mStory: I'm a Daemon, so what?
Disclaimer: I do not own the original setting.
Chapter 149: Phantoms Discovered
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- Felix -
"Mhmm, that oughta teach this trash a lesson." She said with a grin as she kicked the Phantom a bit.
"Don't kick a man when he's down." I said as I picked him up by the neck. He should have some useful information.
I was still incredibly surprised that there even was a Phantom here, but Megumin wouldn't be wrong about something like that.
I'd never met a Phantom before, but going by what Velzard told me about them, they weren't an ideal race to associate with.
From what Velzard told me Phantoms were Angels that have been corrupted by Ivarage's magicules, becoming magicule based beings in the process. Velzard also said that they were known to invade other dimensions and cause havoc in them, so them being here didn't paint a good picture.
His eyes opened as he stared at me, blood leaking from his mouth. Before he could speak, I used King Gazel's Unique Skill: Tyrant through Brahma, Lord of Creation to look into the man's mind. Through that, I discovered much of the Phantoms' plans.
After a moment I tossed him to the ground. "So that's what happened."
"... I apologize, Master. I did not believe that the disturbance caused by linking this world with the Cardinal World would cause such consequences." Othinus said with disappointment in herself.
'Don't worry about it. You couldn't have seen this coming. Now you know what to look out for in the future.'
It seems that linking this universe's time flow with the Cardinal World caused some Space-Time turbulence that the Phantoms in the Otherworld were able to capitalize on to stabilize a portal to the Chaos World.
The memories of the Phantom didn't confirm this or anything, but it was too great of a coincidence otherwise, and it would make sense. We did mess with the fabric of Space-Time to sync this world's timeflow up with the Cardinal World's. Something like that was only possible as the laws of this world were "weaker" than the laws of the Cardinal World.
To make it seem as if no time has passed, the Planeswalker sub-skill of Ouroboros usually just recorded the exact temporal point in which I left the Cardinal World, and then returned me to that point.
I could use it in other ways too, such as prodding for other dimensions, which was how I found this one and many others, or to find empty dimensions to fight in, etc.
The restriction of only returning me to the present moment I left was hard coded into Planeswalker, so I couldn't take that data and apply it elsewhere to freely time travel just yet.
I had misunderstood some of its abilities when I first got it even with Odin due to just how complex the ability was.
What I did with this world trip was something entirely different from what I usually did.
Though I did prefer this method as, with time not flowing in the Cardinal World, it would feel like my home world was making practically zero progress if I were to leave often.
Even if I didn't sync up the temporal coordinates between this world and the Cardinal World, time would have still moved forward, as it did when I used Planeswalker as well, it's just that who knows how different time would move between this world and the Cardinal World.
I could be gone for an hour and return to a Cardinal World a decade after when I left it.
Though Planeswalker's ability was still a good backup plan for if things went to shit. I could just leave and go on a massive training arc and then come back way stronger. But that would always remain a backup plan. I didn't want to live with the sole purpose of growing stronger.
So long as I could handle the threats coming my way, and I believed that I could, then I'd be happy.
Rudra may have seemed like an extremely high level threat, and he was, but he was by no means undefeatable. The fact that he was slowly dying was proof enough of that, and an ability like Castle Guard was far from perfect, at least in Rudra's hands.
He was Guy's rival, and I personally believed that I could at least fight Guy to a draw, even accounting for the cards that Guy has no doubt hidden from me, so Rudra shouldn't be too far away from my strength level if he was stronger.
I quickly scanned through all the Phantom's memories. At first, only one Phantom was able to come through the portal to this universe. He's the one who established contact with Antares and got into an alliance with the Monarchs.
This was all shortly after I killed Sillad, Yogumunt, and Rakan, so Antares was likely a bit concerned with his dwindling forces. So he entered into an alliance with the first Phantom he met.
Antares was able to sus out that the Phantom wasn't from this universe, likely because he knew of me now as well so the possibility wasn't out of his mind any more, but that didn't seem to have stopped him.
The Phantom almost immediately possessed the body of one of Antares' Lieutenants, thanks to this his ego solidified and he became an independent person named Scorpius, a name he inherited from the previous owner of the body.
