A Vulpine Spanner in the Works

Chapter 41: Nicolas Flamel, Eat Your Heart Out

[Kashia]

Six seconds. Need to deal with the crippling noise quickly as Succu-bitch is diving at my ass fast. Need to buy time and a distraction in addition to this. That means I'll need to do all of this nearly simultaneously, not that said action is difficult.

One second passes. I've conjured a pair of heavy earplugs to block out the worst of the noise, muffling the world down to a less than mundane human level of noise compared to what I'm used to. It is slightly off-setting to me, but I can quickly adjust.

Two seconds pass. I throw up multiple illusionary walls made real in front of myself and the bitch, obscuring her vision of me. The loud crashes made against them already says that she's punching through them and will be upon me soon.

Three seconds pass. I cast [Replicant] once again and my copy joins me in freefall, already aware of the plan in place. At the same time, three illusionary copies of me are quickly conjured and begin flying into random directions, with me taking a fourth direction flying away from the cover of the illusionary walls.

Four seconds pass. I, and all my illusionary copies, look back at the same time to see Albedo having smashed through most of the barriers. Barely hesitating at the scattering of my copies and I as she believes she knows the secret of the obfuscation, that I'm still hiding behind the barriers with a spell at the ready. My [Replicant] copy has prepared [Maximize Magic: Shining Burst] and is about to unleash it.

I don't typically utilize the [Maximize Magic] metamagic enhancement, namely because of the normal penetration and power of my spells due to my classes, but this was one of those times for it to be of use. With the [Shining Burst] spell, it was an AoE spell that hurt multiple targets depending on their karma values or if they were undead. The higher a karma value was, the less damage the spell would do until it was completely useless at a karma value of 0.

Luckily for me, I knew that this spell was very useful against my opponent for four reasons. The first reason is that Albedo is a succubus, a race that is mostly made up of beings with a high negative karma score. The next reason is that the guild of Ainz Ooal Gown consisted of Players that heavily roleplayed as villains, making it so any NPCs they made were going to have low karma scores to begin with. The third reason is that, as an AoE, spell, she's not going to be able to parry it. And the final reason?

She's an absolutely crazy bitch that definitely has a -500 karma score just from her actions alone. No matter what, this was definitely going to hurt her, tankiness regardless.

Five seconds pass. My illusionary copies and I, after flying more than 30 feet from Albedo and my [Replicant] copy, all turn together and cast [Maximize Magic: Ray of Foxfire]. Even if my illusions were made real, the spells they cast were more watered-down versions of mine. But it was still going to deal damage due to my [World Disaster] class.

At this time, Albedo has broken through the last illusionary wall and was swinging her World Item at my copy's head.

Finally, six seconds pass. My copy cast the spell and a bright light encompasses the area in holy energy. My spell fires off, quickly impacting against Albedo's second layer of armor. Only my ray, compared to the illusionary copies, causes the bitch's armor to heat up red on impact from the heat. As for Albedo, two things happen at once.

The first thing to occur is for Ginnungagap to bite through my copy's left shoulder and cut into where her heart is. That earns a spray of her blood and a scream of pain. At the same time, the [Maximize Magic: Shining Burst] slams into Albedo like an adamantine wall as she immediately screams in pain and rage as her body suffers the damage of the holy attack and parts of the skin on her face burn.

As the light clears, I can see my copy burst apart into gold motes of mana that fall further into the abyss below. Albedo, in comparison, is literally steaming mad with all the steam that floats off her armor from the initial attack alongside the raindrops falling upon her that literally evaporate on contact with her body.

Her hateful yellow eyes are fully fixed on me, being able to discern that I was the real Kashia from the heat that my attack produced compared to my illusionary copies. "Clever whore, aren't you?" She growled with gritted teeth which I could barely hear over my earplugs and the rain.

"I'll take it as a compliment, Succu-bitch." I taunted back. As I, and my illusionary copies, were about to fire off another set of spells, the bardiche in her hands transformed into a silver-twisting scepter with a floating silver orb on top of it.

"Looks like the crazy bitch has swapped to Ginnungagap's more destructive form." Ratatoskr said as a massive sphere of green swiftly encased myself, my copies, and the wall of the fissure in a moment. Upon fading away, the damage was clear to be seen as a massive spherical chunk of the fissure, at a radius of 100 feet, had been deleted along with my copies that weren't under the protection of a World Item like I was. Albedo was rocketing towards me, her World Item shifted back to a bardiche, as I caught my bearings.

The whistle was in her mouth again, letting out its loud trill, but my earplugs were doing their job to block out most of the noise, though I could feel a headache quickly building up from the noise that could get through. Reacting quickly, I conjured up another wall, and used [Blink] to appear 50 feet above the bitch. She didn't even bother with the wall as her bardiche glowed green and another sphere enveloped the area, erasing the conjured wall.

Keeping track of everything I've been watching; a few observations came to mind. Albedo is hasty in using her World Item compared to other Players I've faced who would've saved the item as a trump card. She isn't used to PvP combat, but she is strategized around beating me. I'm pissed about the bitch, and I fucking hate her, but I'm letting that allow her to dictate the fight.

I need to work around what I know about her. She is utilizing biological weaknesses against me in addition to skills and items. Considering my body, I have two main weaknesses, aside from my weakness to physical attacks, and that's my enhanced hearing and sense of smell.

With barely a thought, I conjured a pair of nose plugs that blocked out another one of my main senses. I had no doubt that she likely had another thing in store for me, similar to that whistle.

Next, I have to consider how she has a lot of magic defenses to try and counter me. The magic defenses are something that I can likely easily shred through, but that armor of hers is an entirely different story. Originally, the first layer of it that I had broken off performed an excellent job at blocking attacks. And then there was the sacrificial defensive aspect to it.

