The star maiden Astrea was not one to stay idle while people suffered, even if she was able to offer a flicker of help, she still does so without a second thought.
She had left the civilians whom she guided here after the cathedral acting commander Shakti of Ganesha Familia let them in without a second doubt upon seeing the goddess of justice at the lead of the group.
Astrea had first hastily sent an envoy to relay what they have witnessed and suffered, from the undead swarm to the Giants' attack, including the warning of an possible attack soon to be unleashed because of their trail. Astrea hoped that was enough and that no more would suffer.
As she ventured through the cathedral with a purpose of salvation for the refugees, two tails still followed her for some reason.
The duo of Naaza and Armid had not left her side, their faces were a facade of stoicism but beneath was the undeniable fear of a child in a war, even if this child is able to beat 10 regular mortals blindfolded.
Astrea did not have the heart to turn them away so she kept silent, and they themselves were silent as well.
Their silence was not to savor a calm moment, it also wasn't a sign of acknowledgment of the slow yet undeniable death of Orario in the hands of absolute evil.
Their silence was because of the disgusting situation of the refugees scattered inside the cathedral, each having different types of trauma and desperation.
Some moved through the ranks carrying materials and lending a hand to the Adventurers, brave civilian volunteers whose lives were tied to the stronghold's survival. Their spirits held firm despite the impossible odds against Orario and the failure of containment.
The majority, however, lacked that same fire. They were neither helpful nor hopeful, a grim reality Astrea couldn't bring herself to judge, though the sight of them filled her with pity.
A teenager was looking at horrors in the skies with an emotionless stare, his behavior fitting survivors of gruesome wars rather than someone so young.
A couple lovingly held their undeniably dead infant as if they were alive, but the bloodied clothes and the stillness gave no illusion of life to an observer.
An artist had just finished another mural of yet another golden, shining giant, pointing a giant finger toward a smaller gray silhouette among many others. The painting fit the cathedral walls as a holy image before the age of gods made such buildings and icons useless.
Those were only specks of an ocean of whopping three thousand refugees, all cramped inside the domed, old building.
"Oh holy heavens deliver us atonement. Oh holy heavens deliver us atonement. Oh holy heavens deliver us atonement." A man, among many more people, prayed for himself, his knees covering his chest as his arms folded like a shield against evil.
"These guys are giving me the creeps." Naaza shivered lightly, the fanatic behavior resembling too much to the cultists for her liking.
"AHHHHH!" The man suddenly screamed without a warning or cause to the skies, "Ahhh why are you screaming!?" making Naaza bristle in sudden fright and look frantically everywhere for any enemies.
"Pfft." Armid tried to keep the laughter to herself but it was proving to be a difficult task.
Naaza's eyes twitched, "You wanna taste these?" She chillingly raised her fists dead serious, which made Armid swallow her laughter quickly.
She may be a prodigy when it came to healing but Naaza was obviously the knucklehead, no need to prove it.
While the two were squabbling with one another it was Astrea who was upon the unstable man with a motherly concern, "Are you alright? Can you focus on my voice?" she said warmly and carefully, but the man shook his head away, further trapping himself with his knees up to his forehead.
"Oh holy heavens deliver us atonement." Then resumed his prayers, ignoring Astrea's attempt of help.
Astrea wanted to try again, her hand went to tap the man's shoulder but a voice cut through.
"Stop, it's useless."
Astrea turned to the voice, the source being a little girl far younger than Naaza and Armid with an expressionless facade and a water jug in hand, her clothes were torn and bloody yet she didn't seem to be bothered by it.
Speaking of them, Armid asked the question Astrea was intending to speak, "What do you mean it's useless? Shouldn't we help with their... case?" She resisted the urge to say growing delusions.
The little girl didn't stop by them, she just resumed her path, only when she saw the trio slowly following her, expecting an answer did she finally speak.
"People are stupid, they cling to fairytales when facing reality, like an adventurer imagining himself to achieve feats worthy of the Bridge of Heroes. But death is all he would get." she said matter-of-factly, words that shouldn't exit from the mouth of a child, "one clings to life, one to a goal, and you, goddess," she eyed Astrea with a side glance, "cling to justice and ideals. In their case, faith in the skies is the only shield left against certain death."
Astrea's face morphed, how could a mindset like this be taken by a child?
"How can you say that? We shouldn't let them rot in their own minds!" Armid was the one to argue with the logic, and it was a sound argument.
