All of Freid's monsters attacked Shea and Tio at the same time. His gray dragons
unleashed a torrent of aurora breath attacks from above, his three-headed wolves
fired gouts of flame from behind, and the Ahatods fired blasts of mana shockwaves
from either side. And of course, in front of the duo was Freid. He fired a meteor storm
of disintegration feathers at them.
However, Shea and Tio looked completely unfazed by the flood of attacks rushing in
from all sides. Shea summoned a red, three-meter-wide sphere above her head, then
pulled Villedrucken back for a heavy swing.
"Take thiiiiiis!"
She hit the sphere as it fell, sending it flying like a cannonball. The ball was made of
super-compressed azantium and had an outer coating of sealstone, making it quite a
force to be reckoned with, especially when it was flying so quickly.
The red sphere smashed through one side of the mana shockwaves and ripped straight
through the Ahatods behind it. Shea then safely stepped through the hole she made,
dodging all the remaining attacks.
Tio launched her own counterattack at the same time.
"Such lukewarm flames," she mumbled, diving right into the sea of fire. The flames
licked at her skin, but she just covered her eyes with her sleeve and pushed forward.
Black dragonmen were known for their sturdiness, and they were masters of fire and
wind magic. Even in her human form, Tio was practically fireproof, especially with her
now-buffed stats. On top of that, she was wearing the chain mail-like kimono Hajime
had made for her, which was woven together with reinforced black dragon scales.
Tio emerged on the other side of the flames completely unscathed, then spread her
hand out in front of her. Five black rays shot out of her fingers, burning through
everything they touched. She'd compressed her breath and fired it like a laser, and
with just a flick of her fingers, she could redirect any of the rays to slice through a new
target. This was one of her new techniques—Dragon Claw.
Just then, she saw an image in her head of moving two steps to the right, dropping
down a little, then taking three steps forward.
"Mhm, thanks," she said, following the image's movements exactly. A blast of aurora
breath passed by her left as she went right. Then, as she fell, a writhing mass of
tentacles passed over her head, and as she stepped forward, a beam of pure-white
light grazed her back.
Meanwhile, Shea had grabbed hold of the chain connecting her sphere to Villedrucken
and was spinning it around like a flail as she danced across the battlefield. She dodged
every single attack Freid's monsters threw at her, while each swing of her sphere
obliterated another enemy.
Freid was, of course, bombarding her with disintegration feathers, but none of them
even came close to hitting her.
This was all thanks to her new Future Sight derivative skill, Prophetic Visions. It
allowed her to see a few seconds into the future whenever she wanted. She was
currently using it to predict the trajectory of attacks aimed at her to move to a safe
spot ahead of time. Moreover, she had one of Hajime's upgraded telepathy stones that
let her communicate via images as well as voice.
Of course, with how dense the barrage of attacks was, more often than not there
wasn't any safe place. When that happened she simply blasted through some of the
attacks to open up new paths.
"Weak," Freid stated in a voice too quiet to be heard, but Shea still saw what he was
about to do thanks to her Prophetic Visions.
"Tio-san, he's opening a portal!" she shouted, forgetting for a moment that she could
just use telepathy.
A second later, aurora light flooded toward Tio from all sides. All of the aurora breath
attacks the gray dragons had fired from above had been transported via Freid's Cosmic
Rift to surround Tio. There was no possible way to dodge, and a second later, Tio was
buried beneath the wave of auroras.
"You really are tough…" Freid muttered.
"Ngh, I felt that one. Still, that was nothing compared to the pain Master blesses me
with."
The auroras faded away, revealing a transformed Tio. Her skin was now covered with
black scales, her glowing golden eyes the only spots of color on an otherwise jet-black
body. She looked like a human-shaped dragon.
This was Tio's new metamorphosis magic, full-scale humanoid transformation. She
maintained her human form while transforming into a dragon, coating herself with
scales and bolstering their sturdiness with defensive magic.
There was white smoke coming off her body, so it looked like the aurora attacks had
done a little bit of damage, but not enough to really hurt Tio. Hajime had been nearly
killed from just one of those aurora attacks in the past, so it said a lot about Tio's
defensive capabilities that she could take a full barrage and come out no worse for
wear.
"Now it's my turn!" Tio exclaimed, bending backward all the while.
Thinking that Tio was about to attack his dragons, Freid opened a portal to absorb her
breath attack and send it back at her. Unfortunately, he'd read her wrong.
Tio's chest expanded as she sucked in a massive breath and roared,
"Graaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!"
She then let out a powerful roar that was just as mighty as any breath attack. Her roar
was laced with the spirit magic Soul Shock, which landed a direct blow to the target's
soul, rendering them unconscious. By mixing the spell with physical sound, Tio had
turned the attack into one that hit both the soul and body simultaneously. There was
nothing a portal could do to stop that attack.
Waves of black mana rolled over the gray dragons in the sky, and they all started
spasming. Then, a second later, their eyes rolled up into their heads and they began to
fall.
Tio had dubbed her roar and Soul Shock combo Draconic Pulse. The effects of her roar
were felt not just by the gray dragons above her, but also by the three-headed wolves
to her sides. While they hadn't been knocked out, since they hadn't taken a direct hit,
they were still trembling in fear.
Tio, of course, took advantage of that and stretched her hands out to either side, firing
two spiraling breath attacks. The whirlpool of black breath could travel for hundreds
of meters before petering out of strength, but she didn't even wait for it to travel that
far before making her next move. She twirled around, her sleeves fluttering elegantly
in the wind, her lustrous black hair trailing behind her. But while she looked as dainty
as a traditional Japanese dancer, her attacks were anything but. Her breath attack
fanned out in a circle, slicing through hundreds of monsters in seconds.
