Chapter 433 – Lisana’s Abilities and Battle against the Sword Spirits
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“Thank you very much. I really like it! Starting today, I will be known as Lisana.”
Tear-like drops tinged with mana accumulated in her eyes.
“…Glad to hear you like it.”
Lisana’s shoulders trembled as she revealed a charming smile. I gazed at her small cute horns. Pink beads poured out of the tips, continuously growing bigger.
I wonder whether those beads are going to increase in proportion to Lisana’s joy.
Anyway, the name is set now. Next, I’m going to ask about the Wave Gourd, I guess.
“…Did you hear the term Cloud Rust – Tenge?”
“Tenge…There’s the skill <Blood Flower – Devourer> at my feet, but I have no memory of a tenge.”
So she doesn’t remember, huh…?
“I see.”
Did the Time Pinyin simply name it as Cloud Rust – Tenge by coincidence? No, something with cloud rust must have entered the Wave Gourd back when he used it.
He mentioned to me that the growth of the gourd would depend on my mana. So there’s no doubt about my <Blood Mana> having had a strong influence here.
“…Can you move?”
“As you see, I don’t have any legs. But, moving is――”
With those words, Lisana floated up. The snails around her played their Baroque-styled music, and metallic sounds could be heard from the small gourd-shaped hair ornaments near her ears.
But I see, so she can float, eh? The gourd now looks like a flowerpot.
Wait…I didn’t expect for the heavy gourd to be able to float as well… Taking a closer look at Lisana, thin, semi-transparent, pink mana lines were extending below from the root of her upper body, connecting her to the gourd.
Lisana looked up to the sky, “Shuuya-sama, I have been blocking the fragments of the swords falling from the sky, but…are the swords and unknown lifeforms up there our enemies?”
“The girls riding on the three holy blades are our friends. The same applies to the illusionary animal with the shape of a weasel behind them.”
“Okay.”
“Well, those four feel like runaway girls whom I can’t fully control,” I pointed out while looking at Saraten.
“I can agree with those absurdly fast swords being runaways. Shuuya mentioned it being a secret art, but right now they’re moving around as they please.”
“Kisara-sama has also been worried about Holy Sword Saraten which cannot be fully controlled by Shuuya-sama.”
Higlia and Ryokline commented while staring at the sky. Sounds similar to gunfire reverberated in the sky. Saraten fiercely fought against the word spirits in order to protect Itasha.
While nodding, I added, “…You’re free to consider the other sword spirits and all the animal creatures as enemies.”
“Understood. Oh, there’s a creature with a big belly trying to run away.”
“That’s an enemy.”
“Is it okay for me to attack all of them?”
“Go for it.”
The instant Lisana gained my permission, she answered, “Okay! <Magic Deer Fugue’s Hand>,” with a powerful voice, and a part of the Wave Gourd came unstuck.
At the same time, the bones and blood veins of one of Lisana’s body halves started to glow. The bones and veins protruded out, bunched up, and fused with the Wave Gourd’s part while forming fingers, bones, and arm flesh. Within an instant, all of this turned into one huge arm. That arm was clad in layers of scarlet and blue mana, but although I called it an arm, it only went up to the wrist.
At the bottom of the wrist existed two parts resembling jet holes as if to drive a rocket punch. The magic lines extending from those two holes were connected to Lisana’s arms. Moments later Lisana created a second such arm, increasing the number of arms at her disposal to four in total.
The bones and vein, which had protruded out of her body half and created the huge arms immediately reverted to normal.
As I was being surprised by those hands, a semi-transparent tricorne manifested on Lisana’s head. Are her abilities mainly centered around magician-based skills?
Lisana extended her original two arms to the sides while gathering mana. Then she slanted the angle of her elbows with a gentle motion. And just like Catiza, she started to draw magic crests with her slender fingers that were adorned with shining rings.
She really seems to use magician-like skills. She tapped the small crests as if playing on a keyboard, resulting in the crests turning into fine magic lines and dispersing. Those lines connected Lisana with the tiny slugs and snails which had continued to float close to her hair.
