Author's Note: Okay another week down. Read, Review, Favourite and Enjoy!
Chapter 63: The Monster's of a Hero's World
Kyo slammed his fist into his keyboard as he glared at what was happening outside. After all the trouble he went through siphoning off his fellow reincarnated's souls, dividing and strengthening them using soul manipulating magic stuffing them into new bodies, filling those with the Chi that he siphoned from the prison dimension he learned about from the book of Chi magic. After going through all of that trouble the monsters that resulted from his experiments couldn't even last ten minutes, and it would have been even less time if the damned enemy had synergized their skills and magic from the beginning.
"Having trouble?" A by now familiar voice asked from the back of Kyo's mind.
The same that had been there ever since he implemented the tattoo he found in Jade's book. Contrary to what she had claimed Jade did not in fact steal one of her uncle's books, what she did was far worst. She perused through his collection and made copies of everything that interested her and combined that with everything that she had gleamed from all of her self practice that she had been doing over the past couple of years. Sadly a lot of that information stemmed from Dark magic, such as a homemade tattoo sticker that ended up having vastly more powerful and lasting effects than she had intended.
"Nothing that the likes of you should worry about." Kyo snapped at the entity whose face he had plastered onto his shoulder.
When Jade had tattooed the face of Terrakuda, King of the Shadow Kahn onto her ankle she had established a connection to his realm, allowing her to summon his subjects a tribe of ninja like creatures made out of living shadow. Sadly though Jade and her extended family were a little too thorough in exterminating the nine Shadow Kahn tribes, no Oni generals, no shadow's to cast, no Shadow Kahn only formless shadow matter left behind, albeit a vast amount of it. Left with this predicament for years Kyo inadvertently made the same tattoo and established contact with Terrakuda, and on top of that managed to bore his way into another realm for even more power. In addition to the Eight Oni Generals there were also eight Demon Sorcerers whose Chi could be siphoned to turn a ordinary mortal into a creature out of nightmare and legend. His experiments in combining directional beast flesh with human subjects had yielded results that allowed him to to take his experiments to the next stage and combine his flesh with that of a even more powerful creature. In addition to the eight Demon Sorcerers their was a ninth entity trapped inside of the realm, not one of the original eight but rather one of their children, one whom managed to gather the scraps his aunts and uncles left in a realm of mortals when they were first sealed away and make that into his own power.
"I need more time, even with the Spirit Tortoise energy to supplement the missing Chi my new body isn't growing as fast as I would like it to be." Kyo stated mostly muttering to himself as he glared at the half grown body in a tube next to his equipment.
"What you need is something to slow them down while it finishes growing. And the missing energy that the girl brought with her from her world." The demonic voice of Terrakuda explained a Kyo's eyes were naturally drawn to a piece of equipment that he thought would never see use during combat.
"Yes! That can work!" Kyo stated while he just got a rather nasty idea.
"Hey Maple, there's something we wanted to talk to you about." L'Arc stated getting kind of awkward about the situation that was now at hand.
"What is it?" Maple asked as she finished absorbing the mess Syrup and Sakura had made into her shield. She had no use for the souls so she did a quick exchange with the native heroes of this world to augment their power using the Scythe method.
"Well unlike this world yours still has a real chance at ending your waves." L'Arc explained awkwardly but Naofumi started laughing at him. "Oi what's so funny!?"
"That you think I'm going through all this trouble to save a world that's doomed to the waves." Naofumi explained shrugging his shoulders.
"Are you going to explain what that plan is to save this world from the waves?" L'Arc asked tapping his foot impatiently.
"To you? In ear shot of Kyo's surveillance system?" The look on Naofumi's face implied he thought L'Arc was the one who was joking now.
"It's not a huge favour, we'd like to send some of our people over to your side to keep them safe from the wave." L'Arc explained as he continued with the conversation he was having before being interrupted. "Mostly women and children."
"Sure. We'll pop them over as soon as we finish over on this side." Maple saw no reason why not to offer safe refuge to some people who were getting displaced by the waves, knowing Tanya she was doing something similar back in the world they just came from.
"I'll fly it by my dad when we get home." L'Arc stated as he turned to the ocean, where whatever was left of Kyo's base was located. "For now..."
