Author's Note: I feel like crap, and I've felt like crap for going on for three days right now. So if not good reviews then at the very least a little sympathy would be appreciated.
Luxion was in the midst of a meeting. Factually Holfort was on the cusp of being reduced to a pile of molten slag, so it seemed like a bad time for negotiations. But his main body with the bulk of his fire power was in Repard, and he suspected his two hitch hikers could speed him up.
"Hmm. So that means that things are moving ahead of schedule." Cereza stated as she looked down at what Luxion knew to be a Smart Phone.
"Lovely. At this rate we'll miss out on the fun." Jeanne gave a bored sigh as she rolled around on the bed she and her wife were sitting in.
"How much do you know about the God of the Earth?" Luxion was sounding irritated. Umbran Monsters, Magical Umbran Flutes, Umbran Witches. "If you two are responsible for this-!"
"We're not. We're not." Cereza gave a dismissive wave of her hand as she continued to explain. "One of my sisters is what you would call a prophet. Well I say sister, Alter might be the more accurate term."
Luxion's red eye intensified its glow.
Among the consequences of the Shattering war was the appearance of so-called 'alters.'
The Shattering was a war waged through the multiverse, multiple versions of Earth overlapping with each other as a consequence of the loss of the Eyes of the World resulting in multiple versions of the same city, and even the same people, in one place. By nature of the multiverse most of these worlds and the people living in them were radically different from one another. Many of them at first glance appeared to be a picture thousands of years into the past of the ancient world having embraced magic instead of technology, others a reflection of what was then the modern world, few were even vastly more advance than the others in terms of technology.
The Shattering war also brought with it a cacophony of horrors, which many scholars and historians decry as a shame, as the fusion of the knowledge of technology with the knowledge of magic already made significant gains against the Extra dimensional threat, and it's universally agreed with a few more years to develop the resulting magi-tech they would've defeated the threat.
Excerpt on 'The Shattering War' by Jeanne Blackmore
"You knew this was going to happen?" Luxion's tone of voice was full of disbelief.
"Chiyo Black. Does that name ring a bell?" Cereza asked smirking naughtily.
"Who. Is. She?" Luxion growled severely angered.
"It's not surprising that he doesn't know her." Jeanne had started doing stretches at some point. "Her games never were that popular."
To Jeanne's statement Luxion reviewed the images of those accursed game cases he took off of the Elves island. If he had blood it would be boiling.
"Your 'sister' wrote those accursed games!?" Luxion was audibly grinding his gears in sheer frustration. Most people would take the ability to look hundreds if not thousands of years into the future to advance human society if for no other reason than to increase their own status and lot in life, but this woman decided to use instead to cheat at making video games!?
"Write is probably a strong word." Cereza stated in simple terms. "Another thing. She didn't just work on some bad romance sim, she 'wrote' for a lot of different projects too. Mostly sci-fi games set in deep space." Luxion's eye went wide as it floated backwards, the equivalent in gaping in shock. "So now he acts surprised. We can discuss information trade later, right now we need to to get back to Holfort and our son, and you need to help us."
"That is what I want to say to you! This entire mess could've been avoided-" The two witches chose to stop paying the orb any mind as they made their way over to the deck of the airship that was Luxion's main body, while the drone attempted to keep lecturing them. Eventually Jeanne put Luxion on something more productive, like plotting their course correction. "You two are mad." Luxion summarized bluntly.
"The shortest route between two points is a straight line." Jeanne pulled a line straight out of her math classes for this one.
"This route cuts through the World Eye!" Luxion snapped indicating the massive continent sized electrified hurricane that the two witches were forcing him to approach.
The World Eye is a term given to the second largest hurricane/ongoing weather formation in the Solar System, the first largest is Jupiter's Great Red Spot.
The World Eye is what happens when you use a extra large hurricane created as a by product of Earth's newly increased size to mix together the insanely high mana concentration that occurred at the peak of the Shattering War and the vast amount of conductors that were thrown into the ocean during the course of the war. It's not just the wind, the mana in the air mixed with the conductors is constantly generating electricity. Even if you can survive getting torn apart by the wind you'll be destroyed by repeated lightning strikes in due order. This is a problem that is best avoided, for everyone's sake.