The Baroque-styled melody became stronger. And then the slugs and snails lined up like connected trains, forming rows. The orderly two lines of snails and slugs headed towards arms, and began to revolve around her upper arms at a terrifying speed, making it look as if they were melting into each other. Soon the transformed into special arm protectors.
Snail-shaped patters were visible on the surface of those new protectors. Lisana extended her arms like wings and flew up. The pair of jet-black, huge hands floated next to Lisana’s two original hands. The Wave Gourd, looking like Lisana’s lower body, flew behind her as if being dragged along.
And then, as soon as the gem designs on Lisana’s skeletal body half lit up, Lisana sank into the gourd while rotating, only leaving behind the pair of big arms.
Blood gushed out of the flower on the top of the gourd, covering it like a membrane. And then the gourd’s fittings and elephant patterns were tinged in speckled light and started to move around, changing their shapes.
With a wet slosh, a slug head was created. Following that, a deer head was created, too. And lastly a dragon’s head was created as well.
Things similar to Lisana’s slender arms manifested beneath the three heads bulging out of the gourd’s surface.
The pair of huge hands moved in front of the Wave Gourd, just to rush through the sky while dragging the gourd along. Mana in the shape of a rusty cloud spewed out of the two hands.
The first target of the huge hands was a raccoon’s sword spirit. Its illusionary raccoon possessed a cigar nose and had been on the run from Saraten.
Lisana’s created hands grabbed the raccoon, followed by the raccoon immediately being sucked into the gourd. The instant the raccoon fully disappeared within, the Wave Gourd groaned in a slightly eerie way.
And then it started to revolve, scattering glittering mana ripples and ghastly moans through the air. Its rotation was fast.
Soon after the, gourd headed straight for the ground with a crazy speed, and crashed nearby with a heavy bang. The bottom part of the gourd sank into the ground. A moment later, the big, crimson spider lily wriggled, just for mana to burst out of the petals and gourd like a wave. What used to be a raccoon had turned into chunks of meat and was now being ejected like trash.
Quite incredible.
“…A technique capitalizing on the Wave Gourd’s weight, huh?”
Once I commented like that, the crimson flower on top of the gourd moved strangely once more. A second later Lisana appeared from within while whirling around like a ballerina. The huge hands also manifested.
Lisana was now holding something similar to a folding fan as a weapon in her hand. It was engulfed by mana. Something similar to rectangle shells formed the segments of the fan, each adorned with drawings of snails, deer, dragons, and such.
While hiding her giggling behind the fan’s screen, Lisana said, “You saw a skill called <Deadly Embrace>.”
The exhibition of that brutal skill had completely scared the alliance members. But the number of sword spirits in the sky still remained high.
For normal humans that might cause even more fear…
I guess it’s about time for me to put in some effort! Originally I’m the cause for this whole mess anyway.
Looking at Higlia and the Burning Knights, I instructed, “…Burning Knights, Higlia, and the rest of you, once you finish collecting the magic sword fragments, join up with Helme, Azol, and the others. Focus on defense.”
“Affirmative!”
“Leave it to me!”
“Got it. I leave the sky to you, Shuuya.”
“Sure.
Once I lifted a hand, Higlia nodded and went ahead, leading the Burning Knights and everyone else to Helme’s group.
I shifted my look to my partner, “Rollo, Jody, Lisana, we’re going to start cleaning up the enemy in the sky.”
“Nyaooo~” Rollodeen meowed cheerfully.
“Shuuya-sama, I shall support you.”
“I also wish to contribute without getting in the way of Divine Beast-sama and Jody-sama.”
“Lisana, don’t be so modest. Fight by adopting yourself to the situation as my kin.”
Once I said so, Rollodeen dashed off ahead. She extended her tentacles ahead, stabbing them into the ground and trees. And then she accelerated by reeling in those tentacles.
As soon as she was airborne, Rollo spread two big, jet-black wings. Next, she shot her tentacles into the sky from her chest. Moreover, she extended countless tentacles from her back as well. Those latter tentacles accelerated as if to catch up with the chest tentacles while heading for their targets.
