Hello everyone,
Sorry for the late entry. Long story short, my computer broke, so I sent it to get repaired. They wanted to charge me MORE than what I paid for the computer. So I had to wait a week for them to ship the computer back, pick it up, buy a new computer, and have them take a week (because of the holidays) to transfer the data from my old laptop to my new one…except the new laptop was a used one whose screen stopped working the day I brought it back and due to work, I couldn't return it until a whole two weeks later. I went to buy a new, hopefully, more durable laptop, but you guessed it, they were out of stock, so I had to wait weeks with my old laptop being too busted to open or close properly and the screen kept trying to pop out due to being damaged by having eight children between the ages of four and twelve running around the same five-room house and getting into my stuff during Thanksgiving.
Gotta love family, am I right?
Anyway, as an apology, I made an extra-large chapter. That fixes everything, right?
"Talking"
Thoughts
'Mental Communication or using a magic item'
[Debuffs]
Skills/Systems
Chapter 20 – Knight and Dom
May 24, 2044
Sacred Blazer, Sol BlawnD Dragon
Sol, or Yang Xiao Long as her closest friends know her, was having a rather odd, but pleasant day.
"You should have seen the look on your face!" a woman with white hair said next to her. "Especially when he hit you with that wave of forest!"
She couldn't help but laugh when the woman planned back the recording.
"If he wanted me to leaf, he could have just asked," Sol replied with her signature comedy gold.
The woman for her part burst out in a snorting laughter.
It was so refreshing to hear someone get her amazing sense of humor. Usually, only her, her dad, and sometimes her little sister could appreciate its greatness.
"He really tried to ring us dry in that fight." She punned again, causing the woman in her black cloak to fall out of her seat laughing.
"Would you two please take this somewhere else?" said another woman, unlike her drinking partner who had white hair with golden eyes and wore a simple, but practical bronze armor with a red cape cloak she had black hair with white eyes and was wearing a dominatrix outfit with arm length latex gloves, matching thigh highs, and a corset that looked closer to bondage gear than clothing.
"Chill out ice queen" the black and gold-haired woman waved off, "Polly and I are just having a post-UBM drink."
"Don't get twisted out of shape." The pun dragon winked causing Polly to roll around on the ground laughing.
"Based on your puns, I'm guessing the UBM had some kind of twisting ability, spatial manipulation, perhaps?"
"And then some," Polly said standing up. It was the first time Blizzard Queen got a proper look at the woman named Polly.
She wasn't very tall, roughly five foot five, with white hair, golden eyes, and her Identification skill told her that the woman wore UBM special rewards from head to toe.
However, Reveal showed her something even more interesting.
She smiled, "So you're the famous Fallen Knight, Polyantha."
Getting up from the ground and dusting herself off, the woman nodded with a warm, dare Sol or even Blizzard say, motherly smile.
From Sol, it was something she missed dearly while for Blizzard it was something she had long since forgotten the feeling of.
"It's a pleasure to meet you." She said as the two women, with smiles that didn't reach their eyes, grasped hands.
It didn't take a genius to know that they were gripping each other's hands with enough force to crush magically reinforced steel.
Sol half expected this to happen. After all both of them were at the top of their countries' respective Duel Rankings.
The only difference is that Blizzard was a bit of an overachiever. While Polly only participated in the Duel Rankings, Blizzard was fourth in the Kill Rankings, first in the Duel Rankings, and was the leader of the fifth-place clan, Revelry Command, in the Clan Rankings.
"I've been eager to meet, you but it seems that the rumors about you are true," Polly said, with a paradoxical mix of a warm smile and cold eyes.
"And pray tell, what rumors are those?" Blizzard asked, her eyes equally cold, but her smile was that of a predator who had just found its overweight prey stuck in a pond of barbeque sauce.
Polly's expression didn't change, "Merely that you let your desires, run amok and are brave enough to not care what others say about you. Or if they see how insecure you are about your body given how much you've chosen to accentuate your… features."
Sol could practically hear the verbal slaps one after another in quick succession.
"I'll have you know I only altered my appearance slightly, the rest is my natural appearance." she glared, folding her arms under her ample breast for emphasis.
"Yeah, right. Slightly." She grinned poking Blizzard's left boob.
Oh, shit.
"And what about yourself, I hear you hide behind your shadows and cape most of the time." She leaned down to meet her eye to eye, "Did you perhaps forget to upgrade your lackluster appearance? Or were you hoping to attract an online pedophile?"
Oh, shit.
Again.
With near supersonic speed, the Fallen Knight's shadow erupted with an arsenal of cursed weapons pointing at Blizzard.
The Siren Superior Job holder had already equipped her signature whip and was buffed both skill-wise…and physically.
Whereas before she looked like a sexy dominatrix, now she appeared as a literal amazon. Seven feet tall and had enough muscles to make Sol drool.
"Would you like to settle this in the arena?" Polly offered when she noticed some tians in the bar were either fleeing or frozen in fear.
Two Superiors duking it out would have been chilling, to say the least.
Heh, 'chilling' even in worry the Sacred Blazer found her ability to find comedy gold amazing.
