“Enjoying the view?” Adler asked. She was a member of the magic council, who had decided to join the expeditionary force personally. Arthur had expected it to just be a council security force, not to have one of the members join themselves. It was, after all, potentially a very dangerous situation they were going into.
Arthur’s head shot up. He had been reading a book on the history of Pergrande. It lacked the grip that the history of Rome or China might have had - just lacked the prestige which he had grown to associate with those countries - but, given the sorry state of spec fic in this world, history was the best source of entertainment available. He couldn’t spend all his time trying to grok the mental maze-pattern of the spell-rune to use his black swords otherworldly trump card. Besides, while a good student of history could tell you that it never really repeats so much as rhymes, one still needed to learn from it or they’d rhyme with the worst parts.
“No, I was reading up on the past of the kingdom we’re heading towards,” Arthur answered.
Adler nodded. The elderly woman was thin and straight, but tall. She almost looked like someone had stretched her out too far, and her black dress and lightly built form made Arthur think of a blackened, dead tree. “I’d have thought you’d have done that research already. Though then again I’d have thought that as a dragon slayer you’d be rather incapable of using your Archive, much less reading on it, while traveling.”
“I’m not a dragon slayer,” Arthur said with a little sigh.
“Really? I was certain that you used that magic. The dossier on you was quite clear on that,” She adjusted her glasses on her nose, looking down towards the still lounging mage.
“I do,” Arthur said. “But I am not right now, so right now I’m not a dragon slayer.”
“I didn’t think it worked that way,” Adler said.
“Motion sickness is a result of the continuing advancement of the dragon seed granting dragon senses which the human brain is not properly equipped to handle. Even centuries of dragonification fails to prepare the human mind for it. But I’ve studied the dragon seed, and learned magic to control or reverse its growth. So at the moment I have it suppressed to an extent where I lack even a hint of the senses of a dragon. So I’m not a realized dragon slayer at the moment. Limits the power of my dragon slayer magic a bit but I can grow my seed again if I need to.”
Adler looked at him for a few moments adjusting her glasses. “Dragon seed? Dragonification? Senses and the brain? It seems I don’t know much about the subject. I must admit, you surprise me quite a bit.”
“Oh?”
“The dragon slayers I have been aware of tend to be… brutish. God Serena, Laxus Makarov, and if I recall correctly one of Fairy Tail’s more troublesome fools during its more disruptive period a few years ago was a dragon slayer as well. None of them seemed concerned with how or why their magic worked, only getting more power out of it.”
Arthur shrugged. “I can’t comment on that too much. But there are different forms of dragon slayer magic, and mine had a fair bit better reason to be called a Lost Magic than lacrima implantation.”
“Still, from your dossier you reminded me of Fairy Tail,” Adler said. Arthur hesitated in responding. He knew that coming from the Magic Council that was not necessarily a good thing. And contextually…
“I mean you harbored dangerous criminals, fought two Wizard Gods, and then you saved Fiore’s capital, and then you started the controversial Brontes’s Thunderbolts program. From the way you seem to always act on a short-sighted vision of the good in your immediate vicinity with no consideration for the larger picture, I expected well a brute.”
Arthur winced a bit. “All that is needed for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.”
“Hmm?”
“There’s not much good in overlooking wrong when you can do something about it.”
“True, but when one’s actions cause chaos on a larger scale is it still good to perform them? The Thunderbolts got rid of Grimoire Heart, but they caused a spike in crime across Fiore where mages thought they could escape punishment by serving in them. And that’s without considering the damage done across Ishgar in the battles between Dark Guilds after two of the heads of the Balam Alliance were dissolved and the third went underground. In the end I am still not convinced that Brontes’s Thunderbolts are a good thing.”
“Sometimes it hurts to take a bandaid off, but doing it slowly will just make more pain in the end.”
“So you’re saying that this pain in the long term is less important than the continuous pain inflicted by the existence of Grimoire Heart. Still, do you really think that the Oracion Seis should not be punished for all the murders and crimes they committed?”
“They risked their lives to stop Grimoire Heart. And they risked their lives to take out other dark guilds. I’d say that compulsory service in a dangerous field would be considered quite a punishment. Besides if we’re talking about the Oracion Seis, they were slave soldiers recruited by a researcher working for the Magical Council and never given a chance to be anything but criminals or slaves worked to death by a mad cult that the Council allowed to continue until it directly threatened them. It doesn’t undo all the murder and killing, but taking their lives for it would do nothing good, and they have done good and continue to do so. They deserved a second chance.”
