Beta read and Cowritten by Shigiya and GamerCrusher55
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-Fullstar, Castle Underground Cavern-
Archer knew that he could've done things differently, but it would probably be a lie. He overestimated how much time he actually had in shielding himself.
Being crushed under a mountain of rock was never a pleasant way to go. And in most cases, dying wasn't even the worst part. Worse was surviving the collapse only to stay pinned under all that weight; bones ground to dust, lungs scraping for whatever fresh air it could manage while the encroaching darkness swallowed them.
Crash!
His earlier attack had caused more damage than he had planned. There were already several layers of stone that had turned to molten earth, leaving a large portion of the cavern barely stable, with cracks spreading quickly on the ceiling.
The entire structure quickly began to give way.
Chunks of stone the size of wagons and houses broke free first collapsing down with deafening sounds; then came hundreds more that followed.
In the distance the translucent shield that the others created was continuously based by blow after blow.
A roaring avalanche of molten rock followed behind the stone rain as Archer's eyes narrowed.
Tracing metal supports would accomplish nothing. There was too much mass involved. Attempting to cut through the falling debris was equally impractical. Even if he destroyed one section, countless others would simply replace it.
The solution to survival needed to be different. The world seemed to slow around him as his gaze swept across the collapsing ceiling expanding his mind to find a solution to his current predicament.
The intensity of the situation heightened his Mind's Eye. Even if it wasn't a skill anymore, it was still something he always carried as a part of him after honing it for years on the battlefield or dealing with dangerous environments.
'A boulder lands here… no, it would be a failure. Another strike from that side… no good.'
'Lava fills the gap. Failure.'
'A larger section collapses prematurely. Failure.'
Several dozen, even hundreds, of scenarios that would shut down a normal human's brain at the speed and information flashed through his mind. It gave him a migraine from the influx of information, but he needed to keep going.
"There," He found it, a single path.
His bow materialized in his hand, his arrows in the other. Heavy, blunt tips that were designed for impact rather than penetration.
Pulling as hard and fast as possible, he fired the first arrow.
Thunk!
The first arrow struck the center of the boulder, shattering it. A second followed immediately, then a third, then a fourth — Arrow after Arrow, he fired them until his movements were a blur to those around him.
Each volley, each strike landed exactly where they were intended, but there were still issues… The first being the jagged rocks from the broken boulders falling, smacking, scraping and jabbing in skin. Superficial, but it could be a problem if it continued.
At the rate things were going, it might become an issue as more and more wounds started to build. He started to move while he continued to fire, avoiding debris and boulders that he didn't shoot, causing lava to splash.
'Hah… Why can't things ever be simple?'
Dropping low, Archer raised his bow above his head and braced himself, every sense focused on his goal. The boulders landed precisely as he intended, each massive stone converging with the others to form a sloped, cone-shaped pocket at the center. More debris continued to fall, but his shelter caught the worst of the assault, redirecting the crushing force outward instead of down. Smaller rocks bounced harmlessly off the protective shell, while rivers of molten stone split and flowed around rather than through.
All around him, the heat surged, consuming everything in its reach. The heated pressure was pressing close, threatening to overwhelm his protection, yet the Holy Shroud held firm, giving some comfort from the rising heat. Without its blessing, his flesh would've taken damage in minutes; as it was, the heat merely battered him, saturating the air until it felt as if his blood itself might boil.
Sweat coated his skin, every muscle clenched against the urge to collapse, but he kept his ground and mind clear, enduring the suffocating heat of his self-made prison.
.
.
.
Then, gradually, it stopped.
"Finally… it's done." He didn't need to even have to look out of his shelter to understand one thing.
The underground chamber was pretty much gone. What had once been a sprawling network of tunnels and open caverns were destroyed. Jagged slabs of rock were piled atop one another. Thin streams of molten rock glowed within the cracks, casting an uneven orange light through the rubble. Between the fallen debris lay the charred corpses of the giant insects, crushed between boulders and shattered stone. The smell of dust, sulfur and burnt flesh was very unpleasant, especially in his temporary safe space.
Of course, it was still better than the alternative. Though using the full might of Excalibur Galatine hadn't been kind to his magical energy reserves in his current body. And using Rho Aias would be very costly to his reserves at the moment
Crumble!
The servant of the bow felt worry creep up when he heard the destroyed cavern rumble and shift. 'The boulders and bodies were mostly focused on me. The others should be fine until I catch up to them.'
Despite the covering being effective at the moment, he could already see cracks forming, his time running out.. "Damn it." Archer remembered both the mental and physical pressure back then when accompanying Maia when they got first ambushed. Part of him hoped things wouldn't have gotten this bad, but he was being too optimistic. With the sound of a mental gunshot, his reinforcement was in full force, but his muscles were still strained from earlier and his flesh was still healing from the damage from the fall rocks.
Seconds felt like hours, the lava heating the rock around him like he was placed in an oversize oven. Sweat streaming down his forehead and steam rising from his body, a far too familiar sensation that he rather not go through again.
Then…
It stopped.
The crashing.
The impacts of stones smashing stones above him that would've caved in his protection.
For now at least…
"Finally…" Archer, seeing a faint bright light, from the liquefied stone cracks that hadn't hardened yet, past his eyelids, struggled to open them. The world slowly came to focus. Near the center of the devastation, a faint emerald glow pulsed steadily.
Archer exhaled and his clenched hands relaxed. Small fragments of stone occasionally struck the barrier before bouncing harmlessly away.
"That was close," he muttered. Even reinforced to the limits of what his current body could endure, there was no surviving several thousand tons of rock coming down at once. The improvised shelter did its job well enough keeping the rubble from crushing him to death. It would keep him alive for a little longer and give him the breathing room for him to work, but from the cracks still forming, his time was limited. "No point in reinforcing them for now. Best to save my energy to escape."
Had he had more time, a particular Noble Phantasm came to mind. One of the few shields belonging to a long forgotten roman centurion. Not ideal in combat but quite versatile in its ability to create a bounded field defending from physical attacks. Though against truly powerful attacks, especially those involving other Noble Phantasms, it was nowhere near the level of Rho Aias.
"It'll suffice for now, but where'd it come from?" Raising his voice, he yelled, calling out into the darkness. "Everyone, are you all right?"
"Archer! Are you okay?" Celestine's voice answered almost immediately. It sounded strained, but there was no mistaking the relief behind it.
A second voice followed moments later.
"I'm so happy you're alive!"
Astrid's shout echoed loudly through the rubble-filled cavern. A small chuckle escaped him despite the situation.
"A bit quick to assume I'd died, don't you think?" he called back. Given everything that had just happened, he couldn't exactly blame her for assuming he died in this mess. Most people would have been buried alive or crushed to death if they went through this mess. "How are things on your side?"
A third voice made itself known. "Cough, Cough! You! YOU! This is the worst! I'm covered in dirt and my dress is ruined! But I'm alive! Thank the goddess for she hasn't abandoned someone as amazing as me hahaha!" Well, the elf pipsqueak clearly went crazy, if her manic giggles were any indications.
"The three of us managed to shield ourselves! The area that we were in hadn't completely collapsed. There's still some open space here. I think there might even be a way through."
That earned a quiet sigh of relief. "Good. We got lucky." Considering the scale of the collapse even with all of his actions to minimize the damage, luck still played a larger role than anyone wanted to admit. "Are you injured?" came the next question, concern clear in her voice.
