Chapter 4: Magimatic Castle Viovix
Diablo didn’t immediately understand what Aira meant. This rumbling, that felt like rolling thunder, like an earthquake, was actually footsteps? Was this some kind of metaphor? Diablo thought to demand an explanation, but then he saw something impossible in the edge of his field of vision.
A castle, floating in the sky.
“...What...?”
“What’s that?!” Horn asked, pointing up at it.
Outside, beyond the castle’s spires, a black shadow floated in the heavens. Its silhouette definitely was that of a castle. Structures seemed to extend in all directions from within the castle. It was too big for Diablo to fully perceive its full size.
Diablo had only experienced something like this once before, back when he was playing the game. There was a special story involving a Legend Dragon. The players would arrive on a deserted island, and the twist was that the island’s surface itself was actually the Dragon’s back. It was a special boss battle in the game where one needed to keep their balance while fighting the dragon at the same time.
But this world had no concept of balance adjustment. And if that castle in the sky belonged to the Empire of Gelmed, it was an enemy they must defeat.
“Hey! Is that an Imperial castle?! Answer me!” Diablo pressed on Aira.
“...Yes. That castle belongs to Emperor Gelmed. The Magimatic Castle, Viovix.”
A Magimatic Castle?
Looking at it again, Diablo noticed the structures expanding from the castle were moving ever so slowly. They were as large as the ridges of a mountain, and moved as they tore into the clouds.
“Are those... legs?”
Those legs were as large as walls, but they had to be to support the castle’s considerable weight. The legs rose slowly, and with each time they landed back on the ground, they caused a massive tremor.
Aira was right. These were footsteps.
“...A fearsome presence is hanging over this place,” Lumachina said fearfully.
“Mm?”
Diablo couldn’t sense any mana in the vicinity, but... Looking up, he did see dark clouds brewing. He remembered this. During the last battle, magic was used to project an image into the clouds. Once again, the image of a wrinkled old man surfaced in the sky.
“Ooooh...”
A rumbling moaning could be heard from above.
“E-Emperor... Gelmed...” Aira flinched.
So that was the Emperor, after all...
“Ooooh... The Girl of the Vessel...!”
The image turned solid. Like a flying 3D image, the Emperor’s face swooped down on them. And below the Emperor’s face was what looked like a black serpent’s torso. Diablo though it was just an image, but Aira moaned in fear.
“Emperor Gelmed sent a Shadow after us already...?!”
Diablo didn’t know any method of transforming into anything like that or any monster like it.
Is this some kind of magic?!
“Lord Diablo!” Lumachina raised her voice with uncharacteristic harshness. “You mustn’t look away from that!”
“I know!”
He actually didn’t know at all. Up until now, the things he knew from Cross Reverie seemed to apply in this world, and because of that, when Diablo was faced with an unfamiliar enemy he always had to stop and observe it. But doing that now could be a fatal mistake, it seemed.
It didn’t matter what shape or form it took. That thing was an enemy.
Emperor Gelmed’s objective was the Girl of the Vessel — Rem. He couldn’t allow it to get near her.
“?Lightning Storm?!” Diablo fired a spell.
It was an offensive spell that was perfectly capable of damaging a Magimatic Sol, a level 140 light and wind element spell. It created a tornado that blocked the enemy’s movements while attacking it with bolts of lightning.
“Oooooooooooooooh...?!”
The black serpentine Emperor, the Shadow, dispersed like a puff of smoke. Diablo remained cautious, however. Having fought countless unfamiliar opponents, Diablo gained an odd, almost additional sense. It was similar to what swordsmen called ‘a response,’ the feeling that you’ve successfully landed a blow.
Magic normally wouldn’t have anything like that, and if this was the game, the victory fanfare would jingle as a popup appeared informing the player of the EXP and item drops they’d gained. But this world had nothing of the sort. Was he to assume he’d defeated his opponent just because they were gone?
