Ainz moved with Albedo and Shalltear as Aura and Mare stayed on the lookout. They moved the same direction the heroes did earlier.

They climbed a small hill to get a view of the forest below. It was a dense forest yet had a few patches of infertile land here and there. One of the said patches was occupied by heavy fighting. The three heroes along with their parties were showering some monsters with magic and skills.

Ainz carefully watched and analyzed their skillset. They were currently fighting with eight chimeras. The chimeras were hybrid monsters with parts of two or more animals. One of the chimeras had the head and torso of a lion with brown-black wings on its spine and a tail ending as the head of a snake. One other had heads of a tiger and goat with a spiked tail.

They seemed to attack with their tails, teeth, and fire and wind-based magic attacks.

|Chaos Spear|

Motoyasu spouted the name of the skill as his spear began to glow. It seemed to split into hundreds of spears purely made of mana as all those thrust onto one of the chimeras. The monster's skin was broken as black-red blood flowed out of the many shallow wounds.

The monster howled in pain and began to rampage. It opened its mouth wide as fire escaped at an alarming rate. It was about to make contact with Motoyasu.

|Fire Shield|

Fire was met with fire. Someone from behind cast the spell to protect him from the attack.

|Shooting Star Shot|

Itsuki loaded an arrow and energy seemed to swell at the top. He released it and the arrow exploded upon making contact with the half-wounded chimera. Chunks of the monster's torso were sent flying as the remainder of its body fell lifelessly.

They continued to fight against the horde as Ainz observed them.

After thirty minutes, they defeated all the chimeras. From their fight, Ainz was able to tell one thing. There was little to no co-operation between the heroes and their parties. Their fight represented a pack of wild dogs fighting for prey. Arguments would break out in the case someone stole the kill or their views and opinions coincided. The fight could have been over a lot faster if they worked together instead of trying to do everything themselves.

Motoyasu especially seemed to get frustrated at the smallest of matters.

Just as the chimeras were killed, a loud rustle was heard from ahead of the forest. As they turned to see, a huge ship was floating a little above the ground. It was easily a 100-meters long and 30-meters wide. It seemed to be decaying and the wood was rusted.

They rushed towards the ship as if they already knew the ship was going to arrive. They appeared to be almost racing. They killed other, smaller monsters on the way with ease. Surprisingly, as they got closer to the ship, the lesser the monsters they encountered. Ainz and co followed them for a 150-meters with Aura and Mare following them just at the right distance.

Upon reaching the large ship, monsters swam out of there. Many bird-type, snake-type, and a few undead. Their numbers were less but each of them was around as powerful as a chimera.

The heroes started arguing again. This time they were a little far away so Ainz activated [Bunny Years].

"LISTEN TO ME! We have to destroy the ship to summon the soul eater! Don't run off!"

"Are you even listening to me? We have to kill the skeleton Captain to do that."

"HUUH! What are you two talking about? In Emerald Online you have to kill the Kraken-monster to spawn the boss. It is obvious that we should be doing that."

Emerald? Online? What is that? Sounds like a game. Could it be? No, no, but... If I was, then maybe they too... They said they were from different versions of Japan. Were they hiding something or was it the truth. I will have to confirm it later.

For now, he continued observing them. Suddenly, the ghost ship hurled a cannonball at him. Albedo and Shalltear both quickly went in front of him and destroyed ite. Its bits and pieces did not even touch him. A few monsters started heading towards their direction at full speed.

Ainz for one was stunned. They were masking their presences completely using [Perfect Unknowable]. It was hard even for Aura to see through this spell and these monsters were heading towards them as if the spell was not there.

But Ainz noticed something. The monsters were not heading towards them but Ainz himself only. Albedo and Shalltear were thoroughly ignored. Whereas for the other heroes, they and their parties were targeted meant that the monsters were attracted to not Ainz but the Legendary Shield.

But why? He had no idea. He thought of everything he could. The monsters were not strong enough to see through the spell and certainly, those heroes had not noticed. Or were they just pretending not to see? He ran many simulations but couldn't conclude.

Ainz gave the five Eight Edge assassins the order the deal with the monsters. The monsters were cut down before even getting close. He decided to consult the two behind him before making any judgment.

"Albedo. Shalltear. What do you think of the current situation?"