"Nothing serious," Archer answered, glancing once more at the glowing shield maintaining the protective dome around him. "Mostly exhausted."
His curiosity rose upon seeing a faint green light cover the area. The temperature immediately started to decrease and became more bearable. "Hoh… Is one of you responsible for this green shield over me?"
"You better be grateful, human! I am not going to die from being cooked alive nor should you before I get my hands around your neck! Also get me out of here! Where are you Eve!? Help me!" Seriously, it wouldn't hurt her to not scream at him or threaten him for once. "It's an open spell so others can use it, just funnel whatever magical energy you have into it to keep it going so I don't have too! I'm not your servant."
Archer's eyes wandered around, eventually finding what she mentioned. "An open spell, huh? Interesting. For someone to tamper with spells from another caster is always a tricky thing and often leads to horrible outcomes. But it doesn't seem to be the case" Just like she said, at the barrier's center a glowing green emerald pulsed in waves as he used an ever so tiny amount of his Magical Energy to funnel into it. "Though, it's not very efficient… I'll be out of energy in less than a minute."
The spell continued humming softly as he raised his hand as more magical energy flowed through it. Maintaining the barrier wasn't particularly useful anymore as the surroundings had become bearable, he could already see the cracks form upon it as it began to break down.
"Do you need help?" Celestine asked.
"I'm all right," said the man while raising his free hand, and projecting several thick metal poles into the air around him. With a series of soft thuds, they drove themselves into the surrounding rock, shoring up the immediate area and creating a stable framework. Since he stopped feeding the emerald dome the spell flickered and then vanished. He pocketed it, reached out, and touched a large piece of granite, his magic circuits flaring as he released a pulse of magical energy. Structural analysis information flooded his mind as the energy echoed back, mapping the entire collapsed section. Luckily the entire palace hadn't crumbled from his actions. Only this part had given way. Most of the castle structure further in was still intact. He could see their group buried a little distance away from him.
"What do we do now? I'll try to move the rocks—"
"Don't!" Archer's voice cut through sharp enough to make her freeze. "Touch nothing. One wrong move and this whole section comes down on all of us."
"Then what am I supposed to do?!" Astrid fired back, frustration and worry bleeding through every word. "Sit here and twiddle my thumbs while you're buried alive?"
"That would be a start."
"I'm being serious!"
"So am I. You can't rush this."
"I know!"
Celestine's voice joined in, voice firm. "She's right, Archer. We're not leaving you there."
"I never asked you to leave," he replied dryly. "I just asked you not to bring the ceiling down on my head. There's a difference. Don't get me wrong, I'd rather get out of here as soon as possible." Several plans flashed across his mind. Continuing to cast structural analysis, pushing his senses deeper into the surrounding rock. Noticing several bodies were beginning to draw closer. "Those don't feel like castle guards," he muttered silently. "Or human, for that matter." Amongst them he sensed several other outlines, small and multiple, followed by more human shaped outlines. He raised his voice enough so that the others could hear but not them. "It looks like not every creature died. We've also got some cultists heading our way. They should be easy to kill. Stay put. I'll find a way out of this. We'll try to find another path to track the insect god cult."
"Wait! I have a plan!" Astrid yelled suddenly.
"What? Did you make some improvement to your spell?"
"No," she said, her voice gaining a determined edge. "When those monsters first attacked me at my house, they weren't necessarily trying to kill me. They were trying to capture me right? Then that means they might still want that."
Archer narrowed his eyes, immediately guessing what she was getting at. "That is a ridiculously dangerous idea."
"But it's our only choice!" Astrid insisted. "This game of cat and mouse, trying to find the Insect God cult, will take too long. Those people will just hide somewhere else if we even begin to get close, and just send more of their insects from afar. More people might get hurt. More incidents like this could happen again and again, and the next time, we might not be so lucky." Archer thought about it. He understood where she was getting at. He wasn't in a position to waste too much time.
"There's nothing to suggest they won't just kill you or feed you to the insects as soon as they have you," he countered.
"There's a reason why those people have been capturing women for all these months," Astrid pressed on. "They need them to create more insects. Women are too valuable to needlessly kill if they can be used to bolster their forces, and since most often die or break away from the cults' methods, they always need a fresh supply."
"Gaah! Stop talking! You're putting those terrible images in my head!" Evelyn voiced her disgust, clearly not wanting to hear anymore of their actions, though Astrid continued unbothered. "Don't listen to this crazy woman, she has lost her mind! Get us out of here now!"
"Can you please shut up for once!? I'm trying to save your kingdom here!"
"You're going to get us all killed! Let's leave first and then I can assemble my army to kill them all!"
"Kill who!? Do you even know where to find them?" Astrid countered, their back and forth almost becoming a source of entertainment for him. But nonetheless, she had a point. Even the biggest army in the world would be useless if they did not know where the enemy was in the first place.
"..."
And from the sounds of it, Evelyn realized the same thing as well as she mashed her teeth together.
"After what you've done, they'll be in a bigger need to create more of those things. Their supply of insects must have taken some dent. I'm a mage. I'm practically the perfect vessel to create more. It's very unlikely they'll kill me on the spot. They'd probably bring me in, as some way of revenge."
Archer couldn't deny that. He remained silent for a long moment before finally answering. "What about the others? It's just as dangerous for them to be captured. I don't think they're on board with this plan."
"Absolutely not!" Evelyn's voice shrieked from the other side, filled with terror. "Do not bundle me with this crazy mage! I want to get out of here! I will not let any enemy or insect lay a single finger on my body!"
"I… I wish to stay by your side."
Archer shifted back to Astrid. "And you, Astrid? Are you okay with this?"
"Yes," Astrid confirmed, her voice firm and certain. "I'm sure. It's a risk we need to take. We have to turn the tables on them before it's too late."
Unable to argue against her logic, Archer began to move. He traced Kanshou and Bakuya into his hands, the familiar black-and-white twin blades appearing in his grip. With little effort, he sliced through a large boulder blocking his path, the blade cutting the stone into several manageable chunks. He worked with precision, each strike calculated to prevent the roof above from crumbling further. He continued this process, cutting a path through the debris until he finally emerged into the open area where the others were waiting, finally seeing them.
They were covered in dust, dirt, and rubble, their beauty marred with black shoots. A shimmering shield, similar to his own but of a different magical nature, still surrounded them. There were no wound's, but it was clear that the intense rubble had stirred the dirt already inside it, covering them. He could see some of their clothing had been torn, showing more skin than usual from their odd attires. Astrid's beige dress was torn showing her long slender legs and her top looking ready to rip open if it received any more damage.
"Go ahead. Dispel it."
Celestine and the others complied, the barrier fading. Archer immediately grabbed Astrid's palm, and before she could react, he pricked her finger with a small, traced needle.
"Ow! Hey!" she yelped, pulling her hand back.
He ignored her outburst. Another blade appeared in his hand, this one a simple, unadorned sword.
Astrid recognized it. "Wait, isn't this…"
He didn't answer, simply taking her hand again, holding it above the flat of the blade. A single droplet of her blood welled up from the prick and fell onto the metal. In front of her eyes, the droplet was absorbed, sinking into the sword as if the metal were thirsty.
"The people of the Insect God cult will be here any minute now," Archer stated, his voice low. "Most likely to confirm we're dead or to salvage anything they can." He then turned to Celestine and Evelyn. "You two, stay behind me. I'll keep you hidden until Astrid is taken."