“But you can’t run a nation on personal exemptions. People need the rule of law to function as a society. The way people across Ishgar perceive it matters. And to people all across Ishgar it said that if you were strong enough you could get off with whatever crimes you wanted even once you were finally caught. To govern one must think about these larger scope issues. And if one cannot, they should not stick their nose into the policies of governance.”
“I wouldn’t say the council’s track record is too good there. The Tower of Heaven was a product of its corruption.”
“That was Crawford Seam’s and a previous council’s actions.”
“And the factory?” Arthur did his best to keep the venom from his voice. The woman was a pompous old hag, and he suspected she assumed he’d feel such, but showing it would be impolite and do little for him.
“That may not even exist.” Adler turned her head away at that point, though, a scowl on her face. “And if it does we will shut it down.”
“Just saying. Judge not lest you be judged. I did what I did to create a force that could actually handle the strongest dark guilds in Ishgar while offering those who showed a willingness to change a chance to do so. The council keeps making weapons of mass destruction to secure its hold while neglecting rot inherent in the continent.”
“We are limited both in resources, and our ability to deal with internal matters to the various kingdoms. We do not rule, we merely guide and control a single aspect of society. Besides, as long as Alvarez threatens we must be ready to keep all of Ishgar safe whatever that costs. If you had seen the war power of Alvarez and its Spriggan Twelve then you would know why we create weapons. Why I voted in favor of beginning the etherious project without waiting to create the test trio. I only saw them from afar, but I saw the Crimson Despair and the humanoid Disaster in action when they attempted to invade Ishgar 7 years ago. You do not know their power if you think that we do not have a good reason to be producing our ‘weapons of mass destruction’.”
“I’ll admit that Irene Belserion and August were somewhat impressive. The other Spriggans…” He gave a dismissive shrug. “I guess what they say about Ishgar’s mages in Guiltina is true if you need things like Face for them. Of course, I don’t think an Etherious army would do much good against them or their emperor.”
“You speak as if you’ve met them.”
“I stopped at Alvarez to talk to Irene Belserion about the origin and nature of dragon slayer magic to better understand how to remove the dangers that make it a Lost Magic. While I was there I met several of them. The War Empress attempted to beat me senseless, and their Assassin tried to follow me to Ishgar. A dangerous pack of hyenas, but only August and Irene were lions.”
Adler stared at him. Arthur couldn’t hold back the little smirk which lit his face. The hag had been annoying him. He wasn’t going to fight her; that’d be absolutely stupid. But verbally sparring? Well he should probably be keeping his cards closer to his chest and not giving the Magic Council any more information than was necessary, but the look of fearful awe on her face was something to be reveled in that he just couldn’t deny himself.
“I don’t know whether to call you a dangerous fool, or to respect your sheer audacity. Perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised. You are said to have matched God Serena in a fight. And God Serena was easily a match for 2 of the Spriggans himself. It’s a shame that he died during the Edolas incident.” The way she added the last told Arthur she believed the - accurate - rumors that he had killed Serena himself.
“A wise man once said do not put off till tomorrow what can be done today,” Arthur couldn’t help but smirk at that one. Even now he had a tendency to procrastinate. Even this whole side quest to the Magic Council had been him procrastinating on dealing with Tartaros. “And a wise ruler doesn’t kick a can down the road that can be dealt with now when times are good, because otherwise the bill may come due when times are bad. I may be the only one who holds enough power to deal with Zeref’s empire.”
“Zeref’s?” She said, “What does THE Black Mage have to do with Alvarez?”
Arthur cussed himself out internally. The Spriggan Emperor’s identity as Zeref was not public knowledge. “A connection to the founding lineage. There’s a reason 2 of his 3 greatest etherious creations serve as members of the Spriggan Twelve.”
“Then Tartaros wouldn’t just be a dark guild, but Alvarez’s attempt to undermine Ishgar as a whole. Why didn’t you inform the council as to this connection?”
“Optics,” Arthur smirked.
“What?”
