Author's Note: Okay so Another week down, Gonna watch a walkthrough for the new Sword and Fairy now. Read, Review, Favourite and Enjoy!
Chapter 32: The Dragon Slayer
Takt's plot for world domination was coming into fruition. While yes they no longer had Tulina's mind controlling magic or Takt's weapons of Pride there are other ways of putting the world under their control, which would become irrelevant as soon as they manage to skewer one of the little brats and take their weapon from them.
"We move on the capital before the wave is over." Tulina stated as she observed the phenomena in question. "I will secure the area. Once the wave has ended I will secure the sword hero personally."
They would not underestimate Kuro for a second time. Last time it was their infiltrator they sent to Kuro, Tulina was not suited to close quarters. This time Nelisen would personally deal with her, trapping her in her territory so that she couldn't portal out to safety, and once the wave had managed to weaken her they can take her captive.
"She cannot be taken lightly. You all will deploy anti-magic measures to suppress those blasted blades before any of them appear!" She seemed to have one for every occasion, Tulina got her guts ripped out when she somehow managed to manifest them directly into her body. Takt himself got deprived of his weapons after she managed to spring one on him that Takt described as being made out of rainbows. The fact that there are weapons that actually exist that are specifically designed to bring down dragons and dragon type demi-humans like Leludia and herself meant that they needed to keep her isolated and far away from them if they don't want to fall victim to their effects.
"Nelshin-sama." One of the people under their control stated as he pointed out the window at the Wave they were discussing a moment ago, specifically at the large icy vulture that was erratically flying through the air. "We've spotted the wave boss, but why is it flying like that?"
"Zoom in." Nelshin ordered to wit they were treated to the sight of the Sword Hero and her party riding the bird brain bare back.
"Are they fighting the boss?" One of the crewmen asked looking confused.
"Huu." Nelshin looked like she was looking at something incredibly stupid. "No. They're trying to ride that monster."
"THIS IS THE STUPIDEST THING WE HAVE EVER DONE!" Welt loudly announced making his displeasure blatantly known.
Kuro had no shortage of Rider's weapons in her arsenal for her to extract the history from to learn the art for herself. Atla had the benefit of Artoria's classes, Saber, Lancer and most important in this case, Rider. Mind you as a rider Artoria was only a B-Rank, so she shouldn't be able to take on mythical animals as mounts, it was hard to classify the wave bosses though. Course it was all irrelevant if the monster itself was unwilling to be ridden, as was the case right now.
"Don't you have a mind controlling blade or something!?" Berka asked/shouted as he attempted to not be flung off.
"No! So lets try something else!" Atla shouted as she subsequently pulled out two blades.
Excalibur and the Dark Excalibur both but altered. The handles were shorter making them suitable as one handed weapons, the blades had lost their width which made them lighter and easier to wield though they stayed the same length which did nothing for the balance on the blades. Kuro could only let out a sigh. For one thing recreating the true Excalibur and the dark Excalibur was beyond her capabilities since they are both divine constructs, she had to make do with divine constructs with significantly reduced stats but because of that they had the status of 'not Excalibur' and would bind to those they deemed worthy. There were other factors too that could contribute, the Micro-Avalon's in Atla's body, the way beast-men absorb energy when they transform, her innate ability to see and manipulate energy, the knowledge that the Hero's can manufacture items for their companions using their weapons. She'll need to conduct a proper study later.
"Alright you stupid bird! Get moving!" Atla shouted and swung both blades forward, the blades inherited the power to manipulate wind shooting the bird forward with explosive force, well that and the fact that Atla was holding the magical equivalent to anti-matter probably helped. They used the boss as a shield absorbing all the of the mage fire from the blimp and later on as a battering ram as they slammed it beak first into the bow of the ship.
"So should we be concerned that she can make those things all by herself now?" Fohl questioned looking at Kuro suspiciously.
"We will be." Kuro transformed her sword again and slashed through the neck of the of the bird killing it in one blow. "But first we're going to capture who ever is in charge of this ship and figure out why they're attacking Siltvelt." Kuro looked at the ship assessing eyes picking out traces of information.
"Please don't tell me that you can read the ship?" Faerie asked closing her eyes and brow twitching.
"The guns attached to the ship are a lot easier I will admit." Kuro stated as she drifted into the information that she was looking for.
