Danmachi: The Multiverse Portal

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"You deserve to die! I am a Dead Apostle—a being above humanity—free from the pathetic rules your species crawls beneath!" Jester Karture glared at August through bloodshot eyes, his mangled body still struggling to repair the damage from the gunfire.

"What gives you the right to look down on me??"

He saw the answer in August's eyes.

There was no fear in them. No anger. Not even the disgust humans usually reserved for vampires.

Only contempt.

Even a True Ancestor looking down on livestock would have shown more interest. August regarded him like a specimen with limited value, something to cut open, study, and throw away once it had given up every useful secret.

August dug a finger into his ear.

"Done talking?"

"..." Jester's expression twisted.

A massive greatsword appeared in August's hands. The weapon dropped onto his shoulder with enough force to crack the pavement beneath his feet.

WOOSH!

August charged.

Jester thrust both hands forward. Wind howled around him as he poured mana into the air, compressing it into layer after layer of defensive currents.

'A Noble Phantasm?' That was his first thought.

Then the greatsword struck.

"IMPOSSIBLE—!"

The greatsword held no Mystery, no supernatural force his Magecraft could redirect or overpower. It was nothing more than several tons of metal hurtling toward him with crushing speed.

The compressed winds buckled.

August smashed straight through them, and the greatsword tore across Jester's waist.

His body split in half.

"Who said I was going to play by your rules?" August watched Jester's upper body tumble across the street, then rested the bloodied greatsword against his shoulder. "Don't expect your precious Mystery to save you from mass and momentum."

Jester scrabbled on the pavement and dragged himself away, leaving a trail of blood behind him while his flesh tried to rebuild everything below his waist. His severed legs remained where they had fallen.

August flicked his wrist.

A steel chain shot out from the [Spatial Backpack]—wrapped around the discarded limbs, and pulled them into storage.

One Dead Apostle sample acquired!

—•——•——•——•——•——•—

Orlando Reeve watched the entire exchange without blinking. The fight had barely resumed before August cut Jester in half and stole a piece of his body.

It hadn't even been a fight.

Blood and mana flooded Jester's mangled torso. Bone sprouted first, then muscle and pale skin knitted over it, rebuilding his legs in seconds. As soon as feeling returned, he glanced toward where his severed lower half had landed.

It was gone.

August really was collecting pieces of him.

He hadn't been joking about wanting to study his body.

"YOU FILTHY HUMAN!"

Humans were livestock. Blood bags born to sustain superior creatures like him—yet August had carved him apart and taken a sample as casually as a butcher cutting meat from an animal.

Jester's humiliation boiled over into rage!!

August was already coming for him again.

"Filthy?" The greatsword swept through the wind gathering around Jester and scattered it before the spell could take shape.

"Then what does that make you?"

"A parasitic dead end that can't survive without stealing from everyone else?"

Jester tried to reinforce the air around his body, but August didn't give him a chance. The greatsword tore through every current he made, its weight crushing his unfinished defenses before they could hold.

"Humanity spent millions of years fighting its way to the top of this planet." August raised the weapon overhead. "You steal blood, steal lives, and hide from the sun—and you call that evolution?"

"BANG!" The greatsword came down.

Jester crossed both arms above his head.

The greatsword smashed through his guard and split his skull open.

"I'm proud to be human... A failed offshoot like you should learn its place." August said, wrenching the weapon free.

Jester screamed as the two halves of his head began forcing themselves back together.

Then something punched through his back.

Several metal canisters locked onto his body, connected by narrow tubes and crude injectors. Some held holy water and sacred restorative agents, the kind of medicine that healed the living but burned through undead flesh like poison.

Jester's regeneration faltered.

"WHAT DID YOU DO??" He tried to circulate more mana, only to feel the energy vanish the moment it began moving through his body.

"My mana..." Jester twisted his half-restored neck until he could see the device buried between his shoulders.

It wasn't a Mystic Code. It was far too crude for that. Someone had driven a basic energy collector directly into his body, hijacking his magical circulation before the mana could reach his wounds.

"You're draining me!"

"Bingo." August planted one boot against Jester's spine and pushed the collector deeper.

