Chapter 16
AFTER SETTING UP a rampart around the battlefield, Soul Howl fixed his eyes on the rampaging Machina Guardian and noted his initial priority. “First things first—that laser battery has to go.”
The hail of lasers even reached the castle wall where he and Mira stood, slowly carving into its surface. It would take some time before the lasers dealt the castle real damage, but the mana cost to defend against them had increased drastically. Things would only get worse at this rate.
“Mm, indeed. There’s little we can do until that’s dealt with.”
The bigger problem was that the lasers engulfed the whole battlefield. Christina and Wasranvel weren’t the only ones hiding; the lasers forced the other Valkyries and their army of ashen knights to take shelter as well.
The battle was like trench warfare now, subject to endless fire from above. Their forces couldn’t move safely due to the laser attacks’ wide range.
Amid it all, only Eizenfald could withstand the barrage. While the lasers did strike him, his draconic magic provided armor that reduced the damage each shot dealt. The lasers cut away his barrier little by little, but since it could be reapplied once more, he’d endure for some time.
Of course, the Machina Guardian wasn’t only attacking with its lasers. If it focused all its attacks on Eizenfald, especially in Rampage Mode, even the dragon couldn’t last long.
Mira judged that if the one tanking the majority of the damage fell, that would likely lead to a party wipe. She decided to use her trump card. “It’s a little earlier than intended, but now is the time.”
Even faced with a battle turning disadvantageous, Soul Howl answered with excited eyes, “Agreed. Do it.”
Mira was about to summon a special being—made even more special by Soul Howl’s love of edgy things. Under Soul Howl’s expectant gaze, she faced forward and alerted Martel that she was ready.
“Yep! All ready here too!” Martel confirmed, as Mira expected.
With that, Mira finally unleashed her spell.
When the Bound Arcana deployed by First Pupil and Pegasus changed into the Mark of the Rosary and resonated, it drew an even bigger magic circle on the battlefield. It was time to summon a being known to all with even a vague interest in myths and legends: Fenrir himself.
At twilight’s end, the advent of night eternal.
When even the gods sleep at the dying of the light and the brink of the abyss,
Eternal darkness rules, and all becomes an illusion beyond recollection.
What remains but wavering chaos, a sea of dead stars, and a vacant moon atop a throne of corpses?
Seeker of dawn, breaker of chains, fling open the gates of violence upon the heavenly tower.
Now is the time of change. Now is the era of a new beginning.
My friend, feast upon the end itself.
Words flowed from Mira’s mouth and transformed into power, spurring the magic circle into action. When the light reached its apex, the gate had already begun to open.
[Mythical Evocation: Fenrir]
A black hole widened like an endless void in the earth below, and Fenrir appeared as if crawling from its depths.
With bluish-black fur like the night sky, golden eyes reflecting his divinity, and silver claws that metallically reflected light, Fenrir appeared with an aura befitting his legendary status, instantly displaying his overwhelming power.
When the ceaseless hail of lasers touched his fur, they appeared to vaporize. It seemed Fenrir had already come up with a countermeasure thanks to Martel sharing the situation with him—total nullification. What more could one ask for?
“So that’s Fenrir…” Soul Howl muttered. He didn’t sound impressed; he sounded more…befuddled.
How could one blame him? The legendary Fenrir summoned by Mira was a puppy.
Although he was the size of an adult dog, he wasn’t the giant wolf one expected upon hearing his name. At a glance, he hardly seemed like a reliable ally.
“He still lacks a lot of his power. Some things happened when I first met him,” Mira told Soul Howl. Now that she thought about it, she remembered that she hadn’t told Soul Howl about that encounter. She brushed that off, adding, “Cute as he is, I assure you he’s strong enough to go toe to toe with Eizenfald.”
“Well, if you say so. Offense is all yours, Elder.” Either way, now wasn’t the time to dawdle. Putting his full faith in Mira, Soul Howl went back to focusing on defense.
He followed the ever-changing laser angles and the Machina Guardian’s movements to create walls and control golems to obstruct and impede the boss. Without Soul Howl’s golem defensive line, the Machina Guardian would’ve wiped out even Mira’s army twice over by now. Thanks to the golems, the rampaging boss’s range of motion was very limited for the time being.
“You leave it in good hands.” Mira nodded firmly, then informed Eizenfald and Fenrir right away that their first priority was the laser cannons.
“Understood, Mother!”
“Right. Understood.”