A full-on hit from the attack, armor or not, of [Grand Catastrophe] would've done critical damage to her body. Instead, a layer of the armor broke off, leaving her perfectly healthy afterwards. I could only assume that the armor was able to take any singular source of extreme damage meant for its wearer whenever Albedo decided to do so. Else, that armor would've cracked again after the last hit she took.

I only had two options, aside from just trying to kill the bitch; I needed to either drop another heavy attack that would force her to sacrifice that secondary layer of armor or I needed to break the armor down from multiple attacks. That shouldn't be as hard to do as it was for her first layer of armor since it was easy to witness how my [Ray of Foxfire] caused the material to become superheated.

There was the option of using [Grand Catastrophe] again, but it would come at the risk of being too predictable if done too often. Additionally, I was already creating so much collateral damage from the first casting of that spell. I was really only able to pray that no innocent people had been caught in the crossfire, even if it had been aimed at the forest. But that also left out the permanent scarring of the land that I was creating. If I was to use that spell again, I need to, preferably, be directly below Albedo to shoot it into the sky or directly above her to create a simple hole.

Before Albedo could turn her gaze upwards after discovering that I was missing and looking around for me, I blinked 40 feet behind her, leaving an illusionary copy in place. Predictably, Albedo charged at the illusion until she got within 20 feet of it, then Ginnungagap activated once again in a sphere of green light.

The bitch was getting paranoid about if my copies were actually me and was now testing it with the World Item to ensure it. This brought a thought about the World Item that was constantly being utilized. With Ginnungagap, it had an AoE destruction effect that could be triggered at will while in bardiche form since she hadn't needed to hit my copy to activate that ability. It was a powerful effect, but concentrated at a range of 30 feet. In the staff form, it went to 100.

Regardless of form change, the green sphere would last for 3 to 4 seconds. During that time, anyone caught within the attack, user included, would be completely blind from the effect. On top of that, the fact that she didn't constantly keep activating it meant that there was likely a cooldown to reactivate. Possibly 10 to 15 seconds or so.

This sphere would destroy anything, illusionary copies included, but not my [Replicant] copy since it seems she copied the protection effect of my World Item that I wore, even if she couldn't actually use it.

Speaking of items, I had no urge to test and see if that item breaking skill of hers would be able to work on any of my divine items. I had no method of replacing them if that was the case, and any item I had to protect from such an effect was in my Sanctuary back in E-Rantel. So, I'm stuck wearing these conjured clothes.

Succu-bitch was a matchup that I was not prepared for, but I can improvise with what I have right now. She has a single-minded fixation on hurting me, while also expecting to tank through anything that I might be able to do to her. I am causing her to second-guess whether she's attacking me or another copy. The immediate use of Ginnungagap just proved it.

That had me consider another option. Lull her into false expectations.

Quickly, I conjured another illusionary copy and waited as the green sphere died away. "You're such a cowardly little whore! Hiding behind all these illusions and tricks because you know that I will kill you!" Albedo shouted as her eyes landed on my illusion and I. The whistle now hung around her neck on a chain.

"Considering that you're a succubus who tried to sneakily kidnap my daughter and use her against me, all the while hiding behind a false persona? That seems a little more apt for yourself. Wouldn't you agree, you cowardly Succu-bitch?" I obviously taunted back as my illusion copied my voice and movements.

Albedo growled at me as her glowing yellow eyes glowered at me in rage and hate. "I'll enjoy ripping that tongue of yours out!" She shouted before pulling out a pair of potions and quickly chugging on them. After a quick flashing outline of red and green on her body, the bitch hurtled towards me at rapid speeds. In turn, I sent my copy at her.

Albedo barely payed any focus to the copy, her eyes firmly on me as she correctly predicted for me to be the original.

To avoid even having to deal with my illusion, she activated Ginnungagap once again and the green sphere returned.

That was when I blinked 40 feet above her and cast [Replicant] again. The sphere cleared away and Albedo looked around until she saw me again. My copy gave a cheeky wave to the succubus.

"What was that about ripping my tongue out?" She taunted. I floated a little in front of my copy as she created a three more illusionary clones. "I doubt you're ever going to be able to back up that promise of yours, especially when outnumbered."

That was when I and the illusions flew at Albedo with spells at the ready. But where my copies had fake spells prepared in hand and on their tails, I had the real versions of them.

Upon getting within Ginnungagap's range, the bitch activated it as she tried to clear the clones. As soon as the sphere came into being, I cast [Blink] to appear directly below her and my copy. Since the bitch saw that all of my illusions, along with myself, had disappeared in the attack, it left my singular copy readying her spell in hand at Albedo's approach.

That was when I cast [Grand Catastrophe] directly in the air. Albedo had a single moment to notice the white light and look down before she and my copy were consumed in the attack.

It was after the attack cleared, that the rain stopped falling on my and beams of sunlight streamed down from the sky through the hole in the storm clouds. Hundreds of feet away, I could see the rain still falling as only this battlefield was devoid of the droplets.

But my eyes went to focus on the approaching succubus as another layer of her armor had been shed off. What remained now was an almost silver mercurial material that shifted across her body with shards of her broken armor layers mixed into it.

Once again, her speed had slowed, even with the potions she drank boosting it. "Your tricks are getting old!" She shouted before pulling out two orbs with a yellow gas roiling within. "SUFFER!"

With her fingers, she cracked one of the orbs open, releasing a gaseous bomb that, even with the nose plugs, some of the horrific stench still managed to seep in. It was fucking foul. If I hadn't thought ahead, I likely would've been incapacitated for a bit.

Casting [Foxfire Annihilation], I watched her intelligently utilize her World Item to erase all the approaching flames. Ending the spell, I blinked away with the smug realization that she was gassing out. Earlier, when she had caught me off-guard in an emotional state, she had her best chance of potentially killing me.

