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Chapter 137 - All Might
🕑 Added 2020-02-18 14:56:08 +0000 UTC
Once again, I made the mistake of not activating my Chaos senses. In the last half a year, I can count the number of times I used it with one hand. Peacetime is truly dangerous for one's fighting instincts.
But I seriously need somebody to remind me of using all of my abilities that I accumulated over the past year. That should preferably be somebody who's always with me. Maybe I'll set aside another me inside my body for that express purpose when I get the chance.
That's how Oinos was able to ambush me from below. Not that it was a real ambush since he only pulled me down to the floor below the throne room and then let go without attacking. It seems my roar alerted him to my presence, and he used a shortcut to get me to face him.
"We meet again." He states with a grin, his gaze doubtlessly fixated on me even though his white eyes lack pupils. Green hair extending into bushy sideburns of the same color make him appear to have a mane. His bare upper body is covered in silver markings against his bronze skin. But unlike last time we met, he has a massive curved sword that looks like an upsized katana strapped to his back with a sash.
I'm sure it has a Japanese name because Alverost is a nerd like that.
"Is your master aware that the moon is falling onto Earth right now?" Out of all the Old Humans in the Zenlith faction, Oinos is the only one I haven't seen in the room where my mother was killed. And in our brief encounter in Zohigal, it seemed as if he was only being forced to fight. He may genuinely enjoy battle, much like certain other muscle-heads I know, but I think he might want to free himself of his creator's influence.
"That's precisely why I'm here." The Walker of the Wild raises his arms into a shrug. "Shelnir predicted that you would come to the place of predicted impact."
"So, you want to stop us?" I'm in my Crawling Chaos form, so I can't show surprise on my face.
"Kind of, yeah." Despite the situation, Oinos looks incredibly relaxed. "Father has a plan, but he hasn't told me. All he wanted me to do was keep you here."
"Huh?" Don't tell me he wants to let the moon crash into the planet and kill me with it? Surely, he doesn't think that's enough to finish off a Crawling Chaos with access to the Imagination Engine? Or maybe I'm underestimating the force of a moon impacting a planet. "What would keeping me here accomplish?"
"As I said, I have no idea." With these words, he walks toward me with a relaxed smile. In the next moment, I catch a punch thrown at my nonexistent face, causing his eyes to widen in surprise. He has bridged the distance between us in an instant, but the eyes of Nymphy allowed me to react in time. Her template has been the most useful one for the eyes that I've gotten so far, even more so than Hestia's.
"Don't think I'm the same as I was when we last met." With these words, I spread my tentacles all across his body. Unlike with Korenga, nothing stops me from touching his skin directly, so I hope to swallow him whole. So far, he has only displayed unparalleled physical strength, which is easily countered by elasticity rather than hardness.
"What's so different about you now?" Unperturbed, Oinos asks while the silver lines on his body begin to glow. In the next instant, beams of light emerge from them that cleanly cut through my tentacles, even though they were covered in dragon armor. It seems that he has defensive measures against being swallowed whole. Good thing I found out before he was already inside me.
But it was enough time for me to draw close to him. Last time, the only thing that could hurt him was a pile bunker, but in a normal fight, it would never land a hit on him. This time, I created a massive pile bunker inside the depths of my unfathomable body, with only the spike poking out from my surface.
With my chest close to his, I fire the weapon right into his solar plexus. The tip reinforced with the highest density dragon armor I have created to date pierces his skin and crushes bone. Then the force propels him backward with a momentous blow. He breaks through the wall and into the next room with such speed that he leaves a hole with his outline on it.
But I realize that it didn't crush his bones but mine. While there's the golden liquid that seemingly runs through Oinos' veins on the spike, the dragon armor tip has been shattered. Without wasting time on wonder, I retract it into my body. While repairing it, I realize that this liquid doesn't contain any genetic material and might as well be some kind of coolant or lubricant in a machine.
When I chase after him into the next room, I find that the wall beyond also has an Oinos-shaped hole. In fact, it seems to go all the way through the pyramid and out the outer wall. With every further wall, the outline is less defined, until the last few are simply holes. When I reach the exterior, I'm greeted with an uppercut from below, which I can barely dodge in time.
However, in the same motion, Oinos grabs my neck and drags me back down before slamming my back against the side of the pyramid. I've realized that adopting a less dense and more malleable form is the best against force, so I don't even feel the impact. But then he runs up the side of the structure while dragging me along its rough surface as if wanting to grind me down.
I can react quickly enough by turning my back into smooth dragon armor, which is wholly unaffected by the abrasive sandstone. The instant I do so, he realizes that there's something hard for him to hit, as he stops and brings his fist down at my midsection like a battering ram.
