Disclaimer: I don't own anything.
Chapter 9– Harried and Hunted
AN: So a lot of people were confused or upset with Annabeth's Tier and calling Mikael underpowered, so I'll clear this up first.
Beings on this world are born with a Tier. Demigods, for instance, are Tier 4, while the big three's are Tier 5. As they grow in power, their level increases, but their Tier always stays the same. Some exceptions to this rule are Devils who can promote from Low-class to above, and longinus users who are just...cheat codes.
Mikael started as a Tier 1 due to his mortal soul, and is now rapidly making his way up. He is the only being who will never have a level cap, so he has the potential to keep increasing even after he becomes an Ascendant.
The system wasn't created to make the MC underpowered or Nerfed, but to give him a clear path of progression to the very top.
Hope that clears up any doubts, now onwards we go!
In 5 minutes all of my newly acquired friends were washed up and ready, the grime and mud removed from their now clear faces.
I had to almost do a double take when i looked at Thalia. Without all that crap covering her, Thalia looked incredibly pretty. With electric blue eyes that seemed to lighten her face up, she looked the kind of pretty only imagined when describing a delicate princess.
The princess look however, was ruined by the gothic black jacket, matching black clothes, and punk type spikey hairstyle.
Still, she cut a very striking figure.
"Let's move on." I said, once they all gathered. "We've a few guests waiting for us outside the door, so be prepared."
"Can't wait." Luke stated with a smirk, swinging his sword experimentally.
"Not again, Luke. Don't be stupid. Your over eagerness got us tangled with a Cyclopes remember?" Thalia scolded lightly, though she had trouble suppressing her own eager grin as she twirled her spear.
"Yeah yeah, don't worry. It won't happen again, especially with a new member in our family." Luke replied, shooting me a smile.
I snorted, shaking my head even as the grip upon my own spear tightened.
I was honestly stumped on how easily they accepted me in group, but I wasn't complaining.
"Don't forget me, I'll fight too!" Annabeth chimed in with a small bronze knife clutched tightly in her hands.
"No." All three of us replied before looking at each other in incredulous surprise.
"Why not!? I can fight! Luke, you know that right? I saved you two in that cave, remember?" Little Annie whined angrily, making teary puppy eyes towards luke who seemed about to melt on spot soon.
"Of course you can, I never said otherwise." He said with an indulgent smile. "But you've already saved our lives haven't you? So let us do our job now."
Masterfully done. I had to give it to him.
I moved towards the door while holding back a snicker, one hand clutching my dear spear while I created another holy spear in the other.
"What's that?" Thalia asked curiously as she moved to stand beside me.
"Something from my mother's side." I replied. "You all ready?"
I waited till they nodded before opening the door and ran straight towards the huge hellhound sniffing the front of the lawn.
It gave a might roar, it's massive bulk jiggling as it pounced towards me. I threw my holy spear at its throat before rolling aside to let it's body pass by. Thalia finished off the injured monster with a swing of her spear, electricity dancing around it's edges.
"Goods, now let's maintain our for–" I silenced myself when I took a look around me, my eyes easily picking up the figures in darkness.
I could see dozens of hellhounds melting in the shadows while different types of skeletons bumbled their way towards us. I could even make out a couple of giant skeletons that cracked the ground underneath as they struck their clubs in challenge.
We were completely surrounded with a horde of monsters that seemed to have no end.
"Run! Run for the car!" I bellowed, tearing off any plans of slowly making our way in a formation, and took my own advice in running for it. I could hear Annabeth whining again as Luke picked her up but I didn't turn. I had to get to the car before getting swarmed by monsters.
I saw a couple of Hellhounds emerge from the shadows on my left. Without turning I sent a bolt of electricity coursing through my spear directly between the hellhounds. The bolt splashed like liquid, covering all of them in electricity, making them start twitching in shock and fall on their bellies.
