Eri POV - Tortus, Heiligh Kingdom Capital City - 2013

  I and my Undead Puppets quickly move through the chaotic streets of the Capital City, killing all the members of the Holy Church I find on my way, then I turn them into my Undead Puppets, and use them to find other hiddes of the Holy Church, while I decide to spare the lives of most of the knights I meet, for a very simple reason, 'Jayr for sure wouldn't kill those that are relutly following their orders... But those that are enjoying this situation, or are using it to their own advantage are free game...'.

  And as I think that, a pack of skeleton twin-tailed wolves is tearing apart a knight that was using this chaos to have his way with a young girl, unfortunately, the parents of the girl are already dead, but I simply raise them once again as Undead Puppet and leave them here to protect the little girl in distress, and tio move toward my objective.

  At the same time, I notice that Freid's familiars, the Ash Dragons are flying around capturing araining the mourned people, those tentacle abominations with too many eyes, that remind me of those strange hentai, ahat they are all bringing them back to Freid, that is currently riding Uranos, and ting something while pointing at the restrained monster-people with his palm.

  When he cast his spell, the monster-people are enveloped in a pilr of light, then after the light pilr disperse, in pce of the hentai-like monsters, there are some simply naked civilians, and seeing that I nod and mutter, "Just like I thought! These monster-people are the result of the Age of Gods Metamorphosis Magic... This means that the identity of the ohat took the pce of Yukitoshi Shimizu is the only other one who has also quered Frost Caverns of See... Jayr's enemy! The other Champion, Maoshi!!".

  Realizing this, I raise my guard knowing that he is our enemy, 'From what Freid said he is really strong, and since he is a Champion like Jayr, he could easily still be holding back, or having one or two hidden aces... But that doesn't matter, he will still die, and his death will be a sloainful one, I'll make sure of that even if I have to kill everyone in this City! For one single reason, he wants to take Jayr away from me!'.

  And so I tio kill priests and rogue knights while saving and calming as many civilians as possible, and soon I enter the one cssmates I wao meet the least, Shizuku and Kaori, as they are restraining one of the monster-people, while at the same time, struggling to deal with some priests and knights that are trying to capture them, and not because these enemies are strohahe two of them like the others of the Hero Party were able to quer the Orcus Great Labyrinth, with our help and have grown a lot strohan most of the people in this world.

  No, the reason, they are struggling is because they 't bring themselves to kill them and also they are too focused on proteg a third person, a beautiful girl with long flowing blonde hair and green eyes.

  Her beauty is atuated by the refined air of royalty that she is enveloped in, something that few other people could hope to match, she is nohan the princess of the Heiligh Kingdom, Liliana S. B. Heiligh.

  (Image Here - Liliana S. B. Heiligh)

  Spoiler

  [colpse]But seeing that they tinue holding on, I decide to simply leave them on their own, not g about their fate, but unfortunately, Kaori notices my presend while using Heaven Interruption to gee six light shields to protect herself, the monster-person, the princess and Shizuku from the priest magics, she yells "Eri! It's good that you are here help us! I don't know for how long we hold on!".

  At the same time, Shizuku once again deflects and parries the knights' attack with her swords and tinues, "We have to hurry! They took Aiko-sensei and the others who couldn't fight to the Royal Pce prison we have to get them out of there!", and so I let out a defeated sigh, raise my staff and t, "Phantom Pain!", a, a magic circle appears uhe feet of all my targets, and as it shines, all the knights and priests fall and roll on the ground screeg in agony, then without giving them any ce, my Undead Puppets e and quickly and effitly finish them off.

  It seems that such a brutal se, shocked Kaori and Shizuku, as they look at the corpse of the knights and priests in horror with eyes and mouths wide open while the princess surprise me as she seems to be only slightly unfortable with the sight but not against it, but not minding their state, I move closer to the corpse and t, "Does it hurt? Are you sad? Let me hear a pretty scream. Try to resist, curse me in your pain. You'll still be my little puppet. A pathetic little toy! Blessings to all deaths! Ridicule to every sorry soul! Spirit Binding!", and turn them all into Undead Puppets, then under my trol, they start to quickly move to other zoo restrain the mourned people and help my other cssmates that are fighting all around the city to protect the civilians a away from the Holy Church's forces.

