Ch 230: Antares

Jay Mills, Canada's strongest Hunter, snorted at the reporter's question.

"Yes, they requested we stand well away from the gate and be ready to evacuate. But who do they think they are? This is our country, and we won't have some foreigners tell us we can't defend our own soil! If those monsters want to invade Canada, they will have to do it over our dead bodies!"

The hundreds of A, B and even a few C-rank Hunters gathered behind him, mostly Canadians and Americans, clamored their approval and lifted their weapons in the air.

But a soft, cultured voice cut through their cries like a knife, clearly heard despite not being loud.

"I find this to be agreeable."

Both the reporter and the Hunters looked up in surprise.

Standing on the air in front of the gate was a tall, handsome and muscular man with long, slightly wavy red hair, a short, pointed bread, and glowing red eyes. He was dressed in silver armor with black and reddish-brown accents. He arrogantly looked down at the hunters, his hands behind his back.

Jay Mills froze. He was a S-rank hunter and had gotten his fair share of scuffles with strong monsters. But the man looking down at them… He was the true incarnation of fear.

The man suddenly fell, but slowed down and reached the ground smoothly. In a mere instant, he had crossed the distance and seized Jay by the throat, pinning him to the ground.

"How predictable, Ashborn." said Antares, plunging his free hand into Jay's shadow, and tearing from it a Shadow Soldier.

He squeezed his hand and broke the Shadow Soldier's neck.

Antares straightened, releasing the human Hunter he saw as not worthy of dying by his own hand. "Now that the Shadow Monarch isn't going to interfere, let us start the slaughter of the human race."

He snapped his fingers, and more Monarchs emerged from the gate.

Tarnak, the Monarch of the Iron Body and King of Monstrous Humanoids. He looked like a tall, slender man with semi-long blonde hair and eyes shining with a pale light, dressed in white pants, shirt and a coat whose inner red and black lining weirdly seemed to emit its own light.

Yogomunt, the Monarch of Transfiguration and King of Demonic Specters. Under his tattered blackish-purple hooded cloak, he looked like an elderly man with gray hair, with the lower part of his face hidden by a bone mask. His eyes glowed purple.

Finally, Querehsha, the Queen of Insects and the Monarch of Plagues. A woman with glowing red eyes, long flowing black hair, an attractive figure encased in revealing dark green armor. She was sitting on the neck of a giant demon centipede.

And the Architect, looking like the four-meter-tall stone statue of an angel wearing a hooded robe and a stone tablet.

Behind them, massive dragons flew out of the portal.

Jay Mills was crawling away from Antares, and the hunters who were stepping back, terrified.

"Hum?"

Antares suddenly lifted his right hand, grabbing a golden sword just before it pierced his throat. He squeezed his hand, and the sword shattered as he looked at the one who threw it.

"As you say, it was predictable. But so was the possibility that you would kill my Shadow Soldier before I could switch places with him. Which is why I inserted my Soldiers into a dozen Hunters, around each gate." smiled Jinah, dressed from head to toe into a black armor with golden highlights, her swordstaff in one hand, and a crystal globe on the other. She stood fifty meters away from Antares, on the side of the crowd of Hunters.

And suddenly, she wasn't alone, with many women wearing similar armor standing by her sides.

"Ah! Well played. But it won't change anything, Ashborn." nodded Antares.

"Please call me Sung Jinah. Ashborn decided to retire. I am his successor."

"A pity. I would have preferred to face my old adversary."

"You!" screamed the Architect, pointing a stony finger straight at Akeno.

"You are the one who perverted my creation! I didn't make the System for more than one person to use! How did you even do it?"

"Oh?" chuckled Akeno, using a bit of magic to have her voice carry over to them without having to shout. "You shouldn't complain. Someone far beyond your so-called Supreme Being was amused by your work and decided to improve it. Rather, you should feel honored."

"You bitch!" The Architect turned his four stone wings into arms, becoming a six-armed giant, and started sprinting toward Akeno, only to stop in a hurry when Antares gestured to him.

"Are you the one called Akeno Himejima?" asked Antares curiously.

"I am. And you must be Antares, the Monarch of Destruction." nodded Akeno.

"This is correct. I must admit to being intrigued. You are a mere human, and yet you managed to defeat this replica of the Supreme being alone, and before benefiting from the Architect's creation. How about I spare you and make you one of my subordinates?"

