Chapter 925 - Demigod (Patreon)

POV Sophie Martinez

After all these long weeks inside the mental space, appearing back outside makes everything feel weird. My body feels heavy, and my thoughts seem more restricted. It is like I am trapped in my body.

But there is no time for that. I need to bring the others out so we can use the opportunity Nathaniel has given us and help him.

Before I can even move, someone stands in front of me. I recognize that movement and those brown and gray eyes with golden circles, but my reflexive defenses react to the threat he radiates, lashing out with mental attacks. The projectiles shoot against his vitals and attempt to disrupt his mana or slow him down launches too.

None of that matters in the slightest. That ridiculous defensive layer he maintains over his skin at all times activates, absorbing the hits. The mental attack that would have instantly brought hundreds of people under my control does not affect him.

Nathaniel grabs me by the throat, lifting me into the air and slamming me against the wall with enough force to send pain flaring through my body. All that movement and raw strength make it hard to believe his actual physical stats.

Up close, I can see the scars on his face much more prominently as his cold gaze looks at me examiningly.

"D-don't take my mana," I gasp, getting out of myself.

"Why would I do that? That is for the others, weaklings that they are. I am no good at this sort of thing, but tell me, are you Sophie this time?"

"T-this time?" I groan.

A smirk appears on his face as he, holding me up in the air by the neck, turns me around so I can look at the other Group 4 members in the room.

Noodle lies there coiled around Izzy with a deep wound at his side. Lily is missing one of her legs and has a hole through her side, and Dennis has his shoulder stabbed by a spear made of stone that pins him against a wall.

"A few times you suddenly started attacking others, but I managed to defend them without hurting you too badly. So tell me, is our enemy controlling you again, or are you, Sophie?" Nathaniel shakes me, forcing me to register my own wounds. Torn organs, bruises across my head, broken arms.

But none of that matters at all as I look with horror at what the Demigod has done to the others by temporarily taking over my body. It happened without me realizing. These were short spikes before my defenses kicked in or before it became busy inside the mental space.

Then my eyes turn back to Nathaniel, to his submind that must be Assholethaniel controlling his body.

Just how ridiculous is that man? To do all that in the shortest moment. Realizing something is wrong. Leaving one of his subminds to keep control here. Using the disciple communication token to stabilize the mental space and save us all from crippling our minds, and then separating his mind further to slow down our opponent and to give us time inside that mental space.

"Yeah, that guy wouldn't look like he is about to cry, so you must be Sophie," his submind lets me go. "But if it takes over, I will fight you again, just so you know. I think you would even appreciate it and choose it over seriously hurting the others. So what now?"

Listening to his words, I tell myself there will be time to go over my actions later as I begin weaving the array from the mental space where I prepared it.

I also activate [Geas] on all the people I have put it on. It will cause them to instantly head to the skeleton of Tariel the Undying and even fight if the kindred try to stop them. Then I start taking over the kindred as well, utilizing the web I have been placing over the city and using the minds of the people I control as nodes.

One of my first orders is to stop them from burning Tariel the Undying.

Out of Group 4, I bring Tess back first.

As she looks around with a calm expression, I tell her, "Get Blackie into orbit, please. Let me know when he gets there so I can release the armor."

(Sure.) she answers me through the telepathic connection we have set between us. Lightning starts flickering over her entire body as she takes a few steps towards my bond in his red armor. She grabs him, turns into lightning, breaks through the roof, and heads toward outer space with a sonic boom.

The next person I awaken is Lily. "Heal the others, please," I ask of her. "And then get ready to use your skelesuit."

"Don't call it that," Lily retorts. Without asking anything more, she heals the others in a few heartbeats, not even touching them. Then she also breaks through the wall and heads to the special hangar we have been using.

A sound brings my attention to where Nathaniel is standing near the wall, also breaking a hole into it for some reason.

Filtering it all out, I get back to work.

POV Nathaniel

The Demigod cannot see Vega, or more accurately said, it cannot perceive her.

It is akin to if I tell a native of the tutorial that they are in the tutorial. They then often tend to freeze for a moment before the system restarts them.

Of course, that is highly abusable, and the system knows it, so sometimes if that happens in combat, there is no freeze up or only an extremely short one.

Right now, Vega is something that is being censored to the Demigod. In any other case, the Demigod would still continue to attack her, but since she is under the protection of the system, it cannot.

Meaning, Vega is immortal, Vega is invisible, and Vega does a shitload of damage to this piece of shit.

"Minion punch!" she shouts loudly and punches another huge skeletal arm that almost entirely fills the hollowed pillar of the volcano.

As before, the barrier around it shatters, and the arm itself breaks. And as before, I use the opportunity of the barrier blocking all mana being gone and launch a barrage of my attacks there.

I do not know how much time Sophie and the others will need outside, but I can give it to them.

Even if that is becoming difficult, as acceleration here is all over the place. Sometimes it is deeper than Level 2 and heading to Level 3, and in other cases, it nearly equals the time passing outside. So I have no idea when Vega will leave.