  Then I turn around to look at them, and as nothing happened, I say, "e on! We have some people to save, right...?", which, bring them out of their stuate, and soon they quickly start to move, and now together with them I move toward the Royal Pace.

  On our way there, we meet with Ryutarou, Kouki, and the others from the Hero Party that are slowly moving toward the Royal Pace to save the ohat were captured after my and Freid's forces relieved them from the pressure of fighting the kingdom and the Holy Church's forces while proteg the civilians and the monster-people, and so once we reach the Royal Pace's gate, the full Hero Party is present, of course, minus, Yukitoshi Shimizu, sihe eook his pce it is probable that he is dead, not that I care much about him, or any of them, the only ohat matters to me is Jayr.

  Standing in front of the shut gates, Kouki asks, "So... How do we open them? We blow them away?", but Liliana shakes her head and replies, "It is impossible, the Royal Pace is protected by a really strong barrier created by a magic artifact, and the magic power is stantly supplied by 30 magis... Not only it is very hard t it down, but any damage they receive will be repaired as long as there is some magic power iifact... Maybe-".

  But she stops as suddenly a loud explosion is heard in the distance, and from here we clearly see smoke raising from a certain location in the Divine Mountain.

  Seeing that I smile and say, "It seems that Jayr is almost done over there... better hurry... I don't want to leave him aloh that Dragon girl, something about her ticks me off!", then I start to t to summon one of my Undead Puppet from my Shadow Dimension, but it seems that Liliana thinks that I ignore what she said, as she looks at me and chides, "I said that it is useless, you'll he power parable timent of magis to overe this barrier! It is use-".

  But I finish my t with, "...Rise!", and a huge figure rises from my shadow that stuns the princess with its overwhelming prese is a huge skeletal serpentine figure with seven heads, it is the Hydra, the st guardian of the Orcus Great Labyrinth, that under my and with a silent roar, it releases different colored beams from all its seven heads, that joins together into a rainbow-colored aurora that easily pierces through the barrier and erases the gate in one single sweep.

  Following that, a deafening silenvelopes the area, at least until, princess Liliana snaps out and yells, "What kind of monster is this!? The artifact barrier was never breached until now! If something like this exists out there then humanity is doomed! There is no way we fight against something like that!", but then Shizuku expins to her what the Hydra is and where one find it, but before we could be sidetracked even more, Kouki of all the people says, "e on! We have no time for that now! Aiko-sensei and the others are still waiting for us to save them".

  And so we rush ihe pace, but what we find isn't what we expected, we were ready for a regiment of knights ready to stop our advah all their forces, but the first thing that we notice is the thick iron smell of blood, then all we see is a sea of blood and mangled corpses, moreover, I clearly hear sounds of fighting ing from all over the pace, 'It is clear that here the knights are fighting and dying against something...'.

  The first to move is Kouki who quickly rushes forward, and soon we all follow him, everywhere we go, all we see are dead knights, magis, and servants, their bodies butchered in a gruesome manner, no one is spared in this massacre, and soon we reach the pce where the sounds of fighting are the loudest, we are now standing in front of the doors that leads to the throne room.

  Without hesitation, Ryutarou kicks the doors open, and we all start to rush i what greets us oher side, is the sight of a blood-paihrone room, and standing in front of the throne is what I only describe as a Demon from hell, 3 meters tall, crimson red skin with some golden tribal tattoo on his arms, shoulders, head, and horn, a pair of huge curved horns, and sharp tusks, a really long tail that ends with a triangle shaped sharp golden tip.

  (Image Here - Maoshi)

  Spoiler

  [colpse]In front of him, there is a headless corpse, but from the regal attire he is wearing, I only think of him as the King of this kingdom, Eliheid S. B. Heiligh, and indeed, in the demon's hand there is the head of a middle-aged man with long dark-blond hair and blue eyes, his expression frozen into one of pure terror, moreover, I clearly see that the bloody spine is still attached to the severed head, makihink that the demon literally ripped off the head from the king's body.