"I am flattered by the offer, but I must decline. Everyone, we'll follow plan C."

"Yes, good luck." replied Jinah as her shadow expanded explosively. Her Shadow Dragons, Giants, the various bosses from the dungeons they had farmed, as well as Tusk, Tank, Igris and Beru emerged, ready to fight the dozens of dragons and the various kinds of monsters emerging from the portal.

Akeno took her Reality Marble and activated it, sending the four Monarchs as well as herself, Jeanne, Alter, Joohee, Hae-In, Heejin, Akari, Kanae and Mari into the mirror dimension.

Jinah, Meilin, Gina and Lee Bora remained behind to take on the monster army.

…

"Amusing." snorted Antares as he understood what had happened. "It will only take me a few minutes to break apart this dimension and return to Earth."

"If we haven't killed you all within a few minutes, we are doing something wrong." quipped Akeno. "I hope you won't mind if we do not intend to give you a fair fight. This is a war, not a duel."

"Of course! I would be insulted if you did not give it your all!" grinned Antares. Then let us begin!"

A bright yellow light suddenly escaped from his slightly opened mouth, and when he opened wide, Akeno and the others hurriedly jumped to the sides. A thick beam of flames gouged the ground where they had stood. Even though they had all evaded, the radiant heat would have been enough to set their clothes aflame and cause them significant burns, had they not been wearing high-grade armor and their bodies not been enhanced.

That attack was similar to the laser from the Lord in the double Dungeon, but thicker and hotter.

The girls all cast Augment and separated into predefined teams.

Akeno, Akari and Kanae would keep Antares busy until the other Monarchs were dead.

Alter and Akari moved to take on Tarnak, who was transforming into a four-meter-tall humanoid covered by a dark gray, jagged exoskeleton.

Heejin and Joohee engaged Yogomunt.

Jeanne, Mari and Hae-In faced Querehsha.

…

Tarnak was the first to fall. If his transformed form, he was immensely strong, and his defense skyrocketed to ridiculous levels, but it also made him somewhat slower. His exoskeleton could withstand Alter's spear strikes and Akari's axe just bounced off him, but the girls adapted instantly, constantly dashing in and out of range and targeting Tarnak's joints.

His inability to counter the attacks from two enemies, both of them faster than he was, and both attacking from opposite directions, had predictable results, and Akari sunk her axe deep into the knee joint of his right leg, making him collapse.

He screamed profanities as Alter slammed the head of her battle staff into his other knee joint as Akari pulled her axe away, then struck again at the same place, severing the leg this time.

Alter and Akari both jumped away from Tarnak's flailing arms, only to attack his joints again with light swords. His arms joints were hard to hit as he moved a lot, but the joints at the hip, abdomen and between his head and his shoulders were easier targets. Alter and Akari attacked them ruthlessly, causing terrible damage to his inner organs.

And Tarnak couldn't regenerate like Rakan.

The damage quickly became too much, and his struggles decreased, allowing Akari to hit his neck joint with her axe and cut his head off.

Alter immediately shoved the head into her spatial ring, just in case, and they both joined the fight against Yogomunt.

…

Yogomunt didn't understand.

He didn't understand how a mere human, admittedly reinforced by a second one, could possibly rival her in magic.

She was weaker than him, but she kept deflecting his attacks with blasts of compressed air or simply dodged them. She also attacked him with air blades. Those weren't anything he couldn't deal with, but a quick glance at the fighting around him caused him to feel uneasy.

Antares had yet to kill or even injure any of the three humans harassing him like annoying flies, Querehsha was losing her minions as fast as she was summoning them, and Tarnak… The arrogant fool was already on his knees, missing a leg, and had nothing to show for it.

A light sword he hadn't seen coming pierced his left shoulder, and he grunted, blocking two more. He glared at the one named Akeno, who was taking shots at him even though she was exchanging sword strikes with Antares.

Another air blade forced him to return his attention to the two magicians closest to him.

The one who had reinforced the air magician was now surrounded by four golden spears pointing at him, and she fired them.

Irritated, he blasted two of them with his power and evaded the remaining two, then sent a wave of magic through the ground toward them, intending to impale them in rock spikes and upturn the ground to ruin their footing.