"It seems that they have no intention of working together ~arinsu. Disgraceful. As for the monsters... they seem to be attracted to something."

"Yes. The so-called 'Heroes' have different thoughts on the wave. That is mysterious as if the royalty or the church was involved, they should have the same information. I agree with Shalltear that the monsters are attracted to something. Seeing as they are ignoring us and have the gal to attack you, they must be attracted to you."

"Umu. That seems right. I personally think they are after the four heroes. Although I still don't understand why they are attacking now and not earlier. Is it something that only occurs in the final stages of the wave. Because they were speaking something about the boss monster spawning here."

More and more monsters started coming. It was as if they wanted to stop him from going far away. He remembered about Demiurge's experiment that he wanted to conduct with these monsters.

"Catch two of the monsters coming here."

"Yes."

They both lashed out and captured two of them. It was as easy as it gets. With their abnormal strength, they just caught two monsters with bare hands. One was a flying type whereas the other was like a big lizard.

"Send them to Nazarick."

Shalltear opened a gate and they both hurled the monsters through. They directly went to the third floor at the place previously decided. They must have been greeted with a bunch of powerful undead.

Well, now that Albedo and Shalltear had revealed themselves, they became targets too, although they weren't able to get through.

Ainz thought in himself if this was the extent of the wave, then it would be fine. Even though, this leaves quite a big room for speculations about the next wave. He left this for later and they all focused on the heroes.

They had now split up with two of them on the ship and the bow hero raining arrows on the ship. The teamwork on the ship too was non-existent. Where one was fighting an undead wearing pirate clothes, the other fought a Kraken-type monster that resembled a single tentacle. They were using their magic and skills to attack the monster while attacking each other with words.

They were arguing how it would be better to kill this monster first, then that, then boss and stuff. It got in the way of their fighting as it distracted them from the main goal. They eventually continued fighting while bickering with each other.

The spear hero kept attacking the Kraken-monster while the teammates used magic. The monster had really good durability, or just the attacks were too weak. But the monster fighting the sword hero piqued Ainz's interest. It was repeatedly defeated yet kept recovering its health as soon as it became zero.

Ainz cast magic and started keeping tabs on its health and stats. It did not seem to possess any special abilities or use any attack except a slash from its sword. The bow hero just kept attacking the ship gradually damaging it.

Time passed until Ainz started to get bored watching them fight. The fights consisted of nothing but attacking with skills, dodging until they cooled down, then using the same skills again. He wondered just what would happen if they fought with this strategy in YGGDRASIL. They would get utterly wrecked. These kinds of movements were those that one would take against NPCs without intelligence. That too would get exploited after some time.

However, Ainz had noticed one thing. The newly-spawned monsters got stronger as time passed. Within the span of maybe a couple hours, they had reached the level of around 25-35. And their numbers in themselves were enough to cause a crusade. Even the undead he had sent to help the demi-humans would take a few hits in this situation. The damage would not be that worrying though.

He thought if it was possible for monsters rivaling the guardians or worse to be spawned. However, he was not at all, wanting to confirm this theory. He could not wait any longer. The wave had to be ended now.

"We are going."

"Yes."

They went down the cliff and went beside the bow hero, Itsuki to ask him something.

"Why do you not cooperate with each other. That way it would be much easier to tackle the wave."

"What the- Oh! It's you!" He did not notice them at first but immediately snarled upon seeing them. He was clearly not willing to speak or did he not have an answer. After a moment, he gave a response.

"I told them. They will have to destroy the ship to spawn the soul eater but they are not listening to me. They even went ahead and got on the ship."

"How do you know that destroying the ship would result in that?"

"Huh? It's because that's how it was in Dimensional Wave."

"Dimensional, Wave?"

"Ugh! It was a game. Now go and let us fight."

The gears in Ainz's head turned at full speed. So his assumption was correct. They came here from a game too. But, the way they speak about it, they seem to think it was normal. Was it because of the different versions of Japan? He decided to investigate on this matter later.

He jumped up with his full plate armor on and reached the hull pretty easily. The two behind followed without uttering a word. Everyone in Itsuki's party had their jaw dropped open. Ainz and his party had just jumped almost 30 meters into the air.

