Arifureta Shokugyou de Sekai Saikyou (LN) - Volume 12 - Chapter 5

Chapter V: Ragnarok

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 high-pitched 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 wide-area 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 three-headed 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.