"Go ahead. Waste your time. I'm merely warning you about the futility of trying." The girl's words rang with a finality, not caring anymore about their opinion.
Astrea felt an overwhelming feeling of wrongness about this little girl, the way she talked, the way she moved, the way she radiated an... odd feeling, like a breeze of hot fire that burned indiscriminately but left no scar.
"Child... what is your name?" she asked the simplest of questions softly, a name to put on the young face.
"Leah." Leah said, and for a mere second, Astrea saw one of her pupils turn golden before turning normal again.
"Leah—" Astrea's voice was cut by a sudden gasp, her eyes going wide as Leah's presence was overshadowed by a choking aura of fire and death, and strangely the smell of ozone.
"Are you okay, goddess!?" Armid rushed to her aid, she and Naaza not feeling anything unusual, yet the divine sight of Astrea is not like any mortal sense, she could see stuff a mortal cannot even comprehend even in her current sealed self.
Her eyes were glued onto Leah, the girl stepping toward the source of the pressure, an unconscious and bloody young man with black hair, laying over the cold hard floor of the cathedral. Beside him an annoyed woman who perked up upon seeing Leah approaching with the water.
"What took getting simple water so long, brat?" Eva said annoyingly, taking the jug of water before Leah could even answer.
"Shouldn't we leave?" Naaza said awkwardly, Armid nodding while still holding Astrea.
"Help me give some to this deadbeat." Eva told Leah with a sigh, and the little girl obeyed, lifting her new problem up lightly while Leah gave him some water to keep him hydrated.
"You are doing good, you'll be benefiting from this labor when this is over." Leah muttered to Eva as she placed her savior gently on the ground.
"It better be or..." Eva didn't actually dare to utter the threat, remembering how the unseen hand messed with her head for merely refusing to obey.
Leah didn't reply, "I am needed elsewhere."
Seeing Astrea and the others still there, Leah tilted her head, "Do you need something else?" she asked curiously.
"Naaza, Armid..." Astrea felt her lips mutter, catching the attention of the girls, "Can you be dears and play with little Leah? Thank you."
"Play!?" "What!?" "I don't want to play."
Each of the trio of kids voiced their opinion of this yet Astrea was already gone, stepping toward the unconscious man and the woman.
The woman raised an eyebrow, "What do I owe the pleasure?" Her words were polite yet Astrea caught the carefully hidden sarcasm.
"Ughh forget it, let's go." Naaza gave up and grabbed Leah's arm without permission, the older girl easily a head taller than her, dragging Leah while Armid followed behind.
Leah didn't want to as she stated earlier, however she could indulge them a little, they are heading to where she is anyway.
Naaza's headache-inducing voice cut her mental process, "Yo Leah, did you know we saw zombies!? They were all 'Brains!' and 'Grandfather!' it was so creepy Armid almost pissed herself!" She said while flashing the shocked and flustered Armid a smug cheeky smile.
"I-I was not! It was you who was squealing like a harpy and clinging to Goddess Astrea!" she pointed fiercely.
Okay, maybe indulging them isn't the best idea.
━━━━━━━ ༺𓆩Ω𓆪༻ ━━━━━━━
"Kreaagghhhh!!!!"
The monstrous screech of the Heldrake echoed across the district, drowning the adventurers in despair and emboldening the cultists advance.
The metallic beast dove toward the besieged Twilight Manor of the Loki Familia, breathing literal hellfire upon the unfortunate executives. The screams of the burning echoed through the battlefield, shadowing even the stench of charred flesh left behind the fire.
Surrounded on all sides by endless waves of cultists, with no route of escape, what remained of the Twilight Manor's defenders fought bravely to hold the line. Their only hope was to endure long enough for reinforcements from Guild HQ to arrive.
But it wasn't happening.
"I guess this is it..."
And it was a fact clear to the old big three of Loki familia, Noir the human, Bara the amazone and finally the bulky dwarf Dain were watching the massacre unfold with a expressionless faces.
Hours had passed since their last message for relief was sent through the telegraph. There was no answer.
They had been abandoned. Their fate was sealed…
Yet somehow, it became worse.
Gates of hell split themselves open.
From them emerged blue giants, along them smaller, bird-headed, goat-like, humanoid blue monsters. Both joining the assault alongside the cultists, completely overwhelming the adventurers.
If it were only the bird-headed ones, it might not have changed much. They were comparable to Level 1s… Level 2s at best.
