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Olivia expected to learn many things from Leon's God father. How to crack open wall nuts with her biceps, learning how to use one of the countless weapons that he had on display in his bar. But Daintily twirling around like a ballerina was not one of them.
"The thing that you have to realise about magic is that it wants to go in a circle." As Rodin explained Olivia was twirling around doing a pirouette. "Your barriers are circles, your magic spells are circles, even the channels in your body for mana are circles. Concentrate your mana into the toes of your foot and spin, let the mana carry you." Olivia was getting dizzy from doing this, she didn't know if she was going to throw up from mana lost or from getting dizzy. Eventually, whether it was the prolonged physical activity or the physical exertion Olivia finally collapsed. "Tired? Good." It didn't help that Rodin smelled like tobacco.
"Could you please-" Olivia's eyes bulged, and the young mage fell over and puked, blood mixed in with the contents of her breakfast.
"Now why yah have and go and do a thing like that?" Olivia's unconscious magic casting was going to get her into trouble, so to help her out Rodin was being as thoroughly unpleasant as possible, consciously or not Olivia would want him to stop smoking, much like she would want protection from the girls at the school, this in turn results in her invoking her magic to make him, then she would get hit with the backlash and the mana drain. Repeat this pattern enough times and maybe Olivia's subconscious casting would stop. "Eat this." Rodin tossed Olivia one of his small butterfly shaped candies. "And this." As well as one of the large green shaped candies. "And follow me, we're moving onto the second part of your training for the day."
At least Olivia felt a little better with mana back in her veins and her injuries healed. Olivia was led into a building made out of glass, inside were plants resembling potted carrots.
"These are Mandrakes, a common ingredient in most of the potions that we make here." Rodin gestured ahead. "Also good practice for your magic control as well." Rodin let out a puff from his cigar. "They're sentient, closer to small animals than people of course, but even they will drink up their favourite food if it's being offered to them. Which makes them the easiest creatures to practice magic control on, and now that you've got less magic to work with control might be a touch easier. Who knows, you might even be able to avoid killing the plants off this time." Leon brought home the plants Olivia had been training with, or what was left of them, they looked less like the beautiful crystalline plants that Rodin was familiar with and more like someone had shoved a air tank into a balloon and filled until it was ready to pop. "And while we're at it we can discuss the short cuts you can take to better mana control."
"I admit I was concerned when Leon said you train his barriers by throwing Cannon Balls at him." Olivia voiced her suspicions as she fed the Mandrake mana. "Escalation. We started with baseballs like with you, then we moved on to cannon balls, now he can block missiles, though we're not the ones shooting them at him."
Hands of Durga: Durga is an exceptionally powerful demoness with one thousand arms, wife consort to the Self Proclaimed god of War Asura. Durga is said to have mastered limitless energy through her powers of Fire and Lightning together with her own vast demonic power, so powerful in fact that she isn't capable of manifesting in the physical plane without threatening the fabric of reality. Thus Durga has mastered the art of sending her many limbs forward, like an octopus each arm is filled with enough nerve clusters to form a pseudo brain and is capable of acting independently to a degree. Still each Arm recognises each other as 'myself' and thus maintains excellent team work and coordination forming groups as they roam.
Excerpt from Lemegeton's Guidebook of Demons
A Flaming finger nail the size of an Armour's great sword stabbed through the Angel as Angelica watched on from her hiding place, the young Duchess could only look on terrified as the Glory was slowly lifted into the air and shoved into the mouth in the giant palm of a woman's hand. Angelica could not see the rest of it, a portal cut it off at the shoulder, though she could make out a tattoo like eye that was looking at the site of the kill dissatisfied before it moved on, along with the rest of the arm. The arm in question joined three others like it as they continued to prowl along looking for any unfortunate demon or angel that they could snack on. Angelica worked to calm her heart down, terrified, but excited! She's never seen a monster like that before! Not even when she sneaked out to her family's dungeon in her childhood! She knew for a fact that if she let this opportunity pass her by she'd regret it for the rest of her life! But how to kill it?
