Hello Scrolls and Nazarins returning with my fanfic The One Who Came Back.
It's time for a big reveal, who can help?
With you
The One Who Came Back
Chapter 86: Full Metal Jacket
Fear. Fear is something extremely powerful. It clouds our thoughts or sharpens them, paralyzes us or makes us frantic. It is a weapon to defeat your enemies or to activate your own survival instincts.
Néia was afraid, not for herself, but for someone else.
As she crawled through the pool of white blood, she saw Rali'ah drowning in it, choking and suffocating. Her scales had been ripped off, her wings broken, torn, and shattered. Néia was afraid of the approaching death.
Trying to save her friend, she floundered towards one of the potions that had fallen from her backpack. One potion might stave off death for a few seconds, then minutes, maybe long enough for Rali'ah to be saved.
Struggling to remove the cap, her fingers slipped on all the blood on her hands. They were too slick, trembling too much.
She had to use her teeth to pull out the cork. She raised the bottle over her head to pour the life-saving liquid, but before she could, the glass exploded.
BLAM!
Néia screamed in pain. Her hand was nearly torn off, and the potion's contents vaporized, not a single drop falling on her or Rali'ah.
"You caused me some damage," said RED's robotic voice. "I was aiming for your hand."
The archer saw the smoking barrel of the weapon. She crawled, trying to reach the bag in the middle of the path.
BLAM!
She flinched at the sound. The shot missed the bag by inches.
"Hmm, still not good. Let's see… like this… BLAM! There we go, now it's calibrated, as the voice inside says," RED said, blowing up the bag.
All its contents were destroyed.
"It's me you want. Leave Rali'ah alone."
"Ah! The monster has a name. Of course, it does! I thought the beast was just a mount, but it's not just that, is it? No, no, no. Is she your pet? Of course! A gift from the undead warlock, and you care about him, don't you?!
"Don't come near her!" Néia threatened.
When she looked for her bow, she saw it lying behind the red warrior.
RED slowly marched toward the dragoness. His heavy steps made Néia tremble. She feared losing Rali'ah. She loved her.
Néia knew that in the past 24 hours, she had been enchanted. The magic that had saved her had created a much stronger bond between them. It was as if part of the dragoness now resided within her.
When Rali'ah had shared her life force with her breath, saving the human's life, part of her essence went with it. So, it was like seeing herself in a different body, and no dragon could resist being drawn to themselves.
For the girl, it was something similar. Life and strength had been infused into her body with a simple breath. Moreover, there was the personality that came with it. It wasn't like possession or another mind, it was like she'd had a drink that made her more uninhibited, temporarily, according to Rali'ah. The attraction she felt for her friend was embarrassing and would likely fade in weeks… or maybe not.
Néia loved Rali'ah, whether it was the spell's effect, true love, or friendship. She only knew she loved her because the fear of losing her was real.
As RED approached the dying dragon, he stopped and trembled. Looking down, he saw that the girl had struck his leg with both hands full of arrows, which must have had electric enchantments.
It paralyzed him for a few moments. The girl tried to grab more arrows, but RED quickly recovered, kicking Néia in the stomach and throwing her against the tower's parapet.
The red warrior grabbed the dragoness by the neck and, with the other hand, seized her belly. Despite being much smaller than her, he still managed to lift her wounded body over his head.
Rali'ah was still alive. She had seen Néia being kicked, unable to react, and now she was being grabbed. The pain and grip felt like her father's bite when he punished her. It felt like a piece of her body would be torn off.
RED carried Rali'ah to the parapet and, without any ceremony, threw her from the top of the tower.
"NOOO!" Néia screamed.
The warrior turned and faced the archer. Her eyes were pure fury.
"The true eyes of a demon," RED said.
"Why are you doing this?"
"Because you need to be punished for what you've done."
At that moment, something bright passed over the armor's head, something very, very fast, which only Néia saw.
'What was that? … aah!' "I pray to the God of Justice."
"You worship a false god… and preach that Surshana has returned as him."
"I worship the God who saved me. I never said that about Surshana, but the theocratic people do believe those words."
"HERESY!"
'Why does an adventurer care so much about religion?' "Heresy is closing your eyes to the truth."
"BLASPHEMY!"
'Who is he?' "You're not an ordinary adventurer. Who are you?"
There was no immediate response, as if he was thinking about whether to answer.
"You're going to die anyway! I am… Azuth Aindra!"
"No! You're not! You don't act like him. Every archer has heard the stories of the leader of Red Drop and his strange magical bows, and you?! You're not him!"
RED stopped.
Then, the front of the armor opened, and the top, with the helmet, lifted, revealing its interior.
"I AM VENGEANCE!" said Cardinal Dominic inside the armor.
"You're from the Theocracy!" - Néia whispered. -"But it fell…"
"Kami Miyako fell. I was there when the warlock destroyed my home and killed my people."
Dominic remembered when he saw the flaming rock falling on the cathedral, and he only had time to break the crystal with the teleportation spell. The others weren't as quick.
In fact, while some were paralyzed with fear, others, like Cardinal Raimond, wasted time futilely trying to cast protection spells over the church.
So, her enemy was a theocrat. But that didn't change what Néia had to do.
"You want revenge?"
"I will kill every worshipper of your false god."
"Faith in our god will give us strength to defeat you."