"I thought you'd never ask." Blizzard grinned.
/-/
Sol BlawnD Dragon was in a bit of a tough spot. On one hand, she didn't want to see her oldest gaming buddy and her newest gaming buddy fight…well that was a lie, she had already contacted her Great Merchant friend, Pygmy Amami, and had her selling tickets. (1)
It was always so cute to see the grey rabbit woman work so diligently. She just hoped it didn't affect her health. When she showed up the woman looked like she was having intense intestinal pain. Like she was having the mother of stomach cramps.
It wasn't even bunny how much pain she was clearly in.
But she would give Pygmy this, the woman, despite her obvious pain and stress, was selling tickets like her life depended on it.
Anyway, back to what she was thinking about before…oh yeah. She didn't want Polly and Blizzard to be angry with one another. She could appreciate competition, it was gaming after all. She just didn't want it to turn ugly.
In a game as real as ID, it was more than possible for people to get overexcited and take things too far…especially given that Blizzard likes to play with her sense of pain still turned on…
Just the thought of that made her shiver in more ways than one.
But that didn't mean she wanted anyone actually hurt or mad at each other. Unlike her sister, she doubted she could use a jar of cookies as a distraction.
Speaking of which, she wondered how her lil' sis was enjoying ID.
/-/
Engineer, Crescent Rose
"Master, do you think this is safe?" Wotan asked, her golden-haired Maiden Embryo asked, while wearing her standard black wolf outfit with black raven wings and a black eye patch covering one of her blue eyes.
Today was the left.
She was currently cuddling Chrono Crown, Dryfe's top PK like he was a baby.
It still weirded her out that Chrono had been eager to be adopted by Wotan and was now being spoiled by her.
I'm not jealous, I just choose not to enjoy Wotan's softness.
'We both know that's a lie, Master.' Her Embryo telepathically communicated, 'But if it is such a problem for you, we can cuddle all night and you can use me like a body pillow'
'Out of context that could be horribly misconstrued, I just love the softness of your suits fur.' She mentally humphed.
"Whatever you say Master" Wotan rolled the one eye Crescent could see. "Now are you sure it's safe?"
"Positive." Crescent beamed as she looked up at the beginning of her masterpiece. She had even gone so far as to max out her new job of Engineer for the sole purpose of doing so. To create what she was going to call the Blooming Rose System.
Her magnum opus.
Her baby.
It was a system to utilize the MVP reward she had gotten from Crimson Nova.
"If this works, our problem of Runic Scrawling causing our mech to overheat will be over." That and so much more, between the Heat Absorption Core, Crimson Nova, and the Storm Core that DGE helped her figure out, this was going to be beyond awesome.
"But are you sure it's safe?" Wotan asked again, backing away from her Master's experiment.
"Of course. I used the same principle as used when powering a machine with Dust. Since they are both magic-y they should work the same at least." She beamed as she pulled the switch.
On this day Crescent Rose received the death penalty…as well as twelve other members of The Clock Tower and the destruction of one of their hangers.
/-/
Siren, Blizzard Queen
Normally, she would have remained more composed and not fallen for the woman's provocation. She prided herself on being calm, composed, and above all else, in control.
Normally.
Ever since she heard some of the Ace Ops talking about Infinite Dendrogram her interest in the VRMMO had been peaked.
Normally, she refrained from such activities; there was always something to do; paperwork, training, reviewing the latest documentation on new military technology, assisting General Ironwood with his paperwork, paperwork, training, learning a new skill on the computer, learning a new martial art, training…(2)
…but one day she found herself with nothing to do.
She couldn't even go and visit her sister due to Weiss studying for her college entrance exam.
Having nothing to do, and the information about Infinite Dendrogram still rattling in the back of her mind, she gave in, bought the game, and started playing.
…well after reading all about the game she could first.
Reading the instruction manual, product reviews, and watching several in-depth videos about it was perfectly normal behavior.
Still, when she first logged in, she hadn't expected the options to be so…infinite.
She could be whoever she wanted to be. There was no family name to separate herself from. No expectations to live up to. No mask she was forced to maintain.
She could be herself.
But with freedom, comes exploration.
She hadn't intended to go…as far as she had. It had started innocuously enough with her Embryo hatching and giving boosted effect to the [Charm] debuff.
Perhaps whatever algorithm they used to design the Embryos had deduced she was lonely or rather desired…love.
It was still embarrassing for her to admit it in her own mind…but it was true.
According to legend, Hipolita was the queen of the Amazons, and depending on which iteration of the legend had her abandon her people, her duty, and even the gift from her father Ares, her war belt, for Hercules or Theseus.
To abandon duty to achieve your own happiness.
To discard the position and prestige you clawed your way into getting…for love.
Something she wishes every day she could do.
While she might not be able to feel that freedom in real life, she could at least feel it in Infinite Dendrogram.
She swore she would be who she was, no matter what anyone else said. She would prove to herself that she, even if just in a simulated environment, could be herself, be happy and NO ONE could say otherwise about it.
