IMPORTANT AUTHOR'S NOTE!: I messed up! Back when I should've released the actual chapter "053 - Secret of an Ancient God" I uploaded it into the doc manager but forgot to actually publish it. Then I got even more confused last Monday and published this one (the one I was supposed to) without realizing you guys never got the previous one.

This has now been fixed, the new chapter 053 is the one it should've always been and chapter 054 has been moved to its proper place.

On top of that, I'll also be releasing chapter 055 today, so it might be a bit tricky to keep track on what's going on, but it should be overall good new for everyone.

055 - Slytherin Goddess

"Ahh! After 10,000 years, I'm free! It's time to conquer Earth!"

Mashu Kyrielight

In spite of the childish appearance of the snake girl, her mere presence is enough to send a shiver down Mashu's spine. It's not the same sort of feeling inspired by these three monsters from before, but it's a rather disquieting one all the same. This is an extremely dangerous entity in her own way.

"Master?" Mashu takes a step towards the front, shield at the ready as she steals a glance towards Haku-senpai.

"Yeah, I've noticed too." Senpai nods. "Stay on your toes, everyone!"

"Fufufu~! Let's see now…" The creature muses with a lazy smirk on her lips, stretching both arms over her head and letting her eyes sweep over their group. "What do you say… wanna play?"

"Actually–" Olga tries the diplomatic approach, but her efforts are rather rudely interrupted when the snake girl charges at her, swift as lightning. "Kyah!"

Sparks fly everywhere as Mashu grunts in exertion, her stance weak and feet unsteady after barely making it in time to block the heavy blow. The pressure is a different kind from blocking Yamato Takeru's blade, but the feeling of danger is still there. If she's not careful, she might still get blown away!

"Gh– Graaaaaaahh!" With a battlecry and a mighty heave, she somehow manages to push back and repel the aggressor before leaning on her shield to keep herself from collapsing. Knees shaking and arms burning as her breath comes out in gasps and pants. "Th–that took… a lot from… me."

"Err… Lady Director?" Senpai calls out hesitantly. "I don't think this one is in any mood for diplomacy."

"Tsk, so be it!" Olga mutters in frustration. "Don't underestimate me!"

Olga's activation aria causes a thick purple mist teeming with colorful bright spots and loaded with magical energy to start forming around herself. It also serves as a rallying cry for everyone else to assume combat positions. The enemy, who had contented herself to be blown away with Mashu's shove into a lazy arc, finally lands on the other side of the chamber.

"Fufu...ahahahaha!" The snake girl cackles as she lets her tail absorb the impact from the landing by coiling like a spring. "You have no idea what you're up against!"

As soon as she speaks her taunt, the spring uncoils, sending her forward even faster than first time. Mashu grits her teeth, knowing she won't be enough to stop her a second time in her current state, but willing to give it her all anyway. Maybe she'll at least manage to arrest enough momentum to–

"Marie!"
"Oui!"

The vicious smile on the face of the snake girl gets wiped out when a crystal horse tackles her from the side out of nowhere, sending her grossly off course and making her collide face first into the cavern wall instead. Mashu barely has time to hear a pained groan from the newly-cratered rock before Olga takes advantage of the opening to bombard their enemy with a barrage of small meteors.

"Right, everyone in position!" Senpai immediately calls out. "Olga, rear support! We need you to keep her distracted, so quantity over quality! Marie, more of the same, but keep an eye out to intercept! I want another horse if she ever tries to charge the backlines again! Mashu, stand back and protect them! You'll be their last line of defense! Eli-chan and I will take the front lines and double-team her while she's overwhelmed!"

"Oui!"
"Yes, Senpai!"
"Yes, P-san!"
"No way in hell, Fujimaru!"

Now, Lady Director or not, Olga's words of protest would've gone unheeded in the thick of combat. Hesitation is the enemy in such circumstances and Mashu's Demi-Servant combat instincts would've never allowed her to waver, but the snake girl is still recovering and trying to dig herself out of the debris, so they can probably afford a moment.

