Biggest thanks for Ace-Triad for fixing my SPAG problems, and Angel Wraith for beta-reading the chapter, and providing feed backs.
As always, I will blabber some more in my end note.
Cross posted on AO3, for anyone who prefer that site.
Astaroth grits his teeth at how the situation has completely gotten out of hand. Much like The Burning Legion, his enemies aren't brilliant, but they are starting to overwhelm his well laid plan with numbers alone. One after another, he's being beset by these selfish and short sighted natives for no good reasons at all. Why did they all decide to oppose him? Their own pettiness should make it that they would spend time fighting, or at least backstabbing each other, allowing him to take down and conquer those who resist him one by one. And the situation even went exactly like he predicted at first. Those animal men have thousands of years of grudge against the pure human, so only the ones who followed the Shield 'Hero' came to this battle. Those from the south east are embroiled in their own civil war and are still more interested in killing each other than fighting this giant turtle. And the other human nation to the north east... They acted predictably as always. Even after the hit on their cities, military bases and that 'hero' training school they had, the nobility were still more interested in holding onto their dwindling power and chose not to send an army forth.
But then the situation has begun to slowly, but surely slip away from his control. The Melromarc army, one he considers the weakest of all the major power of these natives, proved to be much more resilient than he anticipated. These natives haven't even committed all of their forces, yet they are already overwhelming the troops he deployed himself, especially with the aid of their more powerful fighters. Granted, the troops he has now are what he was able to quickly train up as soon as possible after arriving and already taken over part of Malach. And worse, they started getting aids from other locals. His real elite forces have mostly been depleted fighting The Burning Legion invading his own world after all. But the natives were still able to push him into a corner.The Hammer 'Hero', a naive fool who decided to make himself the enemy of this world by openly declaring aggression on all its established social elites, has come to fight him with the rebels, clearly too misguided to realize both of them have the same goal of toppling the current, (badly) ruling elites and should work together, forcing him to spring his biggest trap by using his mirror assisted dimensional magic to transfer a large chunk of earth and bedrock into the sky. Creating a giant fissure in the path of these natives' charging vanguard units, and using the transferred earth to bury the rest of their troops. It would have worked perfectly, even taken into account of that Faubley meta mage stepping in to help the Melromarc natives.
And then, all the enemies he tried to bury had somehow survived. The elder princess of Melromarc made a comment about how some demigod has stepped in and wrangled the best possible outcome for them. And he has to agree with her. Because there's no way they would get such good luck in a sea of probabilities. He is willing to bet that the demigod has suffered some huge blowback from this stunt... because so was he when he used his ability to set his final trap. And now, he has to admit that things are NOT going according to his plan. With that mass scale earth transport he did, he can't use anymore of his dimensional magic even with the help of the damn mirror, not after a very long rest. He can still make small portals connecting back to Malach thanks to somethings precaution he set before starting this campaign into the world of Medea. But they are nothing more than small escape routes he prepared for himself, and his most valuable subordinates. Not even able to bring more reinforcements from the world of Malach to help him continue this current, doomed campaign. And even if he can, the better question would have been if the move would even be worth the cost.
Chapter 52: Sore Loser
"What is wrong, my lord? Why have you grown quiet all of sudden? Perhaps you were surprised at how much aid we are getting from the other part of the world? Those who should either be indifferent towards our plight, or perhaps would use the opportunity to stab us in the back?" The old former king of Melromarc still dares to act patronizing towards him, having apparently fully regained his composure from good luck that had nothing to do with his own actions.
"Don't dare to act so smug, you puny little old man. You did not beat me on your own." Astaroth hisses back at the commander of the native army. The old man was competent, especially with how composed he was throughout the entire battle. But he was not some brilliant strategist who weaved an elaborate plan to wrestle impossible victory from the jaw of defeat like his reputation precedes himself. In fact, the old man barely did anything noticeable at all aside from baiting him into attacking the native heroes when they were in fact a decoy meant to draw away attention. His commanders and unexpected allies were much more instrumental in the entire war. Even discounting all the unaccounted for help he had at the very end, the commanders of his vanguard army did much more than he did. Which makes his current act of arrogance way more annoying to Astaroth: He's being talked down to, lectured by an out of prime old man who didn't do anything. "You would have been the loser if the demigod didn't manipulate the probability of this war entirely to your favor."