Which is probably why she was here, staring down the Altar Duel Ranking champion with a crowd of people cheering their hearts out.
She would have to ask Sol how on Remnant she was able to get this many people to buy tickets and come to an unused arena in the forty minutes it took them to get here, wait in line to register for an arena, register, and enter the arena.
/-/
"Hello everyone, I'm Sol BlawnD Dragon and I'll be your announcer for this clash of the Superiors."
"In the east corner, we have the Physical Apex, the Licentious Demon Lord, the Dom who never bombs, Blizzard Queen!"
"I'll give you one last chance," Blizzard said, her form having returned to normal, but her outfit was just as intimidating as when she was seven feet tall with shark teeth.
She was wearing gleaming obsidian platform thigh-high boots decked with spikes, a spiked torso corset with an open collar and ample exposure to her cleavage, and shoulder-length black gloves with winding white serpents designed to be coiling around her arms with the heads, like that of the white half of a King Taijitu, resting on the back of her palms. A Jewel resting on top of the right head.
She also wore a purple butterfly mask that covered only the top half of her face.
"Get down on your hands and knees begging for forgiveness and I'll only lightly punish you." She gestured with a dark-colored whip with diamond-like spikes along its length.
"And in the west corner, we have the Cursed Armory, the Paradoxical Shadow, the Duel Rank champ of the Kingdom of Altar; Polyantha!"
She had also changed her equipment. She was wearing a bluish-purple cape, metallic-looking greaves, a feminine bronze muscle cuirass, and two shoulder-length purple gloves tucked into a red and green pauldron on her left and right shoulder respectively.
Around her neck was a small pendant that looked like three disks stacked on top of each other, each with a face on it. Going down it appeared to be anger, fear, and sorrow.
It seemed both Duel Rankers were using their strongest panoplies.
"No way." She said as she equipped two long swords, both so heavily cursed that their blades were pitch black. "You're going to be the one on your knees."
"Kinky."
"NOT LIKE THAT!"
With that, the countdown began.
"3…"
"2…"
"1…"
"GO!"
The Fallen Knight's shadow burst forth, "The Darkness of Valediction" she intoned as the dozens of clearly cursed weapons took on an even more sinister appearance as if bathed in a mud-like darkness.
"Cursed Phalanx Disorder!", running forward, the shadow moved with her, blades and spears out front hoping to rip into Blizzard Queen early. Her blades whirled at high speeds at the parameter of her shadow like a cursed buzzsaw.
Raising her right hand, Blizzard responded with "Call! Jacob, Séamas, Jaime, and Giacomo!" (3)
They were arranged from tallest to shortest in call order. Each of them had a short haircut in the style of the Atlesian military.
And with that, four incredibly muscular men, wearing nothing but speedos that left nothing to the imagination…and which Sol had taken a pic of, stood before her.
"Jacob," she commanded as the tallest of the muscular men moved in front of them, growing in mass until he had transformed into his original form; a twenty-foot-tall Orichalcum Elemental.
Of all of her tamed UBMs, Jacob had the highest END, made out of his namesake; Orichalcum, the Legendary Ranked Metal.
Metal on metal screeched so loudly that participants, spectators, and even those outside the arena felt their heads about to split due to the high-pitched grating noise.
The charge being stopped surprised Polyantha long enough for Blizzard, with her enhanced stats to close the distance and take the woman's head clean off with her whip… only for a pair of cursed great swords to charge at her, one gracing her neck only enough to draw blood forcing her to back away.
…and see that Polyantha's head was back on her shoulders as if nothing had happened.
The blades, many heavily cursed and of high quality, managed to deal minimum damage but nonetheless stopped her advance. Or so she thought.
"Curse of the Marionette!" Polyantha chanted as Jacob began to jerkily move.
"Mistress… I-I-I…can't… control!" he couldn't finish before his boulder-sized fist came crashing towards her only for Séamas to intercept, his body growing larger and larger until he took on the form of a large leviathan-like sea monster wielding a crimson coral spear.
"Mistress, I'll hold off Jacob, you take the witch down." He said deflecting a heavy strike from Jacob with his spear.
She nodded as she, Jaime, and Giacomo rushed past them.
"You'll pay for that," she said striking her whip towards her. The white-haired woman managed to raise a cursed tower shield, but despite being made of mical ore, a Mythical metal, the whip managed to make a large dent in the shield sending her flying back.
"That's a tough whip you got there, is it a special reward? My Identification doesn't work on it."
Blizzard gave a sultry evil smile, "Wouldn't you like to know, sadly, that doesn't work on this item." She said cracking the whip.
…mainly because it's my Embryo and skills like Identification and Reveal don't work on Embryos.
Before she could gesture to signal her blades to strike, something whirled past her at supersonic speeds removing her arm at the shoulder.
Turning she saw a monster no bigger than a bullhead that looked like a cross between a dragon and a wolf. Grey bat-like wings and a spiked serpentine tail made it harder to tell.
Her severed right arm hanging from inside its maw.
Polyantha for her part smiled.
"I hope the taste was worth the curse." She said waiving at him…with her right arm. "Blood Curse."
