Chapter 643 - 630: The General is crazy

[Realm: álfheimr]

[Location: Dominion of Oz]

[Winkie Country]

It was certainly an odd turn of events. At least, that was how Paimon saw it.

Only moments ago, the three of them had been walking across the plains, trying to make their way toward Goiim. Then the ground had cracked beneath their feet, an enormous worm-like Deseruit Beast had forced its way out of the earth, and the surrounding hills had begun spilling forth beasts of every imaginable shape and size. Some prowled across the ground, their limbs carrying them over the terrain with alarming speed, while others circled overhead, filling the sky with beating wings and distant cries. More continued to gather in the distance, their numbers steadily growing until the open plains no longer seemed quite so open.

There were Deseruit Beasts everywhere.

Ahead of them, behind them, and above them. Some were large enough to cast broad shadows across the grass, while others were considerably smaller, though no less unsettling in appearance. Their bodies varied so wildly that Paimon could scarcely find any two that looked alike. The only thing they appeared to share was the direction in which they were moving.

Toward the three of them.

And, of course, there was the enormous worm-like Deseruit Beast still writhing in their midst, its thick, dark body rising above the earth. Its gaping mouth, lined with countless teeth, opened and closed as it released another shrill cry. The creature’s movements disturbed the ground beneath it, and every time its heavy body shifted, loose rock crumbled into the cracks that had formed during its emergence.

Under ordinary circumstances, Paimon would have considered the sheer number of beasts surrounding them more than enough reason to be alarmed. It was somewhat unsettling watching so many unfamiliar beasts converge on a single location, particularly when she had no clear understanding of why they had suddenly decided to do so.

Yet, strangely enough, that was no longer the most shocking thing happening before her.

Not even close.

Mikoto had just finished uttering the absurdly long title of the being he had summoned. Paimon had barely finished processing the words themselves when a brief disturbance passed through the space around him. Shadows gathered and shifted, folding over one another for an instant before a sudden burst of darkness obscured the area where he stood.

It happened quickly enough that Paimon almost missed it.

One moment, there had been only Mikoto, Echidna, and herself standing before the gathering horde. The next, someone else was there.

Someone who most certainly had not been standing beside them a moment earlier.

Paimon’s eyes widened as she instinctively looked up.

And up.

And then a little farther up.

The newcomer was tall. Not merely taller than Mikoto, which would hardly have been remarkable given the latter’s petite stature, but tall enough to tower over all three of them. His sheer size made the difference particularly apparent when he stood beside Mikoto.

The newcomer possessed a broad, powerful frame that seemed built to withstand the kind of punishment that would break an ordinary person. His armor was dark and sleek. Its construction seemed ancient like it belonged to a warrior from a distant age, yet the appearance of its individual segments gave it a refined quality that did not seem entirely out of place in the present.

His helmet concealed his face, making it impossible for Paimon to determine what he looked like beneath it. That hardly mattered. His posture alone conveyed an almost overwhelming sense of confidence, as though standing in the middle of a horde of monstrous creatures was no more remarkable to him than entering an ordinary room.

He did not seem to care about the beasts surrounding them.

He did not appear concerned about the danger.

And, judging by the way he carried himself, he might not even have considered the possibility that anything present could pose a threat to him.

Then the armored giant threw back his helmeted head and laughed.

"Hahaha! Ah, at last! At long last, I, the great General Magnus, have returned!" His booming voice carried across the clearing, rising above the growls and shrieks of the surrounding Deseruit Beasts. He spread his arms slightly, as though welcoming an audience that had gathered specifically to witness his triumphant arrival. "Returned to the realm of the living! To breathe once more, to stand upon the earth again, and to resume my duties after what feels like an intolerably long absence!"

His helmet turned toward Mikoto.

Even without seeing his face, Paimon could practically hear the enthusiasm radiating from him. There was an almost theatrical quality to his declaration, as though he had been waiting for an opportunity to make it for a very long time and had no intention of allowing the moment to pass without properly announcing himself.

"Brethren of my most glorious Goddess," Magnus continued, his voice retaining its grandiose enthusiasm, "you have summoned me back at last, yet I cannot help but wonder why it took so long! Was there some terrible crisis that demanded my absence? Some enemy so formidable that you were forced to endure its presence without me? Or have my services simply been forgotten during my time away?"

Mikoto looked up at him.

For a moment, he said nothing.