"I concede your point, Lord Astaroth. I would have lost this battle if I had no help at the end. Your trap of using your dimensional magic to both create a chasm into the ground, while dropping a mountain worth of dirt onto my army is something I can't have expected, or to plan for." To Astaroth's slight surprise, the old man actually accepted his critique. With much more grace than the demon king expected from a stubborn old man. But it's apparently nothing more than further condescension as he continues. " Yet... have you considered why I am getting all this help? When in fact, most of the powerful players of this world are also my rivals?"
"I expect you will say something like my own practical way at conducting a war was simply too amoral for all of your standards. And everyone with any sense of decency would oppose me out of principle. But go ahead. Surprise me if you can." Astaroth's sense of anger made him smirk back at the old man instead, somewhat genuine at what he might say.
"Based on what I learn, you made two fatal mistakes coming after us, Lord Astaroth." The old man commander of the native holds up one of his fingers from his hand. "First. Based on the Tome Hero of Malach. You were not a native to the world of Malach, you were also an invader from another world to the Malach native like the Tome Hero is to us. And you still had enemies at your new home front when you decided to open another portal to our world, essentially opening up a second front for yourself willingly. Perhaps you thought our world is easy picking with how divided we are. Or perhaps you think awakening, and taking our Guardian Beast would give you an unique advantage. Both might be true. But you can not dedicate all of your resources on this invasion of our world when you still have enemies left in the world of Malach, ready to take advantage of you."
"What's going on in Malach is not your concern." Astaroth squints his eyes, and brushes away the old man's comment. But privately, he has to admit the validity of his opponent's words. His foundation in Malach, the one he built on top of both the left over power from both the previous Mirror 'Hero' and Book 'Hero' he triumphed over is not as steadfast as he would like. And he is constantly facing challenges from his biggest opponent, the Katana Hero. That man was a complete fool and an uncultured brute, but he is also incredibly strong which makes for a dangerous combination. And that's part of the reason why he decided to invade this new world. To seek outside help that would allow him to triumph over the Katana Hero.
"And there lies your second, and arguably bigger fatal mistake, Lord Astaroth: You really, REALLY pissed EVERYONEoff. Your tactic of sending your advance raider units, and later, your plague zombies through your mirror portal was admittedly a good strategy to both cause as much damage with little loss to yourself, and a good intimidation tactic. One which we can hardly match due to your exotic dimensional manipulation. To slowly bleed all of us dry with thousands of cuts." The old man's voice has a hint of genuine respect when recounting his past actions, but it's quickly changed to anger mixed with contempt. "But you went too far. You targeted civilians when they should be spared in such engagements. You even targeted children who still attend school. If you have established your dominance in conventional warfare against us, maybe all of these would help you build a reputation of fear among us. Making those in power genuinely afraid of you, intimidating them into cowering before you. But you didn't. So all of your actions fueled everyone's rage, making everyone who doesn't have their own goals that conflict with fighting you into opposing you instead. In your act of only focusing on short term gain, you have played yourself in long term loss."
Astaroth waves away the mirror in front of him. No longer has any intention to waste time playing word puzzles with the natives. He quickly thinks if there's a way to still turn the battle around when he notices something else. At the edge of the chasm where he caught the native host's vanguard in his massive sinkhole... people are rising up the cliff, not as undead creatures summoned by the Spirit Tortoise as he expected. But alive people, riding atop the backs of those two legged birds and raptors. So, whoever manipulated fate hasn't forgotten those who fell into the chasm as well, not only had they survived just like those Astaroth intended to bury alive, they somehow had the ability to climb out of the pitfall on their own. And they continued their fierce assault on Astaroth's own men, sending everyone into renewed panic. This is the point where he recognizes that the battle has truly concluded. He's more used to seeing his enemies in this state, but he also saw it enough to know all there is left to do is for him to cut his losses and preserve what he can to fight another day.
He looked at Eve next. "Come back, Eve. We are wasting too much resources on this doomed world. Now with the evidence of earthbound demigods stepping into the battle, it's no longer feasible to continue this campaign."
Eve silently stares at him for a few moments before asking. "What about our officers still engaged in battle with our enemies? Our troops we trained and armed? They would be invaluable when we eventually fight The Burning Legion."