No, they’re still here!
His intuition warned him, and sure enough, within moments the dispersed smoke reconverged. The Shadow was recovering, and looked completely unharmed. Diablo clicked his tongue.
I can’t believe it. I misjudged its elemental affinity?! Or was my spell lacking in firepower?!
All the opponents he’d fought so far seemed to have been at least somewhat susceptible to magic. But Gelmed’s people seemed to simply shrug it off. Was it just that the logic they operated on was too different?
“Kuh... ?Buster Napalm?!”
He fired a highly powerful fire element spell that had a long windup time. The Shadow’s tail was so long that its movements were relatively slow. A massive blast boomed above it, staggering the Imperial soldiers with its sheer force. Some of them screamed in shock, and Aira shielded her head with both arms.
“Ah, this is... incredible... Is this really Human sorcery?!” she asked in shock.
“How do you like that?!” Diablo exclaimed.
Emperor Gelmed disappeared, but within moments, the smoke-like Shadow reconverged like a cloud of angry flies and approached the balcony Rem and the others were in. Diablo had no more powerful spells to shoot, and any attack he unleashed would also hit the girls.
“How can this be...?!”
Never before had his magic been this ineffective.
†
“Take a ?Triangle Shot?!” Shera shot an arrow.
But even high level magic couldn’t push the Shadow away, so her attack disturbed it no more than a light breeze. The most her arrow could do was make its form waver ever so slightly. The Shadow had a black serpent’s body and the old man’s face, its expression contorted in glee.
“Ooooh! There can be no mistaking it! It is her!” he exclaimed, his eyes fixed on Rem.
“No, it didn’t work!” Shera said, faltering back.
“Kuh...” Rem clicked her tongue.
“I’m sorry, Rem!”
“...It’s too soon to give up,” Rem said, taking a deep breath.
The Glow built up in her body. Emperor Gelmed drew closer, the old man’s face at the end of the Shadow’s elongated torso bellowing out, “Ooooooh! There can be no mistaking it! The Girl of the Vessel! Accept me! Conceive me, give birth to me, grant me new life! If you do, I shall make you into the holy mother!”
“Disgusting!” Rem rejected his words with all her vehemence.
“Ngaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!” the Shadow howled, opening its mouth wide enough to swallow a person whole.
Rem held her right fist at her waist, then thrust it forward.
“?Shimmering Wave?!”
This was a finishing technique used by Rem’s aunt, Solami. The wave of energy blew the old man’s face away.
“You did it!” Shera pumped her fist in joy.
But Rem clenched her teeth bitterly. The Shadow once again resumed its form.
“Aaaaaaaaaaaah! The Girl of the Vessel! I shan’t let anyone else have you! Become my mother!”
“I refuse!” Rem said sharply as she took a step back.
Diablo’s magic, Shera’s demonic bow, and even Rem’s trump card did nothing to affect the Shadow.
How do we defeat this thing?!
But just as Diablo asked himself that, Sylvie slapped her hands on the balcony’s handrail.
“I made it!”
She stuck out her right hand and twirled her wrist. A shining magic circle spread out on part of the rail — Circle-type Sorcery.
“Hey, Emperor Gelmed! Being old isn’t all that bad, you know! Though I guess that wouldn’t sound too convincing coming from a Grasswalker!”
“You?!”
For the first time, the Shadow’s attention turned away from Rem. As the magic circle spread, Sylvie drew a shining line with a finger, and then slapped her hands together.
“Three Black, White Two! Surround us and close, ?Unlimited Bowl?!”
A shining sphere spread out around her, and then covered Rem’s body.
“What?!” Rem asked, her eyes wide in surprise.
“Just hang tight for a while!”
“What is this?! Isn’t this spell for capturing enemies?!” Diablo asked, shocked.
“My expertise is support magic,” Sylvie shrugged. “And if the enemy’s too high level, they can resist it. But I can use powerful magic on my willing allies!”