  The demon notices us and turns his head to look at us with his creepy white pupilless eyes, and with a grin that sends a shiver down my spine he says, "Good! There are some more toys to py with...", thearts to talk with himself, "Well, Ehit said that he he Hero and some others as a backup in case his pn fails... But the others are fair py, and it isn't like I have to follow all his orders, I just o use him so that I reach my objective faster...", thehrows away the king's head, and with a toothy grin, he says "I'm going to enjoy this...".

  Jayr POV - Tortus, Divine Mountain - 2013

  I don't have any more time to look at Tio as she decimates the Holy Church's forces, as Noint begins to once again attack me by shooting those annoying silver feathers, but this time, the priests' debuff is gone as they just received Tio's Dragoh, so I'm easily able t up my Gatling and shoot down all the feathers.

  Seeing that her attack was easily blocked, Noint decides to charge toward and use a frontal attack, or that appears to be, but once she reaches a certain distance, she spreads her silver wings, and the moment, from them a blinding light is emitted, but I calmly y eyes, and while still sensing her movements, I think 'Such a cssic move won't work on me! I grew up watg Dragon Ball! I trained hard so that I could be prepared for this!'.

  Immediately, I feel the presence of Noint's Mana behind me, and I'm about to turn around, but then I notice that behind there is only a bundle of harmless feathers imbued with Noint's Mana, and quickly realize, 'A decoy!', and the moment, I feel the movement of air in front of me, so without hesitation, I aim with my Gatling, using my seo pinpoint her position and pulling the trigger, with a loud roar, I release a barrage of bullets.

  Some of the shoot bullets, quickly fly towards Noint's head, but she easily evades by dug her head, while she blocks the others with one of her swords, at the same time, she gets closer and sshes at me with the other.

  But I use the time I brought by shooting, to ge the Tactical on to its Sword Form, while at the same time, I use Aeredynamic to create small barrier-like ptes of pressed air under my feet, to use as a firm foothold to move around in the air, then I use the sword to parry Noint's attack.

  Then I use the force of her attack to spin around and build up more momentum and hit her with a spinning heel kick, but Noint is able to once agai in time, and use her swords to block the attack, but the power behind the kick, flings Noint back toward one of the towers of the cathedral, that with the sound of the impact, it starts to rattle and then quickly starts to colpse.

  Seeing that I have a few seds before she recovers and es out from the crumbling tower, I quickly check my on, and as I thought, there is a small ni it, 'Just like I suspected, even if I used the hardest material avaible to make the bde, Noint's sword enhanced with Disiion Magic are still able to damage it... I have to be careful... Luckily it seems that I use Reinfort Magiewhat ter the effects, but it is a stop-gap measure at best...'.

  Theower whiointo plunged into blows off from the ground with a r sound raising a thick cloud of dust that dance around in the air, but the dust is blown away by the wind pressure of Noint's silver wings, showing me her unhurt form.

  Not wanting to waste any more time, I quickly charge at her and once close enough, I cast the water spell Rupture, geing in front of me a magic circle, from which, a stro of water es out and tries to slioint's head off as a high-speed cleaver, but as expected, Noint twist her body as she falls and avoids the sharp jet of water which went ht above her head, then she rushes at me at a dreadful speed.

  However, I'm ready for it, and I quickly cast a small volley of Gravity enhanced Sagitta Magica, Series Obscuri, and Noint who notices the dark bck rays ing at her, and knowing that her silver wings won't make it in time, she is forced to use her rge swords to intercept them.

  And so swinging her swords at hypersonic speed, she is able to cut through all the Sagitta Magica, however, she wasn't able to cut the after-effects of them that upon impact releases a strong shockwave from all the sides, which hit Noint directly and momentarily stops her movements.

  And I take advantage of that moment to activate Limit Break, and as my body is enveloped in a crimson-red light, I rush toward her and attack her with a horizontal swing of my sword.

