Masamune: A cursed blade born of the Abyss.
The Elemental Plane of Shadow, the Abyss, is one of the most brutal and unforgiving lands within Inferno, where the residents live in complete darkness and even space is subject to rupture. Those who brave these volatile lands and survive are able to acquire unique metals imbued with the plane of shadow's ability to expand, retract and multiply at an alarming rate. A portion of these materials were combined with iron from demonic blood to create a blade that thirsts for blood and flesh, healing the wearer of the armour of the same name made from the same materials in the process. Masamune is an evil sword created by an evil man using evil methods to inflict evil onto others.
Excerpt from Rodin's Weapon Catalogue
The biggest complaint Leon had concerning the Black Knight Sim was that the bastard was wielding a Devil Arm, a rather nasty one at that, something that no other armour pilot seemed inclined or able to do. But lo and behold, here the Black Knight was wielding one of the nastiest weapon type demons that Leon knows of. And he was getting ready for a second swing. With a roar of his engine Leon drove the Sky Bike off, and not stopping for a single moment Leon grabbed Angelica with a Lariat and dumped her onto her lap, his bike in the mean time gobbling up a huge chunk of the pile of orbs that they passed through on the way by.
Not bothering to check on the condition of his rescue target, or noticing the kidnapping victim she was holding hostage, Leon didn't even slow down as he circled round to head back to the cruise ship. The Black Knight was already closing the distance, not only using the ridiculous length on his blade but also closing the distance with his armour's sheer engineering specs. Leon had to dive into Witch time again to avoid another attack, and even returned fire with his turrets for how little good that they actually did. His problem though was that he wouldn't be able to dodge forever. Ignoring the size of Leon's magic reserves, while he could dodge the Black Knight's blade the cruise ship wouldn't be able to.
"Damn-it! Do I need to grab Olivia and run?" Leon growled to himself while he looked down and cursed.
Ignoring the enemy unit that he grabbed by mistake, Angelica had a euphoric look painted on one of obvious pain. Not only had she slaughtered all the demons and fallen that the Principality had around their ship but she likely drained a significant portion of them for power, her body's catalysts could've very easily grown to a unsafe size, on top of forcibly absorbing the positive and negative feelings represented by the enemy forces. Yet another sign that the situation was degenerating out of control. Dodging the blade of the Black Knight again Leon crashed into the deck of the ship, the bike sliding away as Angelica and Hertrude were left sprawled out onto the deck.
"Leon you made it back safe with Angie!" Olivia was already on the pair healing the various minor injuries that were incurred as a result of the rough landing.
"We're back but we're not safe!" Leon pointed over the way he came as the sky was split in half, the Black Knight's demonic sword cutting through the cloud line as the blade exceeded a kilometre in length.
Leon forced his way through the crowd, grabbed a pair of missile launchers that were being wielded by one student each, reverse the grip on them like they were tonfa and used one to block and deflect the incoming sword blow and fired the other into the blade at point blank range sending the weapon away.
"Olivia, take everyone to Rodin!" Olivia nodded her head while she started evacuating the Staff, Students and Crew below deck. "What about you!?" Olivia asked panic clear on her features. "Someone has to-!"
The sound of the Sound barrier being broken echoed out as the Black Knight suddenly appeared at point blank range, with one hand the Black Knight pinned Leon down, with the other he held his giant katana blade in a reverse grip and was now tearing through the ship itself intending to cut the troublesome warlock in half. Suddenly a monster pounced on the Black Knight, one with four heads of a Lion, a Goat, a Dragon and a Snake for a tail with a goat's back legs, a lion's body and a dragon's wings.
Chimera: A Hybrid Monstrosity.
There are situations where one demon can fuse into the body of another, a Devil Arm subverting their wielder's will, a parasite taking over their host, or a specific magic ritual. In many cases the attempt fails, the clash of will powers instead of having a clear winner or loser instead results in a poorly defined amalgam of multiple wills clashing against each other. It is common for such hybrids to retain their magical power, those that are able to acknowledge their new lot in life and cooperate with each other are able to designate multiple roles on the battlefield and act appropriately becoming terrifying combatants, most however just degenerate into mindless infighting.