But now, after utilizing her hidden tricks while consuming or sacrificing her few resources to protect herself, she was getting put at a steadily increasing disadvantage. She only had, what I guessed, was a single layer of armor left to block a deadly hit, then she was easy pickings.

With eight of my tails, I cast [Ray of Foxfire] just as the green sphere died down, heavily impacting against her body and getting screams of pain as the rays began to quickly burn through the sections of shifting armor covering her body. Compared to the prior two layers, it could only feasibly take any one of the attacks for a few seconds until the mercurial material melted away and later reformed.

Performing a few aerial maneuvers, the succubus shifted out of the beams while still diving down to me. "You are one determined bitch." I commented before blinking away as she got close, but not before she popped another one of those orbs, making more of the smell from whatever gas was inside to seep into my nose through the plugs.

After blinking 40 feet above her, my eyes were slightly blurring with tears from the acrid scent in my nose. Fuck, that was pretty bad.

Casting more rays upon Albedo, there was little she could do to try and stop the attacks besides blocking her vital areas with her bardiche. "What more can you do, Succu-bitch? Your armor can barely stop my attacks at this point, you can't use your movement skill anymore, you've wasted all your good tricks when you had the chance, and you're too slow to even keep up with my blinking. This fight is over." I stated to the struggling succubus.

"No. I haven't used all my tricks. In fact, I was hoping that I'd never have to use this form as I can barely stand the thought of my Love seeing me like this. But for you, I'll make an exception." Albedo said, her voice taking on an inhuman and deeper tone as her yellow eyes glowed even brighter than before.

Fuck, she's a heteromorph race about to use her second form!

Before I got the chance to cast a spell to retaliate, the mercurial armor she wore, along with the shards and pieces of her broken armor layers, all became absorbed into her body as she quickly grew in size until she was over ten feet tall. Her legs grew black fur and changed to become digitigrade as the human-like feet became absorbed into the new legs while her toes merged together into newly made black hooves. Mercurial metal filled with armor pieces flowed along her legs like magma along cracked earth.

Her torso was furred on the sides, with more rivulets of metal flowing across it while her chest down to the lower abdominal muscles was covered in the flowing metal shaped like a V. Albedo's arms elongated and thickened like that of a gorilla's as they became covered in fur up to her shoulders while black talons grew from her fingers and were covered in metal to reinforce them.

Her face, funnily enough, remained the least changed, aside from great tusks growing up from her lower jaw, her teeth sharpening into sharp fangs, and her ears growing long and pointed. The pair of horns at the side of her head had grown over a foot upwards and curved forwards like an ominous crown that could also be used to impale another as metal covered them to add a metallic shine.

The pair of black feathered wings on Albedo's back had grown so that each wing now spanned over 12 feet. In short, Albedo's outward appearance now matched what a horrible monstrous bitch that she truly was.

"Aren't you just a sight for sore eyes." I taunted. I received a roar from the monstrous woman roared at me, and then did something that I hadn't expected until she transformed, making me remember exactly what the racial form that she had become could do.

She teleported in front of me despite [Law of Planar Movement] still being active.

With barely any time to react, I was able to bring up three of my tails to block the swing of her bardiche, burying itself deeply into my tails. "Then I'll just have to rip those eyes out!" She screamed in my face

Multiple rays shot out from my free tails, blasting her the beams of [Foxfire] that she blocked from hitting her vitals with a massive forearm. As that happened, she took the chance to swing the bardiche down once again. This time, I used [Blink] to escape 50 feet above her before casting it again, blinking 40 feet north, just as she teleported up to meet me.

Recalling what I knew about her form, she was currently transformed as a Nalfeshnee. They were demons that some succubi could evolve to, though it required a few prerequisites to do so. Seems that her creator got it to happen.

Nalfeshnee are known for taking a beautiful form that appears weak, which would lure Players into thinking that it was just a normal succubus. Then, they'd transform into horrific terrors. They were immensely strong, durable, and most importantly, Players would be unable to escape them since they could perform short-ranged teleportation regardless of anti-teleportation measures aside from 10th Tier, Super Tier, and World Items.

In other words…

I blinked again as Albedo slashed at my location, blinking around the battlefield in an endless chase. If she gets lucky at predicting where I would end up next, then I'm in trouble.

"What an ugly monster, don'cha think, Sugar-Tits?" Ratatoskr asked as he continued watching the fight from his…resting spot.

"Not exactly-" I blinked away, avoiding a decapitating strike, "the best-" another [Blink] to dodge a slash at my torso, "time for-" one more [Blink] to avoid losing an arm, "backseat fighting!"

"Well, ya' can't keep running away from the ugly bitch, I'll tell ya' that!" He replied, earning a roll of the eyes from me. The rodent was correct, though. I couldn't keep running forever, not that I planned to.

Blinking once again, I left illusionary copies that scattered from the area just as I blinked away and Albedo appeared. She attempted to kill the copies, but when that didn't work, she used her World Item.

All that did was give me more time to bounce around the battlefield creating more scattering copies. Three seconds of Ginnungagap's obscurement gave me enough time to create 15 more illusionary copies flying around the area pelting her with watered-down magic attacks as I continued with creating more and more copies.

While casting and maintaining the illusions was free, maintaining and moving all of these illusions was mentally draining. This was in addition to the constant blinking that was starting to put a drain on my mana reserves as I was just above half.

"YOU CANNOT ESCAPE ME FOREVER, WHORE!" Albedo screamed as she teleported on each copy she could find, instantly cutting it down before moving onto the next, until ten seconds later, she'd activate the World Item and clear an area around herself.

Ironically, the thing helping her to kill the copies around her was also what was helping me with my setup. Whenever she'd activate that bardiche, I'd lay down a few aerial traps in combination with creating illusionary copies that would continue scattering. As I was expecting her to soon get annoyed and pissed enough to utilize Ginnungagap's more destructive form, I conjured all my traps more than 120 feet away from myself, and more importantly, Albedo's attack.

