[Skill Activation: Suntear Archery - Spectral Glimmer Starlight]
Behind Lyressa, secure on her saddle of her [Spectral Mount], a phantom was pieced together using her mana. Drawing from this world’s culture, it was an animated marble sculpture of great proportions, depicting a beautiful and faceless elven woman in taut robes, replicating its master’s movements.
Lyressa held her breath as the bowstring swooned back, eyes focused on the black core of the Miracle, and she loosed her [Spectral Glimmer Starlight] with a hopeful breth. Just before her fingers snapped, the phantom rushed through her body and entered the arrow, propelling the vigorous thing fast and powerful and brilliant. She was quite proud of herself with that one and she’d rave about her skill to the others. In better circumstances, anyhow.
As perfect as her execution was, as pinpoint as her aim was, as hard was the Miracle was. The [Starlight] cracked directly into the core and upon landing multiple impacts were heard like scattering fireworks. No visible damage. Just mild annoyance. That was not something she could brag about.
“Oh dear,” she muttered under her breath. One of the galaxies within Wonder’s petals were turning in her direction. Yipping at her steed—a silly thing, not like her [Mount] was actually alive—she spun over a full ninety degrees, hearing and seeing the dangerous cosmic beam pass her. It instead struck the building behind, went right through the walls and into the building next to it.
The System dinged. Casualties.
She righted herself as Monarch crashed a heavy arc of light from her [Excalibur Valfyre]. Not even she, an SS-Rank and the Guild Master of Royals, could do any noticeable damage. “Silverhonor, are you alright?!”
“I’m fine!” she replied, feeling her scratchy fingers dig into the bark of her bow. At least she had the right mind to hold onto that. “I cannot get through its defenses no matter the target!”
“At best, we’re just bee stings! But somehow, we need to prevent the blasted thing from destroying Pillar Creekwood!” replied Monarch, gesturing with her sword at the friendly target: Pillar Creekwood a fair distance away. It’d seen better days. Like a withering grandfather tree finally meeting its long-deserved rest.
Seraph was there trying put up a defense. Or perhaps was it an evacuation at this point?
To put it in modern terms, the Miracle was a great big chainsaw ready to tear through the mighty trunk. In no precise behavior, it sent beams at random targets. Lyressa theorized it wanted to cause as much damage as possible. Thus buildings folded in on themselves and entire streets ruined and impassable.
Ordo hadn’t made a single significant dent, and the Miracle was much too active to consider using the Superweapon.
“C’mon, fuck right off, will ya?!” howled Firebrand, the Flameking, while engaged in his [Third Stage]. The air heated up to unbearable levels where Lyressa felt its sting fifty meters out. In his hands a white-hot spear materialized. He grabbed the shaft and the length intensified, doubling in size. Roaring like one of those Olympians, the spear ripped through, boomed against the petals, forcing rows of them to fold back.
But just like her [Spectral Glimmer Starlight] and Monarch’s fruitless attempts with [Excalibur], the Flameking burned out.
Understandingly he allowed an unprofessional swear to echo and soared away, creating a wall of fire to hopefully block the following resultant beams. It didn’t do much but quell the weaker ones. Ding, ding, ding, the System had more casualties. Creekwood further resembled a Fallen World and Lyressa felt pain in her heart, seeing Louis’s face in her thoughts.
Each time they uselessly clanged their low-grade weapons and feeble magick against that impervious shell, the Miracle retaliated. Most of the times they could avoid it; however, that was a utility afforded by the strong. Perhaps Wonder knew this. Perhaps they knew only the high-rankers were capable of avoiding real damage. The true cost of their actions were paid with the surrounding population: middle and low-rankers, the rifles and civilians. Little better than anthills waiting for the foot. That meant collateral damage and lots of it.
It was foolish to persist in this endeavor, unless she wanted to accumulate as many indirect deaths as possible.
If only this battle hadn’t taken place inside Ordo. Anywhere else, they no longer would restrict themselves. If Louis had been allowed to use his full power then surely he would still be alive today.
