whore of a daughter she lied to everyone to make me into a villain, and all of those other bastards just go along with it! Including ponytail slut and bow bitch who dare call themselves heroes! Or Paleface who did jackshit to help! And now thinking about my world again, that bastard All for one and his league of villains is the reason All Might is no more, he butchered so many people at Kamino and the rest of the league still roam the streets today! All of them! All of them are evil! They all should burn! BURN! ALL OF THEM SHOULD BURN!' he screams in his head with deep anger, anger unlike any he expressed before, anger from deep within his heart was now boiling and being unleashed.
And the shield itself took notice.
Bakugou then saw his menu randomly appearing and saw what look to be it glitching up and started to turn red, it somewhat confused him, but his burning hate of everything was already consuming his mind more and more overtaking any other emotion.
Then he saw the words appear
*d0 y0u s33k PoWeR?*
"Power?... Yes, yes I do."
*D0 yOU haT3 3veRYTiNG?*
"Yes, I hate every single one of these bastards!"
*Series unlocked: Shield of Wrath*
And with Bakugou's final answer to the menu's words, his entire menu screen turns into a deep dark red as the glitching static starts to transform his menu, going right to the skills section and Bakugou witnessed the numerous skills he acquired start to change with all the icons flipping over and turning red as more of the glitching effect appeared and red electricity sparks throughout the menu. Eventually, it activates a new skills tree line With the red lighting consuming the screen, a new skill appeared from that tree that said: *Shield of Wrath curse series opened*.
Bakugou quickly embraces the new skill as it starts corrupting his body and was now emitting his own red electricity from himself. He begins to lose his pupils and iris's from his eyes, quickly changing into a deep glowing dark red. His entire body including the parts encased in ice begins to heat up as his bloodvessels start to glow red from his deep anger being ramped up with the wrath shields corruption.
King Janio originally paid no mind to the whole thing thinking it was more ramblings from the monkey, but then he and his guard began to see Bakugou's physical changes, "What on earth is going on with him?" Janio asked out loud.
"I'm not sure, this doesn't feel right at all?" one of the guards responds, almost all of them are now feeling the raw hate energy coming out of the shield hero. They also began to notice the ice keeping him imprisoned was starting to quickly melt.
"He's... He's melting through, how is that possible?" another guard worries out loud, with the rest of them now on guard with their weapons out as they also notice Bakugou's left arm was now glowing red in the ice.
Janio however was just shaking his head in denial, "Just freeze his ass more, then zap him again." he ordered.
The ice mages there then activated their ice spells to refreeze up Bakugou once more, but no matter how cold their spells were, the shield hero's rage just grew hotter.
The two guards also tried to electrocute him again, but unlike before Bakugou was not reacting to the pain. He was no longer feeling the pain of it. The shield's power was making his rage greater and greater. Just being around Bakugou was now feeling like being near an active furnace.
Janio was now starting to worry, "Come on colder! Colder!" he shouts as the ice mages try harder more than before to keep him frozen.
But it just grew hotter and hotter in the room as Bakugou's skin changed into a glowing red, with his blood vessels glowing brighter. All of that anger had been building up inside of him, and he was ready to let it all out.
Bakugou finally screams, "RRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!"
BOOOOOOOMMMM!
The center room explodes vaporizing any who were directly next to Bakugou and sending everyone else flying away. Including King Janio who was aching from the pain. But that pain turned into deep fear as he looks back at the center of the room.
Bakugou was now freed from his ice prison with his skin now less red after expelling out that energy, but his blood vessels and eyes still glow red in wrath with the shield itself transforming. The default shield changes into the Wrath shield itself as it gets bigger, turning black, and takes on a demonic appearance with glowing red lines and patterns decorating the entire shield with the green gem turning red and now resembling an evil red eye.
The shield hero was now freed and turns himself toward Janio and points to him, "YOUR DEAD!" Bakugou announces with his voice deeper than before and sounded demonic like the shield itself had become.
Janio immediately panicked, "Guards! Guards! Stop the mad monkey now!" he order his men as the soldiers quickly get themselves up and all attempt to recapture the shield hero.
One Rhino guard got up to him first with a giant war hammer and attempts to bash Bakugou's head with it.
But Bakugou quickly just blocks with the cursed shield, and says, "YOU DIE FIRST!" the cursed shield then activated one of its abilities.
The rhino guard immediately gets his body consumed by fire, "AHHHHH!" he screams in agony as the cursed fires burn his whole body as everyone watches in horror as Bakugou looks back at Janio.
"What are you standing there for! Kill him! Just kill him now!" Janio shouted his orders once more.
But despite their fears, the soldiers press on their attacks, and this time they were all planning to strike at the same time to overwhelm the hero.
This time however, Bakugou begins to use his quirk once more. He lets out explosions from his palms toward the soldiers charging at him with his quirks fires instantly vaporizing any poor soldier that gets in the way. The explosions and fires from his quirk were now redder and hotter than ever from the rage shields power. The other soldiers try to attack his sides and the mages attempt to attack at a distance. But this did no good as Bakugou just absorbs the magic attacks into his body, he continues to vaporize more of the soldiers, or if any did get close enough to attack, he blocks them once more and they are consumed by the curse fires.
Bakugou starts blowing apart the dungeon as he fires at the distant mages with the cursed powered explosions, blowing away huge chunks of the walls as the fires caused by them start to spread and burn on the edges.
King Janio was absolutely horrified by this carnage as almost all of his guards had been vaporized into ashes.
Bakugou turns to him once more with deep hate, "NOW WHERE WERE WE!"
Janio panics and rushes for the exit of the dungeon where Bakugou finally started to move as he stomps his way to Janio with each step leaving a flaming mark on the stone floors.
Janio quickly runs out of the dungeons and hastily closes the doors to it, very little it will do, "Guards! GUARDS! Get over here now and stop the shield hero at all costs!" he screams as he continues to make a run for it as a large number of soldiers immediately react to there kings call and rush there way to the dungeon entrance.
They all gathered around near the entrance with their weapons out, ready for anything. But they weren't ready for what was coming as they witness the walls starting to burn black and the metal dungeon door glow burning red hot.
The guards wonder what the shield hero could be doing, but before they could think anymore.
BOOOOMMMM!
The door exploded with the fires making it as far as the front line of the soldiers as they are now screaming in agony as the cursed flames burn their skins off, leaving the surviving soldiers in complete horror.
And out from the dungeons was a cursed Bakugou as his very presence was creating fires to the walls surrounding him.
The remaining soldiers attempt to charge at Bakugou, but once more Bakugou fires his cursed influenced quirk and vaporized most of the defending guards.
Janio once more looks on in horror down the hallway as Bakugou continues to stomp his way to the cowardly king, "More guards! Damn it more guards now!" Janio panics once more as he does whatever he could to save his own skin as the wrathful curse hero continues to pursue the sadist king.
And all around him, his fires continue to spread on the walls as he will do all he can to make those that made him suffer, suffer even more, "BURN! BURN! BURN! I'LL MAKE THEM ALL BURN!"
Back at the city center of Siltvelts capital, the executions were almost ready to begin. The reactions to this were still mixed, many in the church crowd wanted the executions to be done already, while others were protesting to this, wanting to hear the words of the shield hero first about on this or demand to know why no sort of proper due process has made for the shield heroes companions.
But once more it didn't matter to Trinock as long as the two end up dead within a few minutes, he just needed the crowd to calm down before they can begin the executions. He also has a random messager dog demi-human coming up to him, "Lord Trinock I have some important news that might need your attention."
Trinock was annoyed by the interruption but tolerated it for now while the guards keep the crowds under control, "Well what is it? Spit it out!" he demanded not having the patience for this.
"Lord Trinock we have been getting reports and rumors of the Sword Demon appearing in Selope and a bunch of nobles have been trying to hunt him down all night." the messager explains.
But Trinock just laughs at the information, "Selope? Ha, that's far west from here and nowhere near Melromarc, why would the sword demon appear in a town that can't be any further from the Melromarc border without being noticed before then?"
"I... I don't know, but a bunch of nobles are involved in the hunt so there might be.."
"Yeah and a bunch of nobles four years ago went on the hunt for the filolial queen and that turned out to be a giant 6 month long wild goose chase. Those fools can waste their time chasing more ghosts, I have a real problem I want to remove now, so don't bother me with this sword demon nonsense again." Trinock dismisses not believing a word of it.
"Oh ah, yes my lord I'll just be out of your hair now." the messager says back not wanting to argue with his Prime Minister.
In the meantime, both Neia and Rino sulk in sorrow as it looks like there was not going to be a way out of this, and Bakugou isn't going to be able to save them again.
They both tried their best to keep a brave face, but deep down they were both scared. The fact this might be their last few minutes together.
Rino was the first to speak up, "Well Neia, I guess this will be goodbye."
Neia then sighs with a sadder look on her face than before, "Rino I'm so sorry."
"Sorry for what?" Rino asked confused by Neia's statement.
"I should've never have encouraged you to join our team, making it seem great to be a part of it. Now look where we end up in. Me and you are going to lose our heads and you could've been anywhere else if it weren't for me." Neia apologizes feeling guilt about this and with Melty as well.
But Rino just shakes her head to that, "Don't blame yourself over anything Neia, I joined by my own free will and unlike with Motoyasu I wasn't forced into any role, not as eye-candy or anything else. Being with you and Sir Bakugou allowed me to be whoever I wanted to be. I got to be stronger, do and learn more magic than I ever could, and help so many people along the way whether stopping the waves or other things. I never regret joining you guys, and Neia you have been a real friend to me, even if we die today that won't ever change with me."
Neia starts to get teary-eyed again after hearing that genuine speech, "Thank you Rino, I don't regret our time either. At least we'll be together when we die, if only we got to say goodbye to Melty, Daven, and Sir Bakugou himself. I would've told them about me and why I was exi-OW!"
"OW!" Neia and Rino shouted after getting rocks thrown at their faces and getting their attention, Rino looks out angrily to the individual who threw them wearing a giant hat and a coat, "Hey asshole! We may be getting executed today, but that doesn't mean you can interrupt our-"
But Rino stopped herself as the individual moves up his hat revealing who it was. It was Daven as he gives a big smile and winked at the two.
Rino and Neia noticed and looked back at each other, now their sorrows had almost instantly disappeared, and gave nods and confident smiles back at each other. They now felt ready for anything.
Back with Trinock as soon as he saw that the crowds were under control he was ready to begin the event, "It is time now. Begin the executions!" he announced, and with that came silence from most of the population with only the sound of a drumroll playing as Neia and Rino were pushed forward on the small flight of stairs up the podium toward the guillotines.
The suspense was in the air as the drumrolls intensify it even further.
Once up on the structure Neia and Rino were forced down on their knees and their necks were forced on the wooden base of their respective guillotines. Though the act made Rino drop her hat, "Excuse me mind getting that for me?" she casually asked.
The executioner was willing to do Rino's final request, "Very well, just as long it doesn't block your neck." he responds and puts the hat back on. The executioner finishes setting up the prisoners, and eyes a lever at the other end of the podium. The lever that will make both sharp angled blades fall on the two sidekicks' necks.
Daven in disguise approached the structure until he gets blocked by a guard, "Hey big hat, that's close enough! Get back in line!" he ordered thinking he was just another part of the crowd
But despite the fact they were seemingly going to die soon, Neia and Rino still took on brave faces as they smile toward Daven. It raised Trinocks eyebrows, but he didn't care at this point, the execution was going to happen and these two will not be his problem anymore as he raises his arm up.
The drums then started beating faster to increase the suspense even more. After a few more seconds of this, he finally throws down his hand, "Off with their heads!" he orders.
The executioner approaches the lever to end the supposed criminals' lives for good.
The guard next to Daven got pissed, "I told you already, get ba-" Daven then threw his hat out on the guard that contained a white powere in it, "AH! My eyes!" he screamed.
Daven immediately used his teleport magic and right before the executioner could touch the lever, Daven pops right beside him and kicks the executioner right in the jaw, and knocked him right off the podium.
Such an act surprised everyone there, including Trinock himself who after his initial shock turns toward Mellia with a pissed-off look on his face knowing she and her husband were supposed to be responsible for Daven's imprisonment and torture and here he was now ruining everything.
Mellia just whistles away trying to act innocent to that whole thing.
While Trinock was distracted the three guards on the deck immediately go for the lever themselves as Daven did his best to stop them. One tried to cut his head off with the sword only for Daven to teleport away and the guard ends up accidentally killing his partner.
