Ciel might be the most eloquent, but Hana is the one with more standard conversational skills, so we believe our dragonkin is better suited to the task of stalling. And Lina quickly fashions a pair of glasses for Hana so she doesn't have to use the face-enclosing 4D helmet, allowing her to have a more personal talk with the Titan, who's waiting while standing still and gripping his greatsword with both hands but keeping the tip down in a neutral posture.
"[Worm. Are you here to finally fight me]?" the Titan immediately asks as she enters uncomfortably-loud speaking range, sounding quite eager.
Hana continues striding forward because she refuses to shout, then replies with a normal tone, "[No. I'm here to ask why you are doing this]."
And his wide, manly face becomes quite wrinkly as his grin creepily stretches to its limit, "[I already told you. I'm here to curse you]."
But our mane-haired wife is too self-assured to be disturbed by just that, so she just directly asks, "[Alright, but how does that work]?"
Which immediately dispels his mojo as his grin turns into a frown. "[Why should I answer you]?"
She casually shrugs. "[Why not]?"
And her attitude seems to offend him, so he raises his upper lip and hisses, "[I'm here to die for my people. Our only goal is to kill as many of you unclean worms as possible. Telling you how we'll curse you would be counter-productive towards that goal]."
It's actually hard to have a proper conversation with someone so aggressive, so Hana just continues questioning to keep him talking, "[Why do you hate us so much]?"
"[We were made for this. It's our only duty to purge the Realm of your unclean taint, for you're less than worthless]," he answers with sadistic glee, which makes us feel disgusted.
Wow, what a spicy tongue.
Not even Hana has the patience to let a fanatical ass like him prattle on, so she decides to be combative, "[You know we have a dragon with us? We converted a monster into a humanoid, and now she has a system, skills, and even a Blessing from one of our Gods]."
Which has the predicted (and very delightful) effect of making him seethe. "[The accursed traitor will die like the rest of you]."
We all smell an opportunity, so we encourage Hana to continue on this path, and her tone becomes deceptively sweet as she takes a threatening step forward. "[Aren't you just a little bit curious about her? Even though she was born a monster, they respect her as a Queen and even bow to her. She was also easily accepted among us, even while looking as fearsome as she does, and now even the Gods protect her. Don't you agree that she lives a good life? At least it's a much happier life than yours, who only lives to kill]."
The onslaught (hah) of words launched against him smothers his rage, so he goes on the defensive and hisses, "[What a shamelessly coddled life. Your only saving grace is that you seem too lazy to spread your taint as much as you can]."
But this off-handed comment actually offends us, which bleeds into Hana's words as she snarls back, "['Lazy'? 'Coddled'?! You're the ones who've had Gods-know how many hundreds of thousands of years to grow by yourselves, and yet you still can't match humanoid might]!"
"[That's to be seen. With our God's guidance, we'll crush you under millions of feet]," he solemnly answers, but I expected him to be more fervently pious when saying something like that. At least his words prove they're about to unleash the horde upon us.
Now a bit of Ciel's true feelings seep into Hana, combining into a deliciously harsh lambasting, "[What God? Destruction has abandoned you, the Monster King rarely even makes an appearance anymore, and we've shown the last big Titan that fought us what true divinity means]."
"[Destruction chases the abominable Creation across the Cycles as They leave a trail of taint upon the Overseer's perfect Domain]," Onslaught hastily replies, a boring answer expected of a man out of his depth.
"I think he means the Original Cycle of Life," Ciel explains, but continuing the conversation on this topic would be too deeply philosophical for us.
So we let Hana loose a little bit. "[Yeah? Well, Destruction could still pay a little bit of attention while we converted Their children to our cause, and the next race that we convert might even be yours. Imagine Titan women bending over to my dragon King to be bred by him. One. By. One]."
But Onslaught's gray skin quickly becomes red, and we remember that this is exactly what we didn't want to do.
Wait, Hana, maybe that was a bit too much.
"Oops," she hums back in my soul space.
And the Titan's hands begin to shake as he grips his greatsword as hard as he can in seething rage. "[You… unholy spawn of filth. I feel like killing myself just from being near you. Oblivion, take me, already]."
So she goes back a bit in the conversation and softens the edge. "[At least admit that our lives are better than yours. I've lived a very happy and free life, and I grew stronger because of it! But keep in mind that I'll also live much longer than any of your kind ever will! Humanoids simply have the superior way of life compared to your kind, whose only destiny is to die fighting]."