“It’s like you said. You have to think about how things look, and how people will respond. I’m going to destroy Tartaros either way. It’s a malignant cancer in the world, and one which I intend to excise before it can … ugh I can’t remember the word for when a cancer spreads through the body. Something sizes… Meisizes… no… Meta? Metastasizes?”
“The word doesn’t matter,” Adler said irately.
“Fine,” Arthur sighed. “I’m going to uproot the weed which is Tartaros. Revealing it to the Magic Council that they’re connected to Alvarez,” Simply hadn’t occurred to Arthur, but he’d rather make her feel small and dumb than admit that. Besides, he shouldn't have revealed it now, because it really… “Will do no good for anyone. What will you do? Spread panic through Ishgar? Fight Alvarez? It will just spread hatred, and anger between two continents and cultures. It’s better for everyone involved that it ends up forgotten. And given the council’s track record…”
Adler looked down over the railing of the airship. “You really have a low opinion of the council. I guess our predecessors earned it.”
“The current council has done nothing to shake it.” He did his best to keep his tone, level and unemotional. It’d hurt more if it didn’t sound like it was intended to hurt.
“You are right,” Adler said. “Unfortunately. Still, it’s a shame you do not game.”
“That’s a swerve of topic. And who says I don’t game?”
“The soldiers. You apparently refused to join them.”
“Craps is not a game! That’s like calling flipping a coin a game just because you add some steps to help you fleece people of their money!”
Adler laughed. “What about Meld? I’ve been itching for a game, and the soldiers, well they don’t have the wits for a refined game.” She asked.
“Meld?”
“It’s a card game,” She said, beginning to explain the rules. It was a game about collecting melds, or runs of cards, in which you drew one, or more cards, and discarded 1 each turn, and the goal was to have no cards in your hand which were not part of a meld.
Arthur listened before nodding his head a little. “Sounds like a variation of Rummy. I always liked those kinds of games.”
“Rummy?”
“Instead of having to play 4 down 4 in a row, you play 3 in a row, but they have to be of the same suit, or 3 of the same number. There are some additional rules. Like you can play off of things that your opponent has placed down, and if you discard something that could be played, or makes a set with other cards in the discard pile your opponent can call Rummy to add it to their own sets played.”
“Interesting. Perhaps we can play that sometime.”
“Gin Rummy is better for two players.”
“Gin Rummy?”
Using his Archive to offload the mental effort of remembering all the cards that had been discarded in the game should probably count as cheating. Especially given you weren’t allowed to look further than 3 cards down in the discard pile. But Miss Adler had irritated him, and he wanted to show her up. The few thousand jewels he won off of her as their penny ante game became something more was merely a small plus.
Reine’s chameleon magic made him all but invisible as he moved his way through the walls of the Etherious Factory. It had been built. That much could be confirmed. Though if the Council had actually been involved, or if Tartaros had either, was not as immediately apparent. As a low ranking agent of the Council he was not privy to what the suggested design had been, or to Hades’s research.
Reine couldn’t tell if this was an exact match or not. His job was just to investigate and report back to the Magic Council.
Unfortunately he would only manage the first half. An eye opened in the wall that he was traversing, the Factory itself taking notice of his movements. Electricity surged through Reine’s body, and the Council’s investigator in the region found himself falling out of the wall he had merged with, as tentacles formed from it to grasp him and pull him back in.
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
And then everything went dark.
Mard Geer took the news that the Magic Council was investigating fairly well. He had hoped they would have more time. Another few months and Ishgar would be doomed against the demonic horde that they would create. But the council was slow to act in general. Even if they knew there was something here they’d have some time. The Magic Council would not want to act too destructively in the heart of the largest city in Ishgar.
The other news concerned him more. Arthur, the Northern Mage, had met with the Magic Council. It had been over three years since Arthur had crossed Tartaros’s path. The current plan was ultimately only made possible by him and the enemies he had gathered about him. If he hadn’t defeated Grimoire Heart they would never have been able to replicate the Devil’s Heart to power the Factory. If he had not driven his enemies to band together the great weapon could never have been built.
Mard Geer was inclined to thank him, actually. Oh, in a sarcastic, and patronizing way. But Arthur had helped Tartaros. He had, however, stolen two of the nine demon gates. He had killed two of the etherious of Zeref. He had brought an end to one of their brothers and one of their sisters.