But the blue giants…
They disseminated through the Loki Familia's defensive lines, appearing from shadows and striking with devastating magic from every possible direction. The moment an adventurer thought they had an opening to strike, reality itself seemed to fracture and add distance unnaturally between them, turning a killing blow into a futile swing.
It was a massacre, with mercy being long abandoned by both sides.
"Your fate has been cut, ignorant fools!" proclaimed the massive, floating Thousand Sons sorcerer, commander of this cultist wave.
"The gods of Chaos will soon feast upon your souls, hahaha!"
Mad laughter burst from him as he unleashed his magic. More portals tore open from inside and outside the Twilight Manor. From these warped rifts, Rubricae Astartes marched forward, cutting through the adventurers' ranks, driving deeper toward the speculated leaders' position.
"We might as well go out with a flash, huh?" Dain suggested, a thought mirrored by the other two.
"I just hope Riveria and Ais were able to escape." Bara said, but then shook her head. There was no time thinking about it.
"Shall we?" Noir asked as he readied his katana, his aim being at the cultists leader himself.
The others nodded and without a warning abandoned their high position to land in the fray of battle.
One thing was certain: The Loki familia former big three did not go out without a fight.
Meanwhile, Inside the narrow, twisting corridors of the manor, a single Rubricae advanced toward the basement, its brothers not far behind.
Its march was abruptly cut by a violent tornado of wind and slicing force.
Ais attacked.
Her blade struck in a blur, targeting every joint and weakness in the massive armor yet none of the strikes landed. Each cut passed through as if striking the air.
The marine retaliated instantly.
It detonated in a burst of warp energy, disrupting the storm of wind and hurling the blonde girl backward through the basement corridor.
"A g-g-ghost!?"
Ais nearly squeaked as she recovered, her voice having genuine fear.
Not many know of this but the normally stoic Sword Princess was genuinely terrified of ghosts.
In her mind, something without a physical form that could be struck, cut, or killed was her biggest enemy. Not including the one eyed black dragon.
Too consumed by fear and speculations, she failed to notice the real Rubricae marine and not a booby trapped illusion appearing at the far end of the corridor.
Its inferno boltgun was already raised.
It fired.
Rounds capable of scarring the very soul tore through the air toward her.
"Get back, Ais!"
The warning came just in time.
A massive wall of ice manifested before her, sealing the corridor and intercepting the inferno bolts in a clash of native magic and soul shattering alien one.
"Ghh—!"
Riveria Ljos Alf collapsed to one knee, barely keeping herself upright with the support of her staff. Her mind ached in chaos, her expression strained and unstable.
"Riveria!" Ais rushed to her side, panic replacing her fear of possible ghost foes. "What happened!?"
She tried to help her up but the elf could not stand without leaning heavily on her staff.
Riveria's grip tightened, her body stiff.
"It's nothing!" she forced out, attempting to ease Ais's worry.
The high elf couldn't contain the rot effectively anymore: her mind was now at the brink of utter annihilation, yet she still clung to her senses despite the pain.
Riveria was enduring something unique: Chaos corruption. Her sheer willpower was the only reason keeping the whispers at bay.
Tzeentch's tethers coiled around her mind and soul.
Slaanesh's singsong whispers slithered through her thoughts and body.
The Changer of Ways desired her knowledge of the new world. An arcanum user of immense potential, ripe with secrets yet uncovered by the Great Architect.
And She Who Thirsts sought to steal that prize away, craving a prestigious, beautiful, Aeldari-like pet for itself.
Riveria's mind was filled with voices urging her toward acts beyond logic and reason.
She saw shadows move without cause.
Felt unseen eyes watching her from every direction.
The elven queen had witnessed countless visions, twisted "prophecies" that ended with Ais's and others death if she did not obey.
This very assault on the Twilight Manor had been one of the prophecies.
Riveria's eyes caught Ais's golden ones. There were tears rushing down like a waterfall, and Riveria's chest tightened in worry.
"Ais..." she called with a heavy breath, catching the Sword Princess's attention.
Ais's face was so beautiful, her eyes mesmerizing with those little tears streaming down, her blonde hair shimmering in the dark...
Her genius use of wind magic, her sheer talent and savagery in a fight—
"Oh... my Ais!" the high elf proclaimed with a smile.
Ais froze, her mother figure's sudden change in attitude screaming red flags. "R-Riveria?"