"[There's nothing but duty and death]!" he piously barks like a good little brainwashed acolyte.
"[Only because your 'God' chose that for you, but is that really what you want? We've already converted a monster, so we can do it for you, too]," Hana snarls back with a fearsome grin, infected by Ciel's piety again.
"[Do not tempt me with your depravity]," he grunts and sneers in disgust.
But Hana leans further into it. "[Aren't you afraid of dying]?"
"[Of course not]," he dryly replies and glances away stubbornly.
So she gives him the final stab, "[Everyone is afraid of dying! That fear is part of every living being, so don't lie to yourself]!"
"[ENOUGH]…!" he roars in pure rage, then immediately falls silent, his lips trembling as he struggles to find the words. It seems that we finally broke something in him. Then he suddenly starts to rant, "[You can brag as much as you want about your life, but it won't change anything for us! We've been bred to fulfill this duty for eons, and it won't be just words that will make us abandon it after so much. Now, fight me already, or I might actually kill myself]."
And then he lowers his head as he refuses to look at her any longer.
"Well, it was worth a try," Hana hums through [Bind] and internally shrugs.
"You did great," Alissa encourages and pats her back through our connection.
"You crushed his ego and faith. Perhaps this will tilt things in our favor, however small," Yunia follows up.
"[One hour, and we'll be ready]," Hana gives a parting statement, but the Titan doesn't even react and just stares at the ground.
I wonder if we could've actually converted him if we had chosen Ciel to talk with him instead of Hana, but I feel like it'd be a high-risk, high-reward gamble, and I fucking hate high-risk strategies.
--
Lily puts on the 4D glasses, then points with her Artifact hammer as she asks, "Alright, so I just smack that one in the shirt?" Seeing that the Titan is unarmored, she also won't wear any armor, but she doesn't really need it and only ever wore it just in case.
I nod as I answer and question, "Yes, but do you know Reo? The language the Chimeras use?"
She snorts smugly as she replies, "Yeah, and I even have two levels in it because I learned it by accident before they taught us how to suppress that."
So I hum, appeased, "Okay, you'll be fine. Hana had a talk with him and kind of crushed his balls, but I don't think we want to enrage him, so no taunting."
And the impish loli frowns at me. "Really? You fucking steal all the fun from me?"
"Don't be edgy, Lily," I dryly reply and exaggeratedly roll my eyes.
"Yeah, whatever, Your Highness, King Wolf Ryder," she gives one last bite.
So I think she deserves this riposte, "Chuuni is more socially acceptable than edgy."
And she just snorts as she walks out of the fortress.
--
We gather on our side of the bridge and watch over her as she approaches the Titan challenger. The only one not looking at her is Silvano, who is still "taking in the sights" after being suddenly called to reinforce our numbers, but for once, I don't fault him as he's an adventurous person who came to serve us just because he knew we'd be getting ourselves in this sort of trouble.
The deer Princess also discreetly grabs my attention as she's the only woman near us while there's a wall of male Hau-Hou royals between us and the rest of the women. She looks mighty cute with glasses, and her current position is clearly meant to send a deliberate message, so I'm partial towards "hitting her up" later, and by that, I mean hitting her cervix.
But I leave the thirsting for later as the Titan has noticed Lily, so he raises his head and grins like she's an angel here to bring him redemption.
"[I assume you're my opponent]?" he loudly questions before she gets past the uncomfortably-shouting range. I think he just has a more powerful voice since he's bigger, which means he starts speaking before we humanoids normally do.
"[Yes]," Lily tersely replies after getting within comfortable reply range.
Then Onslaught chuckles softly. "[And you're of few words. I like that]."
But she frowns and sneers. "[Ew, don't make this weird]."
"[What]…?" he quacks confusedly.
And she feels that this joke won't be easily explained to him, so she just waves dismissively and moves on, "[Forget about it. What are the rules for this duel]?"
"[The one who dies, loses]," he answers with a gleeful grin.
"[Wonderful. You're ready to die, then]?" she dryly snarls back.
But his glee only rises. "[Yes, but are you]?"
Now she becomes smug. "[No, because I'm going to live forever]."
And his eyes narrow in disgust. "[The worm can't help but spread its taint]."
He doesn't seem to have anything intelligent to say, so she just readies her hammer and gives a parting jab, "[You're just trash, and you're in our way to the dungeon's core]."
Which seems to infuriate the Titan, for he suddenly roars and charges, "[ONSLAUGHT IS MY NAME]!" And his very long greatsword points forward, directly toward her heart.