I had to do this quickly before Albedo finally got too annoyed.

It was less than 30 seconds that Albedo finally shifted Ginnungagap to its staff form. "Enough of these games, whore!" She shouted before activating the item.

That was all I needed. The instant the green sphere appeared, I cast [Replicant] and summoned my real copy. She blinked away just as I did, with her in the small space within that invisible magic minefield that could fit someone of my size. As for me, I blinked outside of the minefield with an illusion over myself to appear like a randomly flying bird.

"The last one, aren't you? Still planning to run again?! I'LL CHASE YOU TO THE ENDS OF THE NEW WORLD AND BEYOND!" Albedo shouted as she glared at the single copy hovering before her.

"Succu-bitch, I never planned to run away from you. In fact, I'm going to beat you with a single spell." My copy said this as a spell array grew on her hands.

"No." Albedo countered as she appeared before my copy with her bardiche raised above her head. The second that the bitch appeared; two things happened. I dropped my bird illusion and threw a [Maximize Magic: Reality Slash] at her, and then the entire series of traps went off in an inferno of blue flame.

A massive roar of pain could be heard coming from Albedo within the inferno as I spotted a few items of interest begin fall out of the bottom of the flames towards the abyss below. One was a horn covered in that mercurial metal that had a clean cut through it. Another, which I was more interested in, was the large and fur-covered right arm of Albedo's, cut a little above the elbow.

And grasped tightly in its hand was Ginnungagap. Without hesitation, I blinked under the fire and towards the World item and caught both it, and the arm still holding it, along with Albedo's cut horn.

Moments later, all three items were stowed away in my storage and I blinked back to where I had been before.

"AHHHH! YOU BITCH!" Albedo screeched as she clutched her stump of a right arm. The remaining metal of her armor dripped off of her body like water, taking all the remnants of the prior layers of armor with it, and fell to the abyss below.

She had used up the last charge of her defensive ability protecting herself from the damage of the inferno. Too bad it didn't protect her from the attack that came right after.

"Normally, I might disagree! But you touched my daughter!" I said from behind Albedo. The bitch turned around and glared daggers at me as she quickly tried to reach into her storage. My copy immediately fired off another [Maximize Magic: Reality Slash], severing Albedo's arm and clipping half of one of her wings.

She already began teleporting away as I blinked right after her. One thing that I couldn't figure out was if her teleportation skill was mana-based or not. Because if it was the case, then she was liable to be out of mana-

Albedo crashed into the ground, just on the edge of the ravine. Her wings couldn't hold her aloft anymore and she wasn't teleporting any longer.

As the bitch pushed herself to her feet, I could just make out her speaking to herself, "Can't die, must live for my Love! Can't die, the whore still lives. Can't die, Mo-" I cut her off with another [Maximize Magic: Reality Slash] to her legs, cutting them off.

"AHHHHHHH! NO! MUST LIVE!" She cried, crawling forwards on the stumps of her limbs, leaving a trail of blood behind herself.

In her struggles to stay alive, her body began to slowly revert back to its former appearance. This just left a limbless woman in a bloodstained tatters of a white dress crawling forwards. I almost could feel a fledgling amount of respect at her innate will to survive, but she didn't deserve anything more than scorn.

Blinking in front of the crawling monster, I could see Albedo's face had multiple burns on it while her right horn had a large section of it missing. Even bested as she was, the woman was able to give me a look of absolute hatred.

"Look at you. Broken and battered. You know, if you hadn't been so vain in not using that monstrous form of yours at the beginning of our battle, then you may have had a chance to kill me." I taunted.

"Have you come to gloat, whore? Or will you torture me? It matters not because I will never break." Albedo spat at me as she tried pushing herself into an attempted standing position.

"We'll see about that." I said as my tail wrapped around her throat and I then attempted to read her mind, but for once, the attempt was completely rejected and I was punted out of her mind.

This earned a laugh from Albedo, "My Love's and Nazarick's secrets are lost to the likes of you." In response, I ripped Albedo's only working wing off with my tails, eliciting a scream of sheer agony.

"I don't care. I just wanted to know what other shit you've been setting up that might endanger my family." I said before burning all of Albedo's bleeding wounds with [Foxfire], searing them shut. She simply gritted her teeth at the pain and gave me a glare.

"No matter what, whore, Nazarick will ensure that you and your daughters suff- AHHHHH!" I lit her mouth aflame with [Foxfire], making certain to burn her tongue off before I ended the spell. The skin of her lips and around her mouth, and most certainly inside her mouth, was horrifically burned from the spell.

"This will help ensure that your tongue doesn't utter another word about Tuare and Ninya. My only issue right now is what to do with you? If I kill you, Momonga is likely to resurrect you immediately. He also has a Shooting Star ring, which means that he can just wish you back…"

"Actually, Sugar-Tits, ya' could just send her to the Un-Realm. Ya' know the spell, and if one doesn't know the path, ya' could get lost forever without some method to teleport out." Ratatoskr recommended, making me gaze down at the tiny pervert still in my cleavage with a raised brow.

"That doesn't stop something like a wish spell from recalling her back." I countered.

"Not if someone has a [Curse of Yggdrasil] on them." That was a new one.

"And what is a [Curse of Yggdrasil]?" I asked as my body suddenly felt heavier and a bit sluggish. Looking down at my chest, I spotted that the glowing white tree had faded away. Guess that the buff ran out.

Ratatoskr looked at me before laughing, "Seems that Yggy's blessing ran out on ya'! You'll probably be a bit weak for a while afterwards, 'specially with how long ya' had it on ya'. Be thankful that you're essentially Yggy's grandchild since it woulda killed anyone else, gods included."

"Yggdrasil's grandchild?" I questioned as I started feeling a headache while my nose felt stuffier than even the nose plugs should've made them. Pulling the nose and earplugs out, I felt the warm wetness of a nosebleed as my ears also began leaking blood.