From my point of view, the tentacle movements looked like several thousand arrows were raining down on the sword spirits.
In the blink of an eye, several dozen spirit were penetrated and vanished without so much as a scream. While witnessing that overwhelming spectacle, or rather, slaughter, I activated <Magic Hand guided by Thought>.
Using the mana hand as footing, I jumped through the air. In midair, I twisted my body and crossed my hands, focusing on <Thime’s Dark Flames>. Dark flames immediately wrapped up my fists. At that moment, roars could be heard from both my hands as Dark Dragon Thime’s heads spread their jaws, roaring.
From among all the sword spirits, a grim-faced white rabbit charged at me, but I couldn’t see anything like a sword near it as was typical for all the sword spirits.
Oh well, whatever. I’ll first capitalize on my agility that has been boosted by <Thime’s Dark Flames>.
While cladding my whole body in Magic Combat Style, I powerfully kicked off the mana hand beneath me. I moved with my with my left hand extended straight ahead like a sword, charging at the rabbit.
I closed the distance to it in no time, and attacked its chest with my darkly burning spear hand. My hand penetrated its left chest as if gliding through butter.
The rabbit sword spirit raised a voice as if venting air. At that moment, I spotted something like a longsword protruding out of its flank as I gouged its chest out with my left hand. But, the sword quickly developed cracks and shattered.
I instantly pulled my had out of its body, resulting in blood gushing out of the hole I created. While sucking up the shower of blood hitting me, I delivered a right turning kick against the rabbit’s head. The sword spirit was blown away, just to quickly disappear.
Its blood tasted ordinary. But, it was weird for it to disappear in an instant. Usually I’d have expected it to scatter flesh and blood all over.
The Boss-level sword spirit that had been shattered by Saraten must have been a special. At least it was different from the rabbit sword spirit just now and all the other sword spirits.
Well, I guess that’s only to be expected. With my blood in the mix, it’s only natural for weird phenomenons to occur.
Immediately after I came to that conclusion, my Grasping Perception caught some movement on my right.
For a while I fought several different types of sword spirit individually or in groups while using <Thime’s Dark Flames> and Baldok to slaughter them all.
At some point, I ran into a big bird resembling a harpy. It totally looked like a monster, making me wonder whether it’s actually a sword spirit.
It had a great number of nipples on its bulging chest and many longswords with indecent shapes protruded out of its back.
It noticed my approach, which gave me a bad feeling.
“gAh! hUmAn! LOckINg mE Up!!”
This one is intelligent, huh!? A part of the wings on its back immediately changed into longswords. Combined with the indecently shaped longswords, it made the flock of blades stab out to the front in 180°. In addition to the swords, it also launched highly-skilled, accurate counter attacks.
I cleared away the approaching swords with <Thime’s Dark Flames> engulfing my left hand. The majority of the blades was repelled by Hal’Konk, but my legs and neck got pierced nonetheless. It friggin’ hurt!
I wasn’t in time to block all of them. Lots of blood gushed out from the places where I was hit, whirling through the air. Some of the blades also dug into my body, but without minding that, I unleashed a <Thrust> with Baldok towards the chest of the harpy.
The storm-cloud spearhead drilled through the breasts and then went through intestines and bones.
Meanwhile, my own throat hurt so much that I had trouble breathing. Any normal human would have died by now without casting healing magic. Even so, I felt a proper feedback from the large harpy.
Next I grabbed the source of my pain, the sword blade stabbed in my neck, which seemed to be the body of a sword spirit, and broke it.
I couldn’t foresee what the harpy would do next. I was a formidable enemy with flesh and bones.
“Gyaaaa!”
As clear from it shrieking, it was still alive. Quite tough, that one.
Accordingly I activated <Tree of the Evil King>. I covered a part of the bird with trees while confirming the hole drilled open by my <Thrust>. Erasing Baldok from my right hand, I scattered water created with life magic, and the I unleashed a barrage of 《Frozen Arrow》 from close-by.
