Kruger immediately recognized the monster. Maybe it was the way it laughed. More likely it was the way those hundred eyes jeered at him.
Then the ridicules echoed from the charred earth of the Fire-quarter confirmed Kruger’s suspicion.
“The hell, Kruger? I am dead from only a few hours and the once so mighty Grand Empire lose their shit. Oh lord, how embarrassing that I have to pretend to be your equal. Humiliating as fuck, I say! And keep that beautiful expression, Chamomile! it will be great to turn those grins upside-down when you become my concubine? Isn’t it a privilege to bear the brood of a royalty?”
While the species might be different, the derangement convinced the audience they weren’t inside a nightmare. Sol Grandy returned to the realm of the living, sending all who saw him into an icy dread. Chamomile's collapsing brain decided it had hit the limit, and she fell to her knees laughing madly. The nobles’ mental bulwark crash. Women screamed. Some — like Andries — fell on their behind and sobbed. Most men bolt away at the wind-speed of a hurricane, but some, in an act of courage, stay behind to shake their mentally cascading friend back into fight-mode.
Kruger glared at his nemesis.
“What the hell with that form, Sol?” Kruger conjured a lance of light. “Tire of being human?”
The mad mockery echoed.
“Yes? Why not? Don’t you know how amazing it felt? It is glory, Kruger! A majesty! A massive vortex cascading throughout the multiverse. You guys already lost, Kruger. The grand extinction event is rousing. The gods and the puny, divided Phantasia have no chance of winning against that beautiful despair. Like a true connoisseur, the World Enemies appreciates my talent, and now I have become more than you will ever be.”
“Can’t say I am surprise you pimp yourself out?” Kruger cursed his missing arm and the ebbing Phantom pain.
“Oh, it gets properly paid for it,” Sol returned the verbal salvo, sending a chill down Kruger’s spine. “Here let me show you my wealth.”
The crimson World Enemy shuddered. It mouthed tentacles raised high and vomited a volley of blood-red globs of mud. The globules arched into the air and headed toward the survivors like an artillery.
“Chamomile, back me up,” Kruger yelled at the shell-shock Vice-Captain as he slashed the muds out of the sky.
“But…”
“You don’t want to die, right? Start fighting for your life, dammit.”
The sentence roused a semblance of fighting spirits in Chamomile. Suck to be her — fate had other plans for the Vice-Capitan.
The remnant of the mud Kruger destroyed started squirming like worms, pieces of the mud rejoined into the slimy shrimp-like abomination — except these versions of crustaceans shot out red tentacles from its mouth.
Kruger dodged in time, but the red appendage and accompanying mouth bit of one of the noble behind him, turning his abdomen into a bloody mess.
“Father!” A boy screamed — not noticing another mud-like creature aiming at her.
“Watch out!”
Faster than anyone gave her credit for, Andries tackled the kid out of the attack range. Chamomile appeared in the flash and behead the monster. She barely got time to enjoy her minor victory when the crimson mud reformed, nearly capturing her if not for her abrupt evasion.
Then the situation went worse. The corpse of the nobles erupted with red mud, capturing the nearest person to it—namely the particular duke’s daughter.
“Let me go!” Andries yelled.
“Why should I?” Sol questioned before recognizing the girl. “Oh wait, I remember you. You used to hang out a lot with the Chloric. How does it feel to see my utterly destroy them? You must be great, right? I heard you are quite a famous flower in the Academy, lady Andries. It will be a shame for you to die a virgin. Don’t you mind sharing your friend honor and become my bride?”
“Sol, you are a mother-fucking World Enemy,” Kruger tried to scramble away to rescue the hostage. The only method he reached was exploiting Sol’s greatest weakness — his refusal to shut-up. “No one is coming to your wedding?”
“No worries, Kruger!” Sol flung more mud toward them. “I can make my own guests.”
The mud landed and Kruger’s face sunk with every landing. Out of the mud, more of those red-monsters spawned. In less than a minute, over thirty-five monsters were surrounding them with Lady Andries as a hostage.
“What a trooper?” Sol laughed from his superior position. “These little buddies are pseudo A-rankers! Can you survive them with one arm and baggages, Kruger?”
“At least I have less garbage in my mouth,” Kruger retorted back.
Sol frowned. Then he had an idea.
“Hey, there are quite a few ladies amongst you,” the World Enemy grinned. “Do you know, my mud can impregnate a human womb to reproduce itself. Don’t you want to try it, Andries dear?”
The girl shook her head fearfully. The memory of Sol raping her friend earlier today surfaced with a terror of a shark attack, but the mud was unforgiving as it crawled up her skirt and tattered dress, slowly tearing them apart for everyone to see.