That's what I've been waiting for, as a new pile bunker is ready inside my chest. This one is reinforced with countless tiny spirit spears arranged into a microscopic tip. With perfect precision due to the slow-motion I perceive the world in when using Nymphy's eyes, I time the exit of the spike with the moment the punch connects.
While his flesh is hard, it can't withstand the force behind my pile bunker. This time, the spike lodged itself between the bones in Oinos' hand. It seems that his bones are sturdier than anything I could ever create, as it shrugged off even the spirit spears.
Even then, Oinos doesn't flinch from pain as he stomps his foot on my chest and pulls back his arm to free his hand. Not letting this opportunity go to waste, I create serrated hooks on the spike still in his hand to hold onto him. Turning the end of the spike into a flexible tentacle, I keep the hard tip lodged inside his flesh even as he pulls back with all his strength.
"Impressive." He states while looking at his deformed fist before bringing his other one up to pull it out directly. But I won't let him do that; opening a hole in my chest, I let his foot sink through my body. Then I grow two more pile bunkers inside me while pushing myself off the ground.
The instant they're aligned with his knee as my torso travels up his leg, I let the weapons shoot into him from both sides. I know that the human knee has many tendons vital for standing. Even if these pile bunkers can't destroy his bones, they should be able to sever those tendons.
But right at that moment, the silver lines on his body glow and shoot out beams that cut my torso apart from within. The spikes miss their intended target and only pierce flesh before I fall apart. Without wasting a single second, Oinos rips out the spike still in his hand and pulls on the tentacle attached to it.
Shooting out tendrils all over, I quickly reconnect the severed parts just as the Walker of the Wild swings me around once and throws me into the air. Within a second, I reconsolidate into my humanoid shape and stop my momentum in midair.
But when I look back, Oinos has drawn his massive sword. Phase two of the boss fight, huh?
Others side
Chaos was pulled under by something. And as if that was a signal, the demons immediately swarmed the group left behind in the throne room.
Nobody is worried about the queen of the Dominion; if anything, she's the one person among them who's the least in danger. The devils coming for them with no regard for their own lives are a far more pressing matter than checking whether or not Chaos is alright.
Aurelia cuts a path through the enemy hordes with her golden weapons and makes her way toward the towering devil in the middle of trying to decapitate the God of Gold. The humans and gods of Adanak find relief in having the pressure taken off them due to the reinforcements that Tokomaha and her clones brought, and fight with newfound vigor.
Hestia uses the ample space between the floor and the towering ceiling to take to the air and rain down spirit spears from above. But to her surprise, many devils can block them by creating barriers of dark flames. They return fire with flaming orbs or bolts of energy, causing the fallen angel to quickly weave her way across the room to avoid getting shot down.
Only Kamii and Tokomaha are forced to fight in close combat, with the former quickly building up her combo curse due to the sheer number of enemies to hit. The little goddess forms a battle line using her clones, and advances in formation - something she would have never bothered to learn if not for Chaos teaching her tactics.
Despite being outnumbered, they quickly gain the upper hand in the throne room. When Aurelia shreds the towering devil to pieces, the lesser devils realize that they're outmatched and begin to panic. But as if an unknown intent is overseeing the battle, snaps of red lightning open unstable rifts in space from which more devils pour forth. Many armored ones appear among smaller imp-like creatures that swarm the room with pure numbers.
Then, a massive thunderclap outside the throne room announces the arrival of a new enemy. A gigantic clawed hand grabs the metal doorframe and bends it out of shape just from holding onto it. Reddish-brown skin wrapped in armor that seems to fuse with the flesh, a maw filled with sharp teeth, burning eyes, and an arm ending in a metal tube comes into view. Two horizontal horns extend from this giant devil's forehead, reaching from shoulder to shoulder.
It takes a step through the door but can't get in. With an almost casual shrug, it breaks the frame and the sandstone walls, fully entering the throne room. With a roar that seems to shake the entire pyramid, the giant devil makes its presence known. Humans and gods alike stare at it in horror, realizing that this must be a creature on a different level from those before.
"Bigger only means it falls harder." Kamii comments as she splatters a human-sized demon with a single swing of her cursed arm. She has built her combo counter to the point where even metal gets ripped apart rather than bent, so this new opponent won't stand a chance at all.
"Leave this to me." Hestia raises her hands and summons a massive lance of darkness above her head. Before, she would have had to chant a lengthy incantation in the language of the Fatas, but now she can easily conjure even the most powerful spells with a simple thought. Her imagination may be limited from many years of indoctrination in magic, but she has been training hard so that she doesn't get left behind by Chaos.