Lyressa bit the inside of her cheek as she continued to stride, matching pace with Monarch and Firebrand alongside dozens of fliers, dozens of shielders and healers and men on the ground, hundreds of rifles and thousands of civilians. Everything was a mess of screams and gunfire as monsters continued to terrorize the city, born from Wonder’s demesne and the natural portal appearances. She was not keeping track of the minutes unable to realize the time transpired, but any additional second experienced as already too many.
And yet this fact caused volcanos of rage to pop across her body, she stayed her hand and practiced caution, unwilling to nock another arrow until an opportunity arose.
For the next mile she communicated tactics with the Slayers present, checking in on her teams throughout Ordo through the [Private Channels], tensing each time the System dinged and alerted her of casualties, watching as others attempt to slow the Comet down for at least a few moments. Nothing substantial.
Then strangely, the air sparkled. Not by gunpowder or ash, not from the particulates created from the ongoing battle. This was a magical phenomenon.
[Skill Activation: Mystic Lock - Arcane Cage]
Just as the Wonder crossed the next intersection, a swirling purple and blue hexagonal cage surrounded the Sungrazer. A demesne? No, you typically couldn’t open a demesne within a demesne. Not unless your implementation was strong enough. This was an independent magical structure, something that did not require an implantation in the world like a demesne.
One of Mystic’s works. Lyressa had grown to dislike the man, sometimes outright despising him at moments, but he was an excellent wizard who had knowledge in more subjects than she knew how to count.
The [Arcane Cage] had temporarily stopped the Comet in its tracks. It did not have a face but everyone instinctively knew it was thinking, being wary of the contraption. These few moments of pause gave way to an excited howl from the arrogant mage, emerging from the alleys on top of his moving platform.
“Come!” said Mystic, creating an elaborate magic circle in front of him. The spell shone brightly before a purple lance discharged like a bullet from a high-power rifle, entering the [Arcane Cage] and striking the Wonder in its white shell. No damage.
However, the bolt splintered into three, ricocheted off, cracked thrice more into the walls of the [Cage] itself. Then each bolt splintered again. No more than five seconds later, Wonder had almost been completely concealed by purple.
Lyressa witnessed this technique before on numerous occasions. Mystic used this tactic on large targets. Entrap them with [Arcane Cage], cast this spell and watch as they suffer from a thousand cuts every second. Many manner of beasts fell from this synergy. There was a few weaknesses, though. The first strike was necessarily the strongest while the next reiterations gradually grew weaker in power. Smaller bolts meant less energy, naturally. Thus this was only effective on targets with weak outside defenses.
Realizing this killed the burning hope inside Lyressa.
As Fate would have it, the Miracle was the example of a hard defense.
The arcane washed into the suffocating air, becoming one with the rest of the stink. Lyressa squinted to see if any dents were made but she couldn’t. Only blemishes like mud on plate armor.
“That didn’t work, Mystic!” Monarch called out, her voice strained anticipating what would come shortly.
“Here I made those preparations for nothing!” he responded gnashing his teeth together.
Wonder was angered by this. The rows of petals began to spin. Spinning around and around, preparing to eviscerate the entire street like when it had first awoken. Again everything erupted into chaos as too many voices hit Lyressa’s ears, half-hearted attempts at communication to coordinate a method to stop this. No amount of barriers could stop this monster.
The festering wrath inside her turned into a cold paralysis. A part of her wanted to say the worst things to Mystic, blame him for the death of their Guild Master, blame him for stirring chaos in the guild, blame him for his narcissism which would soon result in lost lives.
But all she uttered was a meaningless whimper.
Her arms went stiff, fingers brittle, holding her useless and ineffective bow.
The petals continued to spin—
[Signature Trigger: Ascalon Creed]
It was as if God had sent divine retribution down on top of Wonder.
A six-winged Angel had manifested a lancing bolt of pure divine energy from her hands. The [Ascalon Creed], a weapon from Christian lore wielded by Saint George—Louis had told her this story before. It had a similar origin as Monarch’s [Excalibur Valfyre], in which they were both mythological weapons forged to fit their own legends: for Sera Hyun-Creed and Victoria Valfyre respectively.
