Author's Note: Okay so hopefully quarantine restrictions will be lifted soon. Probably not though. But if we get quarantined again I'll at least have the spring line up of anime to keep me company. Read, Review, Favourite and Enjoy!
Chapter 52: The Turtle Wakes Up
Between Kuro's ability to remake chunks of reality around her and the time magic restoring the first building proved to be a relatively simple task to accomplish. Figuring out how it worked though...
"...I've got nothing." Kuro stated giving a belated statement as she looked over the room.
"I thought you said that you can read the history behind any object?" Tanya asked accusingly.
"Yes which means that I am able to see the ways people have used objects before and do something to similar effect." Kuro gestured to the room. "But if no one's used a object before, I can't very well ride off of their coat tails now can I?"
"Uh guys." Katarina naturally called in with more bad news because of course she did. The nearest rock the shoved inside the hole to keep the monsters inside was slowly being pushed out, several layers of Aranaya's silk be damned.
"Fuu!" Rishia nearly screached with panic but the rest of Tanya's party was more prepared.
"Earth Hole!" A pit trap filled with spikes appeared in front of the cave, Kuro filled it with salt water while Eli was armed with thunder swords to fry anything that fell in.
"Well might as well give this a try." Aranaya had been experimenting with ways to manipulate her webs through magic.
Collecting branches and other pieces of wood suitable for use as bows, stringing them, putting them on a stand, then adding crude arrows, and finally using the web control to directly draw the strings she had a mass of bows ready to fire at whatever was coming out of the cave. Keel, Rifana and Midori, each with six extra ghostly hands and dual wielding six extra weapons, covered the gaps in defences getting ready to flatly crush, shoot and chop anything and everything that comes out of that cave. Katarina's and Kuro's groups led every one who was left over to form a middle and rearguard boosting everyone with support magic while getting offensive magic ready to fire off.
"Thousand Swords." Kuro got a thousand projectiles ready for her rail gun combination.
Tanya drew her bow, already having a three part combo ready as Katarina chanted magic. In short, they were prepared to utterly annihilate anything that came out of that hole, which was probably the reason why Kyo's forces didn't strike from it. Instead a massive spike of earth popped out of the ground directly in the middle of their formation, and others were quick to follow. The spikes in question were hollow, ripping open to reveal humanoid monsters made of dark purplish flesh and holding mythril shields.
"So does anyone else..."
"Yes." Tanya stated cutting off Katarina as she made a rare and poignant observation: their enemy only had shields. "It seems that we'll have to have a chat with Maple about running off by herself whenever we do find her." Especially when you consider that it was her three part poison gas that the enemy monsters started to spew out.
Curing enough of the poison flesh that they could get through the cave without triggering the appearance of more of those monsters was a increasingly tricky task. Doubly so when you then pair that with the additional requirement of 'keep Ost lucid enough that she can hold a conversation.'
"I can assure you all that the rope is not necessary." Ost stated as she looked like she could hurl at any moment. "Even if I did have intentions of doing you all any harm I'm much too sick right now to do anything."
"Your health is the least of our concerns." L'Arc stated staring down at the woman bound by Maple's rope shield. "In case you hadn't notice you're technically part of the enemy forces."
"I am not part of Kyo's forces!" Ost snarled venomously. "My body is being hijacked, my mission perverted and my people slaughtered. Why would I be a willing part in any of that!? Why would I willingly consign control of myself over to someone else and go on a rampage to destroy everything that I care about!?" Maple paused for a few moments before she changed out her shield and removed the rope in the process.
"Aren't you being a little Hasty?" L'Arc asked looking at Maple concerned.
"Aren't you wasting time?" Maple put her hand on her makeshift house and activated the skill she got from feeding a one of Siltvelt's vaults to her shield 'Treasure Chest' which after some reinforcements allows to store even building sized objects in her shield's hammer space, which is exactly what she did a few moments later. "Let's go. Ost if you're still feeling sick you can ride on Filo's back."