Both leapt into action. Eizenfald charged and held the rampaging Machina Guardian back by force. Even a being of the dragon’s power would struggle to continue that for long, so Eizenfald was doing little more than creating a small opening. They’d have had no way to take advantage of that opening before, but they certainly did now; there was an ally who could do just that on the battlefield.
Fenrir used the opening Eizenfald made for him to maximum effect. He ran like a speeding bullet, leapt forth like an arrow, and destroyed a laser cannon with a single swing of his claws. He didn’t stop there; he jumped off the restrained Machina Guardian’s legs to neutralize two more cannons.
“Little guy’s stronger than he looks,” Soul Howl muttered to himself.
Hearing that, Mira turned smug, as if she were the one he’d complimented. “Of course. He is the Fenrir, after all!”
Using Eizenfald and Fenrir’s combined powers, they’d escaped danger. This was the duo’s first time working together, but they’d done quite well, destroying the cannons one after another.
However, that didn’t mean the Machina Guardian was finished. Incredibly, it revealed yet another new attack. The boss’s open abdomen fired beams of light that engulfed large areas; where the beams struck, they created pillars of flame.
“Were those Ancient Rays?”
“I think so.”
Each shot was less powerful than an Ancient Ray, but still deadly. Ancient Ray could blow away the most powerful tank player in an instant; this attack merely took an entire second to deal equivalent damage.
The Machina Guardian began firing these beams, which Mira and Soul Howl would call “Diffused Ancient Rays.” Getting hit by those Diffused Ancient Rays could be lethal.
Eizenfald and Fenrir positioned themselves on either side of the Machina Guardian, kept their distance, and aimed for the remaining laser cannons.
***
“Eep…” Even as she quivered at the battle’s heightened intensity, Christina resumed gathering mana. Wasranvel’s power hid her presence, and Soul Howl had placed many layers of defensive golems in front of her.
Christina found herself a bit happy to receive such VIP treatment. Perhaps as a result, her sword gleamed even brighter than before.
***
Behind the castle walls, fully separated from the fierce battle, a single cat watched the rain of fire with fearful eyes. It was First Pupil.
“I’m just glad that happened while we were over here…” he sighed, relieved.
Pegasus and Garuda, who waited next to him, nodded. However, this moment of relief wouldn’t last long, for Mira gave them another order. She said she needed the Bound Arcana redeployed in order to summon Fenrir.
“When this war’s over, I’m gonna propose to the girl I love!” First Pupil gallantly boarded Pegasus and departed for the battlefield again, bearing a sign on his back that simply read kamikaze. Garuda saw them off, then waited in front of a giant golem.
About five minutes after Mira summoned Fenrir, he and Eizenfald successfully destroyed all the laser cannons, so the battle changed dramatically. Now that they’d eliminated the Machina Guardian’s flashiest attacks yet, the infantry could come back out from behind the castle wall. Eizenfald and Fenrir could also disperse their previously concentrated attacks, giving Mira more ways to take advantage of her two strongest allies.
Opportunities continued to flow in. Now that it had lost its cannons, the Machina Guardian’s Rampage Mode began to subside.
Then, Christina signaled her charge was complete. “Ready anytime!”
All the stars had aligned, so Mira and Soul Howl decided to order their army to begin the final operation.
“Great. Now’s the time to strike!”
“Yeah. Let’s get ’em good.”
Upon their signal, the whole army took the offensive.
“We must bring victory to Master!” Alfina and the Valkyries unleashed powerful attacks.
Alfina’s slashes cut through the boss’s plating, and Elezina’s arrows became projectiles of light. The other sisters kept gouging into the Machina Guardian with their own favored weapons. The ashen knights charged and swung their holy swords too, dealing sure damage.
“Yes, Mother!” Eizenfald approached the Machina Guardian, neutralizing Diffused Ancient Rays with his dragon breath. Then he unleashed a point-blank dragon breath on the boss’s leg joint before tearing the limb off entirely.
“I mustn’t miss the action, either!” Fenrir’s claws tore through the Ancient Ray cannon. The Machina Guardian’s now-undirected energy exploded from inside, bursting into flames.
Once the boss lost its balance, Soul Howl’s towers and castle wall fired all their cannons simultaneously. “Okay, now!”
Their powerful attacks continued endlessly until the Machina Guardian made a sound like an emergency buzzer, then proceeded to rumble with mechanical noises like none before.
