The minion Undead could not stand up to Fran as she charged forward, cutting them to ribbons in a single swing of Lumiose.
Archer's masterpiece was as close as one could get to becoming a Godblade without possessing Divine Energy of its own, and even the highest value weapons and armor that the Lich's Legendary Undead were equipped with couldn't stand up to it.
Once fully reinforced, it had a functional attack power of 22,000, and was costed in not just its own Moonlight Mana, but also the Divine Energy of Fran's Angelic Element.
That, combined with Fran's bursts of strength caused her to be able to cut through the Legendary Undead like butter. Between her new stat increases, the high level [Support Magic], Lumiose's [Moon Phase Empowerment], Fran's [Super Herculean Strength] and [Instantaneous Movement], and the [Undead Slayer] title, Fran could achieve nearly 5,000 STR and AGL. It was a stat level that fell just shy of the Moonlight Dragon higher stats during the new moon.
However, that power came at a price, a rather steep one, as the Mana cost of the [Support Magic] and things like [Super Herculean Strength] scaled in proportion to the strength of the user, not to mention that Fran was still not used to using the skills and was creating waste. In order to make full use of all of her buffs, and maintaining the [Perfect Barrier] and [Transformation] skills, Rani was burning through over 600 MP per second.
They could mitigate the cost by killing and absorbing more and more magic stones, but in order to last for 10 minutes, assuming they were only using their full power for half that time, Rani would need roughly 180,000 MP, roughly 25,000 Magic Stone Points or around 50 B-rank Magic Stones.
Luckily, that seemed to be completely possible. There were already 20 of them lying around, and 10 more were about to be added to that pile.
The supercharged B-rank Undead were stronger than a normal Adventurer could handle, but they were nothing more than bowling pins in front of Fran. They were knocked down appropriately enough as the tiny girl charged towards the Lich, cutting each and every one of the skeletons that got in her way down with a single swing, and with each kill she made, Rani would either absorb the stones right away to recover MP, or pocket them inside of their [Dimensional Storage] for later use.
The Lich sat in his throne, just watching as Fran blew through his forces and lunged to attack him. "[Divine Heavy Slash]!" Fran used the level 8 [Divine Sword Technique] skill, swinging Lumiose down in a two handed slash towards the Lich as the Dungeon Master sat comfortably in his chair.
The already damaged throne was reduced to pebbles as Lumiose smashed into it, even tearing up the ground below where the seat had been. But the Lich hadn't been in it.
The moment before the sword would have cut through the skeleton, he vanished from his seat, dodging the attack.
Fran was surprised, but could still feel the Lich's energy behind her. She twisted around as fast as she could, her arms shaking as they tried to reverse the momentum of the sword. Her bones cracked as she swung Lumiose at full force, straight through the Lich who had been standing behind her, trying to split him in two.
But even though the blade hadn't seemed to be blocked or dodged, it didn't connect. The attack went straight past the Lich without leaving a single scratch on him.
'Illusion?' Fran thought for a moment, though something didn't seem quite right. She had seen Art use illusions hundreds of times, but had always been able to see through them with her magic detection skills. But even though her detection skills were going off now, the flow of magical energy was different than with an illusion, and it was far more powerful.
Rani's metal threads quickly formed into a shield in front of Fran's stomach as the Lich took a swing at the girl, but the Lich's hand passed straight through the metal wall before becoming corporal and slamming into the girl's stomach.
No, that wasn't quite what happened.
The punch hadn't gone through the shield, it had bent around it.
Fran coughed blood as she was thrown backwards, she knew that she had just had a rib break and suffered severe damage to her stomach. Without Archer's armor, that punch would have likely killed her. Though her mind remained sharp, even through the pain, and she recovered midair using a [Air Jump] skill to kick off of a platform made of mana.
Her wounds were already being taken care of by Rani, so Fran stuck to focusing on the offensive. The Lich had already summoned up another ten magic using Undead, but Fran didn't even look at them. Her eyes were only on the Lich.
"Wider. Stronger. This Storm is ever Building. Ever Growing. This is a power that cannot be stopped!" Fran shouted as she called up a magic circle that was larger than her entire body. "Now strike them with all your might! [Thor's Hammer]!"