Daven pops back in to slice his throat from behind while the guard was in shock.
Trinock turns back around after getting over his shock and was now pissed off with his public execution ruined, "Don't just stand there stop them now!" he shouts with the guards gathering up toward the podium deck.
Daven quickly gets the two off of their guillotines and with his sai's he breaks open their cuffs, "Thank you Daven, we're deeply in debt to you." Neia thanks him with Rino nodding along with her.
"Well don't thank me yet until we're out of here! Quick take these!" he says to them as he throws their weapons back, Neia's two blades including the dragon tooth one and Rino's staff spear.
"Where did you find them?" Rino quickly asked.
"Turns out they were put in the same tower I was imprisoned at," Daven answers with the three gripping their weapons and were now ready to fight back.
The soldiers quickly swarm in with the 3 young heroes fighting them off, Rino using her spells along with her spear, Neia fights off soldier after soldier with her swords and electrify them with every opportunity she could, and Daven teleports around the two and protect their weak spots as some of the guards try to climb up the podium sides.
But the soldiers continue to come in greater numbers as they storm up the stairs or climb up the structure. The sidekicks were basically on a tiny island getting swarmed by a school of hungry sharks.
But regardless of numbers, the 3 were able to hold them off. But Trinock had no patience as they made fools of Siltvelts men at arms, "archers! Here now!" he ordered.
Daven heard that as he looked up at several buildings and sees groups of archers setting themselves up of getting ready to fire at the group.
Daven quickly warned his team of this development as he fights off some more knights with his sai's, "Neia! Rino! I think it's about time we get off of this death trap!"
Both Neia and Rino saw the archers above as they began to pull their bows back ready to fire and pelt them with a swarm of arrows.
And Rino knew it was her time to shine, literally, "Blinding Light!" she shouts as her staff glowed and she raised it high in the air for everyone to see.
Rino then activates the spell and creates a giant blinding light in the entire area. It was so bright it forced everyone not part of the shield heroes squad to close their eyes and look away from the bright light including the soldiers, archers, and Trinock himself.
The spell only last a couple of seconds until the light disappeared. Trinock and his men look back to where they were but quickly notice the 3 shield hero companions were gone.
"Where are they!? Where are they!?" Trinock shouts to everyone, his men try to look around to find the 3 knowing they couldn't have gone that far.
And as the Prime Minister scanned the area he finally saw 3 familiar-looking individuals running down an alleyway making a run for it.
Trinock immediately points in that direction, "There they are! After them! NOW!" his troops follow the minister's order and immediately started running, with most going directly where Trinock pointed them to, while others go toward different roads and streets around the city hoping to either get ahead of the sidekicks or corner them eventually.
After that Trinock immediately turns himself ready to order Mellia's arrest, but she was already gone. He then looked up in the sky and saw the half-bird shusaku woman flying high making a run for it to escape prosecution, "That damn bitch!" he shouts but he then just turns himself around and head his way off the building, "Whatever I deal with her later, I have bigger fish to fry anyway." he says to himself as he leaves the roof of the building ready to coordinate his troops.
And with Rino, Neia, and Daven themselves they continue to run as fast as possible to get away from the soldiers, "Daven what are we going to do now?!" Neia asked.
"We need to somehow rescue Sir Bakugou and get ourselves out of here!" he responds
"And what's the next step to enact that plan?" Rino asked.
"To be frank this was about as far as I got with the plan, I was lucky to think as far as I did to save your two's heads and get out of the town square," Daven admits.
That didn't give the crew much confidence, but with the city on high alert, leaving the capital itself was not happening without some serious firepower, so to Siltvelts castle it was to save Bakugou.
But as they run, behind them was a large army of soldiers now chasing after them so the 3 sidekicks couldn't waste their time fighting them off now knowing only more and more will be coming and kept running as fast as they could. Daven's teleportation magic had limits and is only saving it when they will 100% need it especially in fights.
After a while though, other soldiers started appearing in front of them and tried to corner the group, and attacked forcing the young heroes to engage.
But the three knew they couldn't risk long fights as a large army was pursuing right behind as Neia used her electric bolts using her swords to help fire them off with Daven teleporting behind a few of them to stab or kick them in the backs and teleport back with his group just as quickly.
Despite the slowdowns, the three kept up the pace now recognizing some areas from when they came from the castle to the cathedral for their upgrades. They have to remember what routes they took to get from the castle to there and go backwards from there to the castle.
And as sidekicks continue to be on the run, Trinock continued to engage his hunt for them. He wants to finally corner and kill all 3 of the shield heroes' sidekicks in the most painful way possible.
Just outside of the capital, Scarlet with Ren and Melty has been on the move since their rescue of the princess to not only avoid the small army of zealot or desperate noblemen trying to kill them, but to somehow rescue Bakugou and the rest of his crew.
They ran and ran and ran with a the army horsebound pursuers now in range to start firing magic attacks at them, until Scarlet passes over a large hill and in the distance saw the Capital of Siltvelt itself, "So that's where Bakugou and the others are at right?!" Ren asked
"Yes that's Siltvelt's capital, we need to hurry and save everyone!" Melty responds.
"I'm doubting it will be that simple though." Ren remarked as Scarlet runs down the hill and the great force of numerous horsemen following her, "Still to think the one place Bakugou is worship at, is the same place he ends being imprisoned in, by yet another warmonger in this world." he continued with this Trinock reminding him of Aultcray. Melty had told Ren the whole story of what happened since leaving Melromarc, from there little stop at Edvie, about the Siltvelt government and how corrupt it was including how Trinock tried to bribe away Bakugou's team while attempting to trap Bakugou in a room full of horny noble girls, the wave that happened recently here, the battle with the assassins after the wave, Bakugou's plot of freeing Siltvelts slaves and reforming the country itself, and lastly what happened last night that got them imprisoned and why she was at that canyon area in the first place.
"I still can't believe father would do all of this, start a war at a time like this and antagonize the nobles and risk a civil war! Even if he thought I was kidnapped, this wasn't right at all." Melty shames herself, Ren had told his side of the story, from the noble assembly meeting of wanting to go to war with Siltvelt where he told the king to screw off, Motoyasu, Itsuki, and Maltys attempt to capture and enslave him, their journey to meet her mother the Queen, there sidetrack in Lord Rabiers town with his castle exploding and the Trex monster rampaging his town afterward, he even told her about Fitoria all but the details of his promise to her. Melty seemed to at least be somewhat familiar with Fitoria so she took it all in face value, and lastly how they got in Siltvelt in the first place via Fitoria's magic and how they got themselves being chased after saving a group of people from supposed bandits and why these crazy nobles are trying to kill him.
Ren then spoke up again, "Well we'll talk about how to deal with your insane father later, now let's just save Bakugou and everyone else from this just as insane Prime Minister guy."
"Don't stop attacking, keep firing!" shouted another horseback riding nobleman with his soldiers as he and many other nobles and soldiers persist the so-called Sword Demon as they kept throwing magic attacks at the running filolial as the young girl keeps on dodging them while keeping up her pace. Ren would fire back, but like in chase in Melromarc, they finally started using magic barrier spells to protect them from many of the sword heroes' long-range attacks.
Eventually, they were getting near the city's outmost wall with the posted soldiers wondering what the hell was going on down there.
"Close the gate! Close the gate! It's the sword demon! The sword demon!" One of the chasing nobles shouted out.
The wall soldiers were still baffled by the situation, but they have heard rumors of the sword demon appearing in Siltvelt, and just looking at the humans below they can tell with how they dressed, that they were not of humans in Siltvelt.
Not taking any chances, the guards did as told, "You heard him, shut them!" a captain of the wall guards ordered.
And without hesitation, the gate was dropped down preventing anyone from getting inside the normal way.
The situation annoyed Ren, but he knew at this point just running in won't be the case for him and he imagines any other gate in the outermost wall will be shut off as well.
But if that wasn't bad enough when the three got close enough the soldiers from the wall began to load up and fire their giant ballistic crossbows at the giant running bird. As each ballistic fire at Scarlet, she is forced to dodge each one as the giant projectiles land and bury themselves in the ground as Ren's pursuers begin to catch up with them.
Though an unlucky group ends up getting hit by one of the ballistics missing the sword hero killing and knocking a bunch of the pursuers out.
If that wasn't bad enough, a group of archer's arrived and started pelting the area with arrows.
With all the archers' Ren knew climbing up the wall would be dangerous and Scarlet was getting tired as it is. As he quickly scanned the area he saw one of the ballistics half-buried in the ground that was angled right enough for a particular giant bird to jump on.
"Scarlet jump on that thing!" Ren points to it.
Scarlet sways away to the side following Ren's order as she is forced to avoid so many things at once.
A row of noblemen on horse attempt to charge at Ren's Filolial. But Melty creates another water spell that wets up the ground causing it to be muddy and slippery, making the charging horses get them stuck in the mud or the horses trip over flinging some their riders away or falling into the mud themselves.
Scarlet finally jumps on the Ballistic and combining her strength and wind magic she launches herself high in the air.
The archers from the wall attempt to fire at the bird girl some more, but it was harder for them to be firing at moving targets in the air along with Melty creating a water barrier spell below them.
Scarlet finally falls back down and lands just right on the top of the wall. The guarding soldiers attempt to attack or fire arrows once more, but Ren just as quickly made Scarlet jump away into the city itself landing on top of some buildings and they continue to run across the rooftops.
"Open the gates! Open the gates!" the pursuing noblemen yell out with the wall guards quickly following orders as they reopen it. Allowing the horseback pursuers to continue the case as they speed through the city, forcing anyone in their way to jump to the sides as they continue to follow their sword demon from the ground below. Not going to let anyone in the city take credit for his death.
Scarlet continues to run above on the roofs without anything getting in the way.
Ren then turns his head to the princess, "Ok Melty, do you know where Bakugou and the others are at?"
"I don't know? Can't Scarlet track them down with her skills?" Melty responds now starting to feel uneasy again.
"Damn it! I knew I should've had Scarlet go down the tracking path why didn't I-" Ren shouts but then stopped himself when he notices many supposed city soldiers judging by the armor they're wearing, were running off to somewhere, but not to them. Other than the horseback nobles already chasing them down, all of the soldiers around were all going to something and he hoped it was toward Bakugou and his friends.
He then asked his Filolial, "Scarlet can you hear what those soldiers who are not chasing us are saying below?"
"It's hard to hear with all the voices, but I hear repeated phrases of something about chasing after a traitor, a blue demi-human, and a Melromarc witch," Scarlet responds.
Melty immediately gasps, "That has to be Daven, Neia, and Rino! They're still alive!"
"I guess that's the best lead we have. Scarlet follow where the none horse-riding soldiers are going!" Ren orders.
"Yes Sir!" Scarlet responds and she did what was told as they follow where the city soldiers are running to while avoiding the small chasing army behind and below them.
Back with Neia, Rino, and Daven, the situation was gradually getting worse and worse, the closer they get to the castle the more common soldier attacks become and in greater numbers. With the three only having so much magic to spare and the few mana potions Daven managed to get from Narel was only a couple and they were just about out.
The three try to avoid combat out of necessity as possible or be as quick to the point as possible. But now their general location was known and Trinock was getting his soldiers to block off any other path with a wall of large soldiers forcing the three on a specific path while being chased after.
The three were doing their best to run, they knew hiding anywhere was not going to be possible with all the soldiers and eye-witnesses, they just kept running and running as the army of numerous soldiers continue to pursue them.
And now the alleyways were being swarmed with more soldiers forcing the sidekicks on the main streets as the civilians force themselves to move out of the way from the supposed convicts and the army men chasing them.
They ran and ran and ran and ran. But then they stopped when they see what they didn't want to see. A giant solid concrete wall, blocking off another section of the city to them.
Trinock had manipulated their direction enough with his soldier's positions to intentionally leave them at basically a dead end.
They attempt to turn around, only to see well over 100 soldiers encircling them, blocking off every street and every corner. They were now surrounded.
Despite the situation, the 3 sidekicks kept their weapons up as the huge number of soldiers stare at the sidekicks, awaiting their next order.
"Daven can't you use your teleportation magic to get us through the wall?" Rino asked.
"I'm afraid I can only teleport to places I can see with my eyes or sense with my dark magic ablitiy, and it doesn't work through walls. And besides it takes a hell of a lot of mana to get through solid objects especially with a group and knowing Trinock he most likely has some traps on the other side of the wall." Daven unfortunately answered as the 3 continue to stand their ground ready to fight off all the soldiers if they have to. And to make the situation worseh, up above the wall were numerous archers aiming down at the 3 ready to fire at them so trying to teleport up the wall wasn't going to work either even if it was in Daven's range.
