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Leon wanted to smack himself. The Sephirot was known as the Tree of Knowledge, no matter how much of Knowledge you have or even in the world there is always room for more to grow. Consequentially the Sephirot isn't some grand tree growing into the sky stretching beyond the horizon, instead its a small sapling that was growing in the middle of Not-Paris, not remotely different than any of the other trees if not for all the attention the Afyd's were paying it. Leon just shook his head as he set to work, the magic ceremony was performed and soon three sisters had appeared before him.
"This is the Sephirot?" Unlike Leon these three use to live in Paradiso, so they immediately recognised what a Sephirot actually looked like, what they found hard to believe is that someone actually managed to find one.
"Yes." Leon pulled out the Yamato for the three of them. "Quickly cut yourselves, you're the ones that'll get to decide what you want to keep and what you want removed."
The three sisters took the sword, at once they rammed the blade through their guts and soon the three individuals had become several. It wasn't just a matter of their selves as goddesses wanting to be separated from their demonic selves, the demons also wanted to be rid of things as well, their trauma's from living inside of the castle as a start. Quickly Leon pulled out the Rebellion and stabbed the blade into the base of the Sephirot, the angelic women grabbing hold of the blade and were soon turned into energy as they fused into the tree proper.
"Now for these." Leon threw the Hebi no Yomei onto the ground and repeated the process using the nest of snakes that had formed from the Trio's demonic essence. "That just leaves-" Leon was suddenly tackled by the remaining energy.
The three left something else behind with their demonic energy, their Gratitude for Leon, and their Trauma's, which had now fused together into a new seed of power that now entered Leon's body. With a snap, crackle and pop Leon's body changed, as the new seed had joined the existing one inside of his body. The commotion attracted the attention of the Afyd's but by that point Leon had already slithered away.
Many Dungeons have secret portals that Leads to Paradiso and Inferno, most only appear after special conditions have been fulfilled, all of them though will open from the other side once the people within wish to leave. Thus inside of Alzer's Tree Tops Dungeon a black snake slithered out of a hole in the sacred tree.
The Tree Tops is a rather unusual dungeon, unlike most dungeons which are deep underground this one was high into the air, built around the branches of the Sacred Tree.
The Ever industrious Afyds built their nests using a combination of beeswax they naturally produce, the giant Leaves of the Sacred Tree, and the occasional ruin caught in the process of growth.
Nearby leaves are wrapped on themselves and glued together by the Afyds beeswax, the inside is then converted into nurseries, honey storage pods and even crude water towers used to nurture the Sacred Tree's blossoms to produce more honey, the combination of thick soft materials and the extremely hard angelic beeswax lends the pods extreme durability. Larger buildings are born from various ruins that are trapped in the branches of the tree and maintained by Beeswax.
The Honey produced by the Afyd's are extremely valuable, a concoction of mana restoring liquid that while of little use to the great nobles is an invaluable export across the void sea for it's mana restoring properties.
It's common practice for Great Nobles to fly their airships up to the Tree Tops and pluck entire pods full of Afyd honey and pull it into storage aboard their ships. Of course, they also have to deal with the Afyds, but that matter is something of little concern to them.
Excerpt on Notable Dungeons
Leon speculated that his snake form was a gift from the sisters, a by product of forming a connection to snakes as he had formed one to wolves through the Werewolves, it was enough to make him wonder if he'll receive a bat form from the Vampires. For now Leon examined the effects of his new body.
"I can fit through tighter spaces now." The Warlock noted as he flitted in and out through the various holes in the branches. "Am I a poisonous snake?" Leon spotted his next victim, a Afyd that was by it's lonesome. Wrapping his body around a branch Leon snapped out and bit down on the Afyid, watching as its veins turned from gold to red before it suddenly burst into Halos that he sucked into storage. "Been a while since I could hunt Angels properly. Maybe I should use this opportunity to stock up." Leon turned back into his human form, his arms and legs were wrapped in familiar chains.
"So the number has doubled has it?" Originally the Hebi no Yomei had been weapons that were wrapped around the arms, now however four of the Kusarigami had wrapped themselves around his arms and legs, doubtlessly a product of the trio's demonic power. "Alright let's do this."
The Afyds took notice of the obviously demonic invader, a Umbran Warlock, and officially considered their nest kicked. The insects swarmed Leon who loosened the chains around his arms and swung. The Chains reached out and bit into the bodies of the Afyds like serpents, but Leon wasn't done yet, he spun around on the spot, the blades stretched to their limits as he tore into the incoming swarm like a deranged blender.
"Let's try to be a little more fancy!"