[Electric Discharge] (Lvl 5)
-200 Divine Energy
I kept running even as I saw Thalia, who'd been running much faster, slowing down to take care of some skeletons. Reaching the car, I jerked open the door, not wasting time with any locks. I started the engine while unlocking the other doors from the driver seat.
"C'mon, get in!" I screamed out as the three approached the vehicle while Thalia held back the monsters.
She was an incredible fighter, I realised. Her speed and strength was ridiculous, even for someone as experienced as me. Her every strike was a skillful art, striking the enemies hard and fast. Her every spear thrust and swing was packed with electric discharge and large gust of wind. She looked like an angry goddess of lightning.
If I had to guess, I'd say she was around my level in Spear-wielding, expert Lvl 2 or 3.
She also clutched a shield on her other hand that made monsters hesitate to even face her. While her spear was definitely made of some different metal because a single slash from it was transforming monsters into dust, which appeared to be even more effective than my holy light.
[Aegis's Clone (Legendary): Made of Celestial Bronze and embedded with the Image and Aura of Medusa. The shield acts like an inferior copy of the original Aegis.
[Lightning Spear (Unique): Made of Celestial Bronze, and able to conduct and enhance electricity.
Celestial bronze huh...I needed to replace my spear's tip with Celestial Bronze. I would never give up the spear gifted to me by my mother, but I can definitely use my own demonic power to replace it's tip with that of celestial bronze.
Thalia's bellow broke me off of my line of thought as she decimated the monsters.
Still, the enemies were too many for even her to hold back any longer.
"Thalia, get in!" I called out to her as luke, Annabeth and grover got inside the Bentley.
She didn't answer, instead raising her spear to the sky as monsters started to encircle her.
"Shit. Luke take the wheel!" I screamed over the sound of thunder, just before a massive bolt of huge energy slammed into the herd of monsters. I had to cover my eyes and ears as the lightning bolt struck the ground, shaking the entire car from its shockwave as it destroyed it's surrounding.
Atleast half of the monster army was instantly vaporised, while the other half were thrown back with various degrees of burns and injuries.
But it still wasn't enough. I could literally see an even larger horde starting to gather. More hellhounds, more skeletons, mixed in with some spiders and weird looking skeleton dogs.
There didn't seem to be an end to them. The scene was shocking, even to me who'd spent 6 years of his life running from monsters.
I needed to get Thalia out of there. Now.
I quickly got down from the driver seat to let Luke take it and ran towards Thalia, continuously launching weapons of Holy light to keep the enemies from swarming the dizzy girl.
In such a large group, the holy weapons were even more effective than I'd thought. They took very little of my holy power, barely 20 per spear, and did an awesome amount of damage to dark creatures.
As soon as I reached Thalia, I launched a huge gust of wind, blowing away most of the monsters in my immediate surroundings.
The ones who didn't back off were quickly targeted by my holy spears. I couldn't go and cut through the monsters in melee like Thalia, because my weapon will probably start creating problems. Still, it got the job done.
Not wanting to waste the opportunity, I clutched Thalia's hands, who was blindly stumbling around.
"I got you, sis. Just hold on." I mutterered in her ears, dragging both of us to the car.
"..Jace? Brother?" She mumbled out.
I squeezed her hands lightly before glancing back and almost felt my heart sink. The monsters were rapidly closing in again. And they were closing in fast.
I closed my eyes to drown out any nervousness as they came for us. The Gamer's mind helped a lot in that regard.
I might have been facing monsters for years but there was just something different in watching the massive 4 legged beasts and giant skeletons with glowing eyes chasing after you, knowing you'd die the moment they caught you.
Opening my eyes I gathered my will and with a powerful howl, raised my spear high in the air. The next moment, sky met the earth, turning my world white.
Luke:
Luke had no idea why he followed the boy's lead when he was commanded to take the wheels and stay put. He also had no idea why he let the boy risk his own life to save Thalia.
The boy looked just a couple of years older than Annabeth at most afterall.
A part of Luke still wanted to go after Thalia and rip those monsters apart, not caring about any consequences. But there was just something about the boy that demanded respect, forcing Luke to put his trust in him.