"Yeah. We've got someone to put down." Maple turned into that same form she had when she first tore through that base, a giant four armed heavily armoured Tyrannosaurus. Armed with their respective weapons and new power ups everyone prepared to systemically butcher Kyo and his entire operation when the sound of a gong went off, and without prompt or ceremony everyone but Maple, Raphtalia, Filo, Demon and Therese were sucked away and deposited below a sky with a familiar world hanging in the air.
"Well that's annoying." It seems that Kyo somehow triggered the wave for their hourglass, in the process separating all of the both Legendary and Vassal Heroes from Maple and all the non-heroic members of their party. "Hang on my level just shot up!" L'Arc shouted as he realised what this must've meant: the world hanging in the sky is Raphtalia's. This was a opportunity quite possibly the only one they would get. It was too late to bring the barrier restoring energy back to the other world after all of their Directional beasts had been killed. Which meant that they would have to stay here and hold the portal open.
"Oi L'Arc." Naofumi snapped directing his attention to the man in question. "Still wanna ship refugee's over to the other side?"
Maple had no idea what just happened, all that she saw was Ost's energy that she had so painstakingly collected was just sucked out of her shield and flew over to Kyo's underwater base. That was on top of all of them being stripped of their strongest fighters. Well most of them anyway, her stats just shot through the roof thanks to a enormous boost in her level, and she knew just what she was gonna do with it.
"Ahem." Demon was holding out to Maple part of a dragon core, hers apparently, she most likely wanted her to absorb it into her shield.
Kyo was not having a good day, don't get him wrong it was about to get a lot better considering he was about to be elevated to god hood and all that but until now it was not a good day. No matter the last of the Spirit Tortoise energy was filled into this thing which also meant that he finally had enough to do what he had been planning to do for the past several months.
"Terrakuda, it has been real, but now I think that it is finally time to get you out of my head!" And that was the last thing Kyo ever said.
Terrakuda didn't know what was wrong with the fool's soul, he assumed it had been a combination of whatever who ever put him here did to him and whatever he has been doing to himself in his blind pursuit of power. Well he really can't complain about that part, otherwise he wouldn't have been so easy to manipulate, nor could he really complain about the damage done to his soul, considering how easy it made it to eat the damned thing. No matter. From Kyo's rapidly decomposing body a blood red head emerged, four sharp horns were on his head two large and snow white eyebrows was coming out of his brows directly above yellow-green eyes while a long white goatee was coming out his chin. Issue was that was all there was to his body, almost like he was less a person and more a floating disembodied mask. Perhaps as a result of this Terrakudo was able to fit himself over the equally giant body that Kyo had been working on.
It looked like a mishmash of all the demons that Kyo had unleashed earlier. The entire thing was massive and warty, like the mountain demons, but it was also thin and wiry like the serpentine fire demons, the legs ended in a pair of clawed earth demon hooves, paired with the water demon's fish like tail, two different sets of arms hung at the sides like the moon demon with the same demon's robes were tied around it's waist, one the large frog like wind demons and the other the more balanced warrior like thunder demon, Large sky demon wings were at the back but the face? That was all Terrakudo as he finished turning the demon's skin turned red and it's hair white.
"Earth is too much for us. I can understand why this world keeps summoning heroes from there to fight their battles for them. No matter." Terrakudo looked up the roof as he made plans to start fresh. "Time to conquer."
Suddenly the roof collapsed under a hale of explosions, something like a snake tied itself into a noose around his neck and forcibly pulled him out out the facility. A creature with six arms grabbed him by his limbs and threw him through the air causing him to land a couple of miles in land. The distance he crossed be damned he could still see the creature that had been responsible, though he recognised it she had gone through quite a few changes.
"The creature that attacked Kyo's base." The closest comparison he could think of was what the humans of his world call a T-Rex, he saw the skeleton of one once as he was trying to retrieve his General Kiiro's mask but this one was flesh, flesh and machine. The armour had changed, thicker, bulkier, it made grinding noises like the construction contraptions that humans use when it moved and in total it had six arms, two flesh, two armoured like a suit, and two mechanical. The mechanical arms coming from the back ending in large guns while one of the arms had a large shield made out of dragon's arms. The rest of the creature's armour was covered in pulsing curse like veins like it was alive.