"Tch!" Freid clicked his tongue and deployed a spatial barrier to keep Tio's breath from
slicing him apart as well. "Uranos, it's time to pay them back for humiliating us!"
Uranos's eyes lit up immediately, and he tried to pull the same trick Tio had. He threw
his head back and sucked in a huge amount of air before letting out a thunderous roar.
"Gruooooooooooooh!"
He clearly didn't like being one-upped by Tio. However, his roar had no spirit magic
enhancing it. Instead, it was laced with spatial magic. Freid had powered his pet
dragon up enough that it could use a little ancient magic.
Spatial shockwaves rippled across the battlefield, annihilating any monsters that were
unlucky enough to be caught in the blast radius, including the extremely sturdy
Absods. Even the ones slightly outside the attack's effective range ended up bleeding
out of their eyes and ears as they lost consciousness and fell to the ground. The few
remaining gray dragons retreated to a safe distance and bowed their heads, as if
showing deference to their king.
Uranos could kill things just by roaring, so it was hardly surprising that other
creatures knelt before him. He had, in fact, stayed out of the initial assault because his
attacks were so powerful that they killed his allies as well, so Freid had waited until
his monsters had been thinned out before bringing Uranos to bear.
"Nuwoooh!" Tio shouted.
"Fungyaaah! M-My ears!"
Tio had been a lot closer to Uranos, so the shockwave had sent her flying, while Shea's
sensitive ears had been damaged by the loudness of the roar, causing her to stumble a
bit. And because of that, she wasn't able to tell Tio what was about to happen next.
Tio hurtled toward the ground, hitting it with such force that she created a small crater
where she landed and kicked up a dust cloud so large it obscured her entirely.
Not giving her even a moment to rest, Uranos gathered a bunch of white lightning
sparks inside his mouth and fired a pure blast of energy at Tio. There was a highpitched whine as his divine dragon god's breath headed straight toward the ground.
The breath attack was powerful enough to obliterate a small island by itself. And yet,
as the lightning hit the island, there wasn't much of a shockwave. The reason for that
was because the island wasn't sturdy enough to withstand the blast at all. Before
shockwaves could spread from the point of impact, the lightning breath passed right
through it, boring through the island's bottom and opening a hole in the sea of clouds
below.
Uranos's attacks really did look like god's divine judgment. They were powerful
enough to obliterate anything and everything in their path.
The dust cloud eventually faded away, revealing an empty hole where Tio had been.
"Tio-san!" Shea shouted in despair. She tried to contact Tio via telepathy as well but
got no response.
"Whoops. I didn't think one attack would kill her. I was hoping to torture her more
first."
Freid looked down at the hole, seeming mildly dissatisfied.
Enraged, Shea turned to him, switched Villedrucken into bombardment mode, and
exclaimed, "She won't go down that—!"
But before she could fire at Freid, she felt a chill run down her spine. A vision of her
own death flashed in her mind, and she hurriedly dived to the side.
A second later, the space where Shea had been twisted, and a huge claymore thrust
through the spatial distortion. Experience told Shea that a follow-up attack was
coming, and she realized she wouldn't be able to dodge it completely.
"You little—"
Determined to at least avoid a fatal blow, she cartwheeled through the air. Four more
swords came out of nowhere, grazing her arms and legs.
Blood sprayed through the air, but Shea couldn't afford to stop or she'd be killed. She
whipped her head to the side, avoiding another thrust aiming for the back of her skull.
The thrust still grazed her cheek, but it wasn't a serious injury. A diagonal slash came
at her from above, which she blocked with Villedrucken while blocking a second
horizontal slash with her sphere's chain. Yet another two slashes came up at her from
below, which she blocked with her boots. Using the force of the impact to backflip
away, Shea pulled Villedrucken's trigger and used the shockwave blast to propel
herself sideways while backflipping.
Three more swords went for where her head, chest, and stomach had been, but she'd
fortunately escaped in time. The swords still grazed her shoulder and thigh, but with
that, Shea was finally out of the encirclement. Making footholds for herself with
Aerodynamic, she came to a halt to see what she was up against.
Unfortunately, it seemed her enemies weren't even willing to give her a second to catch
her breath. An apostle stepped out of the spatial distortion, her silver hair and wings
fluttering in the wind, and swung down at Shea with her claymores.
"Nnnnnngh!"
Shea blocked them with Villedrucken's handle, surprised at how much force was
behind the blows. Her footholds were crushed by the impact, so Shea and the apostle
fell to the ground as their weapons clashed. Sparks flew through the air as metal
scraped against metal, and as they hit the ground, this strange silver apostle opened
her mouth.
"I am the first apostle, Hearst. The executioner of Ehit's enemies."
Her claymore started to glow platinum, and her mana swirled around her. The amount
of pressure she was exerting was completely different from that of any of the apostles
Shea had seen thus far. This one was something new.
Hearst swung her claymore, sending Shea flying.
"Waaah!"
Shea hadn't been batted around this easily in a very long time. She hit the ground hard,
right next to where Tio had fallen mere moments ago. She coughed violently as a dust
cloud swirled around her.
"I am the second apostle, Zweit. The executioner of Ehit's enemies."
"I am the third apostle, Dritter. The executioner of Ehit's enemies."
"I am the fourth apostle, Vierte. The executioner of Ehit's enemies."