Filo sat down and allowed Ost to climb onto her back before the group promptly moved on, Maple and her shield out in front. Which was a good thing, as it was becoming rapidly apparent that the humanoid creatures that had attacked them before were not done yet, already marching towards them armed with more weapons, not just shield's this time but also spears, swords and Bows.
"Great these guys again." L'Arc stated as he prepared to fire off a skill.
"Do you know what these things are?" Maple asked indicating the monsters that were fast approaching them.
"Kyo calls them his 'anti-monsters.'" Ost stated making it apparent that no, she did not know what was happening here. "Well let's find out." Switching back over to the rope shield the bonus she got from reinforcing it made itself known: a grappling hook, which Maple then fired at one of the monsters, caught it, before dragging it over and sucking it into her shield.
'Conditions Met. Anti-Monster Shield...' Ignoring the equip bonus for now. 'Anti-Monster: A research probe made from the flesh of - designed to report data about the attacks used to kill it back to it's master.' And as for the shield. 'Weapon Copy Activated: Legendary Shield Replica.'
"It seems to be a copy of my shield." Maple stated as she stored the thing away for now. "It looks like he's using it to collect data about how we fight."
"To do what?" L'Arc asked looking clearly exasperated, and was answered when the Anti-Monsters started spewing out a familiar stream of poison. "Never mind. I figured it out."
"Dedicated Affection!" With the small price of just one of her shield slots Maple was able to effectively give her entire party her poison immunity. "Filo blow it away!"
"First Tornado X!" Filo shouted the name of the magic and soon swept the purple mist up into the whirlwind and back over to the monsters. One thing that Maple learned about her poison since coming here: it was highly flammable.
"Bejeweled Blaze!" Therese shouted out the name of the magic and set the poisonous liquid on fire resulting in a flaming hot tornado burning all of the so-called 'Anti Monsters' to a crisp.
"The blue haired woman's magic is alien to this world isn't it?" Ost asked looking at Therese for confirmation who nodded in response. "There is nothing that would do her much good, but I can teach the shield and her party the dragon vein style of magic. Consider it advance payment for killing Kyo for me."
Part of the benefit of Dragon Vein Magic is that it draws power from more than one place, meaning that more than one person can help you cast it. With the Anti-monsters they had plenty of targets, mostly using healing magic drawing power from the Spirit Turtle's own rapid healing to help recover from the battles taking place over the next several days. Considering the fact that Ost was the Spirit Tortoise it was rather easy. With Ost's help Maple was able to cast healing and Support magic up to the liberation tier, which led to the next question.
"What is Liberation Tier?" Maple asked while she and the group was sitting around the dinner table for another break as they try to reach the Spirit Turtle's core. The repeated battles were wearing them out and it would be nice if the group knew what they were using to fend these abominations off.
"Liberation is the highest tier of magic." Ost stated bluntly. "What you know as Mana and Spirit are ultimately two parts of the same energy source: Ki, or life force."
"If it's a energy source then shouldn't it..." A new notification appeared in Maple's screen and with it a new meter. "Never mind it just popped up. But what is it?"
"The energy that your body produces." Ost replied before she bit down on her sandwich, and held it up for Maple to see just for emphasis. "There is a common misconception that Life force is life span but that is not true. Your body is a machine that consumes fuel and produces energy. That is Ki." And since the shield of Gluttony is basically a energy producing machine then that would explain why Maple's so hungry lately. "Humans cannot use Spirit power, that is the domain of Spirits." Ost stated letting the implication hang in the air.