Giacomo still had the glove, but not the arm.
Before Blizard could even process what had happened to Giacomo, her tamed monster was hit with multiple debuffs.
[Binding]
[Curse]
[Weakness]
[Bleeding]
[Fear]
[Magic Absorption]
"Giacomo, spit it out!" she shouted realizing the glove was cursed.
"Too late, Liberation!" Polyantha declared causing the glove to explode while in Giacomo's mouth.
She rushed over to her wolf-dragon's side as he collapsed, his lower jaw blown completely off as his throat and a portion of his chest cavity were ripped clean open to the point one could see his spine.
As if to add insult to injury the cursed weapons flew at them once again. Blizzard drew her whip to deflect the cursed weapons with everything she had.
Her STR and AGI were high enough to keep up with any physical Superior, but there was a limit to what one person could do against dozens upon dozens of cursed weapons flying at them with near sub-sonic speed while defending her downed Giacomo.
Yes, she knew he wouldn't die in the arena. Once the match was over, he'd be back as good as new, but still…
She didn't want any of them to get killed. It was something she vowed herself.
Still not a lot of this fight was making sense to her.
Tamed monsters could be equipped with items, but the problem was that they usually didn't have many slots. She had done her homework on Polyantha and given her monsters curse-resisting items.
But that made things all the more bizarre. Between the items she had given them and her Embryo altering her Pimp job's skills to switch from female to male monsters to strengthen them, they should have a high-rank job's level of resistance.
By all accounts, they should be able to resist the Fallen Knight's curses, but they were falling to them far too quickly.
Was it simply luck or was it a skill of her Embryo? She had heard that Altar only had one Superior, and it was someone named Wizard. So, at most, she should only have a sixth form Embryo. If that were the case, then it would likely have to be a specialized Embryo.
And how did she regain her arm?
Was it a healing ability or some type of bodily reset skill? In Dryfe there was a Superior who turned their duels into quiz shows, so compared to that, it was possible.
No, then that wouldn't explain the curses or how her shadow was able to store weapons.
Consumable items were prohibited as were any defensive items such as Lifesaving Brooches or Dragonscale Wards, so unless she had a healing special reward, that wasn't it either.
"I can tell, you're used to bulldozing your way through your enemies, but I'm not that easy." The white-haired woman said as she began to cast another skill as the ground under the dark-haired woman began to swirl with complete blackness. "
"Reverse –"
Frustrated at not seeing the answer, she mentally ordered Jamie to attack. For his part, he transformed into his hydra form. Though only slightly larger than Giacomo, Jamie had nine heads and each could spray acid strong enough to melt even Ancient Legendary metals.
This forced Polyantha to abandon casting the skill to dodge and back away. Despite this, the barrage of cursed weapons kept coming.
A spear hit her right shoulder and burst clean through.
[Bleeding]
[Curse]
[MP Absorption]
[Missing Shoulder]
Not having time to think, she quickly shifted her arms.
Thankfully, her corset had a healing effect and was able to remove the [Bleeding] debuff almost instantly.
Her Reveal was unfortunately blocked.
Despite that, she could clearly tell the woman's HP and possibly even her MP were being replenished.
She was healing herself, but none of the items the white-haired woman had equipped showed anything that seemed like it could heal her.
A cursed sword broke through her defenses, deeply cutting her left leg above the knee.
[Bleeding]
[Curse]
That was how she could keep the Fallen Knight's ultimate skill, Cursed Phalanx Disorder, going this whole time. Normally, that skill consumed HP and MP, but both stats were being increased faster than they were being decreased.
An axe flew through her guard and managed to slice her abdomen.
The smell of her flesh burning made her want to vomit, but she gritted her teeth. The pain gave her a sense of realness.
[Bleeding]
[Burn]
[Lethargy]
Her corset removed the first two wound-based debuffs, but the last one dropped her STR by half. Thankfully that didn't get accounted for when it came to her buff.
A loud boom drew her attention to where Jacob and Séamas were fighting. She saw her Orichalcum Element had lost an arm in the fight.
Thankfully that wasn't something she needed to worry about. Elementals didn't function like normal monsters, losing a limb for them just meant a decrease in HP. When they regained it they regrew it…
While Jamie was continuing his barrage of Acid Blasts, she used Reveal again.
Nothing.
But Identification clearly showed her items, their names, and abilities.
"Blood Arrest!" Polyantha shouted as a burst of cursed energy struck Jamie dazing him. Sending a mental command, several cursed weapons rushed towards the dazed hydra only for three of his nine heads to recover and blast the weapons with acid.
Despite their apparent toughness, several of the weapons were melted into slag.
"Oh that's not good." the golden-eyed woman said with an overly fake expression of worry, "Good thing I have more." She grinned as dozens upon dozens more cursed weapons rose from her shadow.
"Cursed Phalanx Disorder!" she intoned only to suddenly direct them all at Blizzard.
This caused her to freeze in surprise. Just how many cursed weapons could one person have?! She must have spent several fortunes to gather so many.