On reaching the hull, Ainz assessed the situation. Both the parties were back to back fighting different monsters. Everyone was getting pretty annoyed. None of the monsters were dying. The tentacle still had almost half HP left whereas the skeleton captain still recovered every time.

Upon noticing the shield hero, everyone scoffed. They wouldn't ever admit that any help was needed because of their pride.

Ainz decided there wasn't much time to waste to deal with the wave. If a boss monster was to show up. It most certainly would not appear before the small fry were defeated. More to that, he had wondered how the heroes were going to fight the boss monster given that they were having problems even before it. Even killing the smaller monsters had become a big deal now. For some reason, the mass spawned monsters did not interfere on the ship.

"Shalltear, help me get everyone off this ship. Albedo, destroy the entire ship along with the monsters."

"Understood."

Ainz hurriedly picked up everyone in the Motoyasu's party as he didn't want to leave them alone with Shalltear. They were resisting trying to say something but were thoroughly ignored. Motoyasu started flailing about like a child and tried to attack Ainz but before they realized, they were thrown to the ground below. The party on the ground looked at them with baffled expressions.

Shalltear brought Ren's party down and, threw them on the ground. The air was forced out of their lungs and Ainz felt a little of HP drop. They all started complaining and cursing at him. They all started to go back to the ship but-

X-X-X-X

Albedo was on the main hull of this ship. As her master and Shalltear left the ship, she was now free to demolish the ship. She had a lot of pent up anger that needed to be released. The anger that was accumulated because of the puny humans of this world. They had and have continued to disrespect her beloved Momonga-sama. They even cursed him after he was kind enough to save their worthless lives.

And then, he had to leave her behind and take Shalltear with him on his adventure because of reasons. She won't just forget the boasting Shalltear had done upon returning.

All her bottled feelings were about to be released now. Her world-item was enveloped in faint light. 'Ginnungagap', an item capable of destroying large areas and the most powerful item against physical items. Even if it was sometimes weaker than a specialized divine-class item, it was not weak by any means. Being powerful against physical items also meant that it was destroying equipment including armor, weapons, or others. It was also indestructible.

She had to tread with it carefully, or she could end up destroying a much bigger area. This could lead to her beloved getting involved in the crossfire. She charged its most basic ability to the acceptable limit and swung it down. The wind created by the swing was powerful enough to throw the surrounding monsters in the air for a second.

As the axe touched the wood of the hull, within a moment, the whole ship was reduced to even worse than rubble. As the area around the axe collapsed, the shockwaves spread wide. With her as an epicenter, an earthquake on the wood ship arose. The monsters' HP depleted to nothing from only those shockwaves. The ship unable to withstand the attack, broke. It was no normal breaking as nothing remained. Everything on and in the ship was reduced to sawdust with some parts hurling here and there.

In the midst of all that, stood Albedo. She raised her weapon and rested it on her shoulder. Her head turned around to see her beloved along with Shalltear who had a satisfied look on her face. There were a few vermin behind them gasping in surprise and making too much noise. An enemy appeared behind her and with two quick swings of her weapon, it died. The vermins' eyes bulged even more where she didn't even look at her opponent.

Suddenly her master tilted his head and spoke in a soft voice addressing Aura on the lookout. Maybe he got a message from her. He immediately turned over to the back and looked above. She too turned her sight slightly above. On the cliff opposite the one they stood on earlier, stood a woman.

With long black hair and sharp eyes, she stood on the clifftop wearing a deep blue attire. The clothing was somewhat similar to what some denizens of Nazarick. Both her hands held black fans made of some kind of lustrous material.

Upon being discovered she jumped down the cliff and landed safely on her feet. After seeing Albedo's feat she still dared to face them. Either she was a friend, or a powerful foe or a stupid one. She slowly walked towards Albedo whilst maintaining eye contact. Albedo didn't attack for now as the opponent was not a monster, so gathering information would be the priority.

Two more Soul Eaters suddenly appeared, one behind her, and one behind Albedo. Both of them were killed with a single swing of their weapons. She continued walking until they were like 15 meters apart. Finally, the unknown woman broke eye contact and looked towards the other heroes.

"Are you all so threatened by these little monsters? It seems there is but one true Hero Party among you."