"This battle has turned into a mess. It'll cost less to replace these losses than trying to pull them out. I'll grab who I can with my power. The rest shall cover our retreat." The demon king answers back without missing a beat. He's much more used to being on the winning side of a battle at the end, seeing his own enemy making a hasty retreat leaving men behind to save their own lives. But unlike those who fled before him, he has something they don't.
The Guardian Beast of the world under his control. He doesn't even need to do anything, only to release the mind hold he has over the beast. And its instinct would do the rest of the work for him. So when Eve, and the rest of his officers and elite came back through his mirror, he did exactly that. The last thing Lord Astaroth heard from the world of Medea before he stepped through his mirror back to his base in Malach is the roaring of the Spirit Tortoise. And he knew with grim satisfaction that his enemy would suffer much more loss than he did on this day even if they successfully pushed him back.
Kyo claws his way out of the dirt he's buried under and takes a hard, deep breath. He immediately regretted his action as he ended up inhaling a large cloud of dust, and he started to sneeze uncontrollably. Deep down, the Tome Hero of Malach cursed Astaroth and insulted his entire family tree once again. To think of him, one of the greatest geniuses to ever been born to Malach, and a king... reduced to hiding in a literal hole in the ground in order to survive. He feels a hand on his back, helpfully hammering him to have him cough out the dust in his lung. The Tome Hero of Malach looks back, and sees the face of the man he dragged into the ground beside him. His hair isn't the same vibrant shade of blue with all the dirt, the pebbles, and roots sticking on and out, but the man was surprisingly in good spirits. "I am truly indebted to you, Lord Book Hero. If you didn't pull me into the ground, I probably wouldn't have survived the fall of all that dirt."
"Bah. I didn't do it for you. I thought I needed someone to help dig myself out, and you were standing closest to me." Kyo spits out to hide his sense of shame, and worse. Having to admit that he needed someone's help. As the Tome Hero and one of the most accomplished mages, he's more used to his magic, able to deal with any problem he encounters. And failing that... he was never short of those who would help him for no return being the ruler of his own land. Everything changed when that blasted demon king Astaroth arrived in his world, and destroyed the land he ruled over. And worse, chasing after him to this world has set his own level to zero, so he had to actually conserve his magic rather than brute force everything. He really didn't like to rely on other people, or admit he needed to. But he's not going to be so petty to deny the fact.
"Lord Seliph! You are alive too!" The excited voice takes Kyo's attention away from the blue haired knight. And he noticed there's way more people who survived the fall of that mountain load of dirt portaled over by Astaroth. He expected maybe one or two extremely lucky ones to have crawled out of the debris field alongside himself and Seliph (so that's the blue haired knight's name), but as he looks around, the Tome Hero notices dozens upon dozens of men... maybe even hundredth. He never bothered to remember any of their faces, but it really started to look like everyone around himself and Seliph had managed to crawl out of the dirt that crushed on top of them and buried them alive. And not only the men, their mounts also burrow out of the dirt like a group of mole rats. Which could only mean one thing.
"Some god has intervened and manipulated the probability for everyone to help all of you plebeians survive!" Kyo easily came to the only reasonable explanation. He doesn't know if the other host of the Melromarc army got the same treatment, but he suddenly has a very bad feeling regardless. If only those around him survived, it means Astaroth is free to come after them to finish the job, and he'll have to start running fast if he wants to live and fight Astaroth another day to get his revenge. But if all of the Melromarc hosts survived thanks to some divine intervention... a two-faced coward like Astaroth would immediately turn tail and run. Not wanting to fight head to head against a foe who actually had the chance to defeat him.
The sudden crazed roar of the Spirit Tortoise, and how it's starting to move south towards them is a good indication of what happened. Once again, Kyo grits his teeth at what Astaroth did. The little cowardly shit was no doubt monitoring the whole situation with his vassal mirror enhanced dimensional magic, and he turned his tail and ran at the first sight of his possible loss. Which means he crossed over to this other world, resetting his level for nothing. And he can hear the shuffling of people's legs all around him. The Tome Hero of Malach looks back, and sees all the dirt-covered knights looking unsteady, or scared. Some of them are even backing off against the moving giant subconsciously.
"Steadfast, men! We are the elite knights of House Chalphy. Our vassals break their backs to provide for us, so we can spend all year long training for the art of war. If we back down from our enemy, or turn our backs and run against our enemy, there will be no one left to protect them, or our own families!" Seliph's attempt at rallying the knights around him was only marginally helpful. It's to be expected. There's only so much, and so little words could do when facing an enemy that's not only much stronger than you, it's also so much larger than you to make a fully grown man feel like an ant.