Just something that made the boy seem older and wiser. An air of authority that commanded obedience seemed to revolve around him. At any other times, Luke would've simply written it off as his own cowardice, but not today. No, today he felt his trust was well placed.
And the proof was right in front of his eyes. The boy cut through monsters like they were made of paper, launching blades of white light from his hands that shredded the monsters apart. It wasn't lightning, Luke was sure. Fighting beside Thalia for years was bound to teach him something. No, it was something else, and by the looks of it, it was indeed very effective.
It wasn't enough though. For every 1 monster he cut down, 2 more took its place. Luke was deciding if he should join in, but then the boy launched a storm of wind, blasting away the monsters.
Luke sighed in relief and envy as he watched the boy grab Thalia.
It should've been me down there', a part of his traitorous mind whispered. 'It should've been me that saved Thalia; me who should've risked his life to save someone so precious. But I just didn't have the power, did I?
Since that...blasted day that luke had met his father, he had realised that the gods truly didn't care for their children, and depending on them was the height of folly.
So he'd tried to prove that he didn't need them. He'd faught monsters only whispered in legends, defeated beings that no mortal should face.
But watching someone almost half a decade younger than him decimate an army of monsters made him realise that it didn't matter. It didn't matter how much he tried to prove his worth, he'd never be as good as the ones born of the big three.
But more than that, he realised that even if he was as strong as them, it wouldn't change the way things were.
Afterall, both of them were still stuck in the same situation as him. The gods were assholes yes, but they were assholes to everyone equally.
And then he saw the boy...No.
He saw Mikael.
He saw him raise his spear up to the sky, a fair maiden in his hands, and a land of slain monsters at his feets. He saw him bring down the power of God on earth, saw him absolutely decimate the legions of monsters send by the gods, summoning thick bolt of lightning like a judgement from God.
And he realised— Why should they need to prove anything to the gods? Why must they fight for their acceptance? Why pray to gods, he wondered, when they can be one themselves.
And then his world flashed white as the Bolt brought down its fury and power.
[Divine Lightning Bolt] (Lvl 3)
-16000 Divine Energy
I wondered for a second why I wasn't in the same condition as Thalia after pulling that stunt.
Right on clue, a wave of vertigo hit for an instant before I straightened up again. I'd spent an enormous amount of power to wipe the entire monster army just now.
A wave of messages suddenly interrupted my muse.
[You Leveled Up] 270
[You Leveled Up] 271
...
...
[You Leveled Up] 275
[Skill Leveled Up: Divine Lightning Bolt] (Lvl 4)
Well, that's great. Atleast something good happened on this accursed night.
Sighing, I started moving Thalia with me as we limped towards the car, whose windows were cracked I noticed. Probably from the force of my Bolt.
It was our luck that the car wasn't closer to the point of impact, or even Luke wouldn't have survived the damage. He didn't have the natural resistance to lightning that Thalia and I had.
"C'mon, Thals. We are here." I whispered tiredly in my half-sibling's ears as I pushed her inside the car.
"...M'kael?" My sister mumbled against me.
"Yep, I'm here."
Annabeth scrambled away before helping me put Thalia on the car seat.
"Grover, go sit on the front and guide luke to the camp." I said, before entering the car myself. "Luke, let's go, we are all set in."
"You got it, boss." Luke chuckled as we sped off on the road.
I had no idea what got him in such a good mood, but I was too tired to talk.
"...Kael?" Thalia whispered weakly. "You...did you really save me or was that a dream?".
"Of course I did, who else would it be? You are safe now, go to sleep." I replied, patting her lightly on the head.
I absently checked Thalia's status to know why she was so much more affected by a single bolt than me.
Thalia Grace
Age: 12
Race: Demigod (Blood of Zeus)
Tier: 5
Level: 101
Divine Power: 23/100,000
Stamina: 2090/109,000
Health: 13,400/104,000
Stats
Strength: 96
Speed: 89
Dexterity: 116
Endurance: 109
Constitution: 104
Mental: 24
Spirit: 100
Well that explains it. She wasn't fully rested when I insisted we leave soon, so she must've pushed herself over her limit.