Albedo studied the girl. She was somehow ghostly. The woman in front of her seemed to be an astral identity, yet had a physical form. It was really hard to tell. The way she spoke was confident and resolute. The pressure emanated by her was not light by any means and it would send shivers down their spine. It was just useless against Nazarick.

The heroes' faces were a little pale, but they were not happy at the statement made by the girl.

"Well, from what little I could see of the fight, it was clear that the heroes were unable to fight. Except for your party, that is insanely strong." That girl was now looking at Momonga-sama.

Of course, the other heroes took offense to that statement. They did not want the truth thrown at them. They charged in recklessly, using their best skills all at once.

|Crimson Sword| The sword glowed red and released a frenzy of slashes.

|Blaze Arrow| The tip of the arrow was enveloped in sharp flames as he shot it.

|Air Strike Javelin| He threw his spear as it got covered by bright light.

To that, all the woman did was close to one of her fans. With one swing, the attacks about to hit her were dissipated by a small storm. It then proceeded to hit the three of them along with their parties. They were blown back and all of them became unconscious just from that.

"I expected a little more from you. I feel bad for the holy weapons. Now then, where were we? I challenge you to a fight right now. Might I trouble you for your name first."

"Hmm. It is Momon."

"Momon is it... My name is Glass. I guess that is enough chit-chat. Let us begin."

"Yes, that's right. You both, stand back."

"Yes"

Even though she hesitantly complied, she felt uneasy leaving Momonga-sama to fight the unknown woman again. She even shuddered to think that maybe they did not have his trust.

They both stepped back as their fight was about to begin. She turned to look at Shalltear, who had a similarly bad reaction.

X-X-X-X

He did not even notice the timer at the corner of his sight. There were only two minutes left for the wave to end.

Ainz and Glass took off towards each other. Gale left behind as they moved. They met midway as Glass brought down one of her fans.

Ainz blocked it with his red Scarlette Shield. A dull clang rang out as the counter skill activated |Bone Lance|. Three lances dashed towards her. She saw the counter coming and immediately made distance. Two lances were stopped by both fans as they were destroyed. She moved her body to dodge the last one and it passed grazing the top of her shoulder.

"Are you a part of the waves of calamity!?"

"I believe there is no gain in talking when the fight has begun."

Ainz felt the resolve in her voice and knew that she wouldn't talk, for now at least.

|Dancing Circle Zero: Reverse Snow Moon Flower|

She rotated as if doing some kind of dance as invisible slashes of wind were hurled towards Ainz. He chose the Death Knight Shield that manifested itself in front of him. Not one of the attacks got through. As the shield disappeared, Glass was inches away from where the shield had been.

Both the fans enveloped themselves in red-black flames as one of them was thrown towards and the other brought down like a sword. His shield changed back to Scarlette. He dodged the thrown fan masterfully that disappeared after traveling some distance. The other was received with his shield.

As he was about to counter, the thrown fan reappeared in her free hand and she made a piercing blow towards his abdomen. His shield changed forms and disappeared both visually and physically. The suddenly free weapon made her lose her balance but the attack ensued nonetheless. His armor broke as her hand along with the fan went through and emerged from the other side.

Albedo and Shalltear weren't shaken in the least and were watching with almost relaxed smiles. Of course, Glass didn't notice them but what she did notice was that something was wrong.

The blood sputtering from his organs was smeared all over her hands and dress. But it wasn't hot and wet but felt cold as ice and dry as a desert. The image of the shield hero along with the blood dissipated into thin air as she was blown to her side by a heavy blow to her head. His figure reappeared on the side with his fist in front. He had punched her.

Ainz had used the illusion skill |Phantom Illusion|, a simple illusion skill. It was obtained by the Kashin Koji. It was extremely useful but someone with high detection skills could have easily seen through it. His shield changed back again.

She got back up her breaths slightly disoriented. The place where she was struck wasn't bleeding but had a bruise.

|Turtoise Shell Cracker|

She closed her fans and placed them one over the other. She pulled back the one on the top like a bow-string and then jerked it upwards. Concentrated energy shot out towards Ainz. The offense was of course met with his shield. But upon contact with the shield, the energy lapsed through the shield and even passed his armor. It directly hit his shoulder bones. It did not damage him in the least but it had a slight knockback effect added to it.