"Lady Director?" Haku tilts her head, seemingly more confused than indignant.

"Your hands are still a mess and the last thing we want is for them to get worse." Olga explains with arms crossed and an intimidating frown on her face. "So you'll stay back with me and away from the fighting!"

Ah, come to think of it, Olga has a point. Mashu even happens to agree with the point. Unfortunately, Haku-senpai is not the sort of person who can sit still or accept that sort of reasoning from anyone.

"But Lady Director–"

"No buts!" Olga cuts Senpai off. "Play support if you absolutely can't sit still, but you're not rushing into the thick of things again!"

"The Lady Director is such a ruthless tyrant… Very well."

… Wow, Olga is kind of amazing.

"Mashu, swap roles with me! Put in the pressure and don't let Eli-chan get overwhelmed!" Haku-senpai seamlessly slips into a new tactic without hesitation. "The rest of you, stick to the plan!

Mashu feels her body groan in protest as she rushes to support Elizabeth-san, but she pushes through the exhaustion, utterly assured of Senpai's plan. There's no way she missed Mashu's state, so there's no way it wasn't taken into consideration.

"Playing support? It's been a while, but…" She hears Haku-senpai mutter to herself. "Watch and learn. [Channeler's Trident: Ritual Dance!]"

A strange mood falls on the battlefield, Senpai's magical energy spreading through the cavern hall in strange shapes and patterns. It feels blue and red to Mashu's senses, both a kindly warmth and a blistering heat. Her [Magical Resistance] flares up, warning her that whatever's going on won't have purely beneficial effects, but she immediately dismisses it to allow the effects through.

It doesn't matter if there's downsides, she trusts Senpai to know what she's doing. Even as a blood red veil falls over her vision, even as her veins are pumped with alien fire that makes her body burn and itch for violence, even as her mind and soul are filled with an overwhelming wrath not her own, she trusts.

The last thing she remembers before everything becomes a blur is a bone-rattling battle cry leaving her own throat as she swings her shield, fully intending to feed the snake girl her own teeth.

Olga Marie Animusphere

As the red mist over her vision finally dissipates alongside the strange magical frenzy, Olga reminds herself once again why it is considered a bad idea to allow unknown magical effects to take hold on one's self. The last hour of her life is something of a psychedelic experience in her memories, and she still seems to have fared better than most.

The sight of cute cinnamon roll Mashu pushing through the snake girl's blows with a vicious roar to slam her against a wall by her tail made for a disturbing, bizarre experience that reminded her of old and silly fears.

Still, the gambit seems to have paid out.

Oh, she's feeling positively exhausted, with only stubborn pride keeping her back straight and her shoulders squared. A condition that seems to be mirrored by both Lancer and Caster, while Mashu doesn't really have neither the attitude or the training to put up an act for appearances sake and outright collapsed in the ground as soon as the fight ended.

Haku is the only one who still looks fresh, pouting on her corner and sending disappointed glances in Olga's direction. For once, Olga doesn't feel particularly guilty about anything, though.

In that sense, it can't be said that they survived unscathed. But they survived and their opponent ended up worse off than them. That's what truly matters.

The size of the cavern hall has grown about an order of magnitude through sheer destructive output, in spite of the three separate cave-ins that have taken place during their fight. Nothing remains of the original walls and even the new ones have every inch of their surface covered in craters, burn marks and more exotic forms of scarring.

Curiously enough, the storage mystic code where their enemy was being held somehow managed to survive intact.

And speaking of the snake girl… She's lying spread-eagle on the floor, stuck into a feets-deep indentation in her shape, staring into the ceiling with empty eyes. She's alive and conscious, but she surrendered after her body refused to keep moving. Granted, it took enough damage to level a small country before she got into that state, but…

But nothing, this is insane.

"What a monster." She mutters with incredulity, feeling a headache start forming on the back of her head. "I can't believe we actually won."

"Remember when I told you that our team is pretty strong and could handle most troubles?" Haku's pout disappears without a trace, her chest puffing up proudly. "This is what I meant."

