"...."
Silence permeated the area.
Everyone other than Tio and Yue looked at the brutality that transpired before them with shock. Their eyes constantly went from Ivan, to the headless body, then back to Ivan again.
Felis had her mouth agape, Canis had her eyes particularly wide open, Ari held one hand over her mouth as she swallowed back down what she had for breakfast, and Claire stared at Ivan with an incredulous expression.
Even with Ivan's warning, they didn't expect things to devolve like this. In fact they were half expecting a bittersweet scene in which two long lost family members reunite after some short bickering.
Instead they were met with murder.
"F-Father what the hell was that?!"
"Ugh… I think I'm gonna be sick…"
"You could have at least informed us ahead of time!"
Ivan ignored the onlookers as he bent over the corpse, and with a snap of his fingers a tub of molten lava appeared by his side. And under all their incredulous expressions, he slung the body onto his shoulder before promptly dumping it into the lava.
"...."
This time they were truly stunned. The girls looked toward Yue to see what the main star of the current events thought about all this. Only to see her nod back as she approached the tub of lava.
"Well, what are you guys all standin' around for, that faker will regenerate any second. Screw his warning, take out as many apostles as you can before they awaken!"
"Y-Yes, sir!"
While they had no idea what was going on, they knew what had been done was done. And it didn't seem to bother Yue so it wasn't exactly their place to be bothered by it for her. Though they were definitely going to get an explanation from Ivan once all this was over.
But it seems the 'death' of the demon lord bothered the apostles enough that they immediately gave up the act and got into combat ready mode
"Not like I didn't expect that!"
A crystal appeared in his hand, and with a bit of force he managed to crush it into dust.
That was the signal for his allies to use the crystals on their end and appear.
Thankfully, they did just that.
*WHOOOSH*
Blue portals appeared out of thin air and completely filled the throne room. Dragons, Rabbitmen, Droids, hundreds of each force invaded the room, finger on the trigger. There should have been Golems as well but Miledi herself said that she would join up a little later.
Immediately the room was full of the sounds of lasers, explosions, and yelling.
"That escalated very quickly~!" The culprit behind all this watched from afar as he teleported both himself and the tub of lava far away from the conflict.
Each of his two hundred droids were equipped with an apostle core, their job was to march out of the throne room and secure the area. To put it more plainly, kill every single guard and make sure no one interferes.
The Haulia's mission was to do that and take care of apostles along the way. Although they were not encouraged to do the latter as they could be easily one tapped by the angel soldiers. But they made up in it for ways the droids were incapable of doing, and that is by impressive teamwork.
If a Haulia fought an apostle alone, the result would be clear. If ten Haulia fought a single apostle, they had about a 50 percent chance of winning.
They played dirty, saying they 'played' was inaccurate in itself. They didn't play at all, to them it was kill or be killed. If the only way to win was to bite their opponents throat and rip out their carotid then so be it, they'll do it without hesitation.
As such Ivan provided them with tools to frustrate and draw out their opponent for as long as possible. Smoke grenades, caltrops, a gun that shot super sticky glue, flashbangs, pepper spray, tripwires, basically they had mini Treasure Troves full of tools a middle-schooler would dream of.
'The question is… are they Prankster Rabbits, or are they Tricky Rabbits?'
Internalizing such philosophical discussions he turned his direction to the dragonkin. Compared to everyone or everything that teleported into the room, they were the biggest allies Ivan and his group could get.
So long as three of them teamed up on an apostle then they had a good chance of winning. Especially so when adorning the power armor he gave each of them. Black glistening steel covered their dragonified bodies, blue tech circuits coursing through the armor like blood through a vein.
Siphoning the mana of its host, the DL Set was made imbuing Strengthening Magic onto it along with regeneration and steel body.
Though not made with Azantium, they were practically the next best thing.
"Ivan!"
*BANG!*
A familiar bunny girl crashed into the spot right before Ivan, a smile adorning her face as she slung a dangerously large mallet over her shoulder. Like the DL Set its body coursed with bright circuits.
But instead of imbuing the mallet with strengthening magic to give to the user it worked the other way around.
Shea was unusually talented with strengthening magic, even managing to evolve the skill into a stage people nowadays don't even know existed. And that was—
"Body Strengthening - Level II!!!"
The muscles on her body bulged, and her height grew by a few centimeters. The ground beneath her cracked while the air screamed from the intense pressure.
And in a flash, Shea swung her mallet-like hammer right behind her, smacking it square into the face of an apostle.
"...."
Strengthening magic multiplied strength, and so when Shea managed to make it so there were higher degrees of multiplication Ivan knew he had to copy it. And so the dragon possessed armor that enhanced their strength using Strengthening Magic level III as their basis.
Oh yeah, and for curiosity's sake Shea proclaimed that she was able to reach even level V!
Though it put a ton of strain on her body and left her practically unable to even move the moment it deactivated. So to her it was a do or die level.
Ivan would have liked to copy the dragon armor to level V as well, but unfortunately that was something not even Felis was able to copy with her skill. At least not without considerable practice.
As a homunculi Felis was okay with practicing the skill to an extent that would be dangerous for someone who couldn't regenerate, lethal in fact. When she tried to emulate level IV she just straight up exploded.
It took a week for Ivan to wash that scene out of his mind.
*SPLASH!*
"Hm?"
Ivan raised an eyebrow as a hand completely showing its bone and flesh popped out of the tub of lava and gripped the rim with excessive strength. Along with that movement some of the lava flowed out and touched Ivan's shoes.
*SPLASH!*
And then another hand jumped out.
"Couldn't you have just raised your thumb and die respectfully! Sorry Shea, but get out of here. Yue and I will take care of this!"
Ivan left no moment to rebuttal as he teleported himself Yue and the tub of lava to a secluded location on the other side of the castle.
'Tio, you're in charge!'
Tio roared out proudly as those words resounded in her head. As the princess of the Dragonkin, it was her duty to lead her brethren for battle. And so for just this moment, she was okay with splitting up.
"GRAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!"
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Another fun chapter to write. Next time, will truly be the beginning of the end. At least I can confidently say there's less than 17 chapters left.
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