Riveria hugged her tightly. "Oh Ais, how I long for you, how I love you, how I want you, my beautiful daughter!"
Ais was speechless at the sudden confession, unable to understand what was happening. "I... love you too," she decided to say, her cheeks reddening slightly.
Riveria's smile twisted further, her head resting over Ais's in the embrace. "I'll take care of you, my Sword Princess...!"
Ais felt tears slipping down her face and found herself looking up—only to see her mother figure holding a knife!?
Ais acted on instinct rather than emotion. She felt her Ariel activate and her legs kicked her free from Riveria's grip!
"Riveria, what are you doing!?" she asked in a shocked, choked voice. She couldn't believe that the closest person to a mother to her would try to hurt her.
"Ais!" Tears streamed down Riveria's eyes. "I was trying to make us whole, darling." She nudged closer on her knees. "Come to Mama!"
Ais trembled backward instead, more out of emotional pain than fear of what Riveria might do. She closed her eyes in denial.
"Run... child,"
A voice told her, but she didn't listen.
"Hahahahaha!" Riveria swung the knife again with crazed laughter, eyes still streaming down tears.
Ais flinched back, retreating completely out of her reach, her chest tight and her mind overwhelmed with anger rather than any solution for how to help.
"Run, child... run toward my chosen,"
The voice said again, gently offering her the simplest escape from this nightmare.
Ais felt herself move back. Was it fear of being hurt, or fear of hurting Riveria? She didn't know.
"Come back, darling!" Riveria cried out.
Ais didn't turn back, leaving her mother figure behind to fend for herself as she escaped to the city, jumping from building to building, tears spilling like a river and anger boiling like a volcano toward whoever had done this to Riveria.
━━━━━━━ ༺𓆩Ω𓆪༻ ━━━━━━━
Ryuu felt cold despite her body being drenched in hot blood from cultists. She felt weak despite defeating countless foes. She felt slow despite sprinting over rooftops with no problem.
Gale Wind had promised to commit justice in the name of everything she believed in, and for her dear, dead friend Ardi, yet she felt like a mindless executioner. The satisfaction that her actions were right no longer came to her with each deliverance.
"Ghaa, you crazy monster!"
She dispatched the last cultist in the area, the ache of the wound made by that masked man having healed enough for her to use her full strength.
Her dull, tired eyes turned toward the civilians who had been cornered by the cultists, and instead of gratitude, they trembled at her bloodied presence.
"Mommy, I'm scared," a child cried in his mother's embrace. The woman's trembling hands wrapped tightly around her son, her fear equal to his.
Ryuu would have proclaimed her allegiance as a sentinel of justice, not an enemy to be feared. But she had given up on that by the 13th encounter.
"L-leave us alone, monster!" one of the men shouted, his voice shaking as he raised a dagger toward her. "Please!" he pleaded.
This reaction was not new. Her bloodied appearance and dull expression had driven away many of the very people she had saved in the past days.
She briefly caught her reflection in a puddle nearby. It was as bloody and filthy as she last remembered.
The Gale Wind didn't bother correcting this group of civilians about her allegiance. She turned away and vanished like the wind, leaving them be.
Jumping from rooftop to rooftop, her eyes scanned for targets, and the city was not short of them.
Every inch of the city was a massacre. No safe front remained, as far as she had last heard. The Guild had lost all roads and was now besieged within its headquarters, along with a few scattered pockets of resistance.
"What a failure..." she muttered as she stopped at the edge of a tall tower, overlooking the ruined city. "What a justice… to let all those be devoured by the fangs of Evil..."
"You are right, Ryuu."
Ardi's soft voice invaded her ears, yet Ryuu did not flinch.
She slowly turned toward it.
"Ardi..." Ryuu whispered, not registering the impossibility of seeing a dead person.
Ardi nodded with a warm smile. "You were worried about me, weren't you?" She tilted her head. "Well, I'm right here." She opened her arms wide in a welcoming gesture.
"...Why... are you here?" Ryuu did not leap in joy at seeing her dead friend alive.
Ardi pouted. "I thought you'd be more excited!" Then she laughed it off, stepping closer. "I'm here to help you, Ryuu."
Her words were soft, genuine, and filled with warmth. "You are confused and tired… you don't know what justice is anymore, Ryuu."
She placed a hand over Ryuu's shoulder, the weight was real and not imagined.
"I know what justice is like… because I died pursuing it."