Lyressa watched both amazed and petrified by the sheer output produced by the Angels Guild Master. The single emission alone had washed the earth in holy light, bellowed a smog of dust. It deafened her hearing and blinded her vision as though she was unworthy of witnessing the true spectacle, but through the overpowering sensation she knew the Comet had thudded onto the ground like a fallen falcon.
As a result, it wasn’t able to execute its devastating attack.
Seraph gritted her teeth and swooped down to regroup with the others.
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
Lyressa was overwhelmed by the honorable Slayer and bowed her eyes down in respect.
Nearby forces took it upon themselves to unleash everything they had.
“We need to hold out until the Void God is reconstructed,” Seraph informed everyone as they watched the Comet, observing its next moves as it gradually recovered. “Because we’re the only ones who can impede Wonder.”
“What ‘bout the guys at Ikeya?” asked Firebrand.
Seraph bit her lip.
~~~
Ikeya was a bleeding, cornered predator. The only exit was death and it was not willing to leave peacefully nor alone. Fighting still. Lasting still. Its very being was directly assaulted, targeted like how a bullet might find its way into a man's heart, marked by the chasm of a hole through its egg-sac and torso. Starry ink gushed free, yet similarly to the rest of its arrogant and stubborn ilk, Ikeya fought.
Once it had the mind to think with after feeling the worst pain, Ikeya had screeched something infernal which scratched at Master Jin Junjie’s spirit. From her ‘egg-sac’, it had disgustingly opened like old sores, blisters popping free. Instead of pus spilling out, it was hellish, improper beasts that did not belong here.
First there were the lowly mindless grunts, swinging their dirty clubs and stained axes seeing the game before them—mentally-deficient hunters who did not know the correct way to hold an arrow. Then Ikeya had the smarter, stronger monsters. Things that required nuanced strategy from middle-rankers, enemies that low-rankers would struggle with. Shamans and mages, armored fiends, alchemical creations and those powered through electricity. And sprinkled throughout the horde were high-ranked monstrosities. A high-ranker could tell without needing to use [Basic Information]; it was instinct, and the Master had some of the greatest on Earth. Using his bare eyes, he deconstructed them. Entities wielding more magic than they knew what to do with, creatures naturally ferocious, standing tall at the top of the food chain.
Hopeless rats.
None of them could hold a single grain of sand against the Guild Master of Martials Guild, nor his treasured son and even the discouraged drunkard of a professor. Nor the other swords and rifles present, where they were more than enthusiastic to deliver torment on these invaders and their wounded commander.
The battle resumed with aerial bombardment from the Ordoian Army. Oftentimes Jin Junjie had a fond distaste of rifles; although they did excellent work, they were nothing more than the background help—people who either refused to be or couldn’t be Slayers, their better half. However he did enjoy the tools they had at their disposal. In the right environment, with the right enemy, the problem would resolve itself.
Even after the horde erected physical and magical shields, the other swords contributed their own hard-hitting magick. Most of the scourges’ defenses fell within moments—shatters and screams, bangs and howls—and amongst the rattled was the cosmic broodmother.
Jin Junjie heard voices behind him. Warnings of depleted resources. Munitions and mana crystals, batteries, but commanders and Team Leaders pressed them to continue their assault. A disappointed sigh left the Master. They were good for padding out the numbers. Providing convenience, capable of being trusted with simpler measures because they mastered their simple tools. However, when it came to the more complex strategies, they floundered.
Because eventually, the bombardment stopped and it didn’t seem like they could provide such intense power again. Not until a resupply came and no one was insane enough to haul a truck of munitions here. Other than Bedlamite but he was somewhere unknown.
The murky black smoke settled. Hundreds of meters away, the Forger and its legion stood on a gray and red beach having lost not a single one of its numbers. That was how it appeared, at first; in reality, the red sand was their brethren’s remains.
