Chapter 10

Kimiko's Pov

This was the first time she was fighting a summon of this caliber. It was a Legendary Dragons that seemed to have existed in ancient times. It is also called the Dragon of Justice, the steed of God of Justice. It is rumored to be one of the Five Guardians of the World.

Kimiko was currently dodging all the attacks performed by the flying lizard. Too bad it would likely hurt her should she take a hit. After all she did not have the armor she used to have, which was on the body she used as a seal. It had lot of defensive value as well. Then, the dragon started to gather mana on its mouth and fired at her.

[Flare]

'Huh, a non-elemental attack. Just pure mana condensed into a ball.'

Then from the mouth an orb of blue pure mana the size of a 3 storied house was fired. It was speeding towards her. She had already equipped her sword, Ea. She narrowed her eyes and with both the hands grabbed her sword straight above her. Then she pumped it full of mana until the sword started emitting lustrous blue light which headed straight towards the sky above.

[Wolf Fang Piercer]

And cut through the attack like a knife through the butter. Time seemed to stop until the attack done by the dragon exploded mid-air causing a huge ball of explosion forming. Kimiko used this as coverage as she ran with all her strength towards the Dragon. Sound barrier broke the instant she ran with all her might. She almost reached the base of the huge 100m lizard who then tried to fly higher. She narrowed her eyes. She won’t let it.

'It's useless'

She jumped towards it forming a huge crater around the place she used as the base. She readied her blade and the huge dragon decided to swing its right arm at her. She used her blade to stab its arm as she subtly used wind magic to redirect her motion. Then using the arm as a base she started to run towards its head. The Dragon as if sensing her intent tried to get her off of him by sending a wave of mana out of his body pushing everything away from him. It did lift off Kimiko in the air above and away from it. As she flipped in the air she looked at him downwards as a white magic circle, the size of a whole house, appeared behind her.

[Iced Rock Fall]

Kimiko may not be a 'true' mage but she did know a thing or two. She could feel many chunks of ice, almost as big as an elephant forming. As her momentum carried towards them she clawed her hands on it to stop herself. She turned her hand and then with all her might she threw it to the Dragon. It hurled towards the Dragon as it started to burn away like mini comets before smacking right in the Dragon's stout. She again clawed another before throwing at the Dragon again and again. The Dragon had failed to counter at that and now it was being pelted by the mini comets. In frustration it charged up mana on its mouth and started to destroy everything wantonly. Kimiko just dodged these careless shot by jumping on her makeshift bases of ice but she guessed that anyone of SS rank or lower would be instantly destroyed, should they get even grazed by it. Even SSS ranked Adventurer will have less than 5% chance of surviving against these shots.

Monsters will only have upto SSS rank because after they reach more than 550 levels, they will have reached a bottleneck. These monsters only have less than 20% chance of ever ascending this bottleneck. If they somehow do cross this threshold, then they do not get any new skills. To monsters, it's all about their control over their powers. Take Elder Dragons and Ancestor Dragons. They have hundreds of skills because they did not gain new skills but they created tens of variation moves from the same skill. Even low leveled skills can become deadly effective in the hands of these old monsters. The monster will also have the ability to morph into Human beings after they reach 600.

Humans and other species however, depend on the job. The more powerful a job, the more you have the potential to grow. There are two ways to get a job. They are by your own strength or by ancient inheritance. By training and training you can grow your level of the job and when it maxes out you can upgrade and choose one of the options displayed by the system. Ancient inheritance can give you a job as a reward for completing its trials. The trial can be anything. It is quite dangerous and you may lose your life as well as the jobs you can get are not known to you. It can be some useless jobs or powerful ones as well. But Kimiko can say with confidence that if you want to be strong fast then the second option is more useful. Frankly, the first way is for those who are more.....passive in nature. These Ancient Inheritances can only be found in some ruins and used only once. That is why ruins are important to travel to and explore.

Just as she was musing the Bahamut opened all it wings and flapped them creating a strong gust of wind. Kimiko covered her eyes with her arm. There were several [Wind Blades] thrown at her inside area of its gust. She jumped and skidded along the floor as she deflected and destroyed some of those attacks. It seems the Dragon was not giving her any chance to counter and was keeping her at a distance. Then it kept on spamming [Flare] over and over again. She ran across the field to avoid the destruction wrought by the skills. She then jumped up and used a skill.

