Chapter 43: A Top Guild’s Might
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“Kill us? That won’t be a thing, Darius.”
Henrietta’s Aura started overflowing all around her, even more than before. The snow in their surroundings immediately melted as her golden aura emanated a powerful heat.
“Is that so~? Then let’s see if you can save these lives too!”
Darius jumped towards one of the people over the floor, as his claws immediately ripped through the barrier and shattered it into pieces.
“Uuaaaggh! HEEELP!”
Darius laughed as he saw the innocent screaming, his hands reaching his face!
However, Henrietta, like a flash of golden light, appeared before his hands, swinging her sword dozens of times in a single second. Each slash of her sword emanated a powerful, bright laser of light, converging into a beam and impacting Darius' entire body.
“Unngh…!”
He was forced to step back as he shattered the ground below him. His face slowly distorted in surprise. It seems he was taking her for granted while Henrietta had been secretly growing much, much stronger.
“You’re not as weak as before.” He said. He realized his arms were burned, and the bones of his arms were shattered into pieces.
Henrietta waved her hands as the barriers protecting every person around her transformed into floating bubbles of light, flying away from the scene as far as possible.
“I’ll go after you once this is done; my barriers will protect you from any monster. Please wait for me.” She said. Henrietta ignored Darius.
As all civilians were out of the picture, Henrietta was finally given the chance to go all out.
“Not answering my question, huh?!”
Darius, however, like a blur of red color, reached her in an instant and used his arms to push her down the ground with an enormous blow, shattering the ground below.
BAAAM!
“{Starlight Blade}!”
Henrietta reacted with several swings of her sword and the unleashing of her bright aura as several piercing attacks emerged one after the other, piercing through Darius' torso and leaving dozens of holes, even crushing his heart and lungs in the process. Darius screamed in agony as he was flown into the skies by one of Henrietta’s kicks, which fractured his chin in the process.
“Unngh…! T-This fucking bitch…!” Darius groaned, the power of his Demonic Aura beginning to grow larger and larger as it started spreading across his body.
From the leftover tendrils, a new heart was regenerated in just a second, and then, in a few more seconds, the rest of his wounds started regenerating at an abnormally and incredibly fast speed.
“How many people have you eaten for your powers to go this far?" Roared Henrietta. She suddenly appeared above Darius.
“You...! When?!” Darius muttered, only to feel Henrietta’s blade hitting his head with all of its strength!
“{Heavenly Judgement}!”
A massive amount of heavenly light bathed the entire body of Darius as he was pushed back into the ground from midair, impacting the floor and shattering, cracking the entire ground, and then opening it as a gigantic crater appeared in the middle of the snow-covered land.
FLASH!
However… Darius laughed; his entire body was crushed to bits, but he laughed.
“Hahaha… HAHAHAHA! Interesting! Very interesting. To think the little girl I once met and trained years ago has grown so much!”
The crater started to be covered in black flames everywhere, melting the snow even more. Darius' entire body stood up and then flew out of the crater, reaching Henrietta as fast as a meteor. His fists, now covered in these Demonic, Abyssal Flames, became much stronger, and with each punch, a gigantic shockwave of demonic and dark energy spread across the skies!
“Argh! You’re no longer my mentor! You're... NOTHING TO ME!” Henrietta cried in desperation, frustration, and anger.
Her sword parried his fist attacks with her own light, as if she were attempting to overcome the darkness within his heart with her own light powers. However, it seemed to be a stalemate. Meanwhile, in the ground below, Kevin, Henrietta’s little brother, and Berth, the tanker of the trio, were confronting eight strong Demonic Humans that had even survived Henrietta’s first attack.
“Tch, you’re just a damn kid! What can you even do here?!”
“Is Henrietta so stupid as to bring her tiny, whinny little brother here? Gahahaha!”
“We’ll fucking eat you alive!”
Three of the Demonic Humans jumped to action, transforming into their monstrous beast-like forms as they unleashed attacks using their claws and tails imbued with large quantities of Demonic Energy. However, a knight in shiny golden armor tanked all hits with ease, even as they came from all around the two of them. Berth was no normal tanker either.
Their strongest blows, which could easily shatter entire buildings into pieces, did not damage his golden armor or even leave scratches behind. To make things more terrifying, he was able to control his gigantic shield, which moved in midair, easily tanking hits that came from all directions and wonderfully defending the young Kevin from any damage.
“W-What?!”
“What kind of shield is that?!”
“T-This guy…!”
“It seems you are nothing compared to your boss.” Kevin mocked them with a cheeky smile. The teenage boy’s entire aura spread out as he imbued his mana into his magic spear, and then his left eye turned golden. “{Odin’s False Eye}”
His eye shone with divinity as his movements became incredibly precise and fast. It felt as if everything around him was in slow motion while he kept all of his speed.
“{Gungnir}! {Piercing Void}!”
His Divine Spear shone with enormous quantities of power, piercing through the Demonic Humans' entire bodies, torso, legs, arms, and even their faces! Once time finally began running normally for the boy, the trio of Demonic Humans exploded into pieces, splattering all over the snow.
Silence.
Even Darius himself sensed the powers coming from the boy, his face distorting into a smile after the disbelief. Henrietta seemed proud of her little brother.
“Your brother, when?" He asked.
“Did you truly believe my little brother had no talent like you always said?” Henrietta asked with a smirk. “He is someone that will one day surpass me!”