"Like me?" Glass asked looking genuinely concerned even as she downed her Spirit potions. "And like the Legendary and Vassal weapons. Similarly spirits cannot use Mana, that requires a physical body in this you heroes represent the best of both worlds as both spirit and flesh and blood being." Maple nodded her head as she slowly understood what was going on. "That said, just combining spirit and Mana isn't enough to cast liberation class magic." Maple nodded her head in understanding, she does that all the time with Aura, at least ten times yesterday. "Each tier is about control and power, the more power a spell requires the harder it is to control, and losing control means losing the power. At the lower tiers only your aura spell requires both mana and spirit, but at liberation the only way to control the energy is to balance mana and Spirit. The amount though is beyond what you can supply on your own."
"Do I need Ki from more than just the two people to pull it off?" Maple asked tilting her head in confusion.
"Rather than just two people, it would be more accurate as to say that you would have to draw upon the energy of all living things in the area, not just people but also the plants and animals." Ost explain as she held up her hand and something that Maple could only barely see started to swirl inside of it.
"Drawing and controlling Ki from the area around me to cast Magic?" Maple blinked a couple of seconds before something clicked in her head. "Isn't this like what the old lady was talking about?"
"Sounds similar." Sadeena had just been standing back listening to the lecture all this time, it was currently her turn for a break in the shifts of fighting off the hoard of Anti-monsters. After the realisation that those things were copying Maple's Skills it was decided to not use her against them as much as possible. Course the Other three Heroes didn't seem to get that memo as of yet, if it wasn't for the heavily fortified makeshift base they would have been killed by the constant bombardment of Air Strike Spears, Thunder Swords, Meteor Shots and the other favourite skills of the trio currently tearing apart the enemy forces outside of the turtle's body that was becoming a increasingly unrealistic proposition. But back on topic.
"You don't think that's what these 'Anti-Monsters' are doing right?" Maple thought about it for a moment. They were absorbing energy from hers and the other Heroes attacks, learning how to duplicate it and then using it against them. "Can those guys use this 'Dragon Pulse' and 'Liberation' too?" Maple asked looking at the doorway where Therese and the others were fighting.
"O'Magical Jewels. I Therese Alexandrite am your friend-" Therese stated as she pulled energy out of one of her accessories to fire off a spell. "Turtle Shell Cracker!" Glass shouted making use of her hero like martial arts to blast a rod of energy through one of the Anti-Monsters bodies.
"Katarina, your turn." Tanya dully informed as she watched one of the elevator spikes appear again.
"Air Strike Spear for you." Katarina chucked her spear at the spike in question as it opened up pinning one of the Anti-Monsters down inside of it in the process, and since the spear was made out of a explosive it then blew up destroying the spike and killing the Anti-Monsters that were inside of it. Admittedly the situation was something of a crisis for the first few days, but with their parties and reinforcements from the nearby countries it wasn't at the level of being a issue any more. They were even able to take a break to go wipe out Shieldfreeden's wave after Rat and her air ship got there.
"Kuro is this the right one or not?" Tanya asked as Kuro used her magic to make a tunnel. The third like it.
"I'm sure of it this time." Kuro stated confidently as she cleared away the stony exterior of the mountain.
"That's what you said the last time." Tanya stated tapping her foot with impatience.
"And the time before that." Katarina stated just as displeased.
"If magic was a exact science then we'd call it science and not magic." Kuro countered as they finally found what they had been looking for. "Besides the Head's right here anyway."
The result of their investigation went as follows: The Turtle has exactly three area's where the seal keeping it dormant affects: the head, the heart and the Core. So naturally they started their investigation with the one closest to them, and after three days worth of trying to find out where on this god forsaken mountain the head was they finally found it.
"I knew we should've just split up to look for them." Tanya stated soundly displeased even as Kuro made up the world's largest car jack.
"Would you stop complaining?" Kuro has been fighting monsters for three days while trying to dig a hole to find the head of the turtle. She was not having a good day.
"And how are you planning on using that?" Tanya asked leading to Kuro to being about to bite back with a smart comment before she paused for a few moments.