[Platform]

A golden circular pattern appeared where she was about to drop down and stepped on it. It was a skill to create a thin platform where you can step on in Mid-air. Then the Dragon looked at her and spammed its next bigger skill. Three to four blue circular circles appeared behind the Dragon and they all started to rotate. Its purpose was to gather mana existing in the air.

[Giga Flare]

This time, balls of light started to appear around it and it flew up spinning its body. The balls of light started to disperse into smaller balls which started to bombard the land; each small ball was equivalent to a fully charged [Flare].

'It is now bombarding because it could not hit me with lethal spells, huh.'

Kimiko then kept her left arm forward and used one of her strongest instant casting defensive skills. A green circle appeared beneath her as an impressive amount of mana was used.

[Aegis Shield]

A greenish bronze round shield with the engraving of a massive tree at its center appeared in front of her. It glowed and a visage of a massive transparent tree then appeared behind Kimiko. Then many of its leaves left the tree's branches and swirled around Kimiko, forming a mini tornado. It lasted for half a second before it disappeared, leaving behind a greenish transparent dome which covered her completely. When the attacks arrived, most of those balls focused itself on the dome.

As it was pelted by the destruction, the dome only rippled but never cracked. Kimiko was unharmed but the same could not be said for the field. Massive craters had formed around her. The earth was scorched red and lavas would be seen forming inside with gases escaping into the air. Kimiko looked at the dragon and smirked. The dragon was furious as it roared in fury, causing few floating rock in the air to be destroyed just by its roar. Then the system alerted her.

[The Avatar of Evil, Dark Bahamut is enraged. It entered 'Berserker State'. Power boost: Every stat +30%. Cognition ability: -50%]

It flew up and up, not stopping. It then began summoning more blue circles like the ones before. There were at least 30 such circles. They all started to suck in mana from the surroundings. Moreover, it spread all of its six wings apart from each other. Then the mana collected in the circle started to flow into those wings as streams of condensed mana began to flow into those wings. Then in its mouth, pure white mana condensed as it began flickering to contain its unstable property. It looked straight down at her.

Kimiko narrowed her eyes. She then kneeled with both of her hands on her trusty sword.

'Too much time has been spent on this buffoon already!'

[Acceleration] x 3

It was a skill that multiplied her speed by 2 for a short period of time. The best thing was that it can be stacked but only 3 times. She pumped her sword with 20% of her mana, which caused the sword to emit pure white mana into the atmosphere. She was about to use one of her sword skills as a massive magic circle appeared beneath her, causing her long hair to float. Pink particles began to glow as it floated above the circle. After 5 seconds, the Dragon raised its head and shot the condensed power straight down towards her.

[Terra Flare]

Suddenly, she opened her eyes.

[Void Slash]

Then she disappeared, heading straight above towards the sky. The ground beneath her, the whole floating rock, shattered into a million pieces by the force of her ascent. She instantly arrived straight in the path of the Dragon's attack. However, it was already instantly cut apart by her sword. Then she instantly used her skills to complement her earlier sword skill. [Void Slash] was a series of consecutive attacks that needed to be hit continuously at the target in, at most, 1 second interval between two attacks. It was based on the logic that the amount of damage would continuously increase in each strike with the increase in combo.

She had already started it the moment she cut apart the [Terra Flare]. Then she accelerated even further.

[Acceleration x 10]

[Upgraded form of Acceleration x 2]

[Platform] x 50

Then the Golden circles instantly appeared all around the dragon, surrounding it. Then she unleashed her second strike at the dragon 0.2 seconds after the first one. Then another as she used the golden circle to give her the footing she required and then blasted towards the Dragon to slice it before stepping into another circle and slicing it again and into another circle after another after another. She couldn't be seen as she as she was zipping here and here slicing and hacking it, becoming faster as more combos hit the dragon. All it took was 10 seconds but she had cut the Dragon more than a 100 times already. Just as she coolly sheathed her sword, the dragon behind her finally fell into little pieces before disappearing into tiny mote of blue lights.

[You have defeated the Avatar of Evil, Dark Bahamut. You have gained Exp. 2,904,056,678,267!]

[Level up!] x 5

[You have purified the taint that corrupted the Bahamut!]

[You gained Summoning Crystal; Bahamut! Lvl: 550]

'Summoning Crystals is only the imitation of the real thing so it did not give me much Exp compared to Kosmos, even though it was level 800. But it also looks like it was artificially leveled up by the corruption property of the parasite.'