Though they were curious as to why they weren't attacking yet, that was until Trinock got there thanks to two shusaku soldiers flying him over the city, he lands on the roof of a building by the surrounding army. As Trinock looks down on the cornered heroes, the 3 look up to see him making a smug smile again.
Trinock then started to gloat once more, "Ha, I have to say that was impressive and good fun, you three would've made good assets toward the war effort. But your more trouble than your worth, the games are over. It's time to end this for good."
The soldiers then prepared themselves to attack as the sidekicks do the same, but they don't know if they are going to survive this time with how many soldiers there were and not to mention the wall archers.
Trinock moves his hand up once more as he did during the public executions to do basically the same thing again. After a few seconds of silence to savor the moment he throws down his hand and yell, "Men! Off with their-"
"Lord Trinock! Lord Trinock!" yelled a voice.
"Grrrrr!" Trinock groans, now deeply angrily annoyed by the interruption, "What the hell is it now!" he yells and turns to see it was the same dog demi-human messager as before.
the dogman messager quickly spoke up, "Lord Trinock! The sword demon has appeared in the city and is going around jump-Ack!" but he was cut off after Trinock grabbed him with one hand by the neck and starts choking him.
He then lets out his anger on him, "You dare interrupt me once more with stupid rumors! I swear I will throw you down there and let you be gutted along with those three! There is no sword demon in Siltvelt! And there won't be any at all in this world once we burn Melromarc to the ground! So shut your damn mou-!"
"LOOK OUT!" a random soldier in the roof shouted as Trinock turns toward where he was pointing to and saw something he never expected to see, a giant black bird running right at him.
Trinock throws the messager at the side and he and his men jump out of the stampeding birds' way as it finally jumps off the rooftops and lands itself sliding across the ground with the numerous soldiers also forced to move out of its way.
No one had any idea what this was, not even the sidekicks. But as they look back at it, they saw 2 humans on the back of the bird. And it was none other than Princess Melty and Ren Amaki the sword hero himself.
Melty immediately looked excited to see the three still alive, "Neia! Rino! Daven!"
"Melty! It's really you!" Neia excitedly shouts back with a smile on her face glad to see her fine and well.
"Sir Ren is that you also?!" Rino also asked.
"Yes, it's us! Now let's get out of here!" Ren orders waving his arm toward a street.
"You know this guy?" Daven asked just confused by this random event that came out of nowhere.
"Yes, this is Sir Ren the cardinal sword hero," Neia replied
"Sword hero!?" many of the soldiers surrounding them said in fear as they looked toward one of their so-called 'devils'.
Trinock after getting himself up looks down at the human teen and sees his swords glowing blue gem. Proving he was indeed the real deal.
"I told you so." the messager dog demi-human brags.
But Trinock was so full of rage right now he aggressively pushed the dogman off the rooftop as he screams his way down the building.
He then points toward the 3 sidekicks, "Kill them! Kill them all now!" he orders.
Daven immediately places his hands on Rino's and Neia's backs, "Well good enough for me!" he quickly says as a bunch of soldiers attempt to attack them only for Daven to teleport away along with Rino and Neia just in time as the soldiers dogphile onto each other at an empty ground with numerous arrows being fired down the wall stabbing through the unfortunate soldiers.
The 3 sidekicks then pop in right back above Scarlet as they fall on her back safely. The random teleporting magic surprised Ren a bit even after what Melty had told him about Davens abilities, but he quickly got over it as he points to a road once more, "Scarlet go! Now Now!" he ordered.
Scarlet immediately runs off a bashing through a bunch of soldiers attempting to tackle her with Neia and Daven being forced to kick a few off when they didn't immediately fall from the speeding filolial.
"Stop them, kill them all now!" Trinock orders once more
"But isn't one of them the Melromarc princess?" a random soldier asked
"I don't fucking care anymore! Just kill them all!" Trinock shouts again as he is grabbed by his flying soldiers once more to fly up in the air.
Back with Scarlet, a row of shielded armored soldiers block the road Scarlet was heading toward.
But it didn't slow her down, she started running faster than before and despite all of that armor Scarlet just bashes through the wall with sheer force, knocking over the soldiers like bowling pins.
She kept on running while the large force of soldiers follow suit despite their lack of rides. Thankfully with Scarlets' speed they were leaving them far behind.
With the crew, Neia and Rino were quick to give Melty a big hug, glad that she was safe and with them again. After Melty and Neia finished hugging each other, the elf warrior was the first to speak up to the sword hero, "So Sir Ren are the other heroes here as well?"
"No, it's just me and Scarlet here. We have kind of been on our own for a while." Ren answers.
Though that confused Rino, "But what about the other guys with you? The ones that were on your side since the day after the summonings?" she asked, as she remembers herself being there with the 11 others picked by the king to be the hero's companions.
Thinking about his companions again gave Ren a lot of guilt, but he knew Rino didn't know any better and gave a response anyway, "It's a really long story that I'll tell all of you later once we find Bakugou and get the hell out of here. Where is he imprisoned at?" he asked.
Daven pointed out at the wall, "He's at the castle's dungeons beyond this wall and another thicker wall after that." he answers.
Ren wasn't big on the answer, "Great so right in the middle of this city. Going directly inside the beehive. It's crazy, but if he's truly there, we need to rescue him now."
Neia can see that Ren was just tired with some sags on his eyes and was just exhausted, she tried to give him some comfort and keep him up on his toes and motivated, "Thank you again for saving us back there Sir Ren. I'm happy to call you a true hero at this point."
Even though he was focused on the task at hand, deep down he was happy to finally get a simple thank you after all he has been through since the last wave in Melromarc and to be called a true hero along with it, "A... A... No problem Neia, I just knew we had to-"
"There he is!" shouted a random voice and it was the large force of nobleman cavalry again that had been chasing Ren had finally caught up to him.
"Are you serious!? These assholes again!?" Ren shouts in anger absolutely sick of these guys by now.
Ren had Scarlet turn away and she runs toward a different street to get away from the charging noblemen who unlike the horseless soldiers were capable of catching up with the Sword hero's Bird.
Up in the air Trinock also noticed the cavalry charge and asked his shusaku soldier helpers, "Drop me off right there. Now!" he ordered and without hesitation, they dropped the prime minister off not too far from the ground. He lands on his feet without issue thanks to his own magic abilities as Scarlet had already passed ahead of him. Trinock then eyed one of the charging noblemen with the largest horse knowing what he had planned.
"Move out of the way or- wait is that Lord Trinock?" one of the charging noblemen expressed as they see Trinock in the middle of the road.
The noble tried speaking with Trinock as he gets near him, "My lord please move over we need to-YAHH!" but Trinock just grabs and yanks the nobleman away from his horse and throws him on the ground.
And in just a few seconds Trinock commandeers his horse away as he jumps on its saddle, "Don't stop now keep at them!" he yells with the rest of the horseback nobles following him, not going to question there Prime Minister and continued their pursue of the sword hero with Trinock now leading the charge.
The hero team continues to run as Scarlet also dodges the attacks being fired on them, with Rino firing back multiple energy spell attacks back at them, knocking out a few of the nobles before they started creating their magic barriers again.
Eventually, they see the gateway to pass through the wall into another section of the city.
They've already closed the gate and rows of archers from above started pelting arrows at the group. Melty and Neia together then created a water barrier wall above themselves to absorb all the arrows from getting to them.
And despite the closed gate Scarlet continued running toward it, Ren then points out his sword at it, "Could use some extra firepower here?" he asked out loud.
And Rino took the call with her staffspear being pointed toward the gate with the hero's sword.
The two then charged up their magic energy attacks and shouted, "Meteor Blade!"
"Arcane missiles!"
And fired together at the gate,
Boom!
The combined spells blew up and destroyed the gate and with quick speed Scarlet continued to run past it, bashing through some more soldiers standing in front of the now nonexistent gate failing to stop them as they run toward the castle.
Ren then looks up at the large castle itself from a distance, "So that's where Bakugou is at?"
"Yes, and he should be underground at the dungeons," Daven confirms.
But as they look more at the castle, they saw something off. Very very off.
Melty was the first to bring it up, "Daven why is there so much smoke coming out of the castle?" she asked as they all see black smoke coming from some of the windows of the palace.
It was strange, but as the entire group all but Scarlet looked back at each other they knew what this meant.
"Bakugou!" they shouted together.
Ren grips the reigns harder and ordered Scarlet to run faster than before, all the while Trinock and the large force of horsemen continue to follow right behind them blasting more magic attacks at them. Trinock didn't care how much collateral damage this would cause, all he care now was to kill every single one of them. He was going to see some heads roll today, regardless of how it's done.
Back in the castle, it was quite a horrid sight for the living guards. Much of the castle was already on fire with skeletons and ash piles of their fellow men decorating the burning walls and floors, as the corrupted Shield Hero goes on a rampage across the castle as he pursued the cowardly frightened king as he was constantly running away and throwing whatever he had on the shield hero. But the results end the same as Bakugou burns and blows up every poor soldier that comes close.
While most of the non-military staff had already been outside the castle striking, any other non-military person that was still in the castle had already been evacuated from the premises. Though it was less for their safety and more for them to be out of the soldier's way and not find out what has happened with there God and blab about to the public. The soldiers and the king were all who remain on castle grounds.
And all the while Bakugou's clothes and appeal start to transform on him with the shields corruption. His red cape was now a leathery black, and his gauntlets begin to match up with his shield looking more demonic with the palms now resembling the shield's center "eye". The gauntlets were also growing on him as they extend up to his arms all the way to his shoulders. Even his silver boots began to change now instead of the magic silver leather it was now the same dark metal as the rest of his growing corruption armor.
"Kill him! Kill him! Kill him!" King Janio yells once more to a group of soldiers he stood behind, this time being a large group of archers and long-range mages who began firing multiple attacks at the approaching shield hero as he leaves a burning hallway behind him.
But these continue to do no good as most of the arrows completely burn away before getting too close to the hero or just bounce off his chest and shield like nothing as were all the magic attacks, being absorbed into his body rather than taking in the damage.
Knowing this wasn't working either Janio runs off again as Bakugou blasts himself into the archer group, raming right through a magic barrier they set up barely protecting anything, and fires an explosion on them, as they either vaporize into ash, burning skeletons, or have their burning limbs fly all over the place.
Janio kept on running until he finally meet up with the castle guards captain, "Is it set up again? Please tell it's set up again?" Janio asked him
"It is my liege." the captain responds.
Janio finally smirks for the first time since this rampage started as he turns back to see Bakugou now running toward Janio, now done toying with the evil king.
Janio runs once more down a familiar hallway with the captain as the rage-fueled hero follows them.
Janio and the captain finally meet up with a group of hooded mage figures and stop themselves.
Once again Bakugou blasts himself toward the group as he was ready to blow away another group of soldiers they kept throwing at him.
But once he was close enough to the group and was about to attack once more, "Now! Activate it now!" Janio ordered as the mages press their hands on the floor
And in just a few seconds the floor below Bakugou crumbles and he once more falls through the same hole he went through last night. But unlike before rather than it being a clumsy fall, the hero lands right on his feet in the cold iced room once more with numerous ice golems surrounding him along with many Siltvelt soldiers and spies.
Janio laughed from above as the mages create a barrier once more for the ceiling, "Hahaha, I can't believe you fell for the same trap twice both figuratively and literally! Time to put you back in your place monkey! Do it!" Janio mocked above and then ordered his men below.
The ice golems once again threw their fists into the ground, going to do the same ice capturing spells they did before to in-case Bakugou in ice. But to everyone's surprise, unlike before the ice magic wasn't working this time with the pissed-off hero not even flinching as the heat of his body almost instantly melts the ice around him, magic or not.
Bakugou eventually stopped standing there and with a scream he starts running up to some of the golems and started blasting them into a million ice pieces.
The soldiers and loyalist spies tried to help and overwhelm the hero like before but this time numbers did no good for them as Bakugou continued to either blow them into pieces or allow them to hit his cursed shield that burns them to death.
More and more ice golems continued to pop up, being made by unseen mages but it was no longer doing them any good as Bakugou effortlessly destroyed them all.
Eventually Bakugou's inner rage began to build up with the memories of this trap room, being the same place where he lost everything at. He finally screams out as his body aurora and his quirk fire off, in a few seconds great heat and fires flood the whole giant room. With all the remaining guards and spies screaming and burning to death and the ice golems almost instantly melting.
