“We’re trapping them!”

Those were the words Hestia said when we discussed how we should deal with O’Bloom. She said it with full confidence, as if she already had an entire plan in her head. When Reajaen asked her to specify, she really blew my mind with what she was planning, especially her “secret project.”

“You’ve entered the restaurant, right, Lady Reajaen? Met King Drangleic and his Duke? Well, I’ll unveil the mystery, I am a void-touched. I have [Space-Time Magic].” Reajaen’s tilted her head in confusion at the sudden revelation. “As such, we will trap them in my [Room]. Specifically, I will lead the dragonslayers into my lair, whilst you can engage the O’Bloom’s army within another confined room.”

“W-Well, this is certainly a sound plan, but how will you get them to enter this [Room]? From what I saw, the only way to enter your subspace is through that door, correct? At the pastry shop?”

Reajaen guessed the limitations of Hestia’s [Room] well enough after only one visit, but she didn’t know all the details of how we, Aurora, were using it. Waving her hand as if to tell Reajaen didn’t need to worry about it, Hestia continued.

“It’ll actually be pretty easy, really. We know exactly where they want to go, right? Thanks to Saori’s info.” She then turned to me, prompting me to answer in her stead.

After thinking it through, I replied, “Their goals are driving Hestia out of Gleisvale, kill Lady Reajaen and destroy the Resurrection, and to reclaim what you stole from them. If we are talking of locations and places where it’s easy to catch them… Hmm, it would be Lady Reajaen’s mansion and the dungeon. Entrances, easy to hide your subspace, Hestia.”

“But what about you, Lady Hestia?” Tasianna brought up. “The dragonslayers will want to agitate the people against you. Leading them to your lair won’t do much, or are you planning on killing them?”

“No, no, of course not! Well, unless they actually attack me, but that’s a ‘what if’ moment. Actually, my plan for them is to pull the Uno reverse card on them.” Hestia casually confused all the Peolyncians. “If they want to make everyone hate me, then I’ll simply overwhelm them with love first. They won’t be riling up anybody. They will be the ones to leave the city in embarrassment in the most pop media fashion possible. ‘Don’t fuck with a public icon,’ is what I’ll say.”

“Then how will we do this, lass?” Grimnir pushed the discussion back to the labyrinth, seeing as we didn’t need to worry about Hestia’s public stunt. “Last time we attacked them, we were at their base. This time, home advantage. You can ask any tazong you want, all of them would say having the home advantage is the most important thing possible.”

“Oh, right, I think I read about that. Something about during the War for the Faefolk, the dwarven forces managed to protect one of their cities from four human armies and support from the Empire?” Kyouya remembered a passage in a history book he read when he was still trapped by the Church of Aurena.

“Hadjuk-Orn, the largest dwarven hold in the east part of the Ankoran Mountains,” Ellaine answered. “It was the landing spot for the North-Western Alliance. If the city fell, the war would have probably extended even further, to the detriment of the elves and dwarves, due to a lack of numbers compared to their enemies.”

Grimnir nodded, stroking his growing beard. “Aie, the city was left in shambles after the attack, but we delayed them long enough for our reinforcements to arrive just in time. Even with all our defenses, the Empire’s magicians and elite warriors were a force to be reckoned with.”

“So, are you suggesting we do something similar for our battle, Grimnir?” Tatsuya asked. “Can we even do it in a week’s time? Seems like a very short time to create things like cannons or stuff.”

““Not at all!”” Hestia and Grimnir simultaneously announced before grinning at each other. It seemed the two were in sync again.

“The lass is a treasure trove of materials we could take and transform into traps, in addition, the girl has a very high leveled [Trap Creation] with the ability terraform using [Volcanic Blaze]. [Lavakinesis] and a pseudo-[Terrakinesis] are the lynchpin of my plan.”

“And Grimnir has help with Ellaine and Daichi.” Hestia followed up by mentioning our trio of crafters, the ones responsible for all our tech and equipment currently. “We don’t need traps to beat thousands of soldiers, we only need enough for our forces to beat down a couple hundred mercenaries. Traps, environmental hazards, and some divide and conquer. Also—”

Hestia turned her head around to Asaka. “It’s time to make good on your promise to them. Lady Reajaen, you will have no complaints, alright? You will follow up on your end of the deal.”