Excerpt from Lemegeton's Guidebook of Demons
The Monster was clawing away at the Black Knight and biting with multiple heads while releasing fire, lightning and ice attacks. Against anyone else it would be the nightmarish sight of watching a armour and it's pilot being torn apart, here though the most that the Black Knight seemed able to muster was annoyance as he grappled with the monster. Leon had bigger things to worry about, the Masamune had already carved into the ship itself and getting pounced on by the Chimera had inadvertently split the ship itself in half with one half falling towards the ocean.
"Not on your life!" Angelica snapped back to attention, she was already getting ready to catch the broken half of the ship.
"You focus on making a crash pad!" Deidre threw Angelica a staff. "I'll slow it down!"
Deidre and Angelica were few among the people still on the floating half of the ship, the first used the Simoon fans to produce a tornado of her signature rose scented winds to slow down the crashing ship, the latter was boiling the water of the ocean, raising the steam into the air, and then freezing it solid. Branches of ice spread out and caught falling students, people sliding down them and slowed down as they approached the water. In the meantime the wreckage of the ship was being slowed by the wind to a crawl and was able to land on the iceburg Angelica had formed safely. You'd think the ship being wrecked would make things easier on Leon but no that wasn't the case. Now the Black Knight had two targets to attack, which meant that Leon had to play double duty protecting them both.
"You!" The Kilometer long blade swung down at the iceberg, forcing Leon to fly in on the Cavalier to deflect the blow. "Are!" The Black Knight redirected the deflected blade into an upwards slash at the cruise ship. "Such!" Iceberg. "An!" Cruise ship! "Ass!" With the latest Fly by Angelica and Deidre were able to get close enough to jump onto the back of the bike. "What's the plan!?" Angelica asked holding onto Leon's back.
"You think I have a plan? What battle have you been watching!?" Leon snapped as he flew over to deflect another blow to the iceberg.
"Leave defending the class to us!" Deidre stated as she unfolded her fan. "You show that Dishonourable Cur what for!"
"And in the extremely unlikely event that I'm unable to do that?" Leon asked with a glare.
"You had a plan to evacuate the students with Olivia?" Angelica asked suspiciously.
"More Umbran magic, assuming that it hasn't been destroyed already. We were able to contact my family though, and they'll be on their way with a fleet of warships." As Leon spoke they had to dodge another of the Black Knight's swings. At this point in time Leon was confident that the bastard could sink a whole ass fleet with that thing. "But how do we deal with that?" If not for all the demons and wrecks of Principality ships floating around Leon would totally believe it if someone told them that the entirety of the Principalities military consisted of this one old man and his sword.
"Any way that we can!" Angelica fired off more of her lances of flame, she had a lot of heat built up after turning the water into an iceberg so she was able to fire off quite a few lances of fire at the Black Knight, pushing him back a not insignificant distance, the knight preparing to retaliate with another strike.
"Shadow Type Devil Arm, Neutralising Magic Heavy Attacks, but the attacks using the natural forces in the environment still goes through, took a hit from Chimera and has been keeping his distance ever since." Leon was muttering suddenly like he just figured something out. "Just how stupid does your mana reserves have to be to pull this off all the time? Is it the armour?"
"You sound like you've figured something out." Angelica stated while Leon flew over head the ice tree.
"I have. Get as many people as possible to hurl attacks at the Black Knight after I've managed to restrain him, if possible use attacks manipulating the environment, and keep the mana in your attacks to a minimum, stick to environmental manipulating attacks." Deidre and Angelica got off the back of the Warlock's bike. "He's a shadow element user like me, it would cost a crazy amount of mana but he can neutralise magic attacks like what I do when I beat up Brad during our sparring. The mana cost should be crazy but for some reason he's able to manage." The Black Knight wasn't staying idle while Leon had a leisurely chat, it took a while for that sword to swing but when it does it was a natural disaster, already the horizon crossing blade was fast approaching them. "Go!" Leon took off again while Angelica and Deidre slid down the ice slide.
