Dragonfire rained down from the sky, alongside drakefire, drakebolts, and even drakesnow.
Simon struggled to fly over the hills without being struck by one of the projectiles and tried to lose the two fire drakes chasing after him. These creatures—the draconic equivalent of monkeys and about as big—were unfortunately quite relentless. No doubt they would have been less stubborn had his crow form not been so small.
More of those creatures flocked closer to the ground, bombarding the Elemental Barrier spell Satine had raised to protect her teacher from attacks while Frea focused on blasting the dragon Marraco with Nova. Alphonse was busy tearing his way through armored orcs trying to flank the mages, while Mel skulked around to take out the archers.
As predicted, the dragon Marraco attacked them near the ruined castle he had settled in after killing its previous occupants around midday. The beast wasn’t as large as Vouivre, being a ‘mere’ fifty foot long behemoth covered in crimson scales, but he had dominated a small menagerie of smaller drakes and a local orc tribe to fight by his side. Those had immediately moved to flank the party and made things a bit more complicated than expected.
Still, this provided Simon with the perfect opportunity to both observe Frea’s Nova spell in action and to test out his own.
Memory Snatcher. Forget the dragon and each other.
His psychic power radiated from him in a wave of forgetfulness that struck the two pursuing drakes, and though it encountered some resistance, Simon powered through it and fried their tiny brains. The two disoriented and masterless beasts looked at each other like strangers rather than trusted allies, with their instincts doing the rest. They fell upon each other with shrieks while Simon slipped away.
A near-complete success. His new Tier VII Memory Snatcher Psychism spell allowed Simon to permanently erase something from the target’s memory; an event, a person, a precious moment… it could in theory erase anything, so long as Simon knew which piece of knowledge he was targeting. A pity I can’t see the memory I’m deleting.
Simon flew closer to the orc archers to assist Mel. The orcs hardly paid him any attention, especially since they received no notification when he targeted them with Memory Snatcher.
Forget the dragon. He snuffed out that knowledge out of the bowmen’s brains, filling their hearts with panic at the sight of Marraco and causing them to break ranks. Forget yourself.
That one command drained him a lot more than Simon expected, and forced him to focus several seconds longer than usual on his target. The archer he had targeted with Memory Snatcher fell to the ground with empty eyes, saliva drooling from his mouth. He had become an imbecile with mush inside his skull.
The more memories I remove, the more miasma and time the spell requires, Simon noted as Mel sliced throats left and right among the disoriented archers. Too much information lost leaves the target catatonic, so I can erase brains until they become empty shells.
“You mortals are truly spoiled,” Marraco complained after raising a wing to protect himself from one of Frea’s icicle spells. “No doubt you have brought the princess to me as a gift and tribute, which I shall gladly accept. Surrender my property to me and I shall let you live.”
“I am no one’s property!” Satine snapped back as she renewed her shield. “Least of all a lizard’s!”
“I see time hasn’t taught you much wisdom,” Frea said as she gathered power for a Nova spell. “Do you expect us to surrender one of our own to you after you slew so many people, Marraco?”
“Was it too much to expect gratitude from you, elf?” The Nova spell hit Marraco and knocked him out of the air, forcing him to land on the ground in a catastrophic impact that sent dust and orcs flying in all directions. “We dragons are akin to storms. Do you swear revenge on storms?”
Frea prepared to blast him again, but a rain of projectiles from the remaining drakes forced her to take cover behind Satine. The princess quickly cast some type of Prayer that repelled back the smaller creatures, like an invisible barrier causing them to bounce off should they approach too closely.
Marraco began to prepare a buff spell, and Simon used his distraction to get close and target him with his Memory Snatcher. He attempted to wipe out the beast’s entire knowledge of spellcasting and leave him weakened.
His psychic attack instead hit an impenetrable wall of unbreakable arrogance and fizzled out.
In System terms, Charisma represented willpower, and a higher stat in it improved resistance against magic. Dragons had plenty of it, as befitting their colossally inflated egos, and could shrug off Simon’s attempts to rewire their vapid brains.
Then again, it could also be the result of dragons’ memories and sense of self being stored in their dracolith rather than their brain. The creature appeared to possess an innate protection against Memory Snatcher no other beast had showcased so far.