She deflected as many as she could with Jamie using all the available heads to melt as many weapons as possible.
Only in the confusion they hadn't noticed several of the swords fly high up into the upper limits of the barrier…only to sail down at blinding speeds.
It was common knowledge that despite being a type of Dragonoid, Hydras had a wholly unique ability to regrow any number of heads so long as one remained attached at the time of regrowth. This made them more dangerous than their traditional Pure Dragons as the only ways to kill them were through a massive attack to wipe them out entirely in one shot, debuffs or spells that granted instant death, or removing all the heads at once.
Polyantha chose to do the latter option.
The swords flew down with near sonic speeds just shy of breaking the sound barrier and in an instant, all nine of Jamie's heads were cleaved, clean off his necks.
"Jamie NO!" Blizzard screamed as she watched in abject horror at his headless body, necks still flailing weakly in an attempt to oppose reality before he collapsed onto the ground.
In a moment of something she wasn't used to feeling. Something anyone else would call blind, uncontrolled rage, she brought her whip down, not on Polyantha herself, but her shadow.
In a brief moment, Polyantha flickered into a black human-shaped Elemental.
Got you.
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?
Fourteen individuals gathered around a monitor trying to puzzle out what exactly they were seeing.
Which given that each of them, at a base level, had the processing ability comparable to Atlas' entire computer network, was saying something substantial.
The first to speak was a man in a suit with rather unusual colors, "I can say with one hundred percent certainty that this wasn't my fault."
"We know." Said a woman sitting within an egg, "Because if you did it, it would have failed."
"What a cruel woman you are Humpty."
"Do your job properly" said one twin "and stop causing us trouble." Said the other.
"What I'm more interested in" began a man whom many would wonder if he was more monster than man, "Is how she got passed Bandersnatch?" asked the Control A.I. in charge of UBMs.
The one who responded was Queen, "She…just…showed…up…one…day…out…of…the…blue." Her voice was somewhat shaky due to the massive drain on her processing power from being the one to handle graphics. Thankfully, Remnant only had one language otherwise the drain on her processing power would have been much greater.
"Chesire, you've fought her?" asked a savage-looking beast woman. "What do you think of her…and while we're here Jabber-"
"No." the horned man shot down immediately. "I've told you already, your UBMs lack both creativity and diversity. Making something a bigger version does not equate to being better."
"But what if the giant poodle breaths fire?"
"Still no."
"Aw, you meanie."
Completely ignoring their colleague, they turned to one version of the white cat in a vest…who was eating cookies.
"What, I need nutrients much as the next caaat." He drooled as he finished the inventory's worth of cookies. He agreed with Crescent, he needed a castle's worth of cookies. It was a good thing a few hundred versions of himself were making cookies. Getting the space suit to work was difficult, but cookies made in zero gravity were just the best.
"She seems pretty friendly and laid baaack." He said before pausing, "If anything it's impossible to say something bad about herrrr. Every duelist in the kingdom gets training from her and she is always there to help them talk with them about their problems in the game or outttt."
"I wish we could clone herrr. Thanks to her efforts we've had Masters rising in the ranks and their Embryos are growing at a noticeably faster paceee."
The one who responded was a group of four orbs arranged to make someone think of a worm, "If anything, I think we should monitor her, but ultimately let her be."
"Are you sure you're not playing favorites with how she doesn't destroy the environment as much as other Superiorssss?"
"That's a part of it, I'll admit, but for our ultimate goal to work, we need as many Superior Embryos as we can get."
"True." Said the Control A.I. of avatars. "Though I wish we knew how she managed to get the system out of our control long enough to make an avatar."
"Haven't you examined her data yet?" asked Caterpillar. Alice was in charge of avatar creation. Each time a Master died, she was the one who remade their avatars.
"That's the thing, she's never gotten the death penalty."
That made them all pause.
While it was true some Masters have gone long stretches without a death penalty. That usually only applied to exclusively crafting jobs and those who had reached max level and fought in the Colosseum. And even then, they still needed to kill monsters, tians, or other Masters to gain EXP.
Job quests and items granted EXP, but her build was focused on combat which negated the implied safety while the latter were few and far between.
An Embryo skill could help with EXP gain, such as Pelznickel's Puss In Boots, but even then, that only increased the amount of EXP he gained. He still had to risk himself to gain the EXP.
She, however, roamed and explored like any Master should. But to have NEVER received a death penalty, even once, and to make it to the level of a Superior…that was just absurd.
"It sounds unbelievabllllle." Began Cheshire, "But it is truuuue. I've fought her and seen her fight several times in the arena, but she has never lost even once in her entire timeeee."
His colleagues seemed genuinely surprised, "Does her Embryo negate damage, like me?" Dormouse asked, his interest peaked as out of the Control A.I.s he had one of the strongest defenses.
"Noooo" the cat drooled while looking at the dog-sized mouse with hamster-like cheeks, "I've seen her get injured several timesssss. During our match, I even managed to reduce her HP down to twenty percent or soooo."
"Especially when her opponent uses light magiiiic." He explained, "Her Embryo is a Guardian Castle that replaces the user so long as there is enough light out to make a shadow so she can swap her Embryo and Avatar."