They both evaded to the sides, forced to pause their attacks. Yogomunt intended to use the opportunity to focus on the supporting magician. He prepared a massive explosion that would overwhelm her and would be too large for her to evade, when he felt two strong impacts from his back, and the tips of two golden spears protruded from his chest, smeared with his blood.

Yogomunt spat more blood, understanding that the two spears he had evaded had somehow turned back to strike him. He glared hatefully at the human woman with light-brown hair.

Someone dressed in black lined with gold suddenly appeared right beside him, and in his weakened state, he failed to stop the massive axe that severed his neck.

He felt his head roll on the ground, saw the rest of his body collapse, and darkness claimed him.

Tarnak had been the first domino, and with two of the Monarchs now dead, the cascading effect was in full swing.

With nods to each other, Heejin and Joohee joined the fight against Antares, while Alter and Akari closed in on Querehsha.

…

When Querehsha saw Tarnak's body, and two golden spears reverse course and hit Yogomunt's back before she could shout a warning, she decided that she would rather risk Antares's anger later than die in this place. She kept summoning her minions as fast as she could while backing away.

Her pets weren't enough to kill them. Her poisons didn't seem to affect them for more than an instant. And she had seen enough to understand that getting close enough for her to use her claws would be very… unwise.

She used her Monarch's Hand again to try to seize the blonde swordswoman and throw her at the redhead and earn a few seconds, but the blonde used light constructs to resist the push, and the other blonde with a battle flag appeared near Querehsha, swinging in an upward diagonal slash. She parried with a forearm against the weapon's shaft, not letting them see the pain she felt from the impact, but the damned human woman immediately pulled on the weapon as she kept pressing, slicing her to the bone with the spearhead.

More giant insects came from her gates to try to protect her. The battle-flag wielding blonde had to retreat as she started killing them, and Querehsha made a run for it, sprinting away from the fighting.

Her plan was to put a bit of a distance, enough that she would be able to forcibly open a portal and flee. With any luck, those damned humans would choose to focus on Antares first and would hunt her down later. Maybe they would even ignore her entirely, as long as she never set foot on their planet again.

But she looked over her shoulder, not daring to slow down even a little, she saw that the three women fighting her had turned into five, and that they were gaining on her!

Behind them, Antares was transforming, adopting his true form, but that wasn't going to help her immediately.

In a panic, she tried to open a portal right here and there, but it failed. Whatever dimension they had locked the Monarchs in wasn't something she could break through in a moment.

And a dozen golden swords reached her.

Querehsha screamed as she failed to stop most of them, and her body was pierced many times.

She lost her balance and collapsed, and before she could get up, they were surrounding her, their weapons swinging.

…

"I tire of this." decided Antares when he felt that Yogomunt was about to die. "You can be proud of having pushed me this far."

He blocked another attack from Akeno with his jagged blade and managed to land a kick to the brunette woman yielding two swords in the abdomen, although the later had seen it coming and started bending, blunting the impact of the blow. She was still forced back and interfered with the movements of the third one.

Then Antares's power exploded as his body grew rapidly, changing. It took him less than three seconds to transition to his true form. Antares, the Dragon King, was a dragon covered by dark bronze scales, and was truly massive, at almost four hundred meters from the snout to the tip of his tail. Each of his massive wings, fully extended, would be enough to cover three football fields.

Without waiting, he charged his Breath of Destruction, looking down at Akeno, and tried to follow her movements as she evaded upward, his beam of destructive energy burning a trench five meters deep and thirty meters wide on the ground for kilometers.

"Oh my, I better not be hit by this." said Akeno, buffeted by the scalding winds caused by Antares.

"You have been holding out on me. You aren't human." said Antares, seeing the six raven wings now protruding from Akeno's back.

"Half Human, Half Fallen Angel." shrugged Akeno, taking a quick glance at Querehsha being pursued by five of her girls and a volley of light swords.

She used Shunpo to reappear fifty meters back, evading an attack from Antares's right arm.

"And since things have progressed to this point, now is the time to use, that."

"Oh?" wondered Antares when the black and gold armor of Akeno was replaced by a white and gold one of a different design, and her aura was superposed by the one of another being.

"A Dragon?" asked Antares.