The arrows hit the parts that weren’t hidden underneath trees.
With that timing, I enhanced my Magic Combat style on my lower body half, kicked off my mana hand as if trying to crush it, and charged at it in a slouch while activating a certain skill.
I started the first motion of the first kick for <Dark Water Moon Drill>. My vertical kick impacted on the harpy’s belly, causing it to be flung upwards.
Then came the time for me to release a <Powerful Slash> and the cutting technique of <Dark Water Moon Drill> which looked as if I was drawing a moon. But, instead I canceled <Dark Water Moon Drill> and summoned Baldok.
I stabbed out a <Water Drill> right above me instead of using a <Powerful Slash>. The violent spear penetrated through the trees and the harpy’s chest. Seemingly drilling through its heart, it burst. And since the bird was big, the amount of blood and flesh was huge.
Baldok cheerfully groaned at the bloody tragedy that unfolded. But I didn’t allow Baldok to suck all the blood up himself. I absorbed the blood raining down on me and nearby.
Next I spotted a caterpillar-shaped sword spirit. It started to extend its sickle-like sword body all over the place. Then it spat some antifreeze-like liquid at Helme’s water membrane. It penetrated a part of her water membrane, causing tears to appear.
Everyone beneath it got worried and the Burning Knights held up their shields.
I got pissed by that annoying bug, closed the distance to it, and hit its behind with a <Powerful Slash>, resulting in it getting bisected.
But, the spirit didn’t disappear. Thus I used a <Fang Stab> on its multi-leg part. At the same time as I erased Baldok after stabbing at its lower body and penetrating several of its legs, I pulled back my right hand.
Within a few milliseconds, I twisted my body and resummoned Baldok into my right hand. Using a mana hand as footing, I headed for the other part of the caterpillar. I transfered the force of my momentum into Baldok and thrust out a <Blood Drill>. Once the spear drilled through the bug, it exploded. The explosion left a weird effect behind while the blood contracted.
Helme, the Burning Knights, the ancient wolfmen, and the alliance members all thanked me loudly. Even Azol shouted something in my direction.
But, there were still many more enemies left. As such, Jody, Lisana, Rollo, Saraten, and I worked hard to cull them. Before long, all of them were defeated. I climbed on Rollodeen and after erasing Baldok, I focused my mind and powerfully focused on <Saraten’s Secret Arts>.
『Saraten, come!』
Saraten unified into one blade again and abruptly stopped moving, resulting in Itasha running into her.
『Vessel! Don’t send telepathic waves my way all of a sudden! It hurts!』
『Yeah, yeah, now get back here! There are no enemies left anymore, right?』
『Humph――ordering me around…』
『――Saryatn-shama, lesh us hed bak to Gret Mastah-shama』
I almost fell over on Rollodeen’s back when I heard that childish voice. Itasha turned around and flew over to me. She looked quite cute and I wanted to stroke her, but she flew right insinde my left palm.
『M-My underling order me arouuuuu――aahhh』
Now under shock, Saraten apparently yielded her control to me. I put some strength into my fingers and pointed to the right while overlapping index and middle finger. In response, Saraten instantly headed to the right side. Next I moved those two fingers to the left, making Saraten fly to the left.
Alright, I’ve become able to freely manipulate Saraten…now after all this time. I sucked her into my left hand after this.
“Rollo, we’re going back down. We must head to Higlia’s home village. And I’d like to talk to the members of the holy guild alliance, too. I’m interested in the town of Alze which is their base. Maybe it’ll be possible to set up trade between Alze and Cydale.”
Hearing those words, Rollodeen answered, “Nya, nya, nyaoo~”, which left it unclear whether she understood what I said or not.
While stroking her neck, we descended to where everyone was gathered. Jody and Lisana landed next to me. After casting a look at Azol, I jumped off Rollodeen.
As soon as I landed, Helme walked up to me, praising me for my great battle effort with a big smile. The Burning Knights exaggeratedly agreed with her.
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