This is why Kyo doesn't like to work with other people, because of their unpredictability. He could only control himself fully, and he would much rather spend time with things that would obey his commands without question... or find ways to make his subordinate obey without question. But these lamentations won't help making his current situation better. With his reduction in power, he can't simply tear a hole into reality, or safely bring himself back to Malach, so he's stuck with these natives in Melromarc. And knowledge is the only thing he can provide with them. "Hold yourselves, fools! The Guardian Beast is meant to be the final failsafe for all the Hero Worlds no matter what form they take. And their functions are meant to be the same: Collecting souls from the world when the heroes falter when their world barrier is breached, and use this energy to repair the world barrier. That means they'll try to chase down the largest group of souls. Those of you who can ride, or run fast. Go spread words all around different groups. Have everyone scatter based on their group and move around to confuse it. And leave fighting this Guardian Beast to the heavy hitters. If you try to charge up to it without being strong enough, you'll just get devoured and make it stronger."
The green armor clad knights turn to look at their leader, the blue-haired Seliph. Because of course, a collection of brainless idiots would not believe the words from the one who knew what's happening. Thankfully, their leader immediately nods back to his men and puts in a word of trust in Kyo. "Listen to what Lord Kyo said. He tried to save my life when the Mirror Demon threw that mountain at us. I'm sure he's trustworthy."
The green-armored knights quickly move to follow their leader's order. They run to their mounts, rearranging them into a group ready to distract the Spirit Tortoise, or detach themselves from the larger group to act as messengers like Kyo tells them to. Seliph jumps onto his steed, and then casts a questioning look over at Kyo. "Lord Kyo. I noticed that you weren't riding when you entered battle. Do you have an aversion to riding?"
"What? I'm not afraid of riding, damnit! Who told you I'm afraid of riding?!" The indignity Kyo faced at Seliph's accusation makes him immediately blurted out in the most excessive way possible. The blue-haired knight stares at him with silence as the Tome Hero of Malach slowly realizes that he had acted too soon and too over the top, so now there's no way for him to take back his words or play it off like a joke.
"Regardless, I think you have to ride with us, my lord. For you'll surely perish on foot when we'll hardly out run a mountain sized leviathan monster on our steed. I'll make sure you are safe." The blue-haired knight didn't leave Kyo any more time, or room for objection or comment. He reaches out with his arm, grabs Kyo by the collar to pick him up, and throws him onto the saddle. Kyo gives out a few struggles on principle, but he knows Seliph is right. He has no more magical reserve left to cast any kind of haste spell to increase his speed, and invigorating spells to make sure he doesn't exhaust himself running. If only his level wasn't reset! Kyo files his thoughts away as more grudges he'll have to eventually settle with Astaroth.
"Out of the frying pan, and into the fire..." Naofumi mumbles under his breath, as he glares at the giant turtle stepping toward south. Intelligently, he knew this would happen, of course. If they manage to beat the Mirror Hero, they would still have to go back to their original goal of killing the giant turtle. But it still makes him feel like they wasted so much time and effort fighting against Astaroth and his subordinates. Now that those powerful fighters have all retreated through the mirrors, they need to chase down the giant turtle and hopefully take it down. Behind him, he hears the roaring of the dragons and squeaking of a griffin. Not too long after, the two dragon aspect takes to the sky alongside the griffin queen raised by Tact. They have been hunkering down with the rest of them on the ground. Or more specifically, hiding from the Mirror Demon in case he finds ways to take them out like Gaelion. Now that the biggest threat had turned tail and ran after releasing the giant kaiju turtle, they could safely take to the sky and fight their target.
"Master Shield Hero, we are ready to charge and give the Mirror Demon's remnant forces one last charge." Janny stops right besides him, seemingly waiting for his official command, before she'll charge out with the rest of the demi-human knights Pope Balmus left for him. Except he has nothing to say at this moment. It might be their victory, but it certainly didn't feel good. They didn't beat Astaroth, or the elite fighters he sent out to fight them. They simply left on their own through his mirrors, which tells Naofumi that they probably ran back to the world they came from before setting the Spirit Tortoise loose. There'll be no sense of triumph after this fight is done when they can't even finish this new enemy to make sure he doesn't come after this world again. But regardless, they'll have to do their job and bring the Spirit Tortoise down before it reaches the main army, or one of the population centers.