"So. This world has it's own demons." Terrakudo stated as if he was making note of the situation.
"Sorry to disappoint you." Maple stated as she got ready to fire again.
"Oh I'm not disappointed." Terrakudo stated as if he was laughing.
"I meant I'm not a demon." Maple pulled out a attack support dart like what Kizuna was using earlier and chucked it at her opponent, and for her trouble watched as it got slammed into the ground. "At the very least I'm not whatever you are."
"Debatable." Terrakudo replied bluntly. "I give you one opportunity: join me." The demon stated as he gestured around him, to various shadows as his likeness in crude ninja garb emerged from within. "As my subordinate...!"
"No thank you." Maple stated as she got ready for a fight.
"Pity." And then the world went black.
When Katarina and Tanya were told that Kuro had found the next directional beast it resulted in a brief series of portals. Katarina and her portable dungeon met Kuro and Tanya inside of Melromarc's summoning room where they entered the portable dungeon and received the spatial magic within before being ejected. Then they portal over to the volcano where they expected that at any moment they would have to fight the phoenix.
"Kuro."
"Yeah Tanya?"
"Why is there a wave happening above the volcano?"
"I have no idea."
That short exchanged described what precisely was happening to the area as monsters came down from the sky and crashed into the ground. And one was more monstrous than most, not the boss who they had yet to see make it's appearance, but rather a humanoid killer whale with a shape changing harpoon fending off relatively familiar monsters. Chimera's, Cerberi, Hydra's, Soul Eaters, and there were others too. It was as if every boss that had landed in Melromarc since the waves started was gathered here today like lambs to the slaughter, or materials to the weapons but that was besides the point.
"That's Sadeena." Katarina stated not asked and Tanya and Kuro nodded dully in response. "Sadeena's alive." The other two Heroes nodded again. "Why is Sadeena alive? I mean I'm happy that she's okay and all but..."
"Where has she been for the past two weeks?" Tanya asked summarising everyone's current thoughts. "Shall we go ask?"
A few moments later the monsters Sadeena had been fighting were in a word annihilated, after a few short rail-gun blasts from Kuro the closest resemblance the creatures in bore was to a wheel of swiss cheese, with a sword skewering it. Said sword then had a tanned coloured girl sitting on top of it, looking down at Sadeena as she glared in blatant suspicion.
"Sadeena. You have some explaining to do." Kuro stated and before Sadeena could explain her self further Katarina was ready with her spear, and based on that chill going up her spine Tanya was getting ready to shoot her too. Sadeena didn't have time for this.
"Maple chased Kyo back to his world and earned the cooperation of the heroes on that side to get the energy that Kyo stole back." Sadeena stated without hesitation.
"Why would they do that?" Kuro asked still blatantly suspicious. "Ignoring the part where the weapons said that Legendary heroes like us aren't allowed to cross world's wouldn't it make more sense to keep the energy and use it to fix their own barrier?"
While Kuro was being suspicious Katarina was looking up at the sky. Yes the boss class monsters were still dropping but there was something else that was coming down now.
"If that is what they are going to do, then it wouldn't make since for them to do this?" Short warriors in heavy armour body wielding halberds slammed into the monsters crushing their heads. Tall pointed eared people with bows unleashed a hail of arrows down upon the heads of the monsters. Magicians with a excessive number of accessories unleashed magical storms. Ghost like figures flew through the air releasing skill like attacks upon the enemies heads. "These are the proverbial 'Eggs in a Basket!' Each and every person here has arrived here knowing that they will never see the homes and loved ones that they left behind with the intention that they will save their people and their culture if they have to live as slaves for the rest of their lives!" And more were coming through by the Minute. "That hole in the sky right there is currently the only way that Maple and the others can come back to us safe and sound!" Sadeena stated indicating the massive hole in the sky. It was bigger than any other they've seen thus far. It was so massive that they could clearly see the world on the other side, which was probably why all the monsters were so damn strong.
"Where's the boss!?" Tanya stated recognising the situation for what it was she used the Voice Gengar bow to address all of their forces that they had brought with them. "I want the boss found and restrained this instant! If any harm comes to it the ones responsible will answer to me!"
