Where were we? Oh right! Right at the moment the monster, or whatever that was possessed the ship, or better, the remaining of the ship, modified the thing completely, with spike launching devices, and cannons. In fact! HOW THE BLAST IT WAS ABLE TO DO THAT?!

“What the shock are you, anyway?”

► Symbiotic Crystal Slime ◄

A variation of the Symbiotic Slime.

Albeit called Symbiotic, this creature does not necessarily need a living being to survive. It does attach itself primarily to relics or artifacts, enhancing even further the capabilities of such things.

The Crystal part on its name does not make sense, since its color is mainly black, but if someone look closely(who would do that?), they’ll notice a crystal like pattern on its insides.

After attaching itself to a relic/artifact, it’ll enhance all the capabilities, and add more to the mix. Such as spiky cannons, and other enhancements. Whenever they found a new/better relic/artifact, they’ll try to posses it, and target anything that has a relic/artifact.

Whenever there’s a Crystal Slime close by, there will be have more crystal like creatures.

You better run, Mister Kenji, else you might become its new host.

“WHO IS WATCHING AND GIVING INFO TO ME?!”

Ignoring the last tidbit words, I move out of the line of sight of the Ship, and… well, like the description said, when there’s one of those, there’s crystal like creatures close by. They looked like humans, if you ignore the black crystal bodies, and the blue eyes.

With Satz and Schicksal in hands, I kept running through the place, getting rid of these things. These things started to get tough after some time, though. Some died to one shot, others into 3 or more. And oh! How could I forget! MORE INSECTS! On the walls, shooting acid. Quite at the actual speed.

Avoiding them, I simply destroyed, and kept going, killing more and more of the crystal creatures.

“GAH! YOU KNOW WHAT?!”

Tired of using my guns and having a hard time killing them, I got out of cover, using [Flash Step] to approach them, and using the Shockwave, AND Sledgehammer to smash them to pieces. BOTH WERE A ONE SHOT!

The insects too. When I was getting close to what looked like a temple, was when I received another call of Suzuki, and the blasting ship monster appeared once again. It started shooting at me, AGAIN!

“Kenji! Can you hear me! We’re-”

“CAN IT WAIT! I’M STILL WORKING ON SECURING THAT BIRD!” WHY PEOPLE WANTS TO TALK WHEN I’M IN A HARD TIME?!

“But I thought-”

“NO TIME TO TALK!”

Avoiding the spikes of the ship were easy, but the cannonballs? Oooooo~ That was hard. I either flash stepped away, duck, or jumped out of the way. Oh! By the way, those cannonballs were made out of the crystal like thing. So don’t even think that I was able to destroy it with Shockwave. It didn’t worked. I tested out.

“WHY’D I LOST MY WEAPONS AT SUCH A TIME! SHOCK!”

After making my way through a lot of crystal enemies, I FOUND IT! YES! OHOHOHOHO! YOU’RE IN A HARD TIME NOW! Yeah, at last, I’ve found my cutie! I mean, I found Ansturm.

“Now we’re talking.”

Reloading it, I turned around towards the monster, when it suddenly stopped attacking, wriggling its tentacles or whatever those things were.

“YOU! ARE! A PAIN! BUT!… Uh, what was it again? OH! I GOT A PAINKILLER!”

It started to sway in the air, and turned around. Oh, what? It noticed the danger? WELL! THAT’S TOO LATE NOW!

Ansturm had 2 locks. And since the launcher was quite big, I needed a second handle, and it was located a few centimeters away from the big nozzle. The first lock, to unlock it, was necessary my mana, with lightning affinity. I pressed the button, and charged.

With a powering up sound, Ansturm started to let out a blue lightning all around. That was the moment for me to activate the second lock, which was located at the handle I was holding with my right arm. That, was fire affinity mana.

With the visor on, I focused my eyes on the monster. All of that happened in a matter of seconds, by the way. The moment the lock-on appeared on my visor, I let go of the trigger, and 3 missiles launch out of Ansturm.