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Siren, Blizzard Queen
Polyantha recoiled at her strike forcing her back.
She looked about to strike with her floating swords, but then a familiar spear, as long as a flag pole really, came sailing towards her forcing her to back away farther as it created a massive rippling crater in the ground almost as deep as she was tall.
Séamas's spear, technically his old horn, had the power to disrupt spells and skills. This made him an absolute terror in the south of Legendaria where she found him.
It seemed he hit Jacob enough to dispel the curse.
For his part, Jacob had seen better days. There were several large lacerations along his body as well as missing one arm and half of his remaining hand.
Séamas wasn't in much better shape. There were numerous bruises and patches of broken scales covering his body.
Yet, they still wanted to help her fight.
When this was all over, she was going to spoil all four of them rotten.
Turning back to her opponent who now took a more defensive stance, she focused on Polyantha's shadow, her Reveal showed her HP and stats.
So she swaps positions with her Embryo while hiding in its shadow.
But that doesn't explain how her Embryo was healing itself.
At least Polyantha herself wasn't healing from it, so that was probably one of the restrictions on her abilities.
In the brief moment of the standoff, Polyantha produced from her shadow more cursed weapons than ever before, there must have been hundreds, possibly thousands in a tidal wave of cursed weapons like an army of the damned.
Each like a wild beast hungry for their souls.
With a single gesture, the thousands of blades fell on them in a cursed rain that couldn't be defended against and for almost a solid thirty seconds only the rain of cursed black blades and the faint mist of blood could be seen.
When the assault stopped, the bodies of the two tamed monsters, mutilated beyond recognition, in vain as it might have been, sacrificed themselves to shield their Mistress with their bodies.
Not that it mattered.
Polyantha looked down at Blizzard's white eyes, her black hair, what remained of her scalp at least, was drenched red as her brain spilled out.
Polyantha let out a sigh of relief.
…only for that expression to shift into one of confusion and then realization.
A realization that came a little too late.
The bodies disappeared in a cloud of purple butterflies which became mist s they dispersed.
Butterflies that resembled Blizzard's butterfly mask.
Before she could respond, a large Orichalcum half fist, a flag pole-sized red coral spear, and a whip with enough strength to dent Mythical metal struck the Fallen Knight's shadow at once.
The instant the attacks struck, however, the 'Polyantha' in front of them 'flickered' as the ground below her erupted with enough force to lift the woman off the ground and almost halfway to the top of the dome.
The three seemed momentarily confused by these events, only later realizing that she had simply deactivated her skill.
Séamas was the first to respond, leaping up and lunging at her with his spear. Only for her to grab onto her.
"Séamas, let go!" Blizzard shouted, but it was too late.
"The Darkness of Valediction!" she intoned as the same muddy darkness enveloped the leviathan's weapon. He released a pained roar as bloody legions spread across his body as his HP rapidly dropped.
Leaping up, she swung her whip to knock the lance from his hand only for the cursed weapons littering the ground like tombstones, rose in waves towards her.
"DO IT MISTRESS!" Jacob shouted.
Wishing she had some other option, "Castling!"
In an instant, she and Jacob swapped places.
She could tell he wanted to make amends for his failures, even if she never saw him being afflicted with the [Puppet] curse as a failure on his part.
The thousands of weapons struck Jacob in the back and he was afflicted with dozens more curses before he used his skill, "Meteor Retribution!"
His body broke into dozens of smaller pieces before blasting towards Polyantha. Who for her part created a literal wall of cursed weapons so thick light couldn't be seen through it at any point.
The orangish meteors crashed through the black wall causing a spray of cursed weapons as Polyantha received numerous hits.
But what surprised the crowd the most was that after obliterating much of Polyantha, both Jacob AND her reformed as though nothing was new.
The latter had already been seen, so it wasn't that surprising, but not many knew about Jacob and what he could do.
Jacob was a Legendary UBM who famously went on a rampage in Legendaria for devouring large stores of Orichalcum to increase his power. Several high-ranking tians and Masters were dispatched to try and defeat him, but his overwhelming END and being able to heal himself with the damage he inflicts with his Meteor Retribution made him a nightmare to face.
She had been given the death penalty twice before she was able to defeat him.
With a flicker, and an application of Reveal, told her she had deactivated her skill again.
How was she able to activate and deactivate it so easily? Was there some other restriction?
The white-haired woman turned towards her, "Not bad, not bad at all. I take back what I said about you." She said in an honest voice that had Blizzard freeze in surprise.
"I'm not playing mind games or anything, I genuinely am apologizing."
"I-I see." Was all she could say, her mind trying to connect the dots as to how she ended up in this situation.
"When I saw you, specifically the long black hair, and the outfit, you kind of reminded me of someone I thought of as a friend, so I ended up unintentionally taking that out on you."
"Can you forgive me?"
Blizzard, or rather Winter Schnee, had been brought up in a business environment most of her life and had met with the Atlesian "elites" more times than she would ever like to remember. She had learned about and listened to doublespeak and subtleties of conversation that could drastically change the meaning between what was said and what was intended.