Ainz was visibly shocked at the attack that had even surpassed his defenses, or ignored it to be exact. Power to go through defenses was there in YGGDRASIL but were incredibly rare and they too, did not ignore it completely. Ainz was about to leap ahead yet again, but he heard something more shocking yet again.

|Envy Spear|

Ainz's head jolted back at those words. For a second he thought of something, but that was surely impossible. Glass was looking at Motoyasu too who had a distorted expression on his face. That expression seemed not because of pain but something girl

Motoyasu was emanating a deep-green aura. That aura was still severely lacking when compared to anyone in Nazarick, but it was leagues above than compared to before. His spear was now pure black with green designs running all over its body. Those designs seemed similar to some kind of symbols.

He ran up at a high speed and thrust his spear on Glass. She skillfully managed to parry the attack with one of her fans and countered with a kick. Motoyasu rolled on the ground a few times before getting back on his feet. His eyes bloodshot and clear insanity within them.

Envy Series -] Weapon Copy

If Ainz had eyes, they would have popped out of his head. His head heated up just from seeing the sight in front. He felt that Albedo and Shalltear would be having the same reaction, but he did not have the time to check it.

The spear in Motoyasu's hand was covered in green flames and turned into the exact same shape as Albedo's world item. It did not have a single difference and looked to be a perfect copy. The power emanating from it was similar to Ginnungagap. Its color scheme was the same as the spear before it.

Ainz was not able to comprehend the information in time. Motoyasu rushed towards the now so alerted Glass. The axe in his hand glowed a little as he brought it down on Glass. She raised both her weapons in a cross to block the attack.

As they connected, a loud boom rang out and the Glass was blown back into a rock. The impact was so large, the ground below Glass had caved in and cracks ran several meters from the impact region. The impact in itself was strangely identical to Albedo's weapon. Although the attack's power seemed somewhat lacking compared to the original, Ainz's mind only wandered over the fact that a World Item had been copied to some extent.

Motoyasu after the attack fell down grandly on the spot. His facial expression was now back to normal. Ainz checked his stats and his MP was completely depleted and his remaining HP was just 1, a single point. He had one door in the grave and the other halfway through.

|Maximize Magic : First heal|

His health rapidly regenerated until it almost reached its limit. He picked him up and threw him back where he came from. He turned to see Glass standing with blood flowing from the back of the shoulder and possibly nape too. She was breathing heavily and walked forward with heavy steps.

Ainz had got an idea of her strength. She was stronger than the heroes and could even probably fight evenly with one of the Pleiades. Her attacks couldn't breach his defense, and she too was able to barely defend herself against his shield skills. She was the most powerful foe he had faced in this world.

"What a surprise! To think, he would have a trump card this deadly. It's disappointing, but we will have to continue later. But remember, OUR world shall triumph over your in the waves."

Ainz wasn't going to let her escape, but hearing the words 'Our World', he stopped for a moment. Normally he would have been composed but there were just too many surprises. It was only a moment, but that was all she needed. She flew towards the clouds with speed similar to that of fly.

He immediately gave Aura the command to stop her. Her speed was exceptional. It was not at all comparable to before. Ainz didn't think that it was some normal fly but a skill. She was already near the top but as Aura's arrow was about to pierce her heart, she blocked it with her fans. Realizing she won't be able to stop it, she tilted them and applied force to redirect it to her shoulder.

She certainly had good reflexes. Even redirecting that arrow by a few degrees was a big feat in itself.

There were a lot of things that shocked Ainz in this wave, the biggest being the power used by Motoyasu. He had copied a world-item. However, the information was too less. Was that related to the 'Envy' he had spoken before? Was that skill only usable once, or could it be used more than one time? Seeing as he had almost no HP left, that seemed impossible. However, Ainz had a hunch that it was not the case

He would have liked to take the weapon with him, but that was not possible. Even Wish Upon a Star was unusable. He could take him to Nazarick but then he couldn't be allowed to leave. If it was possible to alter the memories, it would have been better.

For now, he just wanted to go back. There were a lot of things to discuss with Demiurge. Shalltear sent the soul eater remains through a gate and opened another one for them to pass through.

They headed back to Nazarick as the heroes and their parties were left unconscious on the battlefield.