“More often than not you will thank your false gods for sparing your lives… except it wasn’t your light in the sky that spared you. It was me.” It said something about dragons that they managed to make comparing themselves to gods sound humble. “So what if I ate some of your peasants and burned down their houses? I could have devoured them all, yet I didn’t. I restrained myself.”
Marraco completed some sort of fire amplification spell, and then unleashed his blazing breath at Alphonse. A torrent of fire erupted from his gullet, melting stone and incinerating all the nearby orcs.
However, a hastened Alphonse proved far quicker than the flames and ran ahead of them. The Paladin ran circles around the dragon and grew closer, his sword shining with power.
“You should have said, ‘thank you, great Marraco, for showing such restraint when others wouldn’t,’” the dragon complained as he gathered his breath for another attack. “‘Thank you Marraco, for not eating all of my worthless children in your magnanimity.’”
Simon seized his chance and blasted him with Mindflayer; and where the scalpel of Memory Snatcher failed, a psychic sledgehammer of focused malice proved effective enough.
The psychic attack caused the dragon to briefly reel in surprise. Alphonse and Mel immediately closed in from both sides, the former striking Marraco in the chest with his sword, the latter leaping on the dragon’s back and slashing at his wings.
“Northstar Strike!” Alphonse’s sword caused a crux-shaped burst of light to erupt from the point of impact, tearing out Marraco’s scales and leaving behind a vulnerability in his natural armor. He immediately retreated as the beast roared. “Now!”
“Mythic Amp!” Satine cast on Frea while the latter immediately followed it up with, “Nova!”
A green projectile struck Marraco in his exposed chest and blasted it open in a tremendous explosion. The impact’s sheer power threw the dragon onto his back, with Mel barely having time to leap off him. He then laid there, his four legs raised to the sky with a smoking crater oozing fiery blood where the heart should have been.
“D… death?” the dragon rasped as he breathed his last, the final thing he saw being Simon circling him from above. “Never… more…”
And then he died. The remaining drakes and surviving orcs promptly fled in fear, leaving the party victorious.
All in all, the encounter had barely lasted fifteen minutes.
“See?” Mel grinned as she wiped the blood off her blades. “That wasn’t so hard.”
“I barely got any experience,” Simon complained after landing on an orcish corpse. The dragon hadn’t been that weak—he had estimated him to be around level 60 or so—but the spoils of victory were split five ways until he could barely feel it.
At least he had seen enough Nova castings to get a fairly good idea how the spell worked. Simon was pretty sure he could create a Darkness-aligned variant without much mentorship given time.
Mel refused to console him. “Yeah, that’s the thing with Parties: you’ve got to learn to share.”
“Simon, I will share with you a piece of wisdom,” Frea said. “A lone man can advance quicker, but a group will go farther. Remember that.”
Simon scoffed. “How long did it take you to come up with that?”
“Three hundred years, give or take.” Frea pointed her staff at the dragon’s remains. “Telekinesis.”
Marraco had apparently taken a page from Gargauth’s book and swallowed quite a few treasures, including a star-shaped yellow gemstone and an enchanted holy claymore that Alphonse immediately claimed for himself.
However, it was the dragon’s dracolith that caught Simon’s attention the most. The rock resembled a red and black manalith over five feet wide, albeit shaped like a three-chambered heart covered in thick, scale-like plates akin to solid magma. The crystal’s core pulsated with orange light and golden mana so warm it heated up the air around it. It seemed to softly throb in spite of having been torn out of the body and appearing motionless to the naked eye.
Simon’s Dark Visionary sight saw it for what it truly was though: a mana furnace, nay, a dwarf star whose molten heart allowed nothing to escape its pull. The energy within was so focused, so tightly compressed to a single point, that Simon couldn’t tell if it was made up of multiple souls or just one. Standard manaliths appeared utterly devoid of magic in comparison to this jewel.