To be fair even after the possession Scorpius was so much weaker than Antares, Antares could have squashed him like a bug, but this Scorpius shared a bit about what he could bring to the table, that being an army, and that won Antares over, as despite the strength of the Monarchs, there was more to beating the Rulers than just raw power.
Not to mention Scorpius himself was rather strong, with some help he could likely hold off a single Ruler himself. Perhaps Antares was hoping for more of Scorpius' strength level.
So their cooperative alliance began, with Scorpius saying that his people wished to acquire resources and grow stronger in battle, and he was actually mostly telling the truth. Apparently Feldway, the Phantom King had standing orders to all Phantoms to just grow stronger, that was it.
For what he ordered that I didn't know, and I hope I wouldn't have to find out. Having to deal with the literal oldest living being in existence sounded annoying, especially if I have to deal with him at the same time as the Eastern Empire.
Seeing as his race was more keen on messing with other dimensions, hopefully he's lost interest in the Cardinal World, or else why hadn't he returned back already? I'm sure he had a way to travel from the Otherworld to the Cardinal World.
With Antares' cooperation Scorpius was able to stabilize the portal to the Otherworld as he fed it the lives of those Antares did not care for, this also strengthened the portal which also allowed Scorpius to bring more Phantoms over.
However, they were limited in the strength of the Phantoms that could pass through, as the portal needed to be more powerful for the actually strong Phantoms to pass through. And the amount of lives it required increased exponentially as more was sacrificed.
At this point hundreds of thousands of the denizens of the Chaos World had been sacrificed to the portal.
I did consider abandoning my plan entirely and just killing all the Phantoms in this universe, but I may just have to return to my true body for that.
I was far more limited in this form, and I wasn't sure if a group of Monarchs, plus millions of Monsters, plus the Phantoms would be enough to overwhelm me if I wished to abide by the restrictions I set upon myself.
Even using Tyrant the way I did was jumping the gun a bit, but when it came to gathering information I'd ignore all rules, even the ones I set on myself for my own enjoyment.
First and foremost I came to this universe to have fun, the Phantoms being here honestly only enhanced that as things would go even more differently when compared to the world that I read about.
So in the end I decided to just let them be. Though to even the odds a bit I decided that I'd let Lalatina and Megumin interfere a bit in the war, which should tilt the odds once again, at least if the two of them wanted to.
At least knowing Megumin she'd likely mess around a bit if the opportunity presented itself.
It was selfish of me to leave the Phantoms when I could take care of everything rather quickly, but in the worst case scenario I would still take care of everything. I was strong enough to do that now. I wasn't here to hold the hands of the residents of this universe when things got a little too hard.
But at the very least I'd make sure Earth didn't suffer any losses, they'd likely only have to fight for their lives, but they wouldn't permanently die, I'd make sure of it.
The Phantoms here in this universe were ones who served the Primordial Angel known as Cornu according to the memories I looked through. I admittedly didn't know much about him, just tidbits of what I'd heard from people like Ramiris and Guy.
Both described him as an insecure little shit, though Ramiris used different words, and Guy used those exact words.
I trusted Guy's judgment, but who knows how much a Primordial Angel like Cornu could have grown in the time period since he's been in the Otherworld. Velzard said that time passed differently there.
On the bright side no matter how much Cornu has grown, he still couldn't come through the portal, as the higher the EP of the person trying to come through, the greater the sacrifices needed to stabilize the portal.
And in this case I imagine a Primordial Angel like Cornu should have quite a lot of EP, which is why the Phantom that I interrogated seemed to believe that Cornu would not be involved in the operation of this universe. Scorpius should be the strongest Phantom involved in the invasion.
I likely shouldn't have to worry about some Primordial Angel dropping in, though I wouldn't ignore that possibility entirely as this Phantom wasn't high in the hierarchy, he didn't have any truly valuable information to the Phantoms so he might just not be informed about certain things.
Though the weakness of the Phantom I had in my grip was why he was even in this world, because he was weak enough to come through, but he still knew some minor things that could be useful.