Angelica looked up in the air, Leon her hunting partner was off wiping out angelic ships that had appeared in the sky. So no help from him then. Like a patient hunter she would have to stalk her prey until a moment to strike appeared before her. She doubted that fire type attack would be very effective against a creature that was already wreathed in flames. Luckily these 'Hands of Durga' were on Angelica's hunting list, but she was loathe to rely on a 'strategy guide' of all things, the brave explorers who first killed one of these things certainly didn't need one, neither would she. To begin with this may have been a dungeon but unlike the one at the royal academy this wasn't a underground cave, the hands should split up again soon, all Angelica had to do was remain patient and not get detected. Luckily she soon got the chance as the arms split up in order to hunt different prey as opposed to fighting over it. Angelica did consult the guide Rodin gave her, not to find a way to kill the monster, but rather when she got hungry.
Avalon Forest was originally next to the city of Vigrid, where the Umbran and Lumen clans set their base of operations and where they regularly harvested supplies from Inferno and Paradiso for use in their spell craft and rituals. The Fairies of Avalon Forest took advantage of this, many of them didn't understand what they had been stealing from the Umbra's and Lumen's farms and gardens merely that they were chock full of magical power, as a result a forest that was already dangerous thanks to the Faries magic in manipulating space, illusions and elemental energy has now been filled with a variety of dangerous carnivorous and poisonous plants, few though are edible.
-Unripened Bomb Fruit is a particular delicacy from Inferno for it's strong sweet flavour, be warned though, once ripened with magical energy the Bomb Fruit will only be moments away from exploding and scattering it's seeds like so much shrapnel, unripened though the fruit is safe for consumption, never whole though and ideally only after being turned into a juice or cut to relatively small pieces.
Excerpts from A Guide to the Plants of Avalon Forest, by Cereza Blackmore
What the Guidebook didn't mention was that the Bomb Fruit was the size of a trunk, of course Angelica would have to cut it into manageable pieces before she consumes it. Luckily she had chainsaws to work with, and based on how little splatter the juicy fruit was giving off Angelica could readily assume that even the Salamander's enjoyed the confection that she had found. She even grabbed some of its seeds while she was working.
"We have a weapon we can use against the creatures." Angelica was enjoying the literal fruits of her labours inside of one of the various 'safe zones' in the dungeon while she planned.
Rosemary was a plant that exuded a scent that demons strongly associate with Angels, so they tend to avoid it, Monkshood apparently smells like demons while Vervane was similarly disliked by the Fae, whatever the hell those were, Leon talked about them like they were a bed time story, are they just unique to this dungeon? Someone had gone through the effort of planting circles large enough to plant a campsite inside of, consisting of whatever plant whatever abomination in a given area found to be the most repulsive. Inside were large stones, polished until they could act as full body mirrors, and a crude shelter made of some kind of bamboo shoot with a roof of Clay Tiles, someone regularly maintained these shelters. Angelica thought about the situation some more. It was mentioned that Pirates are regularly sent inside of the these woods, with a bare minimum of information on the various creatures and their preferences safe zones that repel them would become possible to build. Still it was far from a ideal solution, after all the plants were only on the level of 'unpleasant' and not 'deadly' to the monsters, if they decided that they were going to kill the people desperately using them as a shield, then they would and that would be the end of it. So instead of grand fortresses the Pirates could only maintain small campgrounds like this big enough for small groups of people, for Angelica this was perfect.
"Now the question here is 'are those monsters aware of how dangerous this plant is?'" It would be most convenient if Angelica could simply feed the bomb to that hand. "No that's not the question I should be asking." Angelica stood up and paced. "It's not 'if that hand would eat this fruit' it's 'what does that hand like to eat?'" Angelica remembered that she saw it eat an angel earlier in the day.