Stupid brave fool.
I checked my own status to compare.
Mikael
Age: 8
Race: God/Angel/Devil Hybrid
Tier: 3
Level: 275
Divine Power: 13,200/33,200
Holy Power: 27,300/33,200
Demonic Power: 29,500/33,200
Stamina: 23,401/26,600
Health: 28,600/28,600
Stats
Strength: 276
Speed: 306
Dexterity: 296
Endurance: 266
Constitution: 286
Mental: 36
Spirit: 332
Points: 20
Skills:
Combat Skills–
Expert Spear-wielding (3/10)
Godly Skills–
Divine Lightning Bolt (Lvl 4)
Lightning Manipulation (Lvl 4)
Air Manipulation (Lvl 6)
Wind Manipulation (Lvl 6)
Electric Discharge (Lvl 5)
Flying (Lvl 6)
Demonic Skills–
[Power of Creation] Passive
[Power of Imagination Passive
Object Creation (Lvl 4)
Demonic Power Manipulation (Lvl 5)
Defensive Magic: Barrier (Lvl 3)
Hypnosis Magic (Lvl 3)
Concealment Magic (Lvl 3)
Lightning Manipulation (Lvl 2)
Holy Skills–
[Angelic Form]– Two-Winged Angel
Holy Power Manipulation (Lvl 5)
Holy Weapon Creation (Lvl 4)
Other Skills–
Advanced Hunter (5/10)
Advanced Tracker (6/10)
Resistance:
Lightning Resistance (Lvl 7)
Pain Resistance (Lvl 3)
Magical Affinities:
Divine Lightning: 70/100
Holy Light: 70/100
Lightning: 90/100
Light: 90/100
Nice.
I've grown quite a bit in the past one year. Especially my skills; demonic and holy power manipulation, as well as electric discharge, had finally hit lvl 5, undergoing a transformative increase in control. I could now manipulate demonic energy to transform into other forms of energy.
Though I'd only managed to create the Lightning element till now, cause that was what I was the most familiar with, and could imagine perfectly. Still, there were some really solid advantages of this skill.
The holy power manipulation enabled me to pump my holy weapons full of energy. As in, I now simply had to supply holy power and I'd be able to keep increasing the energy of my weapons, making them bigger and bigger. Till now, the biggest weapon I created was a 6 foot long circular disk to shear through a line of monsters. Though I was sure I could keep making it even bigger if I wanted.
Electric Discharge Lvl 5 on the other hand, now enabled me to actually suck up electricity from any source to fill up my well of divine energy. I'd done this even in public places; just sit back and stick my fingers into any electric socket, and I end up sucking so much electricity that I bet those shops were mightily bewildered by their electric bill that month.
All were good abilities, but really what I needed right now was to level up and enter 4th Tier. When that happens, I would already be stronger than Luke.
It wasn't that far really, especially considering now I'll get many opportunities to level up. It was simply a matter of time.
Sighing I let my head lean on the car seat, relaxing myself a little. Maybe a little sleep will be go–
"Mikael!" The voice snapped my eyes open, all the thoughts of relaxation vanishing.
"We've got a new problem." Luke said, looking in the cracked mirror of the car. "Or problems, to be exact."
I turned around in my seat, squinting to look through the tinted glass. And there, in the sky, were 3 pairs of wings flapping in perfect synchronisation, rapidly gaining on the car.
"The furies!" Annabeth hissed from beside Thalia. "Hades' personal servants."
Damn.
"More Hellhounds too." She whispered, sounding troubled.
Double damn.
"Grover, how long till we reach the camp?" I asked, trying to come up with a plan.
"I d-dont...ah..five minutes, maybe?" The young half goat stuttered out.
"We should stand our ground." Luke said strongly. "Show them who they are dealing with."