I continued to think for a moment on Cornu, since for all I know Cornu had come up with a way to use a Split Body or something, but in the end I decided to handle it whenever something like that happened. If he were to use a Split Body to come through to this world he'd be unimaginably weaker than his true body. And while as a Primordial Angel he was likely skilled in combat, I was also skilled in combat and wasn't truly restricted.
I had many options available to me should a Primordial Angel somehow show up in this world.
I couldn't find out much more about the things that this Phantom experienced prior to coming to this universe as back then this Phantom had almost no ego. There were only small, scattered fragments that I could find that were related to the Otherworld.
I quickly took note of the level of the forces that were currently gathered in the Chaos World before coming back to reality.
I'd likely just tell the Rulers about what I now knew and let them handle things as they wished. If things ended up spiraling then I'd take action and clean up my mess. Though the level of forces gathered really wasn't anything that the Rulers and the Humans of Earth couldn't handle as long as they prepared properly.
I was prepared to offer more help than I'd usually bother with since the Phantoms' arrival to this universe was related to me coming to this universe, but raw power wise the Rulers and Humans of Earth could still manage to come out on top.
Mostly because the Monarchs had been crippled by me and unknowingly by Milim. With only three of them remaining for now, the Rulers could theoretically just locate them and gang up on them to finish them off.
The only reason they likely didn't is because they would be fighting on the home turf of the Monarchs where all kinds of things could go wrong. It was why things ended up going in the direction they did, with Earth being the battlesite between the Rulers and Monarchs.
During the meeting with the Rulers I'd just grab the Cup of Reincarnation as payment for killing three Monarchs, and maybe I'd throw in some other information before kicking back and just letting things happen.
I wouldn't restrict my actions to abide by the "canon", but I didn't plan to go incredibly out of my way to systematically cripple the Monarchs despite what it looked like.
Maybe I'd offer some suggestions at the International Guild Conference, that combined with the information I'd give to the Rulers and Megumin and Lalatina's involvement should be more than good enough.
I imagine that Hinata and Rimuru at the very least would want to help out a bit, but both also knew it was important to allow the people of this world to solve their own problems, or else they won't be able to grow.
We wouldn't be here the entire time. There would come a time where the people of this universe would need to handle things on their own. Doing everything for them now would leave the unprepared for the future, Rimuru and Hinata knew that full well.
"Have you decided what you want to do, Milord?" Megumin asked after a moment.
I casually crushed the head of the Phantom after I finished looking through his head. "Yeah, we'll leave them be for now." I said as I flicked my hand, sending all of his liquids off of me at supersonic speeds.
Megumin shrugged. "If you say so."
"Let's continue our date." I said, turning back to her.
Megumin grinned. "Lets!"
There were still some parts of this universe that I wanted to see other than the Chaos World, but those could wait until some other time. Now I just wanted to devote my attention to Megumin.
- Lalatina -
Lalatina smiled as she finished the soul communication she had with her Master. He was merely informing them of what had happened, and what he had discovered alongside Megumin.
She was also asking him about the progress he had with Megumin, something which seemed to amuse her Master. She knew that he likely knew what her intention with Megumin was.
She wanted to see her fall completely. Megumin had been holding herself back for quite some time, stating some wishy washy reason like how she only enjoyed fighting when that was only half the picture.
No, now Lalatina knew that Megumin did desire her Master's companionship, the jealous looks she would give her every morning didn't make sense otherwise.
Now that Megumin's desire was blatant, her Master would be able to pick it up with that Skill of his, and then the rest would happen on its own. Her Master liked to call her the degenerate, but she knew that he was just as bad as her, if in a different way.
He wouldn't leave Megumin hanging for long, and then her Master would have three of the Primordials, all serving at his whims and adoring even the ground he walked upon, as he deserved.
The only question was, how could she get Rain and Misery too? She knew those two would be far harder due to their service to Guy, so she'd likely have to write them off for the time being, no matter how unfortunate it was.
But she wouldn't deny it, a small part of her was jealous and slightly fearful. Her past self would mock her for her fear, fear of losing her Master's affection.
She knew Megumin quite well, they had known each other for eons after all, and Lalatina had noticed the small cues in Megumin when she'd finish a fight with her Master, or her cues when her Master somehow showed her dominance over Megumin, even if indirectly.