The towering general’s excitement did not appear to have the slightest effect on him. He remained as composed as he had been before the summoning, his red eyes resting on Magnus without any visible surprise or admiration. If anything, his expression suggested that the giant’s dramatic entrance had become an additional inconvenience he had not particularly wanted to deal with.

"You weren’t needed," Mikoto replied simply.

Magnus fell silent for a brief moment.

His helmet remained angled toward Mikoto, and although his face was hidden, the pause was long enough to suggest that he had not quite expected such an answer after his triumphant return. Paimon glanced between them, trying to determine whether Mikoto was genuinely indifferent to the man or whether this was simply how he spoke to people he already knew.

Before she could come to any conclusion, Magnus drew himself up to his full height.

"Need is but one requirement, my lord," he declared, his voice once again swelling with conviction. "A warrior’s purpose is not limited to appearing only when his presence becomes indispensable. There is honor in service, dignity in fulfilling one’s duties, and value in preventing a burden from ever reaching the shoulders of the one he serves."

He gestured toward Mikoto, the movement carrying the same certainty as his words.

"Are you not the consort of my Goddess? Should you truly be expected to trouble yourself with every mundane inconvenience that happens to cross your path? Surely, you should not have to dirty your hands with such trivialities when there are those who would gladly shoulder them on your behalf."

Mikoto’s expression changed.

Only slightly, but enough for Paimon to notice.

His brows drew together, and the corners of his mouth tightened into a faintly annoyed expression. It was a subtle shift in his otherwise pretty features, like someone who had just been reminded of an irritating misunderstanding he had no desire to explain.

"Consort?" Mikoto repeated.

He paused, his gaze lowering for a moment as though considering the reason behind Magnus’s choice of words.

"Oh. That must be because of the piece of this soul."

His irritation became a little more apparent.

Neither Paimon nor Echidna had any idea what he meant, and neither could understand why the explanation seemed to annoy him so much. Paimon looked at Echidna, hoping the Mother of Monsters might have some insight into the matter, but Echidna’s expression offered no immediate answer.

Mikoto, meanwhile, seemed to decide that the subject was not worth discussing.

"Whatever," he muttered, dismissing the matter with a small movement of his hand. His attention shifted toward the surrounding Deseruit Beasts, and whatever annoyance he had felt about Magnus’s earlier statement was quickly redirected toward the creatures that had interrupted their journey. "You see these pests? Get rid of them."

The instruction was plain and entirely without ceremony.

Magnus turned his helmet away from Mikoto and surveyed their surroundings.

For the first time since his arrival, his attention seemed to settle fully on the beasts gathered around them.

The enormous worm-like Deseruit Beast continued to loom over the clearing, its body shifting. Flying beasts circled above it, some descending to lower altitudes as they watched the figures below. Across the plains, the advancing horde continued to approach, their movements stirring the grass and sending occasional clouds of dust into the air.

Magnus regarded them.

Then he spoke.

"To think that such unsightly creatures would dare gather here and stain the sight of one associated with greatness!" His voice took on a tone of deep, almost personal offense, as though the mere presence of the Deseruit Beasts had violated some unspoken law of the world. "What an appalling display. What an insult to dignity, to refinement, and to the honor of those who stand beneath the protection of my Goddess!"

He straightened, his armored shoulders rising as he continued to survey the horde.

"Indeed, their very presence is an affront to the dignity of this place. That they should presume to surround you in such a manner is intolerable. If they possess even the slightest understanding of what stands before them, then their decision to approach can only be regarded as an act of extraordinary foolishness."

His helmet turned slightly toward Mikoto.

"Such insolence cannot be permitted to stand. To allow these creatures to continue their advance would be an insult to you, my lord, and an insult to Octavia herself!"

"It’s really not," Mikoto dryly replied.

There was no attempt to soften the correction.

Paimon stared at the two of them.

She was beginning to suspect that the most difficult thing about traveling with Mikoto was not necessarily the danger he attracted, but the number of strange individuals who seemed to emerge whenever he decided to do something.

And, judging by the way the armored giant was speaking, this was not an ordinary summon.

Not that Paimon had expected an ordinary one after hearing that title.

Still, the general’s arrival had given her something else to think about, and her curiosity was proving considerably more persistent than her concern about the beasts surrounding them.

She looked up at Magnus again, studying his enormous armored frame before turning toward Mikoto.

"Whoa. Who is this guy?" Paimon asked, her voice carrying genuine surprise. She glanced at the giant, then back at Mikoto, as though trying to reconcile the difference between this imposing, loudly speaking warrior and the other knights she had seen with him. "He can actually talk, unlike your other knights. And he doesn’t just stand there waiting for instructions, either. He seems to have a lot to say about everything."