"Finish them." Wild roar comes from both the Siltvelt army, and the Sons of Biscas fighting alongside him. They charge forward like crazed and starving animals, screaming his name, and the late Pope Biscas. Whatever was left of Astaroth's army couldn't put up any resistance when their master had already escaped, leaving them to die in this new world they attempted to invade. This becomes especially true when a dozen or so remnants of Astaroth's fighters detached themselves away from their group, and all of sudden the remaining soldiers have completely turned into a mess trying to run every direction, or even kneeling down to beg for mercy. They didn't get any from the Siltvelt raiders, or the Sons of Biscas.
Naofumi turns an accusing eye to Nazgrel, who took over commanding the raiders after Kael'thas and his fellow bird shifters into the sky. Rather than looking ashamed or even sheepish, the large boarman shakes his head to him. "My men have been suppressed by our enemy's cannons and their arrows for a long time, and they need to release their stress or their nerves might break. Slaughtering these invaders is the best way. Plus with the Spirit Tortoise in the distance, we can't spare any able-bodied men to look after the prisoners. If they escape, they'll turn to banditry. So killing them all is the best option for us."
Naofumi doesn't think Nazgrel, or his raiders, are doing the right thing. But it wasn't only him. The Sons of Biscas are slaughtering the straggling troops of Astaroth too. So once again, he stays silent and lets the killing happen. As some of the raiders get close and surround the dozen riders who detached themselves from Astaroth's remnant army, one in the middle of them holds his arms up and begins to scream in a crying tone. "WAIT! Spare me! I'm not going to die for that two-faced coward! I'm his officer, I'll tell you everything I know!"
"Spare that guy." Naofumi points his finger at the self-proclaimed officer of Astaroth. Nazgrel nods, and charges forward from beside Naofumi while barking orders at his subordinates. The raiders quickly ran up to the officer, hacking down his escorts and slapped him down from his steed. One of them throws a net over him, wrapping him up tighter than a mummy before tossing him onto the back of his wolf like a sack of potatoes. This pretty much marks the end of Astaroth's army, at least from their side, which means they can finally work on the giant turtle.
"Naofumi-sama! Remember we'll need to destroy the turtle's head and heart at the same time to kill it." He turns his attention to the side, where his self-proclaimed biggest fan caught up with him. "I know you'll want to keep Raphtalia safe and in the back, and Bit- Malty is with her father right now. But don't worry! I'm here to take their place as your sword!"
Naofumi weighs over the situation inside of his head, wondering what he should say to the Throwing Weapon Hero. He knew it was wrong to lead the young man on, giving him the expectation of trusting in him when he personally felt nothing but annoyance and irritation at his mule-like stubbornness. But like Nazgrel said, they are also fighting a giant monster who could kill most of the world to build up some barrier. So in the end, he settles for something more ambiguous. "...I'll rely on you to attack."
The young man's expression immediately lit up, like he is high on sugar or some other more restrictive substance. At least there shouldn't be a problem of him tossing his attack towards the wrong target when the enemy this time is tall and wide enough as a mountain. He looks to the side, and sees Whip Hero and his followers riding up to him. Dio also comes back, no longer a giant, and some kind of scraps seems to be falling down the lines between his fingers. "Is everyone ready to fight the turtle?"
"Watch who you are talking to, amateur. I have years of experience at being a hero compared to you." Tact hisses back at him, but after a glare shooting at him from Dio, the Whip Hero follows after the Gauntlet Hero as they march towards the giant turtle, mumbling under his breath all the while, probably complaining about something.
"What's our plan, Naofumi?" He turns his head, and sees Motoyasu and his companions and filorial children running up to him. All of them looked expectantly at him, probably looking for him to come up with a plan. It's a shame that he hasn't figured it out any more than they did. He pushes one of his filorial children forward, and the girl turns into a giant bird within a puff of smoke. "Get on. We can talk while we ride."
"Sato said we need to destroy the turtle's head and heart. Easier said than done, since its head is large as a castle and its heart is probably around the same size. Regardless, that means we'll have to get inside its body somehow." Naofumi's mind works on what resembles a plan, all the while doing his best to run after Dio and Tact's group. He didn't get on Motoyasu's children, giving a pat on his own waist instead. His three Yuzus disconnect from his belt, and combine together into the form of a rubbery looking raptor. "We'll have to make a gash deep enough into its body to get in. I... haven't figured out how we can do this yet."