Leon curled himself into a ball and spun around, this time doubling the number of blades that he could swing around with as he tore into the angelic insects with bloody handed enthusiasm. However Leon learned a valuable lesson about trying to show off on narrow paths as he soon fell off the path. Instinctively Leon kicked one of his chain blades at the branch he fell from and was now hanging upside down in the air.
"Note to self. No showing off with unfamiliar weapons."
The Afyds were already flying at Leon, at once the Warlock stretched out his arms and slammed them together, his weapons swinging through the air before they slammed together with explosive results. With the immediate area cleared Leon righted himself, starting to swing around the tree branches Tarzan style as he made his way back to the trunk of the tree itself, drilling into the nearest hoard of Afyds with the chains before landing on a branch.
"Looks like I attracted the wrong kind of attention." A Alzeran airship was flying up to Leon's Location. "I'll have to summon the girls for a distraction." Leon invoked the summoning magic to bring forth his newest demon, he should probably give the four of them more time to rest but this was an emergency. From the summoning circle a massive monster emerged, a creature resembling the figure of a giant woman, wearing four stone serpent masks, and had four tendril like legs that were wrapped around each other in a braid to form a tail. "The heck is going on?" The tail was familiar, Viper's body, however instead of Yumeria's human sized body this was instead the body of a giant.
"I had my doubts." Viper looked down at her arms assessing her new body. "But the flesh of gods? You are far more generous than you led me to believe."
"I've prepared a venue for you." Leon chose to go with that. "Kill the Afyds and ignore the ship." Not only was Viper physically powerful, but she was armed with nasty tricks too, from three sets of eyes petrifying the various Afyd's leading them to crumble to stone and halos in mid air. "It's a good thing these things dissolve when they die." Leon would feel bad if the stone bits from the Afyds fell into Alzer and killed someone, well killed a civilian. For now the Warlock formed a mask from his hair as he started exploring the Dungeon, continuously receiving halos from Viper's massacre. For now Leon found what he was looking for. "It's a good thing you guys Ego is so big."
What do people with too much money and too much Ego for their own good do? They build huge towers. And what do people who Like to look down on people build on top of their overgrown status symbols? Luxury pools. Leon looked down as some egotistical little panzie was already in the middle of a pool party with a large number of women gathered together, perhaps a normal person would be more hesitant to make this jump. However Leon had too things going for him, the first was his super human biology, and the second being able to take the form of something far better to take this fall from.
"Good to see those free diving lessons paid off."
Leon recalled Viper, and then he jumped, turning into a snake as he fell through the air. To be Clear Leon could've simply turned his hair suit into a glider or a parachute, though doing so would've involved dealing with Alzer again. No now Leon was just some random animal that had made it's way up to the Tree Tops Dungeon and now had an unceremonious landing. Instinctively Leon flattened his body into a ribbon shape, spread out over a wide area as possible Leon caught the air current and slowed his fall, admittedly it was probably his more flexible body shape that made it easier for him to survive the impact with the water. Then Leon made another discovery, His body was more mobile and flexible in this state, allowing him to use his entire body to push himself through the water and climb onto the deck of the pool, the various scantily clad women had already scattered in fear as the snake jumped from the six story building, landed on a flag pole half way up the building, before jumping for a third time into a tree and landing in human form.
"Now then, where the hell am I?" Leon suspected he would be missing school today.
Erica had been sitting in on a meeting, or rather a dinner that her mother was hosting, across the table from them was the Royal Families chief political opponents at the moment, the Blackmore Matriarchs. Seeing the two women it was easy to see where Leon got his freakish height from, and that Leon still had some growing to do. They seemed indifferent to the food, Erica personally thought food tasted worst after reincarnating though it could just be a byproduct of civilisation going back to the medieval age. Erica's mother had to butter the two witches up in whatever way that they could, the writing was on the wall. Leon was the one to kill the God of the Earth, the Redgraves had been the ones to turn back the army using the Royal Airship, and since Leon destroyed the Love Meter Angelica and Olivia were the only ones that could make the ship work for them.
"I believe it would be prudent to discuss matters between our two families." Mylene took a sip of liquid courage as she broached the conversation. "Specifically so that we can make sure we aren't on opposite sides of a Civil war. No one wants to see Holfort caught in any more pointless battles." Alzer was being quiet, but Rochelle was poking them more often then they could technically afford.
For now having Frampton take the blame for Roland's idiocy was having the intended effect of making Holfort look vastly more competent than what it was to most of the Noble Families, hopefully they could rise to meet their expectations now that Roland wasn't going out of his way to sabotage their entire government. That said following the end of the war they were in a position of weakness and everyone knew it.