A roaring thunderbolt that looked to be over three feet thick erupted from the magic circle aimed directly at the Lich, only to turn 90 degrees in mid flight to smash into the ceiling. The noise from the impact shook the room as bits of the stone ceiling came falling down around the undead, each of them glowing red hot from the heat from the magic thunderbolt.
"Fufufu." The Lich chuckled as his minions started to erect magic barriers to shield themselves from the falling stones. "You really are a powerful little one, but that doesn't help you at all if you can't touch me."
Fran didn't have any time to respond as the Lich once again disappeared from sight, teleporting straight up in front of her. But Fran's senses were more focused this time and she understood what it was looking at. The Lich wasn't moving through space, he was moving the space itself.
Pushing herself as hard as she could, she read the flow of the Lich's [Time/Space Magic], and moved against it, escaping his punch using extreme speed. She then tried to counter with a thrust, but the Lich managed to bend the space in front of her swing in time so that her attack moved straight by. The exchange continued as such, with Fran reading the Lich's moves just in time to avoid his attacks using insane speed, while the Lich bent the space around Fran's own attacks so that they hit nothing. Rani also attempted to attack, with her whip like metal cords, but didn't have any more luck than Fran did.
While this was happening, Rani was running through every possible set of skills to explain what was going on.
At first, Rani was somewhat worried that Fran would destroy the Lich before Archer could finish his task. Rani couldn't tell her not to, or explain what was going on. Any information that Fran got would immediately be read from her mind and used against her. Not having an organic brain, the Lich could not read the sword's mind, but any telepathic conversation that Rani had with Fran would be overheard along with Fran's other thoughts.
Though as it turned out, the Lich was stronger than even she had suspected.
Being an A-rank Demonic Beast with access to a Dungeon Core, the Lich was tough. Even its weakest stats would be comparable to the highest ones of the other Undead, and it could enhance its own capabilities with the same Undead strengthening skills that it used on its minions. It could also increase its own speed and reflexes using [Time/Space Magic].
But what was truly absurd was its use of [Time/Space Magic]'s [Turn Arrow] as some kind of all purpose armor. Rani wasn't even sure how one was supposed to beat something like that. Any attack or skill that had to move through space couldn't reach him. Even unblockable things like [Skill Taker] had be to used within a certain distance. So long as he still had all that mana and wasn't caught off guard, the Lich was effectively invincible.
But how did he have enough mana to do that?
To bend the space needed to redirect an arrow for a moment, one needed to use a large amount of mana, but the Lich was using it like armor over his entire body, and using it almost all the time. The cost of such a thing should have been in the tens of thousands of MP every second. How was it even possible for the Lich to possess that much mana? Where was it all coming from?
Rani wasn't the only one asking such a question, though for Jean, the question extended to Fran as well.
How could any humanoid be this strong? Her speed and strength completely dwarfed even those who were at the peak of A-rank Adventurers, like Amanda. It could even be compared to the level of an S-rank Adventurer. Jean couldn't even keep track of her movements.
Jean had believed that a straightforward battle against the Lich was completely impossible… but was there actually a hope? Did Fran have a chance of winning?
...No. No she didn't. Not so long as the Miasma Generators remained intact.
In order to not show his hand, Jean had kept their existence from the rest of the party. He hadn't told them about the Miasma Generators which were producing a nearly endless supply of Miasma, which the Lich could convert into Mana with his [Miasma Conversion] skill.
So long as they kept going, the Lich would never run out of Mana, and if they were destroyed… then the entire floating island and the Dungeon would likely be destroyed with them. It was Jean's back up plan, how he would deal with things if nothing else was possible.
Stephon would soon destroy the generators, and then they would all die together.
Archer would be furious.
Archer's eyes scrolled over the listings of monsters, trying to find the singular one he was searching for. He didn't want to still be looking by the time Rani showed up for his evac. During that window when the both of them were inside of the Between World, Fran would be left severely weakened.
Archer couldn't afford for his matter to be left unattended.
"This stupid thing needs a sort function." The Servant growled, resisting the urge to punch through the screen.
"Well, it was never meant to be accessed from this side." An amused voice said from behind Archer.
The Servant's eyes widened and he whipped himself around to face whoever it was that snuck up on him, only to freeze mid trace as the woman stopped masking her presence. The silver haired beauty with sunkissed skin and silver eyes was smiling playfully at Archer as she watched him. Archer's neck started to sweat as the most powerful divine aura he had even seen started to roll off of the woman's body.