Their battle resumed as Darius realized what had happened. Not only did Henrietta have an incredibly powerful sponsor, Archangel Gabriel, but her little brother, Kevin, had a sponsor just as legendary.
Odin, the King of Gods of Asgard's Nebula!
However, unlike his big sister, who had mastered her powers through many years of training, Kevin had just awakened them a few months ago and had yet to master them.
“W-What was that?" Asked one of the Demonic Humans, flabbergasted.
“H-He… He moved so fast I couldn’t even see." Another Demonic Human commented.
“That’s no normal Sponsor!” Said a third.
“Kevin! Did you have to use that power so soon?!” Asked Berth to the teenage boy, as he saw him suddenly bleeding through the eye he had just activated.
“Ugh… I am fine! I’ve grown used to the backlash.” He said. “And you’re slow anyway; I took the opportunity where I saw it.” Kevin suddenly ate a small white pill he took out of his pocket, which began healing his exhaustion and the backlash he received.
“Backlash?! So you can’t use it all the time.
“Now it’s our chance, then! Kill them!”
“Die!”
All five of the Demonic Humans weren’t stupid. They became this strong thanks to their cunning nature and strength. Upon seeing that the lethality of Kevin’s powers came with a cooldown and a backlash, they immediately decided to take this opportunity to end him.
“I won’t let you! {Divine Protection}!”
A golden aura surged from Berth’s body, converging into giant chest armor. All attacks that fell from the Demonic Humans never hit Kevin but reached his armor and body instead, magically being redirected! All of the attacks began gathering energy, which was then fused with his entire body. Without moving a single step, Berth gathered all of this power and then let it all out.
“{Revenge}!”
A powerful golden flare erupted from his chest, exploding and engulfing all five Demonic Humans in a second, before chains, which he also conjured, quickly wrapped around their bodies.
“Agh! What sort of attack was that?!”
“I’ve never seen a tanker with this level of magic!”
“Chains?! What are these for?!”
“So I can properly crush you without you escaping from my sight,” Berth said. “As you can see, I am quite slow.”
He raised his gigantic golden hammer, crushing the head of a Demonic Human mercilessly.
“Shit…!”
The other four Demonic Humans despaired as they tried breaking the chains, incapable of doing so. These chains were fueled by the very power that he absorbed from their attacks and were called {Chains of Judgement}.
However, aside from that, there was another power... {Gravitational Pull}, an ability that an advanced tanker such as Berth held, forced opponents fighting him in close quarters to slow down and automatically feel gravitationally attracted to his body, making it much easier for him to crush them.
“These chains are not something you will be able to escape from,” Berth said, his eyes shining bright gold beneath his helmet and swinging his hammer, crushing the Demonic Humans one after the other. Their physical attacks were nothing against him, and he simply seemed as if he was playing whack-a-mole with them.
However, after the third one died, the other two desperately sliced their legs off and escaped the chains, crawling their way out of this place.
“Agh! Dammit!”
“Fuck this shit! I’m getting out of here!”
“You’re not going anywhere.” However, right behind them, the figure of a handsome young boy appeared, his eyes mercilessly glancing at them as if they were nothing but insects. “Die in the name of all the innocents you’ve wronged.”
From afar, he imbued Mana into his Divine Spear and unleashed two piercing beams of pure divine light coming from them, hitting the two escapees and blasting them into oblivion until nothing was left.
As their ashes dissipated by the wind, Kevin glared farther into the distance as he saw his sister fighting Darius. He gritted his teeth. Despite his current strength, he had yet to match the one his sister was showing right now.
He knew, deep down, that if he got in the middle of their fight, he would only be a nuisance. Yet he wanted to help her out. This monster was not something they could take down easily.
“Sister… I have to go help her out, Berth!” Said Kevin.
“Kevin, there’s no time for that.” Said Berth. “Your sister told me that I must protect you. I cannot allow you to get involved in that high-level fight; you’re going to die if you do so."
“B-But…!” Kevin muttered.
Before they could even continue talking. The smell of blood made by the dead Demonic Humans started attracting many monsters. After all, this was a Dungeon filled with them everywhere. Giant Glacial Wolves, Tyrant Polar Bears, Glacial Boar Kings, Frost Golems, and even a couple of Frost Wyverns emerged all around them.
“It seems we cannot give us the privilege of talking. After all, this is a Dungeon at the end.” Sighed Kevin.
“I’m afraid so, Kevin,” Berth said, raising his hammer and shield once more as the beasts began approaching. “Come at me!”
Berth roared like a lion, and his aura shaped itself as a roaring lion as well! This was another of his specialized skills, {Lion’s Roar}, which granted him the ability to bring the attention of monster-type foes and provoke them! Of course, this didn’t work on humans, nor even on Demonic Humans, but on these monsters. Their eyes were all directed at him.
“Kevin, I’ll tank! You attack!” Berth said.
“Alright!” Kevin nodded. “Now come, you damn beasts—huh?"
However, Kevin suddenly sensed something approaching. There were three incredibly powerful presences in the distance.
“What?! Don’t tell me that's... Jack and his sister! They’re here?!” Henrietta sensed them from afar, as Darius was slowly overwhelming her.
"It looks like we’ve got some new guests!” Darius laughed, punching Henrietta in the stomach when she got distracted, slightly shattering her golden armor, and throwing her down into the ground below.
CRASH!
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