“...And that’s why you trapped me inside here?” Rem asked.
“You can rest easy, Rem, no one can touch you in there!” Sylvie said reassuringly.
The Shadow closed in on Rem, but it was indeed deflected away by the sphere. Sparks flew as it was sent flying back before reforming.
“Someone dares oppose me?! Oppose the Emperor of the Gelmed Empire?!”
“Of course!” Sylvie said smugly.
“I am the Emperor of the Gelmed Empire! A living god who reigns over all in existence! Insolent fool!”
“Err...” Sylvie seemed to wince at his indignation. “I’m just buying time with my magic! So, Diablo, you handle the rest!”
Diablo nodded back. He used flight magic to hover near the balcony and spoke to the Shadow, putting forth his most imposing Demon Lord performance.
“You say you rule over all of existence? That’s quite the cheeky thing to say in the face of a Demon Lord! And for how self-important you are, all you do is chase around one poor girl... Know some shame!”
The Shadow did not respond, however. It didn’t even regard Diablo, and kept bellowing.
“By the rules of this world, all must obey me, all must heed me, and all must gladly die in my name! All shall thank me for being permitted to live by my benevolence! Worship me! Praise me! Extol me!”
Diablo had been utterly ignored. This was the first time Diablo had been completely ignored by someone since coming to this world.
It’s probably because my magic didn’t work... He’s ignoring me because I’m weak!
Anger swirled in the pit of Diablo’s stomach, but his heart soon turned cold. It’d been so long since he’d last been ignored, but he was used to this. He was so familiar with this feeling that it almost felt nostalgic. And as pathetic and absurd as it was... Being ignored made him remember the past, cooling his thoughts.
Before he even realized it, laughter spilled from his lips.
“Heheh... Heheheh... Of course. This is only natural...”
What the hell have I been doing? Firing powerful spells blindly is completely lacking in elegance. When did I become such a predictable, one-trick-pony?
Was it because all his opponents recently were ones that required him to push through them with sheer firepower? Because they were all opponents he’d faced in the game before? Where the slightest bit of sophistication was all it took to beat them?
True, he couldn’t recall fighting a battle where his magic was so ineffective, but in the past, Diablo would say this to his foes:
“You’re weak because you don’t fight like you’re hanging by the skin of your teeth.”
How many powerful opponents had he faced since coming to this world, really? There were times when he struggled, true, but it was so much less often than back when he was a socially crippled gamer.
This is pathetic... I’ve grown dull.
“Heheh...” Diablo chuckled, feeling like he was finally awake. “I’ve kept you bored, haven’t I, Emperor Gelmed...? As my apology, I shall show you a Demon Lord’s true power!”
But again, the Emperor showed no response to Diablo.
Then let’s make you acknowledge me!
“?Ice Age?!”
A level 130 water element spell that inhibited the target’s movements for a brief moment. But the Shadow’s face seemed disinterested, as if to say, ‘So what?’ The tip of Diablo’s shadow touched the frozen Shadow — the spell had hit its mark, and using omission, Diablo swiftly performed his next spell.
“?Naraku?!”
“Ng?!”
And for the first time, Emperor Gelmed turned to look at him. The effects of Ice Age wore off, and the frost melted off Emperor Gelmed’s face.
“You...!”
“Hmph... If you can regenerate from any powerful spell, then I shall expunge you from this world altogether. Drift in the void for all eternity!”
Diablo didn’t actually know if this spell threw its victims into a void, that was just the lore behind the spell. A small hole formed and began drawing in the Shadow. Apparently, he couldn’t resist this spell.
“Aagh...!” Emperor Gelmed let out a peculiar screech. “You fool...! You cretin! I am the Emperor of Gelmed! This is blasphemy! Impiety! Ggghah, aaaaah...!”
And screaming still, he sunk into the hole. Once the spell triggered, its effects happened all too quickly.