The moment they reached halfway through, the 3 opened themselves, and 5 more smaller missiles appeared. They made parabolas around the monster, and hit it clean on it. It screamed in agony, and when the last 3 missiles hit it, it didn’t exploded. At the moment. But after 1.5 seconds later, the missiles exploded from the inside, destroying the thing’s core.

“Rocket Launcher. Accept no substitutes.”

Reaching the remains, if barely anything could be called remains, I stored whatever was left, and called for Suzuki.

“Hey, Suzuki. The bird is secured.”

“Aah… I’m not even going to ask.”

“Yeah, for the better.”

“But we have news. I’ll pass to the Sheikh.”

After waiting for a few seconds, the Sheikh answered.

“Uhm… Kenji-Dono, we have news.”

“Go ahead. I have some time to kill.”

“Well, it was certain a good idea to head towards the Sphinx first.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because some of the inscriptions found, had instructions to find a ‘Secret Chamber’, inside the pyramid, close to it.”

I looked to my side, seeing the head of the sphinx a little ways away, and a pyramid right after. Why the idiot would build it here? Doesn’t make it any sense.

“So? How do I get inside?”

“W-Well…” He trailed off.

“There’s no way to enter, huh?”

“It just says: ‘The Sphinx is the key.’ But we don’t know what it means.”

“Oh, a riddle! Nice. Well, I guess the Sphinx is the key.”

“Uh, what?”

“Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to blown up a big stone kitty.”

“Wait. WHAT?! THAT WAS SOMETHING BUILT BY A HERO!”

“Correction. It was copied by the idiot.”

“THAT DOES NOT ALLOW YOU TO DO AS SUCH! WE ARE POSITIVE WE CAN FIND A SOLUTION!”

“Well, guess what? I already thought of one.”

“YOU CAN’T JUST BLOW IT UP! IT’S A PRICELESS WORK OF ART!”

“Oh, do Bill me!”

“THIS IS RIDICULOUS! YOU CAN’T-” I shut the connection off, while facepalming.

“Urgh! The guy wants to defend a complete copy of it in this world! And the idiot who built it was a bigger idiot anyway.”

Summoning Raubtier, I climbed on it, and followed a path towards more ruins(there’s just too much!) towards the Sphinx.

On my way there, the same ground shaking thingy appeared.

“AH, SERIOUSLY?! WHY IS IT THAT WHEN IT’S THE OTHER MONSTERS YOU DON’T GIVE A BLAST TO THEM! BUT WHEN IT’S ME YOU DO?! HUH?!”

Reaching the beginning of the ruins, the Sand-Whale simply disappeared on the sands, and I followed on. There were some old buildings, all devoured by the sands. Climbing one of them, to have a better view around, I found another corpse, together with Strafe being held by it. And a mark of teeth on it.

“The idiot used Strafe as a shield. Well, you deserved to die for doing so.”

Cleaning it, I tested on another monster that was coming towards me. A big chimera, with a Ram-like head on the front, a lion head right below it, and with a snake tail. It had hooves for its back legs, and claws of a lion on the front. AT LAST! A creature I can say: A mythic creature! Since not much of the monsters I saw up till now were like I imagined. Not even the Manticores.

Getting in position, I aimed and after stabilizing my breath, charged Strafe, and shot towards the monster. The beam, together with the bullet, pierced through the ram-like head, and passed through it, destroying the base of the snake tail. Also, it was the snake head, on the place of the tail.

Albeit you might think: But the other head! Well, not a problem. I aimed not at the heads, but the hearts. Yeah, I could identify where the heart was, and shoot right at it. Piercing the 3 together. With a ‘katchink!’ sound, I reloaded the bullet, taking out the empty cartridge.

“It works like a breeze.”

Mowing down more enemies, moving towards the Sphinx wouldn’t take too much time. Except for one little, or bigger problem: Harpies.