Yet, the countermeasure I lovingly call Oh, You Dumbfuck Actually Walked In triggers completely, powered by the rage smoldering inside me and most of my mental capacity.

The spiraling hallway on the edges of the hollowed pillar expands as I watch the shadow within the magma rise up. With the sound of an ice cream truck honking, a yellow school bus with flame stripes on the sides rushes down that stairway at the speed of a jet.

I continue to hold Vega and boost us inside through the door just as the magma bubbles up and explodes into the air.

We fall against the seats and grab hold as the bus speeds up, blaring its horn constantly as it charges toward the poster showing San Francisco and the Golden Gate Bridge.

It slams against that poster, and instead of hitting the wall, it tears the paper.

The lighting changes as we land, and with a whistle of tires on the road, we come to a stop at the exact middle of the Golden Gate Bridge that is entirely empty.

Nudging Vega, I step out of the bus, and she follows behind me. Meanwhile, I continue to unleash my entire output, which here, within the rules of this mental space, is much greater as I fight over its control with the Demigod.

Sensing an attack, I grab Vega and lift her in front of me as a tear appears in the space over the edge of the bridge, and the shadow slips through with a dizzying speed.

Instead of hitting us, it just uselessly deflects off Vega, who giggles like it tickles, and bounces into the city where it breaks through multiple skyscrapers, ruins the streets, and with an explosion, slams into the ground.

There, the shadow grows. It is black with a hint of pale blue, textured like crumpled paper, yet it moves like a flame as a skeleton manifests from within.

At first, it is just a skull, followed by a spine, limbs, and a tail. The wings grow last. Flesh denser and tougher than any metal I recognize grows over the bones, with fur taking shape at the very end.

A white lion stands there, with a long feathered tail tipped with a spike, massive feathered wings, and long horns growing from its head. The Demigod takes its full form, towering over nearby buildings and destroying entire city blocks with a single movement.

The very same barrier from the kaiju forms over him, and his heart sputters to life like an engine starting in freezing temperatures. It begins to beat slowly, awakening alongside the Demigod as it rouses from its sleep.

It opens its mouth to launch them into a wide roar, but swiftly changes where it is looking, twisting its head high toward the sky.

Covered in the superheated air from reentry and with fuel tanks still attached and filled to the brim, a space shuttle visibly breaks the sound barrier and slams against the Demigod in a huge explosion of flames, mana, and a shockwave that reaches us even here on the bridge.

The flames rise high into the air, causing the surrounding skyscrapers to melt and bend. Under that heat, they look as though they are made of wax.

I already placed a mark, so I teleport us away, right as the Demigod launches from within the flames, entirely unharmed. It tears through the bridge and dives underwater before rising back up on the hill nearby, where it shakes itself and locates the two of us standing on top of one of the buildings.

Even with such a huge body, the Demigod moves incredibly quickly, waving its wings and launching at me with its mouth wide open. That anti-mana barrier flickers over its body, black and blue with the texture of crumpled paper.

I watch the mouth around me, its huge teeth and tongue, as it begins to snap shut, and I lift Vega up. Just as the mouth closes and that presence tries to drown mine, Vega throws a punch, causing the entire side of the maw to explode and forcing the Demigod to stumble back.

Its eyes flick from Vega to me dozens of times before they stay locked on me.

For a split second, the barrier surrounding it falters. I get my hand free and slash it down, releasing every drop of gathered mana as the image aligns in my mind like two sheets of paper sliding past each other. The air shrieks as the attack cleaves deep into the Demigod's skull, blinding one of its eyes and carving a brutal trench across its face.

In fury, it thrashes and counters with a blow aimed right at us.

I lift Vega straight into its path. The pressure detonates against us, sending a colossal shockwave tearing backward. Behind me, miles of the city disintegrate, skyscrapers reduced to fine dust in a single second. Yet right where we stand, in the small pocket of space around us, the ground remains completely untouched.

"Minion shield," I whisper into my disciple's ear, much to her happiness, and using my sight only, all the mana I have been materializing around us becomes denser.

Out of it, dozens of huge mana arms reach out, grabbing the Demigod as our wills continue to wrestle.

The Demigod fights back, and the area around us begins to change. More skeletons begin to shake the ground as they pull themselves from underground, breaking the city in the process. They quickly grow flesh and expand in size to become much bigger than the Demigod. They are mirror images of the kaiju outside.

But I push back, forcing my will into the mental space we share. From the ground, an equal number of Regalias rise to meet them, much like the armor I used when challenging the Champions on the fifth floor of Beyond. The only difference is their scale, each grown massive enough to match the kaiju size for size.

My mind controls all of them, defends against the Demigod's attempts to take over this space, and continues to manifest more and more arms out of the air that hold it.

When it seems like it is almost breaking out, I boost myself onto its head and Vega gives it a punch, sending the monster to its knees and stripping its head of all flesh, leaving only a skull.

The Demigod is here through Tariel the Undying, and what I need to do now is to awaken the Demigod fully and give Group 4 enough time to destroy Tariel the Undying. That would trap the Demigod here with me and Vega.

Then it is simple. We will destroy the Demigod's mind, and once I am out, I will look for its true body.

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