Could it be that while Rosemary is repulsive to most demons others actually like eating angels? Angelica shook her head as she looked in the sky. The Angelic Warships were a lot easier to see at night, as was the group of arms fighting them. The idea that they were the limbs of some demonic goddess was simply ridiculous, Angelica rolled with it merely as a flight of fancy, and for lack of better explanation. "I'll sleep tonight and resume the hunt tomorrow." Angelica eventually resolved with a stretch. "The two of you keep watch for me." Angelica doubted that two semi sentient chainsaws would be able to do much good, but it was the best she had at the moment.
Tartarus: A pair of thick, steel weapons with a gatelike design. Created with rubble from the fallen Umbran clock tower, their weight and the sharp spikes that adorn them result in catastrophic destructive power.
Additionally, the "gate" can open to reveal a variety of offensive machinery like Gatling guns and spiked arms.
Some say that the weapons were created by rancor of the Umbra Witches who lost their lives when the clock tower was toppled, and that the restless spirits thronging just behind the gate are those of the women after melding with the miasma of Inferno.
Excerpt from Rodin's Weapon Catalogue
Another giant scaly fist slammed into the giant face bow of the Worship knocking it away again as Leon kept flying at it. It was nice to be able to cut loose again, after months of the constant all consuming lethargy of having the limiter slapped on him being able to turn loose with some good ol fashion violence was refreshing.
"Here comes another round!" The one downside that Leon could think of was that he was fighting alongside this Broken Clock, but the thought of getting to use it as a bludgeon against the faces of angels more than made up for it. There was yet another barrage of missiles coming from the side of the ship, Leon could just shoot them using the turrets of the Tartarus, instead though he slammed the gates together and formed a door to block all the missiles with. The door opened to a pink and white pocket dimension sucking all the missiles into itself before slamming shut. "Nice try." The gate commented as Leon flapped a pair of red/black wings to push himself after the Worship.
"Just get ready to spit them back out!" At Leon's instructions he was rapidly approaching the face of the Worship again, getting ready with the Tartarus to unleash hell, or heaven depending on how you look at it. Umbra was more than content to do what it figured Leon should've done in the first place and opened up its own turrets to act as point defence units against anything that was getting too close. The two of them flew up to the mouth of the Worship and unloaded the angel's own missiles into its mouth with explosive results, followed up by shoving the Gate spikes first directly into the Angel's eyes before firing until the ship fell apart into Halo's, one of it's missile launchers crashing into the ground. "Clock. What exactly are you hoping to accomplish with this?" Leon asked as he glared at his weapon.
"This? This is the bare minimum of your regular obligations to kill angels." Which meant something Leon was dreading. "We haven't even broached the topic of my task for you." Of course they haven't.
"Do yah mind filling me in then on what this task is exactly?" Leon asked brow twitching.
"Training obviously. What else? There are demons to hunt and red orbs for me to consume." Of course there was. "After that you and I are going to spend some quality time together in the newest room that I've prepared on my ship." Leon gave a sigh.
"And what is this? A torture chamber?"
"Nothing so melodramatic. Among the Temporal arts is the method to extract key moments in history and replay them. While you were off gallivanting with pretty girls and picking fights with the local nobility I was scouring the battlefields where the most vicious battles in this nation's history have been fought and extracted them, they are now waiting for your 'enjoyment.'" Why is it that when this clock said 'enjoyment' what Leon really heard was 'immense pain and suffering?' "Of course such a feat requires a substantial amount of magical power, which you will be providing." And back on goes the limiter.
"Do I at least get to know what I'm getting shoved up my rear end?" Leon was already defeated.
"I've already given you an excess of information. Go find the duke's daughter so that we can begin. Unless you'd rather explain to her father that we left her alone in this hell hole." Even after telling the Faeries to leave Angelica alone this forest was already way too dangerous, hopefully Angelica has at least found a safe zone to hide in.
Inferno Fruit: A sickly sweet fruit that only a demon could love, resembling several purple pumpkin-like fruit that have been carelessly stacked on top of one another like a snow man. These fruit juices act as a magical catalyst unlocking dormant potential inside of a demon's form, if they lay eyes on one then they would immediately act to gobble it up, no matter how much of the juices they squirt into your hair as a by product. The only downside is that they're rare, the soil conditions to grow even one have to be very specific and it takes a long time for one of decent size to grow.