"I am the fifth apostle, Funfte. The executioner of Ehit's enemies."
Shea heard four new apostles name themselves, but her focus was on the visions of
death she kept seeing.
"Mmm, you all really want me dead, huh?" Shea said as she tried to dodge out of the
way.
Unfortunately for her, the apostles were faster. Five silver flashes shot toward Shea,
and she had to bring up Villedrucken to block. The head of the hammer expanded to
cover her entire body, allowing her to shield herself from the disintegration beams.
However, she wasn't sure her weapon would be able to withstand this much
punishment. She debated using one of her trump cards, but before she could come to
a decision, a pleasant voice reached her ears.
"That's quite enough out of you lot."
A series of black streaks shot up toward the apostles from below, and a black whip
coiled around Shea, dragging her safely out of the crater.
The apostles blocked the attacks with their wings, but the impact pushed them back
just enough to foul their aim. Shea took that opportunity to leap even farther away,
which was good because a second later, the spot she'd been standing in was
demolished by disintegration beams.
These five apostles were clearly on a different level from the others. Other apostles
might have been able to launch attacks just as powerful, but it would have taken them
far longer to charge them.
"Shea, are you all right?"
"Yeah, but what about you, Tio?!"
Tio uncoiled her whip as Shea jumped up to where she was hovering.
Indeed, Tio looked to be in far worse shape than Shea. Her left sleeve was torn and
blood was trickling down her arm. Other parts of her body had been damaged enough
that her scales had been torn off, revealing red skin underneath.
"Fret not, Shea. These wounds are little more than scratches."
"They're definitely not just scratches, but…"
Tio's voice was steady, and she didn't look at all that pale. Plus, the smile she gave Shea
as she chugged a potion didn't seem forced either. Despite how injured she looked, Tio
really did seem fine.
Breathing a sigh of relief, Shea took out a CheatMate. She bit into it, keeping a wary
eye on the apostles. But then, she heard a dismissive snort from the other side.
"So you escaped, eh? In a way, that's fortuitous for me, but it still pisses me off that
you're as tenacious as your man," Freid spat, glaring at Tio.
Uranos was glaring at her as well, looking just as annoyed as his master.
Tio finished her potion, spat out the empty vial, shrugged her shoulders, and replied,
"For a moment, I really was worried I might die back there. You've grown a lot stronger
since we last met."
"Stop trying to act tough. I know how badly that attack hurt you."
"I'm not putting on an act, though?"
"I'm not the only one who has received Lord Ehit's blessing. Uranos has evolved
beyond mortal limits as well. He's become a god in his own right. Not only is his breath
much stronger, but it also inhibits healing. Surely you've noticed your restoration
magic isn't working as well as it should?"
"Mmm, yes, I have."
Tio had indeed tried to use restoration magic earlier, but she'd quickly noticed it was
considerably less effective than it should have been. Had Kaori been here, she
probably would have been able to overcome Uranos's healing debuff with ease, but
Tio didn't have nearly as much aptitude for restoration magic as she did.
Freid grinned wickedly and continued, "Well, it doesn't just stop your healing either.
Your wounds will grow worse with time. They already hurt like a bitch, don't they? But
before long, your entire body will be wracked with so much pain that you'll die."
Freid was quite happy that he'd be able to enact his original plan of slowly torturing
Tio to death.
"Sorry to rain on your parade, but these wounds don't hurt at all. I highly doubt they'll
kill me."
"Don't bother bluffing, I can—wait, what?"
Freid's smile vanished, replaced first by confusion, then surprise. Tio's wounds were
closing up before his eyes.
"How can this be?! Uranos's breath can hamper even restoration magic! This shouldn't
be possible!"
"Fool. If you can dispel the healing debuff, then even regular healing magic will work
just fine."
The way restoration magic actually healed was by interfering with time and rolling
back a person or object to an earlier state. Thus, Uranos's breath hampered healing by
rendering any mana used on the wounds inert.
"How many times do you think Master has been hit by your pet dragon's breath? Did
you really think he wouldn't come up with countermeasures for it?"
"Wait, so that potion you drank earlier wasn't a healing potion?!"
"A brilliant deduction."
Tio had downed a CheatMate - Drink Version which had been specifically designed to
counteract Uranos's breath. Anytime someone who hadn't cleared the Great Orcus
Labyrinth approached Oscar's home, the hydra appeared to serve as their final trial. If
someone who had cleared the labyrinth was with them when the hydra appeared, they
had the authority to stop it, which meant they could analyze it, and its silver head's
healing-impairing aurora breath if they wanted.
During his analysis, Hajime had discovered that the silver head's fangs contained an
antidote for its own breath, to make sure it couldn't be hurt by it in the same way. He
then extracted the antidote from those fangs and mixed it with metal powder imbued
with healing magic to create a potion that was at once a healing potion and cured the
aurora breath's debuff.
The reason Tio had survived taking Uranos's breath head-on was because her scales
had been coated in that same antidote. Given a few seconds, she'd easily been able to
escape out from under it by firing her own breath sideways and using the recoil to
launch her away. However, Uranos's breath had been more powerful than she'd
anticipated, and in those few seconds, she'd lost most of the left side of her body. The
fact that Uranos's breath hampered restoration magic was still a slight threat,
however, but not anything Tio couldn't handle.
Freid grimaced and Uranos growled, but the apostles seemed to be tiring of this
conversation, so they fired another round of disintegration beams at Shea and Tio.
The two of them dodged to either side while Hearst went over to Freid.
"Freid-sama. Those two are still the Irregular's comrades. Do not let your guard down."