This mass of heat and fire covered the entire room as it overpowers the cold magic within it, as it was melting all the ice and snow across the floors and walls. Turning it all into water and just as quickly the water evaporates into steam as Bakugou continues to scream in rage as this giant cooler turns into a giant boiler. And other than Bakugou's screams, the screams of the hidden ice mages were heard below the floors that made the ice room possible as they were being cooked alive from all the heat burning them.
Once Bakugou finished his burning scream, he finally uses his corrupted quirk once more to blast himself in the air as he approaches back up toward the ceiling as the corrupted shield hero madly stares at the absolutely horrified Janio.
"No No, that's impossible!? It worked the first time!?" Janio panics as he watched that horrific display. Janio quickly turns to his captain for aid, "Captain what's your...?" but Janio stops himself as soon as he noticed the captain was now nowhere to be seen, already making a run for it, which makes Janio look more horrified as he was now about out of options.
Bakugou makes it up near the floor with the magic barriers being his only obstacle, until he smashes his own shield into the barriers, leaving a noticeable hole through the powerful magic energy barrier as the burning mad shield hero forces himself through it like a hole in the floor.
Janio once more started running, but at this point he was done throwing soldiers at Bakugou and was planning to just make a run for it out of the castle and find Trinock.
Bakugou finally lifts himself out of the barrier back on the floor and without hesitation massacres the hooded mages into flaming corpses or blown into burning body parts.
He watches Janio cowardly running away, and after the king until he felt a presence of dark magic in the hallway, and out of nowhere a bunch of loyalist spies pop in around Bakugou that were not originally in the freezing trap room and attempt to strike at the hero all around his with their defense piercing weapons. But Bakugou's corrupt armor had now completely envelops his whole torse and all who strikes their weapons on his armored body or the cursed shield itself, he or the shield sets the spies on fire before they could teleport away. And those that went after his exposed head, Bakugou just blocks them with his shield and sets on fire as usual, or grabs them before they could hit and any weapon Bakugou grabs with his hands instantly melts into a molted liquid.
He then opens his palms and before they can teleport away he blows up spies into ashes. He did this to the rest of the remaining spies and soldiers in the hallway who were attempting to flee turning all who tried to stop him before into burning corpses if even that.
Once he was done with that, he goes after King Janio again, but this time he was done with the chasing and finally starts using his quirk to blast himself toward the fleeing King.
Janio runs as fast as he could, but it was no use as Bakugou approached him with deep rage. And once Bakugou makes it up to the King and blast himself over Janio to be in front of him, Bakugou immediately punches him in the face with such great force, not only did he knock out a few of Janio's teeth he smashes through a wall into another room.
The King was in deep pain as he moans from that, but he looks back up horrified to see the burning shield hero, as he goes through that same hole and leaving fires behind as he moves inside the room.
Janio continues to crawl up to a wall as he finally turns himself around at Bakugou who stares down on the pathetic king with his deep anger as he looks on with his glowing pupilless red eyes.
Janio knowing how screwed he was did whatever he could to save his own hide, "Wait Lord Bakugou! Wait! If... If you want it, you can have the entire kingdom to yourself! You can be the new king! It's not like I did anything important in this job anyway!" Janio begs even taking off his oversized crown from his head, "Here you see it's all yours you can have the cro-AAH! AAAAHHH!" he continues to beg and then screams in pain as Bakugou grips Janio's hand with his own metal covered hand and used the other to snitch away the crown and instantly melts it down with his heat.
Bakugou lifts up the king with his arm as he stares angrily back at the terrified as hell Janio.
Bakugou then spoke once more, "So you liked to torture hah? Well then, let me start torturing you as well!" Bakugou yells with his demonic voice and not even giving a second for Janio to speak up again, Bakugou throws the king on the floor, and without hesitation started to stomp on Janio's head over and over again with his now metal boot. Causing deep pain to the king, but the worse part of this was that at the same time he doing this, Bakugou was also using his healing magic to quickly heal up most of these major injuries and keep Janio's hp remain as high as possible to continue his beatdown without the evil king dying instantly.
After a while Bakugou stopped stomping and grabbed hold of Janio and throws him all over the place in the room bashing him into furniture, punching the shit out of him from the face, stomach, and groin over and over again. And at the same time constantly heals Janio up to continue his beating with every bone that breaks getting instantly healed only to be broken all over again, while suffering from third degree burns at the same time.
Janio deep in pain tried to plea to him, "Please please stop! This was all Trinock and the council's idea, I was forced..."
But Bakugou just kicked him, "Silence!" he shouts to the hurt Janio, he then grabbed his tail and was now throwing him around like a rag doll as he continues bashing his whole body into what's left intact in the room. He eventually threw Janio so hard his tail snaps off as he is thrown into the hard wall causing cracks around it.
Bakugou casually throws the tail away and continued to stomp his way toward Janio who barely got himself up, "My tail. Uh! My tail-OAH!" Janio moans in pain as Bakugou punches him in the stomach.
"That's not the only thing you'll lose you evil bastard!", Bakugou then grabbed his arm with the end of his shield and bashes it into the middle cracking the arm bones into two.
"Aaahhh! Please! Please have mercy!" Janio cries. But not a second later Bakugou yanks and completely rips Janio's whole arm off, "AAAAHHHHHHH!"
Bakugou then hits Janio across the face with his own severed arm into the cracked wall. Bakugou then continued to bash him with his arm over and over again as he continued to subconsciously heal him up to make the torture last longer. At the same time, his menu kept spamming him *Caution rule violation: Cardinal hero not allowed to use any other weapon but there assigned one.* over and over with each hit he makes on Janio. But Bakugou just ignored the message and even when he is penalized with a painful electrocution for violating the rule as he kept beating the shit out of Janio with the arm.
Bakugou then threw one more swing of the arm so hard at the King of Siltvelt, Janio is smashed right through the wall into another room, alive but barely.
And without hesitation Bakugou destroys the severed arm with his quirk. He then stomps his way back to Janio as the bleeding poor excuse of a king looks up in fear, "It's time I make an example out of you! To all of those who dare try screw me over!" he shouts to Janio and was about to grab him.
"We don't think so!" shouted a voice from above, and as Bakugou looks up in the room. He saw from the ledges of the higher floors in large room was the captain of the castles guard once again. And with him and on the other higher floors in the room was numerous combat mages all gathered up from around the castle looking down toward Bakugou.
The corrupt hero can tell what this was and this deepen his already strong anger even more, "YOU DARE CHALLENGE ME! CHALLENGE YOUR OWN GOD! YOU WILL ALL BURN FOR THIS!"
And with a wave of his hand, the captain yells, "Attack now!"
And with the order, the numerous mages from above all launch out many attacks at the hero, attacks of all different spells with many that are just beams of energy intending to take down the human quickly.
The various attacks forced Bakugou in place as the mages hold him down.
Janio took the opportunity to make a run for it, not waiting for anything anymore He makes a rush for the exit of the castle which was nearby, all the while limping away and holding on to his gaping wound where one of his arms use to be at.
The mages continue to press on with more and more mages getting involved at the ground levels as they fire more attacks all over the shield hero.
They hope this would eventually incapacitate or kill the hero for good.
They were dead wrong.
Back with Ren and Bakugou's crew, they continued to ride Scarlet as she jumped and sprints across the capital, all the while Trinock, the horseback nobles, and the cities soldiers were all trying to stop and kill them.
They grew closer to the castle as the number of soldiers become more and more numerous, but the group was not defenseless.
Ren and Rino were the heavy hitters firing their magic to the more numerous group or the largest soldiers that get in the way with their long-range attacks or just blasting through defenses. Though Ren was mostly focused on keeping Scarlet on the right way, so Rino has been the primary range attacker in the front. She was also the anti-air attacker as shusaku soldiers attack from above, but they were all lightly armored making it easy for Rino to blast them out, they mostly had to be lightly armored to just keep themselves flying, unless they were of higher levels.
Neia and Melty were the back defenses as they blast water and electricity magic at any soldiers attacking behind. And with their water magic barriers without Bakugou around they were the best defense the group had. Any soldiers that did get too close or jump on the large bird it was Neia's job the stab or shock them off and do any healing for the group.
Daven had been the flanker and covered everyone else's blind spots as he would teleport to attack any guards or kick some of the noble riders off their horses and quickly teleport back. He was still confused about the random presence of Ren with everyone else wondering the same, but they were more focused on stopping the soldiers from killing them and getting to the smoking castle then worry about that now.
Eventually after all the running and fighting the crew made it to near another large wall, once they pass through this one it will only be Siltvelt castle dead ahead.
Scarlet continues charging toward the gateway, but Ren notices that this gateway had numerous gates in itself and way more thicker gates than the last few walls with magic barriers also covering it. Both he and Rino knew they won't be able to just force themselves right through with one big blast this time.
But Ren looks up over the wall, "Looks like we're going up the wall this time. Everyone hold on!" he announced to the group and they all knew what Ren was intending to do.
Many archers stationed on the wall started pelleting them with arrows as Neia and Melty continue to work together to create their water barrier spells in front of Scarlet. With Trinock and the horsemen nobles starting to close in on them.
As Scarlet approached the wall Ren turns to Rino once more, "One more attack together above." Ren asks of her, with the mage hero nodding in agreement.
And once more the two combined their spells together and fired their weapons upward.
Boom!
The double energy attack caused a big explosion at the top part of the wall blowing away any archers and mages up in that area of the wall.
Scarlet makes it to the wall and like the cliffs earlier today she started to climb herself up the wall as she grips the stones with her clawed feet while everyone on the bird grip for their dear lives on her feathers as they scale up the wall.
"Fire at them! Fire!" Trinock yells as he points to the climbing group with the archers and mages on the other parts of the wall.
It was Melty's and Neia's duty once more to protect the crew from the attacks with the water barrier spells, but it was not only harder to do while clinging for dear life on a giant bird's back, but the spell itself wasn't particularly strong so it was starting to drain on the 2 but at least it was enough to barely stop the attacks.
Scarlet thankfully makes it over the wall and while avoiding any remaining soldiers on the wall itself Scarlet makes a great leap over onto the other side.
"Hold on tight!" Ren shouts as everyone holds harder on the bird as she jumps back down on the other side of the wall.
Scarlet finally makes it on the ground with everyone intact.
"Is everyone ok?" Ren asked looking behind.
The group nods in agreement.
Ren then quickly looks back forward, "Perfect, now we're almost to the castle, Daven if you know your way in the castle it would be... Holy crap!" Ren shouted in surprise as he holds back Scarlets' reigns making her abruptly stop.
Everyone else looks ahead to see what Ren sees.
A huge army of large armored soldiers lined up in a U shape formation blocking the way to the Castle, and then the soldiers made up of 5 rows close together. So unfortunately for the crew, Scarlet won't be able to just bash through them especially with the back row containing numerous big demi-humans like Rhino's, Hippo's, bear's, Elephants, etc.
And if that wasn't bad enough, they created a giant magic energy barrier like the one at the gate only larger, taller, and even more powerful going around the whole palace. It was also too high for Scarlet to jump and she's unable to climb over with her feet.
To make this situation worse they can hear from behind the gates opening up from the wall, which means Trinock and his men were on their way to surround them in the back.
Ren couldn't believe this, "How were they able to prepare all of this for us, after all the crazy stuff that had happened between me and what was going on with you three?" he asked out loud to everyone.
Daven made his best guess, "It seemed someone important with high authority was able to get ahead and planned this whole thing in advance.".
"But who?" Melty asked.
"By me!" shouted a voice from the rows of soldiers. And coming out of them was none other than Patriarch Ozsan as he smiles smugly. As the group stood their ground with their weapons out, the so-called holy head of the shield hero's church continued speaking, "I knew when things started breaking down after your botch executions, I had to be ready for when your group eventually arrived, and it paid off. We will not allow you Melromarcian sacrilege heathens take away our shield hero again."
Neia was quick to speak up on that, "'Our shield hero?' Sir Bakugou is a person with a beating and passionate heart, not some relic to be used to justify your hypocritical beliefs and greed." she scolds the Patriarch.
But Ozsan just laughed, "Ha, Like I care what you think of me. Once lord Bakugou gets properly "reeducated" my will shall be the will of the shield hero and his church, especially once the sword demon falls today." he responds as the patriarch holds up his arm to make the soldiers raise their weapons out ready to fight them.
And knowing they are not going to run now after getting this far, the whole group jumps off Scarlet as they ready themselves to fight.