Excerpt from 'The Myriad Dangers of the Modern World'
Jeanne and Cereza had seized control over the ship using their insidious magic. How Luxion wasn't sure but he was able to eliminate demonic possession immediately.
"You only live once my little friend." Cereza dismissed the blatant violation that she and her wife committed against Luxion as the two of them rode the ancient colonial ship into the storm.
The three were pulled in, riding on the storm, the giant mass of metal acting as a lightning rod. Then, as the ship was about to be struck, the two witches abruptly changed it's direction and the ship was able to duck into witch time. The spell didn't just make it easier to dodge, it massively increased the possible speed of the three figures, they didn't have the benefit of the massive storm pulling on them any more, but they were able to shave off precious minutes from their travel time.
"See? Now that wasn't so bad was it?" Jeanne gave a condescending pat on the ship as if she didn't just almost get all three of them killed.
"If we get out of this alive I'm killing you both!"
A cacophony of constant explosions were echoing out, the Baskervilles were consuming demonic energy faster than they could spit it out. Leon could feel it building in the air, the demonic energy was getting denser and denser. At this rate one of Leon's demons would go down.
"AHwoooooo!" The dogs suddenly started to howl, fire was leaking out of their joints, between their rib cages, like their bodies were about to burst, which also means that they reached their limits.
"Alright you mutts heel!" The five dogs flew back to Leon, turning into the guns and belt before being moved into the relative safety of Leon's storage space. "That's one down." As Leon was thinking about what move he was going to make next-
"HHHIIIYYYAAAHHH!" Viper started screaming out in pain. "YOU BASTARDS!" Leon turned to the mass of demons in front of them. Turns out they didn't take nicely to being host to a parasite, and the term 'kill it with fire!' came to mind.
"Do not attack." Leon's order made the snake Demoness that was about to act recklessly seize up instead. "Return to the ship." The snake made a dissatisfied hiss as she flew away. Viper's loss would be unfortunate, more so because she would drag an innocent person down with her. So Leon ordered her retreat. "Two down." Leon let out a complaint, now having been reduced to relying on the Twins, Chimera and Umbra to fight with Leon's fighting power was down forty percent.
"Waka!" Leon turned around to see that the area that Left and Right had been excavating was collapsing, meaning that his goal of cracking open more of the dungeon and increasing the area that he could attack with had succeeded, which also meant that he could strike more recklessly too.
"It would be bad if my attacks accidentally cut this growth off." Leon explained as he cracked his knuckles and prepared to renew his offence. That is what he would like to be doing, but then a couple of beasts crashed down right into the middle of the battlefield, kicking dust up into the air and making it hard to track what was happening. "What in Shiva's-!?" Leon was pushed out of the way of a black blade swinging at him at the last moment by Left and Right. Leon hit the ground, the Twins didn't, instead all that Leon saw was a pair of cracked black Gauntlets and Grieves hitting the ground in front of him.
"There you are." Leon turned to face a familiar figure. "I was wondering why someone who was reckless enough to enter a battlefield without any Armour on wasn't on the Frontline. Turns out you were here." The Black Knight stood tall, The Masked Knight was fighting against him using a blade that had been sheathed in stone but the Knight was ignoring his blows. "Enough of you gnat." With a back hand the Black Knight threw the Masked Knight away. "I have to deal with the real threat now!" The Masked Knight's Seraphim Arm was no longer responding to his whims, he was no longer a threat. As if on cue two more armours suddenly appeared.
"Get away from him!" Julius swung his buzz axe combo aiming to take the Black Knight's head. "Fire Storm!" Brad's shout was accompanied by the Black Knight being consumed in a massive hurricane of flame. Suddenly a familiar black sword slashed through the flames, stabbing through Julius's armour before cutting through Brad's as well.
"Was that the Crown Prince right now?" The Black Knight stepped out of the flame unscathed. "Well it wasn't anything important I bet."
Julius was fairly certain he was just insulted but that wasn't his biggest concern. Right now he was wondering why the Black Knight was ignoring his existence, and how he had survived that attack.
