"Wah…" Francis can't help but gawk at the earth crumbling below, seeing as it is her first time seeing an earthquake. Never in her wildest dream would she watch the earth, something she'd known to be far more durable than any men or ship, to be torn apart so wildly like that. Thankfully, she has her flying ship, so she and Gareth are safely floating above all the chaos.
'But still, isn't this really bad?'
Everything had been quite normal just a few minutes ago. Hanami and Shirou had gone into the mansion while she and Gareth watched from a distance away. Then, Shirou's presence disappeared, her connection with her master was suddenly muted, a powerful surge of prana shot out from the Matou mansion, and the world suddenly began to explode.
"Can...we do anything…?" Gareth says, her voice unsure. Francis hoped to assure her that everything's fine, that things would turn out fine in the end, but she can't say that, not when everything's become like...this.
Francis sighs, turning back to drive the helm, but three individuals suddenly make themselves known, "Gareth!" She shouts, and the knight quickly snaps into attention and jumps back, in time to avoid the lance that was thrown towards her.
"...Just in time, huh?" A man says, his wild red hair swaying as he pulls back his lance from the deck, with two other landing just behind him; one a handsome man of Indian origins with a bow of divinity, and the other a goddess turned monster, with accursed eyes to turn those she looks to into stone.
'...Huh? Where did that come from?'
Somehow, just in a glance, she came to know who they are, and as much as she liked to boast about her skills, instant knowledge just isn't one of them.
She shakes her head, pushing the thought for later. For now, three opposing servants have stepped onto her ship, and as ship captain, it's her job to take out the intruders. "Gareth!"
"Yes!" And so they charge, with Gareth facing Li Shu Wen and Francis taking care of the other two.
Make no mistake though, she knows she's outclassed. Facing Medusa alone won't be too hard, but with a divine being like Arjuna as her opponent, she's sure this battle will be an uphill one.
So, together with Gareth, she jumps from her ship, and taking some inspiration from those movies the grail had for some reason supplied her with, she let the cannons on her ship malfunction. A spark bounces through the entire ship, before the flying ship explodes into a blinding light, looking almost like a sun in the dead of night.
Francis takes a glance at her partner, the timid girl now replaced by a determined knight. "Good luck!" She says, smiling, and as the three servants begin to follow, Francis summons the [Golden Hind] once more and shoots Gareth with one of her cannons, sending her far away. She does the same to Li, the other one who can't fly, firing one of her cannons at him and sending her flying towards Gareth. With Gareth and Li separated from them, she begins to fly away with the remaining two on her trail.
Now, did she say that this was going to be an uphill battle?
Let's make it slightly more fair, shall we?
Excited, she takes out two pearls, one deep red and the other yellow. It feels rather incredible actually, her skin shivering from the enormous amount of prana condensed into the two orbs, the feeling comparable to her touching one of Fuyuki's leylines.
How did Hanami get these anyways?
Those questions aside, she swiftly crushed both pearls in her hands, and light envelops her. She's pleasantly surprised to find how comfortable the light feels, but that's probably because those pearls belonged to her master. Slowly, as the light fades, two new presences make themselves known on her ship deck.
And surprised she definitely was.
One is a giant crimson woman, sitting atop a flower of cracked dark stone, a goddess cursed and left alone by the believers she once had, and the other a girl that looks fairly similar to Saber, just with her blonde hair let down, her eyes blue instead of green, and a pair of dragon horns and wings visible on her body.
A lot of new people are appearing…
It's rather annoying actually, especially with how their information and history somehow just appears instantly in her mind without her wanting to. Still, at least she knows what each of her new comrades can do.
"I will assist as well." A familiar voice sounds, and she turns to see Caster land by her side, looking as stoic and emotionless as always.
And again, something sparks, and knowledge starts flowing into her mind, just this time about the woman standing beside her.
An extraterrestrial existence, once living on the moon before fleeing onto the earth below. A genius of unparalleled intelligence and skill, capable of creating magical concoctions at a moments notice. A woman loyal to the princess she'd given immortality to, vowing to spend such immortality together with her.
She is Yagokoro Eirin, the cause of the Imperishable Night.