Ikeya had summoned monsters faster than what Ordo could kill. Its body was patterned all over with craters, bleeding more, hissing and crackling profusely.
[Son,] Master Jin Junjie began, taking a high step forward.
Tiehan knew what technique to use. His eyes erupted in determination, the thrill of battle, and allowed his composure to break with a cutting grin. “Come, Slayers! We will slay the Forger here!”
[Records of the Master]
[Records of the Righteous Cultivator]
[Ancestor Army Arsenal]
The powderkeg ignited. Jin Junjie’s vision narrowed as he hyper-fixated on a single promise: glory. Weapons arose from the earth. Frosty blades and high glaives and polearms, puncturing and skewering, howls and bawls, his son plunging head-first into the infinite mass of monstrous flesh with an entourage of costumes flapping after him. Water careened above and crashed, inhuman sounds quickly drowned out. Bullets phased through him, grunts fell thrashing and their sticks flew from their hands, necks spurting blood.
An arrow came at him, slowly, so slowly that the Master had time to contemplate about the universe before plucking it. Hurled straight ahead, piercing three bodies before snapping on the fourth.
Master Jin Junjie leaned forward and spotted nothing but gnashing teeth and evil eyes. Fearlessly, he dived deep inside the storming sea of future corpses as he was the unstoppable force. From his sprint, monsters bounced upwards in flapping limbs and still-beating viscera. His fists were smears in the air. Low-rank monsters were killed from the wind pressure of his strikes. Middle-ranked beasts popped open like a balloon of gore. And the few high-ranked troubles were bested, easily at that, dousing the Guild Master in blood.
Using a technique he cleaned himself off immediately, then continued to entomb their skeletons into the borough of Dawns. Then there was a cosmic scream, reality swelled and split. Wind picked up and the temperature hopped, lightning banged and suddenly a terrific chill turned his blood into ice.
Locking his jaw together, Master Jin Junjie spun on his feet, the motion eviscerating every monster around him, and pumped his right hand back.
[Records of the Master - Galeforce Obliteration Strike]
Everything between him and the Forger was taken by winds stronger than what Mother Nature could create. There was such an absurd number of monsters that the technique was colored crimson from the blood and guts. His [Galeforce Obliteration Strike] wasn’t the only action that’d been taken to stop the Comet, however. He spotted Gul’s [Shinsoo] and [Thirteen Palms Devastating Thunder] from his son, then at least a dozen additional blows from the other swords and a dozen more from rifles, heavy machine-gun fire. Everything clashed and synergized together in a chaotic swirl of magick and ballistics, pummeling the Forger and stopping whatever plans it had.
It yelled something. Jin Junjie did not care enough to make an effort to understand. Its words were almost as meaningless as its life.
Ikeya could open portals to allow more natural disaster-based attacks or reinforce her army, which was growing smaller and smaller by the second; in fact, it was doing both. Incessantly, like a spider carrying its little children, monsters dropped out from her ‘egg-sac’ but not as numerous as before. Likewise, it was not able to completely concentrate on destroying the Slayers, always getting thwarted before it could execute.
Its strategy to overwhelm the Ordoians was failing. By splitting itself between two different strategies, it had chosen neither and was going to suffer gravely for it. Because these Comets were proud things, prouder than humans. They were incapable of changing their minds.
When less than a thousand monstrous legs stood on the red ground of Bronzehall Avenue, Ikeya was rendered all black. Its egg-sac had suffered tremendous damage like the wounded back of a proud warrior (but there was no pride in involving and killing innocent civilians). It growled, tried to open another portal but Gul punished the Comet.
A wave came from the west rushing through broken lanes, stealing debris and bodies, and quickly the water turned stew-red and cluttered thick. The Sungrazer was lifted off its spindle feet, tilted over, uncontrollably spun and rolled and banged against the ground, knocking into a shell of a building and stopping.
This was an opportune time to end it now.
Master Jin Junjie lifted two fingers into the air.
