BXBX NOVEL Chapter 332 332 - God-Killer, Remember That
Peering up at the skies shimmering down golden light through the muffling clouds, the decaying god saw the first Valkyrie who happened to be the queen of them all.
"Helga," he muttered before turning his gaze to Margarette by his side.
With but a nod, he left the army in her capable hands. All the while, he himself sprouted out his wings to take to the skies and keep the queen busy so that the battle wasn't over before it even started.
"Raise!" Screaming at the top of her lungs, Margarette brought everyone's attention to herself. Once they were all looking at her with anxious expressions plastered over their face, she drew out her flaming sword and raised it to the heavens. "Prepare to die, for the safety of your loved one, your sacrifice is necessary! Prepare to Die, for your people, your tribe has graced you with this opportunity!"
Breezing through her shoulders, Margarette took a deep breath before dropping all pretense after deciding to speak out about how she truly felt. Glancing up, she sheathed her sword and conjured the flaming bow instead. Then, taking one more look at her baffled men, she let out a nervous chuckle.
"We all know none of us will war, so let's drop all masks and fight for what we hold dear as individuals," thinking of her daughter, she could no longer pretend she was doing it for some greater purpose. "I'm doing it for Riley Phoenix, my daughter, and I'm sure you too must have someone you'd rather see happy from the grave than live with them in misery."
Raising her head again, Margarette drew a magical fire arrow down the string of her bow and directed it right towards the distant horde of approaching Valkyries.
"Hence, fight not for some glorified higher purpose, but for the people you're protecting from these damned birds!" Letting go of the arrow she mumbled a spell under her breath and while passing through the air, the single projectile multiplied into the thousands.
Before the arrows reached the Valkyries, however, she could already hear the soldiers muttering to themselves, the names of those they wanted to protect, and even promises of returnal after this bloody war was over.
"Now, draw your weapons and fight!" Yelling out with a hysteric smile, for some reason, Margarette now felt excited about what was to come.
The soldiers, all demons, demi-gods, demi-humans, and monsters, felt much the same as cryptical smiles washed over their faces as well. Looking at the sudden change in their demeanor, Haruki was quite surprised by Margarette's ability to rile up her soldiers.
"Men who fight for a cause can move mountains with even a bruised hand," hearing Margarette saying that from behind him, Haruki couldn't agree more as he too was fighting for similar reasons.
"Well then," glancing back at her, Haruki gave her a gentle nod. "May we meet again at the end of this dark tunnel."
Nodding back at him, Margarette gestured with her head for him to finally take flight. Without another word spoken, Haruki took to the air and headed straight for the queen of Valkyries. Unfortunately, as he drew closer it seemed like the arrows shot by Margarette couldn't even graze the mana shield protecting regular Valkyries much less Helga.
"Haruki Shin…" Stopping in mid-air, Helga held her hand up to the side to keep her soldiers from intercepting him themselves. Knowing full well that they couldn't face him, she directed them towards the ground under the command of multiple generals under her wings.
Like a swarm of locusts, the Valkyries breezed past the two for a few minutes. In that time, neither of them dared get their eyes off of the person in case they had some ace up their sleeves.
"You know they'll all die, so why struggle?" Glancing down at Haruki's soldiers, Helga instantly knew that her army was tenfold larger. However, what she failed to realize because of her inability to peek inside the dungeon portal, was that the soldiers she was looking down on were mostly vesseled inside demi-god bodies.
'So she can't peek inside the dungeon portal?' Wondering how much she really knew, Haruki drew a deep breath before conjuring a fencer made of dark matter.
The sight of that material had the queen widening her eyes. She knew exactly what it was, and from her knowledge, only a god should've been able to create that antidote to all matter in their universe.
"Did you," blinking her eyes a few times, she brought her gaze to match Haruki's. "Bloom into a god already?"
A bit confused by her statement, Haruki tilted his head to the side but kept his grip on the fencer firm. Sharing a moment of silence with their eyes squinting at each other, both of them knew exactly what was about to happen since Haruki hadn't answered her just yet.
"Suit yourself," conjuring the trident, Helga swiftly disappeared into the wind.
"Not so quick!" Feeling her circling around him, Haruki swung the fencer around his back.
"Aghh!" Although he couldn't see her, a grunt from Helga's lips marked the strike a success.
Just a moment later, the queen distanced herself from the demon and reappeared before him. Drawing his fencer back, Haruki noticed a strain of blood running down its glinting spine. It seemed the blind attack without actually seeing her had managed to land a strike right across the queen's face.