Then the gates behind finally open up and Trinock, all the horse-bound nobles, and their own soldiers rushing in doing the same as the Patriarchs forces by spreading themselves out in a row and ready themselves to charge at the group willing to end all of this once and for all.
The group huddled together and were ready to fight off the two armies.
Trinock raises his sword high and was ready to throw it down to initiate the attack, "Men, ready, steady, CH... Huh!? King Janio!?" but before he initiated the attack he saw his king from up on his horse.
The name drop surprised everyone including the hero group and the Patriarch and his forces as they all turn toward the castle. And a good distance behind the magic barrier they saw King Janio limping himself outside of the entrance of the castle, Crownless, beaten to a pulp, and was missing an arm.
"Wait that's the King?" Ren asked out loud from the pitiful sight.
Daven answered quick, "Yeah and I'm surprised to see he looks even worse than he usually does."
As everyone watched on wondering how he is in such a state, the King finally made it near the barrier with the Patriarch immediately getting up to him first, "King Janio what has happened to you? And of your God Bakugou?"
Janio then began to hit the barrier, "God!? God!? No, he is no God! He's a monster! An evil fucking monster! And he's going to kill us all if we don't get out of here! Please lower the barrier! Please!" he cries as he hits the magic energy barrier with his only working arm.
Everyone was now wondering what in the hell is going on with Bakugou, everyone then looked back at the castle and the smoke that has been coming out of it was now getting thicker and darker.
Ren has a bad feeling about this, he may no longer be afraid of the Siltvelt soldiers, he may now have to fear his fellow Cardinal hero himself.
Back in the castle once more the mages in the room continue to throw all of their spells and magic at Bakugou as much as possible as the corrupt Shield hero who has barely flinched.
"Keep pressing! Keep pressing your attacks on!" The captain of the guard shouts as the mages kept attacking.
But despite all the attacks Bakugou continued to stand up as his body absorbs all the attacks and allowed his rage to grow greater once more, "Damn them all! Damn them all! They will suffer! ALL OF THEM WILL SUFFER!" he shouts with the voice being heard even through all the attacks.
Eventually after absorbing so many attacks he had finally unlocked him a new upgrade to his shield of Wrath: *Ability unlocked, Fury detonation*.
Bakugou subconsciously activated the ability and all the attacks being thrown at him were now fueling his inner rage. His skin and armor were now glowing bright red as sparks of just as red electricity bolts started to emit out of his body.
The captain of the guard notices this as his fear started to grow as well, "USE ALL OF YOUR POWER! KILL HIM!" he shouts as the mages press harder to their breaking points, but all this did was make it worse and worse.
All of the energy of their attacks kept on fueling Bakugou, with this and his rage making his entire body glowing red with all of that power ready to escape out of him.
It was now at his breaking point with Bakugou, he finally lets out all of his rage,
"DIE!"
"DIE!"
"DIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"
Bakugou screams from the top of his lungs and his body becomes consumed in fire and in a blink of an eye that fire explodes outward across the bottom floor as all the attacking mages on the first floor burn to ashes from the fires.
The captain of the guard saw what he has done and order a retreat, "Everyone get out no-Aaaah!"
But it was too late and as Bakugou screams the burning fires instantly spread upward and the fires explode to the higher levels and instantly burns away every other living thing in that large room including every single attack mage.
But that wasn't the end, Bakugou absorbed so much energy and was so mad, this wasn't enough. He finally lets it all out, and the entire castle quickly gets engulfed in fire.
"THIS WORLD WILL BBBBBBBBBBBUUUUUUUUUUUUERRRRRRRRNNNNNNNNNN!"
Right outside the castle, the screams of the shield hero were heard from everyone in the courtyard and a good amount of the capital, giving shivers down the spines of the hero team and the all the soldiers, with everyone in the dark on what was happening.
King Janio on the other hand knew what was up, "You heard that! A damn monster! Let me through! Let me through!" Janio desperately pleas as he continued to hit the barrier while Ozsan and his men continue to look puzzled on how this could all be happening.
Bakugou's team was just as mystified, "That scream, it is definitely Sir Bakugou's. But something sounds off about it?" Neia comments out loud wondering what has happened with her team leader with everyone else wondering the same knowing there was something off about that scream.
But while everyone else wonder what it all meant, Trinock wanted to refocus back on killing these troublemakers and deal with Bakugou afterward as he raised his sword once more, "Don't just stand there! Kill all of them now!" he shouts and was about to charge himself, but the soldiers and noblemen on both sides continued to stand around to look upon the burning castle wondering what was going on, "What the hell are you waiting for! Kill them already!" he shouts but everyone continued to look on at the castle as the fires grew more intense.
But in just a few seconds they started seeing a sequence of explosions, many going off on the castle with each growing bigger than the last.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
The hero team quickly realize what was about to happen and knew it was bad, "Everyone under Scarlet!" Ren shouts with the entire hero grouping up as Scarlet covers them up with her large body and wings while ducking her head over her own wings as well and Neia and Melty forming a water barrier around the whole bird.
The Siltvelt soldiers and nobles remain confused as the explosions continued to grow bigger and bigger until,
boom! Boom! BOOM!
BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMM!
An explosion so huge had just erupted that almost everyone was blown away from the intense force the explosion caused, making the rows of soldiers get flung away and the magic barriers instantly shatter along with most windows and glasses in the capital. All the while Scarlet and the hero crew did their best to hold on as Scarlets' clawed feet hold onto the ground doing her best to not be flung away.
After the massive explosion finally died down the entire area was covered in a cloud of thick smoke, it was hard for anyone to see or breathe in the hot fumes.
Scarlet uses her powerful wind magic to blow away most of the smoke with Rino also using her light magic to brighten up the area.
They all look back to the castle, only to see no castle existed there anymore, the explosion completely annihilated the place with the only thing remaining being a giant burning crater spewing an endless amount of smoke. Everyone looked on horrified by the smoldering ruin, "Sir Bakugou" Neia murmured, in the back of the hero teams heads they wonder if Bakugou had caused this destruction or if he was even still alive after something like that.
They also looked around the courtyard and see many of the soldiers on the ground, most of them were dead from the resulting explosion, but many were still alive groaning in pain from the backlash and ringing in their ears. The same can't be said for most of the horseback nobles where they were unlucky enough to be crushed by a large piece of debris that looked to be one of the towers of the castle.
And to the group's disappointments Trinock, the Patriarch, and King Janio were still alive. Trinock managed to jump out of the way of the tower with most of the nobles being crushed with him being launched into the wall by the gates, Ozsan took cover from a few of his larger soldiers as they took the brunt of the explosion, and lastly Janio it was a miracle for him that he lived despite his current health as of now, it seems right before the explosion happened a few mages put on a few protection spells on their king before he was blasted halfway across the courtyard.
The hero group didn't know what to make of this whole thing or if they should even go into the crater to check and see if Bakugou was in sight or if he's even alive after that. But they also continue to hold their grounds as the surviving soldiers got themselves back up including Trinock and the Patriarch, they weren't sure what in the hell happened as they look on to where Siltvelt castle used to be, their seat of power, a castle of so much history and value that stood for centuries was wiped out from the face of the earth.
Janio also got himself up despite all the pain and continues to whine out loud, "See what I mean! He's a damn monster! A damn monster! We need to get the hell out of here before-ACK!" But Janio was interrupted with the end of a speared chain piercing right through his stomach with a magic metal ball covering his whole body also instantly, shocking everyone else there.
"GET OVER HERE!" shouted a voice with the metal ball being yanked away, as if it weighed nothing, right through everyone. Until it lands back and rolls on the ground with the magic metal ball disappearing as the king continues to roll until the momentum stops.
Everyone looked on to where the chain came from, and it looked to have come from the edge of the crater where the castle used to be at. Then they heard footsteps and saw a figure rise up from the crater cliff's edge, with an aurora of hate spewing out from it. Once the figure was out of the crater, to everyone's shock and horror it was the Shield hero Bakugou himself. Alive and well with his eyes still glowing red and with no pupil or iris, and his entire body all but his head was covered in his dark demonic armor, and his shield continues to remain in its dark and glowing red wrath form.
Everyone there couldn't believe that this was the same shield hero as before.
"Sir... Sir Bakugou? What have they done to you?", Neia said out loud in confusion by her hero's drastic and terrifying change.
Ren was just as baffled by this whole thing, "What in the hell has happened to him?" he asked out loud. He knew it has been a long time since he saw Bakugou but he never seen this kind of power before or any armor like that. No such things existed in Brave Star Online, let having the ability to wipe a whole castle away from the face of the earth. What he was wearing looked to be what an end-game boss would wear.
"I... We don't know, he wasn't like this when we last saw him." Rino responds with fear in her tone which only makes Ren even more confused by all of this.
Then the shield hero began to stomp his way toward the injured King as he attempts to crawl away despite the hole in his stomach from the corrupted version of shield prison. Once up to Janio, Bakugou stomps his foot on Janio's back, "This is only the beginning for all of you! Every single one of you sicken me! Starting with this piece of shit! I'll show you all my true power!" he shouts out loud surprising everyone more from his now deep and demonic voice.
Bakugou then lifts his foot off the King and kicks him over, he then noticed something has unlocked from his rage shield series that says: *Execution unlocked: Iron Maiden* Bakugou then grins, "Time to make an example out of you!" he shouts to the king who looks on in fear.
Bakugou then charges up his energy to be ready to activate the execution, until, "Lord Bakugou! Excuse me, Lord Bakugou!" shouted a voice that turned out to be Patriarch Ozsan.
Corrupt Bakugou then groans as he stares impatiently at the head of his church just to hear what stupid things he had to say.
Ozsan then finally speaks up as he approaches the shield hero, "Lord Bakugou I'm horribly sorry that all of this happened. This was just disgraceful, that you be imprisoned like this and be treated like an animal, such a horrid act. I'll be sure those that did this to you will suffer. And I know who are the main people responsible for this, Lord Trinock himself as he and the council made up this idea to imprison and torture you in the first place. I did all I could to prevent this from happening but I was too late to help you from that corrupt sinful man." Ozsan lies clearly trying to save his own hide as his god looks completely pissed off by everything.
This of course was heard by Trinock who was hiding behind the walls near the opened gateway, "That damn religious bastard!" Trinock yells angrily to himself pissed off that cowardly priest was willing to throw him and the council under the bus and pretend he wasn't involved.
But Bakugou continued to look unamused by the lies, but Ozsan resumed speaking as if it was accomplishing something, "If I can join forces with you I can help find the rest of these evil sinners for you, and then you can torture them in any way you desire. I've always been your loyal servant and did everything in my power to help the people of these lands to worship you. I also now support your new Bible, it's a value improvement over that old outdated one and I shall continue to enforce your new will across the-"
But Bakugou had enough and just raised his right hand up toward the Patriarch's face with the palm glowing red with heat.
Ozsan quickly looked on and widen his eyes in horror at the sight of this, "No No Lord Bakugou wait!"
But in just a second Bakugou fires off his quirk and Patriarch Ozsan is instantly consumed by the fire explosion attack, his body all the way to his bones get vaporized as he lets out a final loud high pitch scream as his body burns into ashes like many other before him.
After only a few seconds Bakugou lets down his arm and just like that Patriarch Ozsan was now an ash pile smeared across the ground. The grand holy shield churches Patriarch was now dead, ironically killed by his own god.
After that horrific display was over, Bakugou turns back to focus on Janio, "Now where were we!? Oh yeah, your punishment!" he then points his left shield arm out toward the sky as it starts to be covered in dark clouds, "I cast the Iron maiden!" Bakugou shouts and the clouds began to swirl around with red rage lightning firing off, eventually the lightning strikes together at the center of the cloud spiral, and from high in the sky a giant object forms, it was a literal giant-sized Iron Maiden torture device floating up in the sky with metal chains around it extending out to open air, with a faced figurehead on top of it as its eyes glows red and the doors of the magical torture device opens up, revealing hundreds of sharp spikes inside ready to consume its unlucky victim.
Everyone looked on horrified by this power, not just the people at the courtyard, but to everyone in the capital who have no idea what is going on other than this might involve the shield hero.
Janio was especially horrified knowing what's coming as he tries to crawl away again, but it was too late to save himself.
Bakugou throws down his hand at Janio and from the iron maiden in the sky, metal chains launch out of it and quickly descend to their target.