The lance of darkness comes down on the behemoth devil, but it raises its tube arm. From within emerges a crackling beam of raw energy that disintegrates the lance. Hestia dodges the beam heading for her with a nimble twist of her body, then spins around while creating an array of black spirit spears. She doesn't need her wings to fly anymore, so she spreads them while creating more and more spears while making them rain down on the giant devil in sequence.
They impact the creature's skin but barely chip away at its surface. Even then, it roars in obvious pain and raises its hand to shield its face from it while haphazardly loosing pellets of energy in the general direction of the fallen angel.
"Now's your chance." One of Tokomaha's clones pats Kamii's shoulder just as the latter disintegrates an imp with a swing of her arm. The little dark elf doesn't respond and instead spins around on the spot to head for the behemoth devil. Along the way, enemies are splattered left and right to further increase her combo counter.
She wants to settle this in a single strike; jumping up into the air and swinging her crab arm horizontally, she aims for the midsection of the colossus. But to everybody's surprise, the massive creature steps back with an unexpectedly nimble motion despite its size and swings its tube arm to swat Kamii out of the air.
The little dark elf's combo counter used to reset with time between hits. But now it only happens when she misses. Her intended swing hits nothing, but she twists her body around in midair, letting her cursed arm carry her momentum.
The crab pincer collides with the devil's metal arm. In the next moment, the shrapnel resulting from its disintegration rips dozens of smaller devils to shreds. The behemoth stares at its destroyed weapon with evident surprise but then roars in rage. Kamii takes that moment to land between its legs and slide underneath it, barely avoiding a stomp aimed at her head. Her combo is still going.
Using that opportunity to pelt the devil with a rain of spirit spears, Hestia takes the heat off the little dark elf. But as if realizing that it's a diversion, the beast endures the pain and turns around to grab Kamii. She gets up just in time to avoid the clawed hand and holds her cursed arm in reserve. Last time, she was able to hit after missing initially because the enemy didn't know her abilities. She can't swing her trump card around without a guarantee that she will hit now.
Instead, she hides her arm behind her back and draws the dagger at her hip in a reverse grip. Compared to her curse combo, this weapon appears laughably weak before the behemoth devil. But if this creature is at all intelligent, it should become wary of it; after all, why would a person whose crab pincer can pulverize even metal forgo that for a weaker weapon? The only potential reason is that this dagger is even more powerful.
"Come." Her short blade raised to eye level, Kamii glares up at the devil fearlessly.
Chaos side
Cutting weapons are useless against me, though. I was scattered into tiny pieces by Zenlith's imagination, but survived by reconnecting in an instant. Since I have plenty of mass stored inside me, on the outside, even a piece the size of my pinky could hold my consciousness. As long as my mass doesn't get erased by something like Zenlith's beam weapon or turned to ash by Serent's strange scythe, I can survive anything now.
Oinos performs a strangely slow horizontal swing with his right hand, moving right to left across his own chest. It appears slow not just because I have Nymphy's eyes, but rather a deliberate-
I feel my body being torn at by an unseen force. My arms and legs are twisted off, and my neck isn't feeling so good either. Even as I stay suspended in midair, I sense my form slowly disintegrating.
Then it stops, and I find that all that's left of me is a frayed head and torso. My arms and legs are nowhere to be seen, so I quickly regrow them using mass from inside me. Looking at Oinos, I find that he's getting ready for his next swing. No matter what that was, it will be bad if I get hit by it again. Before Oinos can complete his swing, I have to close the distance between us and get inside his ridiculously long range.
With a sonic boom, I slam right into him with all of my mass - or that was the plan. But he has grabbed my neck with his free hand extended, causing me to almost rip off my own head due to my momentum. I realize that I've made a huge mistake, as his sword is now poised to swing left to right, with me right in its path.
But not this time! I detach my lower half right as his blade would cut through me. I do the same with my neck, causing his vise-like grasp to crush the empty husk I leave in its place.
In the next moment, my three pieces each grow into a full me, each moving independently from one another. As with any body-splitting technique, they each only have a third of my total mass, rendering the pile bunker unusable by either one of them. But I can still use the Imagination Engine through all of them individually and see from three different angles for maximum coverage.
"That's new." Oinos remarks when he sees the three of me surrounding him. His surprise seems genuine, which means that Alverost didn't see my battle against Zenlith and Serent.
"Flann!" I call out to the blonde girl to initiate my plan. She should have remained in the throne room or disappeared somewhere to hide from the battle, but she knows to continue monitoring me at all times.
With this, I know she's going to appear any second now. That's why I use two of my bodies to cast a multitude of light barriers around Oinos and the third me that formed from my head. Trapping myself inside a tiny space with him is meant to take his attention off the fact that his movements will be restricted if he doesn't break out immediately.