Her gaze shifted briefly toward the horde.

"Although, I suppose being able to talk is only part of what makes him unusual. You summoned him with that long title, and he’s acting like he’s some legendary warrior who just returned from the dead. Is that really what he is, or is there something else going on here?"

Paimon was plainly curious. There was danger all around them, but the general’s arrival had introduced a new mystery, and she had never been particularly good at ignoring a mystery once it caught her attention.

Echidna, however, was looking at Magnus for a different reason.

The Mother of Monsters’ emerald eyes narrowed slightly as she examined the towering figure.

"This one radiates with divinity," she observed.

Her attention moved over his armor, his posture, and the presence that seemed to surround him. She did not appear to be searching for a physical source of power so much as trying to understand the nature of the energy itself.

"But he’s certainly no deity, nor does he appear to be a being of the same kind," she continued, her tone thoughtful. "There is something divine about him, but it doesn’t seem to originate from the same place as the divinity one would expect from an actual God. It’s present in him, certainly, yet I cannot simply equate that presence with him being a deity himself."

Her eyes remained fixed on Magnus.

"That is rather interesting."

Magnus seemed to hear her observation, for his helmet turned toward her.

"An astute observation," he replied, sounding pleased that someone had recognized the nature of his power. "You are correct. I am no deity, nor would I presume to place myself among those whose existence stands above my own. What you sense is the power my Goddess saw fit to bestow upon me."

He spoke with unmistakable reverence when referring to Octavia.

"Her might is beyond what most could properly comprehend. Even a mere portion of her power carries an intensity that would overwhelm those who have never experienced anything comparable. What you perceive in me is but a fragment of that greatness, granted to me so that I may carry out my duties in her name."

He looked toward the surrounding Deseruit Beasts again.

"Of course, I have little reason to draw deeply upon such power for this rabble. Their numbers may be considerable, and their appearances may be unpleasant, but neither quality makes them worthy opponents. It would be a waste to employ the full extent of my Goddess’s blessing upon creatures whose only apparent accomplishment is gathering in large numbers."

He delivered the final remark without fear; Paimon found herself looking back toward the beasts surrounding them.

There were so many of them.

Even if each individual Deseruit Beast was considerably weaker than Magnus, the number of them gathered across the plains was difficult to dismiss. The flying beasts alone could probably cover a substantial portion of the sky if they descended together, while those approaching from the hills were numerous enough to form a sprawling, uneven mass across the landscape.

Yet Magnus spoke as though their numbers were a minor inconvenience at best.

Paimon could not tell whether that confidence came from genuine strength, an extraordinary degree of arrogance, or some combination of the two. Considering his grandiose manner of speaking, she suspected the latter played a role. Nevertheless, there was something about his presence that made it difficult to dismiss his claims outright.

Echidna, meanwhile, was considerably less amused.

("This Angel just keeps getting more and more unpredictable.")

Her eyes remained on Magnus, and the irritation beginning to form in her thoughts had less to do with the general himself than with the increasingly complicated nature of the situation surrounding Mikoto.

She had already learned that this Angel possessed abilities and connections that did not fit neatly into the expectations she had formed. Every new revelation seemed to introduce another question, and the answers, when they appeared at all, rarely made the situation easier to understand.

Now, he had summoned a towering warrior whose presence carried a distinctly divine quality.

And he had done so with a title that sounded less like the name of a technique and more like an elaborate declaration of authority.

("I’m familiar with this type of divinity. It resembles the kind of power possessed by the Goddess I once used as a vessel.")

The thought caused Echidna’s eyes to narrow a little further.

She knew enough about divinity to recognize that not every manifestation of it was identical. Power could be borrowed, bestowed, inherited, or channeled through a suitable vessel. Its presence did not automatically establish the identity of its source, nor did it necessarily mean that the being carrying it belonged to the same class of existence as the one from whom it originated.

Magnus had already explained that his power came from Octavia, but that only answered part of the question.

("But how is it that an Angel possesses the means to bring forth a being like this?")

Her gaze shifted briefly toward Mikoto.

He stood there as though nothing about the situation warranted further consideration. He had summoned Magnus, issued a simple instruction, and apparently expected the towering warrior to dispose of the surrounding horde without any difficulty.

There were too many unknowns.

Too many things about Mikoto that remained unexplained, too many abilities that appeared without warning, and too many connections that she could not yet place into any framework she understood.