"Tell me." Cereza put her fork and knife down and crossed her hands as she looked ahead at Mylene. "How strong do you think our military power is?"
"At our current estimates?" Luxion appeared above Erica's shoulder. "You have a fleet of ships capable of appearing and disappearing to and from another dimension, if the demonstration in Alzer is any indication they would fare with 1 to 10 odds, in your favour. You have several monsters under your command that would take entire squads of standard Armours to defeat, my own would fare roughly three to one on average, again in your favour." Luxion produced several holographic sheets. "Several survey's favour the Blackmore heavily, with access to more resources I could continue to build up our industrial base but I am not sure that I would be able to build something that would ultimately defeat you in a straight up battle."
"And do you think that this applies to the rest of the countries as well." Jeanne added her own two cents as well.
"Yes." Luxion's knowledge of the other countries military strength was limited to the battles fought against them by Holfort.
"Then tell us do you know why we haven't taken over any of these countries yet?" Cereza asked as she got to the meat of the situation.
Mylene could offer some speculation, as the person who has been single-handily running Holfort's government for over a decade now. However she was too polite to suggest 'because it's too much work.'
"I'd rather have a straight answer than idle speculation."
"Which is fair." Cereza just shrugged her shoulders. "Basically: It's too much work." Mylene was too composed to face-plant at that remark. "We're already too busy trying to turn the world back to concern ourselves with managing one country."
"What nonsense do you mean by 'turning the world back!'" Mylene snapped too off set by having her expectations subverted for niceties.
"I was afraid of that." Jeanne stated as she let out a sigh. "Lukaon, your services are needed."
Immediately Mylene's attention was drawn to a fifth figure in the room. A figure that Mylene had no awareness was even there until now, something that she was having a hard time believing, unearthly pale features to the point that he glowed, white pupilless eyes, golden antenna sticking out the side of his head like a crown. This man is not human, not a beast man, she almost called him a Elf but he wasn't, he was too alien of a creature closer to a demon. Mylene instinctively move to call in guards to apprehend/kill him.
"If I wanted to hurt you I would've done so a year ago when I moved into the castle."
"Eh?" Mylene recoiled in shock at the inhuman man's words. "Forgive my late introduction, your Majesty." The alien creature stood up. "I am Lukaon the Fae King."
"So that is what you lot look like." Luxion stated as his eye glowed with intensity.
"Eh?" Mylene was now giving Luxion the same look she gave the Fae King. "Luxion you know this thing?"
"I have been aware that there was something has been living in the capital using magic to tamper with my own and the local Newman's memories." Luxion unfolded his various power tools threateningly. "But to think you had the gall to make yourself at home inside of this very castle!"
"You want to talk to me about gall you miserable Homunculus!?" Lukaon's platinum hair floated into the air as the room vibrated with magical power. "You were the ones who invaded our forest, killed us, harvested us for our magical energy and tried to wipe us out!"
"Do I need to break out the hellgate?" At once the Fairy King calmed his magic down as he sat down in his chair. "Good. Now Lukaon tell me, when did we first meet?" Cereza returned the conversation back on track now.
"That would've been over 13 hundred years ago." Mylene stared ahead as the creature spoke as if he was talking about some irrelevant thing, a look of horror on her features. "We would've been mere children that day, no older than that little girl there." Lukaon indicated Erica who could only look on in shock. "That would have been five hundred years before the world broke if I'm not mistaken." It wasn't an entirely unknown concept, that humans didn't always live on floating islands, that monsters weren't always just as far away as your local grocery store. But telling people that and making them believe it was a tough sell.
"The world was never perfect but it use to be a hell of a lot nicer." Jeanne stated as she shrugged her shoulders.
"I believe you summarised your goals as 'in no particular order, banish the Angels and Demons back to their home dimensions and reduce the mana levels on the surface back down to a tolerable level.'" Luxion voiced his own suspicions as his lens narrowed to a glare.
"That is true. Fighting you people does nothing to resolve that, which is why we're not interested." Cereza shrugged her shoulders like the entire conversation had nothing to do with her.
"You may not have a choice in the matter." Mylene pulled out Roland's Diary as she explained the current climate in Holfort. "Our capital was attacked, the individuals that were responsible for cleaning it up was either your son or those closely associated with him such as his fiances or his subordinates." Luxion produced the Holographic survey again. "As you can see an overwhelming majority of the Noble families of Holfort are in favour of your son, with some even claiming that he should be at the head of a new royal family." Mylene opened up Roland's diary of conquests to some of its earliest pages. "There is however an out for us, thanks to my husband's idiocy." To be more specific those pages referred to the other two women here, Cereza and Jeanne.