Strange… Simon dared to land on top of the dracolith. The heat would have burned his talons without the fire-protection buffs Satine cast on the party prior to their battle. It almost feels like a Crestone, but it’s too alive to be put inside my Inventory…
He couldn’t quite explain it. The Overlord spirit within him told him there was something to consume here, a power to steal if he had a spot for it, but how was that possible? Devour Crestone only worked on, well, Crestones, and dracoliths were separate from the Worldsoul. Moreover, the System provided no information, no notification, no Perk suggestion that could help Simon figure out what kind of power he could unlock from it.
“—think we’ve lost him,” he heard Mel comment nearby. “He’s not a raven, he’s an overweight magpie.”
“Huh?” Simon snapped back to reality to find the rest of the party smiling at him. “What? Where’s Marraco?”
“You’ve been ogling the dracolith for over a minute,” Frea mused before showcasing a purse. To Simon’s surprise, it held a miniature version of the late Marraco. “As for our dragon, I shrunk him.”
“You wouldn’t believe how much money that spell saved us,” Mel commented.
“That’s great!” Simon agreed. “Now I can make weapons from his body and his soul!”
“Anyway,” Alphonse said, clearing his throat. “We should continue our journey to the Magefalls. The local dryad will no doubt come to greet us, so Simon should remain silent.”
“Oh, since this may be our last chance to speak in a while…” Mel stared into Simon’s eyes and asked the hard question. “Is it true your brother Dassein fucks his manticore?”
A few chuckles echoed in response to her question, and Simon had the distinct impression Casval would have laughed too. Poor Dassein, he didn’t deserve this White Unicorn slander. “No, he does not.”
“Huh. But he does mount his Shifter soldiers, right?”
“Yes, he does.” Simon squinted at her. “Why the sudden interest in my brother’s private life?”
Mel shrugged her shoulders. “I overheard you and Satine discussing marriage prospects, and I wanted to be sure you weren’t shortchanging my friend.”
Alphonse raised an eyebrow at Satine. “Would you marry a prince of House Magnos?”
“I would rather marry Verdis of Cocagne, or a friend closer to home,” she replied, the implications of her statement flying too high above poor Alphonse’s head for him to catch them. “But I am a princess of Magvolia. I must act for my people’s benefit first and foremost.”
“Why not switch to that other brother of his then? Prince Thalas is a well-respected warrior and I’ve heard he’s quite handsome—” Simon burst out laughing before Mel could finish, much to her annoyance. “What? Did I say something stupid?”
“I’m sorry,” Simon apologized. “I forgot most people aren’t acquainted directly with my family and only hear of them through our propaganda office.”
Alphonse couldn’t help but join in on the fun. “Your brother is uglier than you, isn’t he?”
“No, he’s just not a respected warrior…” Simon marked a short pause. “Not by people who know him, anyway.”
“Really?” Mel scratched the back of his head. “Isn’t he a high-level Berserker?”
“That’s not saying much by House Magnos’ standards.” The likes of Louis and Norbelle had set too high a bar. “Thalas is… not as bad as he could have turned out, but Dassein would still be the better match in my humble Overlord opinion.”
“What a glowing endorsement,” Satine mused. “Can he dance at least?”
“He’s surprisingly good at it, yes,” Simon replied with the same tone, a warm feeling building up in his chest. Was he starting to like these people?
He respected them before, or at least what they represented, but traveling with them reminded Simon of his time in the Sanctuary. They were good people, unlike many of the monsters he had grown accustomed to.
However, Alphonse’s party wasn’t naive when it came to the true nature of the world, nor were they unprepared. In spite of some of its members starting far behind people like Tybalt when it came to levels, Heroic Destiny and their greater experience gains let them close the gap far quicker. They could follow well-oiled tactics with great coordination.
They might be one of the very few groups capable of tackling the Zodiac Fiends in a year’s time besides House Magnos, with the proper guidance and mentorship. The likes of Alcyone had already proved to be willing to listen, and Alphonse was surprisingly open-minded. Even Princess Satine was open to a marriage alliance if it beat an invasion. An alliance with the White Unicorn is possible…
So long as Illusea remained out of the picture, at least.
—-------------
They reached the Magefalls before sundown.
The place bore its name well. The site was a natural wonder, a tall cliff from which misty, mana-charged waters fell upon the small lake beneath. Statues of the first Lorean kings were carved onto its rocky surface and held the top of the structure on their shoulders; a gift from an ancient Mage whose name escaped Simon right now.
