Fionn

The trick of disintegrating the floor would obviously not work this time around. Not with his enemy transforming the area like that. Even if all it had done was make the ground metal, which was a lot less vulnerable to vibrations, his spell would fail.

But it was quite clear that the liquid currently masquerading as “beer” was doing far more than that, slowly warping the surroundings into something that smelled odd and had practically alien-looking metal constructs emerging all over the place.

So Fionn let the winds from the already dying [Century Storm] carry him as far into the corridor as they could while he dragged lighting down from the skies and flung almost a dozen bolts into the big statue’s back. It was made of metal, allowing it to direct most of the electricity into the ground, but all that did was direct the energy into its half-finished constructs.

The statue was already turning to face him, but he let himself drop into an empty spot on the floor, sliding along the slick rock and avoiding a hasty punch from a nearby statue. One which he did not retaliate against with his mace as that would have inevitably unbalanced him and ended with him landing on his rear end. Instead, a [Force Punch] bowled the monster over with enough force to shatter it against the ground.

This would get … ugly. He could likely beat the main monster the rest of the statues currently in the corridor as well, possibly, but achieving either with the constant stream of reinforcements was very far from doable.

The main entrance had been designed to be attractive to monsters, built to grant hundreds of lesser beasts entrance while having a low enough ceiling to keep out the bosses if possible.

But his current foe was the exact kind of monster they did not want in here.

At least Ms. Vogt was taking a stand in front of the gates, as long as he managed to defeat “Bavaria,” things would work out … Fionn sighed. It had been such a good plan, such a fine design, and now, he’d have to break it.

[Shatter] was a spell clearly designed for sieges, something that took a long time to cast and only really worked against stationary targets, but he’d started casting the instant he’d finished analyzing the situation, a couple of seconds after entering the corridor.

With sounds reminiscent of the artillery shells he’d seen used against the Nation Boss, the entrance burst apart. First, a massive crack was smashed into the ceiling by an invisible hammer, and less than a second later, hundreds more spiderwebbed off the main crack, ripping apart the incredibly durable construction and sending hundreds of tons of stone cascading to the floor.

By the time the dust settled, the entrance wasn’t completely blocked, but enough debris had piled up to slow the flood of new foes to a trickle. And the monsters that were already inside were being cut down by the heavy weaponry in the hands of his allies.

Leaving him free to face his main foe. He’d have to do this quickly. Every hole, every gash, every injury he opened would cause the monster to “bleed” more, causing more warping of the environment and making the environment a lot messier. Until the monster died. But making that happen required him to damage it, making the situation worse in the process.

Which meant that every second of combat was a second he was too slow.

A brief second of scrying later and Fionn leaped at the monster, while fusing fire and heat into his mace while gravity below it quintupled as he cast [Gravity’s Fury].

With the sound almost as loud as the entrance collapsing, his weapon crashed into the wall of metal that functioned as the monument’s chest, broke through, and snapped in half, sending the superheated head flying into the depths of the monster’s hollow torso.

Fionn threw himself back again ahead of the huge gout of steam that erupted as a result, the sheer pressure ripping open the hole further until it was liquid that splattered across the ragged, glowing edges of the damage and cooling them in an instant. Superheated metal cooling that quickly was something that needed to be done carefully if one wanted to avoid warping it, though, of course, that was exactly what Fionn was intending to happen.

And [Gift of Flame] was still connecting him to the head of his mace, allowing him to gather another massive glob of his magic and shove it into it, causing a second explosion while he retreated further, watching the ragged hole he’d opened.

Fionn was readying himself for the next attack when something struck the back of his legs and catapulted himself into the air as it swept past. It was some kind of … tiny car?

No, it wasn’t. After a couple of seconds of thought, he dimly remembered the concept of a “fairground,” something people went to enjoy themselves. Specifically, that thing belonged to a roller coaster.

And people rode those for fun?

Modern humans really did have far too much time on their hands, and were starved for adventure to boot. Not that he could blame them.

Fionn began to cast [Message] to tell the people above to throw him down some things he needed, but was forced to dodge three more carts while Bavaria strode towards him, somehow looking furious despite still wearing an impassive expression.

Not … great. Not great at all, but not overly terrible either.

[Gift of Flame] poured into multiple metal chunks of smaller statues lying about the place, and judicious application of [Telekineis] hurled the now-liquid projectiles into the hole, causing another explosion of steam while also knocking the monster back as it impacted the back of the monster from the inside.

He did have to call [Rock Pillar] to pull himself above the standard attacks, though he could see the warping effect crawl up his perch at an alarming pace.

That was when he could finally finish casting [Message], and after a long pause, which he interpreted as confusion, the needed materials were hurled down.

High explosives that contained their own source of oxygen, meaning they could be detonated without air.