Janio even forced himself to get up to try to save himself but it was no good, the burning metal chains quickly wrapped themselves around Janio's arms, legs, neck, and torso. They soon began to drag Janio up away, "Help! Help! Somebody help me!" Janio cries out desperate for anyone to save him.
Some of the soldiers there had finally took up their king's call for help and went of to engaged Bakugou, "Come on men! Save the king!" a soldier commander shouted and he and a few other soldiers all attempt to attack and stop Bakugou who barely cared about them.
A few soldiers tried to attack Bakugou at once, only to be blocked by the shield and just as quickly are all set on fire by the shields curse and burn to death. That stopped the other soldiers as they look at the horrifying sight of their comrades running and screaming on fire, it made them stop to turn and attempt to run away.
But Bakugou was so insulted by it he raised his arm at the retreating soldiers and fires his corruption-influenced quirk and those that didn't get vaporized are screaming and burning to death.
All the while Janio continues to be dragged up to the Iron Maiden with the chains pulling back fast to return inside. All the while Janio continues to scream for help, "TRINOCK! HELP ME! HELP ME! SOMEBODY PLEASE HELP ME!" but no one was coming to help him, Trinock remained in hiding not wanting to be sighted by the corrupted Shield hero and Ren and the sidekicks continued to stand there and watch, horrified by Bakugou's newfound power as the evil puppet king gets what is coming to him.
"HELP ME! HELP ME!" Janio continued to scream as he was finally up inside the floating Iron maiden as he was forced in with the inside spikes stabbing his back as he screams in pain, but the worst was still to come as he sees the doors to the maiden shaking.
Bakugou raised his left arm up toward the sky with his corrupt shield and with only a few seconds of pause he clutched his left hand.
The doors of the maiden finally began to close, "HELP! HELP! HELP!" Janio screams his last words as the doors finally shut themselves, "AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" Janio lets out a final bloodcurdling scream across the capital as the maiden closed itself completely, with the outside spikes pushing in deeper into the device. Everyone could only watch as the screams of their king finally end.
After a few more seconds, the maidens figurehead piece eyes glow red. And the giant magic torture device finally dissolves itself, with all that was left of Janio was his blood, as it rains down at the courtyard. The King of Siltvelt was now dead, now truly leaving his mark on his country.
Bakugou grins as he looks out to the last surviving soldiers that didn't try to attack him, "Let this be a message to all of you sinners! Those who dare screw with me will face MY WRATH!" Bakugou then lets out some large explosions up in the air to display his intense power. This made all of the remaining soldiers make a run for it as they scream in fear while the Shield hero smiles in sadistic glee.
"Sir Bakugou!" shouted a voice, and as Bakugou turned to the voice he saw Neia, alongside Rino, Melty, and Daven as they had their weapons out and stood together in fear.
The corrupted Shield hero walks himself toward his startled crew and grins to them, "Perfect! All of you are here! This shall only be the beginning! I'll soon spread my fires all across this cursed world! Siltvelt will burn to the ground, and soon after Melromarc will burn with it along with every son-of-bitch there! With you as my horsemen of the apocalypse, I shall cleanse this world of all of those who sinned against their God! And all who survive will worship me as the one and only God!" Bakugou announced, now with his mind being completely corrupted by the Wrath shield's power.
The crew were horrified to see Bakugou like this, and knew this had to stop before those who are truly innocent get killed by his hand.
Melty approached him first, "Sir Bakugou please calm down. You're going overboard with this, you've already proved your point to everyone." she begs hoping the shield hero would see reason.
But it wasn't working and his grin slowly disappeared after hearing that and started to frown again, "Calm down!? This was only the beginning of God's wrath! I will not stop now until every bastard burns!"
Neia then approached him, "Sir Bakugou please, you're letting your anger get out of control, you have to stop right now or you won't be any better then the ones who screwed you."
Rino spoke up right after her, "Yeah you're scaring us, this isn't being a hero at all."
Daven also spoke up as well, "And you already killed the shield churches leader and Siltvelts king, if you can hold yourself together we can stop Trinock and the council as well."
But for a few seconds they only heard silence, until, "You dare go against me!?" Bakugou angrily spoke out loud, surprising everyone there, "You dare go soft on me! After everything these bastards have done! You want to let them off easy!" Bakugou turns toward Neia and Rino, "I saved both of your asses from being turned into sex slaves! You would turn your backs on me!"
"Sir Bakugou we-" Neia attempted to say something until Bakugou cuts her off and turns to Melty
"And you and your piece of shit family! You would defend them as they screwed me over and over again, expecting me to apologize to them after they tried to ruin me!" he scolds Melty leaving her speechless.
He then turns toward Daven, "And you! After this miserable Kingdom screwed your family over! You want it to continue to live!"
The group was all stunned by Bakugou's leaps of logic, but they all knew this wasn't the real Bakugou saying this, they all quickly concluded that the shield was somehow manipulating his mind and was not letting him think straight. They knew they had to do something and fast.
Bakugou then continued to yell at them, "What happened to all of you!? What made you go soft!? Whoever-..." Bakugou then stopped as he looked behind his group and saw Ren Amaki with Scarlet watching the whole thing and was now the center of his attention.
"You!" Bakugou's rage was now expanding as he stomps his way through his own team, shoving them aside as he heads his way toward Ren who was now holding out his sword at Bakugou,
"You!"
"You!"
"You dare come back into my sight AGAIN!" Bakugou screams as he launches two explosions in the air to intimidate the Sword hero.
'Holy crap! This is worst than I ever thought it was going to be." Ren yells in his head, he was now forced to reconcile with Bakugou at this state?
Bakugou continued to stomp his way toward the sword hero and his bird monster as his aurora of hate grows bigger than before. Ren had no choice but to try to calm him down while stepping back himself, "Bakugou wait! I'm sorry about everything that I allowed to happen to you since the beginning! I was acting selfish and stupid since your trial and I should've-"
"Shut up!" Bakugou yells as he lets his quirk off at his sides, "Your talk is cheap! You think I'm that naive or stupid!"
"Please Bakugou try to understand, this world needs all of us heroes to work together and-"
"What do you know about being a hero!? You're nothing more than a damn nerd who thinks this whole thing is one of your damn video games! Was I the same to you!? Just some NPC you can just throw under the bus, while you act like you're the only thing to matter in the entire universe! You and those 2 other idiots disgust me! You shit on the name hero!" Bakugou yells as he lets sparks out of his palms, "And now you come all of this way to turn my party and sidekicks against me! With your lies!" he continued
That second part confused Ren while also being very afraid, "What? Bakugou I didn't come all of this way too-"
"SHUT UP! Like said already! Your talk is cheap! You're nothing more than an annoying bug who shits all over the place! I think it's time for me to squish that bug now." Bakugou finishes and then lets out a scream, "RRRAAAAAHHHHHHH!" his body was now covered with his red veins and he blasts himself toward Ren who could only stand in fear with how fast Bakugou was raming toward him.
"Master Ren!" Scarlet yells and with her beak quickly grabs Ren's coat and jumps away just in time,
Boom!
Bakugou blows a large hole in the ground right where Ren would've been at, 'Holy shit, he really is trying to kill me now!' Ren yells in his head as Scarlet lets him down with Ren quickly getting on her back.
Bakugou turns back toward Ren, "So you still rely on that loli bird hah!? She'll just die along with you!" he yells as he lets out more small explosions on his hands in intimidation ready to start his battle with the sword hero.
Scarlet was ready for him as well, "I'll kick this Shield so hard he will-"
"No Scarlet don't kick!" Ren immediately interrupted her.
"Why not master Ren?" she asked both disappointed and confused.
"Because you saw what happen to those knights earlier that tried to directly attack him? They all caught on fire!" Ren reminds her.
"Oh yeah I forgot about that. But how do we fight him?" she asked.
"We use long-range attacks for now, but our goal is not to kill, remember Fitoria's promise."
"Yes master Ren!" she nods back then they heard Bakugou yelling again
"Enough talking! You will both die here!" Bakugou finally blasts himself toward Ren and Scarlet as he was ready to fire his quirk on them, but Scarlet jump away just in time as he blows up the ground where they were at once again, but Bakugou didn't stop this time. He follows the two's movements as he fires his quirk at them over and over again, only for Scarlet to continually jump and dash all over the ruined courtyard as Bakugou blasts at them endlessly.
"Wind cut!" Scarlet yells as she fires a wind attack with a swish of her wing, it hits Bakugou knocking him back from the air a bit, but all it did was slow him down and made him more and more furious as he screams and fires his quirk at any spot near Ren.
Ren energized his sword and using its power he shouts, "Meteor blade!" and fires one of his strongest magic attacks at Bakugou while he was barely stunned by another Wind attack.
The sword's attack spell directly hits Bakugou at his chest, but to Ren's displeasure, his health didn't take a single dent and it seemed to have just made him even angrier, "Oh great this is now reminding me of that dinosaur thing again." Ren says out to himself remembering how that thing was basically invincible where his attack did nothing to it, but this time he can't count on Fitoria saving him and Scarlet sorry butts.
As the intense fight went on Trinock who still hiding at the gateway finally turns away toward a couple of terrified soldiers, "There is no need for us here, move out and assemble every single soldier in this entire city and have them admass down here." Trinock orders the soldiers.
"But... But what of the sword demon and shield hero?" a nervous soldier asked.
"Let them kill each other, and whoever is left alive and beaten we kill," Trinock responds as he and the remaining soldiers follow him out of the area and be far out of the cardinal heroes way.
Back with the sidekicks they also watch on with Ren forced to fight for his life with Scarlet, they knew they need to stop this. But they don't know how with Bakugou out of control, but they knew they had to jump in some time or Ren and Scarlet won't be lasting long.
Back with the fight, Ren continues firing magic attack after magic attack at Bakugou while also dodging the explosions that are starting to mark the ground with holes and hot flames. But no matter what he threw at Bakugou he just tanks it and absorbs the energy with Scarlet's wind magic only stunning Bakugou for a few seconds but with no real damage to him.
"RAAAHHHH!" Bakugou yells again as he blasts himself in the air, then his corrupt armor gauntlets change from the palms,
"Oh god, don't tell me Bakugou is that kind of boss who absorbs energy and gets stronger attacks out of it?" Ren mutters out loud.
"ULTIMATE AP SHOT!" Bakugou shouts using his rage and the energy from Ren's attacks, with both palms he fires 2 laser-like attacks down below, as Scarlet continues to run and dodge from both red beams as Bakugou tries to vaporize the two of them as the laser-fire attacks leave there burning marks on the courtyard.
Eventually, Bakugou used up the energy from the attacks and the lasers died down forcing Bakugou to land back on the ground. But despite that Bakugou was not slowing down and was just as pissed off as he was before.
Ren tries to speak to him once more, "Please Bakugou, I know I was stupid, but do you really think killing the world is going to-"
"SHUT UP DAMN YOU! I DON'T CARE WHAT YOU SAY! SHUT UUUUUUUPPPPP!" Bakugou screams as he continues to fire his quirk over and over trying to kill the two as Scarlet kept dodging them and fires her wind attacks at him, as they seem to be the only things to affect Bakugou in any way without giving him more power.
But Bakugou was getting tired of this bacl and forth and came up with a plan.
With his corrupt powered quirk, he fires barely above the ground setting it on fire with the cursed flames.
Bakugou then started blasting lines of high fire on the ground for Ren and Scarlet to remain in a specific area as he kept setting more of the ground on fire. He did this over and over until before Ren realized it, Bakugou had trapped them in a small area surrounded by the high hot cursed flames.
Bakugou looks toward Ren once more as he points to him, "No more cowardly jumping around and avoiding a fight you bastard! Time to fight and die like a real man!"
Ren grips on Scarlet harder as they sweat in not just the heat but are afraid that they might be in a situation they won't be able to get out of. Ren tries to talk to some sense one more time, "Bakugou I don't want to fight with you! You said the same thing once with me, when we-"
"I told you already! SHUT UUUUPPPPP!" he screams and finally jumps up above the sword hero team ready to just kill them.
But just in the nick of time, Daven pops in and touched both Ren and Scarlet and pops away as Bakugou blows up the now empty ground again.
Daven, Scarlet, and Ren pop back with the Shield hero group now directly getting into the fight as they grip their weapons ready for a fight they know won't be easy, "You alright Sword hero?" Daven asked as he takes out his Sai's.
"If by fine you mean alive, yes, but you guys shouldn't involve yourself in this, it's between me and him," Ren says to the group.
Melty then spoke out, "It's between all of us, if we don't calm him down now we won't know how long Sir Bakugou's rampage will last."