Lalatina knew how similar Megumin's desires were to her own, if in a different flavor. She couldn't help but laugh at herself for being insecure of her own status in her Master's heart. But in the end her Master would do what he wanted, and she was confident that he loved and cherished her, but even then that small niggling fear wouldn't go away.
She shook her head, attempting to change her thoughts.
Her Master said that he'd be exploring the Chaos World some more now that one of his objectives had been accomplished. Then he'd return to Earth and go out with Megumin, then he'd fight her as Megumin had requested.
Lalatina knew full well how that would play out. Megumin would lose, and then her Master would take her like a beast.
She wished she could be there to watch, but her Master already predicted her line of thinking and told her ahead of time not to watch, at least for the first time.
But with this the first step to her dream would be accomplished! Giving her Master a foursome with the three of them!
"Oww!" She yelled out as she was hit in the head with something.
She turned around to see a grinning Milim who was holding a bat that said "no horny".
"What was that for?" She asked her Master's super strong friend.
"Felix told me to hit you with this whenever you got that weird look on your face!" Milim responded.
"Ah~! So this is indirect punishment from my Master then~?" She said breathily. "Ahh!" She yelped again as Milim bonked her.
How did that normal bat even hurt her!? Her Master had to have enchanted it!
"Bad!"
Seeing as there was no way to win against The Destroyer, Lalatina reached into her Spatial Storage. "Here, take these." She said as she handed some sweets over to Milim.
"Ooh! Candy!" Milim said as she dropped the bat and quickly grabbed all the sweets. "I know what you're doing by the way, but I'll allow it! All in the name of candy!" Milim said as she stuffed her face.
Lalatina sighed. She liked Milim, she really did. She was a good friend to her Master, and true friends were always to be treasured, she knew that full well.
Her, Arcueid, and Lalatina may always seem to be at each other's throats, but they all considered one another good friends. Perhaps it hasn't always been like that, but it was now. So yes, despite Milim's… eccentricities, she was glad she was in her Master's life.
Milim took a break from stuffing her candy. "Eh, the thingy is ringing again." She said while pointing to the table.
Lalatina just ignored it. Her Master's phone as he called it had been receiving quite a few calls over the last few days.
It mostly seemed to be about the person that he teleported away the other day. To be honest she wasn't paying much attention to the conversation at that time, she was in her head day dreaming about all the things her Master would do to Megumin.
But her Master said to just ignore it unless the call came from that Chairman guy or his assistant, and so that's what she did.
Seeing as her Master would be gone for some more time, she had some free time. Free time in which she would explore the city they were in and try to find sexy things to wear for her Master!
She had already used the internet to find the best sexy stores in the city. Sure, she could create what she wanted with Material Creation, but she needed to have the idea first.
She'd found that Humans tend to be rather creative with those kinds of things, so it was more simple to use what they had already created.
- Felix -
With one of the primary reasons for our arrival to the Chaos World dealt with, Megumin and I could focus solely on enjoying ourselves.
I was mostly just going with Megumin's whims, but I asked a bit more questions about her, and she consequently asked the same about me.
I already knew quite a bit about Megumin, a consequence of our close proximity for a long time, but I didn't know the more random or obscure things.
Like how she preferred her tea lukewarm rather than hot, or that she used to name some of the Daemons she'd practice her explosions on. Funnily enough, if the Daemon impressed her by surviving an explosion she'd name them after the explosion they survived.
In turn I told her a bit about myself before coming to this world. Most of my lovers knew a bit about that period of my life, and Megumin was curious.
I wasn't afraid of being looked at like a lesser due to just how normal my life was back then. In fact I sometimes miss that peacefulness, there was nothing wrong with just going about your days, learning, studying, or working and making money, or even being a NEET, I just liked to tease Luminous about it.
Everyone had their way of life. I was happy enough back then, and I'm happier now.
I was fortunate enough to have another option made available to me, and a large enough ego to take advantage of it full swing.
I always had the ego, but it was always kept in check by the other aspects of my personality. One part saying that society frowned upon such blatant actions, another reminding me that I hadn't really done anything to deserve acting like a god among men.