"I know."
It came as a bit of a surprise to Shea and Tio that the apostles deferred to Freid and
not the other way around. But in a way, it also proved that they were nothing more
than puppets. If an actual person was given the same status as them, they would
automatically defer to that person.
Freid and Hearst turned back to Shea and Tio.
"For Lord Ehit!" they said in unison, brandishing their weapons.
With five extremely strong apostles to contend with as well, Shea and Tio were in a
pretty desperate situation. And yet, both of them were grinning fearlessly.
"Looks like the real fight starts now!" Shea exclaimed.
"I suppose it's finally time to unveil our trump cards."
The reason Shea had held off on using her trump card was because strengthening
herself past her current level gradually broke down her body, so she'd only be able to
keep it up for a short time. On the other hand, the reason Tio had held off on using her
trump card was because it was far less effective when she was surrounded. Now,
however, the two sides were facing off against each other.
"Let's go! Body Strengthening Level IV!"
"Come, my loyal familiars—Dragon Army!"
Shea and Tio each played the first of their trump cards. The pale-blue aura of mana
surrounding Shea grew brighter as she pushed her body strengthening even further.
With Tio, the small red jewel on her belt began to glow, and a second later, a hundred
black dragons appeared around her, each and every one of them armed to the teeth
with artifacts.
In response, the apostles brandished their claymores, and Freid raised his hand into
the air. His army of monsters let out a deafening roar, and sparks flew off of Uranos's
body as he readied to strike.
Both sides' dragon armies launched their breath attacks, signaling the start of round
two.
Black beams and aurora beams filled the sky, making the battle look more like a sci-fi
showdown between spaceships than a war between dragons. Five streaks of silver
light and a single streak of pale-blue light weaved their way between the breath
attacks, clashing at regular intervals. Occasionally, the aurora and black beams would
collide, causing gray shockwaves to radiate outward.
"Hiyaaaaaah!"
Shea whirled her ball and chain around, then threw it at the five apostles. It looked
like her attack was about to connect, but then the five of them vanished.
They were moving so fast that even with her body strengthening, Shea couldn't see
them. It was like they were teleporting. They didn't even leave afterimages in their
wake. Just as Shea registered their disappearance, Hearst appeared right in front of
her.
"Take this! Haaah!" Shea shouted, swinging Villedrucken at Hearst.
"Is this the best you can do?" Hearst asked, countering with a diagonal slash from one
of her claymores. The two weapons clashed with a resounding clang, and it was the
claymore that won out. Shea's hammer was knocked aside, and Hearst launched a
horizontal slash with her second claymore.
At the edge of her vision, Shea saw Uranos fire his breath at Tio, with two apostles
charging along with the breath attack, completely ignoring Shea. The remaining two
apostles were flanking Shea from either side. Zweit and Vierte were fully locking down
Shea's movements so she couldn't escape from Hearst. Furthermore, they followed up
her attack with horizontal slashes of their own.
Hello? Level IV is already supposed to be strengthening me past all mortal limits, but it's
still not enough?!
Shea's eyes simply couldn't keep up with the speed of the apostles' attacks. However,
her Future Sight could. Screaming, Shea pulled Villedrucken's trigger, using the recoil
to propel herself forward. The claymore still grazed her side, but she managed to avoid
being bisected. She'd gotten so close to Hearst that the apostle couldn't freely swing
her claymores. Of course, the two swings from Zweit and Vierte missed completely.
As a hammer user, Shea intimately knew the weaknesses of large weapons. However,
it still took a lot of courage to charge forward into a lethal attack to avoid it.
As she charged forward, Shea hit Hearst with a headbutt. There was an almost metallic
clang as their foreheads collided, and Hearst's head was knocked backward. And yet,
Hearst's expression didn't change in the slightest. She kept her gaze firmly trained on
Shea.
Shit, that didn't work! Shea thought, hastily leaping away. But as she did so, Zweit and
Vierte slashed at her from below. Shea somersaulted over them, lamenting how
outmatched she was in both power and speed.
Shea's Body Strengthening Level IV was slightly different from her regular body
strengthening. Normally, she used her Mana Manipulation ability in conjunction with
Conversion Efficiency II to raise her stats by two for every point of mana she used. But
recently, Hajime had made a new artifact for her that upgraded her Conversion
Efficiency to III so she could raise all of her stats by three for each point of mana she
put into it.
Still, she'd known that wouldn't be enough when fighting Ehit's minions, so she'd
devised an even more powerful form of body strengthening. There was a special
ingredient in her CheatMates that removed the unconscious caps she put on her
strengthening to ensure her muscles and bones wouldn't shatter and also allowed her
to use spirit and evolution magic to reinforce her body despite having no aptitude for
either. This was the power that allowed her to surpass all of her limits, Body
Strengthening Level IV. And yet, even with this much strength, she wasn't even close
to matching these apostles' stats.
"Is now really the time to get lost in thought?" Hearst asked, once again moving faster
than Shea could track. She reappeared above Shea and swung down both claymores
with all the force of her first debilitating attack.
"Sure is! Beating you guys'll be a piece of cake!" Shea shouted, blocking the claymores
with the chain attached to Villedrucken. She then expertly redistributed the force of
Hearst's swing and wrapped Villedrucken's chain around both of her swords. Of
course, Hearst's blades were coated in disintegration magic, but everything Hajime
had made was crafted with a special, super-dense alloy that could withstand a few
seconds of even Hearst's ridiculously powerful disintegration magic, which meant
Shea was able to buy enough time to swap Villedrucken into bombardment mode and
fire off a spatial-magic enhanced armor-piercing explosive round. It was a special
bullet that exploded not on impact, but rather after piercing its target to maximize the
damage of its spatial ruptures.