"Brad are you okay too!?" To Julius's question Brad picked himself up from the ground and checked his body, which was indeed free of any sign of injury much like Julius was. "Assuming that we haven't turned into vengeful spirits-"
"Our Machines saved us." Julius turned around, he and Brad were being joined by Greg, Chris and Jilk.
"We've somehow been punted off into another dimension. One in which we are invisible to our foes." Jilk explained as he ran to Julius's side.
"Think that we can still interact with the real world?" Julius asked as he looked around him.
"Probably, otherwise we'd be falling through the continent right now." Not a very good safety ejection system otherwise Jilk noted.
"Think we can do something about him?" Julius was Looking to the Black Knight, to the enemy that would probably kill his father in the next few moments. In this dimension the Armour clade monster was nearly invisible, a glassy see through silhouette that you could only see by how he distorted the view through him.
"We won't have more than one shot." It was the oldest rule of a sword fight, if you could hit the enemy then they can hit you.
Even if they were invisible the Black Knight will be able to know where they are as soon as they land their strike, so either they had to be able to finish him in the one, or five combined, blow or distract him at the exact moment to defeat him. The first seemed unlikely given the fact none of them had any semblance of a weak spot on the man, the latter was growing increasingly unlikely by the moment given the fact that the Masked Knight seemed to be doing worse and worse, not only had his weapon suddenly decided to stop cooperating with him, but he was also accumulating damage as a consequence of his protracted battle against the Black Knight who outmatched him in both durability and raw power. Then a boulder, a rock in all honesty, was thrown through the air and smacked the Black Knight in the back of his Armour's head. The demon in the shape of a man turned around to face the new enemy, even as he caught the Masked Knight's weapon with one hand.
"I brought those two onto the battlefield." Leon was walking forward, both of his arms strapped with the familiar forms of the Cavalier Chimera. "Mouthing off to you about hurting the people close to me would be hypocritical considering that it's my fault for bringing them here." That said. "Burst Open and Mix!"
Leon's body transformed, his original human form long gone and instead replaced by a three headed four tailed monster covered in silver fur. Where Leon's right arm should be, there was a single horned dragon head with lightning dripping from it's mouth, where his left arm should be a goat breathing a frosty breath, where Leon's head should be a lion with a mane of fire. The four tails stabbed themselves into the ground anchoring the transformed Warlock in place while the heads mixed together moisture generated/collected via the fog, split it into flammable gasses with the lightning, ignited them with fire, and spewed it all as a concentrated stream of blue fired directly at the Black Knight with enough force to punch a hole in steel.
The Black Knight blocked the attack, he was built to absorb magical energy, had a unique affinity for the shadows that allowed him to absorb and process not only mana but also heat, light and kinetic energy. As soon as Leon stopped his attack the Black Knight would zip over to him and dump all of the power that the fool was shoving down his throat on top of him in a explosion that would be guaranteed to kill a unarmoured Human.
Except that Leon wasn't stopping his attack.
Under normal circumstances using a beam attack that combines multiple attributes Leon himself isn't used to using for a prolonged period of time is not something he could or would do, his own rather potent albeit limited reserves of Mana was one issue he'd have to deal with, as was his concern for the Devil Arm he would be using for such a thing. But there was a massive demonic generator standing right next to him, not to mention the fact that those three could use a little extra food to help them finish their fusion, even if they would be taken out of action for a while afterwards. So that just left the question of who would be felled first. Would the Black Knight reach the capacity for how much punishment his armour could absorb first? Or would Leon's demonic battery run out of juice before he could finish his opponent off.
That answer became apparent as the Black Knight started to turn red, as he was lifted from his feet, as he tried to use his blade to cut down, intercept or block the incoming demonic energy. Then all of a sudden something gave out. The Black Knight was suddenly thrown through the air, pushed along by the energy beam, before finally slammed into the barrier protecting the capital. Caught between a rock and a hard place the armour suddenly exploded, releasing a sufficiently massive enough amount of force that the entire shield was heavily deformed and was flickering to indicate it's damage. Leon fell into a seated position as his transformation wore off, the two halves of Cavalier Chimera were sitting at either side of him smoking with steam.