Different from the ones I faced before, these ones had pale and beige plumage, with complete black eyes. The thing is, they’re simply on top of the ruins around. It’s a pretty big camp right now, and the Harpies are all simply atop the ruins, and watching me.

“It’s awfully quiet. Let’s make some noise.”

Of course, after a few Harpies killed, more appeared, and I found a nest close by. Right at the center of the entire camp. Let’s do this!

Back on the city of Xerssas, the Sheikh was holding himself from not shout about what he heard from Kenji recently. ‘I’m about to blow up a big stone kitty.’ He couldn’t understand why someone from the same world as the past hero would do such thing.

“He won’t destroy the Sphinx, will he?”

Suzuki asked the 3 girls that are together with Kenji most of the time, but all 3 simply answered with silence. That made the Sheikh restless, and he suddenly stopped from doing his work, taking a cup of wine, and walking towards the balcony.

He breathed in, and out, followed by him drinking the wine. He wasn’t able to finish the cup, unfortunately. And that, was due to an intense gust of wind, that not only knocked the cup, but also him out.

“WHAT?!”

Looking at the skies, the Sheikh didn’t bother remembering what he heard from Kenji just a few minutes ago. He had something bigger to worry about. Something big, with talons, a beak, and 3 pairs of wings.

The others came right after, and were in a daze. Even Amara, wouldn’t dare do a thing to what was in front of her right now.

“WHO DARES ENTER MY TERRITORY?!”

The giant bird, no. The Ginormous bird of prey, looked down on the people of the city. From the Sheikh castle, pillars on some of the buildings on the city were simply destroyed, and that by only the giant bird’s wing flapping.

The red feathers making a huge part of his, coupled with a plumage colored white on its stomach area, made this titan even more threatening. Yes, the being in front of them right now, was the Desert Titan, the Seraphim Eagle, and most importantly, the Sinner of Pride.

“YOU HAD SEND SOME PEASANT TO MY TERRITORY! WHO WAS IT?!”

The giant eagle’s voice made everyone at the city cover their ears and cower in fear. They all crawled on the floor, reaching the corner of any place they could, to stay away from this titan’s line of sight.

“USELESS!”

With those words, the titan flapped its wings, making another gust of wind, and a wave of sand on the air, sweeping through the entire city. All of the people covered their eyes, and awaited in fear for their death. But it didn’t come. When they opened again, the titan was nowhere to be seen.

“He moved towards where Kenji-Sama was going!”

Lucy shouted, and reached the Relic, calling for Kenji as fast as she could.

“Hmmm… Why do I have the feeling something not very good is about to happen?”

It was [Intuition] speaking by the way. After defeating the Harpy queen, which was a tad bigger than its normal counterparts, I was walking towards the Sphinx, and this feeling appeared.

“KENJI-SAMA!”

“Ouch! What? Doesn’t need to scream. What is it?”

“THE! THE DESERT TITAN! IT’S GOING TO WHERE YOU-”

“Hm? Lucy? Uuuuhh… Interference? Hm. Ok-URGH!”

Just as she was talking, the call got cut, and as I was about to start walking, an intense wave of wind came from behind me. I activated [Agility Mode], and tried to resist the wind, but got tossed backwards.

Rolling on the ground a little ways away, I got up cleaning the dust from my hair. No, the loud flapping of wings didn’t passed unnoticed. I just choose to ignore it, that’s all. After getting cleaned of some of the dust, and less wobbly, I looked upwards. And found the obvious.

“Whistle~ Gotta say. You’re an awful big fella, aren’t you?”

“YOU DARE SPEAK A WORD TO THIS GREAT SELF?!”

“Great as in size, stupidity, or ugly?”

“YOU! A MERE HUMAN DARE TO MAKE A MOCKERY OF ME?! YOU’LL REGRET THIS YOU WORM!”

“THE BIRDIE IS PISSED! MISSION HALF ACCOMPLISHED! Now I just need to survive. Haha~ I’m shocked.”