That was something Mard Geer could not forgive. But neither hatred nor anger was Mard Geer’s greatest emotional response. The acting master of Tartaros was scared. Arthur had stolen two of Zeref’s masterpieces. He had re-written one of their sisters. If he was spearheading the Council’s attack it could be a real problem.
“Tempester, Silver, Carpenter, go kill the Magic Council. As of today we are at war. Duke Solamen, commune with Plutogrim’s new brain, and ensure that the Baal Infernal Cannon is ready to fire.” Arthur had boarded a Council airship. It would have to be destroyed before it could reach them. The moment it came into sight over the horizon they would strike it from the air.
Selene had used the communication lacrima. Or her agent had. They were still 2 days out from Pergrande’s capital of Maximus, but Igneel, and the other dragons were ready to take physical form to fight Acnologia. They weren’t certain they’d survive, even if Acnologia didn’t kill them, the return to flesh was a risky act, but they had built as much of a reserve of power as they could. Anything else would be wasted and lost.
Arthur had told her that he had something to attend to in the eastern regions of Ishgar, and then he still had to finish getting Zeref on board. Selene had warned him that few dragons were as patient as her, and that the 5 were raring to begin their mission after all this time, and tired of waiting.
He’d not had 20 minutes since then before Irene called on the other piece of communication lacrima. Zeref had requested he return to Alvarez post-haste. The black wizard had come to a decision on the matter of an alliance against Acnologia, and wanted to talk to Arthur about the possibility. He had come to a decision of a single task he would ask from Arthur, and if Arthur fulfilled it all his resources would be at Arthur’s disposal to kill Acnologia.
It was almost enough to get Arthur to turn the airship around. Zeref could bring Tartaros to heel. But would he? If Arthur requested it for a reason other than killing Acnologia it might not be covered. He’d told Irene the same thing he’d told Selene. He was indisposed on a project he could not immediately abandon, and would begin his return from Pergrande in no more than a week, but could not hasten it.
“I see the airship,” Tabby called out. The cat, Minerva, and Adler were sitting at an outdoor cafe on the outskirts of Maximus.
“See, I told you that there was no danger to the ship and this whole thing was just senseless paranoia,” Adler said as she sipped her coffee.
“They tried to kill the Council. They knew we were coming. This was just a necessary precaution,” Minerva said in a sulky, petulant tone.
“They were fooled by Thought Projections, you have massively overestimated their information gathering capabilities,” Adler said.
And then they heard the crowd around them. They were looking to the western horizon. The crowd was facing to the east. A massive portion of the city was rising up out of the ground.
“Isn’t that the direction the factory is supposed to be?” Tabby asked as the great, rectangular slab of ground and city built upon it began to rise. On the front face of the increasingly regular shaped slab of ground, the stone began to crack and fall away, revealing a great, metal shape beneath, and the barrel of a massive, magical cannon began to stretch from it, smashing through buildings as it extended dozens of meters outward and began to turn towards the air-ship.
Adler’s hand dropped her coffee. “It’s going to fire!” She called. “We have to do something. If it fires there thousands will die.”
As she finished her sentence she realized that she was no longer in the city, and its line of fire. The cafe was still there. The buildings on the opposite side of the street. Minerva sagged, she had teleported everything within several hundred feet of her several miles. She couldn’t save the entire city. But she had saved who she could.
Moments later darkness shot from the front of the cannon, and countless buildings - and worse people - in the city were wiped out in its wake. The shadow seemed to burn the eye even as it struck the airship.
It was almost half a minute later that the shockwave of the weapon struck, toppling some of the buildings which had only had part of their structure teleported away, and sending loose objects flying.
“Paranoia,” Tabby said bitterly. “I shall teach them to be paranoid. To use such a weapon. To have such a callous disregard for the lives of others. Their perfidy is without bounds and their punishment must be equal to their infamy!”
Arthur watched the city in the distance. The airship was nearing it quickly, though it’d still be hours before it arrived. Once it had he’d rendezvous with Minerva, Adler, and Tabby.
But for now he was the bait. And when a man appeared on the deck of the airship it seemed that Tartaros had taken the bait. He wore a long, black coat, his black hair long enough to almost reach his waist. His face had been garishly pale, and his teeth blacked out as he’d pulled back his lips in a broad smile. He didn’t wear a shirt under his coat, but wore it open revealing a toned, muscular chest, and the guildmark of Tartaros cast large across said chest.