"Yes." came a feminine voice, different from Akeno's. "I am Albion, one of the two Heavenly Dragons."

"You really are full of surprises." said Antares, using a flick of his tail to try to kill the redhead human who was trying to get behind him as well as the two other who had killed Tarnak, but they too used that irritating movement technique to evade his blows.

He could feel that this Albion was in a very diminished state. In fact, this dragon seemed to have only its soul left, anchored in some manner into the white armor Akeno wore. But there was a sort of vast echo to it, hinting at immense power, and he somehow felt that if this Albion was at its peak, he might be close to his own strength. Certainly, it would be stronger than the strongest Dragon under him, and stronger than any of the other Monarchs or Rulers aside from Ashborn.

More and more intrigued, he decided that he would crush Akeno, but without killing her. He would later torture her until she submitted and make both her and this Albion his servants.

…

Querehsha had just died, and Akeno took a deep breath, pointing an index toward the monstruous bronze-colored dragon.

"Divide." said Akeno, and both her and Albion pushed together, trying to break through Antares's vast spiritual power.

It was hard. Harder than even when she had used Divide on the Lord in the Double dungeon, despite the significant increase of her attributes since then. For a moment, she thought she and Albion wouldn't manage. But she gritted her teeth and persevered, feeling Albion grunting un the strain, and finally overcame Antares's resistance.

Akeno put one of her two Eclipse in her inventory and replaced it by one Mistletoe. It was the signal, and everyone did the same.

…

Antares really didn't like the feeling of his power being halved, and he could easily understand the implication of the large swords his enemies were now armed with. Those were big enough to be a threat even in his true form, and while he was confident in the sturdiness of his scales, one of those taken in the eyes would still hurt a lot.

Besides, he was proud of his own strength, but not stupid, and things had entirely gone their way since the fight started. Three Monarchs were dead, and the few minor injuries he and the others had inflicted on them were already gone.

He needed to gain the advantage, and he needed to do it now.

…

Akeno and the others danced around the giant dragon as he went into a frenzy, trying to bite or claw Akeno or any of the others in range.

It was very dangerous, as Antares was huge, and to paraphrase a certain Russian dictator, size had a quality all its own. Antares was slower than them, but he didn't need to move very fast for the tip of his claws or tail to break several times the speed of sound, and evading all of his attacks was challenging.

Eventually, Heejin noticed the incoming wing too late and was thrown to the ground, with an arm and a few ribs broken.

With a roar, Antares was about to stomp on her, when he suddenly stopped moving for a fraction of a second, his eyes bulging, and he jolted with a roar of mixed pain and indignation this time.

"You dare!"

Akari had stuck a Mistletoe deep into one of few spots not protected by his scales… right in the anus.

Akeno used his temporary paralysis to grab Heejin and quickly get her away while Akari ran in the opposite direction as fast as she could. The girl was already using Greater Healing on herself.

The Mistletoe embedded in Antares's butt started propelling itself deeper, and Antares roared again.

Kanae stuck a second Mistletoe in Antares's back, near the root of the wings where the scales were thinner, and when he reared up to dislodge her, Mari stuck another one on the base of his huge neck.

If Antares was in a frenzy before, he was now absolutely mad, flailing around with little coordination.

The girls all took some distance as his movements were getting too hard to anticipate. They evaded another Breath of Destruction fired in a wide arc.

After a few seconds, Antares's body glowed, and he shrunk, returning to his human form.

He glared hatefully at the still spinning Mistletoes that had fallen on the ground when he turned back into a human.

Turning back to human form may have solved his immediate issue and gotten them out of his body, but he was still worse for wear, holding his jagged sword with both hands like a cane to support himself and bleeding from several wounds and gasping as he tried to focus on regenerating his damaged organs.

He was deliberately appearing more tired and injured than he already was, however, in the hope that they would grow careless.

And as the humans got closer, he prepared himself to rush the one he had injured and finish her. He also could feel the curse that had halved his power starting to grow weaker. If he could persist one more minute, he would be able to shake it off completely.

Unfortunately, Akeno refused to drop her guard and sent a volley of light sword toward him, forcing him to quickly evade.

…

"Our Goddess has given us the ability to detect deceit. Even if it is just from your body language." said Akeno, right before using Shunpo this time to appear on his left and attack, one Eclipse in each hand.

