CH.738 A War in the Past
It really wasn’t wrong to call it a war. Decently large forces from both sides trying to defeat the other. Isn’t that a war?
At first it really wasn’t. For a simple reason. The human side wasn’t powerful enough.
Of course they couldn’t be. After all, the Demon Lord’s side wasn’t limited by the System, the humans were. The humans grew stronger slowly over time, while all the Demon Lord had to do was optimize his troops more with his unique skill.
Yes there were limits in what the Demon Lord could do. Had there not been, he would have won easily. He had to play a balancing game between stats like Power, Durability and Intelligence. Or Strength, Defense and Magic, if you will.
If he raised two too much, the last one would basically go to 0. Or come with other massive problems.
Of course some of his experiments came out nearly perfect. Like the vampires. They had extremely high stats across the board, with really only two weaknesses.
One, a big weakness to sunlight, cutting their effectiveness in half, or even less, while also inflicting continuous damage to the man shaped monsters. This did also leave them more vulnerable to Light Magic, but that was only a minor weakness.
The other big one was their need for fresh blood. From humanoids at that. And because of it, the Demon Lord needed camps of people his vampires could feed from.
But for every vampire, his army also had a shark-beast. Or a shark-folk turned into a monster. They were huge, almost six meter long sharks that walked on all fours. In all honesty, they were basically a mix between a shark and a crocodile.
With minimal intelligence, but extremely high Strength and Defense, they could tear through the human forces, unless quickly stopped.
Great for letting loose on an army, but quickly turned into easy experience by skilled warriors.
And of course the Demon Lord’s army had its final and biggest weakness. Without the Demon Lord, there was no army. Every troop he had had to be handmade by him. And while each only took a few minutes, that was still not all that many he could make in a day.
Which led the Demon Lord to push the Chaos God Core even harder, in an attempt at getting even more troops. Only for each to come out worse than the last, as the core could not meet his ambitions.
Meanwhile the humans learned from the Hero’s party. The party was so well leveled by now, having exceeded level 250, that they could quickly run across the continent and guide the others in the wars.
And also teach them how to grow. In both skills and levels. And the Saint and the Sage would help them.
Those who no longer could fight, be it because they’d lost a limb that cannot be regrown or because they had lost the will to fight, were stripped of their skills and levels by the two. Not because they wanted to, but because it was the most efficient use of resources.
So the troops marched towards the Demon Lord’s castle, preparing for a final confrontation.
“Are you sure you aren’t hyping this up too much?” Unika asked. “I mean, we could have ended this war in a day.”
“Unika. Don’t compare us to people of the time. For them, it was a life or death struggle. Even with the Saint being able to heal and resurrect them, they were still risking their lives against every monster.”
“It is a shame they never asked us for help.” Janina said. “We could have flown a small squad of powerful warriors to the castle, skipping this entire part of the war.”
“You wouldn’t have. Wanna know why?”
“I don’t need a reminder, but I’m sure the others want to know.”
“Why?” Cailie asked.
“Because the dragons were feasting. With all the monsters, the dragons were growing at rates they can’t during this age.” I explained. “So they wouldn't have cared about some trouble the humanoids are having.”
“... sadly it wasn’t good for us in the long run.” Janina said, sounding remorseful. “A lot of us died in the century following the feasting time. They no longer had the drive to improve, feeling they’d gotten strong enough.”
“... yeah. I had a soul copy of mine there, so I saw it all. Well not all, I didn’t stay long enough to see the deaths. But I noticed that not a lot of dragons from the time are still alive today.” I said, as I focused back on my memories to get the sad fact out of my system.
Eventually the war reached the final confrontations. Three armies, one to the west, one in north-east, one in north-west, all pushed towards the Demon Lord’s castle.
Confronting them was what was left of the Demon Lord’s forces. But they weren’t looking that great.
Hajime had already been in a questionable mental state when be began using the Chaos God Core, and in the 40 years since then, he hasn’t gotten any better. In fact, he was a lot worse.
He had gone nearly insane. I think it is partially because of the miasma he is exposed to, but the loneliness was also affecting him. For him, his forces were slaves. Tributes towards a higher goal. Nothing but resources he would use. They weren’t human, and definitely not people he could talk to about his problems.
This has resulted in his creations being less intelligent and more violent than previous ones. Well, that and the raw materials he used. With the war raging on, and the human side saving their own from the camps before they could be shipped to the Demon Lord, Hajime was stuck using monsters as the raw materials. This led to subpar troops that lacked the intelligence his human based troops had.
And with almost no human based troops left, Hajime had to be at the surface to command his troops.
Still, it wasn’t enough. The human armies kept pushing, eventually getting to the three bridges that joined the Demon Lord’s island to the mainland.