"What? Are you upset that we slept with your husband?" Cereza would hardly call what they did sleeping with the man, leaving him tied up with uncomfortable objects buzzing away inside of him for several hours while they raided the treasury.
"I don't have the energy to get angry at every woman my husband slept with and every child he conceived." Which was factually true. "The cusp of the point here is that the time you slept with Roland is enough that he could be Leon's father." Mylene folded her hands together as she stared down the two witches.
"Which by your current system of governance makes Leon a claimant to the throne, and even better a rather competent one at that." Jeanne observed as the realisation settled in.
"I've been making an effort to spread word about these facts throughout influential people of the capital but just to make sure, this isn't going to cause problems with Leon's actual father right?" Mylene didn't need that bag of nightmares too.
"We're Leon's parents." Jeanne stated indicating herself and Cereza. "What you are thinking of as Leon's father is a friend, but that's it. They're not close enough to call them father and son." Well that's that problem taken care of, is what Mylene would like to believe. "On the other hand, I doubt Leon will just happily let you drag him into your schemes, Angelica might be able to convince him to go along with them, if he doesn't win her over first." Jeanne explained as she leaned back in her chair as she looked up at the ceiling.
"Does that mean that Leon has his own ambitions or plans for the future?" So long as their plans weren't completely incompatible then a compromise could be reached.
"It's hard to explain." Cereza tapped her finger as she looked at something far off. "I suppose that if he doesn't awaken then your little scheme will be a good fall back plan."
"Awaken?" Mylene asked sounding confused.
"Humans are the most powerful beings in this world." Lukaon spoke up at this point. "All power originates from Humans, the Angels and Demons are born from your emotions. We Fae make our magic based on your memories. Even the abominations like that orb were created by humans. Radioactive heavy metals, float stone and other materials of the like? The Homunculi created them from your fears, hopes and ambitions. We might be the ones who can use that power, but it is your power. I myself am a Hybrid, my mother was one of the Umbran Clansmen, my father the previous Fae King, thus my own level of power."
"Wait then what do fairies look like?" Mylene suddenly noticed a cup of tea next to her, alongside a tray with a tea set, Mylene took a sip of her tea, it was super sweet just the way she likes it, but Lukewarm, as if she was served it some time ago and had already prepared it to her liking.
"You may consider that a warning." The other guests had their own tea next to them as well. "We fear you, fear your power and what you are capable of with it. Our taking your memories of us is for our own safety, if you keep looking for us then we take far more." Lukaon had spent the past year getting to know the Royal family, he's had quite a few lovely meals with them in that time, he is now certain that he can threaten them into submission. "I believe my business is done here, I shall return to Avalon." And then Lukaon disappeared, or to be more accurate he likely walked away normally but Mylene could tell from her empty cup why she couldn't remember him doing so.
"So what does Leon being Human have to do with his awakening? Or did you explain it already and your friend erased the memory from our minds?" Mylene was annoyed with her surprise Squatter, with luck he really has returned to Avalon forest.
"Before he came here Leon lacked traits that made him 'human.' Like compassion, your little scholarship student hammered that into his mind quite nicely. With time more 'humanity' will be shoved into him, maybe enough that he'll 'become human.'" Cereza smiled as she looked off in the distance, in the direction of Alzer where Leon was.
"And then he'll 'Awaken?'" Mylene asked as she put the pieces together.
"I wonder, do you have any footage of Redgrave city little drone?" Cereza asked smiling nastily at Luxion. "Do you have any footage of the Red and Blue Half-Demon Demon hunters? They awoke there themselves, achieved a level of power and control comparable only to a demon Lord." Cereza giggled to herself, like a parent who was dreaming about her Child's future.
Angelica was in a familiar sight, the inside of the infirmary. Cordelia had come to pick her up, having already dropped Angelica off when she went dungeon diving.
"Assuming nothing happened, I spent thirty minutes getting to the boss. So how long was I out of contact?"
"You arrived here approximately thirty five minutes after you entered the forest." Five minutes, that's how much time it took her to get picked off and her body brought back here to be treated for her injuries. "With all due respect mistress, your entire body was charred... I thought you were dead."
"I may have been, it wouldn't surprise me to learn that the Blackmores have magic to bring back the dead." Angelica stated as she examined her mana.
The Amount of mana Angelica had didn't increase by a heck of a lot if at all, for now Angelica rejoined the others who had taken similar actions as she had, drop into the forest almost on top where their previous scouting told them was the base of operations of the Colossi, and exactly thirty minutes after dropping in enter the boss room.
"On average it took them about 2 to 5 minutes to be brought in here, and an hour before they were released." Cordelia explained looking at the survey she had conducted on the people here.