Extending all of its wings on the air, several elemental spheres appeared. Lightning, Fire, Wind, Earth, Ice… MAGMA?! How does he have access to all of these? And of course, I was the target.

All of them came crashing at me on the ground, to which I flash stepped away, but what you know? Feathers came to right where I was. Shock! I couldn’t stop moving, running around the camp, avoiding more of the elemental spheres came crashing to wherever I rushed to.

“GUESS THAT’S ASKING FOR THAT!”

I pulled the hood, covering my head, and poured mana on it. Then, I flash stepped away, but this time, backwards instead of forward.

“WHAT?! WHERE DID YOU RUN TO?! YOU WON’T ESCAPE MY WRATH!”

More spheres came crashing down, where I wasn’t. That’s good. Let’s see what you really are- HUH?! What the hell are this STATUS?!

Not gonna lie, his STATUS was decent. Well, in HP, and MP only. Cause of all the other Stats? What a waste. Oh, and if you think that his STATUS don’t make sense, remember! His Sin is Pride. He probably didn’t cared about all of them.

He has lots of skills, yes, but most of them, except the ones to allow him to use Lightning, Ice and Magma Magic, are all less than Tier 4. The Pride sin should help someone improve faster. But this guy is using the skill on the wrong way. He simply acquired all skills he could, but didn’t Tiered them up!

-STATUS-

Name: Pridium Species: Seraphim Eagle Age: 97 Years Old Danger Rank: S-Rank LVL: 298 / ??? SP: 1 HP: 1’720’230 / 1’720’230 MP: 970’290 / 1’130’200 STR: 32’200 INT: 45’910 CON: 21’680 AGI: 11’650 DEX: 9’620 LUK: 9’000

Also its LUK is over nine thousand, but the rest is just… strange. The amount of skills this guy has, are a lot. I can’t count them! There were so many passive, magic, and even resistance skills! Point: Again, most of them, were all lower than Tier 4, except the 4-Elemental Magic.

“Well, more of an advantage to me, than anything else. He’s still attacking that place.”

“SHOW YOURSELF YOU COWARD! GAH!”

“Says the guy, who’s using overwhelming magic on someone so small.”

With a shot of Ansturm, the 18 missiles hit on its face, making him do a barrel roll on the air, and… oh. WHAT?! Wait, Magic skills? No! I mean, it is a magic skill! [Magical Healing Factor]! It utilizes mana to heal its body. It’s not like the normal [Regenerative Healing Factor]!

[Regenerative Healing Factor] simply does as you might expect, heals the user. The thing is, it has Types of Regeneration. 8 of them. The Magical counterpart follows the same pattern, except, that the normal version regenerates by itself, no Mana required, but it has limits. And the Magical counterpart, will regenerate, as long as the user has mana.

“Tch! You’re gonna be hard to defeat. Hm?”

While he did the barrel roll, I saw… strange patterns. Like the tail feathers of a peacock. Those ‘eyes’ to be precise. What is that exac- Oh! Thanks Scan! And it shone green. Scan is becoming more and more like a sentient being than anything else… Meh, let’s worry with that for later.

The ‘Eyes’ on the Eagle’s six wings, were, well, they were Sigils.

► Magical Sigil ◄

A Pattern that allows the user to focus, and a way to cast more spells at a time. The more Sigils one being has, the more spells can be casted.

Sigils are not as much as necessary in actual days, but they are useful nonetheless.

Hmm… Maybe that’s his weakness. Target acquired! Moving away from the place I was, since the Pridium(what a cringy name!) started to shoot magic there. Whenever I attack while being on Cloaking, reminding you that I can’t be detected by anything(I think?), I appear for a slightly second, and then vanish again.

I climbed some of the ruins around(that weren’t destroyed yet), and aimed at the guy’s feathers. He’s way too low. Easy target I guess.