Hajime did what he could do, collapsing two of the three bridges to slow down the armies, but the third one he failed to collapse. Because the Hero’s party was there.
As soon as he was within the range of Sky Flicker, the Hero attacked the Demon Lord with his sword. And since the Hero was going against an Enemy of the World, the full abilities of the sword were at his disposal.
So when the Demon Lord tried to do anything to the Hero, it failed. After all, the Hero is unaffected by any skills the Demon Lord has. So both his magic and the one unique skill he could use without the System were useless for him.
This scared Hajime, as he likely has never experienced anything or anyone that can resist his unique skill. So he quickly fled, using the Dungeon Core to teleport himself to the core room, leaving his last few troops without a commander. Those troops were easily wiped out by the army and the Hero’s party.
They invaded the castle of the Demon Lord, and after not finding the Demon Lord there, they entered the dungeon underneath. And you might expect the dungeon to be filled with even more horrors, but with Hajime abusing the core as much as he had, the core simply didn’t have the resources to naturally spawn monsters. It would only do so when forced to do it by the Dungeon Master.
But Hajime was in no state of mind to spawn anything. Instead, he raged in the core room, using his unique skill to destroy everything, turning the room into a hellscape of earthen spikes. Everything he had built crumbled at his touch.
And then, the Hero’s party found their way in. It wasn’t all that difficult for them. Finding their way through dungeons had become simple during the times they had found some of the Demon Lord’s forces hiding at the bottom of dungeons they had taken over.
And as I said earlier, there were no monsters inside the Castle Dungeon. Except one. Hajime himself.
So the final battle began. And while it was tough, it was far from impossible.
With the Hero being immune to all of Hajime’s usual skills, he had to instead try to harm him through other means. Like transforming the floor into even more spikes that might impale him.
Demon's Pride and Fall might give Kanata complete defense against the Demon Lord’s skills, but not indirect effects of those skills. For example, Hajime could light the entire room on fire, and while the Fire Magic wouldn’t harm Kanata, the heat would affect him.
Of course not all that much. The Hero’s party still was over level 250, so they aren’t easy to take down.
That was until Hajime realized a limitation in the Swords abilities. The Absolute Immunity only helps the wielder of the sword. And while Unified Power shares the Strength Up, Magic Up and Against the Odds to companions, it can’t share Absolute Immunity.
So Hajime used that to his advantage. He began attacking the Saint and the Sage.
And yes, the two of them were strong, but the Demon Lord still had a Chaos God Core backing him. Using it, he teleported the Hero away from his companions and focused all of his efforts into them. And no, his sword couldn’t protect him from that, as it was a Chaos God Core teleporting him not an Enemy of the World.
Sure the Hero was still in the dungeon, but with the entire island counting as a part of the dungeon, and Hajime teleporting him as far as he could, he had a few minutes worth of running to do to get back here. And Hajime aimed to take complete advantage of it.
With all of his focus on the two mages, he pushed them back until he could get to melee range with them. And that … It didn't end well. As soon as Hajime’s hand made contact with Lucia, her body broke apart, splattering on the ground.
And just a few seconds later, Arcadia followed.
“Brian..?” Lua spoke up. “Did they really just … die?”
“Yeah.”
“But they should be alive, right?” She asked.
“Yeah. And they will be.” I promised.
I was honestly blown away. I didn’t expect anything like this. The two of them. Dead. That … cannot be. It shouldn’t be. How could they die? They can’t die. Not now. They should be alive. They have to be alive.
If the two of them die now, they currently perfect System Supports will never reach the Ultimate rank. And without the three ultimates, the Goddess will never be born, never be summoned, will never fix the dimensional barrier.
… Fuck!
I cursed myself. I should have acted with more authority. Fuck changing the future. I should have joined the Hero’s party or something. Been their silent protector, who makes sure everything goes perfectly. Done more to assist them. Maybe use cards on them from the shadows. But now. Now I was pissed.
I’m not about to do all of that again, just because this fucktard had one brain cell left.
I made another Soul Copy of myself, and let her manifest. Her, as she was using the appearance of Anastasia Bayer. Or Aspirin, if you prefer that name. I made myself appear by the two, planning to resurrect them quickly before Kanata made it back here.
“You!” Hajime yelled, as soon as I undid my Numeron Code abilities and appeared before him. “Finally, you appear! You joke of a GOD!”
“See!” Cailie exclaimed. “Told you you look like the Goddess. Even he thinks that is what you are.”
“... yeah. I should have realized it then. I just thought he was going insane, which admittedly he was.”
“Hajime Maō.” Aspirin spoke up. “This is enough. Surrender.”