"Ya' think being a pureborn god is all for show? Nah, we were essentially made from Yggy. Your milf of a mother is one, making ya', as her sexy kid, Yggy's grandchild."

"Why do I have the weirdest family tree?" I questioned while attempting to stem my nosebleed.

"Cause your granny's the World Tree." The rodent replied, making me want to sigh for walking into that one, "But as for the original question, that curse is what helps keep the Hungry Wurm from escaping. Prevents things, like teleporting away, being scryed by any but Yggy and I, losing access to extra-dimensional spatial abilities, or being wished out of prison from happening. I know it 'cause I help Yggy watch the Wurm and use it to secure his locks every few centuries."

This made me smile. "So, you just apply it to the bitch, I cast [Path of the Un-Realm], go inside, throw her into a random spot, and then leave?" I asked to confirm.

"Right ya' are, Sugar-Tits." The rodent confirmed with a nod before we both looked at Albedo attempting to squirm from where she was hanging. As she overheard our discussion, she was beginning to realize that Momonga wasn't going to be able to save her from my wrath.

"Excellent. So," I gestured to the beaten succubus, "are you going to go ahead and start this?"

The rodent pulled a furry paw out and held up two of his fingers, "Two things before I do this. One is a warning, the other is a demand."

I wonder what type of warning he had for me? "Okay, lay them on me." I let go of my nose and felt confident that my nose wouldn't start bleeding again.

"For the warning; once I do this, it's done. There is no removal for it, not even dying will free one from this curse as both Hel and Helheim will reject them from their cold embrace to exist and endure. Yggy will have the memory of whoever has been cursed etched into her memory for eternity." He patted on the chest in warning, "With this warning, are ya' still willing to condemn another soul to an eternity of this fate?"

Gazing at the succubus, I could see that she was coming to understand exactly what this meant as there wasn't anyone to save or protect her. I wasn't planning on telling Momonga about this until after I had fully dealt with the bitch. I gave him a warning and a second chance to get his people under control.

He had to understand that his people were not allowed to be free to do whatever heinous shit they wanted without dealing with the consequences that followed. My feelings on Momonga are extremely mixed at this moment. I wanted him to be my friend, and I felt that we had been getting close. Close enough, that I understood how much what I was going to do to Albedo would hurt him.

At the same time, the protective mother inside me didn't give a shit about what Momonga might feel because I wanted to punish whoever dared to touch my kits and ensure that they would never be able to do so again. The vindictive kitsune within me especially wanted to ensure that Albedo suffered for what she did. Death was too good for her.

"Yes. I am fully willing to condemn this monster to this punishment." I confirmed. "Now, what is your demand?"

Worryingly, I received that lecherous little grin of his and felt my eyes unconsciously narrow at the rodent. "Since Yggy and I have a special connection, that means that I won't need to be pulled back to where I once was at the end of the [Loki's Call] duration. If I do this curse, I request that I get to utilize my favorite resting spot whenever I like."

[Foxfire] lit up in my hand at hearing his demand of me. "You fucking pervert. What's to prevent me from not creating barbequed squirrel for lunch?"

"Sugar-Tits, if your milf of a mother was unable to follow through on her threats to me, what makes ya' think that you'll do any better when considerably weaker than her? Besides, I'm the Warden of the Wurm, and there's pretty much nothing in the Ten Realms scarier than Niddy." The little rat said smugly, "This is my offer, take it or leave it."

There is nothing more annoying in any world than someone who knows that they are the only option to accomplish something, and that they're smug about it. And I got all of that from the furry pervert right now. "…Fine…" I mumbled in agreement.

"What was that, Princess Sugar-Tits?" The little shit asked with a taunting grin as if his large ears could hear me.

"You heard me. Now do it before I change my mind and find a way to punt you off the World Tree." I replied tersely.

With a laugh, Ratatoskr pulled himself out of his resting place and jumped onto my tail holding Albedo, "Good doing business with ya'!" He then turned to Albedo and approached her head until he was able to put a paw on her forehead.

"[I, Ratatoskr, Warden of the Wurm and Aide of Yggdrasil; enforce Her ire, Her hatred, and Her wrath upon thee. Ye are rejected; death will not bring peace to thine spirit, Hel and her Realm will not harbor ye. May ye be nothing more than nutrients to Her roots, may thine flesh rot and be uneaten, and may thine bones remain unburied and forgotten. Live in eternity with regrets, ye who have earned it!]"

As Ratatoskr invoked these words, it felt like the world was listening. The open space we stood in now felt crowded as the wind, the sky, the plants, the wildlife, and the very ground all listened to what the squirrel said. But the further that Ratatoskr spoke, the more I felt that same ancient presence when I was under the effects of Ratatoskr's blessing.

The longer that the rodent said these words, the more I noticed a pressure pushing down upon Albedo, almost like the horizon of a black hole. And upon the last word spoken, a white root seemed to grow from the air in front of the succubus before stabbing into her forehead, eliciting a scream of pain from Albedo before the root pulled away revealing a symbol reminiscent of a dead tree in a glowing red.

Once finished, Ratatoskr returned to bury himself back in his resting place, "As promised, the crazy bitch has been permanently cursed. Ready to send her off?"

"Yes." I said, giving Albedo a smug glance while she returned it with a glare.

"Whoar, Ei whill nehvah stahp uhntil yu shuffah! Ei whill retuhrn tu mhy Luhve wih yor hed en mhy handsh!" The bitch threatened, even with a missing tongue and a burnt inner-mouth and lips. The amount of hate required to force oneself to continue speaking through that agony was a mixture between insanity and sheer will.

"No. You will live the rest of your life knowing that the only one responsible for your predicament is yourself. Succu-bitch." Following this, I cast [Path of the Un-Realm] which tore open a portal of roots, leading to a labyrinthine realm that the three of us stepped through. As we did this, I took the moment to examine the area.