"You're some lucky that we're having this conversation now you little brat!" Nelshin stated claws digging into Kyurie's face and drawing blood. "If Tulina was still alive-!"
"Or if your master still had one of the weapons he stole." Kyurie smiled at the angered as she landed a blow on his face hard enough to shatter teeth and crush his nose. "Oh I'm sorry did I strike a nerve?" One of the guards raised their hand to apply healing magic but was stopped by the dragon woman.
"No. Leave him to suffer."
Kuro pulled herself out of the past as she focused on the present.
"Kyurie's onboard the ship." The others nodded their heads in response. "I'm going to go kill the dragon woman, you all are going to find Kyurie, tear this ship apart if you have to." Kuro was not going to lose anyone, not today, not ever.
"I'm going to come with you." Atla stated tone uncompromising. Kuro closed her eyes, carefully weighed the odds and found something wanting. "Alright. Come on lets ruin their day."
Apparently they got tired of waiting for Kuro and company to come to them, because the mass of boss monster that had been shoved into the deck was suddenly booted out. The two youngest members of their party then walked inside.
"So come to hand yourself over have you?" Nelshin asked brow cocked in the air. "You have caused Takt a lot of trouble brat." The dragon woman spat as if she was clearing bile from her mouth.
"Takt murdered Five Vassal Heroes, has been going around starting wars between different countries, and chances are a host of various other crimes as well that let's both be honest here after the first two really isn't worth looking into." Kuro's smile was all teeth and malice, finger tracing the edge of a blade that she would not be using to stab the dragon.
"Surrender or be destroyed wench!" Atla stated black and gold blades ready to slice and dice.
"No." The dragon woman subsequently took the woman part out of that equation transforming into a massive serpentine Chinese style dragon and expelling the pair with a mass of fire from her mouth as she emerged through the hole they had created.
"Well time to do this the hard way." Kuro stated with a shrug of her shoulders.
Anti-dragon Noble Phantasms are about as rare as the dragon's themselves, rather in her world, they seemed to breed like rabbits in this one. Of the anti-dragon Noble Phantasms the one's that came to mind were Gram, Ascalon and Arondight, considering the first of the three was cursed and the latter most a extremely difficult to recreate divine blade that left the middle one to recreate, the Ascalon.
"Thousand Swords!" Kuro shouted the name of the skill as she set about the process of fabricating the latest in her bag of tricks to wipe out the enemy before her. "I, the Hero of-" Suddenly a bright pink light spread out from the centre of the airship and the thousand green glowing blades Kuro had summoned to serve as a medium for her spell disappeared.
What's worst is that the two blades she had been building the proficiency with turned back into the singular base form, as well as a dramatic reduction in all of her stats that she had not seen since she had first been summoned here.
"Oh this is bad." Kuro commented watching the new notification to appear in her vision.
'Warning: The Hero has entered a pacification field.'
"What the hell is a pacification field!?" Kuro exclaimed very much confused.
'Unknown.'
"Well you're usel-GAH!" Kuro got zapped again as she glared contemptuously at the sword. "So you can't give me any stats or skills but you still get to punish me as much as you fancy?"
'Apparently.'
"Useless s-" Kuro got zapped again. "THIS ISN'T HELPING!"
'Suggestion. Locate the source of the pacification field.'
"Finally you come up with a good idea." In the mean time there was a dragon coming through the air coming for a second round. "I'm somewhat useless right now. Do you mind taking a swing at that?"
"Do these swords have dragon slaying properties?" Atla asked and Kuro shook her head in the negative. "I'll manage." Atla stated as she proceeded to run through the air again.
Nelshin wasn't entirely stupid mind you, since she knew that her airship had become host to enemy combatants the obvious solution then was to destroy the air ship. So Nelshin breathed deep and loosed a mighty blast of piercing flame through the balloon portion of the blimp setting it, and the hydrogen gas that was inside, on fire. The people who built the airship and who were currently staffing it weren't stupid either. The moment their illustrious mistress set the thing on fire they assumed the forms that would give them wings, or jumped into what few fighters they brought with them and weren't outright destroyed, or strapped themselves with parachutes and buffed their landing with wind and earth magic. Or had been outright killed when the ship's engine had been destroyed. What this all meant is that there were very few people left in the flaming wreckage of the ship to stop Kuro's party, though they instead encountered a new problem.