The light wound running across Helga's nose, however, didn't take long to path itself with mana. And the moment it was done, she got ready to unleash something far more dire. Throwing her trident towards Haruki as a distraction, she joined her hands in prayer. And while Haruki struck down the strike, she had already managed to finish an incantation for her spell.
All of a sudden shadowed under the shade of her tri-wings, Haruki was left baffled while looking up at Helga's body. Having transformed into a creature with eyes like stones of jade, and her body covered with snowy white feathers except for around her limbs, she floated right above him in her marble white armor with golden stripes around the hems and edges.
"Annihilation!" her voice echoed through the skies, and a flock of golden birds of light sprouted out of nowhere and surrounded Haruki from all directions.
"Portal!" Thankfully, however, Haruki managed to slip out from the encirclement before the birds zapped his flesh off his bones.
Peering up against, but this time applying time magic to himself to match the queen's speed, he watched her grow two additional arms from her back and summon in them the four tridents and the two god-killing swords that had been in her possession. The sight of those swords was enough to infuriate the decaying god, it had been the doom of one of his companions, and if nothing else he wanted to destroy them both before dying.
"Aris Magna!" Leaping away to get some distance, Haruki used Asmodia's cosmic power to summon the giant violet eye that had rivaled the strength of Atlas's archangels. "Fire! Fire! Fire!"
Holding his hand forward, he had it shoot concentrated dark magic through Helga's body. The strikes connected without fail, however, a simple brush from Helga's hands was enough to close the bloody holes in her body.
"Shit, God tie-" Remembering his familiars and Asmodia's pets were protecting Stella and the other kids, Haruki clicked his tongue and decided to use another skill instead. "Blizzard!"
Transforming into his dragon form, he flooded the sky with a snowstorm thick enough to muffle Helga's vision. Getting some distance from the queen, he glanced down at his people and the Valkyries battling it out under Margarette's command.
'Dammit, seems like they're not used to their new bodies yet and so making use of those new skins that came along with it might take a while of getting used to.' Even though things didn't seem too grim under him, he wasn't all that optimistic about their survival just yet.
"Missed me yet?" To his horror, storming through the blizzard, Helga came flying right at him. Grabbing Haruki with her many hands, she tore his wings off before raising her tridents to plant them through his body.
Bleeding through his mouth from the pressure of his hands alone, Haruki clenched his teeth shut but not before activating a spell to get out of the sticky situation.
"Damage reversal!" Yet another one of Asmodia's spells transferred all the hurt that he was going through to anyone who was in physical contact with him. And since it was the queen at this very moment, a pair of her wings were brutally shredded off, making her flight a lot more difficult than what it's just had been.
In the brief moment that it took for her to get adjusted to four wings only, Haruki used the portal once more and this time it was him appearing behind the Valkyrie.
"Body transfiguration: Shadow demon!" While still transforming into the monstrous shadow, Haruki used his fencer to tear a hole through Helga's chest. Burning all the flesh in its path, the dark matter fencer had the queen screaming in agony. Taking the torture even further, Haruki transformed his hand into a pair of claws reinforced with the same and kept his fencer going until his claws tore through Helga's chest and came out bloody on the other end.
For a moment as his body continued growing into the monster and the hole through Helga's chest continued to grow, Haruki felt like he was done dealing with the worst, but then a cryptic chuckle broke that delusion.
"Is that all you have got, Haruki Shin? The woeful warrior? The decaying god? Or should I call you Ouroboros instead? AHAHAHAHAHA! AHHHGHHH!" Grabbing Haruki's hand that was still stuck in her, Helga laughed as if she'd gone insane upon approaching death.
Looking back from over her shoulder, Helga Stared at Haruki with her eyes wider than ever. Smiling at him while continuing on chuckling, she began pulling on his hand as if she wanted to pull him out through the hole in her chest.
'What in the?!' Still transforming slowly under the effect of time magic, Haruki couldn't teleport away before he'd completely turned into the shadow monster. If he tried, his body might be torn apart by the extending limbs, leaving him maimed and unable to fight against Helga.
"Fuck…" Was all he could say before the queen of Valkyries pulled him right through her chest.
Despite tearing apart her own flesh, Helga showed no signs of the slightest discomfort as the wounds through her guts were patched in a matter of milliseconds.
"God-killer, remember that," she said, her face transfiguring into a magus with a yak-ish head and features.