"I'm down with that!" Francis says, before turning to Amarilla and the Brimstone Elemental. "You two, mind taking on Medusa?" She says casually, and in the distance Medusa recoils slightly, surprised her identity is revealed so quickly. The two look at the pirate captain, confused. "The one with her eyes covered."
"A-Ah, we will, Captain Francis!" The dragoon says, bringing out a pair of knives from her back. The elemental silently nods, burning embers already beginning to flare around her. Then, just as Medusa is about to crash her Pegasus onto the [Golden Hind], the two take to the skies and promptly knocks the rider down from her steed and towards the earth.
Which leaves her, Eirin, and Arjuna. A two on one, with that one being a god.
Seems fair enough.
"So, like last time?" Francis asks, grinning at the woman beside her.
"Like last time." She says, smiling, and just like last time, she brings forward three of her Noble Phantasms.
"[Sovereign of the Moon]"
"[Lunar Technology]"
"[Imperishable Night]"
A specialized reality marble appears over them all, turning the turbulent night sky calm, only filled with a moon far larger than the usual. The effects of gravity lessens over the ship, the forces pulling the ship back weakens. Electricity arcs through the entire build, turning every piece of technology within the ship into a technological marvel. The ship's cannons turn into powerful railguns and the ship's normal navigation disappears, instead replaced by thrusters for travelling through the stars.
But unlike last time, that strange spark inside her mind lights again, and a painful amount of knowledge decided to make themselves home inside her head. Concepts of gravity, the blueprints for the railguns and the thrusters on her new upgraded ship, and the ins and outs of the reality marble Eirin had casted over them.
Most of them are all moon-speak to her, but one thing is clear, and her grin grows impossibly bigger.
"[Resplendent Plunder]!"
It's a Noble Phantasm that increases her power depending on how much treasure she has. A Noble Phantasm built around her life as a pirate of the seas.
She had no treasures, not right now at least. Instead, the ship she helmed has received a massive upgrade, one far more intricate and expensive than anything on this earth. So by technicality, the market value of the things she now owned has skyrocketed.
Sadly, she didn't-, no, couldn't account for how much treasure her master had.
What was supposed to be a fairly minor Noble Phantasm suddenly became several times more taxing than her [Golden Wild Hunt], and it's only barely that she manages to hold herself straight. Fatigue shoots through her as most of her prana disappears and vertigo strikes her mind as her class parameters are forcefully altered, increased far beyond what is supposed to be normal.
Francis Drake (Rider)
Master: Tsunaka Hanami
Strength: A
Endurance: A+
Agility: EX
Mana: B+
Luck: EX
Noble Phantasm: EX
'W-What?' Francis nearly chokes as she reads her parameters. They don't look like hers, not at all. Having an EX on one attribute is great enough, but having three? Furthermore, her strength, endurance, and mana jumped by 3 ranks or so.
Her body still feels somewhat sluggish from the recent jump in power, but she's already recovering the prana she'd lost, regenerating energy at an incredible rate. It feels almost euphoric, as if she'd drowned herself with kegs after kegs of expensive rum.
Ah...it's been a while since she drank some nice rum…
"Are you alright, Rider? Our ship's about to crash." Eirin casually states, pointing at the skyscraper their ship is heading towards. "...Oh." Francis laughed silently, before taking control of the helm and moving it out of the way. She let out a soft sigh. "That's over-, wait, where's the archer?"
"...Are you sure you're alright, Rider? We've been trading attacks for several minutes now."
"Eh? Have we now?" Perhaps the upgrade had done her in more than she first expected. Oh well. She turns to look at where Arjuna now is, and she sees him a distance away, firing arrows of divine flames to counter the projectiles automatically fired from her ship's upgraded cannons.
"He seems to be dragging this out." Francis says, knowing that the ancient hero isn't even trying, using only a small portion of his authority to counter her ship's railguns. "I assume he's trying to wear you down." Eirin supplies, and she can't quite help but grin. "Then why don't we turn the tides?"
Eirin goes silent for a moment, before she smiles. "Let us."
Turning the ship to face the approaching archer, Francis aims her pistols. "Fire! [Culverin Cannons]!" Behind her, portals of rippling gold appear, much like Gilgamesh's gates, and out from them comes giant railguns, much like the one on her upgraded ship. Eirin follows along, drawing her bow with as much energy as she can, and together, they fire.