Ryuu said nothing. She felt the presence of Ardi's hand, and it filled her with cold.
There was something… something wrong beneath that smile.
"Justice isn't something as pure as I thought it was," Ardi continued, her eyes reflecting the moment she was blown to ash by that little girl's bomb. "I realized that too late."
Her fingers tightened around Ryuu. "Justice changes. It bends. It breaks people before it helps them."
Ryuu's eyes narrowed slightly at those sentences, words Ardi had never spoken before.
"…You saw its flaws too," Ardi's tone softened further, almost sympathetic. "All those people you couldn't save. All those times you followed your 'justice'… and it led to nothing but death."
A pause.
"It might be justice, but it has created more graves than it has ever prevented."
Ryuu recoiled. The words stabbed into what remained of her spirit, nearly shattering her beliefs completely.
Her justice was flawed. Her justice was broken. Her justice was nothing more than a fragile illusion to comfort the weak and terrify criminals.
"Justice isn't about being right, Ryuu." Ardi pulled her into a tight embrace, whispering to the trembling elf whose world had already shattered too many times. "It's about choosing what must be done, even if it's wrong."
Ryuu stopped trembling.
She felt the shift immediately.
Ardi thought she had finally reached her.
"If you hesitate, if you cling to ideals, you'll just keep losing, Ryuu."
Ryuu's breath grew heavier, a faint sniff escaping her as her eyes widened over a nearby window of the tower.
"You don't need to carry that burden anymore." Ardi's hand slid from her shoulder to her arm, caging her within the embrace. "Let go of that broken justice."
The words were logical. They carried a twisted kind of truth. And coming from Ardi, they nearly broke Ryuu's resistance entirely.
But they weren't hers.
The window reflected everything.
Ryuu saw herself. Her true self, for the first time.
Only now did she understand why the people she saved recoiled from her. It was not the blood covering her body.
It was the monster she had become.
Her skin had begun turning bluish, faint feathers growing along it. Her right arm had twisted into a bird's wing, and her left eye had darkened completely, void of any pupil.
"You don't need to worry, child..."
The voice changed alongside the words.
The thing embracing her revealed itself, a grotesque entity of countless wings, wearing the skin of her dear, dead friend. It stained Ardi's legacy with poisoned words about justice.
Ryuu's breath hitched in pure, burning rage at the creature daring to wear her friend's face.
"You..." Ryuu muttered, anger boiling slowly.
The daemon noticed the shift in her emotions and realized that its disguise had begun to crumble.
"Ah~" it breathed in the raw hatred she emitted into the Warp, "You have awakened earlier than I thought." Its words were nothing but a mocking, superior choir over her dead beliefs.
Ryuu couldn't stay idle. "You... wretched abomination!!!" The elf's body suddenly exploded in a violent release of anger that manifested as her core element: wind. "I'll kill you!!!"
The wind pushed them both to the edge of the tower, the daemon unable to release Ryuu due to the immense pressure holding them in place.
"Idiotic mortal, what are you planning!?"
"Your death!!" Ryuu answered gladly, and both fell from the high tower, still clenching each other.
"Hahahahaha!" The daemon laughed in the face of violent currents and gravity instead of panicking, further gaslighting the mutated elf. "Enjoy your foolish demise, mortal. Know there awaits nothing but pain in the next destination!"
With that taunt, it vanished from the air, returning to its dimension and leaving Ryuu free-falling alone to her death.
She saw the house rooftops getting closer in her vision, and she simply accepted her fate, her only regret now being not able to take down that mimicking monster with her.
"I'm gonna see you soon, Ardi..."
It wasn't like she could fly with her mutated wing.
CRAACK!
And she was right.
Stone met flesh, and both shattered. The elf felt every rib and joint break into dust within her, along with her organs. The pain was so great that she couldn't scream due to the lack of functioning lungs.
Ryuu's body came to a halt at the very bottom of the building she struck, the place seemingly being an abandoned storehouse with the smell of alcohol thick in the air.
Her body ached, her blood poured freely. She couldn't hear nor see due to the intense internal bleeding flooding her senses, spilling from her eyes, nose, and mouth alike.
And then, she stopped moving, waiting for it to end.
It was the end. The elf wanted to spit in its face with dignity.
And as her soul slowly faded, her Falna dimming... her goddess Astraea felt the fading glow of her blessing, her heart on the verge of shattering for her child.
...
Yet fate had other plans for the poor elf.
