Chapter Three: Lion and Fox, Light and Dark
The Lunar Society headquarters
Figaro had arrived at The Lunar Society’s headquarters approximately ten minutes before Ray was woken up by Nemesis.
It hadn’t been long since he’d left Gideon. The Superior knew the quickest way to the capital by heart, and he’d traversed it while wearing his best AGI-enhancing equipment, so while his speed had been impressive, it definitely wasn’t surprising.
Standing at the gates of The Lunar Society, Figaro spent a moment to equip the best gear for the situation, such as anti-debuff armor to counter his prime opponent, a stone ax so large it could split mansions in half, and a monocle-like accessory.
That last item wasn’t particularly rare or remarkable. It only had a weak Clairvoyance effect, which was often used to search for traps and the like. However, Figaro planned to use it for a completely different purpose — to merely look at the backs of people’s left hands.
The presence of a crest there would indicate that the person was a Master.
“If I get rid of all the Masters, they’ll have no choice but to let Ray go,” he murmured.
And the monocle was there to help him differentiate who to kill and who to let live.
Indeed, the very same man that had dismantled the blockade at the south of the capital by annihilating Mad Castle was about to rescue Ray by massacring The Lunar Society. And alas, no one was there to tell him just how absurd and rash he was being.
This Superior’s modus operandi was quite unlike what his noble-like features would have you expect.
“Let’s go,” the fair-faced meathead said as he started it all off by throwing his gigantic ax towards the main gate.
Needless to say, it collapsed in one hit, and Figaro didn’t hesitate to bound over the rubble and enter the premises.
Thus began the lion’s wild dance of destruction.
Walls crumbled, structures fell, Masters vanished, and tians scrambled for safety.
It didn’t take much of this chaotic pandemonium for Tsukuyo herself to stand before Figaro. Kaguya, too, was forced to end her chat with Nemesis and join her Master in battle.
It was at that moment that Ray woke up and saw the two Superiors face one another, murderous as could be.
With The Lunar Society’s HQ as their stage, two of the Big Three were now fighting each other to the death — a situation that could certainly be called a Clash of the Superiors.
Paladin, Ray Starling
Nemesis and I stood in the shattered room and observed the battle.
Figaro’s arms were entwined in his trademark Crimson Dead Keeper chains, and he held a bow in his hands — a weapon I had rarely seen him use.
From his words, I could assume that he’d come here to help me, but his murderous intention seemed unfittingly immense.
Did something happen between him and the aberration? I pondered.
Speaking of Tsukuyo Fuso, she was holding a wand as menacing as Figaro’s Gloria ? or Xunyu’s Yinglong’s Fang, and she, too, looked thoroughly murderous, likely because of the tragic state of her base. Even a third party like me could feel the hostility between them.
Maybe because of the intensity alone, or perhaps because of their immense skill, the battle between the Over Gladiator and the High Priestess was simply sublime.
Figaro wasn’t clad in his AGI-focused gear, so even I could follow his movements, and they were nothing short of spectacular. The four chains on his arms attacked automatically, and he coupled it with shots from his bow.
Not only that, but he was doing it while moving all across the space by kicking off of walls or pillars, and the arrows he’d launched all seemed to break the laws of physics, leaving log-sized perfect circles wherever they hit.
Tsukuyo Fuso, on the other hand, was entirely different from the way she had been when she’d faced me.
She was wrapped in a dark blue cloth highly reminiscent of the night she’d subjected me to, only denser, and she was launching black waves, much like swallows or crescent moons, with every swing of her wand. In all honesty, she looked like a final boss straight out of an RPG.
“Is that dark blue cloth just another form of the Lunar Reduction Field?” I asked.
“Yes.” Nemesis nodded. “Kaguya... Tsukuyo’s Maiden... transformed into it a short while ago.”
“Maiden...? Oh, so we share a category.”
The impression they gave me was completely different than the one I’d gotten from Hugo and Cyco, though. Also, that cloth of hers seemed like a solidified version of the night she’d used to defeat me.
This was supported by the fact that Figaro, despite excelling at melee combat, wasn’t fighting her from up close, meaning that the cloth-Embryo might be a more effective — or harder to resist — Lunar Reduction Field.
The swallow/crescent moon-like waves were likely similar in nature.