[Records of the Master - Antiquated Spear of Wisdom, Ancestors of Jin]
The [Antiquated Spear of Wisdom] was the prime technique of the Jin Family; it was the very same skill that Master Jin Junjie had used to defeat the Mortal Dragon and claim the position of the Cultivator Chair. Its power was derived from the number of techniques that the given heir knew, officially registered into their respective [Records]. It perfectly scaled with the accumulation property of the Ancestor Qi. With full-power and full mastery of the [Records], nary a soul could stop it, even if that man happened to be Kosmos.
At that extent, though, Ordo most likely wouldn’t exist.
So this will do, resolved the Guild Master, operating over fifty percent.
From the beginning there was heaven and earth, the inner universe and the grand space beyond—the multiverse, and the home of these Comets. Humanity was given the System to survive. Humanity used the System to thrive. They have killed gods. Some had embodied gods. A well
of knowledge was before them, infinitely deep and seductive.
Geniuses often say that the more you know, the less you knew. Master Alzahrani was a major proponent of this thinking, resigning humanity as dregs in the cosmic machine.
Master Jin Junjie disagreed with that philosophy. Heavily. Knowledge was knowledge, valuable as gold in the smallest of masses. These dense emblems of enlightenment were the first steps taken to shatter these mortal chains and enter a brighter realm beyond gods and man.
Dark clouds formed. Heaven-light rumbled from the cracks and split. The gate was set. The depository of wisdom was called upon—the shining spear of engraved erudition, its magnitude great as mountains. The ignorant gawped, turned their heads, pointing at the sinking lance of knowledge as it landed on the Comet.
There was a futile effort from the Forger to halt the [Spear of Wisdom], having its weak limbs sag upwards and press against the spear-point. However it was not the soldier, Tewfik, who had possessed the most strength in combat. However what supreme strength it earned as an entity from the Space Beyond, that strength left Ikeya as its blood did, marked by the hole left by the Superweapon. The battle reached its last descent in seconds.
A shockwave to end all shockwaves followed. Everything was blasted away except for Master Jin Junjie who stood as immovable as the land itself, watching monsters being shredded apart and seeing his allies desperately hold their ground, holding onto anything to stay on two legs. The force was blinding. They could not see the damage done until after the fact. Murmurs arose, hopeful and cheerful.
The Forger laid, severed in half completely and cleanly. The last of its ichor poured free. Transient Chinese characters rose in the air like water vapor, the names of the techniques stored within the [Records].
Somehow Ikeya was alive still. Alive, but not for long.
It couldn't do anything to the Ordoians anymore.
Master Jin Junjie turned to the direction of Echo Team, wherever they were at. I have to thank you, Journeys, for allowing this to come to fruition. Without the Superweapon, this battle would not be so easily gained.
Cheers were heard from behind.
Tiehan approached his father. [Guild Master, we can reinforce Foxtrot. As expected, there were complications with the initial plan and Wonder is active.]
[After we claim the Forger’s head for our own—]
Something screeched from the east. A voice like a soprano.
A gelatin monstrosity rolled into the battlefield like a stormfront. It was not in good health. More of that cosmic blood rained down from yawning wounds. The luminosity inside its body was dim, appearing as a night sky partly affected by light pollution. Few stars remained and they were flashing in and out. But the size caused the rifles and swords to drop their jaws, feeling the ball of hope inside their stomachs turn inside out into sheer dread.
The Cosmic Beast extended a mouth-like mass outwards, the lips large enough to swallow an entire building.
Ikeya laid motionless as the mass covered its severed body in an oppressive shadow, and a defeated gasp left it.
“N-No…” muttered the Forger. “Great Kreutz, I refuse to be—!“
Then like an anaconda, the mouth lurched the rest of the distance and gulped down the Comet. Everybody watched wide-eyed and weak-jawed, unable to act from the brutality at hand. They stood as witnesses to this apparent act of betrayal, the cannibalistic movement of stardust consuming stardust.
Like a throat, the mouth visibly bulged and bent as the remains were sent directly into the main body.
[Objective Complete: The Forger, Ikeya, has been subjugated!]