His gaze finally settled on Astrid. "Just like before wherever you go, Hrunting will track you. If at any point I feel like they're going to do anything other than capture you, I will intervene. Whether you like it or not."
Astrid managed a small, confident smile. "Yes. I expected nothing less."
With that, Archer moved back to his concealed tunnel entrance within the rubble. "Hold each other closely near that wall, you should blend into the surroundings," he instructed Celestine and Evelyn, tracing a small dagger and keeping it ready. As the two elves did what he asked, Astrid evoked a chant, a purple ring encircling her. Not long after she went limp onto Archer before he settled her on the ground, her eyes closed and body motionless with only the gentle rise of her chest.
A few minutes later, the sound of several footsteps echoed through the cave. People approaching the collapsed area.
"Find anything we can use! Do it quickly before more guards arrive!" one voice ordered, the leader of the group.
"Don't waste time! Our leader is waiting for an answer! We must find the queen, and cultivate her body quickly!" another urged.
Archer remained silent, his presence masked by the shadows and the debris. The cultists searched the area, their movements frantic. One of them, getting close enough to the smoldering carcass, suddenly stopped.
"The queen is dead!" he shouted to the others.
"Damn it!"
A moment later, another voice called out, "Over here! We found one! It's the mage!"
"Capture her! Bring her back to Shamuhaza!"
Archer remained motionless amongst the shadows, his breathing steady as he watched the scene unfold. The cultists roughly bound Astrid's wrists before forcing her awake, and pushing her forward. Surrounded on all sides, there was little she could do as they led her deeper into the cavern network. The last glimpse he caught of her was the back of her head disappearing into the darkness of a distant tunnel.
He waited… One minute passed and then another.
The sounds of boots scraping against stone gradually faded as the larger group departed with their prisoner. Only a small detachment remained behind, tasked with guarding the area and ensuring nobody followed. They spread themselves throughout the cavern entrance, some standing watch while others exchanged quiet conversation, confident the danger had already passed.
That confidence would not last — Archer moved.
What followed was nothing short of an execution. Archer let his history as a Counter Guardian carry him through as he eliminated those responsible for a Beasts' emergence.
A streak of black and white steel flashed across the cavern. The nearest cultist never even realized what happened before it was too late. The blade opened his throat from ear to ear, cutting so deeply that blood sprayed across the nearby rock wall. He dropped his weapon instinctively, both hands flying toward his neck as a wet gurgle escaped his lips before he collapsed face-first into the dirt.
Before the body even hit the ground, Archer was already moving to the next.
The second man turned at the sound of his comrade's body hitting the floor, mouth opening to shout a warning. He never finished. The sword pierced through his chest, bursting from his back in a spray of blood and the other slicing his throat. Archer ripped the blade free and sidestepped as the dying cultist crumpled to his knees.
"Eh?" One of the guards managed a single sound before steel split his skull and throat apart. The force of the strike sent him crashing sideways into the cave wall, painting the walls red. Another rushed forward in panic, only for a blade to slash across his stomach and another going under his jaw and through his skull. He staggered back several steps, blades slipping out, staring in disbelief at what just happened as blood poured between his fingers before he too joined the rest of the corpses.
The remaining cultists finally reacted properly, reaching for weapons and spells.
They never had the time to attack.
A sword thrust pierced one man's eye socket and buried itself deep into his skull. Another received a slash across the neck that nearly separated his head from his shoulders. The final guard stumbled backward, terror visible on his face as he attempted to flee into the tunnel.
He made it three steps.
A thrown blade struck him between the shoulder blades and emerged from his chest. The momentum carried him forward before he crashed heavily onto the stone floor and let out a calming breath.
Silence returned to the cavern.
Only the faint dripping of blood and the distant crackle of molten rock disturbed the stillness.
Several bodies lay scattered across the ground. Dark red pools slowly spread beneath them, flowing through cracks in the stone and mixing with the dirt. The entire fight hadn't even lasted a minute.
"Archer…" Celestine could only watch the carnage morbidly with concern, remembering all the scenes where he had been forced to follow the same routine over and over again. Evelyn on the other hand shook in place with tears rolling down her face at the sheer brutality of what she saw, clutching Celestine's arm as she trembled.
"M-Monster…"
Archer ignored the statement as he stood quietly amidst the dead, his attention falling toward the sword still in his hand. The blade that was still stained with a droplet of Astrid's blood.
Then it moved.
The weapon twitched slightly before slowly rising. Its tip turned, sniffing out its prey, before settling on to one direction.
"Let's make sure Evelyn makes it back to the surface with someone in her military she trusts, before going after them." Archer's eyes narrowed. "So that's where you were hiding all this time..." he murmured as he followed the direction indicated by Hrunting.
{Break}
(Present)
Archer jumped from the crumbling passage he'd clawed out and landed in the middle of the altar, the impact of his boots on the stone sending a small vibration through the platform. He released a sigh of relief, the tension leaving his shoulders. The plan had actually worked. He was impressed, despite himself, by Astrid's quick thinking and bravery to be the bait. His gaze swept across the cavernous space, taking in the numerous robed cultists and the dozens of chained priestesses huddled on the floor with tears in their eyes. He recognized some. The sight was all the evidence he needed. He turned his head, fixing Kaguya with a dry stare.
"You rushed here as soon as your priestesses got captured," he stated, voice flat, as he surveyed the room. "Without trying to find me in the first place, didn't you?"
Kaguya didn't say anything. She looked away, a faint blush of embarrassment creeping up her neck. "It was a matter of life and death," she mumbled, quiet enough that it was almost inaudible. "For your information I was captured."
"So you wouldn't have come here yourself if you'd known?"
"…"
Archer rolled his eyes, not even surprised at this point. "Of course."
His attention shifted to the thin and haggard man, body covered in bandages, standing on the balcony. He took in the numerous wrappings covering his face and body and raised an eyebrow. "I figure you're the leader of this little cult then, this Shamuhaza that I kept hearing about," Archer said, glaring at the bandage-covered leader. "The one responsible for all this mess I've been through since coming here."
Shamuhaza did not answer immediately, simply glared at the red clad man with bloodshot eyes, narrowing with hate. After a moment he calmed himself, and he closed his eyes. "It should have been impossible to find us," he said, his voice calm and low as he backed away ever so slightly.
"I have my ways, none of which I intend on telling an enemy. Though I can't take complete credit for this." Archer replied, jumping down from the altar, landing lightly on the ground floor. He looked around further, his mind cataloging every detail. "Clever place to hide, right beneath the academy. Makes it easier for you to hunt down as many people as you wish, doesn't it?" A thought occurred to him. "Does that mean the people from the academy are allied with you as well?"
"Where is the queen of this country? And where is the fake Goddess Reborn? If you are alive, I assume she is as well." Shamuhaza, not giving those words any recognition, only continued his own line of questioning.
Archer ignored him as well. Neither was willing to give the other any intel, only interested in having their own inquiry's answered.
He jumped back onto the altar. His fingers tracing the metal of the shackles binding Astrid. With a small application of his blades, the bonds snapped. Quite a lightweight woman, with ease, he picked her up, wrapping a piece of his own cloak around her naked body. "Still this idea of yours really was dumb, if I'm being generous. Had I been just a few minutes late, you would have been filled with those eggs."
At least the girl had the decency to look embarrassed but that was soon replaced with a green tint as she jerked awake, shocking Shamuhaza. "Yak! Ack! Why did you have to put that image in my head?" She reacted by gagging, and turning her head to the side.