"Thalia's sleeping though. Think we can guard three people and defeat the furies at the same time?" I asked back.
"I don't need saving! I can help." Annabeth interrupted angrily, before looking at luke with her puppy eyes. "Please, let me help."
Luke's face instantly changed colour as he took in Annabeth's words.
"Let's just go to the camp, i guess." He finally replied after a moment of hesitation, increasing our speed drastically.
Annabeth's betrayed face got a chuckle out of me.
I looked back again to see the furies surpassing our speed, quickly gaining on the car.
But we were close to the camp, so there was no point in fighting them. Instead, I decided to try and snipe them off of the air with my light weapons.
"Mikael, we've got a bigger problem!" Luke called out from the front. I could also hear a nervous bleating sound from grover. I turned around to take a look but the car suddenly took a sharp turn, throwing me off to the side, with my head banging on the window.
"Hold on!" Luke screamed.
"Luke, wha–?"
"Gods damn it!" He screamed again.
I finally got myself back in control enough to see what the hell was happening.
The first thing I noticed was the completely broken windshield of the car, and then my eyes fell upon the huge hulking bull that Luke was so worried about, rapidly running towards the car.
It's body was that of a massive bodybuilder, with some dark fuzzy fur on it's chest that grew more and more, covering everything till the neck, which was attached to the head of a bull with two huge horns.
"The Minotaur." Annabeth whispered with wide eyes.
Triple damn it. I was starting to hate this day more and more.
"Hold on tight!" I screamed to everyone as the bull approached us.
There was no time to run, the bull was running faster than even Thalia, and our car had picked up too much speed to dodge the thing. The only thing we could do was to hope that we survived the crash.
"Kael–?" A voice broke me out of my mind as the shape beside me shifted.
But I had no time to talk right now. I had no time to think much either as the bull rammed itself...wait, no.
It wasn't crashing into us or pushing us off, instead the mad Bull stopped the car's momentum with a single punch, flipping us up in the air, before picking the whole car with two hands.
I had to hold onto Thalia, and Annabeth took this chance to scream our ears off.
I unfurled my wings instantly, letting their length stretch inside the whole backside of the car.
[Angelic Form]– Two-Winged Angel (Adds 30 to Str, Spd, and Dex)
"Mikael, what the hell!?" Thalia's asked drowsily, her voice rising as she took in my form, a hand resting on her spear.
"Another thing from my mother's side." I replied, before curling my wings around the three of us. "Please don't do anything stupid right now."
"They're beautiful." She whispered.
"Luke, protect grover! I got these two!" I yelled out, ignoring my sister for now, before ducking my head inside the cage made of my wings as we were yeeted off by the Minotaur, car and all.
"Hold on!" I yelled over the sound of whipping wind as we were thrown in the air, my hands pressing down on both the girls shoulders.
The car flipped over multiple times before we finally crashed on the ground, the impact sending both the girls bouncing against my wing's soft cushiony inside.
I could also feel pieces of glasses from broken windows impacting against my wings, but they might as well have been cotton for all the damage they did.
Fortunately, when the car finally stopped, it managed to land on its wheel, not complicating things further.
"I'll take the Minotaur, Luke handle the furies." I rattled off my simple plan as soon as we stopped moving, and kicked the car door off of its hinges to get out.
"No!" I heard Thalia yell. "It's the Minotaur, kael! Let me face it! You can't just..kael, come back! Please! We'll fight it together!"
The desperation in her voice made me hesitate for a short second. Since when did she start caring about me so much anyway? And kael? Already shortening my name? Well, I did call her Thals so..But still, she was in no condition to fight off the freaking Minotaur right now.
I was our best shot.
"Don't worry, sis. I'll handle it, trust me." I replied with a wink, before flapping my wings and taking off to the sky with a jump, ignoring her further protests.
It was time to face the father of all minotaurs, and the Greek's most infamous monster; The Minotaur.
AN: Aaaaand that's it! Next up we have Mikael vs Minotaur.