“Carpenter,” Arthur said. He recognized the former member of Silver Demon. The dark alchemist who had escaped the cleansing of that guild. The man who had taken pleasure in breaking Minerva’s leg.
He was going to kill Carpenter here and now.
“That was my old name. Back when I was human. Now, though, I am something greater. I am a-” Carpenter began, his body sifting into an etherious form, growing larger as segmented, legs of red muscle burst from his back, lifting him off of the ground on the six bug-like limbs. His neck was stretching out, head deforming as a toothy maw grew from one eye, as if he was sprouting a second head out of his face.
“Thing,” Arthur finished snapping his fingers. His prosthetic hand had risen, fore and middle fingers held together as he brought his thumb down onto them as if his hand was a gun. Or a flamethrower given the way fire burst from his fingertips, surging across Carpenter in a blinding burst that prevented any detail from being seen inside other than the vague shape of Carpenter as he screamed and burned alive, a horrible, monstrous scream rising from the man-turned-creature inside.
Arthur was stunned a bit by the anticlimax of it. He had been prepared for Tartaros to try something. Anything. He’d subverted one of their number, and prevented the other from being resurrected. He had expected them to bring out the big guns. To hit the airship with every last bit of weaponry they could. And they had sent Carpenter alone? Something didn’t add up.
He felt the nausea threaten to sweep over him even through his potions’ effects, as he expanded his dragon seed to invoke his Gale Dragon Slayer Magic to enhance his sight. Or maybe it was more as he enhanced his sight. The shape of the city - still a good 20 plus miles away - had changed.
It was already too late, though. By the time he’d enhanced his vision the beam of darkness was already visible without it. It came almost as fast as light, and he barely had time to raise his hands. He’d have to trust to his Territory Armor and his dragon slayer magic, his mouth opening wide hoping he could eat the entire beam.
And then Arthur felt his summoner trying to close his gate and he didn’t resist, reverting to his true form as the twin spirit Gemini as he disappeared.
Mard Geer allowed himself a smile. Like that the single greatest threat to Tartaros’s dominion over Ishgar was destroyed.
“No sign remains of the northern mage’s magical power,” Kyoka said. The masked demoness was one of the more overtly inhuman in her base form, traces of an avian nature showing even then. She was also Tartaros’s chief magical researcher, or had been before Duke Solamen took the role. Even now, though, she was perhaps the single individual Mard Geer trusted most with sensitive issues.
He couldn’t help but smile. Revealing the Baal Cannon was not something that he had done lightly. It would be some time before it recharged. And if the Magic Council authorized the Etherion right now, it could be a danger to the entire plan - though Mard Geer suspected they would not lightly fire upon the most populated city in all of Ishgar. Well it had been. It was hard to say if it still was. The Baal Cannon had not been aimed at the city, but they had not cleared the city when they had fired, and the beam’s shockwave had left a wave of devastation.
But where the Council was likely loath to damage the city further, Mard Geer and his fellows had no such qualms. If anything the collateral damage was to their benefit, as curse energy was formed from fear, despair, and suffering. It would mainly go to recharging the Baal Cannon itself. A thing which would take time even under the best case conditions; the spirior batteries unfortunately could not be rushed.
Still, once it had recharged it would be time to shoot down Etherion and destroy Ishgar’s last hope. Mard Geer had not put his foes into checkmate - yet - but he would soon.
Alerts were popping up all over the walls of Cube’s new command center. The b.R.A.I.N. device had proven quite useful in the way it had integrated with Plutogrim and upgraded the Cube. All they had to do was kill the original wielder of the magical tool.
The alerts were of little import. Mages from across Maximus were attempting to attack the Cube, but the king of Pergrande, and the royal army were already moving to suppress them, and spread the news that the magic council had attempted to destroy the city via a sneak attack, but their bomb was destroyed by the king’s quick action. Mard Geer didn’t care if the mages believed, as long as the army remained loyal to their king. A king which Tartaros itself controlled.
There was one alert which was different. The red color and larger print alone made it stand out. Mard Geer hadn’t noticed the precursors telling him that Spatial Magic was detected, or Spatial Magic intrusion was attempted, but when it came up: ANTI-SPATIAL MAGIC FIELD BREACH. SPATIAL MAGIC INTRUSION.