Another thing to note was that the wide-scale night she’d used to suppress me wasn’t active. Tsukuyo Fuso herself had said that the night wasn’t effective on high level opponents, so when faced with someone like Figaro, she probably had no choice but to “compress” it.
Also, Figaro’s endless buffing was a good counter to her debuffing. He was growing stronger with every passing second. His movements were gradually becoming too quick for me to follow, and his arrows were causing more and more destruction.
The two were more or less on equal footing right now, but that meant that Figaro would eventually gain the upper hand.
“As things are, it seems like the meathead will win,” commented Nemesis.
“Yeah.” I nodded, but then noticed something. “Hm?”
The flow of the battle itself was shifting in his favor, but there were two things I found odd and concerning.
First was the fact that Figaro wasn’t looking at me at all. I was aware of a plausible reason for that, though. He himself had told me about it.
One day, after we’d had a little spar, we’d chatted a bit. I’d taken the opportunity to ask him why he was so adamant about playing solo, both in the Tomb Labyrinth and out.
Figaro definitely wasn’t socially impaired. While sparring, dueling, or just having lunch, he had absolutely no trouble making pleasant exchanges with me, Shu, or the kingdom’s duel rankers, so that had made me all the more curious about his solo fixation.
A part of me had thought that it might be a sensitive subject, but Figaro hadn’t hesitated to answer, “Because I can’t cooperate with anyone.”
I didn’t know the details, but apparently, when he participated in battles involving someone he recognized as an ally, his fighting would become abnormally worse, and that was why he was never a part of any party, and always acted alone.
It wasn’t an effect of a Dendro skill or debuff or anything the like. It was related to his real life, so I’d chosen not to ask about it any further.
That being the case, right now, Figaro was purposely ignoring me because if I entered his vision, his movements would become more dull.
Even so, his fighting was lacking some of his usual brilliance, making it evident that he was telling the truth and that my very presence here was burdening him.
The other strange thing I’d noticed was that Figaro seemed to be rushing so much that it made it look like he was panicking. Occasionally, he looked away from Tsukuyo Fuso and, for some reason, glanced at the sky.
Since she wasn’t using the wide-scale night effect, it was nothing more than a sky you’d see on a typical evening.
Another thing I’d found strange was not something with Figaro, but with Tsukuyo.
“She still looks confident,” I muttered.
Though she was clad in the nightly veil, I could occasionally catch a glimpse of her expression — a composed smile.
It didn’t seem to suit her current situation at all. Figaro was growing stronger by the moment, and his attacks were beginning to pierce the night shrouding Tsukuyo Fuso.
“Ah...” she gasped as one of Figaro’s arrows grazed her and completely blew her left arm away. In but a moment, she became as limbless as I.
“Mercy of the Holy,” she said, speaking the name of a skill. Light gathered where her arm had once been, and reformed it as if it had never been gone.
An injury so grave, treated in mere seconds.
“So that’s the healing magic of the High Priestess...” I muttered. Though she could probably fix me up just as easily, I still had absolutely no intention of asking for her help. “Even so, it doesn’t look like he can lose this.”
Figaro’s attack, the damage it had done, and the way Tsukuyo Fuso had reacted to it made me more confident than ever.
She’d used her immense healing ability and damage reduction from the Lunar Reduction Field to effectively become an endurance build meant to survive prolonged battles, meaning that Figaro — a fighter that turned stronger with the passage of time — had no way of losing this fight.
However...
“Oh dearrr, a dummy like you is just too much for little old me alone,” she muttered as she wiped her brow with her freshly-healed left arm.
She was absolutely right about that. Figaro was at the top of the kingdom’s duel rankings and was nearly unmatched in solo battles. In contrast, Tsukuyo Fuso was a support job focused on helping her clan as they did the dirty work.
One was the apex of single battle, while the other was the zenith of leadership. The outcome of a one-on-one battle between them was obvious from the start.
“I could reallllly use an ally or two...” she murmured.
We were at her clan’s headquarters, so there should’ve been many of her followers here. However, I didn’t see any of them in my immediate vicinity. There was only Figaro, Tsukuyo Fuso, and us.
“She herself made all the adherents, Master and tian alike, distance themselves from the battle,” said Nemesis.
The aberration had probably realized that an opponent like Figaro was just too much for them, and that they wouldn’t be much help in a battle against him.
Still, she must have known full well that a pure support build such as her would stand little chance in a solo battle against a pure battle build such as Figaro, and... wait.