“Yes. But, as I said, my people and my son are out of your reach. I am the one responsible for everything, so punish me after all that is done.” The foxian woman had a determined face, already knowing what would happen with Tasianna around.

“Mother, please, we—” Her son once again tried to dissuade her from doing this, but his mother rebuked him.

“A merchant follows up on her deals. You may contort and twist a contract, but you never break them. Reputation is what a merchant lives for. Even that damn O’Bloom understood that, so do not act like a fool, Parilostro.”

“Alright then.” Asaka nodded at everything working well enough. “I will lead the onnikais into this fight. I guess they’ll want to let out some steam after being imprisoned for so long, anyways… But I won’t do this ever again, alright?”

Disliking her role or not, Hanazawa was acting mature right now. I was happy to see her finally overcoming her limits, even if reluctantly. Her true potential was so much more, so I hoped she would continue like this.

As such, as her former Sensei, I needed to show my own growth.

“Hestia.” I directed all attention to me. “The strongest force they have is the demonkin of wrath. If you are too preoccupied with your part…”

“Yup, I’ll be relying on you once again, Saori. Don’t die, alright?”

“I am not planning on it… Hanazawa-san.” I then looked at Hanazawa right in her confused eyes. “After this is done, I will relieve you of those fenrirs. Let us go to the Belzac forest and meet my great-whatever-grandfather.”

She widened her eyes in surprise, probably not expecting me to say something like this after our last talk. She calmed down a moment later and shrugged her shoulders. “Cool. Tatsuya, make sure you don’t die either. We’ll be going on a class trip with our ‘Sensei.’”

“Heh…” Tatsuya smiled wryly. “Our first real battle as ‘Heroes’ fighting back against the demonkin scourge. Yeah, sure, dying now would be too embarrassing! Kyouya, you hear that?”

“You heard our party leader, dude. Guess you two will be my VIPs to protect.” Kyouya fist-bumped his best friend.

“Yeah, you two better not.” Daichi also joined in his party’s rapport moment. “Blacksmiths can’t do their jobs without people to wear our stuff, so come back alive. I'll get good enough to make you guys some legendary tier weapons and armor in the future. The Tale of Daichi is the Mastersmith starts here!”

“I can’t do much in combat, sorry! But, I’ll cheer on you guys, so please, don’t get hurt!” Haruka encouraged them despite being a non-combatant. However, considering how Hestia’s brain worked, I presumed Haruka would have a pretty large role in her part of the plan.

And that was how our Anti-O’Bloom mission began.

----------------------------------------

Multiple proficiency requirements fulfilled. [Stygian Blade Lv. 3] [Stygian Voltage Lv. 3] [Night’s Caress Lv. 2] [Monster Tamer Lv. 5] gained

After all that planning and preparing, I had to say it was a landslide in our favor. [Room] runes placed at the entrance of Reajaen’s mansion and the dungeon. The mercenaries and intruders all funneled in pretty easily as we placed no opposition in their way. They could become as wary as they wanted, but it didn’t matter. They didn’t have any other options either way.

All the non-combatants of the Resurrection were given refuge inside another area of our subspace Hestia made in the image of a bunker. Meaning, the mansion and both beastmen villages were devoid of people. No casualties will come from them.

After our enemies entered Hestia’s subspace, the real fight began. Isolated in a labyrinth-like area, the enemy had to traverse the place under the mistaken belief that this was the actual dungeon. While they were careless, the members of the Resurrection led by Parilostro’s three puppet bodies began assaulting them in a guerilla fashion.

But, that wasn’t the only threat to them. Grimnir’s crew created quite a few traps around the place, triggering small, one-time use attacks. Everything had to be made with runes or manatech, sadly, so we had to invest some money into it. Still, the cost of war. I would rather see our coffers slim up if it could save the life of one of Aurora’s members.

After their numbers dwindled, the now stressed and agitated mercenaries arrived at the last area we had. A week was a lot of time, but not enough to create something even more complicated. But that wasn’t needed, thankfully.

In the last area, our main fighters would eliminate the remaining enemies. And, to ensure we wouldn’t get the wrong enemies, Grimnir used his experience as a miner to advise Hestia in the construction of the place. And one of them was a way to lead people around like a train track using manatech.

That was why I was now alone with the enemy I had to take down — the demonkin of wrath.

“Graaaaaa! Let’s go, Saori! We reap, to water the blood lilies!”