"Meaning that we're simply too weak." Angelica was disappointed, and excited. "For now we stick with grinding." The others breathed a sigh of relief at that, no one wanted to fight the monsters that had basically insta-killed them. "Save the Orbs for your demons and bring the Halos to the statue in the bar." For now Angelica was going to put her money where her mouth was, literally. Angelica would like nothing more than to grind her way to the top exploring the Dungeon every step of the way as she imagined Adventurers of yore had done before, but she was on a time table, she only had two years to beat all the Collosi and learn how to use the Umbran magics, she wanted to get the basics done and out of the way as soon as possible and thus she returned to the bar.
"Going to use the statue then?" Rodin of course was at the bar once again cleaning up after people.
"You disapprove?" Angelica asked looking at Rodin.
"I'm not the type to mock another's business." Rodin stated bluntly. "Though I do find it foolish to pay for something you can get for free." Angelica looked through the statue again, seeing the basics, the cheapest options the ones she knew she was the closest to reaching, but didn't buy anything.
"I see." Angelica turned to face Rodin. "I'll need a room."
Angelica rented a room from Rodin, she required two things, Privacy and close proximity to the statue. At once the young duchess stripped down, allowing her mana to enter her hair it rose up as she shifted the flow of energy around it. Imbuing mana into hair to manipulate it was one of the most basic Umbran techniques, Leon uses it to create body armour to protect himself and a medium to summon forth his demons both parts and wholes, so Angelica needed to grasp the technique to expand her repertoire of magic. Luckily it was actually very simple, Angelica had access to information on how the technique works, noted the similarities to standard support type magic, and so from there she went to work. The hard part was weaving the fibres of her hair into thread that she then had to weave into cloth to wrap around her body, Angelica didn't expect that it was something Olivia would have a hard time with, that girl manipulates organic matter as easily as she breathes. So Angelica spent much of the day grasping how to turn her hair into clothes.
"Angie are you in there?" Olivia soon knocked on the door Angelica had borrowed.
"Come in." Olivia soon entered the room, joining the half naked Angelica on the floor, Angie had made progressed, for now having settled on a modesty preserving leotard.
"You buy anything from that statue yet?" Olivia asked aware of why Angelica had rented out this room.
"Not yet. It is a good indicator of techniques I'm close to grasping though, case in point." Angie of course was indicating her new 'outfit.' "Have you?"
"... I took a look just out of curiosity, but most of the spells that it's shown me are... pretty disturbing." Well, Olivia's power set was just like that unfortunately. Olivia could already make a person's body turn against itself forcing apart bones or rupturing blood vessels, that didn't even touch upon her blatant mind control power. Angelica didn't even want to know what that taken to it's most horrific extreme was like.
"Come on it's time for supper." Thus Angelica put her clothes back on as Olivia led her back to the bar's main room. "Are there any other spells that you're going to try out from the statue?" The two of them were splitting a pizza and the sound of soft Jazz music was going through the air. Angelica smiled knowingly at Olivia and blinked, and suddenly the entire bar went silent, Olivia was just about to ask Rodin about the music but no words came out of her mouth, seeing Olivia's confusion Angelica silently laughed as she cancelled her spell. "How'd you do that!?"
"Hertrude's axe turns heat into sound, after listening to it play for a while it seems that I have some idea how it works. I'm probably not going to be using magic to play an orchestra for a while yet but I'm reasonably sure that I can do the opposite of turning the sound back into heat." Angelica looked pretty proud of her achievement though Olivia was thinking something different right now. "I remember that one of the bosses that Leon said might be a Colossi uses sound." Olivia pulled out her notebook and read through the contents. Angelica smiled seeing the contents of the page in question.
"Cordelia, I'm going back into the dungeon, I'll need to employ the use of a Gopher for the evening." Angelica's plan to get materials out of the dungeon was pretty simple. In simple terms, she'll hire a Gopher, or more accurately one of her followers from school, to carry all the materials that she and Olivia earned by hunting monsters and transport them back to the capital while she and Olivia enters the boss room. Thus on this day two weeks into the school Year Angelica and Olivia had a plan in place to defeat their first Colossi, the Demon Princess of Avalon Baal Zebul.
Review Section:
Guest: I simple said that all that was found in the Alleyway was a bloody smear, no body.
RonaldM40196867: With the exception of 2, most of the games have bits to them that I appreciate in their own way. DMC 1 kicked things off, 3 defined most of the gameplay of the series, 4 introduced Nero which holds a special place in my heart, 5 is peak though.
RedRat8: Rodin is his surrogate father, I would call Dante a sperm donor but he doesn't even have that much going for him.