Even Hearst was taken aback when she saw that bullet, so she quickly dropped her
claymores and crossed her arms in front of her to block. There was a loud boom as the
bullet hit her, and the resulting explosion sent her flying.
"My turn now!" Shea shouted, flinging her chain and throwing Hearst's two claymores
at Zweit, who'd circled behind her. And of course, she still had her kendama ball
attached to the end of that chain.
By stepping on one end of the chain, she redirected the sphere down at Vierte, who'd
been about to fire off a disintegration beam at her. Vierte backed away using the least
amount of movement possible to try to maintain her aim. But that proved to be a
mistake. She should have gotten as far away from that sphere as possible… because
now, she was trapped within its gravitational field.
"Ah! I'm being dragged in?!"
Like Shizuku's blades, Shea's sphere had been enchanted with Attract. However, it had
far more mass to it, and so, its gravitational field was much, much stronger.
The sphere smacked Vierte in the stomach, sending her flying. Unfortunately, flinging
Hearst's claymores hadn't worked to deter Zweit as much as Shea had hoped.
"Whoa!"
Zweit flew up to Shea and fired a disintegration beam and a barrage of disintegration
feathers at her from point-blank range.
Shea immediately brought Villedrucken up to guard her vitals. The surface of the
hammer's head was coated in sealstone, so it could withstand even disintegration
magic. But unfortunately, in this form, Villedrucken wasn't wide enough to cover her
arms and legs. She was able to block the beam, but many of the feathers got past it and
ripped through her limbs.
Shea quickly dropped to get out of the way of the barrage, but as she did, a pair of
swords came flying up at her.
Did Zweit drop her weapons?! No, wait, those are Hearst's—
Shea twisted out of the way just in time, but she heard Hearst grab her weapons again
as they flew past her. Looking over her shoulder, she saw Hearst standing there,
looking no worse for wear. The only real thing Shea's attack had done was destroy
Hearst's gauntlets.
Hearst looked coldly down at Shea, wondering if the little rabbit would even be able
to fight back with her arms and legs in such a sorry state. She then crossed her
claymores like a pair of scissors and prepared to snip Shea's head off. While it was true
that Shea wouldn't be able to do anything to stop that attack with her limbs looking
like Swiss cheese, they didn't stay that way for long.
"Not a problem!" Shea shouted.
"Your wounds!"
As Hearst closed in on her, Shea blocked the scissor attack by sticking Villedrucken
between the two claymores and backflipping out of range. Her body had completely
healed, and she was also bathed in glimmering black light.
Tio had used restoration magic on her. And not only that, but Tio's whip coiled around
Zweit's wrist as she dived toward Shea and tried to slice her in half with her claymore.
Tio tugged on her whip, pulling Zweit to the side and causing her to fall harmlessly
past Shea.
"You received help from Tio Klarus?"
"That's right!" Shea answered, sliding Villedrucken out of Hearst's scissored
claymores before she could force another contest of strength and firing an Area Burst
Bullet at Hearst's face. This wasn't a piercing bullet, since Shea just wanted a widearea attack this time around. However, a spatial attack was still more than Hearst's
body could handle, so she quickly leaped back.
Vierte had returned now, though, and she fired a disintegration barrage at Shea.
"You'll have to get through—Owwwwwwwwwwww!"
Tio jumped in to block the attack, but it hurt enough to leave her teary-eyed despite
the protection afforded by her much-vaunted scales.
"Thanks for the body block, Tio-san!" Shea said, taking aim at Vierte and firing a
piercing round at her.
Vierte hadn't expected Shea to be so callous as to take advantage of Tio acting as her
meat shield, so her surprise delayed her reaction just enough that Shea's shot hit her
in the shoulder. Shea then went over to Tio's side, but their enemies didn't give them
any time to chat.
While Shea had been engaged in a close-quarters battle, Tio had been fighting from
long-range. Now, though, Dritter and Funfte had a chance to close in on Tio, which they
took immediately. Furthermore, Freid's gray dragons, white leopards, and threeheaded wolves all surrounded Shea and Tio to ensure they wouldn't retreat.
Tio used her Dragon Claws and Shea used a barrage of Area Burst Bullets to knock the
monsters back, but they'd bought enough time for Dritter and Funfte to pincer the two
of them. Dritter faced off against Shea, while Funfte stopped before Tio.
Without a word, Shea and Tio rotated to swap places. They both knew that was the
optimal move, and they didn't need to say anything to communicate that.
A second later, Dritter fired a barrage of disintegration feathers as Funfte launched a
beam.
"Your feathers are too light," Tio said with a smile, taking the feather hits with her scale
armor and countering with a spiral breath attack of her own.
"I can handle focused attacks all day!" Shea shouted, yanking on her chain to pull her
sphere back and smacking it toward the disintegration beam with Villedrucken. Its
immense mass plowed right through the beam and went straight for Funfte.
The two of them then leaped up at the same time, dodging the invisible spatial
rendering attack that Freid had sent at them.
"Tch, so you really are sharing your precognition with her?!" Freid shouted, directing
Uranos to fire his breath at the two of them while they were in the air. But of course,
Shea foresaw that as well, and the two of them easily evaded the attack by jumping to
either side.