So I acted as a normal member of society, until I didn't. It wasn't like I was suffering or anything, but I always felt like I could do more. If I wasn't born with the Heavenly Restriction I was, then I imagine I would have dived head first into Jujutsu society, and likely succeed in the process.
If there was one thing that drove Jujutsu Sorcerers to success, then it was having a massive ego and being incredibly selfish.
It did make me think whether all the power changed me, whether my Harvest Festival changed me more than I thought, but in the end the past is the past.
I am who I am now.
I told Megumin more about that world, and my life on that Earth.
She seemed interested, though that wasn't because of anything special about the world, but rather because it was about me. She could be a good girl when she wanted to be, and in this case she listened very attentively.
I mentioned the origins of my own main power, Limitless and how it was once my unawakened Innate Technique but became usable again once I reincarnated as a Daemon.
She seemed to be interested in the potential of quite a few Innate Techniques, after describing a few Megumin managed to recreate them after some experimenting using her Law Manipulation.
Law Manipulation was an interesting but complex Skill. I knew this better than most since it was a Skill I was and still am passionate about, if only due to the sheer flexibility it offered those who had knowledge about many Laws.
In the past Odin and I used to experiment together with Law Manipulation all the time. Odin was the smarter one between us, but even then we worked together perfectly, with me offering a different perspective and ideas, and Odin giving the brains, not to say I wasn't good at manipulating Laws myself though.
I didn't want to be labeled a fraud ever so I made sure to manually learn pretty much anything I was interested in, this gave me a wide breadth of knowledge on my own right as well.
Laws were the underlying code, the rules of the world, rules that Veldanava put in place and could not be truly overwritten, at least not as we were now.
But you could temporarily overwrite the soft code of the world, through Magic, and through Law Manipulation which made the process easier.
It was easy for me to understand when put into Minecraft terms.
Basic Physical Fire: You light a fire with a match.
Magic Fire: You cast Fire Magic and Fire spawns.
Law Manipulation casting: You use the command /insert Fire. You are still playing Minecraft, just that now you have special privileges (commands) to do certain stuff directly without needing to use imagery or chant, or anything else. Though Law Manipulation still needs some sort of energy medium like magicules or spiritrons to work.
Spiritron-based Law Manipulation was far more powerful than magicule-based Law Manipulation.
The Law of /insert Fire can be changed to something else too. Arcueid's Freezing White Flame works under a similar principle, the Law is coded to follow the Laws of "freeze", but the result comes out as a flame, so she had a freezing flame.
Essentially, the laws governing this world were originally crafted by Veldanava, but these Laws could be influenced and affected by those with administrative power over them.
Though Law Manipulation was honestly stupid limited depending on who's hands it was in.
Even if you didn't have Law Manipulation though, you could make a request in your mind, instill it into your magicules, and that would rewrite the laws of the world to some extent as well.
That's what Magic was at its most simple, but it also required understanding of the Laws in question as well.
Then Skills were a systemized approach to this.
"Hmm, like this?" Megumin said as she mentally divided a rock into tenths with lines, recreating Nanami's Ratio Technique.
How his technique worked was that he could deliver a critical strike when he lands a hit on one of these lines on exactly the seven-to-three ratio point.
The Law in this case is simple, normally when you hit someone they take damage, but what Nanami's technique does is he rewrites the result into "takes more damage if the seven-to-three ratio point is hit".
The result is temporarily rewritten in that one moment, and for that one phenomena. It would cost more or less energy for different effects.
Simple but effective, though useful at our levels since most could just resist it or heal from it unless the difference between the two parties is large enough.
Usually the results of Law Manipulation are dependent on the user's own understanding of the Laws, their energy, and their computational power, so Law Manipulation in Megumin's hands and in the hands of some random Human would be incomparable.
The best technique from the Jujutsu Kaisen world was, funnily enough, Takaba's. His ability was still one of the most broken I'd encountered, and as I grew stronger only then was I beginning to realize how broken he was.
He alters reality based on what he thinks is funny. This was similar to what Saeko did with Cook, but done in a different direction.