Lily doesn't bother replying and simply raises her overly-ornate war hammer to meet his attack. However, he immediately moves the tip of his blade in 4D, getting through her guard as she's still unused to the extra dimension, so she's forced to use [Muscle Explosion] to dodge.
She still manages to hit his blade to push it away, and the power of her hit surprises him, so he pulls back and immediately stabs again, already learning to avoid meeting her weapon. But She-Hulk can also use her dumb strength to move things fast, so she easily [Parry]s this attack.
True to his name, Onslaught doesn't back off and keeps sending attack after attack, making good use of his large reach advantage against the little loli girl. As for Lily, she doesn't like it when she's not on top, so she starts to get increasingly frustrated.
The Titan is very skilled with his weapon, enough to match a Lord, but his style is hard to gauge. It's unorthodox, and it kind of seems like he's doing small flourishes with his strikes, which is weird but also looks confusing and could catch Lily by surprise.
Then something starts to change in him, and all of the warriors on our side frown simultaneously.
"He's becoming stronger," Hana immediately remarks.
Stronger, faster, and even more skilled. This seems to be the obvious power of "Onslaught," but there's no reason to watch it grow any further.
"FINISH IT, LILY!" I encouragingly shout.
"DON'T TELL ME WHAT TO DO!" the little girl angrily replies because she's kind of a bitch.
But she still decides to follow my advice, so she takes a gamble and stops his blade with her hand, then aims for his flank as the hammer shifts into an axe. Unfortunately, Onslaught is hyper-aware of anything suspicious, and the moment Lily intentionally takes the attack, he starts to back off, so she only gets in a long but shallow cut at his ribs as he narrowly dodges the axe's blade, also pulling his weapon back fast enough that her fingers can't get a grip on it.
"[Your God's blessing is weaker than mine's]!" he shouts back defiantly as he dodges a follow-up attack.
"[Say that over my corpse]!" she snarls back as she increases her speed further.
But he cackles and manically roars, "[HAHAHA! SAY THAT OVER MINE]!"
And even though she's now on the offensive, he's gracefully stepping back while still scoring hits against her, but they're not doing anything to her impenetrable skin, so there's no winning side.
Suddenly, his greatsword crackles with lightning as it touches her neck, and she freezes and groans in pain. Then his blade suddenly glows with a black, ethereal light, the kind that gives me a horrible chill from even a mere glimpse.
So I launch myself forward, but Alissa stops me as her sharp eyes catch the next moment before mine can.
Lily has her hand raised, and this time, she actually grabs the black blade. Then she pulls it back, too fast for Onslaught to release his weapon, so he stumbles forward, and she sinks her axe into the Titan's flank.
But then she gets a knee to the face, sending her flying. She still has a grip on the greatsword, though, so she yanks both her axe and the greatsword off of him, making him fall on his knees while she falls on her back, then expertly rolls to get back on her feet again.
She takes a look at her hand, but even though she's still gripping the enchanted blade, it's doing nothing to her.
"[Your Blessing is quite strong]," Onslaught remarks as he stands up with a wince while holding the deep gash between his ribs to slow the bleeding.
"[It stings a bit]," she replies as she curiously stares at her hand.
He just snorts, then raises his fists and gets ready to wind up a punch, but Lily can't help but accept his challenge, so she drops the weapons and then mirrors his pose.
"Oh, God," I grumble and facepalm as I float back to our group.
It comforts me that at least the Hau-Hou are frowning concernedly at this silliness. Hana feels a lot of second-hand embarrassment, but only because she can feel our feelings of worry. Otherwise, she'd do the same as Lily.
The two muscle-brained idiots stare at each other for several long seconds, and then they suddenly charge forward at the same time. They both seem to want to put all of their power into their punch, even forgoing trying to defend against the other's attack, which is an incredibly stupid shounen trope.
When they're about to crash into each other, they slam their feet against the ground to stop their lower body, but their upper body continues on, and they launch their fists forward at the same time. Onslaught has a much, much longer reach than Lily's little loli arms, so he hits her first, but she doesn't even flinch or fly away as, this time, she's perfectly anchored.
But she also doesn't stop moving forward and pushes his fist back with her face, then even leaps forward to reach him. Her fist connects with his jaw, and we hear a *crunch* as he's sent flying like a ragdoll.