A cute display, he had to admit.t
"You're the one who's imagining it," Archer countered with a smirk. "I was merely making an observation on what could have happened."
"It doesn't matter! Well, it kind of does matter, but at least I was right! My plan worked!" Astrid exclaimed, pointing a trembling finger at Shamuhaza. "Go, Archer! Attack them with a rain of those weirdly enchanted swords!"
"Really? I'm not your familiar, you know."
"A-Ah," Astrid bristled with confusion and some rouge color marking her cheeks, flustered. "I… uh, I-I was just joking. Can't I at least have that? After he stripped me naked and tried to violate me? You were going to do it anyway!"
"I was, but now I'm having second thoughts, given how you were just ordering me around."
Astrid began to panic, both hands flying up as his earlier words. "I'm sorry! I got caught up in the moment! I just wanted to see that guy die for everything he was planning to do!"
"I was only joking. I'm just glad you and the others are all right." He said with a wave of his hand.
Her cheeks puffed up, their redness growing more pronounced as she glared at him with tears threatening to spill from her eyes. Archer, however, was more amused than concerned. She really did look cute when angered, it reminded him of a mixture of Alicia's reaction and Brynn.
"..."
Kaguya for the most part remained silent.
Shamuhaza's face twitched beneath the dense layers of bandages wrapped around his head. "I see! It was you, wasn't it, Astrid? You allowed yourself to be captured so you could leave a trail for someone to follow. We stripped you bare, so it must have been some sort of spell!"
In his fury, the cult leader had managed to piece together the answer, but figuring out their scheme did little to calm him. If anything, watching them behave so casually in front of him made the insult worse. "You have quite the audacity, not only ignoring me but behaving so frivolously in my presence!"
He raised his hand, signaling the other cultists to attack.
"Aaaaah!"
Clang!
They responded at once, drawing their weapons as the sound of steel rang throughout the hideout.
With Kanshou already in hand, he met the first attack head-on. Steel struck steel with a loud clang, sending red and yellow sparks scattering across the room. The clash lasted barely a moment before the black blade sliced through the ordinary weapon as though it were butter, continuing straight into its wielder. Blood splashed across the stone floor, and the unfortunate cultist crumpled before he could even comprehend what had happened.
'Most of them are just regular people, no reinforcement whatsoever. Still, best to stay vigilant.' He had already moved on before the body hit the ground. Turning towards the second and third attackers, dispatching both with a pair of swift strikes. Neither managed to deflect his blows or put up a proper defense. He slipped past their guards and cut them down before they could make any meaningful use of their weapons.
The remaining fighters barely had time to react before a towering berserker charged forward, wielding a massive, rusted cleaver with dried blood clinging to its metal. The brute raised the weapon high and brought it down with enough force to threaten anyone caught beneath its path. "Can't even bother to not kill your own allies, humph!" Archer simply stepped aside, letting the cleaver smash into the floor. Before the man could recover, a hard kick swept his legs out from under him. As the giant toppled, Bakuya plunged into his chest and pierced his heart.
"Urgh!"
More cultists rushed forward, only to meet the same fate. Their numbers offered little advantage against him, no different to throwing them all into an endless meat grinder.
Within moments, the hideout had fallen quiet again, save for the crackling torches and the occasional drop of blood falling from his blade.
The surviving cultists stood at a distance, none willing to approach the man who had just slaughtered their strongest close-combat fighters with such ease.
"Get the mages ready!"
As they continued battle tactics, Astrid bridged the gap and whispered something into his ear. "Should we escape with the others before you use that fire attack? It probably wouldn't be a good idea to do it here, given there's the academy above us."
"Right, the academy…" Archer just shook his head. "Unfortunately, I will be unable to use that attack again."
"Huh! Why?" the girl exclaimed, confused.
"I'm not exactly running on infinite magical energy. My body has already used quite a bit of it during the cave-in, so I won't be able to use massive attacks like that for a while."
"Oh no! What should we do then!? Should we just run?"
"Stop panicking and no." There was no reason to run and he doubted these people would even let him, part of him was certain that even if it required Fullstar to be turned upside down, Shamuhaza wouldn't hesitate. "Running would just be inviting more problems… I can't let this guy escape alive."
Just like against Vault, he could not allow that man to live another day. He immediately rushed towards the cult leader, intending to kill him right then and there.
Screeeee!
A wall of insects rose from the ground in front of Shamuhaza without him having to raise a finger. The chitinous shield of bodies was cleaved through by Archer's sword, several of them at once being turned to shreds, before more just appeared to take their place as if it hadn't made a dent. Shamuhaza created more distance as he backed away with a back leap and then another, trying to run away, with more and more insects appearing around in the form of a living tidal wave.
"Things would have gone perfectly had you not appeared! You should have been killed the day the foreign God heeded our call and went to Feoh!" Shamuhaza yelled back at him, his voice filled with rage.
"You fool, that thing is no god!" Archer shouted back, frowning. While he understood why the people of this world would mistake her as one; he had to make sure that such beliefs would never stick and cause more problems. Worshipping a Beast could cause that faith to create a beacon for more of them to notice and that would lead to absolute ruin.
As the tide grew too large for him to cut through, he changed course, rushing over to Kaguya. Snapping her bonds with the same ease he had freed Astrid. He grabbed both girls, tucking one under each arm, and jumped away as the tide came down. Through the darkness another giant insect, a centipede-like creature, struck the area where he had just landed before jumping once more, its massive legs smashing the stone floor into dust. He brought both Kaguya and Astrid to where the other priestesses were huddled. Kaguya was immediately hugged by a few of her subordinates still in ch, a gesture she returned before looking back at Archer.
"How long can you hold them back?"
"I'm not planning on holding them back," Archer replied, his gaze fixed on the swarm. "I'm only here to end it now."
"But you just said you were low on energy,"
"I don't necessarily need to fire giant lasers or beams of fire to eliminate the threat every time. I am perfectly capable of just using my swords to get done with the matter." As he spoke, slicing through several insects that had ventured too close, their bodies falling in two separate, clean pieces.
"Get back to your senses! Use the hostages!" Shamuhaza barked with his voice cutting through the chaos. The cultists, taken aback by Archer's swift display, shook off their hesitation and turned towards the huddled priestesses.
"No you don't!" But before they could take a single step, Astrid acted. "Lumen excedens!" she shrieked, thrusting a newly acquired staff forward she just got from him.
Whoosh!
A blinding flash of white light erupted from the crystal, filling the entire chamber. "Argh!" Everyone, cultists and priestesses alike, cried out as their vision was overwhelmed, stumbling back in disorientation.
In that moment of blindness, Kaguya moved and forced a small, paper talisman into Astrid's grasp. "E-Eh?" The mage, still blinking spots from her eyes, was utterly confused.
"Throw her towards the group of priestesses! Now!" Kaguya yelled at Archer.
"Throw me where!? Wait a sec—wah!"
Without hesitation, Archer complied.
The young woman barely had enough time to register what was happening before a hand grabbed hold of her and lifted her completely off the ground.
"W-Wait—!" Then she was airborne. "Aaaaaah!"
The young pink haired mage shot through the cavern in a high arc, arms and legs flailing wildly as the world spun around her. For a brief moment she was nothing more than a screaming projectile sailing beneath the cavern ceiling. Dust, falling embers, and fragments of stone rushed past her vision as panic drowned out every coherent thought.
Below, several of the priestesses were only just beginning to recover from the blinding flash. Most were still blinking rapidly or rubbing at their eyes when a shadow suddenly descended over them.
