(Rimuru POV)
I took a step forward, ready to engage the Orc Disaster myself but was stopped by Benimaru. "Please allow us to handle this." He said before turning to Shion and Ronin. "Do it!" He commanded.
Shion and Ronin only gave a nod of acknowledgment before shooting off at the Orc Disaster. Shion's Odachi met with Geld's Cleaver, kicking up water and dirt nearby from the impact. For a moment, their strengths seemed to be even, but that quickly passed and Geld was able to throw her several meters. While still resetting himself from the calsh, Ronin appeared before him, and in a single, beautiful sword swing, was able to slash Geld across his belly, effectively disemboweling him.
Not giving him any time to recover, even slightly, Hakuro appeared, finishing Geld off with a decapitation strike, sending his head tumbling.
For a brief moment, I thought we might have been victorious, but then my gut feeling started to kick in. It wasn't over. The head that had once been severed was quickly grabbed out of the air by Geld's hands before being brought close to the sight of the wound on his neck. After a moment, a bull light and some slimy tentacles emerged, pulling the head back onto the body and instantly healing the wound.
Shion, Ronin, and Hakuro were all temporarily stunned by this, but were able to react in time to Geld when he swung at them in retaliation. He kicked Ronin in the chest hard and sent him flying away before backhanding Shion out of the air when she'd charged him and jumped to get better leverage on her next strike. Hakuro sent a flurry of sword strikes towards him, but the Orc Disaster seemed to have sensed it coming and sidestepped most of the lethal strikes while allowing himself to be hit by the nonlethal ones and healing instantly.
Geld reached out his hand and fired off a {Deathmarch Dance} at Hakuro, who similarly began to dodge and weave between the bullets, but had to retreat to avoid taking damage from the explosions when the attack struck the ground near him.
Geld seemed to smirk, pleased with himself, only to tense when he noticed he couldn't retract his arm. No, it wasn't just his arm, his entire body wouldn't move. Geld looked down and noticed his body covered in sticky threads which held him in place. He struggled against it for a while before Souei appeared and swung open his arms, coating layer upon layer of thread over him like they were some kind of blanket. This all happened in a fraction of a second and by the end of it, Geld was completely covered head to toe in the thread.
"Benimaru! Raiden!" Souei called out.
"On it!" Benimaru responded before gathering black flames in his palms.
"Take this!" Raiden cried out as black lightning began crackling around her fingertips.
Both Benimaru and Raiden then unleashed their combination attack at the same time, centered around the Orc Disaster. The moment the two attacks mixed, they called the attack's name aloud.
""[{Hell Tempest}]!!!"" They yelled as Geld was engulfed in a torrent of Black Fire and Lighting, all contained in a strong barrier that seemed to burn everything away.
Even I felt queasy looking at the attack, as I wondered if it was possible for me to survive that attack.
<
'Oh, at least I don't have to worry about it then!' I thought to myself. 'But if I can survive it...'
As the dust cleared, a badly charred Orc Disaster was still left standing. Everyone but me seemed to be stunned, as the light show gave off the impression that this would be the final attack, and from the amount of magicules I sensed from everyone, they had placed all their hopes on it, as they were all almost empty. The Orc Disaster, on the other hand, was already beginning to regenerate, though at a slower pace than before.
"No way! Even Majin of this level can't take it down?" Mjurran said with astonishment.
"Not so fast!" Ranga called out and howled, releasing the last of his Magicules to call down a bolt of Black Lightning from the Thunder Clouds above us.
The bolt struck and knocked the Orc Disaster on his ass but didn't kill him. His regeneration was too strong. Thankfully, however, he seemed to also be running out of magicules, so I decided it was my turn to finish things. I turned to Ranga, witnessing him begin to shrink down slightly as the loss of magicules began to affect him.
"Out of magicules?" I asked.
"I am very sorry!" Ranga said, bowing his head.
I shook my head at him. "No problem. Just hang out in my shadow and rest." Ranga nodded before jumping into my shadow to recover.