The original Cavalier had two modes, Nick added the wings for flight, but there was also a 'battle mode'. Leon split the weapon in half, connected together still via a chain and chest and shoulder armour made to resemble the heads of a Dragon, Lion and Goat while the rest of the machine turned into a pair of oversized gauntlets mounted on his arms with the wheels turned into spiked knuckles. For flight a pair of wings emerged from Leon's back, composed of red demonic energy and black hair.
"Round two Blackie!" Leon shouted as he knocked his two knuckle dusters together.
Marie's group had been... less than enthused.
As a start there was the revelation that they spent so long inside of the dungeon killing a gun totting demon and a sword and boarder with earth magic that they actually missed the deadline for the ship. The captain was rather annoyed, as was the armed force that was waiting to take off with them.
That was another point of annoyance too, apparently they were being used as bait to try and smack down a Principality strike team.
Julius and the boys had been enthusiastic about the entire thing, up until the revelation that their 'jobs' had been to stay put out of the way of the actual fighting, as the kingdom still held no confidence that they would be of any use after the duel with Leon, rightfully so too. So they waited, and waited, and waited some more.
Chris's father, the Arclight Patriarch part of the reverse strike team, took the swordsman away to see to his training leaving Marie to her own devices as the rest of her boys attempted to sneak off.
What she found waiting for her on her bed filled Marie with nothing short of indescribable horror.
Past life Marie was nothing short of a self professed Yaoi Fan-girl. The fact that her old hobby made up part of the chain of events that landed her in this hell, coupled with the lack of materials, had caused said hobby to dry up.
This wouldn't be reigniting it any time soon.
The Fujushi Boys was a rather unflattering Graphic novel, unflattering to her anyway, the character that was clearly based on her was simply known as 'the bitch' while if anything the features of the boys had been exaggerated and worst yet, were blatantly gay with her blackmailing them for her own amusement and personal gain. Then the guards barged into her room unannounced.
"Keep them here-" Julius, Jilk, Greg and Brad were unceremoniously tossed onto the floor of the room. "-and make sure that they behave!"
The Guard's choice of words carried some unfortunate innuendo considering what Marie had been reading.
"So stealing armours to participate in the battle didn't work out." Marie closed the book, preparing to show off its cover. "We have bigger problems we have to worry about." As Marie held up the cover for the boys to see they ended up staring at it in horror.
"Is that..." Brad was staring in horror at what suspiciously looked like his naked, tied up, glitz and glamoured form with what looked suspiciously like a pair of oversized sheers positioned threateningly around his man hood.
"The fifth volume? Why yes it is." Marie stated and suddenly the rest of the boys got the sinking suspicion that they had similar books made in their own image.
"It's just a book right?" Julius's face and tone implied that he didn't think as much. "Nobody would really think the contents of these books are real right?"
While Julius and his compatriots were trying to steal armours Chris was having a spar with his father. The Sword Saint's eyes were scanning back and forth on the deck, tracking the young man who was using the electromagnetic field that he was generating to yank himself across the deck towards whatever piece of metal was buried in the ship's construction. He was stronger now too, some kind of lightning based support magic was increasing the performance of his body to heights that wouldn't normally be possible and he was starting to go numb from the force his blade was being struck with. Then Chris left himself open with a flying strike. A mistake or a feint? Either way the Sword saint drove the pommel of his weapon into Chris's gut as he was pulling himself towards his father and sent the young man flying backwards.
"You've improved." Chris's father put the blade down and took a seat at a nearby table, one of the soldiers pouring him lemonade as he made it clear he had no intention of doing anymore fighting until they found the Principality.
"I've discarded everything you've ever taught me." Chris limped over to sit with his father as one of the healers tended to him.