Arjuna looks at it, before firing another arrow of blue fire, one much larger than those before it. The two sides clash in a bright explosion, but that momentary blindness is enough to catch him off guard as the front of the Golden Hind is smashed onto his perfect face, launching him through several buildings and most definitely creating more destruction than needed.
The ship isn't stopping anytime soon however, and they continue their chase, firing railguns and bolts of moonlight at the archer. After some more seconds spent twirling through the air, Arjuna finally reclaims his balance and rushes forth, flying right towards the approaching ship, lighting himself with blue flames before crashing right into the ship.
The 'ship' cracks and the wooden planks that make up its body break apart, only to reveal a layer of thick titanium plating under it. His eyes widen in surprise as he sees the metal harmless take in his impact, his flames seemingly nullified by the plating.
But he continues, placing his hand onto the ship plating and concentrating as much fire as he can, even as Francis' railguns continue to shoot him. Pain shoots through him as one oddly powerful railgun shot burns through his left leg, but he remains silent, focusing as much heat to melt the ship plating.
Then, his efforts begin to bear fruit as he sees the plating begin to turn red, but the ship suddenly jerks to a stop, before flying forward again, smashing the front onto his face once more. He's flung back again, however he swiftly regains his balance and summons his bow. He draws its divine string, and with the flames given to him by Indra, he notches an arrow.
One that had shot down the glaring sun.
A glance is all Francis needs to know what that arrow is, and the amount of firepower resting inside it. She knows the ship's plating can take some serious damage before it begins to break, but she's not going to try and tank that damned arrow.
So she quickly turns the ship and begins to fly away, heading towards the last group of buildings still standing in hopes of using some of them as cover.
"Hey, Caster, mind building some defense around us?" Francis says as she points a finger at Arjuna, who's currently shining as bright as the sun with an arrow notched on his bow. "The guy's about to throw some major firepower."
"...How many layers should I maintain?"
"Eh?" Francis blinks at the question, surprised the woman would trust such an important question to her.
[Twenty two layers]
"Twenty...two layers." She blurts out, and Caster nods before casting her magic. Rows of bamboo grow out horizontally through the buildings, intersecting and overlapping over one another and surrounding the Golden Hind in a makeshift magical shield. Just as she'd suggested, exactly twenty two layers are formed over and around them, and Caster then dedicates all her attention to making them last as long as possible.
Idly Francis realizes that a strange, familiar yet mechanical voice has been supplying her mind with knowledge, information a woman from the age of piracy shouldn't even be able to comprehend.
But that's a question she can ask for a later time. The amount of prana being expelled into the air has reached its peak, and she can hear the small voice of Arjuna. Calling its name, his voice far too small for her to clearly comprehend, he aims it at them and releases the arrow, letting it blitz through the air.
And soon, everything goes white as the arrow strikes the wall of magical bamboo, exploding with the power of the stars of old. Francis' eardrums ring, her balance sways, and her ship rocks in place as shockwaves pass through their shield, but she ignores all that. Summoning her [Culverin Cannons] once again, she aims them at where Arjuna's rough presence is, waiting for the wall before her to open up.
Several seconds pass, and just like that strange voice supplied her with, the twenty two layers of magical bamboo is just enough to hold back the entire blow, with only minor scratches forming on her skin as sharp chunks of bamboo are flung back towards her. However, with the path clear and Arjuna only half-way to notching his next arrow, Francis smirks.
The space around her begins to distort as ships of old, those vassals that had once sailed together with her appear all around her, floating atop an unseen sea in the air. Their number is numerous, far too many for a sole person to count, and the increase in her overall parameters causes even more ships to be summoned than normal, crowding the sky in floating ships.
It all grows exponentially from there. With her increased parameters, the ship's stats are brought up as well, and they're further boosted as Caster's passive magic is applied to them as well, turning their wooden shell into one suited for travelling through the stars.
All that happened in a split second.
"Remember my name by the death from my passing!"
Her Culverin Cannons fire, and with them the ships begin their attack, filling the skies with streaks of white.
"Temeroso el Draque! I am the woman who set the sun!"