Extracting energy was easy. Even the technology in this world could manage that. The real challenge was storing raw mana without it decaying, leaking, or destroying its container. That was a problem even August's Earth hadn't solved yet.

The [Spatial Backpack] removed that limitation.

Its internal space could absorb active spells and magical attacks without breaking down. Handling the mana flowing through Jester's body was much easier.

The collector drew it out, and the [Spatial Backpack] stored it.

Jester struggled under August's boot, but every time he tried to heal, the device drained him even faster. If his body needed a hundred units of energy to keep going, the collector ripped out ten times that by tapping into the reserves that kept his stolen lives going.

His regeneration stopped. The flesh surrounding his wounds began to wither before it could close.

"You Dead Apostles have more than one life, and each one depends on mana." August glanced at the storage readings climbing higher.

"That makes you perfect—"

Perfect research material.

Perfect as a renewable energy source.

Perfect as a battery.

August took a large containment capsule from the [Spatial Backpack] and opened it next to Jester. Once Jester was sealed inside, he could be taken back to Earth and studied in a controlled setting.

"Easy there, young man." Hansa Cervantes finally stepped out of the shadows and raised a hand in greeting.

For the first time that night, the priest felt real pressure pressing down on him.

If August had killed Jester, Hansa wouldn't have stepped in. Hunting Dead Apostles was the Church's job, and he had come to Snowfield ready to fight this one himself.

August wasn't killing him.

He was packing him away alive for experimentation.

That was harder to ignore...

"Is there a problem?" August asked.

He kept working. The containment locks snapped shut around Jester while the collector kept pulling mana from his body. Once converted, that energy could power weapons that needed magic or supply the experimental mana cannons being built to fight supernatural threats.

"I'm just curious where you plan to take him." Hansa kept his voice casual, though his smile had grown tense.

"Somewhere useful."

That answer did nothing to reassure him!

"Mind telling me your name?" Hansa had many more questions, but he didn't know where to start.

August was a human who could beat a Dead Apostle, use Command Spells, pull out weapons from another space, heal lost limbs, and lead an army that could hide all over Snowfield without being found.

Then there were the two women standing nearby.

Hansa had recognized Artemis right away. The smaller woman who floated away from August's shoulder to join her was a different story, but every instinct told him the same thing.

Another Goddess!

The Church could deny foreign gods, reinterpret their myths, or call Divine Spirits demons. But none of that changed one universal rule.

Never scheme in front of a God.

If a god killed him for being disrespectful, shattered his soul, and fed the pieces to the hounds of Hell, Hansa would have only himself to blame.

August thought about the question, then looked at Hestia.

His identity wasn't a secret, but it was clear someone else wanted to introduce him.

As soon as their eyes met, Hestia's chest filled with pride.

Everyone looked where August was looking. The cameras and familiars watching from a distance still couldn't see Hestia, but the people there in person could see her standing next to Artemis under the streetlights.

The two women's beauty and presence felt completely out of place in modern Snowfield.

—•——•——•——•——•——•—

Before August could answer, Hestia planted both hands on her hips and lifted her chin.

"I am Hestia—Goddess of the Hearth!" She raised her voice to make sure everyone across the intersection heard what she said next.

"And August is the child I cherish most in my Familia!"

She looked like she wanted the whole world to hear it.

"..." Hansa's face went stiff. Orlando held his breath for a moment, and the magi listening through the surveillance feeds felt their hearts sink. They couldn't see the woman speaking, but just hearing her name was enough.

Hestia.

Another true Goddess.

Artemis was known around the world as the Greek Goddess of the Moon and the Hunt. Hestia showed up less often in the famous myths, but her name was just as well known. She was the virgin Goddess who protected the hearth, the home, and the sacred flame at the heart of civilization.

Two Goddesses had descended in their true bodies.

One stood behind the Artemis Familia.

The other had just declared August her most cherished child.

At that moment, both the Snowfield Police Department and the Church realized the same thing. These outsiders could no longer be treated like normal participants in the Holy Grail War.

For Orlando Reeve and Hansa Cervantes, however, discovering a second Goddess was only half the shock.

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