"Yeah, well…" Olga trails off, unsure of how to feel about the whole thing beyond 'exhausted'. "What are we going to do with her?"

"Up to her, I guess." Haku shrugs, before idly kicking the side of the snake girl. "Hey you, got it all out of your system?"

"That was a great fight." The defeated girl answers, voice droopy and not sounding all there. "Wanna become my pets?"

"We'll pass." Haku easily turns down the strange offer. "You have a name? I can't keep calling you 'pretty snake lady' in my head."

"Fufu~ You have my permission to do that!" The defeated girl chuckles throatily. "But if you really want to know… Servant Berserker, Ibuki-Douji. Proud daughter of the eight-headed, eight-tailed, red-eyed Yamata-no-Orichi, whose body spanned over eight mountains and eight valleys!"

There's something… various somethings very wrong with that statement, since Divine Spirits are supposed to be utterly incompatible with the Servant Summoning System, but Olga is not in the mood to fret over every little thing. In fact, she's not even in the mood to worry about standing in the presence of a monster of legend that seems to also be the offspring of an even more legendary evil dragon. There's only one thing she cares about right now.

"Are you going to give us trouble if we spare your life?" She asks bluntly, more than willing to finish things for good if the need arises.

"Not really? That was fun." The snake girl shrugs. "Are you sure you don't want to be my pets? I'll take good care of you, I promise."

"Until you get bored?" Haku asks knowingly.

"Have we met before, little human? You know me so well!" The snake girl cackles again. "Might be for the best, though. Master wouldn't approve. She can be a bore sometimes."

"Master?" Olga frowns. "I assumed you were a Rogue Servant."

"I was, but then there was this… Something something… red empress?" The snake girl frowns, as if making an honest attempt to remember for all of half a second before giving up. "Honestly, I don't really care. But her Champion is ten times the monster I am, so I joined."

"And how did you end up trapped here?"

"Ugh… that's a pain." The snake girl whines. "I came here to recruit that tiny snake goddess outside, see?"

"Stheno?" Haku asks, earning an utterly blank stare. "Short, purple hair, twintails, white dress?"

"Oh! Yeah, that one." The snake girl nods. "But she tricked me into coming here, and the Divicube can capture and seal Divine Spirits."

"Divicube?"

"That dumb white cube there."

"So you just… got suckered into sealing yourself?"

"I'm weak to deception, sue me." The snake girl retorts grumpily. "Sucks to suck, but it is what it is."

"Wait." Olga perks up suddenly remembering something important. "Are you telling me that happened ten thousand years ago?"

"Eh? what are you talking about?"

"That thing you yelled when you came out?" Haku explains. "About being free after ten thousand years?"

"Oh, that. I… Maybe?" The snake girl replies, not sounding very confident all of a sudden. "I didn't have a clock inside that dumb cube, you know? It sure felt like ten thousand years."

Things from there are… Olga hesitates to call them easy, but she manages to extract a promise to take them to see the Crimson Empress out of the snake girl. For whatever worth the given word of an oni that just happens to be the descendant-slash-reincarnation of an evil god might have, of course. At least, she seemed eager to get one over Yamato Takeru.

The Crimson Empress must run a tight ship to keep these two away from each other's throats.

It's only once they're ready to leave the cavern system that Olga notices something out of place.

The way Ibuki-Douji moves, easily and gracefully, with a wide smile on her face… It's easy to forget that they spent the last hour raining abuse over her person. Or that, not five minutes ago, her bruises had bruises. What a frightening regeneration speed.

Compared with the shock of that realization, she barely pays attention to Haku pocketing the cube. It seems like a good trump card to keep well in hand, just in case Berserker becomes a problem again.

Status Window Updated:

Channeler's Trident (Dark Souls): Trident of the Six-eyed Channelers, sorcerers who serve Seath the Scaleless in collecting human specimens. They are used to perform a unique martial arts dance that stirs nearby allies into a bloodthirsty frenzy, infusing their spirits with unparalleled fighting spirit and temporarily granting ranks of Mad Enhancement.

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