Wordlessly Kuro took out a traced copy of the 'Shield of the Beast King' and began making a few 'creative alterations' to it. It was made longer and thinner, bent and a leather string was attached to both sides in a draw string.
'Weapon Copy Activated. Bow of the Beast King.' With presumably a identical set of equip bonuses as Maple's own version of the weapon, which raised a relevant question.
"What's 'Territory Development' Suppose to mean?" Tanya asked looking at her shiny new bow.
"I've got no idea, and I can't say it's really a priority right now." Kuro stated in reply even as she prepared a second of the weapons, re-making the shield once more so that it was even longer and thinner, with a sharp bone blade at the top.
'Weapon Copy Activated. Svardstav of the Beast King.'
"What's a 'Svardstav?'" Katarina asked holding the weapon in question.
"Nordic weapon. Basically they stuck the blade of a short sword onto a shaft for a spear." Which Kuro did instead of individual spear and sword weapons because this was brutal work and she was too lazy to do it three times.
With this the three of them were able to give all of their demi-human and monster companions a enhance beast transformation which they then shoved into the closed mouth of the turtle and force it open.
"I don't like the idea of being eaten." Tanya stated looking directly down the gullet. "Well that won't be necessary, provided we can find where the damned seal goes." Kuro stated as she began looking around the entire of the Turtle's mouth with her magical vision.
"Your turn." Katarina stated, pointing down the throat at the mass of monsters that were about to be disgorged from inside of the thing's body. "On it." Kuro replied as she cracked her fingers and prepared to drop some magic.
Ost suddenly became nauseous and held her hand over her mouth like she was about to puke.
"Oh I don't feel good."
"What's wrong?" Maple asked looking at the visibly green around the gills Ost as she looked like she was about to hurl.
"It feels like some body just dumped a huge amount of water down my-!" Ost was suddenly cut off as reality caught up with appearances. "Between your friends and the constant attacks on me and Kyo carving off bits of my flesh to mass produce his army I'm not going to have much left to give at this rate." Maple closed her eyes as she thought about her options, she came to a idea but was concerned about the damage done to the Spirit Turtle.
"Ost. If a giant hole was to suddenly appear inside of your body how bad would it be?"
"A giant hole is appearing inside of my body: a tape worm named Kyo is tearing away at my insides to serve as raw materials for his army that is being actively used against me. If something isn't done soon it will be a very severe problem."
Kyo was in his laboratory built in and around a chamber with a very large crystal for a ceiling: the core of the Spirit Turtle. Kyo had to smile at his own good fortune. These stupid Heroes were stronger than the legendary heroes of his own world, a fact that he attributed to them having actual weapons, but in compensation were five times as stupid, he was getting all the data he could ever ask for to mass produce replica's of their legendary weapons. Then the ground started to shake. Kyo narrowly ducked out of the way as the ground suddenly collapsed and was pulled away, from that hole emerged the familiar form of the tanuki girl who was part of the group that had been travelling through the turtle as part of the Shield's party who went through the air and pounced on him. Kyo blocked the ensuing sword stab with his book, only for the illusion to pass through his body without doing a single bit of damage. Kyo's confusion was only compounded when a second Raphtalia came over and ran him through the heart to wit he responded with a fire attack only for the flame to pass through a second illusion.
"Turtle Shell Cracker!"
"Scything Pin Wheel!"
Kyo was nailed to the wall by Glass's skill and followed up by getting shredded into mince meat by L'Arc's attack.
"Clear!" Maple and the others climbed into the room as they started to have a look around. Lot's of machines in here, Maple wasn't enough of a scientist or engineer to figure out what all of this stuff does, and it was all in the other-world's language. "I don't see any labels about what any of this stuff does." Maple stated in a unfortunate tone of voice.
"He wouldn't need them." Sadeena stated observing the entire place, before that is she picked up her spear and charged it with lightning. "Don't waste time figuring out what this garbage does just destroy everything and lets be done with it."