"So, you think this cramped space will stop me from swinging this sword?" The Walker of the Wild looks around without a worry in his mind. Then he lowers his weapon - and lets the blade sink right through the multiple barriers as if cutting through soft butter. "Don't underestimate this Ame-no-Murakumo."
"I knew it!" Head-me points at the sword that is just an oversized katana. Of course, Alverost would give it a Japanese name. Just taking a name from mythology is a clear lack of creativity, though. And that coming from an Old Human who prides himself in having created demonkind. "Well, I thought as much."
The fact that the blade can move through the barriers created by Sintress isn't surprising anymore. For being an inviolable sanctuary, plenty of things have been able to break through it. Of course, that could be because I never learned how to do it right. Imagining an unstoppable force is just as impossible as it is to reach absolute zero with the Imagination Engine, so there must be something else to it.
"How about this then?" With these words, I propel myself forward once again. It has the same result as the last time, but I immediately lose my form and spread all across him. I also avoid the silver lines on his body, which would cut my tentacles to pieces if I have any part covering them.
Instead of trying to turn rigid with my diminished mass, I simply cling to Oinos as a form of distraction. In the meantime, torso-me and legs-me draw the barrier closer to restrict his movements further. The fact that we haven't been teleported yet means that this is still too much movement for Flann.
With a thought, I place layers of barriers on top of my tentacles, which essentially turns me solid. Oinos is rendered entirely still, and I see the surprise on his face. Then he grins, and I understand that this still isn't enough.
Pumping up his muscles so quickly that my tentacles snap, he easily breaks out of the restraints. With a swing of his empty hand, he rips through all the layers of the barriers put around him from the outside. Then he spins around himself and lets Ame-no-Murakumo trail behind him.
Torso-me and legs-me dodge up and down respectively, avoiding the invisible attack by getting within the range of the sword. The apex of the pyramid is disintegrated, and a massive swath of destruction in the city below follows the trajectory of the sword. It has gouged out the earth, leaving only a sickle-shaped crater running from the southern to the northern city wall. Rather than cut, this weapon seems to rend anything in its path with incredible forces similar to gravity. Or maybe it really is gravity.
Luckily, it was only at this angle. Otherwise, those in the throne room would have been caught up in it. But that danger still exists, as Oinos turns around and raises the sword above his head, aiming at head-me. With the pyramid right behind me, that kind of move will blow it all away.
"Don't!" I scream, but he brings the weapon down in what seems to be an even slower swing than before. Extending my hands to each side, I have torso-me and legs-me flow back into my mass. Then, with two massive hands covered in rubber-like skin, I catch the descending blade between my palms.
Even though I stop its momentum, the pressure from the weapon beats down on my regular Crawling Chaos body, almost causing it to break apart. The sandstone behind me is ground away, but it's not enough to destroy the entire building.
Then the strength behind Oinos' arms forces my back to the ground. I switch my form around and surround the blade with all my mass, trying to make it too heavy for the Walker of the Wild to swing. Of course, under normal circumstances, that would be useless against somebody who can throw my full weight with a single hand. But the sword seems to be incredibly dense, which is probably the reason a swing from it can cause tremendous pressure. With my added weight, he shouldn't be able to move it anymore.
In the next moment, I'm lifted off the side of the pyramid like it's nothing. It would seem that all of my mass doesn't even represent a fraction of Ame-no-Murakumo's actual weight. I revise my strategy immediately and travel up the blade toward the hilt using a multitude of tendrils. Even if he can rip some of them off, he can't stop them all.
It seems that he doesn't even need to do that, as he almost casually swings the sword and causes me to slide along its length and fly off the tip. Then the pressure from the blade hits me, and I quickly turn my body into a spear. With my tip facing where the pressure is coming from, I'm barely affected by it in my aerodynamic form.
Once the swing is complete, I maintain my shape and turn my entire mass into a projectile - the Chaos javelin - before shooting at Oinos with as much speed as I can imagine. Before my mind can even catch up to my own acceleration, I find myself in his left hand, just millimeters away from his eye.
That's when I deploy an on-the-fly second stage to the Chaos javelin form; a pile bunker only as thick as a pencil, but with all the mass behind it, shoots out of my tip and pierces Oinos' right eye. Or that's what it was supposed to do, but he's able to dodge just enough for the spike to only cut open his temple and scrape across his skull while generating sparks.
He lets go of me in surprise and staggers back while holding the wound, from which golden liquid gushes forth the way it would in a human's head wound. I doubt this is going to work again, and he's going to heal quickly, so I have to come up with something new fast.