Immediately an image of the area appeared on the wall. Kyoka was already doing her work to respond to the situation. But there was only darkness. Someone had breached the Cube despite its protective fields.
“Get us eyes in that ar…” Mard Geer stopped as another red alert flashed. SIGNIFICANT STRUCTURAL DAMAGE SUSTAINED. CRITICAL SYSTEMS DAMAGED.
And then red alerts blossomed from one wall across to another, structural damage sweeping through the upper half of the Cube.
Mard Geer’s face twitched. He knew what it meant. Arthur must have escaped.
“All Demon Gates converge there,” He pointed to the wall segment where the red alerts were starting from, and where now Arthur the Northern Mage could be seen, body half covered in black, and twisted into a demonic form. He was on the Cube. There was no running for Tartaros this time. Either he would burn their library, or they would write an ending to him.
Arthur did not like crouching in some farmer’s crop of corn outside the city. But after getting a message that Tartaros’s demons destroyed the Magic Council’s headquarters and would have killed the council if they were there and hadn’t simply been Thought Projections, well he’d gotten paranoid. If Tartaros knew they were coming, he didn’t want to give them an easy target.
So Minerva had taken him, Tabby, and Adler on ahead, while he had summoned and left Gemini behind. Holding Gemini’s gate open for an entire day was more tiring than he’d have liked, but he was fairly certain they would be on the alert for a Thought Projection, and he wanted to give them a reason to reveal their location and resources attempting to take out his decoy not just stop them from getting an immediate alpha strike.
As the airship came into view, things seemed to be going fine to plan. He could feel Gemini beginning to use magical power. There was some sort of battle going on. And then he saw the Cube rising from the ground. His Archive only had passive sensors active - Selene had warned him that they had the b.R.A.I.N. device and he didn’t want to alert its own sensor systems - meaning it was only when the massive cannon of the Cube was above the surface that it began to detect the massive curse energy.
His head turned towards the cannon and his mind began to run in circles about what to do. He didn’t know what its defenses might be. The original b.R.A.I.N. device had been able to resist his attacks. He was stronger now, though. But the b.R.A.I.N. device had access to a far greater amount of ethernano now, was integrated into a demon, and had had time to create who knew what sort of upgrades. He couldn’t be certain that a direct attack could do anything to even slow it.
He could turn on his active sensors to try and tell what its defense systems were. That’d risk giving his location away and getting them to redirect the attack. Could he risk that?
He could teleport in. If it was like the original b.R.A.I.N. castle its internal defenses were substantially inferior to its external ones.
And then he realized it was too late. The cannon had fired. Arthur didn’t care about the destruction of the airship. The crew had been to be evacuated by Gemini the moment the city came into sight. But there was the city. The idea that the weapon would have such collateral damage - would waste so much energy that could have been directed towards him - hadn’t occurred to him. That they’d destroy their own city wasn’t something that he had considered as much as he should have.
It felt like his heart tried to stop. His mouth dropped just a little. It was like he’d just watched a nuke go off in the middle of a city, the shockwave toppling buildings, and sending up a huge cloud of dust.
How many people had the demons of Tartaros just killed? Because he messed up. Because he hadn’t properly planned for what if they tried to murder their own city. Because…
And Minerva and Tabby had been in the city. He almost opened his Archive’s communication network, only stopping because it had detected her territory magic making a large transit out of the city a moment before the attack. He could trust that Minerva had gotten herself and Tabby out of the line of fire.
It wasn’t his fault. It was Tartaros’s. He couldn’t wallow in guilt. If he did Tartaros would kill more. And Tartaros needed to pay. Tartaros would pay. He let his rage flow, let it take precedence to smother out the forming guilt. Rage was more useful than guilt. And he couldn’t help but feel one, even with his Archive working to detach himself somewhat from his own emotions.
He stretched out his territory into the Cube. He’d originally intended to try and take their factory, and whatever weapons they possessed, but now he was seeing too much red. The rage was pouring through him. His takeover magic flowed through him, his skin blackening as his fingers extended into claws. Wings sprouted from his back. His eyes shifted to red. And eight, crooked arrows, each pointing in a different direction appeared in crimson on his chest. His Chaos Soul, the soul of his soul-drinking black blade, flowed through him. It urged him to destruction and sadism, and for once Arthur wasn’t trying to hold it back.
The communication lacrima which Irene had given him began to blare. She was trying to contact him. He silenced it. He had things to do at the moment.