The realm she was on seemed to crack as every debris suddenly started to fly upwards. The world crumbled around her and she found herself back in the cavern. The parasite seemed to be astonished at her. She instantly cut it apart, killing it but not before asking it.

"How do you know of me? Is it the because of the curse?"

The parasite just eerily laughed.

"He...he...he, we are one, we are many. We all share a hive mind, meaning all the information is shared to everyone. That is all I will say to you. The time of harvesting is coming near after we destroy that filthy seal. This place is promising after all….."

It disappeared leaving ashes behind. She observed that only 5 minutes had passed after she was inside the Summoning Crystal.

[You have defeated the Parasite of *&%$#$%!]

[You have gained Exp. 1200!]

[You have received the Gratitude of the World]

Kimiko pondered behind the meaning of the words left by the parasite.

'What seal? Is it the one I casted?'

She narrowed her eyes and looked towards the tunnel that led them to the underground city.

'But nonetheless should I go there and help them? But thinking about it no one can survive that thing. Others can barely defend themselves but the level difference is so huge that it is laughable.”

She shook her head.

“But if I did not go then, there will be complications like how did I survive when everyone else died. I guess I will help them a little. Maybe I should go in disguise, help them and after that I will think of an excuse to join them afterwards.”

Then Kimiko looked at the Guild Staff who looked at her in awe. After all, Summoning Crystal, despite being rare was still known for its power. After all, those inside such Crystals were once beings that was pretty dangerous.

Kimiko sighed and casted a AOE skill on the Guild staff.

[Memory Erase]

[Time: Last 15 minutes]

She proceeded to wipe their memories away for the last 15 minutes. They will only wake up after few minutes but she will have disappeared from this place into the cave. She took out few decent armor clothing with good defense stat and the one that could hide her body frame.

"Mmmm"

Kimiko found what she was looking for and [Auto-Equip] it. It was a dress that came in a set to be precise. Now she was wearing like a black overcoat. Inside was white shirt with a tie. She was also wearing a long black pant with leather shoes as well as a long black hat and a masquerade party mask. It even came up with a white glove that butlers wear. It was found by her in a ruin. It looked more like what Gentleman wore during a ball dance in the Britain during the 1800s time period. It had some decent stats for an Epic Tier weapon but the most important part was that it could help you to conceal your gender. If a girl equipped it then her figure was concealed and she looked more like a man. Truly what you needed to avoid attention when the world thinks you are a man.

She then took out few crystals from her storage box.

"Summon Golems: Lara, Gabby, Leticia, Anya, Annie."

And one by one five golems wearing French maid dresses like Claire appeared. They all looked the same as Claire except for the fact that Lara had red hair, Gabby had blue hair, Leticia had green hair, Anya had pink hair and Annie had black hair. They looked at each other as if communicating about something. Then they all kneeled together and said.

"""""It's good to see you again, Mistress!"""""

They were very polite. Kimiko looked at them suspiciously as she replied.

"Yes, it's good to see you all again."

"""""You look like a man though! Don't tell us that you were secretly a man!"""""

Kimiko's eyes twitched. They all had said in a perfect sync because they knew it would annoy her. The effect was quick as she was annoyed.

"You have already seen the effect of this dress."

Lara, the mischievous one, just smirked.

"It is because you summoned us after such a long time!"

Kimiko just rolled her eyes.

"Time suspends inside the box. How do you even know how much time even passes? Besides you always say that every time you get summoned!"

Then she sighed.

"Let's go. Change your dresses and help me. I will bestow you the memory of the relevant incident. "

Then they all stood up in daze. Then Annie, the 'serious' one took out her rectangular glasses before wearing it.

"So you want us to save them?"

Kimiko just shook her head.

"No, just help in protecting them while I deal with the main issue."

Annie just said.

"I understand your reasoning, Mistress but even if we go without our attire, our distinct hair and build will make you the suspicious one if we are found being around you. So I suggest, the mistress to gives something that can help us conceal our .... appearance."

Kimiko squinted her eyes at that.

"Hmm, can't you change your hairstyle and its color? I remember there being such a feature when I created all of you."

Annie looked embarrassed before looking at the side with a pout.

"I .... forgot about that mistress."

''''' So cute! '''''

The other 4 maids and Kimiko thought at the same time. Despite being Golem, all of them were able to make such a rich expression.