Effects: [Excited: 85%] [Anger: 5%] [Fear: 50%]

It wasn’t the demonkin’s multi-armed form, but the one he assumed mid-way through our battle at the bandit base. Four shotel-shaped horns grew from his head with fire flaring from Hee’Rlak’s body like Hestia in her solar power form.

However, unlike our previous encounter, he had equipment with enchantments, though they lacked runes. An aura of flame surrounded him, using the fire his body was emitting as its source. It blasted backwards, creating a drift that catapulted him forward.

[Shadow Armament (Full Body)] inflicted on [Young Stygian-Scaled Fenrir, Saori Segawa]

My shadows wrapped around my body as a response before I let out a burst of electricity from the white fur around my head. The demonkin dodged it and transitioned his flame sword into a spear. Like a rocket, the spear burst into flames and gave him another boost of acceleration, sending him flying at me like a bullet.

Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

I sidestepped his attack, letting him fly past me. I cast [Dark Tendrils], shooting them at him only for them to be destroyed by his spear. Seeing as it was hard to fight like this, I allowed my shadow to expand into a mist with [Smokey Haze], enveloping the whole area in complete darkness.

“Ahhh, this trick again! Let’s see if this can change things up! Guraaaagh!”

Through my heat vision, I noticed Hee’Rlak’s armament changed again, this time to his hammer form. With one strong strike to the ground, it exploded into a fiery twister, creating a pretty terrible smoke from the obsidian floor melting. It was like volcanic gas!

“Guf! What the fuck! This smells like a magma chamber! Fuck! Why isn’t this smoke disappearing?!”

Luckily for me, he still hadn’t found out the secret of this spell. I guess it would be hard to figure out without prior knowledge, and he had only seen me use it twice now. Regardless, that was his problem.

Thunder!

Streams of stygian electricity streamed around the shadow smoke, flowing through it like water. It assaulted my enemy, and without Tasianna or the others around, I made sure to up the voltage to really hurt him this time. However, I guess his high [Lightning Resistance] wasn’t there just for show as he was barely slowed by the current.

While enduring the electricity, the demonkin kept searching for me, though it was more like a wild goose chase at this point. With [Night’s Caress Lv. 2] being the upgraded version of my stealth skills, it was too hard for his [Enhanced Enemy Sense Lv. 8] to do anything. A basic skill versus an advanced merged skill; it was obvious who would win in this perception duel.

“Fuck!”

Effects: [Excited: 93%] [Anger: 42%] [Fear: 71%]

Although it was good for me for now, it wouldn’t once his emotions reached the next level of their respective brackets. Klea’Hatma had given me a more detailed lecture on how wrath demonkins functioned. To summarize, the numbers themselves didn’t matter much, but the brackets for the three emotions.

Each demonkin had a different “breaking point” for each of the three emotions they had to manage. Once they reached one of them, for example 50% or 100% depending on the person, their body would forcibly enter their next form, until all emotions reached 100%. At that point, they could be considered literal demons in a sense. If they couldn’t control their emotions, they would be put down like a rabid dog.

‘It is a sad life, honestly,’ the demon said, right? Being controlled by your emotions your whole life does sound very restricting.

But, after all that, she also told me how to counter them. Demonkins of wrath, due to their explosive emotions, have immense amounts of Stamina to compensate. It wasn’t easy to make them tired, but drowsiness would dampen both their [Excited] and [Anger]. [Fear] was harder to control in a battle, due to self-preservation, but having only one emotion reach 100% wasn’t too bad.

If I had Hestia’s songs right now, it would be so much easier to control him. Ahhh, I miss my phone! I lamented due to how [Room] worked. The doors essentially teleported you into other areas, so I was currently “isolated” from Hestia’s concert.

Regardless, I came in here prepared. Prepared to the brim with tools.

[“Uno, now!”]

[“Yes, Alpha!”]

I leaped onto where the demonkin was, prepared to crush him with a lightning stomp. His [Danger Perception] activated at the very last second, helping him to avoid the full brunt of the attack. Still, as my leg crashed on the ground, an electric current blasted with shards of obsidian flying around me.

Buffeted by these projectiles and my presence before him, he wasn’t able to react in time to my shadow pack’s sneak attack. Mana threads wrapped around his four limbs, pulling him onto his back. In this small moment of vulnerability, Varya shot out from a shadow and threw three leaf bombs at his face.