“DIE! DIE YOU BASTARD! DIE TO THIS GREAT SELF!”

“No thanks.”

Another shot, this time with a Lock-on on those Sigils. The 18 Missiles divided into 3 each, and hit dead on, on his Sigils.

“GYAAAAAAAH!”

“That sounds like a true eagle!”

And he fell, hitting the ground with its belly, and face on the sand. Flash stepping towards him, I placed Zerstörer charges at the Sigils I could put at the time, which were 3, before the guy could got to the air.

“GRRRAAAAAAH!”

Gusts of wind brushed me aside, sending me towards the walls of the ruins, breaking them, and causing some damage to me. And my hood got off my head, making me appear to the guy.

“THERE YOU ARE! DIE!”

Before he could launch another barrage of magic, I pressed the button on the transmitter, resulting in 3 of the spheres to vanish. Well, Lightning, Fire, and Ice are gone! SHAME THE OTHER 3 WERE NOT!

The other spheres of Earth, Water and Wind hit the place I was, making all the debris fell on me.

“SHO-!”

“MUAAHAHAHAHAHA! YES! I AM UNSTOPABBLE! NO ONE CAN DEFEAT ME!”

“We lost contact with Kenji awhile ago. And he’s not picking up. We’ll go there.”

“What? Just try it again! It can’t be that he died.”

“Kenji-Sama! Kenji-Sama!”

“Ouch. Shut up~… Let me sleep a bit more…”

“Hey! Kenji, what happened?!”

“Uuuh… a fight? Right now, I’m under debris…”

“We’ll go there then!”

“Nah! I’m fine. I just need to get my breath back a bit. That guy was super boring though.”

““BORING?!””

“I mean, he IS powerful, I’ll give him that, but… He’s an egghead.”

“By that you mean?” The Sheikh asked.

“Well! The guy has a lot of HP and MP… But his other stats are all random. His highest stat other than HP and MP is INT, which is on the 49 thousand.”

“You was able to appraise him?” Suzuki asked.

“Yeah… Also, he’s basically a mage. He has lots and lots of skills, but that’s it.”

“Where is he right now?” The attendant asked that.

“Like blast I know! He simply said he’s a great self, all of those shenanigans. Why would I care about that? Urgh!”

“Are you okay, Kenji-Sama?”

“Getting out of the rubble now. Ouch. Yeah. He’s gone. But I did damaged his sigils, so…”

“Sigils!? THAT THING HAS SIGILS?!”

“What’s a sigil?”

“Something that all mages on the world would like to have. They help casting magic and focus mana. The more sigils someone has, the faster they can cast. I think.”

“IT’S NOT JUST THAT! SIGILS CAN BE TRANSFERRED TO ANOTHER PERSON! HOW MANY DOES IT HAS?! TELL ME!”

“Uuuh… six.”

“Six?”

“You know, the size of it, it’s just like the size of your room. Probably the one you guys are in right now. Do you honestly want to transfer that sigil?”

The call between the 2 got silent, and the side of Kenji got a few grunts from it. He was basically getting out of the rubble, and getting up.

“Yep! The place is in more ruins than before. Hm? Uh, hey Sheikh Kaddrad?”

“Yes?”

“How much a feather of that guy would cost?”

“You’re not saying that you-”

“Yep! I have it. Well, mostly.”

“THE VALUE IS ENORMOUS! IT CAN BE EXCHANGED IN PLATINUM COINS ONLY!”

“Welp! Guess I got all the money I expended the other day. Any news from the inscriptions?”

“Uh, well…”

“Kenji, it’s me.”

“Oh, keep talking, I’m moving towards the Sphinx.”

“We got to translate one of the lines, but not a sufficient solution.”

“Please, don’t tell me is that stupid riddle you can find on the internet. And everyone knows about it.”

“Oh, how’d you know?”

“UUUUUUUURGH~!”

“Anyway, here says the following, and it was even in English. The True riddle of the Sphinx has many questions, but only one answer.”