Arjuna quickly summons a shield of fire, burning away as much of the incoming projectiles before they come too close. His eyes narrow, tingles of pain beginning to appear as the shield he created starts to break from the endless shower of railgun projectiles.
"The king of storms, a swarm of ghosts! You rascals, it's time!"
Francis looks to the struggling Archer, and with a wide smile, her eyes shine gold.
"[Golden Wild Hunt]!"
Every single ship she summoned arms itself, and at the same moment, they fire. Shockwaves ripple through the air as countless objects break past the sonic barrier. Every projectile makes impact with the shield, and overwhelmed, it shatters, and Arjuna can only watch before he's bombarded by an endless barrage of attacks.
Francis sighs, sweat pouring down the back of her neck. Her prana is nearly depleted again, and already she can feel the ships all around her begin to fade, but she stops them, anchoring their existence back onto the world with the small amount of prana she has left.
Because she knows, even without that voice telling her, that even that isn't quite enough to take him down.
As long as the man known as Arjuna still lives, victory will never be assured.
In the distance, the man lets out a wet cough as blood pours out from the many holes the railguns had blown through him. Most had hit his arms and legs, with several blowing through his lungs, but his other vital organs are fine, the control over his authority still active, and with it, he calls upon his final phantasm.
Gathering as much flames as his dying body can handle, he squeezes them all into one small sphere, its form an ethereal shifting blue with tips of flames escaping from its skin. He raises his hand, and with another cough, he sends the orb flying into the sky above.
"By...Shiva's wrath...the world shall end."
"[Pashupata]."
Then, like the final moments of a dying star, the orb shatters, and out from it comes a brilliant shower of fire, each bolt spreading out and descending towards the earth. With his task done, Arjuna closes his eyes and floats there, his heart no longer beating.
That's...not good.
"Got any ideas, Caster?"
"...A few. However, most would destroy your ships, this one included." Caster says simply, and Francis looks at her, before shrugging. "Not much we can do. Either the world burns or we die trying."
"Good enough." Nodding, Caster lays out the plan, and internally Francis cringes. Her prana is already low enough as it is, and even with the additional regenerating energy given from the mana potion Caster gives her, it'll still suck her prana out completely. There's a high chance she'd burn herself completely and fade away, but it isn't like they had any better ideas anyway.
Taking a deep breath, Francis steels herself, and as she'd done a lifetime ago, she commands all her ship to move, stopping right above her and creating an almost net-like formation all over the city below. Then, together with Caster, she connects all the ships into one giant formation, causing every gap between the ships to be filled with energy, creating a wide makeshift shield over the entirety of Fuyuki.
The falling flames approach fast, and with speeds of falling stars, they crash onto the shield. Immediately she feels her prana being drained to maintain the shield. Seconds pass, but it feels like hours of draining torture as she feels her life slowly being sucked out, her body slowly failing as fatigue overwhelmed her muscles.
Suddenly, something else crashes onto her shield, carrying more impact than all the previous falling pillars of flames combined, blowing away all nearby falling flames, and she only barely manages to hold the shield from tearing apart. By her side, Caster staggers back in surprise, and they both look up to see just what had hit them.
Only to see a...person?
Francis blinks in surprise, not expecting to see a person, especially someone who looked like a highschooler suddenly fall from the sky. He looks completely average actually, with his black hair slick back and a white school uniform.
But even muted, his presence is that like the ever endless night, far wider than she can comprehend.
Everything goes silent, and the two servants simply stare, surprised. Then, a minute passes, and another presence appears, this one strikingly familiar.
"Touch...down." A voice says, sounding far too casual for such a situation, and Francis can't quite help but smile.
After all, the one floating above them all is Tsunaka Hanami.
My battle with the one known as Ryoji Mochizuki started out rather terribly, with me being in the back fence and forced to try and kill this being with literally infinite HP. No, seriously, I used my Mystic Eyes on him, and his HP was literally spelled out as [Infinite].
It was impossible, with all my stats being drained by one of the curses he cast on me and [Alma'Mal'Sara]'s stat boost only barely making up for it. Well, that, and him constantly flinging out miniature suns at me. It also didn't help that I needed to focus on maintaining the Empty ID I placed both of us into from breaking from all the prana being thrown about.