  Nointo immediately uses her 2 rge swords as a shield, however, she isn't able to suppress the power, and as the sound of colliding of metal resounds out with a terrible roar, Noint is blown away by the intense force, meanwhile, I notice that her swords cracks uhe fory attad seems about to pletely break.

  So I don't rex and tinue my pursuit by once again casting Sagitta Magica, Series Obscuri, and a volley of dark fshes quickly move through the night sky to reach my target, who once again crosses her swords in a defeao block them.

  Nois out a groan of pain, "Kuh!!", as my magic impacts the swords oer another, with super pin-point precision, every magic arrow nds in the same pce further crag the two swords, who despise the assault aren't broke, at the same time, Noint is blown away even further and crashes against some others facilities that were solemnly decorated by the churd remain buried in the rumbles.

  I take this time to nd on the ground and check over Tio ahat she is fighting against Ishtar and his priest, she is totally overwhelming them and she ys waste of everything in her way, 'Well another few blows like that and the cathedral is going to colpse... In fact, it already be sidered in a state of ruin...', but then I stop as I sehat Noint used her magiove underground and is nht below me about to lunch a surprise attack.

  Then, at the moment of the attack, I calmly jamp away, and look as the ground where I stood a few seds ago explodes, then Noint fps her wings and flies out of the hole, thearts to attack me with a rge number of silver feathers that are shot out like a maegun, while also releasing a bombardment of silver light beams, the Disiion Magic.

  But I dodge all the beams, while at the same time, I ge my on to its Sword Arm Form, and using the bdes, I deflect all the feathers she shot, while at the same time, I charge at her, quickly closing the distance.

  But then something ges, and I notice that Noint's attacks have bee a lot strohey are basically in a whole new dimension pared to before, and looking closely at her, I see that every part of Noint's body is silver magid is releasing overwhelming pressure, 'It looks like she is also using Limit Break... she not only is strohan before but also faster... but still, this isn't enough!'.

  I decide that it is finally time to end this and stop holding back, I quickly move behind Noint, so fast that she is barely able to react, and like a spinning top, I swing my twin rge swords that gather immense power thanks to the trifugal force.

  Noint surprises me as she moves faster than ever before, and is able to put up her swords as a shield at the st moment, but it isn't enough, as my bdes split her already damaged swords in half, but that does buy her some time, while I spin one more time, and gather even more force while fog all the magic power of Limit Break into my swords that start to shine in bright red light.

  And in a st effort to block my attaoint leaks out a bitter void s herself with her silver wings like a co.

  Silver magitaining Disiion Magic shines out brightly, it looks exactly like a moon, at the same time, the bright red magical power of Limit Break shines more and more on my body and sword, soon the silver moon is pletely cut into halves by twht red lines.

  My swords easily cut through Noint's magic, wings, and body, leaving behind a bright red trail in the air, then blood starts to leak out of her body, and soon the upper part starts to slide off and fall on the ground.

  Then as the two halves of her body fall on the ground, Noint looks at me in shock as she asks, "How... could you be... this strong? Are all the Irregur like you... Wait... You aren't an Irregur... You... are... an... Invader...", but even in this state there is ion in her voice, and I 't help but feel pity for this creature in front of me, 'For a moment she was truly surprised... She has the potential to be a living being, but all she knows is how to serve her creator... There is no happiness, no sadness, oiness and following ands, even if somewhere inside her the potential to feel emotions and be something more is there... Only it is suppressed because that is what Ehit needs, a Soulless Puppet...'.

  Soon Noint's eyes return back to the soulless almost meical ohen they quickly lose their lights and bee hollows, and her body falls down onto a remote hillside nearby the church building.

  I move to her side and look at her body unsure of what to do, 'Should I keep the body so that I revive her once I deal with Ehit and give her a ce to truly live? Leave it here? Burn it? Follow the #2 rule of Zombiend and double tap?', but as I was about to decide, all of the sudden, a huge explosion roars out and causes the Divine Mountain to shake severely.