Around us, massive dead tree branches scarred in black, twisted and knotted the realm in all directions alongside the numerous ruins of dead civilizations. Where we stood was one of the calmer areas of this place. Beyond all of the broken branches above the Un-Realm was the impossible rooted base of the World Tree, indescribably large while a sky of auroras made from mana was beyond that. One very noticeable thing under the World Tree was the dark form of a twisted creature that was wrapped and tangled in these roots which constantly seemed to grow and shift, even if the creature gave a struggle or two against them before ceasing.

Then, the dark form shifted what might be its head and opened a massive, glowing crimson eye with a jagged pupil whose edges seemed to constantly move like the teeth of a chainsaw. That eye's gaze fixed down upon the Un-Realm, and I knew that its attention was on the three of us.

"Welcome to your new home, crazy bitch. This is the Un-Realm, a place beneath Yggy that was created from all the fallen branches of Yggy's when the Wurm glaring down upon us attacked her. Hiya, Niddy!" Ratatoskr gave a wave to Nidhoggr. This earned a roar of anger from the ancient imprisoned dragon.

The perverted rodent looked back to me with a grin, "Real friendly guy, Niddy is. Anyway, In the Un-Realm, the laws of the realms break down and twist as the corpse of each of these fallen realms and branches no longer have Yggy to give them balance. As such, one must know the rules of where ya' step as the laws of one realm might not be the same as the law of another."

He wasn't wrong about the rules of this place as it was a maze in essence. There was danger around every corner, especially from the creatures that called this place home. But this place was also considered by Players as one of the best places in all of YGGDRASIL to hide things of value and importance. Scattered about the Un-Realm were places that could be turned into vaults if the guardian to it was defeated.

From there, the Player would have a secret vault, along with a free guardian to the vault as the former guardian boss would defend it with its life. Sadly, these guardians were restricted to the vaults and could never leave.

Looking to Albedo, I turned the bitch to face me as her eyes trailed over the eldritch realm. "Goodbye forever, Succu-bitch." I told her as I looked past her to what looked to be a simple shattered street of cracked stone with dead branches and fallen buildings along it. That simplicity was a lie.

Tossing Albedo forwards, not even bothering to hear the quadruple amputee speak, I watched her body skip across two meters before the trickiness of the Un-Realm began.

Mid-skip, her body stopped moving forwards and gravity shifted, making her fall to her left. A few feet more, gravity shifted for her again and she fell back down to the ground before phasing through the solid stone floor of this liminal realm. All the while, she screamed curses at me until disappearing.

"She's dealt with. Since she's not a magic caster, Albedo is going to be trapped here unless someone knows where to find her and can cast that spell." I said in a slight amount of relief. She'll never be able to touch either of my kits again while suffering the fate of never seeing Momonga while persisting in her crippled form.

"That she is, Sugar-Tits. Ya' feeling good after all of that?" The rodent asked cheerily. Part of me wanted to say that I was, but there was the other part of me that felt worried about potential consequences from this. Namely, consequences with Momonga.

"I believe so." I simply replied while examining the Un-Realm a bit longer. "Just wondering, would my vault still be here? Or did it disappear with my arrival in the New World?"

"Your vault is still here. No need to worry about that, Sugar-Tits. We could check it out if ya' wanted?" Ratatoskr replied, making me shake my head.

"I'll see it later since my vault's not going anywhere. Right now, I'm more concerned about Ninya and what I will say to Momonga. And honestly, I'm scared of what I should handle first." I answered before turning around and going back through the portal once again, letting it close behind me.

Another reason that I didn't want to explore the Un-Realm was that it was extremely creepy having Nidhoggr's eye gazing down at me. Something just felt ominous and revulsive about that eldritch attention on myself.

I considered sending a [Message] to Momonga, but I decided against it. I needed a little bit of time to recover and possibly prepare for his retaliation. So, Ninya would be my first stop.

[Ninya]

After mom had sent me back to the temple, I found myself sitting in place for a short while as my mind tried to process everything that I just went through. I was taken, tormented and tortured, discovered that I wasn't even human anymore, was rescued by mom, and then… There was that armored woman that had actually been able to injure mom.

I found myself looking at my hands, and more specifically, the sharp nails that were growing and sharpening. Then my eyes caught sight of the ring that was still on my finger from those spider monsters. With utter haste, I ripped it off my finger and threw it across the room. The sound of metal hitting against stone was loudly clear in my…ears.

Looking around, I spotted a mirrored surface and got off of mom's bed before walking over to it. Looking through the mirror, two things took my notice before I began looking on top of my head. The first were my eyes, now a complete glowing gold with slitted pupils, just like mom's. Then, there were my teeth, with the canines elongated and sharpened that I tentatively felt with my tongue.

My teeth felt so foreign to me. Yet, at the same time, they were so natural to my body now. Then, I flicked my golden gaze to the top of my head where a steadily growing pair of brunette fox ears rose above my hair. Feeling the side of my head where my human ears used to be, there was now a furred cartilage that went directly upwards. As my hand rose, I felt the furred entrance of my ear an inch or so higher from where it used to be, and twice as larger.

I couldn't find it in myself to put my fingers any closer to the new orifice, especially because of how sensitive my entire ear currently was. Just my simple touching made the hair on the back of my neck rise in response.

My growing ears were a lot more sensitive than my growing tail. Twisting my body to get a clear look at it as it stuck out through a hole strategically placed on the dress I wore; the brunette appendage was seven inches in length and still visibly growing. I was actually able to make it move now which was an alien feeling to experience.

The prehensile limb could move, curl, and slightly twist. I could only imagine what more I might be able to do with this limb in the future once it was fully grown. And then there was the possibility of me growing up to nine of these limbs in the future.