"Oh I forgot to mention: I'm extremely Hypocritical." Leon stored Chimera away, now down to only a broken Cuckoo Clock to rely on to finish this mess. Lovely.
Roland looked between the Half Demon brat who stole his thunder and the location where the Black Knight had seemingly exploded. The Little Snot kill stole him! What exactly are they teaching these brats at the Royal Academy!?
"Well done Sir Blackmore!" Roland lied through his gritted teeth as he wondered how he would have to keep the brat from talking while he spread word of his great duel and victory against the Black Knight throughout the capital. "But in the Future it is considered poor etiquette to land the final strike on a defeated enemy!"
"By all means!" Leon gave a sarcastic comment with a flourish of his arm. Roland made a face of confusion, and then one of pain as a blade was suddenly run through his body. The giant blade continued to extend through Roland aiming towards Leon who summoned Umbra in weapon form to his side and blocked and deflected the blow, straight into the God of the Earth. The Blade passed through the wounded Tower of Sin, swung through the air and tore through what was left of the shield that was protecting the capital finally bringing it down in the process.
"I like this body!" The Creature formerly Known as the Black Knight rolled his shoulders. The various metal vines that made up the Armour's muscles had grown and burst out, reweaving themselves into the shape of arms and legs as they gripped their black blade and the black armour reformed around the now notably large Black Knight. "Now die!"
Most notable of the differences of the Warlock Route, aside from having a shorter time frame until the Principalities attack, is a second fight against the Black Knight. It is likely that the increase in difficulty is expected to be made up for by the Player only having one relationship to manage and the advance knowledge necessary from multiple completed play-throughs, or walk-throughs, to efficiently level grind. That said, for the final battle, on top of having to deal with the God of the Earth, you also see the return of the game's biggest difficulty spike the Black Knight, who is spiked even further with a second phase that sees him turned into a demon or perhaps more accurately possessed by the demonic spirit of his armour. For our sake I Hope Blackmore has been Level grinding like crazy.
Excerpt from Diary 1
Nero Angelo Gigantes: A uniquely powerful Angelo born of the Modern Age.
A unique hybrid of Demons and technology, the Original Angelo Titans were formidable monsters who could turn human life blood into power.
This particular one, Nero Angelo Gigantes, was born from the corrupt soul of a Mage Knight of exceptional calibur who used the shadow element, and fuelled by a Unique Devil Arm formerly known as a Muramasa itself born of the darkness and dimension manipulating metals of the Abyss.
The New Born Demonic Knight Combines the full skill set of its warped former human self, as well as an impressive reserve of raw demonic power into a terrifying force of nature.
Any member of the clan who has to face such a creature or another like it will have to drop them, fast, or else they'd get dropped in return.
Excerpt of Lemegeton's Guidebook of Demons
The Monster born of the Black Knight was getting ready to launch his counter attack, Julius and company were peeling his father out of the wreckage of the Masked Knight's armour, and off in the distance a blimp was rising in the air.
"This thing is so slow!" Angelica cursed angrily. Luxion's armours were fighting against the Principality but it was still a matter of ships against armours, there was a limit to being able to protect the airship, especially considering how bloated that it was.
"Then we need to act now!" In the game Olivia would broadcast her disgust, and her hatred of war through her power of empathy amplified by the ship. Indeed that was the safest option if they wanted to end this without anymore casualties. However Olivia would spend the rest of her life as a target in that scenario, even if the ship was destroyed her 'brainwashing' power would still be known. Thus it would not be Olivia's pacifism that would be broadcast to the Principalities army, instead Angelica drew a Katana of rage, forged from her very own depression, and jammed it into the Amplifier. "You're all being controlled! Snap out of it!"