"Right! I was afraid you were going to say something like we'll crawl in through its mouth. Which is... kind of gross if you think about it." Katarina shudders even as she jumps onto Kou's back. The boy filorial was apparently fit enough to let Katarina ride him now after some rest. Although he probably won't be able to use that ritual magic with his siblings like earlier.
Naofumi thinks over Katarina's suggestion. He has to admit that it had some merit. "I suppose that works. Since we want to get into the turtle's body. Although if it's like a human or a real turtle... its heart won't be inside its stomach. And we'll have to cut through its body after we get into its mouth and down its throat. And we probably want to stay outside of its stomach since we don't want to get digested... That actually reminds me. Does a Guardian Beast eat, and digest its food? Since it spends most of the time sealed away. Even if we assume it's like hibernation for them, wouldn't they still need a lot of energy to move around with the size of their body if they want to start collecting souls to build that barrier?"
Motoyasu simply looks lost, like Naofumi's question completely flies over his head. Katarina and Bertia look at each other with puzzled expressions before they turn back to Naofumi and shrug their shoulders. For a brief moment, Naofumi simply assumed that he asked another dumb question till someone walks through them. "Oh, you have no need to worry about these questions, Shield Hero. I'll be taking care of the Spirit Tortoise for you."
Naofumi looks at the direction the voice came from, morbidly curious on who was the speaker. It was definitely a man, someone young too. But he spoke with a foregone conclusion like the giant turtle in their eyes was nothing more than a bug - a dead bug. It turns out to be a man dressed in priestly robes, with dark hair and a pair of fluffy tanuki ears atop of his head just like Raphtalia. Seemingly to notice Naofumi's gaze, he smirks back before resuming his walk towards the turtle once again. The tanuki boy's hands glowing with the golden light of miracle. Someone who has some hidden trump card similar to 'Just Minato'? That he thinks even that mountain sized turtle isn't a real threat? The boy seems to enjoy the attention, as he smirks back to them once again and remarks. "All of you might be heroes of weapons, but I'm something of a Hero of Healing."
"He's that creepy priest from the Sons of Biscas I told you about, my thane." Yatsuhashi helpfully reminds Naofumi, and he remembers his bodyguard talking about this freakish looking raccoon boy who they met while marching north towards him. What did his bodyguard say he did that scared everyone alongside him? Something about using magic to melt down Astaroth's wolf raiders into blood and drinking them up? It does sound very creepy even in the spoken word, and he wonders if he'll try to do the same to the giant turtle.
Well... it's not like he hasn't done something freakish, or downright despicable since he was summoned. And if this boy could take care of the giant turtle like he said, they might as well let him. As he points both of his opened up palms at the turtle almost like he's trying to strangle the giant's neck from afar, he explains. "The reason these Guardian Beasts are so hard to kill is because of their powerful regeneration ability. You can think of it as they have built-in healing magic. But here's the thing about healing magic... too much of it could overwhelm a creature and damage it instead. So what do you think would happen if I use my powerful healing ability on top of the Spirit Tortoise's already powerful healing ability?"
Naofumi nods his head along. He did hear something similar from Malty from a pretty long time ago, although he's a bit comprehensive about taking it at face value. The turtle is thousands, maybe even tens of thousands times larger than a fully grown human. Would that mean their capacity at taking healing magic is that many times stronger? Does the young man think his magic is so powerful, he can overwhelm a kaiju sized monster? Naofumi quickly gets his answer when the young man's smirk freezes on his face, and it suddenly begins to turn into something more akin to shocked fear. "NO! Wait, something is-"
For the lack of better words, the young man's body begins to shrink down under his own skin, making his previously smooth skin look wrinkled. He tries to pull his hand back, like he's struggling at some invisible thing that's tugging at his own hands to no avail, and pretty soon the young man resembles a dried-up husk of skin wrapped around bones. He falls onto the ground, his legs no longer able to support his now meager weight. Naofumi quickly jumps off his Yuzu combined raptor and runs up to the young man, checking on him and realizes he's still alive even if barely. He's still drawing in ragged breaths. He's about to cast a healing spell onto the raccoon priest to save his life when his hand is suddenly grabbed by someone. He looks to the side, and sees Dio's cold, hardened face.