It altered the results of any Event to match whatever reality Takaba thought was funny. Though seeing as this ability was instinctive and carried by his technique the Event Manipulation was very subtle and could be shattered by anyone with even a modicum of experience in the same thing.
Still it was incredible and gave both Othinus and I ideas.
The two of us continued to hang out and experiment with random abilities since it was something we both enjoyed. Megumin seemed especially interested in Domain Expansions and tried to be sneaky and prod me about incorporating her explosions into one.
That combined with her earlier talk of picking something up from Sukuna already made me suspect what she had planned for her fight. Megumin was a genius, no doubt, but subtle she was not.
Eventually I could tell that Megumin was getting antsy. She wanted to fight.
"Are you ready to go back?"
Megumin nodded. "Mhmm! I have some new ideas for our spar!" She said with a confident grin.
"Hmm, I'll look forward to it then."
Megumin's kit was almost built just to counter my own spatial abilities, though whether it would actually be successful or not remained to be seen.
Megumin and I continued to enjoy ourselves in the Chaos World for a while longer after finding the Phantom.
The entire reason we encountered the Phantom was because we were beginning to approach their territory. Territory that Antares had given them. The Phantom we met was only a scout, so no one of much relevance even among the few Phantoms that were present in this universe.
The more I learned about what was going on in the Chaos World, the more I realized just how severely I fucked up Antares plans, and he was clearly getting desperate. I hadn't ever met the guy though so maybe my reading on him was just wrong.
We had continued to explore the Chaos World for a little while longer, but my interest in it lowered once I realized it was just like the Cardinal World in how it worked.
There were kingdoms all around filled with different species, and these species all served a specific person.
The only interesting thing that remained about the Chaos World was the different species themselves, since some were quite different when compared to what you could find in the Cardinal World.
There were hundreds of thousands of differing species of Majin in the Cardinal World, but each world seemed to have a slightly different take on them.
Now I wanted to explore the so-called Sea of the Afterlife that I had heard about, it's where the World Tree rested, and the World Tree seemed to be the thing that connected all the various dimensions of this universe together.
But I'd do that later, I don't think Megumin would be as interested in that.
"I hope you had fun." I said as Megumin stepped out of the portal behind me.
"Mhmm!" Megumin said with a cheerful grin. I could feel her excitement beginning to spike as she knew what we were going to do next, we were going to fight.
I didn't find as much enjoyment in fighting, though I did enjoy it, but Megumin was a whole different beast.
What else would you call someone who gets off when in a good fight, or someone who gets off when they get their ass handed to them. That was Megumin, but I didn't dislike it.
Everyone close to me had their own… unique quirks.
"It's been 5 days since we left." I told her as a heads up.
There was still some time until the meeting with the Rulers and the International Guild Conference.
After the Conference is when I remember things actually beginning to pick up in the story, but maybe things will be different here.
I looked at one of the billboards.
Gunhee was giving a conference of his own, answering some of the press's questions as well as explaining what has been going on in the world in a way that prevented panic.
To his side some of the more well known S Rank Hunters were standing, though Jin-Woo wasn't present. Probably because I sent his dad over to him. Lalatina said the phone I left behind has been getting spam called by Jin-Woo which is pretty funny.
"Is it true that the world is going to end?" One particularly frazzled reporter asked.
"Of course not. We at the Hunters' Association have everything under control. A conference is being held on a global scale to thoroughly plan out our plan of attack." Gunhee responded diplomatically.
I had no doubt that the person who asked that question was a plant. Reporters that ask things like that would never make it far enough into their careers to be where those reporters were now.
I ignored the broadcast and turned to Megumin. "You ready to go? Or do you need to rest?" I said with a cocky grin.
Megumin's eyes sparkled with manic energy, and her grin widened into something just barely on the edge of sane.
Uhh, maybe I pushed Megumin too far?
Seeing as she looked as if she were about to pounce on me at any moment, I snapped my fingers and transported us to another dimension I just created with Small World, one that would be able to handle everything.
Megumin paused as she looked around before her grin came back. "Finally!" She said as she spread her arms wide, her Aura beginning to leak around her.