Zweit and Funfte fired another feather barrage at Shea, one attacking from above and
the other from the side. She wasn't able to dodge them all, but the wounds she did take
were immediately healed by Tio's restoration magic.
Shea knew Tio had her back if anything hit her, so she didn't even care about what
injuries she took and swung her sphere around to knock Dritter and Vierte away, using
Attract at full power to keep them from dodging.
While Shea was fighting Dritter and Funfte, Hearst closed in and tried to cut her down,
but Tio once again got in the way to block. And while Hearst's slashes were strong
enough to cut through even Tio's scales, she needed more than a few seconds to do it.
And in those precious few seconds, Shea turned around and swung Villedrucken at
her.
Hearst immediately shot up to avoid the swing, leaving Tio free to turn her attention
to Freid, who was coming at her with a Void Fissure. However, Tio didn't bother
blocking or dodging, instead opting to lash out with her whip.
Freid hesitated for a second upon seeing how little Tio seemed to care about his attack,
leaving him wide open to Tio's whip. The tip of the whip moved blisteringly fast,
bolstered by the centrifugal force of the swing.
Meanwhile, Tio fired a breath attack at Uranos to keep him from defending his master.
"Gaaah!"
Freid tried to cover himself with his wings, but the whip sliced right through them to
score a deep gash on his chest. This whip was the specialized weapon Hajime had
made for Tio, the Obsidian Dominator. The jewel inlaid into the handle was a
miniature Treasure Trove, which allowed Tio to extend the whip up to three
kilometers. It had also been crafted out of Tio's scales and was as rough as a file,
making it perfect for cutting anything it scraped. Plus, it was enchanted with
metamorphosis magic, so Tio could use it as an extension of one of her limbs.
Moreover, it had spatial-severing abilities and was imbued with spirit magic, so Tio
could use soul attacks with it as well.
The damage Freid received from the whip weakened his control over his Void Fissure,
so the spell was only strong enough to crush a few of Tio's scales and elicit a small
grunt from her.
Hearst, who'd been planning on getting a follow-up attack on Shea, immediately
retreated from the front lines and went to support Freid, who'd started falling toward
the ground.
"Freid-sama!"
"Ngh, I'm fine!" Freid roared as he shook Hearst off and flew back up with his own
strength. The other apostles had stopped momentarily too when they'd seen Freid get
hit. For whatever reason, it seemed the apostles valued Freid's life quite a bit. The only
explanation Shea and Tio could think of was because Freid seemed to be in Alvaheit's
old position.
"Tio-san, are you…? Yeah, I guess you're not okay. Thanks for being my meat shield,
though."
"Mmmmmm! I love how little you care about my well-being! There's nothing more
pleasurable than being insulted by those closest to you! Thank you very much, Shea!"
Tio exclaimed as she writhed in ecstasy. Still, she really did look to be in bad shape.
Restoration magic still wasn't working very well on her, so she couldn't immediately
heal her wounds. Her scale armor was a derivative skill of her basic dragon
transformation, so she could naturally regenerate her scales the same way she could
while transformed, but it took more time. And while her armor was in bad shape, her
flesh underneath that scale armor was probably even more damaged. Her kimono was
tattered as well, enough that if she got rid of her scale armor, she'd look quite
provocative.
"I doubt you can keep this up for much longer…" Shea said in a worried voice.
"It's fine, Shea. This is good," Tio replied, shooting Shea a meaningful glance. Shea
suddenly brightened up, nodding along and saying, "Oh, I get it now."
"By the way, how are you holding up, Shea?"
"You've protected me for long enough. I'll be able to manage thanks to you."
"Wonderful. It heartens me to know I managed to fulfill my role as a guardian."
Shea and Tio chuckled to each other as they watched the apostles surround them from
all sides. There was no despair in their eyes, however. In fact, they looked more
pumped up than ever.
Meanwhile, Freid was taking advantage of this reprieve to heal himself and see how
his monsters were faring against Tio's dragons. He'd ordered them to annihilate Tio's
dragon army, which he believed was possible, since he had the overwhelming
advantage in numbers. Sure, Shea and Tio had taken out quite a few of his monsters
during their initial assault, but there were still far more monsters left than dragons.
Honestly, he'd expected his monsters to have cleaned up Tio's dragons by now, but
when he looked up to see what was happening, he was met with a shocking sight.
Impossible.
They'd barely thinned the dragons' numbers. Plus… a good chunk of his own monsters
had been slain. Tio had lost maybe ten dragons during this time, whereas over a
hundred of Freid's monsters were dead. Even if Tio's dragons had happened to be
stronger, that didn't explain this overwhelming difference in firepower. However,
there was one other factor that was widening the gap between Freid's monsters and
Tio's dragons.
All of the equipment those dragons are using are artifacts made by the Irregular, aren't
they?!
He watched as the helmet on one of the black dragons started to glow as it unleashed
its breath attack. One of Freid's gray dragons countered with its aurora breath, but
thanks to the amplifying powers of the helmet, as well as the evolution magic stored
in the dragon's armor, its black spiral punched right through the aurora attack and
shot through the head of the gray dragon. The breath attack continued onward, killing
a few more of Freid's monsters as well.
Hoping to get Tio's dragon while it was focusing on attacking, one of Freid's Ahatods
tried to punch it in the stomach. Its fist, wreathed in crimson mana, was strong enough
to annihilate most creatures. And yet, when it collided with the dragon's armor, it was
the fist that was crushed, not the armor. It seemed the armor the dragons were
wearing reacted to any impact by unleashing shockwaves of its own.