“Is she really alone?” I thought out loud. We’d only talked for a brief moment, but that was enough for me to be able to tell that she wasn’t exactly a nice enough person to make all her underlings stand down and to face a threat all by herself to lower the casualties.
And so, as if to prove me right...
“You can join us now, Kage.”
“As you wish.”
Indeed. She spoke to something, and the “something” answered.
It seemed to have a man’s voice, but I couldn’t be certain about that. After all, it came from all the lengthy evening shadows, and it reached my ears like an echo.
“The Shades and Death, They Beckon — Erlkönig.” The voices from the shadows spoke what were unmistakably grand words of power — a skill.
Suddenly, all the shades turned from black to crimson and rose up as arms with the most menacing of claws. I felt like I was looking at the nightmare of a child still afraid of the dark. Shades small and large... the darkness of every corner became monsters full of pure malice.
“King of Assassins,” Figaro muttered in surprise as he began evading.
The shadows of the trees in the garden, the shades of the ruined building, the blackness beneath the broken lanterns, and even the darkness following Figaro became crimson, gained an extra dimension, and clawed towards him. However, though the claws were menacing, the shadows themselves were far more scary, for everything they touched simply crumbled.
The trees in the garden, the ruined building, the broken lanterns — all were consumed by the shadows they made, crumbled to pieces, and scattered.
It was like watching the deceased invite the living to the afterlife — beckoning straight out of hell.
The shades were encroaching towards Figaro like a raging wave.
“These shadows are an Embryo’s ultimate skill!” I shouted, more certain than ever.
Before they’d appeared, I’d heard the word “Erlkönig.” That was the name of a certain poem by Goethe and a song by Schubert based on it.
It was about the Erlking beckoning a child to his death from the shadows of the night forest, and it was a perfect fit for what I was seeing.
Another thing to note was their menacing presence, as it matched those of the skilled rankers I’d faced in many mock battles over the past month.
Figaro had said they were made by the King of Assassins — a job Marie had once told me about. It was the Western equivalent of her Death Shadow, meaning that he could very well be on the same tier as the Superior Killer. This ultimate skill alone was enough to tell that the King of Assassins was among The Lunar Society’s best.
However...
“Something’s off,” I murmured.
The shadows were attacking Figaro, but not as intensely as you’d expect. It almost seemed like they were focusing on keeping him in check and preventing him from acting, rather than actually killing him. A portion of them were positioned around Tsukuyo Fuso, too.
I momentarily assumed that they intended to limit Figaro’s movements and make it easier for her crescent moons to hit, but for some reason, she created some sort of barrier around herself.
That was probably another one of her High Priestess skills. After she’d put it up, it didn’t seem like she had any intention to attack anymore.
The shadows alone weren’t enough to defeat Figaro, and Tsukuyo Fuso was focusing entirely on defense, making it seem as though they were stalling.
“What good can come of that?” I thought out loud.
The first thing that came to mind was that they were waiting for reinforcements. However, no matter how great of a clan The Lunar Society was, I couldn’t help but doubt that they had that many Masters that could turn the tides of this battle, especially since Figaro only grew stronger with every passing second.
Would something change if they bought enough time?
“Ah...?” I silently gasped as I realized that the shadow beneath my feet had become quite long.
For a moment, I thought that the shadows were about to attack me, too, but then I realized that it was natural — an effect caused by the sun slowly sinking below the horizon.
Well, it’s gonna be night soon, I thought. Wait... night?
“Is that what it’s about...?” I murmured.
A while ago, Figaro had been looking at the sky with obvious panic in his expression. Had he, perhaps, not been looking at the sky itself, but at the way it was darkening? The night was Tsukuyo Fuso’s Superior Embryo, after all.
Given that, I could assume that...
“...It gets stronger when it’s night?”
In the PK clan massacre clip Marie had shown me, in Tsukuyo Fuso’s battle against me, and even now, she’d only ever used her night when it wasn’t actually night.
So, would something change if she used it at nighttime? Would it allow her to use something she couldn’t during the day? Like, say, her Superior ultimate skill?
“That’s most likely correct,” said Nemesis telepathically. “With the growing darkness, I can feel that Kaguya... her Embryo... is growing stronger, as well.”
Her words supported my conjecture.
If that was really true and they were actually stalling until nighttime, it meant that Tsukuyo Fuso was fully confident that she could defeat Figaro if she got to use her ultimate skill, and this was backed up by Figaro’s panicking.