"I'm glad you were looking forward to this." I said with a laugh.
I had almost no doubt about how this fight was going to end, even without Lover I could see her desires practically screaming out at me.
At least this was a different form of foreplay than I was used to.
"Just as a headsup, I'm not using my true body, so my power is still significantly weaker." I know she was looking forward to fighting me in my prime, but I have a feeling she'd enjoy this more. "This is a divided existence of myself with a fraction of my power that I'm piloting from my main self."
I wasn't going to use any of my Ultimate Skills actively either, abiding by the rules I placed onto myself when entering this world.
Megumin huffed. "Very well. If I cannot defeat this form then there was no need to use your true form in the first place."
I nodded. "If you push me too far in this form then I'll use my true form."
I already told Othinus to stay out of this fight, mostly because she'd make it way too easy. I considered myself a master combatant due to my experiences and the techniques I'd stolen and then adapted to myself. But Othinus was a whole different beast.
"You ready?" I said as I held my hand out, the hilt of Yamato materializing in it.
Megumin's grin widened as she looked at my stronger weapon. Yamato was essentially always growing stronger by absorbing my excess energy that I sent to Infinity Space.
Megumin held out her two hands, the katana I made for her materializing in one, and then the gun I made for her materializing in the other. "I am now!" She said as her Demon Lord's Haki began to roar around her.
The moment her Demon Lord's Haki erupted, the entire dimension began to shake. It was a small dimension but a dimension nonetheless. I was having Othinus maintain it in the background.
The ground below cracked like glass under pressure, long red-black fissures infused with her Haki snaking outward in all directions.
Megumin was grinning at me proudly as flickers of her energy materializing in and out of existence, reminiscent of Conqueror's Haki.
I raised a brow at her showboating before realizing what she wanted.
I smiled fondly as I shook my head. "Fine, you want a Haki clash?"
Megumin beamed at me as she nodded. This was just the intro to our fight, and it seems she thought that Haki clashes were cool.
I agreed with her.
In the blink of an eye I unleashed my own Demon Lord's Haki
The pressure slammed outward in a wide wave, colliding with Megumin's Haki that seemed to want to consume my own.
Demon Lord's Haki wasn't directly fueled by magicules or any traditional energy source, so it was just as strong as it would be in my main body.
But Megumin was no slouch either, her will had been trained and tested over eons, and that showed in her Haki.
The air between us distorted from the clash of wills as we both stared at each other from across the dimension.
Red and black streaks of lightning crackled along the edges where our Haki met, dancing across the fractured ground. Small rocks lifted into the air, suspended by the sheer force of our Haki clash.
Megumin's grin didn't fade. If anything, it grew wider.
"This is what I was waiting for." She said, her voice low, almost reverent.
Through Lover I could feel her excitement spiking and mixing with sexual excitement as well.
I ignored that for the time being and just focused on the fight.
We stepped forward at the same time. Neither of us said anything else.
Our Haki continued to grind against each other as Megumin struck first, flashing in through her Space-Time Manipulation sub-skill. Her katana came down quickly, the edge coated with her own Fighting Spirit and Haki that she had infused into her blade.
She wasn't using any of her big guns just yet.
I caught the blade on Yamato, our Haki sparking again as the weapons made contact.
She didn't hesitate. Her gun came up with her off-hand, also infused with her Haki and she fired a magicule bullet point-blank. The bullet radiated her Demon Lord's Haki, but I just tilted my head, letting the supersonic shot graze my cheek before disappearing into the distance.
Less than a moment later it exploded behind me, but I ignored the shockwave as I focused on Megumin.
I wasn't going to rely on Infinity to deal with all attacks, I never did, it was more of a last resort in case something manages to get past me. Either that or to show off a bit.
Both were valiant uses of Infinity, and I'm sure its prior users would agree.
Megumin grinned at my casualness. "That's what I'm talkin' about! As expected from you, Milord!"
I rolled my eyes. "Are we going to fight or are you going to keep glazing me?"
Megumin's eyes narrowed. "Fine, I'll start trying a bit harder now."
Before I could respond the fight resumed with Megumin leaping backwards as she thrusted her katana back at me. A moment later a barrage of Nuclear Cannons were fired from its tip.