The air was so rich with magic from its proximity to the local Manatree that Frea no longer required manaliths to recharge herself. She seemed to grow livelier by the second merely from breathing.
Simon himself remained alert on Alphonse’s shoulder as he looked around. He expected another ambush, but the area was surprisingly quiet and dragon-free; so much, in fact, that they spotted a duo of white horses with spiraling horns in the middle of their foreheads drinking the lake’s waters.
“Unicorns…” Satine whispered as she gently approached one. The beast allowed her to touch its skin, while the other greeted Frea with a nod. They glared at Simon with suspicion and stepped away from Mel though.
“They only let fair and innocent maidens touch them, though they will often appear to valorous warriors in order to knight them,” Alphonse said, likely for Simon’s sake. “One was present during my own ceremony.”
“I’m too mature for them,” Mel said with a small laugh.
They seem to sense I’m not a normal raven either, Simon thought. It had to be something other than divination or else Anathemic Secrecy would have blocked it. I must improve my bird acting.
Simon began by practicing his croaking, which only caused the unicorns to run away, much to his party’s dismay.
Stop glaring at me, I’m just a normal raven doing normal bird things, Simon wanted to tell them, but held back to stay in character. He looked around to find no tiger demigod waiting for them, or a dryad for that matter. Shouldn’t she come here to greet us?
Alphonse seemed to have read his thoughts, because he grabbed the Shrink-miniaturized dracolith and approached a small promontory at the lake’s edge.
“Shura of the West!” he called out, his Class armor shining under the fading sun. “I am Alphonse, Paladin of Lore! I beseech thee to show yourself, and accept this tribute!”
His words rang through the Magefalls for a second, and a mighty gust of wind answered them.
It came out of nowhere, but blew at the group with the might of a rising storm. The mana mist cleared in an instant. Simon’s Dark Visionary sight caught a brief flash of radiance comparable to a megalith, followed by a tremendously imposing presence making itself known.
A colossal form leaped in front of them in a blinding flash of steel and falling leaves too fast for the eyes to follow. Its paws landed on the lake’s surface with such precision and softness that they didn’t disturb the water, although the beast they belonged to rivaled Vouivre herself in size. It seemed to float weightlessly on its surface.
The creature resembled a white tiger at first glance, the way a dragon resembled a wyvern. It was strong and lean, with black stripes the shape of thunderbolts and fur like clouds. Its eyes were sapphire gemstones gleaming with mana, its immense claws steely knives, its canines two immense claymores sharpened into fangs. Part of its back and limbs were covered in lacquered armor growing out of its body, and its tail split into a steely bident. A ring of autumn leaves carried by an invisible wind swirled over its head like a halo.
This was no tiger, but strength given form.
“I am Shura of the West, defender of Lore,” the great eidolon said, his masculine and dominating voice a hurricane’s howl. “I have heard your call and shall accept your offering, Paladin.”
Shura the White Tiger
Level 88 Eidolon of the West, Autumn, Tigers, Metal, and Mettle.
Beast/Divine
Level 88.
Simon blinked twice when he saw that number. He knew for a fact the Five Sovereigns were among the strongest of eidolons, but to see the actual number left him utterly speechless. This was the kind of eidolon Vayan wished he could become; a true demigod worthy of worship.
“Our apologies for the disturbance, great Shura,” Alphonse said, as he and the rest of the party wisely knelt in front of the great creature. “Thank you for honoring us with your presence today.”
“Rise, Paladin. The valiant don’t belong on their knees.” The eidolon studied the group with his gemstone eyes, then nodded to himself. “Have you come here to prove your skills to me? Only by impressing me shall you receive my blessing.”
“I will gladly accept any trial you deem fit, Lord Shura.” The Paladin rose as asked. “However, we came here to seek answers from you as the Light Megalith’s guardian and about the evil held within, not do battle.”
“So, you know of my guardianship oath.” The tiger’s voice grew a little more bitter than before. “Alas, the people of Serras relieved me of my duty when they chased away my followers and I from their city in centuries past.”
Exactly as Helel planned, no doubt. This explained why Shura hadn’t intervened when Chrom Cruak and Valravn attacked the cathedral in the previous reign. A demon’s patience is a terrible weapon.