"What is tha—"
"Oof!"
The impact sent the entire group tumbling into one another.
Cries and yelps filled the chamber as the woman crashed directly into the middle of them, knocking several women onto the ground. One lost her balance completely and landed on her back. Another folded beneath the collision and wheezed as the air was forced from her lungs.
"She fell from the ceiling!"
"Why was she thrown?!"
"My ribs!"
For several seconds, the cluster of priestesses resembled a tangled pile of robes, limbs, and confused shouting.
Groaning, Astrid pushed herself upright. Her head spun. The world remained blurry around the edges, but her vision gradually cleared enough for her to focus on what was happening. And what she saw immediately made her blood run cold… The cultists had recovered.
Many were still blinking away the lingering effects of the flash, but they were already advancing. Swords rose. Spears lowered. Their attention shifted away from Archer and toward the much easier targets gathered together near the rear of the cavern.
Several broke into a run and her breath caught in her throat.
"N-No!"
Fear seized her entire body. Instinctively, she threw her arms up in front of her face as though that alone could somehow stop the incoming attack.
The talisman clenched within her hand suddenly reacted.
Bang!
A brilliant golden light erupted from the small charm.
The glow being so intense that it illuminated the surrounding stone walls, casting long shadows throughout the cavern. Golden strands of energy spread outward from Astrid's position like ripples moving across water. They expanded rapidly, flowing around every nearby priestess before joining together into a single shimmering barrier.
A translucent dome took shape around the entire group. The first cultist reached it.
His sword slammed against the golden surface. Instead of cutting through, the weapon rebounded violently. The impact sent visible ripples racing across the barrier while the attacker stumbled backward in shock.
A second strike followed.
Then a third.
Neither achieved anything beyond causing more waves of light to spread across the protective shell.
Inside the dome, the priestesses stared in stunned silence. Golden reflections danced across their faces while the barrier enclosed them completely, separating them from the chaos unfolding outside. The young mage remained frozen where she stood, still holding the glowing talisman with both hands.
"I..."
The young mage looked down at the artifact in disbelief.
"I… did that?"
"The shield won't last long! Take care of Shamuhaza now!" Kaguya commanded.
Archer nodded once, rushing ahead with Kanshou in hand as he cleaved through the remaining insects between him and his target. Shamuhaza kept running, creating distance with every frantic step, heading back towards the upper level of the cavern as fast as his legs could carry him.
"Don't try to act otherwise, I know you're running low on your little insects," he called out. "From the moment you've attacked Astrid to when I killed the queen and burned the nest — I highly doubt there is much left in this city to come and help you."
"It is not over!" Shamuhaza screamed, his voice cracking. "It is NOT, you do not decide, you cannot—" The words collapsed into each other, frantic and unraveling, until they were swallowed entirely by a scream of pure agony. A sharp, searing pain shot through his leg. Forcing him to look down to see the Kanshou Archer had been holding, sticking through his calf and pinning him firmly to the ground.
"Doesn't matter if it's the truth or not. As long as you're dead the outcome will be the same." Archer approached him slowly, another sword materializing in his hand.
"You…!"
Panic and desperation warred on Shamuhaza's face. "GRAH!" He tried to move, to pull his leg away, but the action only made the blade slice through his muscle further. Trying to remove the sword from the ground proved to be fruitless; it was anchored to the stoned floor firmly. Unless he was willing to just cut the leg entirely, there was no way to free himself. Gritting his teeth against the pain, Shamuhaza's hands flew to the bandages wrapped around his face.
"I-I… I have survived countless calamities across the years from both Kaguya and the Princess Knights!" he snarled while glaring bloody murder at the white haired bowman. "It will not be some man from a far away place, from beyond the seven kingdoms, who is the end of me! A man who willingly bows down to these insignificant gods and is willing to become a dog to those idiots... you will not be the one to kill me!"
Quite a bit of venom in his tone, if looks could kill, then he would have died a thousand times by now from that vitriolic gaze, not that Archer cared much to begin with. "I don't bow to any of these gods, I just can't sit by while you and the others summon more of those Beasts here."
He watched with faint curiosity as with a violent tug, Shamuhaza ripped the bandages away and revealed what was hidden underneath.
"Hoh?" He momentarily stopped, looking at the cult leader with a disturbed expression. "Are you even human?"
Where there should have been skin, there was instead a horrifying amalgamation of warped flesh. Insects, worms, and other chitinous creatures were squished together, forming the very structure of his face and body. They twitched and squirmed, a twitching mass of living horror. 'Never would I have imagined that something like this would exist here. He makes Zouken look normal.'
While the disgust was real, his focus didn't waver. From the man's chest, the remaining bandages split open within as a long, centipede-like insect shot out, aiming for his throat. "Humph!" It got cut in two by a swift flick of Archer's second sword, but the momentary distraction was all Shamuhaza needed.
"What are you idiots waiting for!? Attack him!" Gasping for air through his twisted mouth, the cult leader scrambled back towards the altar while the rest of the cultists tried to overwhelm him but with little to no success. Shamuhaza's injured leg dragging uselessly behind him. Reaching into a small depression in the center of the stone block, his fingers closing around something carefully. He looked at Archer, a manic glint in his inhuman eyes. "While I don't have the mighty Beast god here to help us, that does not mean I am empty-handed!"
He retrieved a crimson bead from the altar. It pulsed with a large amount of magical energy, a power that Archer recognized instantly. "Don't tell me…"
No, there were more of them? That… that could not be possible, but if that was indeed the case… 'I have to destroy it now!'
This emotion…
Fear.
That dread nearly stopped him cold, yet he pushed through it, pressing forward faster. Leaping with all the strength he had left in a blur, cutting through several heads with little to no hesitation, throwing his sword as soon as he could.
Yet the leader was still a second too fast. "While we were not able to control her, we still had some remnants of the power that appeared that day," Shamuhaza rasped, a triumphant grin spreading across his insectoid face. "Though it is minuscule, it will suffice."
And so, he popped the bead into his mouth and swallowed it whole.
Whoosh!
"You fool!" Archer roared, instantly thrown back violently, a powerful wave of force exploding outwards from Shamuhaza as the magical energy was released.
The man watched in stunned silence as his opponent's body began to contort and change shape. The insects that made up his form writhed and squirmed, turning on each other, devouring one another in a frenzy of black chitin and ichor. The cultists below began to scream. Archer risked a glance behind him and saw more insects appearing, swarming over their own masters. "A-Ah!" Unable to get to the priestesses, who were still protected by Kaguya's shield, the insects devoured the cultists, their screams quickly silenced.
The carnage was over in moments, the bodies stripped clean. The others watched in horror.
"—!"
Then, the swarm turned and rushed back towards Shamuhaza in great numbers. Seemingly in a state of complete frenzy, something he avoided immediately.
Archer jumped away, landing on a high ledge to avoid the tide of insects. The swarm surged towards their leader, enveloping his body in a seething mass of black. "What the…" They devoured one another until nothing remained but a single, pulsating pile of skittering bodies. The pile began to shift and take shape, a mound of churning flesh rising from the ground as well the insects fused into one massive being. Its centipede shape was familiar to the creature that had been guarding the queen, but this one was something else entirely: Large, more ferocious looking, its mandibles each as large as a full grown man, snapping open and shut as it loosed a piercing screech. It lunged towards Archer, intending to split him in half.
Snap!