It was something meant as a weapon of last resort, capable of clearing the corridor at the cost of the fortress’ structural integrity. Something they would never want to use but would likely have to. It punched through the curtain of liquid that was spewing from the open hole, sank, and detonated against the bottom of the statue.

Internal explosions were always devastating, but liquid had a bad habit of near-perfectly translating shockwaves, ripping open Bavaria from the inside and making the entire corridor stink like a tavern.

Fionn sagged atop his perch, only for him to have to hurl himself away as the converted stone at its base crumbled away.

From here, he had three more tasks: find a new mace, find a place to make himself useful, and then, smash statues until his magic regenerated.

***

Arthur

Damnation and Salvation (animated monument) Level 39 Raid Boss

Wasn’t that thing just the perfect metaphor for his current state? What it felt like to wade onto the field of battle?

A chance to forget the past, to block out the politics and scheming, to imagine, just for a second, that things were like they had always been, with him the heroic knight-errant who’d left his perfectly peaceful castle and court to slay a fearsome beast.

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Yet he could feel it eroding away at him, taking his poise, his regal bearing, the ability to navigate politics and “polite society” as that nest of vipers preferred to be known by, and replacing it with ever more war. And he didn’t care.

Slaying monsters and hunting “villains,” those monsters in human skin, had been what had made him feel alive, and it had transformed the world for the better.

Trying to create tenuous alliances and other such nonsense without true loyalty was one of those things that had eventually led to the annihilation of everything he’d worked for, the downfall of Camelot, and even his “death.”

This was about as simple as it could possibly be. Monsters were trying to kill people, he killed monsters, then he could go eating, drinking, or sleeping until the next monster showed up.

Like now.

As far as Raid Bosses went, his current opponents were about as non-threatening as they could possibly be. Four angels roughly the size of a six-year-old, one with a spear, three with swords, and four similarly sized beasts. A lion, a snake, and two serpentine dragons, one of which Arthur decided to mentally refer to as “Basilisk,” since it looked a lot like a rooster.

But they were the only enemies present, and Arthur just knew they would be no pushovers.

He charged into the fray with Excalibur held high, and brought his [Grand Slash] down on the lion, flattening it into the ground, but before he could capitalize on it, the others were already sweeping over him.

His sword deflected a spear aimed at his neck and he fed the lunging dragon his fist, then, while it was biting down on him, used it as a bludgeon to beat back the next two assaults that came from the left until it let go while guarding his right with his sword.

Another strike came for his head, which Arthur ducked under, then took a few steps back to buy himself the space to counterattack. But he wasn’t facing one enemy, he was facing eight. Seven now, with the lion limping after the rest, but seven were still far too many.

Arthur’s world became narrowed down to nothing but blades and metal fangs trying to, and thankfully failing, tear into him. Attacks came from every angle, and while he managed to deflect most of them, “most” was not “all,” and every time he had to intercept an enemy attack with his sword was another opportunity to attack lost.

And with every passing moment, a new scratch appeared in his armor, if not a new wound on his body.

An angelic lance was deflected to the side and this time around, Arthur was able to continue the attack, carving a shallow cut into its wielder’s chest but that didn’t slow his enemy in the slightest as he was forced to retreat once more.

And then, he finally reached the lion he’d ever so slowly been circling around to and slashed into it, repeatedly, until it died, accepting several wounds.

None were serious, none except one. The spear that an angel had thrust into his gut through a hole in his armor just as the lion stilled for good.

He found himself staring into the eyes of the angel as it tried to draw its spear back but failed as he’d grabbed its weapon and was holding it fast.

It was hard to tell on the metallic-frozen face of his foe, but Arthur just knew the fucker was grinning. That little angelic shit felt like it had won, hadn’t it?

But he still had another card to play.

[Resurgent Strike]

Supposedly, it was just as much of a double-edged sword as, well, a sword. If it worked, it granted victory, if it failed, well, its use would functionally have been suicide.

Without any input on his part, his arm slashed through the air in front of his torso with inhuman strength, Excalibur an extension of his body, and hacked the impossibly durable foe apart in a single smooth motion.

But his foe didn’t merely fly apart in two halves. Instead it was hurled away fully, jerking its spear out of his gut without somehow causing more damage, quite the opposite. Instead, the wound closed with supernatural speed, almost going away in its entirety, leaving Arthur facing the remaining six enemies largely intact.

Yet that was a far greater advantage than a novice in the art of combat might have realized. A coordinated assault was incredibly powerful, splitting the target’s focus and requiring them to strike and/or defend many places at once. Therefore, a group’s power increased exponentially with every additional member, and that very same power would die with each foe he slew.

[Grand Slash] was once again available, and as utterly ridiculous as the idea of his abilities being limited by time was, Arthur had to admit that that his new abilities were incredible.