Did I beat him...?
Diablo couldn’t feel any response, but the Shadow was gone. The oppressive feeling hung in the air just the same, though. Diablo glared up into the sky — at the Magimatic Castle Viovix.
†
A raspy voice spoke down to them from the sky again.
“Such impiety... To bare fangs against me... The sovereign and ruler... You shall regret this...”
The old man’s wrinkled face once again appeared in the sky. Diablo’s lips curled upwards.
“Hmph! Know when to give up, fool. I shall defeat you again and again!”
But that said, Diablo didn’t have any more tricks up his sleeve. Apparently the Human-headed serpent from earlier wasn’t the Emperor’s main body. It was a difficult opponent to defeat, but the Emperor himself hadn’t sustained any damage. It was similar to a Summon Beast in that regard.
“Magimatic Sols! Return to Viovix!” the Emperor ordered.
The order echoed throughout the capital, and then, the sound of building crumbling began to echo around them.
“What?!”
Not just Diablo and his group, but even the Imperial soldiers all looked around in confusion. A new Magimatic Sol appeared from some distance away from the courtyard, flying in and destroying the rooftops of the capital’s buildings in the process.
There was still an undamaged Magimatic Sol lying around?!
It was a golden color.
“That’s impossible... Goldinus of the Gold?!” Aira exclaimed, her voice strained.
For a second, Diablo felt its gaze focus on them... The Magimatic Sol called Goldinus of the Gold flew toward the Magimatic Castle Viovix with lightning speed. Diablo kept his expression hardened and resolute, but he was panicking on the inside. Fighting the other Magimatic Sols was challenging, so the idea of there being one who clearly seemed stronger than the rest was a startling one.
“Bakki, hurry! Toaha, you disembark, too!”
It was then when the sound of metal bending filled Diablo’s ears. Raumunus of the Ash’s claws finally tore Viridinus of the Emerald’s hatch open.
“I made it!”
“Haa... Haa... Haa... Haa... Haa...”
The pilot wore an expression like she’d finally snapped out of her madness and realized the situation she was in. Bakki hopped out of Raumunus and pulled the Nekomata girl — Saya — from the emerald Magimatic Sol. Her limbs were slender and dainty, and her build was like a child’s. Diablo wasn’t familiar with therianthropes all that well, so he couldn’t really judge her age based off of her appearance.
But Toaha, the pilot of Erurenus of the Yellow, still refused to disembark.
“Ahaha... Go back? Go back? Why? I still haven’t fought enough. They all keep saying, go back, take a rest... Stupid ordeeeeeeers!”
Erurenus turned around, leaving just its head turned toward them.
“Shut up already, Aira. There’s no more enslavement magic. I don’t obey anyone’s orders now, and I’m going to fight all I want.”
“You have to disembark the Magimatic Sol, Toaha. This is... His Majesty...”
“Disembark?! This thing is me. It’s who I am. I don’t need to get outside or rest... I feel my best inside here. I feel calm.”
“No, you don’t understand!” Aira raised her voice desperately. “This thing is a monster that obeys His Majesty’s will! You have to disembark, right now!”
“Magimatic Sols, return to the castle!” the Emperor’s voice boomed once again.
Toaha had no intention of obeying anyone’s words anymore, though.
“Aaaaaaah! Shut up, shut up! Stop ordering me aroooooooound!”
“...So you were defective,” the Emperor’s voice declared coldly.
“Huh?!”
A gut-wrenching crunching sound echoed from within Erurenus. The sound of chewing.
Crunch, crunch, crunch...
“Aah, ouch! Why?! Wh-Why... Why is... Why is Erurenus eating meeeeeee...?!”
Aira clenched her teeth bitterly. Bakki was screaming incoherently at the sight while Saya let out a shrill, sorrowful shriek. Toaha’s screams echoed from within Erurenus, eerily filling the courtyard.