Excerpt from A Guide to the Plants of Avalon Forest, by Cereza Blackmore
Watching the hands attack other monsters, Angels and Demons alike, had filled in the contents of Angelica's plan, the hands seem to eat elements, fire and lightning to be precise, and that was something she had in spades. This became the source of the issue, Angelica simply cannot make it obvious that the bomb fruit was primed to explode by filling it with her fire magic or else the creature would not be stupid enough to consume it. It was while debating this very conundrum that Angelica saw another fruit, the Inferno Fruit as it was called. Something that Demons go crazy for, which was part of the reason why it was so rare, but also the perfect bait. Angelica hollowed out the inside of the base of the larger fruit and filled it with the bomb fruit before she started dragging both away. Luckily she's been navigating the difficult terrain of the forest for some time now, and more important than that had the Salamander's to help her speed up some so she was able to get ahead of the hands and plant her trap ahead of them. To Angelica's predictions one of the hands quickly shoved the fruit into its mouth, of course Angelica by that point had already offered some extra spice to it as well. The fruit exploded, and left no effect on the giant flaming hand leaving the Duke's daughter genuinely confused. Luckily her base wasn't too far away from her ambush site.
"So what am I missing?" Angelica had a stick in her hand as she wrote down her observations. "The Hands of Durga eat Fire and Lightning monsters with no problem, they're also always either on fire or electrified so... of course they have immunity." Angelica was kicking herself, the one element that she could use and the hands were immune to it. "Huu... should I change targets then?" Angelica consulted with the guide that Rodin had given her, not to find a weakness of her current target, but to pick another one.
Rusalka: Rusalka are said to water nymphs who died before they could become brides. Serving as concubines and hand maidens to other stronger demons the Rusalka's day to day life is filled with burning jealousy towards their more successful peers and freezing cold lament at their own situation, their mastery over the element of water such that it is said that they can turn ice into flame as easily as they shift their violent mood swings. A word of warning to those who make contracts with these vicious creatures, a Woman's scorn is easy to earn but hard to hide from.
Excerpt from Lemegetons Guidebook of Demons
Angelica wondered if Rodin had a sense of humour, based on the description she could've easily ended up as a Rusalka herself had Leon and Olivia not exorcised the demon that had been feeding off of her despair. The black man's humour though was not her main concern. No right now she had a plan to kill the Hands of Durga, and she was going to kill a bunch of Rusalka in the process as well. The creatures in the lake leaned into the bride aesthetic well, the long fish like frills that trailed along their bodies resembled wedding dresses, even as she saw a fish tail peaking out of the hem of said dresses. It added to the feelings of sympathy Angelica had when she saw a group of them sitting on an ice burg crying, she almost felt bad about what she was about to do to them. Instead Angelica looked at her trail and the progress that the Hands of Durga were making, it might've been the mixed fruit from earlier but the demon arms had developed a taste for bomb fruit and so were eagerly gobbling up her trail, straight to the brides. Now if Angelica can get them to trigger their fire magic she'll make them look tasty too, how did the book describe it? Right. Jealousy.
"Oh what a fantastic Day it is!" Angelica had wisely chosen to hide herself away before she provoked the dual element wielding mermaids, she wasn't that confident. "Me and my Husband Asura's anniversary!" Angelica wanted to throw up. She felt dirty. Luckily though the Mermaids had heard her as the familiar hands approached, the smart money was on the Demi-God limbs.
"RRREEEE!"
The demonic mermaids entire bodies lit up as they let out screams of unadulterated rage the veil-like fins going over their faces standing on end revealing twisted tear stained faces. The two sides entered a clash of pure flame and conflicting will, as both sides contributed to the raging inferno that soon broke out but neither were able to gain control over it. While the Leaders of the two sides clashed the other mermaids and arms went on the offensive, thus Angelica witnessed as various Mermaids and arms switched from using fire to ice and lightning respectively.