"I wouldn't say that, your sword skills remain the way I remember them." The Burly sword swinging warrior daintily sipped his lemonade as he spoke. "Or do you mean that you've somehow disgraced our family by integrating magic into your fighting style?" Chris grimaced in affirmation as his wounds were treated. "Perhaps I haven't made myself clear over the years: You were never going to be the next sword saint. Frankly speaking I wouldn't be surprised if the whole kit kaboodle dies with me." The saint looked out on the horizon as he continued to think through the situation. "It is a modern era Chris. An era of guns and magic and machines. Perhaps the blade retains its usefulness in a dungeon, but the battlefield?" The Head of the Arclight family rested his chin on his hands as he glared at his son with deep annoyance and disappointment. "It was something I was hoping you would figure out with Jillian's help. Then you discarded her to become the boy toy of a midget saintess alongside your fellow former heirs."
"Could you please not speak about her with such disdain father?" Chris visibly winced at that comment.
"Honestly? I couldn't care less about her or whoever you're sleeping with. I just don't want to hear anymore about your sex life." Chris was about to speak up and ask about the last comment. "We're off topic. My point is you have made great personal growth, as a swordsman and a man, and I am proud of you." The Sword Saint waved over his men to take Chris back to his room.
"Not so proud of me to let me participate though." Chris asked cocking a brow in derision.
"That is that and this is this." The Sword Saint stated as if it was obvious. "We're expecting Vandel, he's an opponent that even I would die against were we to clash, your mother and sister don't need to compound the potential tragedy of losing me with losing you too. Return to your room and let soldiers be soldiers and boys be boys."
Chris showered before he returned to the room, the six of them had been crammed into the same cramped bunk and he didn't need to add his funk to the discomfort. Thus Chris arrived back in the bunk without a shirt but with a tower over his shoulder, a scene that had a disturbing similarity to one that had taken place inside of the fifth volume of Fujushi boys but with Chandler instead.
On a unrelated note, everyone noticed a massive storm on the Horizon, and correctly concluded that the Principality would want to avoid that, and may have in fact been delayed because of it, so they decided to adjust their position further way.
Leon had entered a close quarters brawl with the Black Knight. Having a Shadow Affinity himself Leon knows better than anyone the strengths and weaknesses of his opponent. Shadow has the power to neutralise magical attacks, at the cost of ten times the magic of what he was neutralising. For some reason the cost wasn't of any concern to the Black Knight, so Leon was forced to conclude that the Black Knight's weakness was in close Quarters combat, where he could be bludgeoned over and over again with non-magical attacks. The Black Knight realised this too, a much longer time ago. Similar to Brad he trained hard to overcome the weakness that his natural affinity left him with, only he has the raw ability in the blade to match that training and have it bear fruit.
"Alright you bastard! Round two!" Leon went up into the air as the blade swooshed by and grabbed hold of it with both of the wheel claws of his weapon.
The Black Knight retracted the blade pulling Leon towards himself into the prided melee range that he was so fond of when he wasn't hacking apart the landscape. If the way that the Black knight hit Leon was any indication then he took offence to the Warlock clinging to his blade separating them but only just. Rather than retreat the Black Knight pushed forward, slashing with attacks that Leon was only able to barely dodge with with witch time in play, even then said dodges had much more to do with Leon knowing the Black Knight's movements from getting beaten up by him than his time manipulation.
The Black Knight's movements were fast and skilled, against a opponent of the same size he would be invincible, but Leon was small, when he dodged a attack he responded with a blow from the Cavalier, spiked spinning knuckles chewing into armour like the scoops on a excavator with every hit. Didn't leave a scratch, or if it did Leon couldn't see them through the black metal of the Abyss. Then Leon's luck ran out, the Black Knight prepared a charging stab against Leon. Instead of blocking Leon prepared to evade again, however rather than Leon The Black Knight's target was the iceburg where Angie, Olivia and the rest of the class had taken refuge.
"Son of a-!"