Chamomile’s morale hit the floor for a third time in a day. Her knees gave up at the real prospect at being raped by a monster. She was not the only one.
“No, no, no, no,” a noble’s girl clutched her hair and shook a boy. “You are a knight's apprentice, right? Do something?”
“I…” the boy looked at the mud monster emerging from the corpse who suffered the first attack. “Eliza, do something!”
“Help me!” Eliza cried a river of salt water.
Sol Grandy upped the despair point.
“Hey! Chamomile!”
“Chamomile, don’t listen to him!” Kruger shouted. His instinct worked out Sol’s perverted imagination.
“I need some subordinate,” Sol offered sadistically. “The joining process is simple. Stab Kruger in the heart for me and round up the rest of those nobles to be my little factories. Then I promise you will be safe and sound. Quite a generous employment contract, don’t you agree?”
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Chamomile froze.
Rip!
Andries’ dress ripped apart. She teared up as she saw Chamomile hesitantly got up and looked at her apologetically. Her eyes were masses of desperation and confusion. Andries realized Chamomile would do it. Face the choice between duty and survival, Vice-Captain Chamomile prepared to thread on the option of desperation.
“Eliza! Stop Vice-Captain!”
“Vice-Captain, please think about this carefully?”
Chamomile started walking toward Kruger.
“Eliza!”
“DO YOU THINK I CAN BEAT HER?” Eliza cried.
“I am sorry.”
As a person, Andries fancied herself as an independent thinker who refused to believe in an unseen higher power. But in that singular instance, Lady Andries Sellovett prayed in tears.
Anyone, I beg you. Please save us.
A golden bolt of lightning struck the monster holding the duke’s daughter. The elf clad in golden lightning graced the battlefield. The cape painted with the symbol of a man embracing the sun fluttered high, proclaiming the returned of hope.
…
Let rewind back by a minute.
…
“I am going!” Luxinna declared, putting on her new uniform designed by Melody and Cytortia.
“You will not make it,” Rem voiced. “Kruger is in Fire-quarter. It likely takes you 15-8 minutes to reach them by foot. Half of them will be dead.”
“I will break my limiter?”
“And reach them half-foot in a grave?”
“Both of you quiet down,” Hikma waved the duo down. “What about flight?”
“Good plan,” Rem agreed. “Hikma might fly you there in four…”
“Fuck that!” Luxinna’s True Magic surged. “Don’t you say we are low on time? I have another idea. Melody, what is a best method to survive a Mach-speed collision?”
“Oh,” the demoness answered with intellectual impulse. “You need to dissipate the impact and decelerate the passenger, surviving high temperature plus stress from the speed. High-speed vehicles usually designed to crumple for shock dissipation. Wait? Why are… Oh mother…”
Luxinna stepped on intricate dual-rail of [Serene Glass], strapped her sword — [Historia] — on her back. And recited the materials’ specification.
“Heat resistance, friction resistant, high tensile strength, anisotropic in toughness,” Luxinna drew on all the materials’ science Melody and Rem drummed into her head ever since she received [Static Glass]. “Insulation property and ferromagnetism.”
Glass-construct formed around Luxinna — a twenty-five maters long double rail with zero friction glass lane for optimized speed and energy conservation. A temporary spear-like lotus, shaped like a rocket-cone, materialized to shield her body for the rest of her carnage journey.
“Here I go!”
Before anyone raised their objection, the lightning-clad elf already fired herself from a rail-gun at the speed of sound. Electricity flies, light flashed and air ignited as the first elf to journey by becoming a Mach-speed projectile rocketed in a flash of light and a sonic boom that toppled Rem and Hikma.
“Will she be alright?” Melody blinked. “She won’t land as a toothpaste, would she?”
…
Melody had a good reason for her concern. Your standard rail-gun possessed the projectile speed of 2000-3500 m/s — a speed of Mach-6 and above. Being technique she invented on-the-fly, Luxinna’s human rail-gun fell short of that nightmarish numbers, but her muzzle velocity was still a solid Mach-4. With that velocity, crossing the diameter in of Venistalis in less than a minute was child’s play, much less the diagonal distance between the Wind-quarter and the Earth-quarter.
Sol’s terrifying figure also played in his disadvantage by giving Luxinna a perfect target. His hideously humongous height stood out like a neon sign on a green-screen. In a twist of karma, Sol flattening the Fire-quarter only granted Luxinna easier time to pinpoint her landing-zone.
Luxinna had two choices: landed at Sol or saved the girl. Although killing Sol in a surprise attack might end the battle, there was no guarantee about the card in his sleeves. In such case, Luxinna opted for a more certain goal, slamming her shuttle into the monster capturing the maiden in need.
…
It was a horrible day for Andries.