'...Fuuuuuuck...' Archer swore internally as he did his best to act casual. As if he wasn't a thief who had just been caught with his pants down. "Well, that just seems like a design oversight to me. Well ordered data on the system's side is important for maintaining any user friendly device."
"Well, I suppose it has been a few thousand years since I've updated my Dungeon Cores. I probably should consider giving them better security." The Goddess of Chaos giggled. "Though until you came along, no one had ever dared to try to actually 'hack' into one of my babies. It was quite entertaining to see you and the Spider going at it."
"Oh, so you were watching that then?" Archer said with a cheeky grin, in an attempt to hide his worry.
"Oh, we've all been watching you. It is the best entertainment we've had in a long time. Sitting down together to laugh at your misadventures is actually helping to keep the Smithing God and Love Goddess's failing marriage together." The Goddess said cheerfully. "I made it big in a bet with the Sun God over whether or not you would survive your encounter with the Spider."
"I'm glad to be of service." Archer said. He shifted ever so slightly as he struggled with the urge to turn back around and start trying to find Stephon's entry. "I don't suppose you would help me remove Stephon from the Dungeon's logs, would you?"
"Hm… I might." The Goddess of Chaos said with a short hum. "But, if I'm going to do this favor for you, I'm going to have to ask for something in return."
"...The number two most common killer of heroes is being given unreasonable tasks by their Patron Gods." Archer said with a tired sigh. He figured he had this Goddess's number down. She preferred people acting unique to subservient. If he groveled, it would probably just annoy her and cause her to lose interest.
"So you'll do it then?" The Goddess said, still all smiles. Archer just glumly nodded his head. "You don't need to worry. It's not really that unreasonable. I just want you to continue on your way to the city of Bulbola and stay there through the Lunar Festival. That's all you have to do?"
"I'm not even allowed to ask why, are I?"
"Nope." The Goddess replied, popping her 'p'. "Just be there and be yourselves and everything should work out explosively."
"...Alright. I'll do it. It isn't like I have much of a choice." Archer said with a nod of his head.
If he disobeyed, there was a good chance that the Goddess wouldn't just not help with Stephon, but would destroy him as well. She had just caught him red handed as he messed with one of her Divine Artifacts. It was only her cheerful personality that was saving him at the moment.
"Then it is a deal!" The Goddess of Chaos said before snapping her fingers. The interface started to light up, information flying by before stopping on Stephon's page. The screen went black as the related data was discarded and Stephon was released from his role as a Dungeon Monster. "Oh, by the way, I'm going to be taking away that [Dungeon Core Manipulation] skill of yours. No hard feelings, but I can't have people messing with my Dungeon Cores. But don't worry, I'll give you something good to make up for it. A little skill made by one of our mutual friends."
"A mutual friend?" Archer said, not having a clue what the Goddess was talking back.
"Anyways, I'll be gone now. See ya!" She said with a beautiful smile, before fading into nothing.
"...What an odd Divine." Archer said, trying his best not to give a sigh of relief.
Now he just had to wait for Rani to turn up to retrieve him… he hoped the girls were doing alright.
Art didn't know what to do.
She, a proud Demoness, was standing on the sidelines in a battle that was simply out of her league, watching her master and best friend risk her life, while Art herself was powerless to help her. She hated it so much that tears formed in her eyes as she clenched her teeth so hard she tasted blood.
Archer and Fran had always been better fighters than she had been. She was perfectly aware that she was the baby sister of their little family, but never before had she simply been unable to do anything to even try to help.
She hated feeling so helpless. She wished that she was stronger. Strong enough to fight alongside Fran. She swore to herself that if they… when they got out of this, she would do whatever it took to become strong enough to fight alongside her friend.
Art let out a gasp when after several seconds of dodging each other's attacks, she saw one of the Lich's punches land on Fran's face. Though as the girl spun shifted away and regained her footing, she turned back to the Lich, standing tall, without so much as a bruise on her face, before spitting something out to the side.
At first, Art was afraid that Fran had lost some of her teeth, but the white shards that hit the floor of the chamber weren't teeth, but bones.
"Way to go Fran." Art said as she realized what had just happened.
The Lich lifted up the hand that he had used to strike Fran's face to find that two of the fingers were missing. In order for the punch to connect, the Lich couldn't use his spatial barrier over his hands, so Fran targeted that hand the moment he went in for a strike.