Aside from my physical changes, there was my sense of smell. I could still smell the stew I had earlier today. Mom and Lukrut's scents moved about the room, mostly concentrated on where she slept and where he sat. Beyond that, the other thing I could smell which was overpowering against that of human and kitsune was the coppery scent of blood and the rot of corpses.

That made me worried about what might've happened to my friends when I was taken from the battle. I saw Peter's sword, but I had been unable to tell if it had been my friend or not who carried it.

Trailing on this thought soon brought me to an entirely different dilemma. How was I even going to explain the changes that I underwent? What if someone that was either not one of my friends, my family, or the kitsune were to see and recognize me?

There was definitely still a whole lot of people that were probably outside, and all of them were probably from E-Rantel. If someone were to know who I was, then I'd have no idea on where to go from there?

I'm just a bit lost and overwhelmed on what to do right now. A sort of decision paralysis overcame my mind as so many thoughts on what happened, what my next steps were, how my future might look, and even more overloaded me.

I couldn't say for certain how long I stood there like that until a voice behind me spooked me out of my thoughts. "Hey, kiddo." I found myself slightly jumping until my mind processed multiple things, all at once.

A scent of fire, a rainstorm, blood, plants, and something I couldn't put a name to coalesced around the smell of mom. That, and it was her voice that spoke from behind me.

"Mom!" I turned around and pulled the woman into a hug, not even slightly bothered by how drenched in water her body and clothes were. She returned the embrace and I looked up to her face to see her smiling at me. Yet, a twitching by her chest brought my eyes down to see the form of a…squirrel's head poking out from her cleavage?

"Appears that you're a milf as well, Sugar-Tits!" The squirrel spoke?! I saw him look up at mom's face with a grin on his furry lips.

"M-Mom, why can that squirrel speak? And why did it call you a milf and 'Sugar-Tits'?" I found myself immediately asking.

Mom had a dry look on her face as she gazed down at the animal with narrowed eyes. "He-"

"Name's Ratatoskr, the handsome squirrel with many deserved titles! Ya' must be either Tuare or Ninya, if I recall correctly." Ratatoskr interrupted mom as he pulled his body out from mom's cleavage and hopped onto my right shoulder, as if examining me.

"I'm Ninya." I hesitantly answered.

"As for what I called your mom. Well, she's got an amazing pair on her, earning her the name Sugar-Tits. As for milf? It stands for 'mother I'd like to f-'" He didn't get to say another word as one of mom's tails slapped him away into a wall. He made a loud smacking noise upon impacting the wall along with a groan.

"I'd try to ignore what the pervert says. Unfortunately, he'll probably be hanging around us for the time being." Mom explained as she barely paid the squirrel a glance. "But enough about that, how are you doing right now? Are any of the changes bothering you at all?"

I had to smile at the way mom immediately flipped her mood from annoyance at Ratatoskr to concern about me. "It's just strange. I can hear and smell in a way that I couldn't before, and a lot of these changes just feel so…different." I answered.

Gently, mom moved her hands up to my growing ears and lightly touched and examined them, making the hairs at the back of my neck stand up once more, but also feeling a little pleasant. "Your ears are likely going to be extremely sensitive until they're fully grown since the nerves in them are all new and still forming. For kitsune, they're one of the more sensitive spots on our bodies since they're finely tuned to hear noise."

As mom explained this, she pulled away from me and began to speak in, what I guessed, was a whisper, "How loud does this sound to you?" To me, it sounded like she was normally talking.

"Very audible." I answered.

"Good. It means your hearing doesn't have any issues." Mom looked over my shoulder, and I tried to follow her gaze, as she looked at my tail. It had now grown to eight inches since I last saw it a few minutes ago. Then, one of her tails approached mine and gently prodded it.

Much to my surprise, my tail instinctively wrapped itself around hers as mom's softly did the same, locking our two limbs together. "Your tail has a good grip, even though its still growing."

"I-I didn't mean to do that." I admitted, looking from our locked tails to mom's eyes. She simply gave me a smile and tousled my hair.

"You don't need to feel like you've done anything wrong. It's an instinctual reaction kitsune do with those close to them since it's a way to display affection. I did it with my mother just as you are doing it with me." She consoled me as heat started rushing to my face at learning the reason behind this instinctive reaction. "By the way, kiddo, we'll likely need to go over the new set of instincts that you'll be dealing with."

Whatever I may have been thinking before, I was quickly pulled out of it and found myself asking, "What instincts?"

"Compared to humans, we're a bit more animalistic at times. You will probably get certain urges, like a preference to live in large burrows, feelings of protectiveness, mating urges, and a few others. I'll have to help walk you through them." Mom explained, making me slightly nervous at the concept.

"Why did this even happen? How did I turn into a kitsune?" I questioned.

Mom appeared slightly guilty, "It's my fault, even if unintentionally. You see, as I'm a goddess, conceptualism is something of which that I'm connected to. Since I see you and Tuare as my daughters, and you and Tuare see me as your mother, especially after you both drank my blood, my divine nature is making that connection we have very literal. You getting splattered with my blood when I was growing my tail just sped that process up. Sorry about that, kiddo."

I shook my head at her apology, "Changing to an entirely difference race is surprising, though I'm not upset about it, mom. But did I hear correctly when you said Tuare also drank your blood?"

Mom nodded, "It happened sometime when I was still unconscious. My spirit had been brought to mom's realm," Mom gave me a knowing smirk, "Grandma Inari's realm. From there, I saw Tuare appear before us before disappearing."

"Why did you appear in Grandma's realm?" I questioned.

"Because, as her daughter, I'm innately connected to the Realm of Foxes even if I am not currently living there. Though, it wasn't a bad experience since I got to see mom again and she helped to explain and clarify a few things for me. Additionally," Mom held out a lock of her extremely long hair, "it seems that you weren't the only one to get pranked by mom."