Which I failed in the end, seeing how Fuyuki city looks like it'd been hit by thousands of natural disasters at the same time.
But then a light bulb lit in my head, and I delved as deep into my memory as I could.
The opponent trying to burn me is Ryoji Mochizuki, an avatar of Nyx, the goddess of night and the one prompted to end humanity by Erebus. Why is she so powerful? She is the goddess of night, the primal being that rules over the night sky.
The night sky.
The moment I realized I palmed my face as hard as I could. Nyx is invisible when night rolls around, so of course Ryoji's HP is infinite. I'd probably shot myself in the foot by deciding to attack at night.
Then, I had an epiphany. What sort of place would have no 'night', where casualties can be the least of my worries, and allow me to have some sort of advantage over this undying entity?
Why, Nyx may be the goddess of night, but can she handle space?
So, with my plan built, I lured Ryoji in by taking a hit, and when he stood above me ready to throw down two miniature blue suns, or [Megidolaons] as they're called, at my face for good measure, I flipped the gravity around us and promptly flung both of us into the stratosphere. Thankfully, my Agility debuff doesn't seem to slow my gravity down, and with Ryoji still too surprised to understand what's happening, I continued to push us both towards the cold grasp of space.
That was when my first problem arose.
I couldn't breathe. As much as I've grown, I'm still human and my need for oxygen is very much present. There were still some in the higher atmospheres, so I could simply save my breath for later, but when we finally shot out of earth's gravitational pull and into space, my lungs basically froze over as it struggled for air.
I quickly realized I could just buy oxygen tanks from the [Item Store], tear them open, and use my control over gravity to create an artificial oxygen bubble around me.
The second problem I had was Ryoji's inherent powers from the moon. So once we were in space, I pushed us both away from both the earth and the moon, and just in case, I headed the opposite way of the moon. Since there's no gravity in space, it became exponentially easier to direct gravity and basically pull us both deeper into empty space.
And, when I finished all that, I was delighted to see that Ryoji had an actual number next to his HP. It was still ludicrously high, 50 million to be exact, but I didn't care. It's a number, and numbers can go down.
Of course, I still needed to take him down, which brought me to my third problem, how? What would be the best way to take down such a titanic amount of health?
[Poison Dimiiorga] sadly couldn't be used. I tried firing one bolt at him, but Ryoji merely shrugged it off, probably because he didn't count as a [Living] enemy, which was annoying.
[Attribute Enchant: Dragon] doesn't work either, since Ryoji's the avatar of Nyx, the goddess of night, which means that he's [Divine]. Hell, [Morningstar]'s enchant effect doesn't work either! Nyx isn't considered good or evil, so she doesn't have the [Demonic] trait, and Ryoji obviously isn't [Undead].
So, with an internal groan, I'm forced to only use my normal, unenchanted skills.
The first thing I did was rid myself of the annoying debuff he put on me earlier, and it wasn't actually all that hard. All I needed to do was find the curse and flood it with prana before letting my [Magic Resistance] to do the rest.
I guess I was too occupied on not getting fried by Ryoji to notice.
The fight itself isn't actually all that interesting. There weren't many fancy moves being thrown about. All we did was basically bombard each other with the strongest attacks we both have, him his [Megidolaon], an insanely powerful and hot condensed ball of plasma, and me my giant bolts of lightning.
What was quite interesting however was the stage we played in. Empty space was as fun as it was slippery. With no gravity or air molecules to stop our movements, our speed increased drastically. It felt like I was on overdrive the entire time and it actually made my head spin slightly with how slippery everything felt. I at least had my control over gravity, which allowed me to stabilize myself when needed. Ryoji wasn't so lucky, with him being flung left and right.
I actually thought he would've had an easier time, seeing as he can float and all, but I guess he just wasn't used to flying in an area without gravity.
Furthermore, while my attacks don't carry much kinetic energy, Ryoji's do, and even the explosions of the smaller suns he threw at me caused us both to be blasted away like crazy.
All in all, most of the beginning made me feel like a pinball being bonked around, in space.
But then, Ryoji suddenly threw a series of five Megidoloans, they exploded, my control over gravity went slightly haywire, and we were sent flying at high speeds.