Completely unfazed by the Ahatod's attack, the dragon swiped at it with its tail, which
had a spatial-severing blade attached to its end. The Ahatod couldn't react in time, so
its head was easily bisected.
Naturally, all of the dragons' claws were coated in metal sheaths that were themselves
artifacts. Those artifacts were enchanted with spatial-severing magic as well, but they
were also enchanted with Gale Claw. That same dragon used its Gale Claw to slice
through a clump of chimeras once it was done with the Ahatod.
In the distance, another black dragon was weaving between attacks with barrel rolls,
dives, and sudden ascents.
Another one of the effects of the armor all the dragons were equipped with was
lessening the effects of gravity around them. The weight of their armor and their own
weight were cut in half. Thus, they could easily dodge the gray dragons' breath attacks,
the leopards' tentacles, and everything in between, and they were doing it all with
such ease it seemed as if they could predict their enemies' attacks. Which, frankly, they
could. After all, the helmets were enchanted with Foresight. They couldn't exactly see
into the future the way Shea could, but with all of their abilities buffed by evolution
magic, they could at least roughly predict the trajectory of most attacks headed their
way. Moreover, all of their breath attacks were lethal, with each one cutting its target
down with pinpoint precision.
"I hate this! Even when he's not here, that man brings disaster!"
"Come now, don't give Master all the credit. These dragons are the culmination of all
of us working together. I hope you enjoy the fruits of our labor!" Tio declared, a wide
grin on her face.
In truth, it was Shea and Kaori who'd captured the wyverns in the abyss. Hajime had
then made their weapons and armor, and after Tio had returned from her journey
home, she was the one who'd turned them into familiars. She'd then spent as much
time as possible in the Hour Crystal room strengthening them and upgrading them
from wyverns to dragons. Thanks to everyone's hard work, this dragon army was now
so strong that any individual dragon could easily beat any of the monsters in the abyss.
Incidentally, they hadn't been black before, but Tio had made them black because she
preferred that color. By her reasoning, it made sense for the familiars of the woman
who served the man everyone called the new Demon Lord to look evil and imposing.
And nothing said evil and imposing more than black.
"Calm down, Freid-sama. I have an idea," Hearst said in her usual emotionless voice.
"Hm? What is it?" Freid asked, swallowing his anger at Hajime and turning to Hearst.
After confirming that all of Freid's wounds had healed, Hearst glared at Shea like a
predator staring down their prey and said, "Their coordination is too strong. We need
to tear them apart. We apostles will take Shea Haulia."
"Is there a point to splitting them up?"
"When Uranos hit Tio Klarus with his breath, she wasn't able to dodge ahead of time.
Their fighting style only works so long as Tio Klarus's defensive and recovery
capabilities give Shea Haulia the time she needs to predict things for others."
"Whoops, looks like they figured us out," Shea said, sticking her tongue out.
"Very well, you take rabbitgirl. Uranos and I still need to pay that dragonman back for
what happened at the Grand Gruen Volcano."
"Understood."
Even with their coordination, Shea and Tio were simply an annoyance to Hearst and
the apostles. She figured once they were separated, they'd be reduced to nothing more
than easy targets.
After hearing Hearst's plan, Shea grinned and turned to Tio.
"Tio-san."
"Hrm… Will you be all right?"
"I'll be fine. They're all just god's puppets, right? Besides, you'll have an easier time if
you don't have to protect me."
This time, it was Shea's turn to shoot Tio a meaningful look. Tio shrugged her
shoulders in agreement.
To Hearst and the apostles, it just sounded like Tio was glad she wouldn't have to be a
meat shield anymore, but Freid narrowed his eyes suspiciously. He suddenly had a bad
feeling about this plan, but before he could say anything, Hearst pointed her claymores
at Shea.
"I'm tired of your boasting, rabbitgirl. It's time I put you in your place."
Radiating particles of light, Hearst shot toward Shea so fast that she looked like a
platinum streak.
"Hah! I'd like to see you try!" Shea shouted, charging toward Hearst.
As Tio watched her go, Freid's pure-white mana started swirling around him.
"You're not going to fully transform?" he asked.
"That would just make me a bigger target."
"You don't have to protect your comrade anymore. There's no reason for you to hold
back. I want you to unleash your full power. Only after beating you at your full strength
will I be able to cleanse my past shame and hold my head high when I report back to
Lord Ehit."
"So what? Let me tell you something, youngster," Tio replied. She had finished fully
repairing her scale armor. As pure-black mana swirled around her, she continued in a
haughty voice, "Don't get too cocky. If you wish to see the full extent of my power, force
me to use it first!"
She grinned arrogantly, and for a moment, Freid fell silent. But then, he shouted,
"Uranooooooooos!"
In response, his beloved dragon partner fired a breath attack at Tio. Tio prepared to
leap out of the way, but then a portal appeared in front of Uranos's attack. It almost
seemed like it was there to protect Tio, but of course, she knew that wasn't the case.
Looking up, she saw that there was another portal directly above her, and the breath
attack had been rerouted through it. She still managed to dodge to the side in time,
but the breath attack then went down into another portal and suddenly reappeared
at Tio's side.
Tio was slowly being trapped in a cage made by a single breath attack. But even as
Freid was manipulating the portals, he was also preparing an ancient magic attack. He
gathered a ridiculous amount of mana and even said an incantation to further increase
the power of his attack.
"Voidshatter!" he shouted, loosing his spell in the center of Tio's dragon army.