"Tanya sweetie. Finding it will be the easy part." Sadeena raised a single finger into the air at the top of the volcano, and the monster looming at them from on top of it. Sadeena had noticed something familiar about some of the monsters she learned about in the other world, what with all of them being Monsters of the Waves. It was L'Arc's theory that all of the wave monsters are clones, for lack of better term, of creatures from the world on the other side of the wave. And so naturally they were currently looking at the single strongest monster of that world, the boss of bosses. "The boss is right there." What Sadeena was pointing at, was a massive six armed demonic tyrannosaurus like creature that someone had shoved into a set of powered armour and strapped with massive fat guns.
"Well, at least we know that Maple's okay." Katarina stated as she stepped back, not mentioning the part about 'shame we won't be.'
There were two benefits from the 'Demon Dragon Shield' the first was the skill 'Attack Support' which produces a dart that once it hits a target doubles the damage that they take from their next attack. The other benefit though was that the consciousness of Demon herself was now inside of the shield itself.
'What kind of weapons has The Hero been copying into The Legendary Shield?'
'The Hero should stop absorbing foreign entities into the Shield.'
'The Shield of Compassion should mind The Shield of Compassion's own business.'
"Would you guys stop arguing!" Maple on the other hand had bigger things to worry about than the petty arguments of her weapon. Like for instance Terrakudo drenching up a mountain worth of stone, chucking it into the air to form a miniature moon, and then throwing it at her augmenting it with gravity magic. "Ideas!?"
'Anti-Gravity magic.'
'And deal with the mass of rock over The Hero's Head how?'
'Blast with Fire.'
"I'll take the first one!" One of Maple's shoulder armour turned into a voice Gengar Shield. "Anti-Gravity X!" Six giant arms caught the miniature moon surprising Terrakudo in the process.
"Are you sure you're not a demon?" Terrakudo didn't look too upset by the latest development by Maple. There was still the issue of the overly large meteorite that was actively trying to crush the mechanical prehistoric creature that the chimeric demon was actively trying to kill of course so he might've had good reason to not be concerned about the fact that Maple was underneath that giant rock.
"Now if I think about this really hard..." Maple specifically thought of taking the rock and chucking it at her opponent's head and as direct result a spark of lightning cracked and the rock in question shot straight into the sky at which point Maple turned all of her available shields into guns and pressed them into the ground and shot off through the sky before she was crushed by the falling rock.
"Clever girl." And then the rock slammed into the ground.
Raphtalia, Demon, Therese, Syrup and Filo had not been idle during this time. While Maple had went to confront Terrakudo in his mishmashed body the others were fighting against a group of giant Shadow Kahn. With the howl of a flute a spell equivalent to Judgement X Slammed into the enemy, Raphtalia's light magic was pretty effective against them, but then again how else do you fight against a actual literal living shadow? Filo had some ideas. Together with Syrup who had through tore anti-gravity several rocks out of the ground, covered them in debuff flowers and vines Filo created a stone-nado using wind magic and had trapped one of the demon-kahn inside. In the mean time Demon was holding up to the title of 'Demon Dragon' drawing power from both Maple's Shield of Gluttony + Enhanced Beast Transformation combo and Naofumi's Mirror of Wrath she had mutated herself into a horrific monster every bit the equal of the abomination Kyo had turned his new body into and it was showing as Demon Ate the magic attacks the creature was trying to use against her and returned fire with pitch black cursed flames. Therese was doing something similar using her jewels as a medium to neutralise the various flying energies and use them against the one who was attacking them.
"Anyone got any idea on how we're going to beat these things?" Therese asked as shadows started to poor out more and more of the chimeric demons were appearing by the minute.
It was a long time since Jade had step foot inside of the prison dimension where the eight demon sorcerers plus one had been imprisoned inside, firstly by the ancient Chi Sorcerers and then by her own family but a few years ago having been released and then locked away again one by one. During one of those incidents Jade got the misfortune of learning what this horrible place looked like. A big empty dimensional space, a orange-red colour stretched as far as the eye could see and floating rocks like a asteroid belt for it's unfortunate inhabitants to stand and bicker on. Jade had to say that the new additions to the scenery did not improve the scenery any. Broken and torn bodies of Turtle, Phoenix and Tigers were strewn about along with Kyo's prototype attempts to build a replica Legendary weapon. Given her rampant appetite it was strange that Po Kong, the mountain demon, hadn't eaten them all already. Then again by the looks of things she had lost some weight recently.