Towards the asteroid belt.
~~~
Well, shit.
Five megidolaons exploded, gravity amplified its impact, and now Ryoji and I are twirling through space and heading towards the asteroid belt. Thankfully, mars is on the other end of the solar system, so we won't be plummeting into that red sandy planet anytime soon, but now we're heading towards the outer reaches of the solar system.
And holy hell does it feel uncomfortable.
The farther we go, the less of the sun's heat is reaching us, and damn I've never felt so cold in my life. On earth, even in areas not touched by sunlight, the sun's heat is still there, somewhat trapped in those secluded areas.
That aside, our bout continues. I shoot a giant bolt of lightning at him, and he manages to spin to the side slightly to let the bolt burn through his left arm instead of his heart. He screams silently, and as he regenerates his lost limb, four more megidolaons formed and was thrown at me. I activate [Morningstar], space-time bends, and I'm pulled downwards, letting the megidolaons explode harmlessly above me.
And then, we finally reach the asteroid belt, and with a smile, I pull a nice couple asteroids from their intended path and slam them right onto Ryoji's face. With a feeling of satisfaction, I watch as he's pulled along before giving chase, firing bolts of lightning every moment I can.
You know, the asteroid belt isn't actually as cluttered as I imagined. I mean, in the movies this place would be completely filled with asteroids flying and crashing into each other every second or so, but there's actually quite a lot of space between each asteroid, giving me enough space to comfortably pull myself through the gaps.
Of course, just because it's not completely cluttered doesn't mean there's only a small number of asteroids. With my Mystic Eyes, I counted about thirty thousand asteroids or so in my close vicinity, and that's only a small section of the belt!
Man, I would like to visit this place again someday. When I'm not being forced to fight of course.
As I chased, I fired arcs of lightning, which he countered with explosive balls of hot plasma, each exploding when close and causing hot chunks of rock to fly everywhere. Thankfully, my Noble Phantasm's passive shield's able to block out most of them, but some of those chunks are being sent at 20 or even 30 times the speed of sound, making even the smallest chunks dangerous.
After a while, I began hopping from asteroid to asteroid instead of simply flying, both to conserve my MP and SP. The fight's gone on for about 10 minutes now, and I'm beginning to feel the effects, with both HP and MP at just above half and my SP a third.
And annoyingly,
[Ryoji Mochizuki]
[HP: 26,764,091/50,000,000]
At least he can't seem to heal, so that's one nice thing about this entire thing.
I leaped forward, passing by the megidolaon Ryoji threw earlier and landing on the next asteroid. Pushing my staff forward, the gravity around Ryoji bent, and four large asteroids besieged him from all sides, trapping him in a cocoon of cold space rocks. Then, before he could launch himself out of there, I gathered a portion of the oxygen around me, super-heated it, and fired it right into him.
A second passed, and with a brilliant light show the asteroids trapped him exploded, taking a nice chunk off his HP.
Then four megidolaons appear all around me, and Ryoji followed suit, pushing the four to crash onto me. I grit my teeth, knowing just one good hit from a megidolaon could knock off a quarter of my HP. They were too close to simply escape from, and I can almost feel the confident smile returning to Ryoji's face.
But, you see, there's another reason I've been jumping from asteroid to asteroid.
A god he may be, but gods are static. Unchanging.
My magic circuits flared, lightning coursed through my lungs, and the asteroid I stood on cracked as I tensed my legs. An unremarkable sword appeared in my other hand, and activating my Mystic Eyes, everything blurs into a single line.
"[First Form:"
Lightning strikes, and thunder flashed in its wake.
"Thunder Clap and Flash]!" At speeds comparable to lightning, I leaped forward and past the approaching attacks. Ryoji's eyes widened, his magic about to be casted, but it was far too slow. My sword flashed, and an arc of lightning exploded upwards as his body was cut, the wound hot and smoldering, filled with traces of supercharged plasma.
[Due to certain actions, you have gained the skill [First Form: Thunder Clap and Flash]!]
I slowed my fall and gently landed on an asteroid a distance away. I breathed out a sigh, before my chest was filed with pain, the adverse effects of supercharging my body showing. Still, I remained standing and turned to Ryoji, his face twisted in silent pain as the wound finally cooled.