"You certainly are a vicious little girl. More like a Demonic Beast than an Adventurer. That was [Furious Demon Fang], wasn't it? How does a child like you know [Divine Fang Techniques]?"
Fran didn't respond, she just watched as the Lich's fingers regrew before her eyes.
[Instantaneous Regeneration].
Not only was the bastard hard as hell to pin down, but unless it was an instantly lethal blow, he would just recover from it anyways. How were they supposed to win?
"If only mom was here." Art said, as the Lich started to laugh again. Then, Art noticed something, the last group of Legendary Undead were still around, and they had been working on something. (Fran, the minions!) Art shouted through their mental connection.
The ten Legendary Undead had all formed a giant magic circle between them, into which they were all performing a joint spell. The Lich noticed Art's mental warming, but just laughed. "You're too late!" He shouted as the newest summoning circle poured out an intense black aura.
Out of the circle crawled a massive creature, whose head was more than thirty feet off the ground, or rather, its heads. Three large heads, a lion, a goat and a dragon, each the size of a wagon sat on top of the monster's shoulders. Patches of its fur and scales were missing, revealing the rotting flesh underneath. All over its body, ruins from the Overloading magic glowed, boosting the monster's strength.
"Now young Adventurer, let us see how you fare against my Zombie Chimera! Fuhahaha!" The Lich laughed as he moved out of the way, leaving Fran to face the newest undead.
"Nn." Fran just scoffed and raised her sword. "In the way. Get out."
She was answered by a trio of roars that shook the room as fire started to glow within the throats of the monster.
"So be it."
Undead Chimera Lv 67/75
Race: Hybrid-Beast (World Lion | Thunder Ram | Typhoon Dragon) (Demonic Beast)
Status: Overloaded
HP: 20813, MP: 12404, STR: 6640, END: 6723
AGI: 5052, INT: 36, MGC: 5908, DEX: 4028
Skills:
Wind Magic LvMax, Fire Magic LvMax, Gale Magic Lv8, Flame Magic Lv7, Lightning Magic Lv9, Earth Magic Lv9, Water Magic Lv8, Herculean Strength Lv7, Harden Skin LvMax, Diamond Skin Lv5, Flash Step Lv6, Claw Techniques LvMax, Claw Arts LvMax, Divine Claw Techniques Lv3, Divine Claw Arts Lv4, Fang Techniques LvMax, Fang Arts LvMax, Divine Fang Techniques Lv3, Divine Fang Arts Lv4, Abnormal Status Resistance LvMax, Regeneration LvMax, Instantaneous Regeneration Lv9, Automatic MP Recovery, Automatic HP Recovery
Innate Skill:
Dragon Arts Lv4, Three Heads, Demonic Poison Fang
Description:
This Ancient Chimera was born from the bodies of three separate A-rank Demonic Beasts fused together through Alchemy into one monstrous existence, this creature dead after running wild and destroying much of the country that had attempted to create it before being put down. Now resurrected by powerful necromancy, it will not die again easy.
Magic Stone Location: Chest
I ran the numbers, and assuming that no more Undead are summoned and all the current Magic Stones on the field were absorbed (Including the Lich) Archer/Rani would reach Rank 30 at the end of this fight.
Compared to in canon where Shishou was Rank 15 after fighting against the army of 10,000 Demonic Beasts. Something that really should have grown him more ranks. Even assuming they were all only just G-rank stones worth 1 point a piece, they would still have grown Shishou up to Rank 19 from Rank 13. But there he goes, not absorbing stones from a giant army because he doesn't want to have to explain where all the stones went later. (Fucking idiot)
Challenge: (Fate/Extra x Rise of the Shield Hero): Three Heroes and Their Master
After the Mooncell's Holy Grail War Hakuno is summoned to the world of Rise of the Shield Hero, along side her three servants from the three separate time lines, to become the wielders of the Legendary Weapons (Hakuno appearing to just be dragged along for the ride).
So Saber(Nero) is the Sword Hero, Archer(NAMELESS) is the Bow Hero, Caster(Tamamo) is the Shield Hero.
It should be noted that in Rise of the Shield Hero canon, spirits don't gain EXP. So they wouldn't be effected by the rules that would cause them to compete for EXP bonuses.