Excalibur swept through the air, smacked into a second angel and sent it careening into the nearest wall, badly dented.

Alive, but out of the fight long enough for him to launch himself at the snake. It met his attack, wrapping around his legs in an attempt to hold him down, something that might have worked if all seven of its allies had still been in a position to attack him. Instead, it had just put itself in a position to hack down at it, striking the exact same point three times in a single second, splitting it in half, allowing him to pull himself out.

Of course, both halves were still moving, but slow enough for him to leave it in the dust as he went at the rest of the group, parrying one sword, duking under a second, kicking the basilisk away and finally falling onto the third angel as it was pulling itself out of the wall. And hacked it to pieces.

When Arthur turned, he was faced with all five of his remaining enemies, six if you counted both halves of the snake as separate entities. Though as damaged as that damned serpent was, it basically counted for nothing at all.

The first angel swooped at his face, while the dragon and basilisk went for a leg each, and the second angel was coming at the opposite side from the first one almost simultaneously.

Arthur swayed out of the path of the second angel, accepting a shallow cut across his back in exchange for being able to hack a wing of the first, grounding it.

When he retreated, he left behind several chunks of flesh in the fangs of the creatures biting at his legs, but there was only a single intact foe left, a single angel that went after him at top speed, leaving all its allies in the dust.

Excalibur clashed with its sword once, twice, and then, it sheared through the wing, dropping the beast onto the floor. And its allies were too far to help, too far to stop Arthur from hacking it to pieces. So that’s what he did.

The dragon and basilisk were the next to arrive, but a little footwork placed the tiny dragon between him and its nearest ally, letting him carve through them one after the other, then continue on to the last angel and finally, destroy both halves of the snake, slashing it to ribbons until it stopped moving.

Breathing heavily, Arthur sheathed Excalibur and listened to the voice of the System, talking about how he’d gained power in the most unnatural way possible once again.

[King of Unity Lv.49 -> King of Unity Lv. 50]

[Class Evolution: King of Unity Lv. 50 -> Albion’s (Last) Vengeful Sword Lv. 51]

[Ascendant Capstone gained: Heart of Fury]

[Skill gained: One Against the World]

[Skill gained: The Lonely Road]

While he had three new abilities to look at, it was only his Capstone he was truly interested in. The thing that the two Germans and that Irishman had already obtained. Something that could put him above the ultimate weapons of this new world, the “Atom Bomb.”

Heart of Fury (Ascendant Capstone)

In your chest burns an endless flame, powered by fury. So long as this flame does not die and you continue your march onwards, anyone who tries to stop you has to do so face-to-face, or at least through personal effort. The more removed their actions are, the more they will fail against the indomitable inferno that is your heart.

Arthur bit his lip and, with a great deal of effort, resisted the urge to punch the wall. It wouldn’t do for him to defeat his foes only to die by bringing the ceiling down on his head.

The System was either daft, or it was mocking him. Again.

First, it had declared him, the man who’d died to a fatal wound sustained in a civil war against a man who was both his son and nephew, the ruler of unity.

And now, it had given him not only a Class whose very name rubbed it all in once again, but also seemed to be attempting to ensure he would be alone forever. And to top it all off, it had chosen to define him solely by his rightful anger.

Arthur closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and opened them again.

Wasn’t that how it had always been, though? Power came at a cost. His fury would become his sword, his loneliness his shield his past repeating itself. And with those two, he would destroy the darkness in this new world.

If he was still standing when it was all expunged, well, he’d figure out something new to do.

***

Charlemagne

When Mr. Vogt had insisted on getting an executive from the EU’s governing body that determined that destroying an animated corpse or work of art was not something that one could be sued or prosecuted over, Karl had thought he was being paranoid, his thinking shaped by modern media to immediately overdramatize.

But every time [Empire Sense] told him that another priceless monument from a foreign nation had been destroyed on the lands that had recently become his in truth, he was quite glad not to have commented on those efforts.

Modern laws, in general, were quite messy and could easily run contrary to morality, which was rather perverse, considering that at their very core, laws were crystalized morality, moral ideas put to paper and becoming rules to live by.

But at the same time, becoming written down settled them into a specific form, unchanging, safe for full overhauls, with meanings that could only be changed so far from the exact wording by interpretation.

Without a king or an emperor to have the final word, to settle things in the event of chaos or correct and injustice created by the law’s exact wording, all one had to go on was the word of law itself.

Therefore, the law had to cover functionally every eventuality, but that same omnipresence of law meant that there were a lot of situations where laws could be twisted to become contrary to the intentions of their creators. Or ones where anyone with even an ounce of common sense could tell the spirit of a law had not been broken but extensive legal proceedings were required to formally establish that.

In other words, the modern world was a mess.

Though it was a testament to how well things were going at the moment that potential legal chicanery was his biggest concern right now.