  And looking back, the spectacle that greets my eyes is the churd its cathedral colpsing while a huge mushroom cloud forms from it with a r sound and mutter "Well, looks like Tio is dooo... But isn't that an overkill?", then I unsciously pick up Noint's body and put it into my S.T. where I freeze it with a Freezing Coffin, then I rush toward what remains of the cathedral.

  Ohere, I see that Tio is flying over the ruins in her Dragon From, it seems that she notices me as she quickly nds in front of me and transforms bato her human form then with a timid smile she asks, "Ma, master... how are things on your side?", and I reply with, "I'm done... And it seems that you too finished, I'm gd you are fine... But isn't a little too much?".

  Tio seems embarrassed as she expins what happened, basically, my and Noint's fight did cause more damage than I thought as it brought down many of the barriers that the Holy Church erected all around the cathedral and weakened many others, one of which, kept the most votile and dangerous substances safe and separated, and the fight between Tio and the Pope's group was the final spark, well, final Dragoh down that precise barrier, that caused the substao mix cause an explosion s that if seen by a certain ninja with too many mouths would cause him to have an asm while yelling, "Art... is an EXPLOSION!".

  Then Tio says, "It isn't this one fault... This one didn't think that the Holy Church would have such dangerous substances in such a pce... But on the good side, the entire Holy Church is eradicated, no one survived the explosion!", and as she says this, my eyes waoward the cathedral ruins, and as Tio does the same, I say, "Yup, they were likely bloith it...", and Tio adds, "The church just put too much faith in their barrier. It was also a surprise attack, pletely defenseless against that bst, it's likely none are alive".

  Then Tio notices something and says, "Master. There's a person. He clearly doesn't seem to be ordinary...", I quickly turn to look where Tio is pointing ahat there is definitely a man with a bald head and wearing white vestments desding, his body is transparent and he is swinging waveringly.

  The man with the bald head seems to realize that we saw him as he turns around and starts heading back, he is moving as if gravity does and slips and slides to the other side of the mountain rubble.

  Aurns around just before he disappeared to gnce over at us, and seeing that Tio warily asks, "What should we do, master?", but I uood what is going on, and say, "Let's follow him... He will lead us to the Age of Gods magic", and so we start to follow the soul/ghost/residual image, and step into the pce where the bald man had just disappeared.

  The bald man's figure shows himself on a while as we advahrough the ruins, and after 5 minutes of walking we finally reach our destination, the bald man stood quietly while looking straight at Tio and me.

  Then the bald man silently points at some heap of rubble, his gnce seems to tell us to advance, so I look at Tio, who nods bad both go toward that location.

  And ohere, the rubble begins to levitate and the ground underh it begins to shine faintly, I also see the crest of the Liberator shining slightly, firming my suspi, then the light that the groued s us, and in the instant, we are standing in a pletely unknown strange space.

  It isn't that big, the room is painted lustrously bck, a magiation is drawn in the ter, and there is an antique book on the pedestal by its side, this is clearly the st room of the Labyrinth, then I look at Tio who nods and without hesitation, we move ihe magiation.

  As the magiation lights up, it isn't the usual feeling of my memories being examined, but there is a sense of something going deeper inside, quite an unpleasant one, so much that Tio lets out a groan, but it st for only a moment as the knowledge of magic is impnted directly into my head, then I hear Tio say, "...Spirit Magic?", and I ent, "Yes, a magic that lets you manipute the soul...", then I ighe book on the pedestal as for sure will tell the same story I have already heard, plus maybe some details of the liberator's life, and only take the ring from the pedestal, then we quickly leave the pce using the ring.

  Done here, we quickly fly back to the Capital City ahat Freid's familiar are still flying around catg mourned people, but the majority of the u iy's streets is quelled, but the Royal Pace is totally on fire, and so without hesitation, we hurry toward it.

  Ohere, I see something that makes my blood freeze while a fury I have never felt before almost takes trol of my whole being.

  What I saw through the destroyed roof of the pce is the sight of a 3 meters tall demon-like being with red skin, all around him are the bodies of the Hero Party most of them broken almost unreizable, and he is holding in his huge hand Eri's bleeding torso, the lower half of her body ripped apart and bleeding.

  Odyin