"Your god is not here!"
"He is always with us, in our hearts."
"We'll see how strong your faith is when you hear the screams of the dying heretics."
"Our faith will endure through the generations."
"I won't just kill your followers. I will do more than that. I will burn everything about your false god, every piece of paper, every statue, every man, woman, or child, nothing will remain of your false religion."
"YOU MONSTER! You're a coward who ran away, and wherever you go, you bring only death."
"I'm a monster? COWARD? AH! That wasn't part of the deal, but for your sins, you will now die by my hands."
Dominic raised the weapon, aimed at Néia, and fired.
BLAM!
At the same instant, something hit his side, causing him to stagger and miss the shot. He was disoriented, closed the armor, and searched for the attacker. Then, something hit him again, and again, and again, over and over, an incredible number of times.
About 250 miles from the Black Tower lies the border with Abellion Hills. Marking that line is a small mountain range.
On a plateau almost a one mile high stood CZ2128 Delta.
This was the highest and closest place the Battle Maid found to take position, just a few meters before invading the territory of the Holy Kingdom.
Even with the prodigious vision of her mechanical eyes, almost everything was beyond the horizon line of the New World due to the distance, and there was little CZ could do about that. Still, she waited for an opportunity.
Now, with the fight happening atop the tower, she needed to help. A shot from this distance wasn't impossible, but even a magically propelled metal projectile was affected by the wind. Any other magical weapon could leave some sort of traceable or identifiable magical signal, and if there was any exotic residue, it could be directly linked to the Sorcerer Kingdom.
It couldn't be a single-shot explosive weapon. CZ didn't want to kill Néia while saving her, nor could it be one of her strongest weapons, as they would bring down the tower and, in the worst case, turn the city into a radioactive crater. So, the bullets had to be ordinary metal, Orichalcum jacketed with Adamantite.
The weapon wouldn't be a sniper, because even with superhuman reload speed, it still didn't fire enough projectiles to bring down that Power Suit.
CZ chose the weapon that best suited the secret mission.
The game Yggdrasil is an MMORPG, a medieval fantasy and magic game. Even so, in its 15 years of activity, there were sessions where all sorts of themes were introduced, so firearms and Power Suits were common. The only restriction was that no weapon should be based on modern real-world armaments. "To lower the age rating," the shitty developers said.
In the game, you could use famous weapons from fantasy, pop culture, or ancient times, like the .44 Magnum from that famous movie. However, to make it as efficient in the game as a Peacemaker, the developers simply balanced the strengths by saying that everything operated on magic and magical principles. This way, the bullets from a machine gun were as fast as a laser shot, which simply didn't travel at the speed of light.
CZ saw RED walking towards the dragon to grab it and, most likely, throw its body over the parapet. So, she calculated the timing and fired at where the enemy was going to be.
The shot, traveling at a speed over Mach 10, took almost two minutes to... miss the target.
Luckily, that shot was just to test the variance; she never aimed directly at RED.
The Black Tower should have been beyond her visual range, but due to the terrain descending toward the capital and then rising, it made the tower just a few dozen meters beyond the planet's curve, making it impossible to see. However, it stood 390 feet tall, and its top was the only thing visible above the horizon line. Now, CZ had her target in "sight."
"Establishing new parameters, recalibrating, recalculating position, new movement prediction established, initiating cover fire, METAL RAIN," CZ proclaimed, firing her two massive weapons.
The Extra Long-Range Bombardment Firearm System for Localized Defensive Use "Harkonnen II", an anti-tank weapon from a classic anime, with two semi-automatic 30mm cannons firing until the ammo ran out and the barrels turned red-hot, CZ made death rain down.
Néia knew it had to be her friend helping when she saw the bright thing fly by from the east, nearly hitting the armor's head minutes earlier. So, she tried to buy some time.
Now, when she saw the first impact, she dropped to her stomach, covering her head with her hands. Whatever CZ was shooting at Dominic could kill her if she wasn't careful.
The metal, magically propelled, was strong and fast enough to pierce the Power Suit's armor. It was being torn apart, having pieces ripped off and destroyed.
Under the rain of shots, RED staggered toward the parapet until he finally fell. The firing continued until the armor flew off, leaving a trail of smoke.
Néia didn't even allow herself to smile at seeing the wounded enemy flee. Her sadness over Rali'ah was overwhelming. Then, a voice made things worse.
"Well, well, look what we have here! It's good to see you crawling, squire," Remedios said, smiling.
...
Author's Note
Hello, I hope you enjoyed the revelation of who RED was, if you ask me why I explain. This was for those who read the LN and saw the fourth season, in which the PDL considers "replacing" Azuth with someone more diligent, so I did that, the dragon has no scruples.
Regarding CZ's shooting, I ask for a little Suspension of Disbelief, which means "ignore the nonsense." That shot is impossible without the use of a satellite, because if you were at the top of Everest or at an altitude of 29500 feet hight it would only be possible to see at a distance of 211 miles, where the horizon line would be, in this way, without much information , maybe the New World planet is bigger or the geography is weird. The speed calculation is more or less correct. So just enjoy a 290 miles shot.
Regarding the weapon, Harkonnen II, anyone who watched the anime Hellsing OVA knows Ceras Victória's second weapon. If you haven't watched it yet, WATCH IT!