I turned to look at the Orc Disaster, noticing that he had completely recovered. One of the Orc Generals then stepped forward and said something to him before the Orc Disaster nodded, picked him up, then in one motion, chomped off his head and began devouring him. The disgusting noises of Geld's mouth easily biting threw the meat of his subordinate's flesh and bone echoed throughout the still battlefield.
About halfway through the disgusting 'meal', the Orc Disaster Geld began to radiate power on a level I hadn't seen before. His magicules seemed to have been restored in that instant and now his power was actually greater than it was previously. It was almost like-
<
'It's like the [Isolation] effect of [Predetor], right?' I finished.
<<...Yes...>>>
I nodded. [Isolation] allowed me to break down any of the stored materials in my [Stomach] into magical energy which could be used to restore my reserves in case of emergency. I guessed that his [Starved] Unique Skill was similar to [Predator] in that aspect, but probably didn't come with a [Stomach], which would explain why he was 'hungry' all the time, as he automatically broke down anything he ate to acquire its skills and abilities, then shared it with his subordinates.
I took a step forward, absorbing another {Deathmarch Dance} which was aimed at Benimaru and the others. "I guess it's my turn to handle this," I announced as I moved to engage.
(Alaster POV)
'Nononono! Raven is best girl.' I argued. 'Starfire is nice, but something about Raven's charm relates to me on a personal level. She's so down to earth and seems super chill!'
<
It seemed Velzard and I couldn't come to an agreement on many things when it came to comics, and right now she was arguing about which girl was the 'second best girl' in the original Teen Titans TV Show. Obviously, of course, regardless of who 'won', at best that character would be second-best girl, as we'd come to an unspoken agreement that Velzard was now and forever, best girl. /1\
I was about to retort when I noticed a giant pillar of slime rise several stories high into the sky, twisting around itself like a corkscrew. At its base was a slowly resolving Orc Disaster, its flesh having long since been eaten away as its bones began to crack.
'Whoops, I almost missed the entire thing.' I said as I floated down to the ground besides Benimaru.
"Looks like its over." I said.
Benimaru gave me a strained smile as he glanced at me. "Y-yeah..." He said.
I could already tell he was thinking something rude like 'You didn't even help!' or something, but I ignored it.
As the last of the Orc Disaster was absorbed, the tower of slime grew a bit more before disbursing into a black magicule-rich mist. Rimuru gave some final words to Geld before returning to us where everyone cheered. I even slow-clapped with a smile on my face to show I was 'impressed' by this, though I was actually smiling because I sensed that Rimuru's aura had changed slightly more, resembling Veldanava's even more closely.
As Rimuru got closer and was congratulated by everyone, he suddenly turned to me and looked at me with half-lidded eyes. "Why are you acting like you're impressed or something?"
"What do you mean? Obviously, it was impressive watching you do those somersaults and attacking him with water magic!" I replied.
"I never attacked with Water Magic! You weren't even paying any attention!" He yelled, exasperated by my response.
"What? No... I was, it's just... That's right! I was so impressed that the Orc Lord turned into an Orc Catastrophe in the middle of your fight that I must have forgotten certain things from earlier on!" I said with a confident smile and a thumbs up.
I felt like everyone was staring at me with half-lidded eyes. "He evolved before I started fighting him and it was into an Orc Disaster..." Rimuru said.
"Oh really? To be honest I wasn't really paying any attention." I admitted with confidence.
"""...""" Everyone was stunned into silence.
<
'Nah, it must be your imagination.' I responded.
So long as I never admit to it, I'm never wrong!
...
A few more days passed and Rimuru was named Chancellor of the Forest by Treyni, who really just didn't want to have to do the work herself so that she could spoil Ramiris some more. Rimuru had me 'help' with building his town up by having me teach the Orcs and Hobgoblins the Earth Magic so that when I left they'd be able to use it in construction, to which I obliged because I wasn't in any hurry to get things done. I also taught some magic to Mjurran which allowed her to take on a much younger appearance. /2\
It definitely wasn't as punishment by Rimuru because I didn't help out or even pay attention to his fight. He also definitely didn't guilt-trip me into it with puppy eyes which I was a victim of because of his vague resemblance to Milim as a child via the partial Veldanava body on a short stack.