"Why... are... we... so..." Faerie asked as she nearly collapsed from exhaustion.
"I have no idea, maybe whatever gas they were using to inflate the ship." While the lack of resistance has been convenient thus far it came with the downside of being unable to grab anyone to interrogate.
Blissfully the people on board this ship seemed to lack for a sense of direction, because they found a map marking out in clear language where all the important bits on the ship could be found. Like the holding cells.
"You will not escape from me sword Hero!" The dragon shouted spewing her searing flame down at the ship below, but was intercepted by the twin sword wielder who used the wind with contemptuous ease to blow the fire breath away.
"You got that backwards." Atla stated swords at her side. "You are not leaving here alive!" Atla zoomed forward, walking across the air as she ran, swords held in a reverse grip as she ran up to the dragon before her.
The dragon also charged forward, confident in the stats given her her by over 200 levels and the power to be more than enough to even the scales in the battle no matter what kinds of weapons the sword hero gave her. They collided fangs first with Nelshin attempting to bite down on Atla to eat her. Atla had the dark Excalibur straight up in the air and Nelshin bit down on it, the blade being shoved into the roof of the dragon's mouth.
"AAARRRGGGHHH!" Nelshin shouted in pain as she proceeded to try and toss Atla out of her mouth.
Not only did she not succeed but Atla proceeded to strike at the roof, floor, teeth and tongue of the dragon with the other sword. Atla failed to do so much as a nic of damage, visible that is, but the longer this went on the more intense the pain in the dragon's mouth became, and the more strikes Atla landed on the dragon the more she saw something bouncing around inside of the dragon she had been fighting. Enough was enough! Nelshin unleashed the contents of her flight bladder expelling flammable gas through her mouth and igniting it on the spark of electricity from her fangs. Atla instinctively pushed the flame away and jumped back out of the mouth once again taking off through the air, even as the dragon began coughing.
"What are you, little Hakuko girl?" Nelshin asked glaring at the child in question.
"A story." Atla replied simply flipping her sword around and getting a better grip. "Bastardised and made out of borrowed pieces it might be, but it is mine." Growling that out, Atla held out her sword in challenge. "Rejoice extra. You are about to become part of it!"
"HHHAAARRR!" The dragon snarled as she unleashed more of the flame and closed the distance, instead of a bite though this time it was a swipe of the claws slamming into Atla and she only narrowly parried the blow, dropping the chunk of ki and air she had been standing on a moment ago as the claws passed her by. That was all the opening Nelshin needed.
"DIE!" As a Aototsu Nelshin was a master of the superior Dragon Pulse style of magic as opposed to the comparatively useless and highly limited magic system used by everyone else. All she needed to do to learn a new spell was absorb the energy from the environment and the elemental energy that went with it. Atla had generously provided her with plenty in the form of the dark sword that she had rammed through the dragon's mouth, and now the dragon's body had taken on a dark curse like appearance, Artoria's power flowing through her veins. "What is this?" The dragon started to writhe about shrinking down as she rapidly fell back to ground level.
"Well." Atla noted watching the mass of darkness that seemed to overtake the dragon woman. "That's a bad sign."
Being without the Legendary sword did not mean Kuro was short on options. As long as there was nothing waiting on the other side there was nothing stopping her from simply manifesting a large axe to start tearing down every wall that she ran into until she eventually found what she was looking for.
"Now where did you come from?" The hammer was clearly high quality, made out of some sort of pink sacred material, though not a sacred craft in of itself, at the hands of someone who was very skilled in what they did. And while she could use it for material in of itself for now she wanted to find out who made it and instead opted to remove it and put it inside of her sword for storage.
'Sitera Destiny Hammer Sword. Equip Bonus, Pacification Field Nullification. Main Bonus Sitera Destiny Field.'
"I thought we agreed to wait until we can find out made the damned thing before we go around turning it into materials for the weapon transformations!?" Kuro snapped glaring at her sword angrily. In response Byakuya went through the monster book again and picked out it's newest entry.
'Sitera Destiny Stone: A sacred material formed from the accumulation of XP in the earth native to the Sacred Land of the Heroes.'
"Am I suppose to know where that is?" Kuro asked glaring at the sword while her brow twitched.
'The Hero can just make a copy.' The sword retorted making it's opinion on the matter clear.