"Gagagagagaga!" Sitting on a nearby asteroid, a grotesquely overweight green warty woman was trying to move, and by all accounts failing. And she wasn't the only one, surrounding her was a multitude of multi-coloured men and women recently stripped of their inhuman power.
"Well this is a sorry state to see a bunch of proud demon sorcerers to be in." A giant ghostly head stated seemingly mocking the eight people that weren't in any way shape or form threatening to her.
"If it isn't little Jade Chan. I was just thinking that this day couldn't get any worst." A creature with a snake like yellow green skin stated though he then indicated the morbidly obese woman that was struggling to reach one of Kyo's corpses. "Though I will admit watching Po Kong struggle has lessen the blow."
Of course Jade wasn't there in the flesh, stripped of their former power or no the nine of them were still demon sorcerers, what she was using was a astral projection spell that allowed her to peer into other dimensions.
"Based on that ugly yellow green skin you've got there I assume that you're Shendu. Lost some weight I see." The demon in question confirmed Jade's suspicions by blasting laser like beams from his eyes and through Jade's projection. "Cute. Go get your siblings, I've come to parley." They were within ear shot evidently, course without any of their former powers actually gathering together was somewhat difficult for them so it took a few minutes before they could have a actual proper conversation. "I'll cut to the chase as I'm short on time. The nine of you have been stripped of power by one man who then locked you inside of this miserable horrible place to rot. What if I told you all that I could lock him in here with you for a chance to strip him of that power he took from you all and torture him for the rest of eternity." Jade laughed at that. "Is that what you thought I would say? Do you losers think that I would believe for a moment that you would fall for a lame-o deal like that? You guys have been chomping at the bit to get out of here for longer than you can care to remember!"
"You count the days when you've been caged like a animal!" A white skinned man that sounded like Xiao Fung the wind demon seemed to take offence to that last part.
"My point is that before any deal is struck I'm going to give all nine of you incentive to stay exactly where you are and not go anywhere instead of trying to make a mad dash to the portal the second it opens like last time." A way in was a way out after all. It was this same principle that Jade took advantage of last time she was here to not be here anymore. "So before any deal is struck I'm gonna give you a fair warning: this world already has it's monsters." Some of their remains were floating along idly, a vivid reminder about the battle they had here before. "This isn't a backwater village full of superstition like the ancient world, nor is it a modern city full of people who have forgotten the old ways. Here are people who gut guys like you for spare parts. Currently we have a very narrow window of opportunity to save a lot of lives, and I guarantee you that if we have to waste any of our time on any of you you're gonna get turned into a block of stone again, only we aren't going to lock you away in the depth's of a secure government facility or construct a temple full of traps for someone to raid in a thousand years. We're going to encase you in a block of concrete and drop you in the deepest depths of the ocean where no one is going to be able to get to any of you where you will stay unable to move, project, plot or even scream. So stay where you are where it's safe: here there be monsters." And then the only legitimate human any of them have talked to in years disappeared. And none of them moved to leave.
Review Section:
RonaldM40196867: Kirito is a horribly written character and he deserves every ounce of shit that he gets, as for the deconstruction part, I can see how they could work just as much as I can see how they wouldn't, Shield Hero provides a rare example when the latter is seen.
ReviewerDJW: Mine is screaming right alongside you.
Galeon82: Don't forget about locking it inside of another dimension. And yes, Naofumi is simultaneously proud and horrified of and for his daughter.
Viruz Pirata: Glad you like it.
Captain Imaginat: Please keep your suggestions to a minimum.
Nightshadegirl: Yeah, kinda.
Energeticbeast: Win some, lose some.
Halo: I'll look into it later.
rash1987: La gente ha mencionado antes intentar ponerlo en TVtropes, aunque nadie parece haberlo recomendado todavía, y yo, como autor, no puedo hacer eso. Aunque aprecio la idea. También me disculpo si esta traducción está a medias. Estoy usando Google.