We we silent for a few moments until we burst out laughing. Eventually, we settled down enough to talk again, "Any idea how long your blessing from Grandma is going to last? I still have no clue as to how long mine will." I asked while absentmindedly playing with my own hair.

"Mines permanent, unlike yours, until I figure out how to dispel it. As for yours, I've got good news and bad news for you."

My eyes narrowed suspiciously at mom when she said this, "What's the good news?"

"Your blessing will end within your lifetime." Mom quickly answered.

"…Bad news?"

"It'll be two or three centuries before that happens."

My eyes fully widened at mom's answer, "But I'll be long dead be-" My protest was cut short by mom playfully poking me in the forehead.

"Nope. You're a kitsune now, kiddo. Biological age doesn't matter for you anymore since you're immortal."

By the gods, mom was right. I really was immortal now. I ended up attaining what others have fought, stolen, researched, and killed for by complete accident. I would theoretically live forever.

"A lot for you to consider, huh?" I gave a nod to mom's question. "Then don't focus on it. Enjoy what you have now, and by the time you notice, it will barely even bother you."

"I-I'll try." I replied back, the massive revelation still weighing on my mind. "Are there any further surprises that I should expect from becoming a kitsune?"

Mom gave me a wry grin in answer. "Umm, since you and Tuare are both becoming kitsune due to the conceptualization of me being your mother… Well…you already know what Grandma and I look like."

Saying this, mom gestured to her body and I quickly got the picture. "H-How long until that happens?" I asked while looking down to examine how body currently looked like.

"It should be a bit of a while, kiddo. It's just, you should probably expect to become bigger as you get older." She replied, alleviating some of my worries of just waking up from bed one day with a figure like mom's.

That was when I smelt squirrel and plants grow suddenly closer as a weight appeared on my shoulder. Looking over, I saw Ratatoskr sitting there with a grin.

"Did I hear right, Sugar-Tits? Your cute kid is going to grow up to be a knockout like ya' currently are? Cause if that's the case, then I really made the best decision of sticking around y-" Ratatoskr was cut off when one of mom's tails struck out and wrapped the squirrel in its embrace like a snake would its prey.

"Pull any of that lecherous shit with either of my daughters and I will castrate you with a spoon and force-feed you your tiny testicles. Got it?" Mom threatened with a glare at the…pervert.

"Warning…noted…" The squirrel wheezed out in reply. Mom's tail gave a final squeeze of warning before finally unwrapping from his body. Ratatoskr took a moment to gulp down some air before warily looking back at mom. "Our deal still stands, right?" What deal?

Mom's eyes narrowed into a glare before she sighed and nodded. "Yes, you perverted bastard."

The squirrel quickly jumped from my shoulder and onto mom's before diving into her cleavage like he was at the start. "At least I have one good thing going for me."

"Mom, what deal is Ratatoskr talking about?"

Another sigh came from her before she answered, "I made a deal with the pervert for his help. In exchange he gets to…reside here whenever he likes."

"What kind of help would you need to agree to Ratatoskr's help?" I questioned, worrying about what the answer could be to make mom, a goddess, request aid from another? "Was it because of that armored woman?"

There was silence for a few moments as mom's golden eyes searched mine, determining whether she should answer. Finally, mom made her decision as a pair of chairs appeared next to us, and I took the unspoken invitation to sit down as mom did.

"Celicia-Ninya, I need you to promise not to share with anyone else what I'm about to tell you. Can you please do this for me?" Mom asked, invoking my full name which told me just how serious this was.

"I promise, mom." I answered, earning a soft smile from her.

"To begin, let's get it out of the way that I'm not originally from this realm. Until over a month ago, I didn't know this place even existed." I already figured that part out a while ago, but I didn't interrupt, "But somehow, I ended up being pulled here by an unknown power or entity. The only small caveat is that I wasn't the only one to arrive here."

"Who else came with you?"

"Back home, we had guilds of people that would be created for any number of reasons. Some would rise as other were destroyed on a constant basis. One consistent thing about all of them is that they are filled with powerful people like myself. Among them was a guild formed by a group of monsters that had been treated like outcasts to be hunted down and killed for sport.

One day, these monsters banded together and decided that if they should be hated and treated the villain, then they would embrace it. As such, they went to work creating extremely powerful monsters, monsters who could individually kill entire cities on a whim, to guard their guild from all intruders. Over time, though, members of this guild began to leave, one by one, until only one of them remained.

His name is Momonga, a lich cursed with muted emotions and empathy. He, along with the entire guild and the monsters residing within, arrived here at the same time I did. Momonga is one of the few members of the guild that isn't actively malicious. He's also the leader of this guild and all of these monsters typically obey him. But there comes the true problem, Momonga is typically apathetic to most things, the actions performed by the monsters of the guild are one of these things.

Now, what might happen when an apathetic man, who sees these monsters as his children that can do no wrong, is told to restrain these children and prevent them from doing what they wish to do? Of these things that they like to do is horrific and brutal atrocities."

I felt my heart quicken as I now considered this. An entire base of monsters that could fight on mom's level monsters was horrifying to imagine. Mom just had to fight one of these creatures for me, and it seemed like it hadn't been easy for her.

But that also made me ponder another thing. Mom said she had to use her most destructive spell against the vampire from a few weeks ago. And this vampire, mom said, was from the same land she hailed from. Along with the two new adamantite-plate adventurers that fought with her. Named Nabe and…Momon.

An adventurer that almost never took his armor off except for that one feast that mom and Lukrut attended. Lukrut had mentioned how the man without his helmet equipped looked off, and Lukrut's gut feelings were typically right. And with how powerful mom was, what's to say that a powerful lich didn't know a way to disguise his appearance among the living?

Momon and Momonga…

"Mom, is the adventurer Momon actually Momonga?" I asked, and from the expression of shock and surprise that filled her face at my deduction, I was correct…