Once my garms and Varya escaped into their shadows, I released some lightning at the demonkin, triggered the bombs to explode, sending a virulent liquid into the air. That was Hestia’s corrosive toxin; paralyzation, necrosis, and tranquilization were its effect.

As a sludge and liquid, the toxin was already pretty powerful, but it wasn’t too easy to inflict on people since they had to drink them or get injected by it. During a fight, that was a bit of a problem, but what happens if you mix it up with some of Hestia’s scale-dust? Now, it lingered in the air. Inhalation was a far easier method to spread the toxin, and I could use my [Shadow Armament] to simply block it from affecting me.

“Grukr! Grak!”

Effects: [Excited: 100%] [Anger: 64%] [Fear: 89%]

Fire exploded from his body, forming into a pair of wings, a tail, and another set of arms. He flailed around, grabbing his throat in pain from the airborne toxin. Flames escaped through his mouth. It seemed he was trying to burn away the venom, but this was Hestia’s, no, an [Obsidian Blaze Dragon]’s corrosive obsidian.

At either [Anger] or [Fear] 100%, he would gain the ability to manifest his four weapons all at once, it seemed. He still only had his one elemental weapon, the one formed around his black staff.

Identify

Voldunna staff

A staff made from voldunna ore to endure extreme temperatures. It has low mana conductive abilities due to a lack of refinement of the materials, but makes it harder to fracture even when submerged in magma.

Enchantments: [Elemental Mastery: Fire] [Meisterweapon Invocation]

The enchantments were simple, similar to his armor. They were only there to make sure his abilities had a good catalyst to work through from, although they both only had two enchantments each. I wondered why the third enchantment slot wasn’t used.

“Grak! Warbringer’s Body! Come fire, come to me! Grant me the power to overcome all foes! Strengthening Fire!” He began to strengthen himself and even pulled out a potion to drink, but before he could use that item, I smacked it out from his hand before landing a lightning stomp on him.

“Urghk!” He managed to block it in time with his fire shield, so I kept on pounding on the shield. However, unlike last time where I tried to break it, I wasn’t trying to brute force my way through this person.

Trickery was better.

“What?!” From the side, Uno and Song grabbed onto his hand with [Dark Tendrils] and tugged away his shield for me to land a [Shadow Descent] onto his chest. He spat up bloody as my lightning surged through his armor and into his body, but the armor was sturdy. It didn’t break, meaning the full damage was mitigated.

Before I could land another blow, his other three arms materialized weapons on them and tried to attack me. I dodged it, letting him free himself from my garm’s restraints. He stood up, roaring out in anger, only for him to land on one knee. Outside of his shield, all his fiery weapons disappeared.

Effects: [Excited: 87%] [Anger: 74%] [Fear: 100%] [Torpor (Minor)] [Poisoned (Minor)]

It’s working.

“Hahaha! Damn you! Emotion SurrrrRRRRRGEEEEEE!” He roared out, trying to hype himself up but he voiced cracked for a moment before his head slumped downwards.

Effects: [Excited: 100%] [Anger: 21%] [Fear: 67%] [Torpor (Minor)] [Poisoned (Minor)]

Emotion Surge

A demon of wrath bloodline ability. Allows a demonkin of wrath to jumpstart their slow beating heart to invoke their emotions. The wildness of this ability can create both desired and undesired outcomes

In other words, the ability wouldn’t always benefit the demonkin. Noted.

If he’s currently lethargic, then there is no better place to do it now. Hargh!

I dashed forward and rammed my tail against the demonkin while he was vulnerable, slinging him outside my smoke where my garms caught his legs as he flew past them. With a strong tug, they pulled him back, crashing him back into the haze for Varya to land another set of toxin bombs.

He coughed out loud, overwhelmed by toxic mist in the air. He might outlevel me, sure, but I came in here prepared while he was only ready to fight. Putting on some armor and a weapon didn’t make you any less susceptible to a rogue’s fighting style.

A fenrir, I might be; a large, monstrous, quadrupedal beast with giant fangs and claws who could strike fear even in the hearts of veteran fighters. But I was still Saori Segawa inside. I won’t overpower someone with force like Hestia, and even if I could, that wasn’t what I learned when I first began this journey.

Time to end this.

I now stood up in the air with my twin catalyst charging me up like a battery. My [Smokey Haze] still surrounded the demonkin. He was struggling to breath and couldn’t even leave the smokescreen with my shadow pack playing around with him using mana threads, bombs, and spells. I was sure Hee’Rlak came into this fight wanting to let loose his full might and fight me in a blazing glory, but he chose the wrong opponent to try it on.