A sick snapping sound echoed around the chamber, Kyo, who should've been reduced to shredded meat, was having his body reform as he slowly pulled himself to his feet.
"That-!" Kyo snapped his neck back into place, as if it didn't heal right when it grew back. "Was simply uncalled for." L'Arc and his group looked like they were in shock, while Maple and her group stared blankly with a 'here we go again' type of atmosphere.
"Please do pick your jaws up off the floor. I know that-"
"You're a reincarnated aren't you?" Maple asked which proved that Kyo had the absolute worst poker face you'd ever seen.
"I Have no idea what-"
"Raphtalia have you been reading those books on countering curses that we picked up from the church right?" Maple asked blatantly ignoring the other man.
"Yeah. We should be prepared if he dumps a cursed weapon on our heads." Raphtalia stated noting that their opponent was starting to get annoyed with them pretending he wasn't there.
Raphtalia's comment was half lies, like her assault earlier, she's barely cracked open anything relating to the Church of the Three Heroes, but now Kyo would be less inclined to dump a curse series weapon on them.
"Tch. It seems you all need a reminder about whose house this is." Kyo snapped his fingers and several chambers opened up out marching more of the Anti-Monsters. "You seem to have a lot of pretty girls around you L'Arc. Don't worry about them I won't be killing them, I need more research material, and if they're still virgins I'll add them to my harem after I've broken their minds and trained them." Which while that in of itself would be rather scary talk, the point was rendered moot a few moments later after his monsters were slammed into the ground face first by gravity magic.
"This isn't your 'house' Kyo!" Ost snapped angrily. "And the only one uninvited here is you!"
Raphtalia quickly followed that up, stabbing her blades into the bodies of Kyo's monsters with her floating blades all the while keeping her eyes on Kyo.
"It doesn't look like stabbing you or cutting you is going to work out." Sadeena made a show of cracking her fingers as if she was going to get down and dirty. "I suppose you'll just have to be completely vaporised instead."
"I was just thinking the same thing!" Snapping his fingers all of the Anti-Monsters that had been pinned down detonate all at once, their bodies turned into shrapnel and blocked only by Maple's quick thinking. "Shield Prison!" A ball of shields appeared around the group in time to block the explosive. "Change shield: Voice Gengar shield!" The shield ball quickly turned into a omni-directional set of loud speakers. "Filo!"
"RRREEEEEEEE!" Letting out that earpiercing screech, Kyo was unaffected, if he was affected the only sign of it he showed was having to clean his ears all of a sudden.
"What was that suppose to do?" Kyo's monitors and equipment on the other hand cracked and started to spark. "Well. That would do it." As Kyo said that he walked into the chamber behind him as Maple's skill wore off.
"Get back here!" L'Arc barked as he jumped forward scythe ready to decapitate, only to be interrupted by the sudden appearance of a malformed Anti-Monster. "Next time you wanna break my equipment, try figuring out what it does first." And then Kyo disappeared into the chamber.
Outside it appeared that who or whatever was behind this finally decided to stop screwing around, several of the elevator spikes shot out throughout the village gouging and skewering the buildings that had been occupying the space that they now did. Including the three seals.
"That can't be Good." Kuro stated as the ground shook, stone was shrugged off of the creature like water from a duck's back as the creature at the root of this chaos, the Spirit Turtle, awoke to wreak destruction.
Review Section:
RonaldM40196867: True. If there was it would be an almost entirely new race, which would also classify them as spoilers, so why would I talk about that? This is the cloth Malty was cut from need I remind you: long term success is not her strong suit. From their point of view it would be like PVP.
Captain Imaginat: Thank you for saying so. I'm pretty sure you answered your own question there. Kyurie is a Vampire, as well as a shadow from the Shieldfreeden government.
Dcraus: I know, I'm excited too.
Guest: Never watched Date A Live so I don't know what that is.
Nightshadegirl: True. Happy Birthday.