Her home in the Central Palace became a burning wreck. She was among the group of nobles who watched Sol destroying her friend's family and forced to laugh with the crowd. Andries got to watch their guardian — Samael Wayward — betrayed them and handed the unrecognizable body of Stuart Hex off to Orwell Mehest. In a lime of cruel mercy, the mastermind of the entire invasion herded them to the Fire-quarter, then left them to suffer. She barely rallied her circle of friend — mostly spoiled daughters of lesser nobility for survival unity. In the bright spot of hope, they found Vice-Captain Kruger and Chamomile.
Chamomile’s outburst quickly extinguished that hope, while Kruger’s leadership barely holding the group together. To top it off, the monstrous Sol Grandy returned from the dead to haunt her like an eternal nightmare. Andries tearfully read the room. In the monster's grasp — about to be violated, destroyed and paraded as a horror show — she realized she would share the Chloric’s fate.
Then came the bolt out of blue. A golden anchor smashed down from heaven, obliterating the horror holding her in a swoop. She received an embrace, and the world somersaulted. Lady Andries found herself carried by another girl.
A ceramic mask hid her eyes, but her pointed Elven ear was visible to all. Her cloth was the weirdest Andries seen in her life. A thick fabric she didn’t recognize covering a light-mail plating with belts holding small utility pockets dotting her uniform. The girl wore a cape, emblazoned with a symbol painted in white — a symbol Andries saw once before.
That signal blazed in the sky to rekindle the lost hope. The white symbol of the man embracing the sun like tomorrow itself sent her herald to save every soul touch by the dawn.
“Are you okay?” The girl asked Andries.
“Y-Yes!!” Andries answered with a blush. The switch she didn’t realize existed flip open.
“Oi,” The voice of Sol rang. “Who the hell are you to seduce my concubine? Know your place-“
Sol stopped. His skin shivered. The World Enemy’s DNA in his body screamed. The animalistic fight-or-flight instinct cycled in full. That elf’s presence was a danger. It was like an ant starring at an angry aardvark. His natural predator stood before him, and a single slip-up would end his reign.
Golden armors solidified around the Luxinna. The golden glassed formed her greaves, breastplate, gauntlet and gliding her black mask and shoulder. To the spectator, it was like a black goddess of had descended.
Sol refused to believe his body. It was universal knowledge that a World Enemy was a major national threat that ended civilization. Why would he — the strongest species known to man — feared a single elf?
“You think you are a big shot, you no name tree-hugger! I will rip you apart!!!”
All around the nobles, the mud-monsters — all thirty-five — ignored everything and leapt at Luxinna, tentacles readied for the kill. The noble girl screamed. However, to Luxinna’s super-reflex, the monster might as be an ant in gelatin.
[Assault Fauna]
Seven golden flowers materialized around Luxinna and Andries. Unlike Luxinna’s original [Serene Lotus], [Assault Fauna] was modeled after jasmine. With a split second to react, Luxinna’s body didn’t budge into action, but her mind finished calculating every attack angle. Sensory input checked. Projectile speed and timing passed. Power output was stable.
“Automatic fire.”
The flowers went to work. Unlike [Serene Lotus], [Assault Fauna] didn’t shoot beam. Instead, the jasmine-sculpture created an aerodynamic [Serene Glass] nails and fired the custom glass projectile as a rail-gun. Not only was that cheaper compared to her original [Serene Lotus] output of pressurized golden jet. It also able to silently and subtly fire and reposition each round at high speed.
If original [Serene Lotus] was a wizard’s water-cutter, [Assault Fauna] was a machine-gun firing tank-busting round at Mach-10.
Sol Grandy’s joke minion never had a chance. Each seven flowers fired five round with industrial efficiency, mechanically aiming each shot with minimal movement calculated from a supercomputer call Luxinna Latoria. It was a robotic surgical wiping.
Schhwaff!
The sound of monster reduced to smithereens occurred thirty-five times almost simultaneously. The witnessed barely registered what happened. They just saw a swarm of horrors being crushed to bits in a blink of an eye by a mysterious hero surrounded by golden flowers. The flabbergasted Chamomile received an extra scare because one high-speed projectile penetrated through the monster had grazed her face before demolishing the wall behind her to smithereens.
Andries admired the golden flowers of her savior.
“Beautiful…”
Chamomile fell to her knee and bawled like a baby. Her bladder lost control from nearly getting decapitated by a tank busting round.
In the first since the debacle began, hope returned to the survivors in that area. Kruger in particular nearly knelt to the ground and pray in gratitude to whoever sent this guardian angel.
“WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU?”
Sol Grandy screeched, trying to suppress his instinct to dig into a hole and hide.
Luxinna drew [Historia].
“Ally of Good. Code Name: Ace.”