Cursing Leon switched the Cavalier from battle mode to flight, the black flame of the jet thruster flaring as Leon desperately pushed himself down to intercept the blow, before finally moving in front of the blade and grabbing it with the claws of the bike. Then Leon felt a familiar pulse of power in the air, and it was all too familiar to Leon. Devil Trigger. The Rate of extension of the blade dramatically increased, Leon flared the thrusters of his weapon to desperately push the blade away from it's intended target. Everything in Leon's body hurt, the effects of the curses he was under was gone but not the damage done to his body or the glue like demonic power that had been shoved into the cracks to patch his wounds, worst of all being his left hand that he had cut off and sowed back on. The blade was slipping through Leon's grip and it's tip pierced his chest as an indescribable pain echoed through his body of his blood and flesh being absorbed into the weapon.
"RRRAAARRRGGGHHH!" Letting out a scream of pain Leon successfully diverted the blade down into the water and himself along with it.
"Now!" And Angelica led the counter-strike by her classmates.
Lightning mages scattered Protrons through the air, wind mages carried them into the clouds, all that was left was to connect together heaven and earth, and the Black Knight became a lightning rod. The Bolt of lightning strike the Black Knight and travelled down his black blade into the ocean, the lightning only had minimal magic in it, so the Black Knight was feeling every spark rather than having it absorbed into his mana reserves until he appeared to explode. And he wasn't the only one. The other end of the circuit had Leon on it, desperately holding onto the blade even as he lost consciousness to the lightning.
There weren't any shortages of water mages on the ice flow, Leon's body was fished out of the water soon enough, what was left of it.
Holfort's fleet was soon met by another fleet of ships, the Blackmores, who 'politely' told the Holfort fleet that the storm they had been avoiding was the site of the Principalities ambush. The Blackmore and Holfort Ships thus swarmed the iceburg that the students had been camping out on, the ships picking up the various students and loading them onto the ship proper, many were loaded into a medical ship to get treated for mana poisoning. One though was being rushed through emergency care.
"How long has he been out for?" Leon had been loaded onto a medical stretcher, surrounded by several people as he was rushed through the corridors of the ship.
"Five hours." Angelica was doing her best to help Leon's body remain stable, but she wasn't as suited to this task as a dedicated healer.
She couldn't magically force air into his lungs like Deidre, highjack and manipulate his bodily fluids like Marie, forcibly keep his heart pumping with lightning magic or directly manipulate his bodily tissues like Olivia. She did however keep the rest of the students calm, organised Leon's retrieval, and dealt the finishing blow to the Black Knight, whom no one has been able to find since he was hit with the lightning.
"We've been working to maintain his blood flow, his breathing, all of his bodily functions should be working." So long as you ignored the giant hole that was going through his torso.
"Olivia, Marie, keep working to maintain his body. We'll have to operate to fix the rest." With that Rodin rushed the group through.
Once upon a time, Rodin was known as the Lord of Creation, he has forged the very gardens of Eden, he has built the fortresses of Hell, he has hammered the essence of human kind into the forms of thousands of angels and demons. He can fix his god son.
"Right now the top priority is keeping him alive long enough for me to put him back together." Rodin was already wearing a blacksmith's apron. "While I'm working I need you two to remain in constant contact with his body." Rodin indicated the hole in Leon's chest, where the artery connecting heart to lungs to the rest of Leon's body had been replaced by black hair and demonic power. "His body is currently acting to keep himself alive. Most likely a basic repair spell is his hair being used to replace missing pieces of his body."
"Is that possible?" It was insane, even by Leon's standards, so Angelica's question was warranted. "It's not something that should be able to last more than a few minutes but yes." Rodin stated bluntly. "Luckily he's had two mana batteries at his side all this time that he's been able to draw mana from." Though that wasn't the only price Leon was paying, so Rodin needed to work quickly. "Do not break contact with Leon, strip down naked and hug him if you have to. His actual literal life depends on it!"
BLACKMORE CHASES OFF COWARDLY PRINCIPALITY ATTACK!