"Well isn't that just a mystery?"
Angelica found herself curious, based on their description and habitat Angelica didn't peg the Rusalka as fire types, now not only were they using fire but also ice, not only that but using the ice very effectively. The frozen blocks of liquid were shockingly effective at blocking the lightning of the arms, more than that they seemed to be eating away at the fire some how as if they were... taking something? These Rusalka were very strange creatures, the longer the fight went on, the more the flames disappeared, and eventually the Rusalka switched back to fire, as did the arms as well.
"Is there a trick to how their powers work?" Angelica thought as she watched the two sides go back and forth.
The Rusalka would cycle between using the fire and ice, the Ice seemed more effective at suppressing both the fire and lightning so it was strange that it would switch to using fire. Fire seemed to be something that the arms had an especially easy time suppressing, in their fire wreathed forms they were completely immune, but the lightning was clearly the more powerful of the two.
"Can you only protect yourself from the flames when you're using them?" Like that the first piece of the puzzle clicked for Angelica. The heiress breathed deeply as she started rolling her hands together and formed a lance of flame before flinging it at her target, one of the arms that was still on lightning, and directly struck the eye.
"RRREEE!" The arm screamed, it immediately switched back to fire and prepared a retaliatory attack, but the ball of flames that it was producing was soon eaten away by the Rusalka that it was fighting and it was forced back into lightning form.
"Logically speaking, the fire should be better for melting the ice, but it's the opposite here." Angelica was starting to understand the rules here, both of these monsters have a set of rules that govern their strengths and weaknesses. Fire should be able to melt the ice but instead it benefited the Rusalka somehow, so the arms avoided using it. Both the fire and the ice states of the Rusalka had limits to how much of them could be used, if Angelica had to guess that limit was how much fire was being thrown around.
"Of Course I have to test that Theory." As Angelica explained that to herself, she prepared another lance of fire and put it through another lightning arm, prompting the arm to screech even as it turned back into flame to try and defend itself.
That was one of the Rules that govern the Hands of Durga, they can only defend from the attacks that they can control, and they can only control one element at a time. A Theory that Angelica felt more inclined to exploit the longer the fight went on with the Rusalka, continuously wearing down the limbs of the creature that was supposedly a god. One of the rules she wasn't able to figure out was the Rusalka's weaknesses, until the arms neither of their states seemed to be weak against the fire or lightning. Then Angelica saw the Hands of Durga getting desperate, pooling together all their might into a single attack in order to finish off at least one of the Rusalka's, and with that, the flaming mermaid bride finally managed to explode under the pressure.
"So the Rusalka do have a weakness?" Angelica held her hand in thought, the Rusalka have a limit to what element that they use, and have to switch between the two regularly during the course of the fight. Theoretically, a if a normal person uses up all their magic they can't regain it by exerting their physical strength, likewise if they use up their physical strength they can't regain it by exerting their mana, there are stamina restoring spells but your physical abilities won't be restored just by firing off attack magic. "Is the fire and Ice related somehow?" Fire, Ice and Water Angelica corrected herself. The Rusalka are creatures of water even though they don't act like it. "I know that ice is a form of water. 'Turn ice into flame.'" As Angelica quoted the description for the abilities of the Rusalka she came to a possible answer, even if it was one that didn't make any sense. "Is the fire another form of water?" Angelica needed to do more research.
Luckily she had a research subject forming below, the killed Rusalka was reforming into a weapon, a Yamatai Lantern, or a club with a long ribbon attached to it, it was one of the two. Still before Angelica could claim the fruits of her labours one of the arms had grabbed it, and suddenly it felt like the entire area had spiked in raw power.
There are two differences when it comes to the subject of Demon Masquerade and Devil Trigger.
The first is who can use them, Demon Masquerade is a technique used by us Umbran Witches, it allows us to temporarily fuse with a demon in weapon form, allowing us to assume a form that is half demon and half human, using their powers for our own gain if only for a short amount of time.