"Fool. A Guardian Beast was created as the last failsafe to protect this world in case everything else already failed. Trying to cut corners and destroy it with some exploit would most likely get yourself badly hurt, if not flat out killed." Dio casts a look of utter contempt at the now dried up raccoon boy as he looks at Naofumi next. "Leave him be if you don't want to risk suffering the same fate. By casting a powerful healing spell, the fool connected his own magic to the Spirit Tortoise, allowing the Guardian Beast to directly absorb all of his life essence. Feed him a potion if you worry about him, but don't try to heal him."
"White tiger boy, you are also a student of that old crow Ravana, aren't you? Has she taught you the advanced form of this technique?" Granny takes a look at Dio. As he nods back at her, she wordlessly jumps onto his shoulder and stands on top of him. "Okay. Use your [Dynamax] form together with me. Let's remind the world why the Hengen Musou style was known as the strongest martial style."
"[DYNAMAX]." Dio didn't waste any time, or breath to say something else. A burning white aura appears around his body, as his muscles tense from his effort as his body begins to grow like previously. But this time, something looks different from before as meaty bumps begin to appear behind his back. They grew together with his body, splitting into a hundred arms sprouting from his back, until the Gauntlet Hero stood over twenty times his normal height, with a hundred hands and arms coming out from behind like a godly figure from Buddhist mythology.
"Well, what are you waiting for? Better do your job, and protect us the best you could." Tact's voice comes to Naofumi from behind. But it sounds like the Whip Hero is looming over his head. For a brief moment, Naofumi wonders if he also grew to giant size like Dio (since Granny did say he was her student so he's using the same martial style). He looks behind, and sees Tact is riding a nine-headed snake, and realizes he's using the same technique he used against Kumoko when they were fighting the Fourth Wave at Cal Mira Island. Of course, when he can turn his whip into a mimic multi-headed snake, he can ride on it too. With two more giants (although significantly smaller than the kaiju turtle they are going to fight) on their side, they begin to charge at the giant turtle behind Dio and Tact.
Even from a distance, Naofumi can see a bundle of tentacle-like vines suddenly burst out of the ground in the distance, right in front of the turtle's path. They try to wrap around its frontal, left leg, to hold it in place rather than trying to do something to cause damage to the turtle. The surface of its bark has a pale glow to them, similar to the vines of Yggdrasil, and he knows that it's Bed-chan coming to help them once again. She's still not as strong as the kaiju-sized turtle, as it pulls her many vines up from the ground, or snapping some of them in multiple pieces with every step. But more of her vines keep coming out of the ground, and it does cause the turtle to slow down with every step to not tip over. Thanks to her effort to slow it down, Dio and Tact are slowly gaining distance on the giant turtle, while the Melromarc army begins to get away.
As they run closer and closer to the body of the moving turtle, they can see small buds dropping down from its body. At first, Naofumi wonders if they are chunks of soil or rocks being chipped down from the mountain it's carrying on its back. But then, the buds on the ground began to twitch, and then crawl or shamble toward them and he realizes they are undead creatures. The left behind remains of creatures whose souls were harvested by the turtle. Some of these dead bodies look relatively fresh, aside from the twisted forms they take after falling down onto the ground. Others are dried up husks, or merely bones connected by the same death energy they witnessed at Eclair's former home. He realized that either the turtle, or the Mirror Demon commanded it to dig up whatever burial ground around Stormwind.
Both Dio and Tact simply tramples over the undead creatures rushing at them, not bothering to waste any energy to fire any attacks at them, or stay behind to clear them up. Obviously the kaiju-sized turtle is the more important target for the two of them. The Sons of Biscas form up around Naofumi, and the Siltvelt raiders lineup at the two sides of them, ready to charge out and cut them down from the side once the demi-human knights engage the undead creatures. Naofumi focuses his mind, and throws his hand forward. Calling out the Chief God's miracle in an attempt to banish the undead horde released by the turtle just like he did the last time. But to his surprise, their movement slows down, some of them even trip onto the ground. But they continue coming at them even as they crawl on the floor.