[Ryoji Mochizuki]
[HP: 19,114,223/50,000,000]
I smirk happily at the nice 7 million missing, along with the fact that his body was still electrified from the attack, hampering his movements. I could do three more of the same before I ran out of MP, and by then his HP would've reached zero.
But I knew he wouldn't fall for the same trick twice.
Slowly, he jerked his head around, and his mouth moved. No sound came out, but I caught it nonetheless, my Mystic Eyes flared, and my body went cold.
[Armageddon]
The strongest of the almighty spells, spells that took power and form of the stars. If [Megidolaon] had been a miniature sun packed with turbulent energy, then [Armageddon] is a full-on supernova, one that bent space around it before shining with the force of a dying star.
I'm blinded as light began to gather above him, gathering and swirling into one orb of packed destruction. I fire a multitude of lightning bolts at both him and the charging [Armageddon], but Ryoji doesn't move, taking the attack without flinching, and my lightning did nothing against the charging attack, simply being absorbed by it.
Then, Ryoji summoned an entire army of megidolaons, and I quickly prepare myself to jump away, but he didn't fire them at me. Instead, he aimed them up, and they were all absorbed into the charging armageddon, speeding it up even faster.
I realized then and there that there was no running away. I might survive if I flew far enough, but would the rest of the solar system take it well? The other planets might, but earth surely wouldn't, and trying to contain it in an [Empty ID] would be a lost cause, seeing as it wasn't even able to contain a combined explosion of 15 or so megidolaons.
I threw a giant bolt of lightning at his head, and this time, Ryoji doesn't dodge. Whether because he couldn't or because he was simply that confident in his spell working, I didn't care. The bolt struck through, and it fried his brain completely. All semblance of life disappeared from him, and his body went limp.
But I didn't have time to rest. Not now.
So I rose from the asteroid and flew. I flew as fast as I could around the asteroid belt, and as I did so, I gathered all the asteroids I encountered and sent them flying back towards the charging [Armageddon]. I stacked them all over one another, layering them over the ultimate spell.
Soon, the layered rocks around it grew to the size of the mountain, and not long after that, a small moon.
I was halfway through clearing through the asteroid belt when I felt something in the spell shift, and I hurried back to the miniature planet of rocks I created. As a final defense, I created as many layers of shields as I could mentally handle. Layers over layers of prana were molded over it, and soon, an almost atmosphere-like structure was formed over the fake planet.
I wonder what would happen if I made an actual planet like this…
But that's a thought for another time. Taking out one last canister of oxygen and ripping its contents open, I flew a distance away, just enough for me to maintain my control over the layered shields.
Then, the spell finished charging, and as my Mystic Eyes had supplied me,
Armageddon occurred.
The ultimate spell exploded outwards with the force of, well, the sun. Perhaps not as brilliant as an actual supernova, but it sure as hell looked like one. The thing was like thousands of [Megidolaons] exploding at once, but even worse. The explosion itself was already dangerous enough, but the shockwaves being produced from it was just as insane. I could feel my bones creaking from all the shockwaves passing through me, and the bones I didn't quite manage to reinforce in time were broken in an instant.
The miniature planet I built began to crack, beams of light seeping out and escaping into the cold reaches of space. Cracks ran across the jagged surface of the rocky fake planet, my barriers shook as they did their best to contain as much of the blast within them. Finally, the surface of the planet was destroyed, swallowed by the expanding supernova, and now it's my barriers' turn.
They immediately began to break. One by one, the layers I placed atop the imploding star is being broken, unable to contain all the energy being released. Still, even as they broke, I maintained my hold on them, keeping them steady and strong as long as I could possibly handle.
But it wasn't going to be enough. The expanding nova would escape.
I began opening small holes all around the layers, then using my control over gravity to direct some of the energy inside to safely escape into space. Two larger holes were made at the shield's northern and southern poles, allowing a much bigger amount of the magical energy to escape above and below, making the entire thing look like a pulsar.
But still, it wasn't going to be enough.
So I took drastic measures.
[Morningstar] activated, and slowly, I began to push the entire energetic structure away from earth, slowly but surely moving it out of the solar system.