Not wanting to end up as food, he dodged the move by jumping over to the opposite side of the room, the mandibles crashing into the stone wall where he had just been standing. As he landed, he saw the creature's head. Fused to it, from the torso up, was the upper body of Shamuhaza, his face a combination of pure ecstasy and madness.
"Hahaha! Yes! Now this… Now this is true power!" He laughed, his voice a distorted, buzzing echo that grated on the ears. "I have finally fused and become more one with my god! This is the purest form we can achieve, not from birthing a worthy vessel using Kaguya's body but using the one most devoted to it! As it should have been!"
This was tricky.
The crimson bead felt different from the one he kept dealing with so far. 'There can't be two Dracos around, so that must have been the remnant of her power at most from the day she appeared. Still… for him to just use it so carelessly like that is just asking for trouble. Draco most likely has sensed it too, I can't risk her getting interested in this place now of all times.'
With a plan in mind, he threw Kanshou, the twin black sword flying straight at the fused creature's head. The combination of its Anti-monster attribute and its nature as a Noble Phantasm interacting with Draco's power should have had an affect, but rather than just cleaving through it like butter, the blade instead got blocked with a deafening clang, striking the creature's carapace and failing to penetrate. Archer rushed in, trying to strike again, only to be thrown backwards as the centipede's massive tail whipped around and crashed against his chest.
"Argh!"
Slam!
"Urrf!" He was sent flying, smashing hard against the wall and slumping to the ground.
The blade landed nearby, dispersing into motes of light while Shamuhaza, fused with the grotesque centipede, let out a distorted, buzzing laugh. "With this power, I will conquer all of Fullstar within a month… no, a week… a DAY!! There is no need to wait anymore, I tire of hiding away like a mere rat for all these years! After I turn Fullstar into our ideal kingdom! I will personally attack Thorn, the seat of your faith! Conquer the seven kingdoms, and then ALL OF SERENUS! Any who oppose will be nothing more than nourishment for our brood!" he declared, his voice a cacophony of his own and the creature's. The massive centipede coiled its lower body, then launched itself upwards, bursting through the ground of the chamber.
Crash!
Stone and earth exploded outwards as the monster emerged onto the grounds of the academy, under the open night sky.
He clawed his way out of the rubble of the collapsed tunnel. "Damn it! We can't let him out there!" he yelled, but as he pushed himself to his feet, the world swayed. The sheer amount of energy expended in a single day was taking its toll as his vision grew blurry and he drifted into unconsciousness. His body felt heavy, his limbs sluggish.
He wasn't a Servant anymore, he was a Human.
'Should have known, this is becoming a bit too much. At this rate, that thing will get out and possibly get the attention of someone really troublesome. Or maybe she already knows, either way, I can't risk it.' The man forced himself to ignore that uncomfortable sensation as much as he could but he knew that it would only buy him so much time before eventually he'd become a liability. 'Damn it. Should I just risk it and go with another similar attack? Astrid can always carry me back.'
A hand steadied him. Kaguya was at his side, her expression grim from what just occurred. She understood the implications as he did.. "You really are out of energy aren't you. So you do have a limit to your strength, and are not some unstoppable warrior" Kaguya looked up hearing screams already emerging in the distance. Biting her lip she turned to face him, "…I-I have a solution,"
"What?"
As unbelievable or unlikely as it sounded, not like there were many options at the moment. Shaking his head to clear the dizziness, he grew confused by the hesitation in Kaguya's tone.
"You basically need more energy, correct?" she stated, more than asked.
"Hah… it's… it's more complicated than just that," he managed, his breathing labored. "My body doesn't just burn through magical energy in the same way you do. The way I use my powers is different from how everyone else here uses theirs. I don't necessarily have a primary reserve of Mana that I draw from, Od is similar but different. My Magical Energy draws and converts mana into usable energy for me in real time, this body can handle more strain than it should be possible. But I can continue if I—"
"—No, it doesn't matter. I have a way to fix that issue."
Fix that? He already knew the answer and immediately shook his head. "Celestine isn't around. I had her stay behind at the palace to keep Maia and the others safe."
"Um… No," Kaguya said, shaking her head. Hesitatingly, she pointed a finger at her own chest. "I-I am also a vessel of sorts. I use my body as a medium for a divine being and thus possess the ability to house massive amounts of magical energy. My Goddess has just accepted to share some of her energy with you. In exchange for killing that monster."
For a moment, he thought he heard wrong. "What?" Archer was clearly surprised. "But how? I am not going to form a contract with that deity if that's what you're trying to insist, my options are not all gone."
A monstrous roar echoed from the academy grounds above, shaking the very earth around them. Kaguya insisted, "Regardless of the method, we don't have much time! I promise you it's not a binding contract like that!"
His mind raced. He felt the dizziness once more rushing through him, as he forced himself awake. He really did not have any choice, best to set his discomfort aside and he doubted she would lie to him at such a critical moment. "Fine," he ground out. "Whatever it is, let's get it over with."
"I dislike this as much as you will," Kaguya said in a whisper that confused him. "And we will never talk about this ever again."
"What do you…mmmph!" Before Archer could respond, her face was in his hands.
Soft lips pressed against his and for a brief moment, the taste of plum lingered in his mind and its fragrance filing his nose.
A delicate but forceful embrace. She kissed him, forcing her tongue past his lips. Her hands gripping the back of his neck, holding him in place as a conduit of divine energy flooded his system. It was invasive and overwhelming — her energy tangled with something far older, the power of the deity she served.
"Hah… hah… hah…"
They separated, a thin string of saliva connecting their lips for a moment before breaking. Both of them were breathing haggardly. Archer felt a wave of cool, potent energy coursing inside his body like fluttering butterflies, soothing his circuits and replenishing his body of his prior wounds.
He still looked at her with disbelief.
Kaguya wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, looking away. "It was the fastest method," she said, her voice tight with embarrassment. "Not the most efficient. That one would require something more intimate to give you more energy. B-but I figured this would suffice for now."
He quickly realized what she meant by that. "Hah, Yeah, why am I not surprised about that," he said, turning his attention back to the transformed Shamuhaza, who was now visible through the massive hole in the ceiling. "Thanks! Now, we need to keep him from rampaging across the city."
Kaguya looked up through the opening. "I can handle that. Also, I will not do so alone."
Archer looked at her with confusion. "Think about where we are specifically."
Bang!
At that moment, several incantations resonated from above. Archer could see the mages from the academy outside, already starting to create barriers of shimmering light to contain the monster. The speed impressed him.
Kaguya strode to a nearby fallen pillar and broke off a piece of sharp stone and used it to cut her finger. With her own blood, she drew several talismans in quick but precise strokes, then handed them to Archer. "Position these around the monster. Quickly. I can't attack it due to the geas still being active but barriers or restraints should still be okay."
Archer did as she asked, tracing a path through the debris and placing the blood-inked talismans at key points. As the last one was set, a massive, multi-layered barrier of golden light formed around the creature, trapping it.
Or so that was the plan.
Shamuhaza's contorted, distorted voice resonated across the area, a buzzing laugh that grated on the ears. "IYHAHAHAZAZA, Kaguya, you have not learned your lesson!" The monster slammed its massive forelegs against the barrier. With a sound like shattering glass, the divine shield broke into pieces.
"I thought he lost his mind at this point! Not only that he shouldn't be able to break through that! My barriers really aren't working anymore!"