“Aaaaaaaaaaah! It’s eating me! It’s eating me! It’s eating meeeeeeeeeeeeee! Why?! Whyyyyy?! Aaaaaaaaah...”
Her voice grew fainter, and eventually, Erurenus stood still and motionless. Toaha’s voice — even her breathing — were no longer audible.
It ate her?! The Magimatic Sol ate its own pilot, killed her?!
Diablo didn’t even have a chance to help her.
“This is... What is this?! What is that thing?!” Diablo forgot his Demon Lord role play and exclaimed, feeling a cold shiver run down his spine.
Magimatic Sols ate pilots that weren’t compatible with them, and despite looking like a machine, it was some kind of tentacle monster on the inside.
What are these tentacles anyway?!
“That’s... the contents of the Magimatic Sol, it’s...” Aira stammered.
“You know what that thing is?!”
“Doriadanph said it’s... part of Emperor Gelmed’s body...”
“Wh-What?!” Diablo asked in a shrill voice.
Up until now, Diablo thought the face he saw in the sky was Emperor Gelmed. An old man of the races who had control over a large Empire. Diablo assumed he might be a powerful magician, at best.
The Magimatic Sol’s contents... are part of the Emperor’s body?! He’s a tentacle monster, not one of the races?! That’s absurd! He’s more of a monster than any Demon Lord! I’m up against something much more evil than I had ever thought!
“Bring forth... the Girl of the Vessel,” Emperor Gelmed’s voice boomed around them. “Do so, and you shall be forgiven...”
He said this after using part of his body to devour Toaha alive. The sheer arrogance, the utter monstrosity of this creature.
But how do I fight this thing...? Diablo racked his brain desperately.
The Emperor was probably somewhere inside that castle, and it was gigantic... No, gigantic wasn’t strong enough of a word to describe its size. He appeared by way of a projection in the sky, but scattering that would achieve nothing.
Could magic even oppose an enemy of that caliber?
But if Diablo were to do nothing, the Emperor would certainly send in his subordinates and make use of Magimatic technology to go after Rem.
Diablo clenched his teeth.
I call myself a Demon Lord and then let an opponent unnerve me this much?! If I’m acting this role, I’m going to stick to it until the very end!
†
Diablo thrust his staff in the direction of the Magimatic Castle Viovix.
“Emperor Gelmed! I am Diablo, a Demon Lord from another world! You have set foot upon this land and sown chaos without my permission! Prepare yourself, for I will bring upon you an end which is as horrifying as you are impudent!”
How far was the castle, though? It was so large Diablo couldn’t help but feel anxious. It felt like it was close, but it also looked like it was very far away from the capital.
Isn’t it a little too far...?
Diablo spoke despite his fears, and if he didn’t use some kind of magic after telling his opponent to ‘prepare himself,’ it would seem terribly lame. So he had to fire something... regardless of the effect.
“Glacies Cannon!”
Diablo fired a massive lump of ice from the tip of his wand. This high-level water element spell once blasted a hole into one of Castle Grandiose’s walls, effectively increasing the number of windows. How would it fare against the Gelmed Empire’s castle, then?
Diablo’s eyes were fixed on the lump of ice. So were those of Rem’s group, Aira, and even the Gelmed soldiers, each watching it soar. And then...
The castle shined, and for a single moment, a sphere of light covered the Magimatic Castle Viovix. The moment it made contact with the sphere, the Glacies Cannon shattered. The next moment, a booming blast shook the air.
The spell just barely reached the castle. For how massive it was, it took time for the attack to connect. But Diablo recognized that shining sphere which surrounded the castle.
“A Fallen-repelling barrier...!”
It was likely the same as the one used in Faltra, a barrier for disarming the Fallen and magic. Of course, it could have been structured differently from the one Diablo knew. In Faltra, the towers standing along the walls formed the barrier. Viovix didn’t seem to have anything analogous to that.