The others nod agreeing with her, with Ren not wanting to argue nods as well and they all look back at an approaching and pissed off Bakugou, "How dare you! How dare all of you betray me! The four of you were my sidekicks! And you dare fight for him!? Fight for this loser! If you dare fight for him now! YOU WILL ALL JOIN HIM IN HELL!" Bakugou screams once more and fires his quirk toward them.
Daven grabs onto Melty and Rino and teleports away, Neia power jumps on Scarlet's back and the bird dodges out of the way of the explosion Bakugou fires off.
Daven drops Rino and Melty a good ways away from the fight so they create spells for long-range boosts and attacks for the group. As Daven teleports away he pops up right next to Bakugou which the shield hero notices and fires his quirk at him only for Daven to teleport away in time popping in a different location nearby Bakugou which he fires at him again only for Daven to do the same thing again as Bakugou falls for the bait. While he tries to kills Daven and Scarlet throws more of her wind magic at Bakugou
"Hold still you piece of shit!" Bakugou screams and eventually slams his hands on the ground causing a large ringed explosion around him forcing Daven to jump himself back.
"Hydro blast!" Melty shouts and fires a water spell while Bakugou's back is turned and stopped his ring of fire.
"You little!" But before Bakugou could attack
"Intestifyig light beam!" Rino shouts as she lets off a blinding light beam spell that only affects one target, and thanks to Bakugou's glowing corrupt eyes this spell had now directly affected him when it wouldn't have before. Rino quickly activates her other spell, "Restraining chains!" creating magic chains from the ground and quickly wraps around his legs and body.
Before Bakugou could react Neia then jumped from Scarlet and shouts "Electric shock!" and lands on the magic chains with her swords through the holes and fires her magic attack off, using all of her mana to attempt to stun Bakugou. But it was barely doing a thing as Bakugou screams some more
Melty fires off some more water magic to cool Bakugou down little good it did.
"Scarlet kick his head now!" Ren ordered and Scarlet rushes at Bakugou and kicks him in the head. The idea was to knock him out unconscious, so Scarlet had to hold back a bit for the first hit to not decapitate him. But despite the force of a small car, it didn't phase Bakugou in the slightest. Ren had her hit harder and harder hoping he would just get out cold already, "Come on go to sleep! Go to sleep!" he shouts hoping this plan works.
But no matter how many times Scarlet kicks him or how much harder she kicked Bakugou's head, he refuses to let himself be knocked out and once again Screams, "RRRAAAAAHHHHHHH!"
Boom!
Bakugou explodes himself, no longer dazed and had destroyed Rino's chains. He was freed once more and still very pissed off.
The power of the explosion blew Ren and Scarlet away as they roll across the ground with Scarlet reverting into her human form.
"Ow, master Ren my sides hurt." Scarlet cries and as he got himself up he sees Scarlet now injured and covered up in what looks like dark burnt bruises. It seemed the curse effects of the shield were now getting a hold of Scarlet from getting some of the fire on her, she also begins to cough ill from the curse effects.
The two then look back in horror as they saw Bakugou stomping his way toward them, "No longer have your bird loli to reply on do you!" Bakugou mocks Ren as he held the injured Scarlet in one arm and grips his sword with the other, "You can't beat me Paleface! Nobody can beat me! I AM GOD!" Bakugou then fires off both his palms intending to blow them up
But just like before, Daven teleports them away just in time.
"DAMN YOU! DAMN ALL OF YOU!" Bakugou finally goes berserk and fires his quirk in every direction with everyone forced to duck and jump out of the way as fires are left all over the place.
This went on and on for a minute until his menu popped up to say *Iron Maiden cooldown finished, execution now available* Bakugou grins once more, "Looks like your time has come to Paleface! I call the Iron Maiden!" he shouts toward the sky with everyone looking up, and once again saw the clouds spiral and the same giant torture device appears again making everyone terrified as hell to be seeing that thing again.
Ren once more tries to reason with his fellow hero, "Please Bakugou! You're letting the shield control you! You're not its pawn, you're nobody's pawn!"
"How many times have I told you! SHUT UP AND DIE!" Bakugou then threw his hands down toward Ren's direction and like before the iron maiden fires out long chains to snatch their next target.
Ren however unlike the King before had a powerful weapon on hand and had the ability to move around, after he drops off Scarlet on the ground he blocks the various metal chains with his sword and chops some of them up, holding them off as long as he could.
But Bakugou started to grow impatient though and approached Ren, "You got to be one of the most stubborn idiots in the universe! Why won't you just die already!" he screams again and was about fire his quirk at Ren while he fights off the endless respawning chains. But then he gets hit with an dark magic energy blade almost hitting one of his eyes. Even if it was a direct hit it would've done nothing, but it still caught the pissed shielder's attention and saw it was Daven again trying to distract him.
"I am getting sick of this shit!" Bakugou blast himself and fires at Daven as he teleports away once more.
And while that was happening Neia helps out Ren with the maiden's chains by cutting down a few herself.
Bakugou was about done with all of this and finally stopped chasing Daven and runs himself back to Ren to at least kill one of them.
"Shink trap!" shouted Rino and activated an earth spell where in one of the holes Bakugou created from his explosions the ground magically pops up and sucked in the lower half of his body including his arms into the ground, keeping him in place as he screams and squirms in it. Rino knew it wouldn't hold him forever, but it at least gave them time to stop the Iron maiden.
But with Ren, he eventually got caught off guard and a chain snatched one of his legs. Tripping the sword hero and begins to drag Ren up with the other chains now latching on while burning him with curse marks.
Both Daven and Neia grabbed on to Ren as they did their best to keep him from going up to the maiden to his death. While Melty and Scarlet despite the latter feeling ill the bird monster in human form goes out of their way to break some of the chains with Scarlets blade-like wind spells and Meltys water spells.
Rino knew this was her time and fires off her spells, "Archane missiles!" and fired at the floating object itself, she fired and fired and fired spells at it over and over but it was more sturdy than it looked.
Bakugou finally blasts himself out of the hole he was in and freed himself. His anger was now at its breaking point as he focuses on Rino, witnessing her destroy his Iron Maiden, "You damn bitch! You'll be cremated for that!" he screams as he now blasted himself toward Rino.
She noticed but Rino knew the Maiden had to be destroyed first and as she combines her arcane missiles with a light beam spell she fires it right at the Maiden's figure headpiece figuring it was its weak spot. And right she was as the beam hits the figurehead piece and blows it away with the rest of the maiden dissolving with it. Its chains quickly disappear finally freeing Ren from its grasp, but still leaving the curse bruise marks on his arms, legs, and neck.
But Rino now had to deal with a raging mad Bakugou who was about to attack her as he quickly approach the mage.
Barely having a few seconds to think Rino used what magic she had left to create a wall of thick earth right in front of her.
But once Bakugou was right near the wall
Boom!
He instantly destroys the wall, it saved her life but the force of the explosion sends Rino flying a few feet before rolling on the ground.
"Rino!" Neia and Melty shouted as they see one of their friends down and hurt.
Rino herself was groaning from the pain as she developed some cursed bruise marks from Bakugou's fires.
Bakugou then blasted himself at Rino as he looks down at her with hate, "You ruined my climax! Time for you to die with it!" Bakugou shouts as he puts his hand out at Rino ready to kill the injured mage as she looks on at her cardinal hero with fear.
*Slash*
"AH!" Bakugou yells as he gets cut in the back of the neck from Daven, the attack did no damage but the pain from the armor-piercing attack managed to get his attention.
"Rino leave now!" Daven shouted as he pops in and out all around Bakugou.
But as Rino got up, before she ran too far she heard, "ACK!"
Daven just popped in at the wrong time and place and Bakugou finally caught him by his neck with his left hand.
Bakugou was now choking Daven as he lifted him from the ground, "You've been damn pain in my ass! I should've left you with those other noble losers when we first met! Now it's time for you to greet them in hell!" Bakugou yells some more as he grips harder and harder on Daven's neck as Bakugou's body gets warmer from his fury creating some of the cursed bruises on Davens neck.
Rino tried to run up to Daven to somehow save him, but Bakugou answered that with a warning shot with his open right hand, "Don't get any closer! I'll deal with you once this bastard is done!" he warns, Rino was now panicking on what to do now, as it seemed like no matter what they try Bakugou has become too strong and they might all die soon by his literal hand.
Daven did all he could to get out of Bakugou's grip but it was impossible with all the strength the wrath shield has given him, it looks like he is truly seeing God's wrath now.
Ren was just as helpless as he holds on to Scarlet with Melty right next to him, Scarlet was coughing harder from the cursed injuries. He was just as stomp on what to do, Bakugou was not listening to anyone, and this cheat power, he really can't call it a cheat anymore, it seemed like Bakugou was on God mode now. He has become virtually invincible. He is now less worried about what Fitoria will do to him and the other heroes and what this complete berserker Bakugou will do to him and this world.
Neia was horrified as Daven continues to be choked and knew it was a matter of time before Bakugou just kills him then Rino after him. Without any other sort of plan, she had to run up to Bakugou and grab his right arm, "What are you doing you blue bitch! Let me go!" he shouts at her.
But Neia refused to as she starts to cry, "Please stop this Sir Bakugou! Stop this now, you're not like them, your not like those evil people that imprisoned you! You're not a villain! You're not a villain!"
"I said, LET GO!" Bakugou finally throws his arm so hard it strikes Neia's face and neck. Sending her away a few feet, but Bakugou had hit her so hard he left a long cut near her neck and knocked her out cold, with some blood starting to drip out of her neck.
"Neia!" Melty shouted as she ran up to her.
Bakugou looks back again pissed off by another voice distracting him, "Will you idiots just..." but for the first time since his rampage, Bakugou finally paused as he looks down at Neia with her body now looking lifeless. He also witnesses Melty applying some health potion on her, Melty did all she could to help her but it was doing no good as Melty cries on Neia's chest.
It was now getting into his clouded head, he expressed killing them all before multiple times, but now as he sees his first sidekick's body laying down appearing dead, his anger began to be replaced by guilt and sorrow, "Ne.. Neia?" he expressed with in a now calmer voice despite its demonic overtone.
He then looked next to Neia and Melty and it was Rino, but he was now no longer seeing her as an annoyance to kill, but as another sidekick that he took in, one who went through so much and was willing to stay by his side all the way, even going against her own king. She was now covered in cursed bruises and injuries he had caused himself, "Rino?" he mutters as he looks at the hand that created those cursed marks and injuries.
He then looks at his other hand that still had Daven in its grip as the life was slowly escaping the rogue from his hand, he now remembers this being the same person that saved his life from turning into stone in the last wave, the same sidekick who help led him to aid to be healed when assassins went after him, and now he was about to kill him.
In a snap of awareness he lets go of Daven, the cat rogue starts coughing to himself as he finally gets to breathe normally again.
Rino immediately ran up to him to see if Daven was ok as Bakugou looks at both of his hands. He looks back and forth between his hands and sidekicks as his glowing red eyes open up to see what this power made him do, "Did I... Did I do this by my own hands?" he asks out loud to everyone, who all just staring at Bakugou with worry toward the still corrupted but confused shield hero. Deciding to not answer and remain silent. He then looks all around himself and saw the carnage of the area. From all the fires and craters he made from the fights, the numerous corpses, and a giant burning crater which use to lay Siltvelts Castle. His mind was already changing by all of this, "I... I did all of this. This was all my doing."
He then looks back at Neia once more, and it looked like she was no longer breathing, "Neia? Neia!" Bakugou shouts but not with anger but with worry as he runs up to her.
Once near her body, Melty continues to cry worried that the worst will come with her friend, with her healing failing to do much. Bakugou continues to look at Neia's unconscious body. It was silent for a few seconds while he stared, and what surprised everyone was that despite the shields influence, Bakugou had finally shed a tear, "No. No! NO! Don't die on me Neia! Don't die on me now! Not like this!" he shouts and with his arm out he began to use his healing magic on her, "HEAL! HEAL! HEAL!" he shouts over and over again, he didn't care how much mana he was using up, he kept using spell after spell to heal up whatever injuries had caused her to lose consciousness.
Thankfully his magic did seem to be working as all her cuts began to seal up and her hp went back up near max again with her bright blue color returning to her body. But she remained out cold only making some coughs as Melty held her hand and looks back at Bakugou.
The corrupt shielder turns away and looks back at the burning crater he created, all full of shame. He continued to stare at it for a few seconds until he finally spoke again, "They were right."