“However, you need not fear the vile archfiend sealed within,” Shura declared. “I sensed that a selfless soul sacrificed herself to renew the seal.”
Simon’s blood turned to ice in his avian veins, and all color left Frea’s face.
“Sac…” The elf gulped, as a terrible realization dawned upon her. “Sacrificed?”
“The soul returned the divine lifeforce she inherited from the Mana Mother to repair the seal at the cost of her life.” Shura leaned towards Frea, perhaps sensing her grief. “I sensed great despair in her. Pain deep as the sea. I think that giving away her life and soul for the greater good came as a… relief.”
No… Simon’s heart swelled with anguish while Frea covered her mouth, tears forming in her eyes. It can’t… why would she… it doesn’t…
Too early.
The realization struck Simon like a thunderbolt. He had deprived Belzemine of the brands that provided her with purpose and sanity, then brought her to the Light Megalith before she had been given the time to repair her psyche. She had touched that stone while confused with grief, doubt, and the desire to end it all.
He had killed Belzemine through ignorance once again.
Wait… Simon blinked. The lifeforce she inherited from the Mana Goddess?
“Master…” Satine said, holding Frea’s arm in an attempt to comfort her.
“Lady Frea…” Alphonse scowled as he looked up to Shura. “Why?! Why would Lady Belzemine need to offer up her own life?!”
“The archfiend sealed within the Light Megalith, Helel, is the worst of her terrible kind,” Shura explained. “The Noble Heroes could not destroy her, so when the moment of truth came, the Mana Mother used her own lifeforce to imprison the demon. However, the enemy proved relentless and the seal imperfect. Prayers to the Light Megalith and the Mana Mother helped to strengthen the bars holding Helel.”
“Hence why she diverted that faith…” Alphonse muttered to himself. He finally seemed to accept the obvious.
“But what about the dark comet, your tigerness?” Mel asked, unable to hold her tongue. “We’ve heard it will strengthen the demon.”
Shura dismissed the danger. “The Light Megalith’s seal was designed to hold her even should she receive the Dark Comet’s blessing. She will only escape once all faith in the Mana Mother fades away from this world, unless her inheritors unseal her themselves.”
Her inheritors? Does he mean Anna and Belzemine? But inheritors implies death… Simon struggled to hold his tongue and not break his cover. Could Valravn have spoken—
“What do you mean by inheritors?” Satine asked the question on the tip of Simon’s beak. “Why would Lady Belzemine inherit power from the Goddess herself?”
The great white tiger didn’t answer that particular query. He seemed to hesitate for a very long moment, the wind blowing over the Magefalls, before admitting, “I cannot say, child. I have been sworn to secrecy, and that particular promise still holds.”
“To whom?!” Frea wiped her tears, her hands gripping her staff. “Sworn to whom?!”
“To me,” a soft woman’s voice answered. “He swore it to me.”
An elf walked out of the waterfall as if it were a portal, her naked feet floating on the water’s surface.
She was thin and petite, like Eole, wearing a white and golden chiton garment that used to be all the rage before the Doom wiped the old world clean. Her long green hair, the color of emerald grass, were arranged into a bun while two strands fell on the sides of her face. Her only garments were a sash, golden bracers and ankle protections covered in rune-encrusted manaliths, and a diadem encircling the third eye in the middle of her forehead. A Crestone pulsated beneath her skin at the junction between the throat and chest. She was fair of skin and visage, almost ethereal in her gracefulness, while radiating as much holy light as Anna and Euphemia. She looked so much like Belzemine they might have been sisters.
Simon’s heart turned to stone in his chest, for he knew who the figure in front of him was even before his allies identified her.
“Lady Oracle?” Alphonse asked, his eyes wide open in shock. “What are you doing h–”
“Have you forgotten, Alphonse?” the elf cut in before he could finish. “You swore an oath whose violation would flag you with an invisible mark that would allow guildmasters to track you down… and you violated one of its core tenets.”
Her emerald gaze settled on the raven perched on Alphonse’s shoulder with an emotion clearer than the Magefalls’ water: pure, personal, and intimate hatred.
“Never be a friend to the Overlord.”