He spins and lands near the grid of immobile tin cans, who simply follow him with their eyes, completely silent, and none of them make any move to even check on him. But Onslaught also seems to be completely out, so Lily stares at him for a short moment, hesitating about what to do next.
Onslaught did say this is supposed to be a fight to the death, so there's only one thing that Lily needs to do.
She finally [Equip]s her Artifact weapon again and calmly walks towards him as his eye slowly flutters open, and then his gaze falls on her as he notices her approach. Lily stops right next to him and raises her axe, and then Onslaught's lips move, but he's too far for us to hear.
She hesitates again, but then nods solemnly and decapitates him.
The tin cans creepily turn their heads towards Lily and even follow her as she immediately but cautiously starts to return to us.
Suddenly, a tin can hits his fist against his shield, and Lily immediately turns around, tense and wary as she's expecting a sudden wave of monsters to wash over her, but nothing happens.
Just as the silence becomes long enough that she thinks about turning back, another tin can hits his shield, then another, then another, and then they all start a beat in a slow rhythm. Lily has seen enough, so she continues to retreat, but the rhythm starts to become faster, and everyone on our side stealthily grabs their weapons.
"HAAAAGH!" one of the Titans roars in rage, and then the rest also begin to howl, and soon it turns into a proper tribal-like war song that echoes throughout our whole fortress.
Queen Patika and the mage Princes and Princesses start to gather their mana but don't chant a spell yet. Then I turn to Alcander and nod, so he returns to the fortress to organize our mages.
I cast [Telekinesis] on the Titan's greatsword and bring it back to me as I shout, "Lily! Hurry up!"
She definitely gets annoyed at me telling her what to do again, but she keeps it in and [Equip]s her Artifact hammer, then starts running.
"[FILTH…! FILTH…! FILTH…! FILTH…]!" the Titans chant along with the beat.
Then Lily quickly reaches us, and I immediately ask, "What did Onslaught say to you before he died?"
Her face darkens, and she answers with an unsure tone, "He whispered, 'I'm afraid.'"
Could this be the hidden option? Make the sacrificial Titan doubt his faith when his fated death has finally come?
But I'll leave the theorizing for later and immediately request, "Please hide, Lily."
And she predictably rebuffs me like the annoying little shit she is, "What? Well, thanks, but I don't think that'll work."
Before I can insist further, the crazed Titans howl in unison, "[PURGE THE FILTH…]!" Then they immediately stop moving and become eerily quiet.
"Did we do it?" Alissa eagerly blurts out instead of using our connection.
Suddenly, the Titans slit their own throats, and their shiny armor quickly becomes tainted with vivid red blood.
"Piety's Mercy…" Ciel whispers grimly.
But I get the feeling that they're still staring at Lily, and that deeply unsettles me.
Soon, unconsciousness takes them, and then we wait a long half-minute until they all finally die. Yet we still remain tense as we believe that this isn't the end.
Yunia blinks as she senses something, but it disappears so fast that she doesn't manage to process what it was.
"AAAAAAAH!" Lily suddenly shrieks from beside me, and my heart breaks.
I jump to her side and see her clutching her chest, so Ciel grabs her hand and pulls it away to inspect it, but there's no visible wound, so I use [Sense Soul], and I see chaos.
Normally, I see a soul as a hyper-complex "structure," but now it's constantly changing, and not in a good way.
Ciel immediately casts [Heal], but it only causes a "ripple" in her soul, and I notice that the "chaos" is spreading.
So Yunia unhesitatingly casts [Spirit Touch] and shoves her spiritual hand into Lily's chest.
"HAAH!" Yunia cries in pain as her spiritual hand is enveloped in "fire," but she grabs the ball of heat inside Lily's soul and keeps it contained.
"WOLF! WHAT'S GOING ON?!" Thant desperately shouts at my side, his voice beginning to crack.
"They cursed Lily!" I tersely reply as I also use [Spirit Touch] and envelop Yunia's spirit hand with my own to lessen her burden.
It truly feels like my hand is on fire, but I've felt worse, so this is nothing. I've saved countless people, and I'll save Lily too!
"It got through her Blessing?!" Samkelo confusedly shouts.
But Urmeie's growl forces them to shift focus, "We knew this would happen! Now look forward!"
And that's very important, for the dungeon's spherical portals have appeared before us, and there are already a hundred screaming tin cans charging toward us, with more coming out of the portals with each passing second.
"[PUUURGE]!" they howl as they draw their weapons and madly charge forward.
The horde has arrived, but we're ready for it.
--
--
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