“Not until you are DEAD! You are a fake God! And false Gods must die!” He yelled.
“... Perhaps I am. Then again, I’ve never claimed myself to be a God.” I answered truthfully, my voice calm. I’ve never claimed to be a God, in this time or the future.
“Not yet you haven’t, but in the future you will! A Goddess across this world!”
He attempted to charge at me, but I easily stopped him by grabbing him with Telekinesis. I then threw him against the back wall of the room, breaking a few of the ground spikes he had left in the room and leaving a nice Hajime shaped indent in the wall.
I turned to the two members of the Hero’s party who had been reduced to blood and gore. It really wasn’t a pretty sight. But I’ve seen worse. I wish I hadn’t, but someone had to keep an eye on Hajime when he experimented.
“You can’t fix them!” Hajime yelled from the other end of the room. “Even if you are a God, they are gone!”
“No they are not.” I said, my voice quiet enough to be considered a whisper, but it carried all the way to Hajime’s ears.
It really wasn’t difficult to heal them. I mean, I technically didn’t even heal them. Instead, I used Time Magic to revert their bodies to how they were before Hajime splattered them.
Sadly that spell couldn’t resurrect them. But their bodies were in perfect condition and in ‘full health’, only lacking their souls. Luckily, I have a card for that.
I was honestly excited to see how Hajime would react to this part. He still believed I was the Goddess. Let’s see if he can put two and two together.
“Monster Reborn.” I said gently, but with absolute authority, activating two copies of the spell.
Spoiler
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“And I’ll need to edit that part somehow. Make it seem like Aspirin could do that with her own power.” I said, mostly to myself.
“Can’t exactly have your cards in the past without telling the entire truth.” Alice agreed.
“It would be fun to see wow people would react.” Unika noted.
“They’d question why he didn’t stop it earlier.” Janina said.
“Speaking from experience?” Lua asked the dragon.
“Sadly, yes. Despite people generally not questioning dragons.”
As the two dead began to gather themselves, I turned to face Hajime. I had let the Telekinetic hold on him lose, and he had dug himself out of the wall with his skill.
“... YOU!” He yelled. “How are YOU HERE!?!”
“Simple.” I answered, still as calm as ever. “The same way as you.” I wasn’t afraid of talking with him openly, since the girls were still waking up. "I traveled back in time."
“There is no way!” He yelled. “You couldn’t have found out! You couldn’t have made that jump! No matter how powerful you are! There is no way! He would have beat you!”
“He? Holder of Power Structure, I assume? Maybe he can, maybe he can’t.” I answered. “Admittedly, I haven’t even reached that time yet. I didn’t come here because of you. I came here because I had a sword to deliver.” I said, perfectly timing my sentence. Because just as I finished it, the Hero burst back into the room, with Demon's Pride and Fall held high.
The Hero took a look around the room, seeing his two companions just getting off the floor, likely because of a powerful attack. And me, as Anastasia, standing between the two of them and the Demon Lord.
I turned to face him and smiled. “Let’s end this, Hero.” I spoke to him.
He was flabbergasted, likely never having expected that I’d be there. Not that I expected it either. And luckily Hajime reacted how I expected him to react. I wasn't paying attention to him and he took full advantage of it.
He lunged forward as fast as he could, fast enough that the Hero couldn’t intersect him, even if he moved at his top speed. I could have easily stopped him using any number of ways, but I let him come. I let him put his hand on my body, and use his Unique Skill on it. And as soon as he did, Anastasia was ripped to shreds, her body parts flying across the room with a spray of blood.
…
“Ha, Ha, Ha, HAAAA!!” The Demon Lord laughed, his deranged laughter echoing in the room. “YOU WORTHLESS ABNORMAL! Begone forever! You may have helped the HERO, but you can’t stop our PLAN!”
Meanwhile, by the entrance, Kanata was seething. He was angry. Extremely so. And he wasn’t about to hold back.
He rushed forward as fast as he could, taking full advantage of the Demon Lord’s mad laugh. By the time Hajime realized what was happening, it was too late.
With a swing, Hajime’s left arm separated from his body. And with another, his right arm was cut off. But Kanata didn’t stop.
He cut into Hajime again and again and again. Each cut inflicting massive damage to the Demon Lord, breaking him apart faster than he could even attempt to fix himself.
Not that he could have after the first few cuts. Hajime still has to touch himself to use his skill on himself. And no, it doesn’t have to be with his hand. But two different body parts have to come in contact with each other.
So there they stood. The Hero’s party. In a core room of a Chaos God Dungeon, with two demons by their feet. One was the evil that tried to take over the world, while the other did everything in her power to protect the world. Or at least that is what they believed.