"The death energy around the Spirit Tortoise is too thick, Lord Shield Hero. Save your strength. We'll have to 'banish' them the old fashioned way!" The man dressed as a priest among the Sons of Biscas looks back and shouts at Naofumi, and he vaguely remembers the man's name was Biscas Cain, or 'Little Biscas' as he is known among his fellow demi-human knights. This seems to be an explicit order to Kyoya, as the heavy armor wearing black knight summoned his blue colored hard light coating over his sword, charges out, and begins to cut a path of broken body parts and bone fragments exactly like the last time. Naofumi did notice how even after the undead creatures are broken to bits by the sole surviving champion of the Useless Goddess, they are still wiggling towards them like some kind of bugs. Their behavior reminds him of the necromorph from the Dead Space series more than the somewhat sentient undead creatures they faced at Eclair's ancient home.
"Be careful with these undead. They'll continue coming up to you even after you hack them down. You have to grind them down to paste, crush them into dust. Motoyasu, cover me! I'm bringing my saiga out now!" Naofumi casts off the physical form of his shield, and begins to charge his [Crown Shield] once again. If the undead creatures are more like necromorphs, he's going to need the ability to deal damage to grind them down. Plus Astaroth had (supposedly) already ran away with his most loyal lackeys so they are at the last stretch of the battle. The heavy flail form of his [Crown Shield] is what he needs right now.
"Got it! Katarina, Bertia. LET'S GO!" Motoyasu runs to the front of their formation with his two female companions by his sides, and his filorials right behind him. Together, they act like a boulder in the middle of a rapid stream, letting the wave of necromorphs crash, and then break upon them. Much further ahead of them, Dio and Tact have both joined the battle against the kaiju turtle. Dio balls up both of his fists, and hits the turtle's leg together with the hundred arms Granny grew out of his back. The same leg that Bed-Chan is still doing her best to hold back. Their effort seems to have genuine effect, as the turtle trips down, and falls forward. Its head lowered onto the ground, giving Tact's giant hydra construct the chance to lunge forward and bite down onto its head. Naofumi isn't sure how much actual damage he did with the attack, but the turtle did let out a pained groan. So he assumes it did something. But it's also clearly not enough to overcome its regeneration ability.
"Stop fucking around, damn it! We'll hold the turtle in place, you need to rip it open to let someone get to its heart!" Dio's angry roar booms out from the middle of his gigantic sized body rather than where his mouth is. So his giant body is also a construct, and he didn't actually grow to giant size. Naofumi can't hear Tact's reply from where he is standing, but the nine snakeheads Tact is commanding stop biting at the turtle's head and begin to go after its neck, trying to rip it open. Flesh and dark bile splash from where they tore into, but Naofumi and probably nobody else expected what came out of the turtle's flesh once Tact tore its neck open. Dark, purple colored vines with thorny spikes grow out from its open wound, as they begin to wildly and violently thrashing around, even knocking the Whip Hero flying away from his snake construct.
End Note:
While Aultcray's critic towards Astaroth in this chapter is aimed more specifically at his own action, it's also me using the mouth of a character in my own story (Aultcray this time) to critic a fictional/real life trend that really annoys me. This time, the hyper cyical, self-serving, often downright underhanded and shameless hedonist of a main character that tries to justify their own action as being practical. Particularly the kind who rules over their own faction rather than being the lead of a small skirmish party. Which by this definition, technically doesn't include canon Rising Naofumi even if he check most of the same boxes since even if he later gets his own faction, he never truly and actively rule or lead it and it's more of just being there to give him support and try to build him up as some kind of a badass.
The one major downside of this kind of character the author often ignore either because they genuinely don't know better and believed this kind of character is some ground breaking new horrizon, (Which they are NOT, because this kind of character long existed in ancient time with Cao Cao, and Sima Yi from Romancing of the Three Kingdoms being the prime example... and yeah, their historical counterpart was actually even more so than the fictional part from the romanticized story) or because they don't want to mention it to shill for the main character they write about. One thing in particular is in spite of how shameless and underhanded they always act, their opponents always get surprised when they pull off another shamelessly underhanded act that breaks every single unwritten rule the other major players all keep. And of course, they are never actually hurt because of it.
Of course, here Astaroth gets a major boot in his behind when practically everyone who has beef with him who can actually make it to the battle basically came to fight him. Not because they actually want to work together as some united front. But simply because Astaroth collectively pissed off all of them that much, they decided to put down whatever grudge they have against each other to put down this rule breaking upstart.
Speaking of which... hopefully I still made Kyo acting somewhat like Kyo even if he is now a tentative ally to the main cast simply because he hated Astaroth more than whatever personal ambition he originally have.