The moment he arrived in the cube, he released darkness out from him in all directions. It was just a cloud of shadow, the waves of darkness flowing outwards. Like a liquid thing the darkness surged through the hallways. And then Arthur raised a hand, and the darkness exploded outwards, consuming all matter in its path. The walls of the Cube resisted. They were treated to resist magic. But it was insufficient. The darkness burst from the side of the Cube, and anyone within that portion of the Tartaros base was gone, as were all its systems. The stone of the Cube didn’t even fall as the darkness burst through it, leaving nothing in its wake.
He left the portion of Cube which lay ahead of him, and under his feet. He wasn’t stupid enough to destroy the ground he was standing on. He merely pulsed the darkness in that direction, eating away at the surfaces, widening the hallway by a few inches. And then he launched forward. His hands spread wide, wings of darkness stretching out to scythe through the walls of the Cube as if they were not even there.
He no longer bothered to cloak his location in darkness. It had been but a momentary smokescreen to give him the chance to do some major structural damage before a potential counter strike. Now, though, he was ready to fight. Bringing his hands together he opened his mouth and released a dragon’s roar, aimed up and out, sweeping it from over one shoulder to over the other. With his dragon seed carefully kept unblossomed, and his active demon soul choking its growth it wasn’t as powerful as it could have been, but it was more than powerful enough. He didn’t dare attack down - there was still a city below - but he could deal a massive amount of structural damage this way.
Tentacles burst from the damaged walls. His Territory Armor protected him, even as the Cube attempted to reconstitute some of its ethernano based weaponry. Arthur wasn’t sure what all weapons b.R.A.I.N. possessed. Last time he had faced the castle the lacrima beams had been the greatest single threat, but they no longer worked on Edolas now that its ambient ethernano levels had risen so high.
He didn’t want to find out, though. Especially not with Edolas Zero and Duke Solamen working with Tartaros. So he released scouring waves of darkness, abrating away the walls as the Cube attempted to regenerate, each time sending a scything blade at the front which would crash haphazardly through the structure.
He couldn’t be too careless, though. He didn’t want to send hunks of the structure crashing to the ground below.
That thought made him throw his head back and roar. He could feel his dragon seed trying to grow wildly, but while using Takeover - Demon Soul it would inevitably be choked out unless he actively and wilfully tapped into the dragon force. He was simply drawing on the destructive power of dragon slayer magic, eradicating a swathe of the Cube, as he moved forward like an unstoppable juggernaut of destruction.
Mass produced etherious soldiers began to approach, and Arthur smiled.
Mages from across Maximus had responded to Tartaros’s attack. They might not know what the ship was, but it had opened fire on their city. Pergrande’s army might be spreading the news that this was to stop the Magic Council from planting a city destroying bomb, but even a liar’s tales took time to spread.
Minerva didn’t know about the army’s stories. She just knew what she could see. Immediately mages from across Maximus had unleashed attacks on the great, cube shaped war-machine, and crystalline barriers had appeared and disappeared as the magical attacks were stopped.
Then Arthur’s darkness had erupted, and one of corners of the cube had been sheared off, along with a great deal of three sides. It wasn’t a smooth, perfectly geometrical shape, but it was close to if someone had taken a great spoon and scooped away a portion of the Cube. A moment later darkness erupted up out of the cube, sweeping part way along one face before disappearing.
“Our brother-in-arms takes the fight to the dastards,” Tabby said, “Can we be but lily-livered if we do not do the same? Why do we cower here when the fight is over yonder? Let us go! For vengeance and justice!”
“It’s protected against spatial magic,” Minerva commented coolly. “Its barrier is strong, but I could teleport you above, and if you could punch through it…”
“No,” Adler said. “Arthur seems to be handling it fine. He could open his Archive comms if he needed help. Our place isn’t in the fight, it’s in the city. Countless people could be dying right now. We need to ensure that the area beneath that thing is evacuated in case it falls, and we need to start rescuing as many people as possible.”
Tabby looked at Adler. “But the villains still fight!”
“And people are dying while you argue to go fight them. If they’re strong enough to defeat your master can you make a difference in the fight?” She was a tall woman, and positively towered over the small anthropomorphic cat, her eyes glaring down towards him. Then she looked at Minerva. “Transport me back to the city.”