A secret, unseen specter had been watching the unusually resilient Aeldari-like girl from the hellish scream that was the Warp.
The Emperor's curious nature drew him to this new realm, he had been pulling strings, forging unsuspecting followers slowly and steadily.
Seeing the barely alive Aeldari girl resist the touch of Chaos and take her own life just to ensure the death of her enemy was... entertaining.
Now?
He wanted to experiment.
Ryuu's eyes began to close. Her soul was not going to Heaven, where the gods had promised. Instead, she saw what could only be described as the concept of Hell—the mythical place where the wicked spent eternity in torment.
She was nothing but light, yet her emotions ran wild in fear and desperation to escape.
Why was she here!? She wasn't a wicked!
"Hahahahaha!" The familiar laughter of the mimicking daemon who had taken Ardi's form invaded her soul. "I warned you, mortal. Not even in death do you escape me!"
Ryuu screamed in terror, the daemon approaching her soul, ready to torture it for his amusement—
A golden light engulfed the soul of Ryuu, making the daemon screech away in pain and fright, leaving her be.
Ryuu felt her soul burn bright like a torch. Its majesty did not lessen the unimaginable pain she was experiencing. Her very existence was burning, just as a body would.
Then—
She awoke.
Back to the world she had just left moments ago.
"Ahhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!"
Pain flooded her nervous system instantly. Even in the cold of suffering, she noticed that the mutated bluish skin and winged arm had somehow vanished, but the agony left no room to celebrate.
Not wasting time, her mind forced together enough magic in those agonizing seconds to cast a single spell:
"Noooah Heeeal!!!"
She screamed in pain rather than completion of the spell.
Instead of the familiar green radiance, a golden light enveloped her body. The pain vanished instantly, so abruptly that the elf questioned if her body had simply given up.
But that wasn't the case.
Her muscles still twitched.
Her body was being rebuilt, in a pace far exceeding her previous use of Noah Heal.
Only minutes passed, and her body had healed enough for her to fight again.
Her stamina had returned as well.
But how?
Her magic was basic and nothing extraordinary. It was meant to act as first aid.
And it was green.
Not golden like how it was now.
Speaking of the golden light: the gold did not vanish even after her body had fully healed.
Ryuu felt her Falna burn, as if a slab of heated metal was being pressed against her back.
With each sting, Her senses expanded.
Her hearing sharpened.
Her sight clarified.
Her sense of smell deepened.
Even her muscles tightened with newfound strength.
The elf's head burst into psychic pain by a foreign hand. Her chaotic mind projected an image of her goddess Astrea crying with herself alone and unprotected.
Beyond the a tall wall of saint fullands cathedral, inside the cathedral adventurers were rebuilding and reinforcing the structure.
Ryuus heart ached for her goddess well being, the idea of her being unguarded in such a hostile time was a heavy punch to take.
The projection began to fade to the real world, but at a last moment before she was snapped back, she saw the silhouette of a familiar mask.
The two empty eyes, the long nose and the helmet, it was the mask of the cultist that had injured her, the silhouette faded quickly as she recognized it, leaving Ryuu alone to her fate again.
This was a message from whoever was showing her this, and Ryuu understood the message. Astrea was at the cathedral. So is that masked demon.
For the First time ever since she ran away like a coward, Ryuu decided it was time to finally return to her goddess.
The gale vanished like the wind again, far faster than usual.
Her Falna had changed under the fabric of her clothes, under the skills sections a new line had been engraved in the language of the gods with golden ink.
━━━━━━━ ༺𓆩Ω𓆪༻ ━━━━━━━
Vindicta Astraea
A one-time activation skill that removes all current negative traits once and amplifies all positive status once.
This means all of Ryuu's wind plus healing magic, and status parameters received a literal full level-up equivalent boost that does not change the points she currently has, which leaves room for yet another classic level up.
Basically, when Ryuu levels up she will be a level 4 but her strength, speed and all other skills and stuff will be equal to a level 5.
All current negative traits like Chaos mutations, corruptions, and all forms of poison or infection are purged once. Additionally, due to the level-up boost, she may retain a slight increase in resistance to the same types of negative traits she previously suffered from, most valuable being an amplified resistance to Chaos.
This is basically a piece of "free candy" from the Emperor to a valuable experimental subject. Due to his incomplete understanding of Falna and the magical framework of this new world, the result turned out far stronger than intended… though still within what the system can tolerate.