The creature continued down its path, only for more barriers to appear, formed by the mages positioned around the academy grounds. They managed to stop it momentarily, but that only made the monster grow angrier. "All of these mages are a nuisance!" it shrieked, firing a blast of corrosive energy from its mouth. The attack was altered mid-flight by a powerful arrow launched by Archer from below striking its mandibles, its trajectory shifting just enough to miss the cowering mages.
Archer watched from below, his mind working. "Its carapace is far too powerful," he muttered. "It can somehow even withstand my anti-monster blades. It must be because of the bead's influence raising its rank above them, but regardless, I doubt it's invincible."
He traced his bow and kept firing at Shamuhaza. Each arrow, even if reinforced with magical energy, simply deflected off the creature's shell with a useless ping.
"Even your weapons won't go through my defenses anymore! Finally I have surpassed that ridiculous strength of yours!" Shamuhaza laughed, his voice a grating screech. "Just like Kaguya, you are wasting your time!"
The bowman clicked his tongue as the scene repeated itself.
Archer would shoot, and the monster would attack with its massive, lower claw-like pincers, missing every time as he moved around the battlefield pushing both his speed and his instincts to their limit. More of the never-ending centipede-like body struck the ground repeatedly as it continued to crawl to the surface, trying to surround him, creating clouds of dust and debris. The next moment, it struck at an empty patch of ground. In its confusion, insect-like eyes grew on the side of its body, as its multifaceted eyes searched for its prey.
"Hiding? I thought better of the one who defeated Vault and ended his ambition! Or has my might frightened yo—!?" It found him a second later.
Archer rushed straight towards him.
The monstrous centipede twisted violently through the surface and the academy with how long it was, thousands of legs scraping against stone as it surged forward. Archer met the charge head-on. Rather than avoiding the creature, he stepped onto it. His boots landed against the chitinous plates covering its body, and he immediately broke into a sprint. The massive beast thrashed beneath him, its body bucking and twisting in an attempt to throw him off, yet each movement only seemed to feed into his momentum. He ran across its armored back as though it were solid ground, weaving between protruding spines and sections of jagged shell while rapidly closing the distance to its head.
"Raaaaaah! I had enough!" Shamuhaza roared but noticed him too late.
Archer had emerged onto the battlefield above at the academy. Watching as the mages all present angrily fought against the insect's body tearing through their library.
Not to mention, the surprises did not end there for at the same time several elven soldiers also appeared present, mages from their ranks joining the students and teachers to erect several defensive spells around the academy to limit Shamuhaza's reach. "Heh, so that brat isn't so useless after all."
By the time the cult leader looked up, Archer had already reached the front of the creature. He launched himself into the air, twisting his body as he rose above the monstrous head. Kanshou shifted in his grasp. Magical energy flooded into the blade in such quantities that cracks immediately began spreading along its surface. The sword lengthened unnaturally. Black steel stretched outward into a far larger weapon, its edges becoming uneven and jagged. Crystalline protrusions erupted from the blade, sacrificing durability in exchange for overwhelming destructive power.
Below him, the fused monstrosity stared upward at him.
Shamuhaza's human face no longer resembled that of a triumphant cult leader. Fury remained there, but it now shared space with something else. Fear. The realization that the attack descending toward him was not one he could simply endure.
Archer's eyes remained fixed on the target. A faint frown crossed his face.
"Overedge."
The enlarged sword came down.
Rather than cutting cleanly through the target, the reinforced blade struck like a siege weapon. The jagged mass of steel crashed directly into the point where Shamuhaza's upper body merged with the centipede's head. Cracks raced across the weapon instantly. Then the stored magical energy erupted.
The explosion was concentrated and violent.
Fragments of black steel blasted outward alongside chunks of flesh, shell, and bone. The creature's head was engulfed by a burst of force that tore through armor thick enough to withstand conventional weapons. A wave of dust and debris rolled through the cavern as shattered pieces of chitin rained across the ground.
His body fell back in the cavern, using the descending insect-like body as a foothold and landed several meters away from it, sliding to a stop. Behind him, the surviving mages and Kaguya watched in stunned silence as the dust slowly began to settle.
"Aaaaargh!"
For a brief moment, the giant centipede did not move. Its countless legs froze. Its body remained completely still. Then the extent of the damage became visible.
The section where Shamuhaza's torso emerged from the creature had been devastated. The human half of the cult leader was practically split apart. One side of his chest hung lower than the other, separated by a horrific wound that ran diagonally across his body. Torn flesh and shattered bone were visible beneath the ruined robes. Only a narrow section of skin, muscle, and connective tissue kept the two halves attached to one another.
Blood poured down the creature's face in thick streams. It ran over shattered mandibles, dripped from broken sections of armor, and splashed onto the cavern floor below. Pieces of flesh continued to fall from the wound as the enormous body swayed in place.
Even after suffering damage that should have killed almost anything else, the monstrosity remained standing. The sight was worse for it.
"No... this cannot be… the end," Shamuhaza rasped, his voice weak.
But then a sound filled the air, a wet, hissing noise. Archer and Shamuhaza himself watched in surprise and shock as the cult leader's body began to connect back together. The torn flesh stitched itself back together with high-speed regeneration, the muscle fibers reknitting and the skin sealing over the wound in a matter of seconds.
"Shit," Archer said.
Shamuhaza threw his head back and laughed, a loud, booming, and utterly insane sound. "IYHAHAHAHAZAZAZA! NOW THIS IS IT! It was a mistake on my part for underestimating her! THIS IS TRUE POWER!!!"
The centipede body thrashed violently across the academy grounds, its massive tail crushing statues and demolishing walls. Archer was forced to step back, raising an arm to shield his face from the flying debris. If the exposed humanoid torso wasn't a weak point, then the brain had to be the target. His only option was a single, decisive shot. Even with its enhanced resistance from the remnant of Draco's power, it was only a Demonic Beast; it was still far from the level of a true Phantasmal Beast or Divine Beast.
Archer turned his attention to Kaguya. "Can your priestesses help? Just keep it occupied for a moment."
"They can try!" Kaguya responded, relaying the command. The priestesses who had made it to the surface began to chant in unison. More shimmering barriers appeared around the monster, and some even managed to summon ethereal chains. Most of these constructs shattered upon contact with the creature's thrashing body, but they succeeded in momentarily slowing its movements. Astrid was there as well giving her aid as well.
That was all the time he needed. He raised his hand and soon enough, a familiar spiraled sword formed right above his palm.
But right as he did so, his body froze on the spot. Across the battlefield, the monster also halted. "Huh?" The gruesome wound on Shamuhaza's humanoid torso began to heal, but in a strange and grotesque way. Bubbles of flesh formed and burst on the surface, new growths writhing at a speed that made it look as if his flesh was liquefying and reforming into solid matter all at once.
"W-What's going on?" Shamuhaza's confused voice echoed, a mix of pain and bewilderment.
Archer ignored the bizarre phenomenon and continued his move. Now that the spiral sword materialized, it began twisting into a jagged, magical arrow. He placed it on the bowstring, pulling it back. The air around the arrowhead warped and distorted in a rainbow-like swirl.
Not wasting a second, he poured every bit of energy provided by Kaguya and turned it into a Broken Phantasm.
'I'm going to end this in one shot!' Trusting the sword's legend, its fears, and the might of the mountain hill cleaver once wielded by a powerful king. The condensed spiral of destruction hummed with an ominous light and basked his surroundings in a reddish tint as all sound momentarily disappeared.
"Hah," with a deep breath taken.
—He let it fly.