Hestia would have gladly confronted his challenge head-on, but not me.

[Lightning Revolt (Limited)] inflicted on [Young Stygian-Scaled Fenrir, Saori Segawa]

Goodbye! Hadaen Dragon Thunder!

“Grak! Uruuuriik!” He couldn’t even move at this point. The toxin had fully entered his bloodstream.

Effects: [Excited: 51%] [Anger: 24%] [Fear: 100%] [Torpor (Moderate)] [Poisoned (Moderate)] [Paralyzation (Minor)]

The black magic circle of my strongest spell appeared before me, building up its arcane letters and magical geometry. It grew in size as I poured in more of my mana, until it was at the point where it could take down a B rank rachonoid queen. I aimed this spell at the demonkin—

— until another presence suddenly showed itself. My fur stood up and felt a strong static coming from the entrance of this labyrinth. [Danger Perception] told me to ignore the demonkin before me and shoot the beam at that spot. Even [Detection Sensor] confirmed a new target had entered the labyrinth.

The problem was, I felt some sort of dread, which made me hesitate. And this hesitation meant whoever it was that entered the labyrinth was able to act.

“Everybody, get out!” I suddenly heard Hestia’s voice out of nowhere before I felt something suddenly tugging me forward.

Shit!

[“In your shadows, now!”] I ordered my shadow pack and retrieved my shadow from [Smokey Haze], moments before a large electric wave tore through the area, destroying all obsidian walls it touched.

When it reached the demonkin and me, instead of taking damage, a magnetic force began to pull me towards the entrance of the labyrinth. And it was strong.

“Saori!” I heard Hestia call once again before my vision accelerated, dashing past layers of floating obsidian chunks before everything became dark for a moment followed by me being flung out into the bright sun and clear sky.

I heard numerous thuds and groans around me before I kicked myself back onto my feet. My eyes weren’t tricking me, it really was the blue sky above me. I could see trees around me and the smell of death started to enter my nose.

Before me were the others, as in Tasianna, Ellaine, Grimnir, Hanazawa, Tatsuya, and Kyouya. I also saw the three puppet bodies of Parilostro with the moaning Resurrection fighters. They shouldn’t be here, they should be fighting the senators!

“Warbringer!!! Ooooh, you saved my life!”

“Urrgh, Master, gruk! I said I would—”

“Shut up, Hee’Rlak, you woulda been dead if I hadn’t interfered. You ain’t dying for some stupid reason while yar still are my apprentice.”

Grotesque. Those voices brought my eyes towards a giant bulgy worm-like creature with a human’s face and a huge mouth like a frog’s. Strangely, it had O’Bloom’s voice as it began sprouting flattery like a gun towards a singular woman.

This person, with the appearance of a punk teenager, poured an entire potion down Hee’Rlak’s throat. Ignoring how he was coughing from how rough she fed him the tonic, she glared at me at and the others, who were coincidentally all neatly placed on a single side while O’Bloom, Hee’Rlak, and the woman stood before the entrance of the dungeon.

“Nice trick,” she said before something exploded inside the dungeon. “But we ain’t playing by your rules any longer. No more portals or whatever. Emotion Surge.”

Four shotel-shaped lightning horns sprouted from her head while electricity began to cover up her form-fitting bodysuit. Armor, a cape, and a jacket manifested, coloring itself red like her skin. Her wild black hair began to glow yellow and red, looking very much like a neon sign as it dimmed and brightened. Six arms formed from behind her back, each possessing an armament of some sort.

With two of her hands in her jacket pockets, she scowled at me like some sort of delinquent.

“Third of the three Warbringers of Lord Wrath. ‘Voltaic Red,’ Vifi’Yok. Nothing personal, but you did try to kill my stupid apprentice. Hope ya can keep up with my speed, wolfy! We reap, to water the blood lilies!”

Her figure suddenly disappeared from thin air, leaving only a streak of red lightning behind. As my instincts told me to search for her, something hard suddenly crashed against the side of my head, causing me to lose consciousness for a moment.

When I woke up, I noticed I had flown far away from where I first stood. As I tried to stand up, something pushed down my face, holding me down.

“War is a bitch, bitch.”

S-Shit!

Level: 150