A huge spherical spatial explosion tore through everything around it, including Freid's
own monsters. This attack was of a greater magnitude than anything Freid had cast
before. He'd lost a third of his own monsters, but Tio had lost eighty percent of her
dragons. Most of them weren't killed outright thanks to the defensive properties of
their artifacts, but they were either knocked unconscious or ravaged so thoroughly
they couldn't fight.
Meanwhile, the breath cage had finally managed to land a glancing blow on Tio. Even
that was enough to shred the armor on her left side, scattering her scales and blood
across the battlefield.
Unconcerned with her own injuries, Tio turned to see how her dragons were faring.
"How indiscriminate…" Tio said, prompting Freid to scoff.
"This is what happens when I get serious."
The lives of his familiars meant far less to him than completing the divine mission
given to him by Ehit. In fact, nothing was as important as winning this battle and
slaying Hajime's companions.
"Do you have the resolve to sacrifice anything and everything to achieve victory?"
As he was now, Freid would even sacrifice fellow demons if that was what it took to
win. Though it was hard to say if he was determined… or simply insane.
Instead of replying, Tio merely gave him a pitying sigh. Then, as if spitting on his
resolve, she worked a simple miracle.
"Dragon Queen's Grace."
Black mana rippled out from her, raining down on her battered dragons. They were
quite literally receiving the grace of their queen right now.
Dragon Queen's Grace was a combination spirit and restoration magic spell that used
spirit magic to target only the things Tio wanted to, as well as keep deceased creatures'
souls attached to their bodies, while the restoration magic portion healed them.
Within a few minutes, Tio's dragons would all be fully resurrected and ready to fight
once more.
The dragons that were still conscious let out small roars of gratitude as Tio's magic
healed them. And soon enough, they all started taking flight again, wreathed in the
protection of their queen. Knowing that they didn't need to fear death, they fought
even more aggressively than before, taking down as many of Freid's monsters as they
could before they were struck down.
Freid felt like he was trapped in a nightmare. In fact, he was so stunned by Tio's spell
that he let her get another attack in. She lashed out with her whip, coiling it around
one of Freid's three-headed wolves.
"Be reborn as one of my familiars—Dragon Queen's Edict!"
Tio's voice was filled with the majesty and power only a true ruler could muster.
"Graaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!"
The bound wolf let out a pained howl. It didn't sound like any howl a real wolf would
make, and it made Freid's hairs stand on end.
"Wh-What did you just do?!" Freid asked, shaken. With several grotesque popping and
cracking sounds, the three-headed wolf started to transform.
And in the span of just three seconds, its three heads shrank into one, its entire body
was covered with black scales, its tail and claws elongated, and wings sprouted from
its back. It had been transformed into a black dragon.
This was another one of Tio's new spells, Dragon Evolution. She had used spirit magic
to isolate the part of her genome that made her a dragonman and now could use a
combination of metamorphosis and spirit magic to implant those same genes into
other creatures, turning them into dragons and her familiars at the same time.
Of course, normally, it was impossible to take control of another person's familiar in
the span of just a few seconds. But luckily, Tio's Obsidian Dominator could make the
impossible possible. The true purpose of her artifact was to help her more easily turn
things into dragons.
Thanks to her high aptitude for metamorphosis magic and her Obsidian Dominator,
Tio could forcibly convert pretty much anything into her familiar, so long as she also
dragonified it. It was a rather strange weapon for a masochist, but it at least fit the
perverted part of Tio's personality.
Shea and the others had definitely given Hajime some looks when he'd presented her
with the whip.
"I think I can push this a little further!" Tio shouted, swinging her whip again while
Freid was still stupefied. This time, her whip split into three ends, grabbing three
different monsters at once, which Tio immediately transformed.
Seeing that, Uranos let out a massive roar to wake his master up, and Freid quickly
returned to his senses.
"Time to put a stop to this!" he shouted, firing a barrage of disintegration feathers
while Uranos unleashed his breath. The feathers curved around Tio, blocking off her
path of escape while the breath went right at her.
Unconcerned by the damage they might cause, Tio jumped into the feather barrage to
avoid the breath. If she was going to get hit either way, it made more sense to get hit
by the thing that hurt less.
Still, while that was a logical decision to make, it wasn't like Freid's feathers did no
damage at all. Indeed, while Tio survived, a good number of her scales were shorn off,
falling to the ground along with droplets of blood.
"I got another one!" Tio shouted, pushing through Freid's barrage and grabbing a
clump of monsters that were slightly separated from the rest. She could have retreated
behind her dragon army and been a lot safer, but that would have run the risk of
exposing them to Freid's and Uranos's attacks. At any rate, this time she split her whip
into five and transformed five monsters at once.
Freid was losing his army and Tio was increasing the size of hers, but now that Freid
had regained his composure, he wasn't too worried.
"Pathetic. Purposely taking hits is a terrible way of fighting."
"This is a perfectly acceptable tactic, you know?"
"As if. You're simply taking advantage of your natural toughness. What part of that is
strategic? I admit stealing my familiars was a surprising use of metamorphosis magic,
but if you're slowly killing yourself to make it work, what's the point?"
Freid found Tio's fighting style laughable. And so, he once again fired a barrage of
disintegration feathers around her while Uranos aimed his breath right at her.
Again, Tio braved the feather barrage to add to her dragon army. And it was then that
Freid realized Tio was gambling that her endurance would last long enough to flip the
numbers advantage in her favor and beat him down.
That was indeed Tio's plan. However, it was only a single part of it. What Freid wasn't
aware of was that she was also sowing the seeds for another one of her trump cards,
though she hoped she wouldn't need to use it.