The arrow struck the insectoid body with enough force to momentarily lift the massive creature off the ground. The distorting space of the Broken Phantasm overwhelmed its defense, creating a huge, smoldering hole clean through its midsection and tearing through its vertical body all the way to the top.
The arrow flew like a beam of light past the academy and towards the sky, parting the clouds and vanishing into nothing.
But its target didn't die immediately.
Instead, a screech of unimaginable volume erupted from the monster. It was a sound so intense it shattered the windows of the academy buildings and overwhelmed the people below, who collapsed as their eardrums practically split. The giant centipede body moved around frantically, striking every magical barrier in a blind rage. Archer could sense it; the same magical energy it had absorbed earlier was growing so tremendously, so chaotically, that it was clearly becoming too much for the creature to control.
"Idiot."
It didn't take much to figure out what was going on, he made a few guesses on what could have caused such a reaction. A Beast's power couldn't simply be consumed or controlled by a human, regardless of how they had altered their bodies, without heavy drawbacks. He doubted Draco planned this, so the energy itself within was not made to be refined enough to be used so carelessly by anyone else. It was not something he should have consumed. That he hadn't gone insane on the spot, or simply detonated, was frankly a miracle.
The commotion raged for several minutes. Dust clouds rose into the night sky, obscuring the view. When the dust finally began to settle, Archer and the other mages watched with cautious eyes. As the body broke apart and fell back into the cavern. Archer approached the giant insect body, seeing it lie on the ground, motionless. He narrowed his eyes, walking towards the head where his arrow had punched through. He looked into the gaping wound and realized something.
"He escaped."
.
.
.
-Outskirts of Fullstar-
Shamuhaza crawled through the rubble of his underground lair, dragging himself into a secret tunnel hidden behind the altar. He crawled for what felt like hours, finally emerging from the other side into a dark alley. His body was fully emaciated. Chunks of his flesh were missing, and other parts of his limbs fell off, only to regenerate a moment later. It was a constant, agonizing cycle of destruction and healing. The part of his body composed of insects was barely held together, squirming and twitching with a life of its own.
"No, no, no, no," he gasped, his voice a ragged whisper. "This can't be the end." He wasn't just commenting on his own situation. He was looking down at his palm, where the crimson bead was embedded in his chest. Cracks started to appear on its surface, and it began to break away into dust that gathered in his palm. "It still has power. Far more power than anything in this world. It can't be gone like this!" He tried desperately to press the dust back together, but the more he tried, the more the jewel, once a solid object, looked like it was melting away, breaking apart into brittle red dust. The intensity of the energy within it, however, remained just as powerful, rampaging through his body unchecked.
"You have changed quite a bit from what I recall."
Shamuhaza froze in place upon hearing that voice. He slowly turned his head, his mismatched eyes narrowing. He saw Celestine standing not so far away from him, her form illuminated by a faint glow of the sunlight.
"You're still alive," he hissed. Looking at the elf emerging from the treeline, having not sensed her arrival at all. "What are you doing here? Come to mock me? To deliver the final blow?"
"No, I have no such intentions. I still have memories of the time when you were a priest," Celestine said, her voice soft and melancholic. "Going out onto the streets to help the poor, aiding those from Kaguya's sect whenever you could. Things were different back then, what changed?"
"Don't bring up the past as if you know me, Lucross!" Shamuhaza snarled. "You know nothing! Don't you dare bring up the past of a man who was basically a slave, ignorant of the truth of the world around him. Fully ignorant of how weak and deceptive the goddess was, truly, along with her allied gods who barely even care about those who worshiped them."
Celestine closed her eyes and shook her head slowly. "This war between you and Kaguya has gone on for too long, you have too much hatred within you. I know that's not the full story, but it does not matter anymore."
Shamuhaza chuckled, a wet, painful sound. "Did you come here to give me salvation? To see if I would change? You're wasting your time. Nothing like that will happen. After today, I will make sure not to make the same mistakes."
Celestine opened her eyes and looked at him. The atmosphere grew tense, a subtle shift in the air. Her gentle expression suddenly dropped, replaced by a dry, stoic face. "Unfortunately," she said, her voice now devoid of warmth, "you cannot leave. You possess something that I want."
Shamuhaza protectively clutched at the jewel embedded in his chest, taking a step back. He instantly realized his body was growing stiff. A magic circle had appeared beneath him, making every movement drag like wading through deep mud. He cursed under his breath, whispering, "You will not take this away from me!"
Celestine said nothing, walking towards him, her movements unhindered by the binding field. She gently touched the surface of the gem with her delicate fingers, a look of uncertainty on her face, then shook her head.
"This does not belong to you," she stated. Grabbing the jewel firmly and pulling it straight out of his chest. A few chunks of his flesh came with it, but the tissue simply broke apart in her grasp. Celestine looked at what was basically a half-destroyed gem. It continued to break apart in her hand, but it still released a dense amount of energy.
Closing her palm around the crumbling artifact, she looked at the dying man behind her. "I did not come to kill you. That is a job for someone else who is already after your throat. I just came to give you a final farewell, Shamuhaza."
With that said, the Goddess Reborn left with a leisure pace, disappearing into the woods and leaving the half-dead man gasping for air while clutching his chest with more of his body breaking down, this time unable to regenerate.
"I mustn't… die… h-hah…" his prior pace had slowed down tremendously. Barely able to crawl anymore, getting closer and closer to a nearby riverbank where his escape was just at his fingertips.
"Hah… hah… haha…"
Agony began to blind his mind, overwhelmed in every way possible.
"Hah… cough! Cough!"
Yet, he continued.
Minutes felt like hours and the closer he got, the weaker he felt until he finally reached the water.
"—!"
Sharp pain surged right through his stomach, or at least, what remained of the cluster of the insects that's scattered across it. Leaving behind visible skeletal remains with some muscles and flesh exposed. An arrow had pierced right through his spine, and not even a second passed before it erupted in flames. "Aaaaaaaaaaah!"
Shamuhaza's pained scream echoed across the forest as Archer walked over. Not even bothering to offer any parting words or extract information, he watched in silence as the figure burned down to a charred corpse and eventually to ash.
"... Hah."
He exhaled slowly. If not Draco, this cult could've easily claimed first place as the most dangerous thing he'd had to eliminate since arriving here. With them gone, the tension bled out of him.
"..."
Looking behind at the trail of broken off pieces of the gem that led him here, it did not take much to figure out the outcome. Unlike the first one, this just happened to be a mere remnant of condensed energy that Shamuhaza overused and lost control. Picking up a few pieces from the ground, he stared as they dispersed into dust, unable to sustain their own existence anymore. Looking at the hole in his, some remnants remained but broke down just like the rest.
His arrow had aimed for the centerpiece where the piece should have been and he doubted there was much left there anyway before he even fired his arrow.
By no means would it be infinite and from the looks of it… it broke down and got dispersed.
"..."
Yet despite that understanding, his gaze lingered with it then sweeping across the forest. No traces of anyone nearby, he checked. But still, something felt off.
"Am I being too paranoid?"
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The next 5 chapters of Snafu, and my other Fate fics (Fate Coiling Sword with 3 chapters, A Fake Familiar Reborn with 3 chapters, Steel Eyed Faker soon to be 3 chapters, Taimanin with 3, Hound having 3 and To love a sword having 4 chapters) are already available on my P@treon. With 4 more Broly chapters at /NimtheWriter. Also, I post commissioned arts on each story, already posted a few on an Archer's Promise, Broly and Snafu.