"That is not the point!" Leaving the damned thing in capable hands to study so that the identity of the one who forged it could be discerned would have been much easier back when she had a actual physical item to work with instead of a cheap copy that would dissolve as soon as she left it's presence. "We will talk about this later." Kuro left the section of the ship she had brought down and started to have a look around the area. She found Kyurie shortly there after, burned in the wreckage and still missing his arm, she had some idea of what he had been through here but still. Ouch. "Oi kid you good?"
"You..." Kyurie helped to push himself back to his feet. "Have no right to call me a kid."
"Katarina's been looking for you, nearly tore the king in half when she tried to invade Faubrey." Kuro stated patting the vampire boy on his fore head. "Might have been able to do more good if she knew one of the Whip Hero's girlfriends was Shieldfreeden's leader." Admittedly that probably would have made things more convenient if Katarina knew which country was holding her party member hostage. The kid was suppose to be from Shieldfreeden in the first place right? The door fell off of it's hinges with Welt and the others on the other side waiting for them. "I'd rather not turn two people into Heroic Spirit possessed vessels so you guys help him while I go help Atla kill the dragon." Kuro stated as she changed the form of her blade again.
The monsters of the wave continued the theme of undead, skeleton wolves of some sort. Mind you there was more of them before the air ship landed on them. Which was a shame because as Atla understands it the last two times Kuro had to make a absurdly powerful Noble Phantasm to kill a specific target the extra energy from the wave monsters really came in handy. No matter, she'll just have to make up the difference. The miasma shrunk down around the dragon woman and settled into the form of a black dress with grey plate armour on top. Black veins covered the creatures head as one golden coloured antlers and hair turned a dirty blonde colour with a face mask with glowing red light coming out of it being highlighted. The creature possessing Nelshin snarled as she readied the dark Excalibur.
"Wowsa." Kuro commented lightly looking in surprise at the possessed dragon woman who had appeared on the battlefield. "Someone's gonna have a bad day."
"Any ideas on how to kill it?" Atla asked looking at the dragon woman in question.
"Ah you misunderstand." Kuro stated as she pointed at the possessed creature in question. "She's gonna have a bad day." Kuro could smell the mana coming off of her from over here, killing her will be as simple as getting close and planting one on her. "I just need to get close to her and then I'll be able to make a sword to kill her!"
"I'll hold her off then." Atla stated as she got ready to strike. In the mean time the screaming dragon knight charge forward swinging her bastardised Excalibur trying to take the two girl's heads off in the process. In response Atla countered with her own Excalibur, the ensuing shock wave of energy cancelling out both attacks in the process. Both of the sword women continued the repeated clashing of weapons while Kuro sneaked up behind her and grabbed the dragon woman from behind by her hair and pulled her back wards.
"Mfh?" The deeply confused dragon woman received a kiss to the lips as her power flowed out of her body and into Kuro's, before that is she used a swing of the sword to chase the hero away.
"Good enough. Thousand Swords!" And so the familiar green blades appeared in the air as Kuro prepared to add the magic to them. "I, The Hero of the Sword, have quenched 1000 blades. Decipher the laws of Nature and summoned the reverse blade of the Dragon Slaying Saint!" And so after being beckoned the blades floating in the air transformed into overgrown choppers with a diamond base. "Reversed Ascalon!"
Basically, the sword of Saint George had two forms, Ascalon, a diamond tipped long sword, and Reverse Ascalon which as the name implied had the diamond shape at the base which led into the single largest chopper you'd ever seen in a normally proportioned man's hands. Each came with their own benefits, Ascalon would defend it's wielder from all harm, while reverse Ascalon, as the name implies, reverses that defensive power in favour of a all powerful offensive force. On top of that was the extra power from the dragon slaying power it's wielder of Legend, Saint George. And now one thousand of those blades all came after the dragon woman to slice and dice. And so the blades all came crashing down and proceeded to hack into the dragon woman producing a huge cross of light on her body in the process.
"Not enough!" Atla noted as put her eyes on one of the blades that had yet to crash down on the dragon woman and intercepted it, grabbing hold of the blade and sinking her own energy into it before slamming it down on the dragon's head.
"RRRAAARRRGGGHHH!" Deprived of magic the dragon woman instead felt her body swelling up from the effects of the point enhanced anti-dragon magic bouncing around inside of her body accompanied by the sound of more bones breaking and armour rending. Finally the dragon woman burst splattering Atla in blood in the process.