Mira and Soul Howl knew of this phenomenon. It seemed their full-on attack had brought the Machina Guardian under 10 percent health, triggering it to change from Rampage Mode to its final phase—the far more dangerous Slaughter Mode.
If the boss completed this shift, they had no chance of winning. They had a victory rate of zero against it in-game. Even the generals of Atlantis, the game’s largest player-led nation, could never defeat the transformed Machina Guardian. That proved just what a monster it became in Slaughter Mode.
They’d exhaust the mana they needed to maintain their forces before they polished the boss off. So, after much discussion, Mira and Soul Howl had planned to defeat the Machina Guardian before it finished transforming.
The Machina Guardian seemingly transformed by destroying and reassembling itself from the inside out. Faced with that, the mages’ entire army retreated at once. However, one shadow flew above the boss: Garuda, carrying an enormous golem. Soaring directly overhead, it dropped the golem like a bomber plane dropping a bomb. The golem traced a gentle trajectory before landing directly on the Machina Guardian.
[Internment Arts: Light of Extinction]
There was a dazzling flash, followed by hellish red flames filling their fields of vision. Shortly after, a shock wave shook them to their cores, and a deafening explosion roared. It was even more powerful than Soul Howl’s full-on bombardment.
This foolish task—having Garuda carry a golem too heavy to move on its own—was Death From Above, a combination of Mira’s and Soul Howl’s magic.
Even such an explosion wouldn’t destroy the Machina Guardian. Now, though, it was finally time for the true protagonist to take the stage.
Another figure rushed into the battlefield, still cloudy from the explosion. Hidden by Wasranvel’s power up to this point, Christina wielded a holy sword clad in a twenty-meter pillar of light.
When she unsheathed the holy sword—full of even more mana than when the Machina Guardian had designated her a threat—from the power of stealth, it unleashed strength like Eizenfald’s dragon breath, shaking the air. From behind, Christina looked like a heroine of light.
“Whoa… This is a big responsibility…” The youngest sister faced the Machina Guardian, which continued to creak violently as it rebuilt itself, shuddering at the pressure it was building up. Still, Christina was confident that the holy sword, full of as much mana as she could gather, would finish off the foe before her.
After getting carried away in the battle with Chimera Clausen, Christina had honed her Christina Slash even more. Mana-focus training was a convenient excuse to slack on her usual training, but she had a talent for it. Solely in terms of a single-strike burst, Christina was probably the strongest Valkyrie.
If her holy sword full of mana struck a foe, the battle would be over.
Everyone watched with bated breath.
At that moment—with an even shriller metallic shriek—the Machina Guardian lurched, apparently dodging, although that wasn’t enough to make Christina miss her mark.
However, it wasn’t evading her. After even more mechanical whirring, the Machina Guardian fired something like a slender spear at Christina.
“Huh…?”
It was one of the boss’s legs, flying so fast that she had no time to evade. Why could the Machina Guardian move before its transformation ended? Because it had transformed its leg first—another change from the game world.
The Machina Guardian’s Slaughter Mode attacks were overwhelming. If they struck, they were sure to forcibly dismiss summons, and the mana condensed in Christina’s sword would disappear. Mira and Soul Howl would lose their decisive blow, leading to their defeat.
Yet that problem had already been solved. Before Mira could tell the panicking Christina, the Machina Guardian’s leg had stopped right in front of her.
“All is well. No problems.”
“That scared me…” said Christina.
The Valkyrie saw Fenrir’s many chains binding the Machina Guardian. Mira had Fenrir prepare Gleipnir ahead of time, just in case the raid boss did anything unexpected. Those sealing chains could bind even Fenrir himself. It would be impossible for the Machina Guardian to tear away quickly.
“Now, Christina. Strike the final blow!” Fenrir called.
“Okay!” Christina replied, readying her sword. After a moment of concentration, a vivid image of victory formed in her imagination. “True Christina Slaaaash!”
Bound by Gleipnir, the Machina Guardian was helpless as Christina swung the holy sword down with a mighty roar.
The slash seemed to sever sound itself, painting over everything with pure light. No doubt it destroyed the boss instantly. The light flashed brighter for just an instant before finally ceasing.
All that remained were the bisected remains of the Machina Guardian, Christina with the holy sword in hand, and Fenrir in the process of being dismissed as he timed out.
“We won!”
This final battle had taken hours and both Mira’s and Soul Howl’s maximum forces. The realization that she’d ended the struggle with her own hands took Christina aback, but what she saw finally convinced her, and she raised the holy sword out of sheer joy.
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