Definitely not.
And Velzard definitely didn't stop talking to me for a day afterward due to jealousy.
Nope, I didn't have to kowtow to her for her forgiveness at all. Definitely not!
Anyway, after seeing that everything was going well and that my students had gotten a hang of everything, I decided to quietly slip out of Tempest when no one was looking. I left Rimuru a note on his desk saying I'd be back to both- I mean, hang out with him again in the future.
I stopped by Ramiris' dungeon, which she was lazily constructing off to the side of the town and told Treyni that she should have Rimuru consume the core of Charybdis to keep it from its stupid reincarnation cycle. It would give him a nice power-up and cut out that whole arc, while giving Veldora a 'companion' in his 'child' inside of Rimuru.
Why was I doing this?
Just a whim of mine.
After everything was done, I left, heading south on a leisurely float as I made my way into the Dragon Kingdom. I didn't get much more than a few kilometers past the border when a pink rocket came flying out towards me at Mach speed. I stopped moving and opened my arms wide as Milim gave me a charge-tackle hug, which I reciprocated.
"Pops!" She said as she snuggled her face into my chest lightly. "I've missed you! How have you been!?"
She asked excitedly.
I smiled as I told her all about the 'interesting slime' I'd met while in the Jura Forest. Much like myself, she didn't really seem to care too much about the Orc Disaster stuff, but when I told her that Tempest had some really good food, she was so gung-ho about going there I couldn't really stop her.
Eventually, I convinced her to take Yumina when she went, as my youngest, despite being a workaholic with unlimited stamina, really needed a vacation.
Milim agreed, though it was probably more likely that she just wanted to fight Yumina again, now that she'd awakened [Wrath] into [Satanael]. I smiled and told her that Yumina had already awakened [Envy] to [Leviathan] years ago, which caused Milim to be depressed for a while, as she always figured she was stronger, but it didn't seem to be the case anymore. /3\
I smiled and gave her a kiss on the forehead and asked her to be nice to Rimuru, as he was still weak but was fun to be around.
Afterward, we went over to pick up Yumina, who I told something similar.
It was a bit difficult to get her to relax, as she was a workaholic and actually really enjoyed her work, but eventually, after calling Morgan and having her convince Yumina, the girls all decided to go along on a vacation there. I thought about going with them, as showing up the day after I left just to see how Rimuru would react was incredibly tempting, but instead decided that I really missed cuddling with my wife, so decided to go back home and focus on finishing up integrating Velzard.
She told me that she'd finished with the preparations already and just needed to actually go through with the process, but it might take a few days, as she was planning on upgrading my Skills while she was at it. She said she had a BIG surprise in store for me, so I decided to play it safe and take the next few days off.
.~.~.~.
/1\:
Because I know there will be some people in the comments section thinking Velzard is 'okay' with a harem because of this, but she isn't. The argument is mostly just for fun since they were both bored and Velzard is having fun going through Alaster's memories.
/2\:
It won't be mentioned, but Mjurran still get together with Youm, as Rimuru sends her with them after learning about how weak they are to magic, courtesy of Pirino. Mjurran has completely submitted to Rimuru, so for his Harvest Festival, she will receive a gift and evolve, regaining her youth completely.
/3\:
The relationship between [Satanael] and [Leviathan] is almost exactly the same as between Boosted Gear and Divine Dividing, as [Satanael] increases Milim's strength infinitely while [Leviathan] reduces the opponent's strength infinitely. This has made them rivals but as sisters, they are friendly rivals who love one another dearly.
Alaster had already removed the sanity-draining effect of [Satanael] so Milim won't lose control or go berserk when using it.