Devil Trigger is a technique used by demons, they don't need another demon to help them transform into a stronger form, but they can use external sources of power to increase their own, most often this is a Devil Arm, usually a enemy or subordinate that has been defeated in battle and now being used as a source of strength for their master. For young demons, especially hybrids that have yet to come into their true power, Devil Trigger can influence the resulting transformation, though as they grow older and stronger there is usually no transformation, just a linking of two powers together into one.
Devil Trigger, like Demon Masquerade, can only be used for a short period of time, it is also more dangerous, if a demon runs out of demonic power while 'triggered' with a Devil Arm the soul within may attempt to take over it's wielder from within, and even if the struggle is won the wielder may experience damage done to their very soul, so it's not worth the risk.
Excerpt From a Lecture on Demonic Transformation, by Jeanne Blackmore
The Clash resumed, this time in the Arms favour. Now out numbering the fiery mermaids Four to one and with the powers over fire and ice that had come from the weapon in question the arms had a huge advantage, Even with the uptick of demonic power in the air Angelica still prepared her lances of fire and aimed at the enemies before her before firing. The uneven numbers put Angelica at a disadvantage too, with one Arm free from the fighting it could now take an active role in blocking Angelica's attacks. Worst yet, with the Rusalka under control the weapon wielding arm could now break off to investigate the one who had attempted to take a shot at them, the glow of the weapon boost disappearing.
"Is that a temporary power up? Or is there another factor in play?" So much Angelica doesn't understand, and that she still wants to find out, but that didn't matter right now at this moment. "Either way, time for us to go again."
Angie still had her demonic roller skates on and she was more than willing to use them to give this demon the run around. Unfortunately Angelica was leaving a trail wherever she goes, the Salamanders burn it into the ground. Angelica circled all the way over to the back of the lake, where she once again saw the Rusalka and the Hands of Durga at each others throats, and the familiar form of the wounded arm that she's been blasting with fire magic in it's lightning form. Angelica prepared one final lance of fire and blasted the arm, blowing it into two pieces that broke down into light and now took on the form of a huge mechanical bracer. The Rusalka quickly dived down and snatched up the weapon as Angelica found a place to hide, the weapon wielding arm soon caught up with her position but it had neither the time nor the space to focus it's attention on her. The Rusalka screamed as she became wreathed in flame, the bracer produced a hand composed of lightning as it went on the offensive against the old enemy. Now down a combatant the Arms no longer had the energy to overwhelm the Rusalka, instead the water spirits slowly started to overwhelm the arms forcing them to retreat, the Rusalka didn't pursue them.
"I see so the battle has taken a lot out of both sides." While Angelica pondered the implications the two weapon wielding demons had increased the intensity of their battle, they were more even now that they had access to each other's weapon forms, it didn't look like this was going to end any time soon.
"You look like you've been busy." Leon had come in from behind, Angelica probably spent so much time running around that he could find her.
"Quite. I'm hoping to pick up those Devil Arms when they finish killing each other." Angelica was excited at the idea of being able to wield both of those weapons, with their clear affinity for the flame they could provide her a huge boost.
"I wouldn't bother." And along came Leon ruining her dreams. "Those Rusalka's water type abilities and those Durga Hands lightning affinities don't have very good compatibility with your fire."
"What?" Angelica wasn't believing what she was hearing, both of those demons were using fire attacks. "Impossible!"
"I'll explain later at the campsite." Leon stated as he let out a sigh, doing his best to ignore Angelica's puppy dog eyes. "In the mean time we have things that we need to discuss." Thus Leon led a reluctant Angelica away.
Review Section:
RonaldM40196867: True, True, Thanks, No.
Rodvek97: Your Welcome.
RedRat8: Rodin's helped to clear that up, and I like to think that watching Leon Mano A Mano Worships helped allay her fears on the matter.
guest: It'll be a while yet.
Kyo: I have a few ideas.
Helkil: *Shrugs*
guest2: Wait until they find out about how much literal shit Leon has been put through.