━━━━━━━ ༺𓆩Ω𓆪༻ ━━━━━━━
FWOSH!
An arrow pierced the tree, landing exactly at the circular red center used for target highlighting.
"Whoa, so cool!"
The children said with awe at the display. They were all refugees in this cathedral and all had lost something or someone close to them, yet in this moment their worries were all gone by the display Naaza was doing.
"Aren't I just the greatest?" Naaza said smugly, pulling another arrow and shooting again without looking. This one pierced the previous arrow, landing dead in the center right through the first arrow!
"Amazing!" "You're so cool!" "Can you teach me, Naaza-chan!?"
The children were all a bubble of happiness and eagerness. It was a pleasant sight, far better than the previous gloom of the battle.
Shakti, who was watching the display over the newly repaired walls, thought so with a smile.
Naaza chuckled in delight. "Now now, remember that you need a Falna to even be able to pull the string of my bow, it's a special weapon after all!"
A collective disappointed "Awwhh!" resonated, but they didn't push further.
Naaza looked at the bored Armid and the unflinching Leah. "How about you, Armid? Wanna try your SHITTY skills with the bow?" Naaza smirked.
Armid shook her head. "Nope. You're too much of a gorilla to compete with."
"Say that again!?" Naaza exploded in anger, but quickly calmed down when Leah raised her hand.
"I wanna try something," she said gently.
"Uhh sure, go ahead, but you can't use my bow if you haven't heard me earlier," Naaza shrugged, tilting her head as the girl just ignored her and went to the shooting position.
Leah saw the target ahead, a simple tree with two arrows and a circle as a target, nothing too hard nor too easy.
The children, Naaza, and Armid awaited in curiosity of what the little girl was planning to do. The same curiosity was mirrored by Shakti over the wall.
Leah raised one arm up, her face twisting in focused thought before the thought manifested into words.
"Light that blinds. Will that binds."
With that chant, the temperature around them dropped instantly. Small rubbles around the girl started floating. Naaza felt her hair bristle by instinct.
"Is that a spell?" Naaza questioned Armid, who shrugged in confusion. The flow of mana was nothing like she had ever experienced when casting.
Sparks began to escape from her tiny body wildly, as if looking for a point of focus. "By the spark of the Throne—Strike!"
FOOOWSH!
A white and purplish lightning bolt escaped from the end of Leah's arm, traveling far faster than even Naaza's arrows did, hitting the tree dead in the center.
BOOM!
The tree exploded from the inside, scattering inflamed pieces of wood everywhere, but none reached the awestruck children, thankfully.
Everyone was silent as Leah, who's nose was bleeding lightly, turned to the group, the smell of burned wood and ozone filling the air, until one boy said, "That was awesome!"
Shakti, from the top of the wall, thought so as well. Was the little girl from any Familia? She had potential with such destructive magic.
Her thoughts were interrupted by a horn blow, informing the main base that the enemy were in sight.
"Brace yourselves, the enemy has found us!" she said with a clenching jaw. She had hoped to do more repairs and place more traps before this scenario happened.
But Astrea had warned her already, and her warning came true at the horizon:
"GUAAAA!"
An undead army was advancing rapidly, and the stench of decay arrived before they did.
This one will be hard to repel.
━━━━━━━ ༺𓆩Ω𓆪༻ ━━━━━━━
The End
━━━━━━━ ༺𓆩Ω𓆪༻ ━━━━━━━
Story name was changed and the description as well hope it's better like this
There is a high possiblity that this story will be put on a hold or rushed with the ending (there are three chapters left probably and we will hit the ending) because I have a new idea I want to entertain
Wanna hear it?
JJK x Danmachi!
I won't say how or what is it about: just know that it's super serious but comedy too with tons of content and characters (Best FRIENDO and big BROTHER included. Perhaps Bumgumi as well)
Sorry I promised this chapter one will be focused on Krieger but I couldn't fit him
Next chapter Is entirely Krieger (almost) with the war soon starting again. We will see the champions awakening and fighting!
I haven't asked this before: tell me how am doing, is the story good? Because to me it's very inconsistent. I'm aware of my limits and failure as a writer, but at least it should be conherent so do tell me if you are confused or not so I can do better
Also while at it: what do you think of Ryuu new skill? Pretty OP in my opinion. She'll become level 4 in the end of Astrea Record, but her true status are that of a level 5!
It's a permanent upgrade that sticks to all levels too.
Hope you enjoyed this.