Antares blocked her left sword, but she managed to pierce his flank with her right one, and sent a burst of Holy Lightning through it, causing him to stiffen. She couldn't paralyze him like she did with Beru back at Jeju island, but it did slow him down a little.

And she had another trump card.

Akeno activated Bullet Time

Time around her seemed to slow to a crawl as she dilated the time flow of a single second outside of her body, into ten for herself. She jumped forward and to her left to face Antares, and her blades got to work, piercing, slashing. She aimed at his neck and slashed from right to left. Her black blade sunk into his flesh but was blocked by his spine. So she stuck again, and again, and finally managed to completely sever his head.

'Really, time manipulation is the mother of all cheats.' thought Akeno with satisfaction as Antares, the Monarch of Dragons and King of Destruction, died at last.

"Wow, what was that at the end? I only saw you turn into a blur." asked Akari as she landed closer.

"A skill classed Bullet time. I can't do it often, it's pretty taxing."

"One time is enough." replied Heejin, now fully healed. "Thank you, Akeno. I thought I was going to get turned into paste!"

"You're welcome." nodded Akeno before she looked at the other girls, smiling, happy that they hadn't taken any casualty. "Our work is not yet done. As soon as we recover the Mistletoes, I am sending us back to Canada."

…

"488!" shouted Esil as her spear strike tore a big hole in the chest of a high orc, killing him instantly.

"489!" she kicked a horse-sized demonic wolf and pierced his throat.

"490!"

She ducked, dodging the trident from the naga who attempted to stab her, and retaliated by hitting his throat with her spear loaded with some of her demonic energy, shredding it to the point that only a few strips of skin still connected the naga's head to his body.

"This is the 553th I kill!" called out Naya as she pulled her greatsword from a wolf's body.

"I don't believe you!" retorted Esil angrily, searching for the closest pack of monsters. Not that she had to look far, as the gate was still disgorging them.

The area around the gate was waist-high in monster corpses, and all the blood was making the ground slippery. Thankfully, Akeno has guessed it would be the case, and the soles of the armor set they all wore had small spikes to ensure a firm footing.

"Incoming!" suddenly shouted Naya, and Esil looked up.

The corpse of a dragon was falling toward them. Esil estimated its trajectory, and nodded to herself as she realized no one would be hit. Judging from the smoke following the corpse's path, it had been killed by a blast of lightning, surely coming from the sword yielded by Igris. The one that the Demon King Baran previously possessed.

"Arise." called out Jinah from the skies, where she rode a Shadow Dragon. The corpse who was still falling, as well as those of four other dragons who had been slain before, were her targets, and five more Shadow Dragons joined the hundred already fighting their living counterparts for dominance of the skies.

Igris, Bellion and Beru were up there, the first two riding more Shadow Dragons, and they were turning the tide of battle.

When the fight started, Jinah, Igris and Beru had first focused on the Architect, mobbing him as he tried to run after the Monarchs disappeared.

Then it became a game of tag. The Shadow Warriors on the ground, as well as the Hunters and the members of Akeno's faction had been forced to fight very cautiously, spending most of their time dodging dragon breaths as their enemies executed strafing runs.

But now, the number of Shadow Dragons was starting to exceed those of the living Dragons, keeping them busy.

Soon, they would achieve aerial dominance.

The hundreds of Hunters were providing assistance as well, contributing significantly to the killing. They held defensive positions down several streets, and a lot of monsters preferred attacking them rather than Esil, Naya or the Shadow Soldiers, thinking they would be easier targets. They were right, in an individual sense, but the Hunters were doing a good job working together, and the few fatalities they had at the beginning had all been due to dragons spewing flames on them from above.

Jinah had made sure to first target all the dragons that came close to that group.

Suddenly, Esil heard the crack of a lightning strike hitting a green Dragon in the cloudless sky, followed by another, and another. Lightning strikes were happening at a quick pace, hitting one Dragon after another. The Dragons didn't die on the spot, they were Dragons after all, but it dazed them, making them easy prey for the Shadow Dragons, Jinah, Beru, Igris and Bellion.

Esil smiled, seeing Akeno standing nearby, the others already dispersing.

And as she killed another monster, she realized with a gasp that she had lost count!

"…593!" decided Esil as she ran toward a pack of demonic wolves.