She wanted answers.

More importantly, she disliked not knowing which questions she ought to ask first.

Unfortunately, she had little opportunity to continue her thoughts.

A sudden burst of force exploded nearby.

The impact was so abrupt that Echidna felt the wind strike her before she fully registered what had happened. Her hair swept backward, and the fabric of her clothing shifted against her body as a powerful gust washed over the clearing.

The disturbance carried enough force to make the air itself seem to recoil.

Echidna’s eyes widened by a fraction.

She turned toward the source of the impact.

Magnus was gone.

The towering warrior who had stood beside Mikoto only an instant earlier had vanished from his position, leaving behind a brief disturbance in the air and the fading trace of the force that had accompanied his movement.

For a moment, Echidna could see nothing that explained his sudden disappearance.

Then a grotesque noise erupted across the clearing.

It was wet, heavy, and violent.

The sound of flesh bursting and tearing cut through the continuous chorus of growls and shrieks, immediately drawing Paimon’s attention toward the enormous worm-like Deseruit Beast.

Its reaction was instantaneous.

The creature released a piercing screech that sounded considerably different from the cries it had made before. There was a rawness to it, a sharpness that carried across the plains as its massive body convulsed in response to whatever had just happened to it.

Its thick, dark frame twisted violently.

The upper portion of its body jerked sideways, while the sections still emerging from beneath the earth shifted against the fractured ground. Its enormous mouth opened wide, rows of teeth exposed as another anguished cry escaped its maw.

Then its tail lashed out.

The movement was sudden and powerful enough to tear through the ground.

Its heavy tail swept across the clearing, gouging a deep furrow into the earth and throwing clumps of soil into the air. The force of the movement sent loose dirt scattering in every direction, while the ground beneath the creature’s body cracked further under the strain.

Paimon barely had time to follow the movement with her eyes before the enormous body began shifting toward them.

"Look out!"

The warning was more a reaction to the sudden movement than a considered decision.

Paimon immediately pushed herself away from the creature’s thrashing body. Her feet left the ground as she leapt toward the nearest clear stretch of terrain, putting distance between herself and the massive shape before its movements could carry it any closer.

Echidna moved as well.

She had already recognized that the creature’s violent reaction made its immediate surroundings dangerous, regardless of what had caused it. Rather than remain where she stood and attempt to determine what was happening, she moved out of the way, keeping her attention fixed on the worm-like Deseruit Beast as its body continued to convulse.

Mikoto had no need to react with the same urgency.

He had been standing ahead of the others when Magnus disappeared.

Another violent movement passed through the worm-like Deseruit Beast.

Then something erupted from its back.

The creature’s dark hide ruptured from within, and a mass of flesh and blood burst outward as Magnus tore through its enormous body. The difference in scale made the violence all the more striking. The worm-like Deseruit Beast had towered over the three of them, its thick frame rising high above the plains, yet the general had penetrated its body with such force that the creature’s outer flesh offered little apparent resistance.

Chunks of torn flesh scattered through the air.

Blood followed, spreading across the dark surface of the creature’s body and splashing onto the surrounding ground.

Magnus emerged through the rupture.

His armored figure cleared the creature’s back before gravity carried him downward. For an instant, he appeared suspended, then he landed.

A heavy thud shook the ground beneath his feet.

The impact was accompanied by a short, forceful burst of dust that spread outward from his landing point. The bloodied state of his armor did little to diminish his imposing appearance.

The worm-like Deseruit Beast gave one final screech.

Its voice rose above the surrounding noise, wavering as the strength behind it began to fail. Its enormous body shuddered, and the movements that had moments earlier threatened to sweep across the clearing gradually lost their force.

Its tail stopped lashing.

The muscles beneath its dark hide tightened one last time before beginning to slacken.

Then its towering body started to fall.

The creature struck the earth.

A tremor ran through the clearing.

The impact shook the ground beneath Paimon’s feet, forcing her to steady herself as the enormous body settled across the fractured terrain. Dust erupted from beneath it, rising in a thin wall that spread outward and partially obscured the lower portions of the surrounding landscape.

Small fragments of soil and stone tumbled down the newly formed furrows.

For a moment, the clearing was difficult to see through the drifting dust.

The worm-like Deseruit Beast lay motionless.

Its enormous mouth remained open, its rows of teeth exposed, but no further cry emerged from its throat. The dark body that had risen so threateningly from beneath the plains was now sprawled across the ground.