I dodged left and right, avoiding all of the Nuclear Cannons, but they were only distractions as Megumin prepared her next attack. I could feel her placing runes and seals of all kinds around the dimension.
I felt it before I saw it. Megumin's Haki condensed itself, it became denser and tighter as it was wrapped around her katana. The ground around her cracked from the sheer pressure alone.
She slashed her katana downward, not aimed at me but the ground.
"Collapse Cascade." Her voice echoed. Before I could comment on the name I had to leap backwards.
From the point that the blade struck, a chain reaction of explosions erupted in a grid-like pattern beneath me. They weren't random blasts or anything, they were chasing me as I backed off.
I moved. Fast. Warping side to side, letting Yamato guide my motion as I dodged around the collapsing terrain. Each explosion detonated a fraction of a second after I had already passed it. They weren't able to explode quick enough to be able to actually impact me, but they were a good enough distraction.
As I weaved through the explosions I felt Megumin flash in. She blinked to my left flank mid-explosion, blade aimed to intercept me mid-dodge. Her timing was incredibly precise, and against most others it would be enough.
But even in this restricted form, my Thought Acceleration and raw stats still allowed me to react in time.
I turned and caught her katana with the flat of Yamato, and our Haki clashed again. Her katana strained against Yamato, and unlike usual I felt the pressure from her blow. This body was barely able to fight off Megumin's current strike.
This time the impact sent out a shockwave that split the terrain between us clean down the middle, carving a trench.
"Much better." I said, twisting her blade aside with much effort.
She didn't disengage, instead she let go of the blade entirely, spinning with grace as her gun came back up, Haki flaring in the barrel.
I grabbed the edge of her falling katana with two fingers mid-air, channeled my own Haki through it, and hurled it back at her like a spear just as she pulled the trigger.
Her eyes widened a little bit as her own weapon spun towards her as it crackled with my own Haki. Then of course Megumin grinned as she fired her shot anyway.
The magicule bullet that was infused with her Haki flew, as did the katana, and so the expected happened. They collided, and detonated.
The resulting blast caused the entire dimension to shake and left a brand new crater in the center of the dimension.
This dimension was created with Small World, and so it had the appearance of a normal world.
Now the sky seemed to be cracked in half, lava was flowing from the various craters that led deep into the earth of this dimension, and more.
Once we both recovered from the sight of the epic explosion we caused, we both dashed forwards once again, continuing our fight.
She hadn't managed to push me to the brink yet in this form, but I was able to feel the pressure build up. Not to mention, Megumin wouldn't be confident for no reason, and she was definitely confident despite the other more… degenerate desires that were growing in her as the fight went on.
Not to mention she hadn't used any of the anti-space abilities her Ultimate Skill had, in fact she hadn't used her Ultimate Skill much at all in this fight, so I was rather certain she was planning something to catch me off guard.
But that was fine, going by the wild grin on Megumin's face she was enjoying herself, and I was as well to a certain extent.
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Author's Note:
Sup everyone, back with another chapter of Daemon. In this one Felix finally discovers who the new players are, and it's sorta his fault too!
I redefined Planeswalker a little bit, but its powers were never made very clear, I think, but if anything runs contrary to what I've said in the past then let me know. I did create that skill like 2 years ago so my memory is a bit vague on that.
Felix decided to let the Phantoms continue to play, all so that they can make things a bit more interesting, since as it is, Felix is going to easily deal with any threat in Solo Leveling, which for him is getting boring.
The whole reason he came there was to learn a bit more about its cosmology and how it relates to Veldanava's cosmology, other than that he was prepared to be bored, but then the Phantoms showed up to make things a bit more interesting.
Not to mention he's right to not have to worry about the Phantoms. He did his due diligence, learned what he could about them and correlated that info with what Velzard told him, and decided they weren't a threat.
There was a small little info dump on Law Manipulation since it hasn't been detailed much, and someone in discord asked about it so I sorta fell into that pit, but hopefully it was interesting.
Anyways, thanks for reading, peace.
Thanks to @Salante and @Flowerman for beta'ing this chapter.
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