Everyone looked confused to those words, "They were all right in Melromarc, I am a monster. I am the devil!" Bakugou then kneels himself on the ground and starts to cry, a wrathful cry, he no longer has just hatred this world, he now hated himself.
Everyone continued to look on as Bakugou lets out his emotions, "And it's not just here either, even in my old world, people thought I would eventually become a monster, that would never be a hero, even a bunch of villains kidnapped me thinking it was inevitable for me to be a part of them! I couldn't even pass a damn hero license exam! They were all right, I'm no hero, I am a villain, the devil of the shield." he continues to cry now taking all that guilt into himself.
"Come on Bakugou, you can't be serious." said a voice, and as Bakugou looked up to who it was. And it was Ren holding on to an injured Scarlet, despite everything that had happened not to long ago, he was brave enough to walk up to be next to the emotionally broken shield hero.
"Oh what do you know about me Paleface? What makes you the judge of me?" Bakugou cries back at him.
"Because ever since you got here, all you have done is prove everyone else wrong."
"What are you even talking about?"
"Bakugou after you got accused of assaulting Malty, all you have done was prove how much of a hero you really are, especially compared to Motoyasu, Itsuki, and me. I mean you stop 3 different waves saving so many people while I and the others just dicked around the whole time, you helped saved a village from starving, saved a nation from a coup, saved an innocent girl when I was going to kill her father, saved a village from a gang and a corrupt sheriff, and freed an entire nation's worth of slaves. That was all you, and none of that sounded like being a villain to me. Who cares what anyone else says to you and who cares about some stupid license. Bakugou you are a hero, don't let anyone else say otherwise." Ren finished his speech, it was something genuine from his heart and Bakugou knew it.
This was still confusing for Bakugou, the wrath shield influence still put a lot of self-doubt on himself, but as he recalls all of the events Ren mentioned, he remembers how many people he did help and how thankful they were all to him, not caring about his attitude but for his actions. They didn't see him as a bad guy, they saw him as their savior.
"That's not all either." said a voice as Bakugou turns his head to see Rino walking up to him and smiles, "You saved me and a bunch of other girls from being sold off as sex slaves, without any sort of expectation for a reward or thanks from anyone. That is not something a villain would do, that is the actions of a hero. And it was that kind of heart that made me want to be your aid, to continue to help others like me, and show everyone else who you really are. The hero who saved my life."
Daven then decided to join in to speak out as well, "Bakugou when I first heard about you, I thought you were going to be no more than a pampered pet to a group of real villains, but like everything else your friends have told me, you proved me wrong. You stood up to those bastards, you care for the actual people despite what you say, you have done what everyone else was too afraid to do, stand up against evil. I never saw you as a God Bakugou, no, I saw you as a true hero. A hero I am proud to fight for my life for."
Lastly Melty spoke up to smile, "I once thought you didn't acted very heroic Sir Bakugou with the way you are around people I was thinking the summoning made a mistake, but it was your actions that changed my mind. You proved yourself to be a hero, a hero who cares about helping the helpless. As they say, actions speak louder than words, and your actions are of a true hero. You may seem like a mad villain on the outside, but on the inside your a hero, a hero I saw many times."
Bakugou was starting to become full of emotion, emotion that was getting through his rage-induced mind. The fact so many people have said such things for him, despite what he did today, they still believed in him as a true hero.
His corrupt mind still had doubts to himself if what they are saying is even true. But then he felt someone's hands on his, and as Bakugou turns his head, he saw it was Neia, barely awake as she smiles toward him, "Sir Bakugou, you were always a hero to me. You not only saved my life like the others, but you also gave me a new purpose in life. After being banished I felt like I had no place in the world, that I was just dead weight, I wondered if I should even remain in this world anymore, a world that never gave me a chance. But you did, you gave this weakling crybaby a chance to prove that she can do great, and with your led, I became stronger, I became smarter, and finally I became a hero, just like the teacher who taught me. Regards of what people say to you, or what you've done, you'll always be my hero, Katsuki Bakugou."
After Neia's speech, Bakugou looks back in his memories of all he has done since coming here in his head, all the things she and everyone else had said to him were all coming back. His actions in helping so many, people of all races and families from here all the way back at Melromarc, and all the smiles he brought to their faces. Something that All Might always does.
The many memories and thoughts were all getting into his clouded head and after remembering them all, he finally felt something he hasn't felt the whole day, an emotion that has finally starts to cool down his rage. Happiness.
But the Wrath Shield didn't take kindly to the thought, "AAHH!" Bakugou shouted as the shield attempts to enrage Bakugou again, the influence of the shield started to rattle the hero's head as he gains a massive headache.
Everyone was startled and looked on scared, afraid that Bakugou was going to snap again. But this was different than anytime before, Bakugou was no longer embracing the corrupt shield's power, he was now trying to resist it.
Bakugou grips his head with both hands as he tries to resist the power of the shield as it attempts to regain control again, "Damn you stupid shield! Get out of my head!" Bakugou yells as he fights a battle of willpower, over the corrupt influence within him.
Bakugou then starts glowing red again as he fights harder and harder to take back his mind and soul again.
His skin turns redder and redder as the power in his body was building up once more.
And surprising him, it seemed the shield was talking back to him through the words on the menu, "y0ur aNG3r w3Ak3ns?..."
But Bakugou refused to give up now, after so much harm he has caused with his new friends. He wasn't going to hurt them again, no matter what the shield told him, "Grrrr Get out! Get out of me!"
"wHY D0 YOu noW r3fusE mE?..." the shield speaks again through words.
The power was now overwhelming his body as Bakugou yells to himself with everyone looking on in fear. "Get out of my head!"
But despite all the power the shield gave on him Bakugou finally forces his hands up in the air and screams, "GET OOOOOOOOOUUUUUUUUUUTTTTTTT!"
Bakugou lets out 2 giant streams of fire in the air, that were over 50 feet in length as he lets out all of his rage power out. Not wanting it in his body anymore with everyone else watching the spectacle.
After a good 15 seconds, Bakugou's flames finally stopped. Once the fire was gone from his palms, Bakugou just breaths in deeply. After a few more breaths he started finally breathe lighter again, as he floods his mind with all the happy memories of his heroics and his sidekick's happy faces. After a few more deep breaths, Bakugou could now breathe normally again.
The grip the cursed shield had on his mind and body was now broken, as the rage dies off, the shield shows off one more message to its user, "i wILL aLaWayS b3 waTCHing, wATChing FoR W3akn3ss iN y0uR H3art!" and after the message disappears the redness of the menu screen disappear along with the cursed series tree. Reverting right back to the normal menu again with all of Bakugou's regular skills.
Bakugou's cursed shield then transformed, back into its default form, back to normal again. And with the shield reverting to what it was before, his black metal armor disappears reverting back to his normal attire as before, still shirtless, with a red cape, silver boots, black pants, and his normal corruption-free metal gauntlets.
Everyone smiled in joy to see that Bakugou had finally defeated his corruption and is back to normal again, especially Neia, "I knew he could do it." she says until she falls asleep once more, tired from all the fighting today and to recover from her injuries.
But then Bakugou falls to his knees then falls forward flat on the ground with his eyes closed.
"Sir Bakugou!" Melty yells, worried something bad has happened to him after breaking the curse.
Daven immediately runs up to him to feel Bakugou's pulse, "He's still alive, he's just out cold right now after using up so much energy." he explains giving everyone relief. He then picked the out cold Bakugou up over his shoulder despite his own injuries, "But he may need medical attention. Actually I think we all need medical attention." he says to the group as he sees almost everyone but Melty with the cursed burn marks from the corruption of the wrath shield.
Rino quickly picks up the equally out-cold Neia while Ren picks up the injured Scarlet as they all nod in agreement, "Agreed, we need to get out of here as soon as we can. I'm sure this Prime Minister guy will know this battle is done and be ready to clean up what's left."
"Then let's go!" Rino shouts and the group with all of them but Melty carrying someone and all make a run for it as they head for the wall gateway that was still opened up.
But as they were about to leave the gateway they saw what they didn't want to see, there was now a huge army of soldiers rushing their way far from the distance but making pace to the castle, far more than any of them saw before.
"Shit we're too late!" Ren yells thinking they were so close after getting so far.
Daven quickly turns himself to Ren, "Can't your filolial thing get big again and rush us out of here?" he asked hoping for the right answer.
But Ren just quickly shakes his head, "Scarlets way too injured and been traveling hundreds of miles all night, she can't do it anymore. What about you and teleporting power? Can't you used that to get us out of here?" he asked back,
"I won't have enough power to get me out of the city even with mana potions, let alone a whole group of people with half he won't be able to walk," Daven responds which didn't help Ren's morale.
"We have to think of something! There has to be another way?" Melty yells but it looked like there wasn't much they could do as the large swarm of fresh soldiers head their way to them.
It seemed like this was truly the end for them.
"Daven! Daven!" but then the group heard a voice near the walls within the gateway.
"Down here! Down here!" they heard again but after looking down at the thick walls they saw a sewer drain gate cover and they see another Cat demi-human in it, and Daven quickly recognized that it was Narel.
Daven instantly smiles again as he runs toward the wall with everyone else following his led.
With Bakugou still on his shoulder Daven kneels down to the sewer gate, "Narel what are you doing here?" he quickly asked.
"To help you out obviously, the city is going crazy after what happened here, the sword hero randomly showing up, and what you did at the public executions, I still can't believe you did it. But anyway, if you can get all of your asses down here I can quickly get all of you out of the city and then fix all of you up."
Rino then spoke up to Daven, "You know this guy?"
"Yes, he's an old acquaintance of my of sorts," Daven responds.
"Good enough for me," Ren speaks up, as he raised up his sword with his other hand ready to break the sewer gate open.
"Wait!" Daven shouted as he stopped the sword hero, "This will be easier and won't drive suspicion, gather up near me," Daven asked as Ren, Rino, and Melty all touch Daven while carrying their injured teammates.
Daven then used his teleport ability to pop everyone within the sewer drain next to Narel.
Narel himself points down toward a tunnel, "This way, now now!" he orders with everyone following suit, and all the while they hear hundreds of footsteps of Siltvelt soldiers running toward the ruined castle none the wiser to where the Shield hero or sword demon is at.
They all continue to run through the dark sewers with Rino providing light for everyone as Narel's lamp wasn't enough, though it did have a second purpose.
"Thank you for coming back for us Narel, I think at this point all four favors are used up now." Daven thanks his old work friend.
"No problem, let's just get out of here first, thankfully this lamp has an anti-tracking spell on it, so we shouldn't have to worry about them following us," Narel says back as he continued to led them through the tunnels.
"So why did you come by to save us? I thought you said earlier I was on my own?" Daven asks Narel.
"That was if you didn't make it past the public executions, and you went far beyond to prove me wrong, so I figure I can still help you out. Let's just count this as just one favor rather than four and we're even." Narel responds which Daven didn't care what his answer really was, he was happy his friend help come by to save them.
"So where are we going?" Ren asked as he continued to hold onto Scarlet while she coughs from the curse burns.
"Away from here and like I said someone who will fix you all up. I have to say Daven, I think this day is going to be forever in Sitlvelt history." Narel finally comments as he continued to led on through the labyrinth of sewer tunnels.
And indeed he was right, this day will change the course of Siltvelt forever.
Thousands of miles back in Melromarc in a large secret building there was a mass of thousands of priests, monks, devout followers, and personal soldiers of the three heroes church itself, all gathered to look up to their grand leader. Pope Balmus of the 3 heroes church standing high on a podium holding up a powerful staff-like weapon.
The Pope then speaks out to his followers, "The time has come my children! At long last, our deepest desires shall be fulfilled! We shall soon cleanse this earth of the shield devil, his horde of dirty heathen animals, and the false heroes who claim to be our gods! And once they are snuffed out, we shall purge this land of the rest of its sinners who led it. Starting with our fallen mad king, the heretic Reichnott, and the rest of the living Nobility all the way to the Queen herself who would rather placate and humanize these heathen animals! Brother's and sisters, today we will be united together in our faith of the one true God, and together we shall wipe out this plague that has encroached on our nation and people! The 3 heroes church will prevail and bring forth a new era for humanity! And I shall led you all to this new era of true enlightenment, of true strength! Of true power! All by your true God! Me!"
Author's note: Yep another thick one, at least it has good reason to be dense here. I really don't have much to say here, but if you're wondering about little dragon Kirishima, don't worry I didn't forget about him, he'll be relevant in the next chapter of the story. Thank you again for reading and hope to see you again hopefully soon.