The blade was a weapon that infects those who are wounded by it with the essence of a demon, in other words concentrated negative emotions. In order to raise their God and control their army all of the negative emotions were scraped away from the people of the Principality, now they were getting them back, all of them, all at once the soldiers were forced to remember and understand the years of suffering with a smile plastered on their soul that they faced under their commanders whims, the atrocities they committed, that they were committing, the humiliation of having their dignity stripped away from them and speaking frankly they've had enough. The Armours left the front lines, they weren't retreating though, they were racing with the crewmen onboard the ships to rip their commanding officers to pieces.
"I do not envy them." Angelica said bluntly as she turned her attention to the battlefield, where the Black Knight was fighting. "Now how do we kill that?"
With a trio of quick flourishes the Demon Leon was fighting against slammed into his shield.
"My capacity to deal with this pest is limited in this form." Umbra informed Leon, the Warlock using the demonic doors to block another extending stab attack from the Demonised Black Knight. "Oh yeah because making us a bigger target is such a good idea!" Leon was exhausted, he had spent the entire afternoon managing and fuelling five fully manifested demons, fighting the God of the Earth, whom still wasn't dealt with by the way, and now he was getting the snot kicked out of him by this guy again. Leon was at his limit.
"BOW BOW!" A thing resembling a iron ball and chain with a sharkish grin plastered on it flew through the air and bit down on the Demonised Knight, immediately followed up by a giant reptile fist punching the knight away.
Chain Chomp: A curious creature Rodin encountered while travelling through the ancient capital of Japan, the unruly monster was bred and mass produced for use as guard animals by fusing large portions of demonic power with a ball and chain and anchoring it where convenient.
Unable to get close to it due to its penchant for biting everything it comes into contact with, Rodin waited until it was sleeping, then dragged it away, chain and all. However, after multiple failed attempts to tame it, Rodin gave up and begged the witches to take it.
Receiving 'a woman's touch' the unruly abomination became far more obedient than it was before, and thus an effective weapon and vicious shield guarding the life of it's new master as it use to guard the area's it was anchored to.
Excerpt from Rodin's Weapons Catalogue (Free to all interested parties)
Bowser: King of the Koopa's.
Bowser and his entire tribe are part of an unruly army of demons who have been harassing a land of magic and mushrooms for centuries. Stubborn, Belligerent and powerful Bowser rules his armies with an iron fist.
The Turtle like Demon is immensely durable and immune to flames, Even should the King of the Koopas have his physical body killed his remains will be reanimated as he doggedly pursues his enemy. Perhaps if a Witch is able to offer up to the King what he desires the most he may yet offer a contract of summons to them.
Excerpt from Lemegeton's Guidebook of Demons
Jenna and Nick took to either side of Leon, one armed with a cartoonish ball and chain and the other a silver suitcase, both wearing full body thick padded uniforms woven from their own magical hair.
"We can talk about you sticking your nose into other people's business later." Jenna stated handing Leon several suckers.
"Sure, we can talk about you guys trying to feed an entire kingdom to a demon while we're at it." Leon stated making his opinion on this mess known.
Then a loud whistle echoed out through the air.
"Try to take this one in one piece! It's got the old creative Juices flowing!" Rodin was standing on an Airship flying the Blackmore's flag, holding a gift box. "It's a little early for your birthday but I'm feeling mighty generous today!" The Black skinned human shaped demon hurled the box in his hand towards Leon. Leon wasn't in the mood for theatrics simply grabbing the box with both hands as he looked inside.
"Take five to recover then come over here and help us!" That was the best that Jenna could get out before the Black Knight went on the offensive.
With a swing of his blade the Black Knight launched multiple blades at the group of three intending to cut all three of them apart at the same time. Jenna and Nick responded in kind, Jenna kicking the ball that was her weapon into the air and Nick slamming his suitcase in hammer form into it, splitting the ball off into multiples of itself as it flew through the air and slammed into the demonic armour before exploding.
"We grabbed the wrong weapons for this." Nick succinctly summed up their situation as the Black Knight swung the smoke away from himself and charged. "Jenna!"
"I know!"