"Well that's one mess taken care of." Kuro stated as she had a look around. "Chem can you bring me the boss's corpse?" Chem nodded in the affirmative as he transformed and flew off. "Welt, can I leave you and the others to try and round up as many of the crew as possible and destroy as many skeletons as you can?"
"We can, but can't you make it rain swords again and wipe em out?" Welt asked looking at Kuro confused but she shook her head in the negative.
"I need to conduct an examination." Kuro stated as she took Atla by her hand and walked off. After locating a room inside of the ship that wasn't a major security threat, structurally compromised or on fire Kuro had Atla strip down and washed so that she could conduct another examination of her body. "Hmm." The conclusion was inconclusive. Near as Kuro could tell Atla's body wasn't being seriously compromised by the presence of the Noble Phantasms inside of her body, even with fairy letters having tattooed themselves across her chest and knuckles, but then again they were no longer merely the Excalibur and it's sheath. The explanation Atla gave seemed to be the most logical.
"I am a story. Made out of Borrowed and Bastardised parts it might be but it is mine."
The Good news is she hadn't picked up the Ascalon to be added to her arsenal, the last thing she needed in this was more foreign data entering her body. That wasn't to say that she was free of foreign influence in this mess either.
"I have dragon blood inside of my body?" Atla asked using a sheet to cover herself up.
"I recall a similar instance in the story of Siegfried the Dragon Slayer." Kuro stated looking up in the air. "As a direct result of being bathed in the dragon's blood his body gained the power to manifest it as a type of armour." Kuro nodded her head as Atla brought out two familiar swords again.
"What can you tell me about these?" The tiger girl asked holding out the two blades.
"The two Excalibur's?" Kuro asked looking at the swords but Atla shook her head.
"That's not what they're called anymore." Atla stated to which Kuro could only nod her head in agreement. She had to modify the damned things so heavily to manifest approximations of the original Excaliburs that it would be blasphemy to keep referring to the weapons under the name of the originals.
"Yes I understand what you mean." Kuro nodded her head as she put her hand on the light sword. "Vivienne, the Lady of the Lake who gave Artoria the Excalibur." And then the blade of Darkness. "Morgan, the Fairy Queen and the half sister of Artoria." That wasn't the only details present though. Atla's power had been suppressed, which considering the amount of power that should be going through it thanks to the fairy language should've been impossible, unless... "I'm going to examine your core now, hold still." Kuro reached inside for the Micro Avalon's, to the data of Artoria. Though that data remained intact the effect they would have had been altered, not one of the three that Artoria had been suited to either. "You're an assassin." Kuro stated arms and legs crossing.
"A what?" Atla asked confused.
"There are seven major classifications under which a Heroic Spirit can be summoned and a bunch of lesser ones that people have tried to force through with mixed results." Kuro looked up to the air as she thought up ways to explain. "Saber is the one Artoria is most suited to, and Assassin is the one she's least suited to. Mostly because they're complete opposites." For one thing, Artoria has never once in her life acted as a assassin before, so she shouldn't even be capable of acting as one, for another as a direct result of that history all of her powers and abilities were best suited to charging head on as loudly as possible. "The only explanation I can think of is that you're taking 'the legend of Artoria' and changing it to 'the legend of Atla.'" Kuro explained with a shrug of her shoulders. Atla nodded her head in agreement, liking the sound of that. "In any case, Siltvelt is going to be here soon." Kuro stated nodding her head. "We should-" Kuro was suddenly interrupted by Atla pouncing on her and quickly going to work on removing her armour.
Review Section:
RonaldM40196867: No.
reinDank: True.
ImaginarySora: A matchlock rifle? Probably could, but can Kuro recreate a gun with unlimited blade works? I seem to recall that it was suppose to be too complex.
Kisame Hoshigaki: Things will be dramatically different in my story than in the LN or WN you can safely watch whatever suits you without worrying about spoilers.
Captain Imaginat: I wouldn't say fight, it wasn't physical, that happened with Takt's griffin instead, it was more like they were having a argument. Eli, Viktoriya and Ake are all human, Otto is a Kushtaka or Otter demi-human and Aranaya is a Arachne or Spider Demi-human. No Katarina didn't use her cursed weapon on Fitoria, she left before the fighting began.
Eevee: All true.