But this…
This was new territory for her.
The woman was being honest and sincere by every metric she could gauge her.
Without even thinking, surprising herself, she blurted out "Yes, I would love to."
She blinked after the words had left her mouth.
"Great." She smiled that warm motherly smile that almost felt alien to Blizzard at this point in her life.
"The loser has to buy the winner drinks all night." She beamed still wearing that same motherly smile.
"Hahahahaha" Blizzard burst out laughing. The crowd, her tamed monsters, and even Polyantha were frozen with shock at the quite frankly infectious and innocent laughter coming from the Licentious Demon Lord.
"Alright." She grinned after several moments of uninterrupted laughter. "But I'll have you know I only drink top-shelf beverages. 500,000 lir minimum."
"Oh, that's great, then you'll know what to recommend for when I win." The Paradoxical Shadow grinned back at her.
There was no signal or sign that anyone outside of the two could see, they just seemed to know when to charge at one another.
Polyantha raised a tidal wave of cursed swords from an inventory on her hip as opposed to her shadow – possibly due to not having her skill invoked -, living up to her moniker of Cursed Armory.
Jacob and Séamas rushed forward to meet the threat head-on while Blizzard remained completely motionless.
The two titanic monsters acted as unbreakable ramparts protecting their Mistress. Séamas's spear was a whirling blur that promised destruction of anything that entered his space while Jacob continued to tank cursed weapons and use short bursts of Meteor Retribution to damage more weapons and attempt to damage Polyantha, forcing her to divert more cursed weapons to shield herself.
It seemed whatever she did to enhance her curses, in the beginning, wasn't in effect anymore.
"So, you plan on using your ult, huh?" Polyantha mused, her white hair whipping around as she dodged car-sized flying chunks of Orichalcum.
"I guess it is about time to end this then." Her expression took on a warm smile with a cold glint in her eyes. "Reverse Crusade!"
A pillar of dark magic erupted under the two titanic monsters. Not only was dark attribute magic excellent at damaging living things, but the pressure of the onslaught kept the two locked in place.
Séamas's spear couldn't dispel all the magic of the skill and Jacob's defenses meant nothing. Despite being an Elemental, he was still alive and therefore could be damaged by dark attribute magic.
"Cursed Arms to Reap the Souls From the Land of Shadows Strike the Heart – Scáthach." As she activated her skill, her armor and the weapons floating around her were coated in a black substance too dark to merely call dark. Whereas The Darkness of Valediction enchanted weapons with curses or enhanced already existing curses this was something different.
The weapons seemed to twist and writhe like caricatures of something otherworldly trying to imitate life, but failing horribly.
The weapons grew haphazard spikes and twisted and bent in impractical and confusing ways. But the most surprising was that the same seemed to apply to Polyantha's equipment and even her avatar.
Without even using a skill, that much was certain, even the people in the stands, protected by layer after layer of barrier all instinctively took a step back at the sheer pressure Polyantha was emanating.
Or at least half of it was her.
Polyantha had been right that most of her fights in the arena had been one-sided, but what she didn't know was that her ultimate skill took an absurd amount of time to finish charging. And while yes, she could move while charging it, this slowed the charging speed.
In truth, she had begun charging her ultimate skill at the beginning of every single duel. It was just that this was the only time she was forced to rely on her tamed monsters while she waited for it to finish charging.
In fact, this was also the only time she was ever able to use it since no one had been able to last a minute against her, let alone the five minutes needed.
On the other side of the arena, after having been forced to watch her last two tamed monsters fall, Blizzard's ultimate skill had finished; "Lust and Battle Blend into Euphoria – Hipolita!"
As she witnessed her avatar's body change, she was truly happy that her Embryo's ultimate skill counted the tamed monster she had out when she began casting not those still standing by the end of the casting. In exchange for a long cast time, she could increase her stats by 1000% of the corresponding strongest stat for each of her tamed monsters.
Giacomo's AGI, Jacob's END, Séamas' STR, and Jaime's HP. With her four tamed monsters, her corresponding stats increased by an average of nearly 300,000 each.
Whereas before, Blizzard's body grew and gained greater and greater muscle definition as her skin darkened to the point some might mistake her for a Vaccuan. Her teeth became serrated like a shark as her eyes turned into yellow slits like a super predator. The finishing touches were red tribal markings that covered her body.
Before she produced an air of sensual dominance, now she produced an air of savagery.
/-/
Fallen Knight, Polyantha
She would be the first to admit that ever since she…stumbled upon Infinite Dendrogram, she may or may not have become something of a battle maniac.
Having so many people to fight helped her take her mind off other things.
Especially when she was backed into a corner.
Blizzard had to be one of maybe three people to see through her Embryo's skill; Walking in the Land of Shadows.
Much less managing to figure out how to counter her so easily while utilizing her tamed monsters to their fullest.
This was getting to be rather fun.
Even more so that her Cursed Phalanx Disorder was draining her HP and MP rapidly. Normally, she'd offset that by afflicting her double; Scáthach with debuffs to drain her HP and MP and then let her naturally reverse them to gain an ever-restoring HP and MP.