"Well do that then. We need to hurry. Almost 10 minutes have passed and the radar indicates that almost half of them has been wiped out."

They all bowed.

""""" Yes, mistress. """""

Theta Pov

The world stopped for her. She did not know how it happened. She knew that they were no match for the monstrosity that was in front of them. It had already killed more than half of the lower ranked Adventurers. Many were wounded. They all knew they were totally and utterly outclassed by levels as well as equipment. This was just a raging monster with no skills except its urge to kill them in the most brutal way possible. She was about to run away. Use the teleportation scroll to flee away but it seems that there was something interfering with the teleportation here.

She only knew that she was stopped dead in her tracks by that revelation. It was a mistake. An assassin should not hesitate. Hesitation will lead to an error and that error would cost you your life. She had made such a rookie mistake and that mistake was utilized by that monster to deal with her as she was the one who was the hardest to deal with, among them. It suddenly appeared in front of her and raised its weapon. It swung the weapon down to bisect her in half and absorb her blood and flesh.

But before it could cut her down a figure flew towards her and grabbed her before jumping away from its attack range. They both tumbled down and on the floor but she could feel something wet had hit her face. She was lying on her stomach. Getting the liquid away from her eyes she saw the person who had saved her. She was amazed to see it was Hayley. Hayley looked ok from her point of view and it seemed that Hayley had some wounds on her by the grimace that constantly threatened to show on her face. But Hayley smiled so innocently at her. Hayley was also lying at her stomach and was facing towards Theta. Hayley smiled again and asked weakly.

"Are...are you .....ok?"

When Theta nodded, Hayley's left eye came out of their socket and she was coughing out blood with blood coming out of her eyes and nose. Yet she still was worried about Theta. She said weakly,

"Then....I...am.......glad....."

Before the life in her eyes was slowly disappearing. Theta who was still lying on her stomach on the floor quickly got up. She hurriedly dragged herself to the injured girl.

"Hey Hayley! What's wro-........"

Before seeing that Hayley had her lower torso missing and bloods and internal organs could be seen spreading on the floor. Hayley coughed weakly.

"I.....never......useful.....to.....anyone......always......clumsy......people left.....me.....one....by one...."

Theta quickly grabbed Hayley onto her bosom just like the how a mother would keep her children head on her lap. Theta grabbed Hayley's hand tightly. No why was she doing such pointless thing? Why was she doing such thing? Just why? Why was her face overlapped with someone else? Someone that was deep inside her mind. Someone that was once a friend to her.

"Just don't speak. We will get you better so don't speak. HEALER! HEALERRRR! WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU!!??"

Hayley was looking more and more dazed.

"so....once....in my ...life(cough) was ..... I......Useful......to.......anyone?"

Her eyes opened when she heard that mutter. Yeah, she had once heard that same sentence. Before long the life in Hayley’s eyes disappeared completely and her hand slipped slowly from Theta's. The hand fell down on the ground. Theta was shocked. She looked into Hayley's smiling face who looked as if she was satisfied, just like her friends DID!!!!

No..... No more. Don’t show me these memories! Why now? Why now of all time? All of these memories that should have been suppressed by the [Curse Seal], why now damnit!!

Then something snapped inside. She heard a faint seal be destroyed inside her mind. All the memories of ‘that’ time came back in full swing. Then a sorrowful cry could be heard. Even the Monster stopped for a second. The anguish, the pain, the despair all mixed into that single cry made even the hearts of living Adventurers tremble. Then that cry of anguish turned into rage. That rage turned the little girl of 14 into something, something else entirely. Then Black flames erupted from where she was. The shadow that was above them seemed to smile in a pleased fashion as a black ball seemed to enter the girl.

Then the [Voice of the World] announced something.

[Used forbidden magic: Possession]

[Race temporarily upgraded to fight off the invader. Race upgraded forcefully: Black cat-kin -> Legendary Nekomata]

[Used VIT to sustain the transformation.]

[Entered Ultimate Beast-Rage mode. Use of VIT to increase stat for a minute. VIT temporarily decreased.]

[Gains: 400% increase in STR, CON. 500% increase in DEX. Cognition ability: None]

A figure appeared from the black flames. A tall figure with long white silver hair with yellow eyes that showed nothing but rage emerged from the flames. Then it looked at the Monster and screamed.

"AAAHGGghhgaHh"