As I expected, doing so was much harder. I may have gotten stronger, but I was only able to topple skyscrapers a level ago. An object the size of a small planet wasn't something I would be able to move so easily.
However, I pushed.
My magic circuits were stretched to their utmost limit. My right hand bled, its muscles tearing apart from the amount of force I was trying to put out from it. Space around us bent unnaturally, the bendable stage of space-time uncomfortably close to being torn.
I opened some more holes in the structure, but they were facing my direction this time. The energy from the imploding star inside escaped, dispersing into empty space as arcs of bright blue plasma.
I'd turned it into a giant thruster, powered by its own chaotic energy and our speed began to increase. No longer was I alone in pushing the imploding star, with me anchoring myself to the ultimate spell's gravitational pull to lighten the load. Still, I kept pushing, making sure the [Armageddon] didn't stray away from the intended path while also keeping the layers of shields stable for as long as I could.
As we got farther, the effects of the sun's gravitational pull weakened, my efforts to push the [Armageddon] became easier, and it all exponentially increased from there. The sound barrier was easily broken, and soon, we began our climb towards the speed of light. The environment around me impossibly bent as I traveled at speeds no normal mortal should be able to.
But I didn't have enough time.
Before long, with my Mystic Eyes activated, I could see that there were only several seconds before the entire thing would break through my shields. I hadn't made it out of the solar system, instead reaching the long stretches of space where the dwarf planets of the solar system existed.
There was no more I could do.
So, I let go.
I detached myself from the gravitational pull of the [Armageddon] spell, and flung myself back towards earth. With too much distance between us, my control over my shields broke, the layers of protection were torn apart in an instant,
And with the might of the primal gods, the spell exploded.
It was truly beautiful, almost like a cascade of rainbows, exploding and expanding out into the cold reaches of the cosmos with a ring of melting plasma expanding out from it. A dwarf planet had unluckily been in range of the spell, and in awe I watched as it was burnt and blown up the moment the spell's shockwaves reached it.
My Mystic Eyes went to work, calculating and reaching towards the future to see if earth would be safe from such power.
Sadly, it wasn't. Earth would be hit by it, but it would survive. Hell may fall upon the rest of the world, mostly the western hemisphere, it'd make it through. That was enough.
But now, there was one last thing I needed to do.
I had to survive.
Thankfully, this step wasn't as hard as it might seem. All I needed to do was wait for the spell's shockwave to reach me, and when it did, I used my control of gravity to lift myself up and ride the waves back home. Of course, I still needed to create layers of shields around me to protect my body from being exploded, but I'd contained an entire planet's worth of energy, this one wasn't as hard.
So, I let myself rest as I rid the shockwaves back to earth. With the adrenaline fading, exhaustion began to weigh me down, but I kept myself awake, watching in tired interest as the other planets dealt with the spell's flaming shockwaves. The gas giants barely flinched from it, with only Neptune being slightly affected due to it being the closest.
Mars and earth weren't so lucky though. Mars' surface exploded, and the dust rose into the turbulent air, covering the impacted side in a giant red dust storm.
Earth's western hemisphere suffered the same symptoms. The shockwaves passed right through the atmosphere and hit the earth. The earth shook as the cosmic blast caused earthquakes to rampage through, tsunamis to rise from the previously calm oceans, and tornadoes to be kicked up from all the wind and heat forced into the planet.
Venus and mercury suffered pretty much the same fate as the previous two, and the sun remained mostly still, but I didn't bother to watch the rest. I manipulated gravity and pulled myself up from the shockwave, waited for it to pass, and finally descended back to the planet I was born on, heading towards the city where all this began.
Then, as I passed through earth's atmospheres, the injured Fuyuki came into view, and within it I saw Ryoji, his dead body being suspended atop a row of shields, and a familiar ship with two servants standing on its deck, looking back up towards me.
"Touch...down." I finally say, smiling happily.
But, happy I may be, doesn't mean that my job is done.
There's still one more thing to do, one last thing to take defeat to finally end all this.
So I turn to Mount Enzo, and with my Mystic Eyes, I stare at the ancient grail hiding within, its usually golden construct corrupted by all the evils of the world.
Time for the endgame.
[Quest [End of Zero] has become active!]
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GOT IT