I don't know why, but the last chapter received the highest amount of follows and reviews till date. I'd be really happy if that continued!
Now, with all the support there is bound to be that one guy who hates or dislikes it. And that's completely normal, I understand. But in celebration of me recieving my first... flame? Negative critique?...Bad review? Idk, whatever this, since the guy doesn't have his PM on, I'll reply him here, breaking down his review into segments while tackling each of his points.
So our resident expert on reviewing fanfics today is korst, pls give him a big round of applause.
Korst: 'Meh, not a fan of the how the system works or how easy and quickly the protagonist seems to climb it.'
–Well, considering that most of the people are annoyed at Mikael being underpowered, I don't think I can do anything about it. And if I remember correctly, I wrote in the first AN itself that Mikael's progress would be very rapid. If you still continued to read it and then later bitch about it, then I'm not gonna take you seriously lol.
Korst: After displaying just how irrelevant the system is through some fairly boring fights.
– System isn't irrelevant. You either didn't understand something or plain skimmed through the chapters, cause in this fic, the system is supreme.
Now about boring fights, that's fair. Look, this is my first fic, and I'm not very experienced in these kinda stuff. So if you guys think something is boring, please speak up. Though I'll appreciate it if you actually critiqued it with what I did wrong and what you felt boring instead of just writing a one-liner.
Korst: the Author decided to take a crack of plot and I'm honestly really disappointed with what's been presented.
– The Plot hasn't been introduced. Everything till now has just been the MC's journey starting up. Him taking in the world around him, meeting canon characters, introducing you guys to the changes in this world etc etc. Till now Mikael has been preparing for his eventual departure, and now that he is here, you'll see the first piece of plot.
I've planned this fic to be 300-400k fic so just be a little bit patient.
Korst: The incest thing is a throw back to Zeus. But also utterly disgusting, less than funny and somehow manages to become even less funny every time it's brought up.
– This is the one thing that actually irritated me a lot. Like, are you fucking serious? After all their interactions between them this is all you got? That Mikael has incestuous feelings due to Zeus? No, you dumb fuck (sorry, but true) That is just the normal reaction I imagine any 18 year old to have if they were reborn to a woman even more bustier than Mia Khalifa. If a bikini clad woman who looks like the Gabriel from Dxd stands in front of me, I will have trouble in keeping my eyes straight. Doesn't matter if hormones are affecting me or not. Doesn't matter if I've reborn from her.
Zeus's blood is just enhancing the natural response, nothing more. If you think this is disgusting then this fic was never meant for you.
Korst: What really jimmies my gristle is that the protagonist immediately zeroed in on the canon protagonist for DxD and latched onto them like a barnacle; then proceeds to say f*k it and starts teaching the young Hyoudou how to be a psychopath by actually showing up with a stray devil and saying, "Watch me torture this thing, so you can learn how to do it too."
– What? The entire Issei thing was just because I really liked the idea of genius-scientist-issei from a fanfic that I read. Like seriously, how the ever loving fuck did you twist that into this? Idk man, maybe I'm being harsh here but you seem to be hating for the sake of hating.
There was no 'torturing' the stray. Mikael just bound it, noted down it's strength, then finished it off. In this world (atleast in my fic) both the kids already know about supernatural. Irina for instance; we don't know when she started training to be a priest but she was definitely very young.
Anyway if you feel like I'm wrong or if you actually were criticising my work instead of flaming (though you did a very bad job in that case), then you're free to reply in the reviews. Though I hope you turn on your PM for me to reply. If not, then I'll just ignore you.
Sorry for wasting your time guys, and pls don't hesitate in criticising the story due to this. Even if you flame me I won't be replying to you here. This was a special one-time thing.
Anyway, thanks for all your support (even you, Mr. korst). The next chapter will be the last one before a small timeskip as I introduce a minor plot. The canon won't start for some time, but I've some nice things planned so stay tuned.
P.S: Annabeth having 110 mental was a massive error. Thank you dear guest for making me aware. Just edited it.