Because of this, Figaro had to defeat her within the little time we had left until night, but the shadows were preventing that.
I looked and noticed that, sheltered by her barrier, the aberration was casting some sort of magic — most likely support spells to help the King of Assassins and his shadows.
I also realized that the shadows protecting her were not only keeping Figaro at bay, but also preventing him from going above her.
“They’re not letting him use the ace up his sleeve,” I said.
No matter how tough the barrier and how resilient the shadows guarding her, they could all be broken by powers surpassing them.
Figaro had one such thing — the Superior special reward, Gloria ?’s item skill, “Fang of Gloria: Overdrive.”
During the Clash of the Superiors, it had delivered heat that’d completely annihilated Xunyu and even blown away the arena barrier’s upper part. That skill could instantly vaporize the shades and make short work of the aberration’s barrier.
The fight had been going on long enough for him to accomplish that feat without much trouble.
But, alas, he couldn’t use it now.
Why? Because we were at the royal capital.
Indeed, The Lunar Society’s headquarters was in one of Altea’s residential districts.
If he were to launch Fang of Gloria, it would easily pierce the building and burn the homes outside the complex. To avoid that, Figaro would have to do as he’d done against Xunyu and slash upwards from melee range, or aim it downwards from above.
The enemies were fully aware of that, and they were making sure those scenarios didn’t happen.
The shadows had surrounded Tsukuyo Fuso and were preventing him from getting close, hindering his movements so he couldn’t go above her. This meant that as long as those shadows were there, Figaro couldn’t use the ace up his sleeve... and had no chance of winning. However, he had yet to find the location of the King of Assassins, and there was little he could do against them.
To break this deadlock, we had to...
Nemesis sighed. “I don’t even need to read your mind to understand what you’re thinking.”
Yeah, I thought. We’ll have to do this without becoming a hindrance for Figaro, but I’ve decided on what to do.
There was only one way to turn this situation around — we had to get rid of the King of Assassins and make his shadows vanish.
It might’ve been bold to state that I could make that happen, but I had to kill him and let Figaro move freely if I wanted him to win against Tsukuyo Fuso.
First, I looked around, but I didn’t see the KoA anywhere within my visible range.
Granted, the moving shadows and the darkening skies greatly hampered my visibility. Not to mention that...
“Though I’m free to move, it’s clear that they have no intention of letting me escape,” I said.
The crimson shadows were surrounding the battle area like a wall. The only shadows that hadn’t been made crimson were those around me and the aberration. It was to protect her... and to keep me alive and bound. Whether by escaping or by death, they had no intention of letting me go.
Not like I wanted to run away, but still.
Honestly, I could probably break through the shadows surrounding us by imbuing Silver with Purifying Silverlight and charging towards them, but the KoA would most likely instantly curb me.
I’d been told that it was a job much like Death Shadow, so I simulated that scenario while picturing Marie in his place. She would attack me from a blind spot the moment I tried to move, and the King of Assassins was surely capable of the same thing. Of course, since they had no intention of letting me escape or die, he’d only make me Faint again.
“Hm?” I murmured.
Wait a second, I thought. Something’s not right here.
If they really had no intention of letting me escape, why hadn’t they just made me Faint again the moment I’d awoken? In the first place, why hadn’t they just...?
“Gh...” My thoughts were cut short by Figaro’s grunt, caused by one of the crimson shadows touching a part of his body.
From the point of contact, the shadow began to encroach on Figaro’s skin, damaging him in the process.
This affected his speed, causing many shadows to charge and attempt to consume him.
He wasn’t able to escape, and the crimson shades overwhelmed him, but then...
“???!”
...Figaro released the familiar, inhuman roar as he equipped his Gloria ? and made the surrounding shadows evaporate.
He was using the standard version of the Fang of Gloria skill, not Overdrive. Instead of launching the vaporizing breath of light, it merely coated the blade in it. Nevertheless, its damage was immense, and it made short work of any shadows in its way.
I could even picture him charging through all the shades and closing in on Tsukuyo Fuso, but both she and the King of Assassins were aware and well-prepared for that scenario. Were he to get too close, Figaro would be completely surrounded by both the shadows and the Lunar Reduction Field. No matter how powerful he was, he would be able to do little against such a number of shadows while weakened.
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