This, of course, meant the spell didn’t actually deal any damage to the castle, despite hitting it. The face of the old man floating in the sky didn’t change in the slightest. He didn’t assume a single Glacies Cannon was going to make that major of a difference.
Diablo felt a chill run through his body.
“Bring forth... the Girl of the Vessel...” the Emperor repeated his words.
“Stop repeating yourself, fool! You will not have your way! As a true Demon Lord, I will...!”
“Do so, and you shall be forgiven...”
The Imperial soldiers all pointed at something, and Lumachina raised her voice in fear.
“S-Something... I feel something malevolent in the air...!”
A sphere of light shot up into the sky from one of Viovix’s spires. Even without the High Priest’s warning, Diablo’s intuition warned him.
This thing is dangerous.
But if it’s magic...
Diablo looked down at his left hand. Sitting on his ring finger was the Demon Lord’s Ring, capable of deflecting any and all magic.
“This could do it...” he muttered to himself.
The sphere of light began falling down... But it wasn’t falling toward them. It wasn’t headed for the castle’s courtyard, where Diablo and his group were.
It’s... north of the castle? A bit to the east... Anyway, it’s far from here.
It would likely land not in the central district, where the castle was, but in the first district. It reminded Diablo of something, though. It looked small from afar, but the sphere of light was likely larger than a building...
“It can’t be...!” Diablo’s eyes widened.
The sphere approached the ground ever so slowly.
“Don’t look at it!” Diablo shouted. “Get doooooooooooown!”
But before he could finish his warning, a blinding flash washed over the capital. The world was whited out for one long moment. The rumbling sound that followed completely deafened out any other sound.
Yes, Diablo knew what that sphere was. It was ?White Nova?. And unlike the one he used, it wasn’t a small scale one. It was dozens... no, hundreds of times larger than the spell he used. Would the destruction extend this far? Would Rem and the others be safe, then?
Diablo reached out his hand. At that point, the blast had reached them. There was no way he would make it.
“Reeem! Sheraaa!” he shouted.
But the rumbling explosion completely drowned out his voice. Then the light died down. The flash disappeared, as if being absorbed into the sky, and the thundering sound of the blast petered out. The powerful impact that felt like it might white out the world became silent as if it had never been there to begin with.
We’re safe. Me, everyone else...
Viovix’s attack didn’t seem to reach the courtyard Diablo’s group occupied. Did he miss? No, that couldn’t have been it. It was because Rem, the Girl of the Vessel, was here. The Emperor couldn’t have risked losing her.
Diablo gasped heavily as he felt thick beads of sweat drip from his forehead.
The bad feeling was far from gone. Lumachina fell to her knees, hugging her own shoulders. She probably realized what had happened already. Diablo used flight magic, and floating up, he reached higher than the castle’s walls and looked at where the sphere had impacted.
The first district was gone.
“Aah...?!”
Diablo realized what it felt like to have every hair on one’s body stand on end. This was terror. His body shivered, overcome by more fear than he’d ever felt before. It was all gone. The once circular surface of the first district had been reduced to a water canal in the shape of the crescent moon. The buildings on what little land was left of it were completely knocked down and blown away.
And what of the people? The first district was occupied by the Empire during yesterday’s battle. The enemy army had retreated from it later on, but the Church’s soldiers didn’t have the manpower to push the front back and retake it. So there was hardly anyone left there...
...Or so Diablo hoped.
There might have been wounded soldiers that were left behind, or citizens in hiding. And anyone who might have been there... was gone. No one could have hoped to survive a blast that wiped out the entirety of the land like that.
“Kuh... That bastard... He wiped out... an entire town...!” Diablo grumbled angrily, looking up at the image of the old man projected in the sky.
“Bring forth... the Girl of the Vessel... Until you do... I will destroy a Human town... every sunset...” the Emperor spoke.
For the first time in his life, Diablo truly and utterly feared an opponent.
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