Earlier this week the various first year students of the Holfort Royal Academy were treated to a field trip to the neighbouring country of Yamatai, on their way back they were attacked. The Honourless Fanossian dogs took the Duchess Redgrave Hostage, attempted to eliminate everyone else on the ship, and brought a horde of monsters under their command with them. Luckily the brave students of Holfort proved that they have the Blood of Adventurers running through their veins. Under the command of Viscount Blackmore the Students rallied a heroic counter attack on the Fanoss fleet, not only taking their princess Hertrude Sera Fanoss hostage, who reportedly led the attack, but also duelled Fanoss's Black Knight one to one and Ultimately came out Victorious with the Black Knight fleeing in the confusion!
Currently the Viscount Blackmore is recovering from the injuries he incurred while fighting the Black Knight, following which it's expected that he will receive yet more promotions from the Royal family.
Excerpt from the Daily Adventurer Newspaper
Mylene stared at the newspaper left on the desk like it was the maw of some giant ominous monster. To her it was something worse.
"We miscalculated." Mylene stated bluntly.
"That is the understatement of the century!" Vincent snapped very much the enraged father wolf at the table.
On the one hand, Erica should be praised for having the foresight to calculate that Fanoss would take advantage of Holfort's delicate political situation to launch an attack on the nation. She even pin pointed the moment that they would strike when so many of the Royal Academy's best and brightest had been out of the safety of Holfort's borders. Her mistake was that she over estimated her brother's worth on an international level.
Julius was exposed as a fool during the duel and worst yet was disowned, whether as a target of assassination, a victim of a frame job, or a hostage his worth was effectively non existent.
Conversely Angie was the daughter of the Kingdom's most influential family, worse yet she was exposed as someone bad tempered enough to maim a rival in the middle of a heavily populated area with a magical blow torch, whether she was killed in the crossfire, successfully framed for conspiring to kill the rest of the students, or taken prisoner it would be considered a win for Fanoss. But the worst part of all was despite the unequivocal failure of Fanoss's attack, it was still a clear win for them.
"My daughter was taken hostage. She practically screamed her location to the high heavens during the fight against Fanoss's forces and you ignored her!" The attack succeeded in putting a wedge between the Royal Family and the Redgraves. "Her vassal, the man who fought the Black Knight one to one, has been maimed, if we are lucky his family has the means to help him regain even a fraction of his previous combat power, because I sincerely doubt that you do!"
"If it's prosthetic limbs-" A nearby house plant suddenly burst into flames. Vincent wasn't interested in hearing excuses right now.
"How. Are. You. Planning. To Fix. This!?"
Leon didn't have a pleasant time while he was asleep. Fighting for one's life against a nigh invincible opponent while at the same time mainlining negative emotions in the form of magical energy didn't make for a good combination for sweet dreams. Waking up wasn't a walk in the park either. For one thing there was a numbness in his left arm that told him that his entire fore arm was gone, and a blackness in his vision that told him that he had something wrapped around his face where his demonic eye would be. So this hospital was public, or at least semi-public.
Leon doubted a normal hospital would be trusted or capable enough to care for him.
The other explanation was that his family had removed or was removing the parts of his body that had turned cancerous because of his demonic power in order to make way for more healing, in that case the bandages were entirely necessary. While thinking about this Leon had prepared to get up in order to try and figure out what state his body was in, only as he pulled on one arm he realised that he couldn't move it. Unlike his left arm the right still had all of it's feeling in it, and he felt something soft, turning around Leon found Angelica hugging his arm, and if her bare shoulders peaking out of the blanket they were sharing was any indication, then she was naked underneath the covers. Turning his head around Leon was met with a near identical sight, Olivia hugging his arm stump in a similar state of undress. Looking up at the ceiling, Leon really only had the one question.
"The Inferno happened while I was out?"
Review Section:
RonaldM40196867: Sorry you feel that way. The Flail, or as I like to call it the Fail.
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