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CHP 58: Demon God
🕑 Added 2023-12-08 14:25:44 +0000 UTC"I dedicate this to my fallen comrades. Few times have I felt sorrow so deep, few times have I seen bravery and sacrifice so admirable."
Richard raised his hands, guarding against burst after burst of sharp wind that would have reduced even servants to a gory mess as an ode to the dead rang throughout the increasingly desolate and despairing battlefield.
"Boohoohoo, woe is me. This is worse than that time we were discussing how you got drugged and ra-" Aston was forced to shut up and grab his spear with both hands, blocking Richard's sword before it could cut into his flesh.
Every time the English King tried to assault the Archer, Aston would interfere. The Lancer couldn't overwhelm him in terms of parameters other than speed but he was enough of a nuisance that Richard was forced away. Now this in itself was impressive, and one would think Richard an indomitable foe that was in a stalemate with not one but two Heroic Spirits that could be considered the cream of the crop, but it was not so.
Aston's Agility parameter outranked King Richard's by such a wide margin that the former was slaughtering an unending army of Crusaders while at the same time protecting Tristan.
Each passing moment brought with it fresh corpses that piled onto those that already covered the ground. Being parts of a noble phantasm, the Crusaders eventually started dissipating into thin air but the freshly slaughtered ones replaced them before long.
Richard the Lionhearted grit his teeth in frustration and pulled his blade to the side. In a burst of magical energy, the sword kicked up sand and dust forming a wall of smoke before Richard swung it in an arc, releasing a wave of crimson destructive energy that outright removed everything it came into contact with, vaporising all in it's path.
Aston lodged his spear into the sand and clasped it with both hands, "How original, this seems like Excalibur but walmart... What is walmart?" He tilted his head in confusion as lightning ran from his figure to his lance, coating it in blue.
"You are using magical energy, a primitive method of attack. Brute strength can overwhelm it."
Retrieving the weapon, Aston aimed it at the crux of the incoming wave of destruction before throwing it with enough strength that it broke the sound barrier, splitting apart the ground under it as lightning trailed behind it.
The spear parted the wave, blowing through it unimpeded before lodging itself through the arm of a Richard that failed to see it coming, "And here I believed you were a veteran of war, why would you assume... Wait, you couldn't see it." Aston glanced at Tristan, "Wasn't he meant to be the visually impaired one?"
The English King grunted and stared at Aston with hollow eyes, "..."
"I apologise if it's rude but, you aren't the real King Richard, are y-..."
"Hold on, Sir Aston and Tristan! I have come to your aid!!"
Aston was cut off by a loud, almost obnoxiously reassuring voice that both he and Tristan couldn't fail to recognise if they tried. The speaker's identity was confirmed when a searing pillar of flames descended from the empty sky above, melting sand and vaporising the field of corpses Aston had built up over the course of their engagement with the crusaders.
Richard the Lionheart simply brushed off the attack, swinging his sword to meet the heat with an energy wave of his own that dissipated Gawain's attack.
"Hoh? Surprising. It is not often that I meet a foe that can brush off Excalibur Galatine with such ease." Gawain was almost uncharacteristically serious, tightly gripping his noble phantasm even as heat reminiscent of the Sun itself rolled off the bright blade. He was perhaps the best among his peers at assessing a threat, mostly because any that could shrug off his noble phantasm might as well have been shrugging off the heat of a star.
"Did you get bigger?" Aston asked with narrowed eyes, taking in the bulkier form of the Knight of the Sun Gawain, "Did you partake in illicit substances for quick gains?"
Gawain only pointed at the sky, "It is noon, the Sun is at it's highest."
That explained everything.
Excalibur Galatine was a sister sword to the Sword of Promised Victory wielded by their King, crafted by the Fairies, and the representation of the very Sun above their heads. The higher it was, the stronger Gawain would get.
It was insane then that Richard had deflected an attack from him with such ease.
Also because the sword had a pseudo Sun in it's hilt.
The three knights didn't get to converse further as Richard seemed to realise the threat posed by them. He rushed at them, momentarily escaping the sight of two and was only stopped from lopping off Tristan's head because Aston reacted in time and threw his spear at the man, stopping him in his tracks for but an instant. That instant however, was enough for Aston to grab onto his much smaller body, holding him in place.
Richard smashed his elbow into the Knight of Atrocity's guts, drawing a surprised grunt when the blow cracked the knight's armour, "Grr... Come on, attack him. Deploy your noble phantasms, your King permitted it." They were to destroy their enemy with all they had.
"But... what about you, Sir Aston?!" Gawain shouted at him, clenching his sword. He'd recognised that to beat Richard, they would need to sacrifice two, no, three of their own to annihilate the enemy servant. That was not a good outcome in any way.
Tristan seemed to understand something that he didn't and raised Failnaught, "Then this will be quick..." The air swirled around him as the ambient magical energy coalesced at a singular point. He dragged his fingers across the bow's numerous strings, rapidly firing invisible arrows that assaulted the struggling but immobile Richard, "Singing of pain, playing laments. Failnaught."
The Archer pulled back all the strings at once and for the first time in their conflict, his arrow became visible, coated with potent magical energy that increased it's size and the threat it posed for those unlucky enough to be hit by it.
The air around him swirled and danced at his bow.
Sensing the danger, Richard struggled further and Aston smirked under his helmet, "I doubt you can follow it's trajectory once it's released, however..." Just as Tristan released his hold on Failnaught and shot, Richard felt the hands holding him in place disappear,
"I can."
Aston vanished completely, appearing a ways off as Richard hurriedly threw together a reaction, and he somewhat managed it, tilting his body just enough that the arrow, originally aimed at his heart, met his gut, shredding flesh and blowing a massive hole through his abdomen.
"Gawain, how did you even live as long as you did?" Aston asked dubiously, they were all from warring times. He believed even a foot soldier would have been able to recognise his intentions considering he was famed for his agility. This current vessel of his couldn't handle his noble phantasm without instantly falling apart so all he was left with was speed several hundred times that of sound.
"I..."
The two knights were stopped by Tristan who held his hand up alarmed, his eyes wide open, "There is something else, something far more sinister than the foe we just faced."
Even with the blazing Sun overhead and complete lack of any body that could cast a shadow, they pooled up near Richard the Lionheart all the same, taking a far darker texture that rose to the height of a man before taking on a humanoid shape. It broiled and hardened, all before any of the knights near it could even process what was happening.
It appeared so inhuman and vile that even they who had warred all their life were left momentarily stumped.
"RejOIce, LancER..." What addressed them was a disembodied churning noise that was barely understandable, "WE, Andras, bear gOOd news..." It regarded the damaged but still alive Richard, "This one HAS become obsooolete."
"Our KING has in...stead, recogniSED your pOTential."
Was this one of those Demon Gods the Lion King was talking about?
The being materialised completely, and though it's eyes were masked by a crown of gold, even Aston felt the sheer disgust it brought, "Do not resist in futility. You shall... assist in our noble goal."
It subsumed Richard the Lionheart before he could even struggle and raised a hand to Aston as an ornate golden cup manifested near it.
Reality shifted and distorted at his command, freezing the Lancer in time.