Suddenly Jenna's Uniform came apart, leaving only a backless leotard for her modesty as a new portal opened. The Black Knight was intercepted as a huge demonic humanoid turtle came out of the portal, Jenna's contracted Demon Bowser. The demonic Turtle breathed a huge mass of flame into the area around the Black Knight, who didn't even bother slowing down as he kept charging forward, to his misfortune. Nick had returned his weapon to it's base suitcase form, but what he unleashed from it was anything but base, as a horrific burning light that not even the Black Knight and his stupidly powerful armour couldn't hope to block.
"That light? Almost pure angelic energy." Just because Pandora contained almost seven hundred evils didn't change the fact that she was originally created in Paradiso by an Angel, out of angelic material. Indeed much of the evil that came from the box originated in Paradiso itself, the Prideful and Arrogant belief that the Angels could subvert the natural laws that govern the trinity of reality and defeat their enemies before they could even be born. And the Black Knight just chugged that poison like he was doing a keg stand. "Eat it and like it!" Nick turned the Suitcase into a large bow and fired off a trio of Missiles at the Black Knight whose body was burning with the poison it just ate.
Suddenly the Black Knight took a knee and stabbed his blade into the ground, both of the fighting Blackmore Siblings jumped back as the ground was suddenly turned into a mass of blades spinning around like a blender. A loud boom echoed out, like someone had just broken through the sound barrier multiple times, each of them crashing into the Black Knights grotesque form. Leon spat out the sticks for the suckers Jenna had given him, recovering his mana and health in the process, his weapon of choice gripped in his hands and holstered on his ankles four silver coloured guns decorated with purple moons and the split symbol of the Umbran Clan.
"I'm cancelling the apocalypse you jerk!"
The Four Horsemen: Violence, Spite, Sadism and Wrath.
Four Handguns channelling the immense demonic power of Leon Blackmore, a Candidate as the next Eye Left of the World.
Each component of each weapon has been methodically hand crafted, using a specialty combination of materials patented by the Lord of Creation and Destruction to compress, amplify and channel demonic power at an enormous degree.
The power behind each shot can be methodically controlled by the wielder, able to fire off from a thousand harmless glancing shots a second to a single powerful shot every thirty.
Should the wielder chose to enter melee, the sheer durability of the weapons make them effective blunt weapons, even if their creator would prefer that the recipient didn't follow his parents footsteps in treating ranged weapons as they would melee weapons.
Excerpt from Rodin's Weapons Catalogue
Leon's arm was shaking, he fired off the strongest shot his gun was capable of, his arm had gone numb and he could barely hold on to it. This wasn't mana drain, this was the recoil from the shot.
Was a bloody instruction manual too much to ask for? Yes because he'd also want time to read it, and there was a psychopathic demon trying to kill him.
"Stop pulling the bloody trigger so hard before you blow your arm off!" Nick blocked another sword swing with Pandora in a shield form, it seems that the Black Knight was being wary of him whenever he whipped out the suitcase.
"Well what am I supposed to do with the Trigger!" Leon dodged another blade wave.
"Try dealing with the other one!" Thanks to the twins excavation efforts large portions of the dungeon had been excavated and a large portion of the God of the Earth was now exposed to the surface.
"Sure, a giant target to use as a bullet sponge." Leon's battle suit flowed into a pair of giant arms as he grabbed hold of the tangled masses of demons with both of the arms and pulled the creature out by the bulk, firing demonic missiles through the air as Leon tossed the entire mass high into the air and prepared to shoot the creature. And then an electric blue beam streaked through the and blew the majority of the Mass away in a single blast.
"Yah know what, this benefits me so I'll roll with it." Leon wasn't going to question where the mystery laser blast that just finished off the God of the Earth came from, his priority was to find the last chunk of it and see what was left of it.
Review Section:
RonaldM40196867: I think reality has enough monsters in it without us imagining more of them.
Dakota Bruder: Imagine everyone who can hear the flutes being played having their souls sucked out of their bodies alongside all of the Demonic and Angelic essence, imagine all of that 'raw material' being combined together into a single mass taking the form of a monster, I shouldn't have to say this but this applies to the ones playing the thing as well unless they either deafened themselves or wore ear protection.
guest1: Or until they cram actual emotions into her again.
Guest2: She may not yet have to do anything.
Verdauga: Glad to have a new regular, and that you like the story so much.