“Seriously? Was that supposed to help?”

“Is the best we have right now.”

“How comforting. I’m reaching the sphinx in about 20 minutes, so do call me, or I’ll call you.”

“Bye.”

Right after finishing the call, Suzuki breathed out, and in, and got more worked up on the job of translating the things. Which made the Sheikh and its attendant curious.

“Why are you working more diligently?”

“Uh, did you forget what he’ll do, if we don’t find a solution?”

“He’ll blow it up!”

“Exactly. I don’t know how he’ll do that, but I guess he’s crazy enough to do so. Let’s haste things, shall we?”

And they started working more fast, just to no lose the ‘Work of Art the Hero built’. Kenji didn’t know, but the Sphinx built on this world, was both a Work of Art, AND could be considered a Monument itself! Not that he would care, if it’s in his way, he would get rid of it.

Gotta say, 23 feathers from a Seraphim Eagle are helluva good! Each feather has a high resistance to anything, anything at all!

Impacts, Magic, Cutting, it resisted very easily to those. And I had in hands 23 of those! Well, 5 were in half its original size, but man! Having a feather the size of a van? That’s neat! And fluffy. It’s really fluffy. I think I’ll make pillows with these. It’s so good~

Storing those, I followed my path towards the Sphinx and Pyramid, facing more enemies, including more bulls, and few minor Chimeras, like, smaller versions from the one I faced before. More ruins, but this time! It had some more recent buildings on them. Like, modern buildings, close to appearance to the ones at Xerssas.

Reaching basically the foot of the Sphinx, more enemies(WHAT THE SHOCK?!) and after finishing them, I called for the ‘Researchers’.

“Okay guys! I reached the Sphinx. Did you solved the riddle?”

“NO! WAIT A BIT! WE’RE CLOSE!”

“Nuh-uh! Close don’t do me much good. Sounds like it’s time for plan ‘B’.”

“PLEASE! WAIT! THAT’S ONE OF THESE LANDS OLDEST WORKS OF ART!”

“Alright. I’ll blow it up really carefully!”

“DO YOU WANT TO UNDO ALL THE WORK WE’VE DONE?!”

“Hey! Feel free to keep looking for answers! I’ll keep making more charges.”

After finishing the call, I started making more charges of Zerstörer, making around more 10. I had only 2 in hands. Most of it got lost with that attack on the ship. Fortunately, the materials are still with me. Finishing up all the charges, I walked to the sides, front and back of the statue, placing the charges around of it.

I walked away, singing the verse of a music that kinda combines with what I’ll do.

“♪Like boomboom pow! ♪ Let’s bring this house down! ♪ Like boomboom pow! ♪ Let’s bring this house down!♪ Hey guys! Did you solved that thing? Cause Plan B is good to go.”

This verse is from a music composed By Adam Jensen, Boomboom

“J-JUST A FEW MORE MINUTES!”

“Take your time~!” Finished the call, and… “Time for plan B.” I got behind of a rock. “Ten Zerstörer charges? Meh, a few cores here and there. Blowing up one of mankind’s greatest artworks(albeit not in this world)? PRICELESS!”

KAPLOW!

The explosion was so loud, that I felt my ears ring- Oh wait. I can’t have my ears ringing. [Protected Senses]! Well, anyway, the explosion was loud, and pieces of rocks flew everywhere. When I glanced at the Sphinx, the head was rolling and falling on the ground. With a loud thud, and a wave of dust flew towards me, I waited a bit, and then everything was over.

“Whistle~ That’s something. Hm? Hello~”

“KENJI-DONO! WHAT IN THE NAME OF THE GODS ARE YOU DOING?! THIS IS-”

“Hold please.” I ended the call. “Phew! Gotta know when to screen these calls. Oh! Found the entrance!”

After finishing that up, I glanced at the hole, shrugged off the worry, and jumped inside.

“ROCK N’ ROOOOOOOLL~!”