However, her ult required her to deactivate Walking in the Land of Shadows.
On the plus side, the power of her cursed weapons increased proportional to the number of curses applied to Blizzard, and her monsters as tamed monsters counted as part of the player as far as her Embryo was concerned.
For the record, that's a total of eighteen curses. Which translated into a 5400 increase in her weapons' attack power, durability, and a 180% chance increase in their curses taking effect.
Based on the rate her HP and MP were lowering, she had about thirty seconds before she lost the match.
This is REALLY fun.
Again without a signal, Polyantha rushed forward herself, blades moving with her like a twisted flock of ravens while the now savage-looking Blizzard swung her whip with enough force that the shockwaves alone rattled the arena, destroying a few of the barriers and managing to break dozens of cursed weapons.
In a supersonic blur Blizzard began swinging her whip to defend herself, the resulting shockwaves forced the ones controlling the arena to continually put up barrier after barrier just to keep the damage contained while shards of broken cursed weapons flew in every direction in a typhoon of bone shattering shockwaves and cursed chunks of jagged metal flew in every direction as the shockwaves sprayed large chunks of earth up into the sky, the two sources becoming shrapnel for even more barrier destruction.
In the span of less than a millisecond, they had already destroyed ten barriers by simple proximity to their clash.
Once again, they found themselves in the same situation; the endless wave of cursed weapons of Polyantha against the endless tenacity of the Siren Blizzard Queen.
However, this time things were not quite like before. Whereas through the entire fight up until this point Blizzard had been playing defensively, she was now able to fight back. In addition to defending, she was able to send shockwave after shockwave towards Polyantha.
Despite what Blizzard was probably intending to do with her attacks, the shockwaves themselves seemed to twist around her. She was still forced to sacrifice some of her cursed weapons to defend herself, but the waves of pressurized air seemed to bend just the right way to offset most of the damage.
She really did need to visit Legendaria more often. The UBMs here are so interesting. She mentally smiled at the very useful special reward she just received.
Despite being able to only be used for 10 seconds with a 3-minute cooldown, it was still a pretty good item.
Polyantha for her part knew this was Blizzard's own Sense Skills at play. She had never used her ult before in the arena, but the woman had figured out that the best way to defeat her right now was to stall while decreasing her armory as much as possible.
It also didn't hurt that a single shockwave would probably drop her HP to 0 in a single hit. Thus she was forced to dodge and weave through Blizzard's onslaught while mentally commanding hundreds of cursed weapons at once.
If she was a normal person, she couldn't help but feel her brain would probably overheat.
All in all, it was a good strategy. However… "Reverse Crusade!" she said aloud. This caused Blizzard to look down for just an instant, an instant that was all that was required for a cursed halberd to take her right leg clean off.
Her bluff had worked.
With her balance lost, the storm of cursed weapons found their mark, and the Physical Apex was dismembered.
/-/
As the barrier was deactivated, Blizzard and her four monsters appeared as fresh as daisies with Blizzard giving a wry smile, "Just so you know, I only drink at the best establishments, whether for myself or with company."
"Great, let's grab Sol and make it a girl's night out."
(1) In case you forgot, she is the rabbit woman Sol traumatized back in chapter 4 by literally turning the arena (and her competition) into a flaming inferno of death.
(2) I know I mentioned training and paperwork multiple times, that's the point. Winter never seemed like one to go out socializing much.
(3) For those who don't know, those are all variations of the name James. I'll let you make of that fact what you will.
Sol BlawnD Dragon = Yang Xiao Long
Polyantha "Polly" = System Error. A lot of mystery surrounding Polyantha. Who is she, where did she come from, and can anyone guess who she is? Seriously, I want to know. For those curious about her Embryo, it is a Type Guardian that is geared towards substitution and curse object utilization. Despite being only a sixth-form Embryo, it synergizes well with the Fallen Knight/High Sorcerer build Polyantha is using making it able to put Blizzard, who doesn't have a direct counter to curses, on the back foot.
Blizzard Queen = Winter Schnee. If you guessed it, her skills are similar to Behemoth and Leviathan. However, there are two keen differences; build and Embryos. Behemoth's build allows her to keep a constant buff of adding her Embryo's stats to her own whereas Blizzard needs time to cast the skill. The second is their Embryos, Leviathan is mainly focused on stats and then her finisher ult which combines her and her Master's stats while Blizzard's embryo makes it easier to charm monsters, lowers their minion capacity, and her ult allows her to temporarily gain their stats. The latter part is entirely dependent on her hunting down powerful monsters, charming them, and taming them without killing them. So, it gives a better boost in exchange for more risk and a shorter period of operation.
Crescent Rose = Ruby Rose. Haven't heard from her in a while. I wonder what that might mean.
DGE = Doctor Green Egg = Bartholomew Oobleck
Pelznickel = Nicholas Schnee. He still doesn't know his oldest grandchild roleplays as a dominatrix. Boy, wouldn't it be fun if he found out ;)
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