Important note at the end of chapter~!
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"Home sweet home~ Thanks again Oscar, you have been plenty of help to us in death!" Ivan spoke freely after launching a plethora of wooden crates from his storage ring into Oscar's manor.
The girls did the same, instead deciding to dedicate a few of the manor's many rooms exclusively to their belongings. Things like personal rooms didn't matter to them, it was already decided that everyone would be sleeping in the same room.
"Once again, I'm not sure if apostles can enter the labyrinths. It may just be a matter of Ehit's arrogance to not rely on the powers of people who opposed him. But it makes more sense that the bastard would do it to spite the liberators…"
Ivan clasped his hands before turning around with his arms crossed.
"Either way Ehit has shown that he is ready to face us, this recent attack had failed but he'll most certainly try again."
He then pulled out the compass. It stalled for a little bit before glowing and then the orienteering arrow snapped toward a certain direction.
"This could allow us to take the fight to him, I refuse to allow the bastard another opportunity. And if we delay too long he may very well decide to eradicate the lives of those we know just to draw us out."
Ivan smiled and with a snap of his finger the compass disappeared.
"But there are several problems we must take care of before raiding 'heaven'. Firstly, there's no doubt he knows most of our abilities as the apostles act as a hivemind, meaning everything they experienced in our most recent battle has already been transmitted to the apostles by his side. Secondly, I can take care of apostles pretty quickly but that doesn't mean we should underestimate the number of them. Ehit can seemingly produce an infinite amount of them as far as we can tell. And last but not least, we don't know any of his damn abilities, despite him knowing ours."
Though these three points can be expanded into more branching points, Ivan thought it would be best to leave things at that. The last thing he wanted to do was dishearten everyone with how much of a disadvantage they are at.
"So if we are to even the odds, we must be prepared for everything. I'm quite confident with my newest ability that I could solve most of our problems, but I'd rather be safe than sorry. Ehit has home field advantage, but we have the element of surprise. He won't be expecting a few mortals to dare know on the door of 'god'. Ari and Claire, inform the Haulia of our upcoming battle, those bloodthirsty psychos would probably rejoice at the opportunity to slay a god, lead them back here through the portal in the Gorge."
Ari and Claire nodded before making their way back to the teleporter, of course to make quick haste of the travel they carried alongside them two barrack trucks that could each seat twenty inside their storage rings.
"Tio, your mission was to inform your people of the time when worthy mortals face god, right? Well, get out there and tell them that that time is right now."
Tio gracefully nodded, before kneeling to one knee, then she too left in a hurry. Leaving her words for a later time as she more than anyone knew of the importance of time they needed for the mission. She accepted the stone Ivan tossed to her, immediately figuring out it would create a portal back to the lair upon breaking.
"Canis and Felis, sorry about this but learning gravity magic would probably immensely improve your strength, take the compass and find Miledi Reisen's labyrinth, once you beat her tell her who sent you and what our plans are. The Liberators may have not made it to the stage where they fought face to face with Ehit, but they probably have good info that'd be worth knowing anyways."
Once again Canis and Felis were unaware as to the reason why their father and Yue's faces scrunched up at the mention of Mildei Reisen. The only reconciliation they had as they left the lair was Ivan's repeated whispers of, 'it'll be fine… right? She's an ally… right?'
Though replaying his words in their minds, they couldn't help but feel that they inspired more dread than relief.
"I guess it's just us left huh…" Ivan locked eyes with the vampire queen that he had began his journey with, Her eyes glimmered with a light that practically begged for a mission too, one so that she could provide as much help as the others were.
"As for me and you, we'll be making our final preparations until the promised time. First of all we should check to see if the mining roombas have collected anything that might be worth using for the upcoming fight."
"Mmm… we can't allow Shea's tribe and the Dragonmen to go empty handed. I'll assist you in making their artifacts…"
"Well that's most certainly true, that might take up a bulk of my time as well. I'd be extremely grateful if I received some of your aid~!"
Ivan didn't bother to remind the poor 300+ year old girl that she herself said that she had next to no affinity with creation magic.
Either way she could help by collecting materials while he was crafting so there was that.
'I wonder if I should craft everything within Ars Magna, that way I'd have all the time in the world to craft artifacts.' With his new heart, prolonged use of Ars Magna wasn't a problem at all.
What was worrying him was if Ehit now had some sort of control over him now that he implanted the crystal core. The answer…? That likely wasn't the case~!
If Ehit was going to put a kill switch on his apostles it would likely be connected to the brain and not the heart. At least that's how Ivan would have made it. As even if someone's heart was to shut down they'd still have a few moments to cause some damage.
Ivan would've loved to turn every apostle he met at Ehit's 'heaven' into a chimera, but it didn't seem feasible with how his control over monsters he created with metamorphosis magic only applied to beings affected by his field.
Meaning the deactivation of Ars Magna would turn the newfound monsters into mindless beasts that attacked anyone, useful for most situations but not in one where Ivan and the others had enough enemies to deal with as it is.
Not to mention the allies they'd bring along would likely get mauled to death as well.
Checking the terminal docked in Oscar's Manor, Ivan noted that the mining roombas have made a decent amount of progress since they last visited. But there was one thing that aroused his suspicion, and that was the inactivity of the mining roomba on the 150th floor.
"Hey Yue, isn't that—"
"Mmm…. that's where you saved me…"
The pausing of the roomba meant one of the two things, either it was destroyed and the tracking chip was the only thing that remained, or the roomba ran into something it couldn't mine.
And if Ivan had to guess—
"Oh yeah, that weird box you were locked in huh… If I remember correctly it had the property to absorb mana… Hey Yue, do you mind if I break it down to use it for something?"
At that Yue's eyes gleamed with more approval than what Ivan could measure, it seemed she held a strong resentment toward the box her uncle locked her body in for the past few centuries.
"Alright, I guess we'll start with that then, we'll pick up the materials from the other roomba as well so we could begin work on the artifacts!"
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I can't remember if I actually ate those crackers, it's been a while since I wrote the last chapter. But I must report that I've made another miscalculation. It seems that Volume 12 of Arifureta is not the last, the author himself said that the last one would be Volume 13, which has no release date. So if I catch up to that I have no idea if I'm going to just freefall it with the knowledge I have now and make an ending or put this work on hold until it gets released.
I'd like to hear your guys' opinions on that.
So hey, thanks for reading after all this time. It's been more than half a year, and it'd be a lie to say I'm not a little proud to have been consistent with this work throughout the whole journey. Thanks for motivating me to come this far. Have a great evening, and I'll see you all next time!
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