During the Oratorio Tangram, she had made the surprising discovery that Entangled True Strike, an upgraded Pugilist skill, could be applied to her arms. She had used it to pound seven man-made angels into the ground with ninety-one strikes delivered in a split second.
This time, she was going to use something even more powerful.
While Frederica concentrated on her summoning, the numerous smaller magic cores inside Country Eater were drawing in a torrent of mana, giving it the ability to throw all manner of spells at its four opponents in hopes of shooting them down. Reen was doing a wonderful job of fending off the entire barrage, so Frederica made no effort at all to evade them. Instead, as flashes and explosions went off around her in a chaotic mess, she assumed a distinctly un-Pugilist-like pose. While Entangled True Strike had made her look like someone about to throw a punch, she now clasped her hands together before her chest with her fingers laced as if she was praying or making a hand sign. A symbol glowed on her forehead with white light as she became drenched in sweat despite not moving. Even though she had obtained a superhuman body, the special move she was attempting was clearly placing a huge mental and physical burden on her.
“Deployment of Type 100 Mode complete. Here I go!” Frederica’s tightly clenched eyes flew open. “Ceremonial Demonstration: Hundred Strikes!”
Magical light positively exploded from Frederica’s body, instantaneously evaporating all the sweat on her, as all one hundred of her arms sped toward Country Eater. Using every Pugilist skill in her repertoire, they responded to Country Eater’s various attacks and spells in the most optimal way. They were not moving automatically; each and every one was being controlled by Frederica as she pushed Thought Acceleration and Parallel Thought to their limits. Though she herself remained immobile in the air, the recoil from all the arms was feeding back at her.
Having lost its HP barrier, Country Eater was entirely defenseless before this battery of strikes. Its body was gouged, pierced, squashed, and scattered all over. And yet, it was far from dying. It would be able to slowly gather itself back up as long as its core, which was as small as that of normal slimes and could be freely moved about inside the monster’s gargantuan body, remained unharmed. If left alone, all that Frederica’s fancy moves would achieve was to make the monster a little smaller—something that it could reverse given enough time.
Of course, it wasn’t going to be left alone. That would be just silly. The best strategy against such a troublesome opponent, as the All Dragon had been all too happy to propose while proudly puffing out her chest, was to erase its entire body all at once. Reen’s attack with Butter Knife had been an attempt at this, but since it hadn’t worked out, the girls were going with the next best strategy, the one that Sol had come up with. This had four steps: Reen would destroy the monster’s HP barrier, Julia would make sure it didn’t restore the barrier and couldn’t heal itself, then Frederica would smash apart its body with Eliza’s help.
Eliza’s Numbers armament was Number Seven: Type Atlach-Nacha. It gave her eight massive armored legs, each topped by a floating orb. Eliza herself floated in the middle, covered in thin, formfitting armor with cracks where light from her crimson foundation suit shone through. The armor constantly had camouflage active, making it look like she was just her imposing head module and a mass of glowing red lines.
Her role in this fight was to hold down the parts of Country Eater that Frederica was scattering around using the Abyss Spider threads that her armament could generate, thus preventing them from rejoining the main body. Additionally, as her senses were linked to the spiderweb she had spread everywhere, she was to locate the slime’s normally impossible-to-find core. Unlike Reen and Frederica, she did not have to push her armament into overdrive. It cost a lot of mana to keep her countless threads on the battlefield, but that wasn’t a problem thanks to Sol.
Working in tandem with Frederica, they quickly and steadily whittled down Country Eater’s body. Knowing that Frederica was too focused to talk, Eliza also sent Type Hecatoncheires notifications of globs with significantly more mana which therefore seemed likely to contain a magic core. That way, she would know to smash them.
This left Country Eater truly on the ropes. It had no HP barrier, could not heal, could not rebuild its body, and its magic cores were being destroyed one after another, while the spells it was firing using what little mana the remaining cores could scrounge up were all being blocked by the large shields zipping around. It had basically become a large punching bag. Before long, it was reduced to the size of a normal territory boss, then its true core was finally trapped and shattered. The death cry of the symbol of death that had reigned over the land of seven countries for two centuries was so weak that it failed to reach the floating islands watching from on high.
The moment the slime’s core was destroyed, all the parts that Eliza had been holding down melted away. Though different in scale, the sight was exactly the same as when adventurers finished off normal slimes, the weakest of all monsters. What was different was the staggering amount of experience and the impressive loot that Sol’s group received—and, most of all, the elation that exploded within them and the shock it gave the entire world. The people watching from the display windows across the continent, no matter their age, gender, and social status, erupted into cheers as one.
Those on the floating islands cheered too, but their eyes also glittered with appetite. There was no doubting that this world now belonged to Sol, and how much one could receive from him was the new metric of power. It didn’t matter what form that took. It could be authority, money, plain physical might, or even sex. None could stand against the man who could treat Country Eater like a pushover.
The competition for his favor was now beginning in earnest. How he cut up the unsealed territory of the seven former nations and whom he gave the pieces to would very clearly determine winners and losers.
“Good work, you four,” said Sol through the stream. “Now that it’s clear that monster territories are no longer a threat to us humans, our next focus is on redeveloping the land that Country Eater kept from us for the past two hundred years. We will need help from people all across the continent, so I hope they lend us their support.”
He sounded so calm, it seemed like he had no idea he was being heard by the entire continent, but his words indicated otherwise. Despite what he said, monster territories were still a threat that normal humans had no way of dealing with. No one else could have defeated Country Eater like his party had. In other words, he was demanding in a roundabout manner that people give him everything they could if they wanted a share of what only he and his group could provide. At the very least, how he would divide up the west would very likely depend on people’s contributions.
At the end of the day, Sol’s goal was to retrieve the All Dragon’s organas. For those living in this world, however, the scraps that fell from his table during this undertaking would literally define their lives.
Confirming that the broadcast was over, Sol said in his normal voice, “Good work, everyone. You did great out there.” His attitude from before had been an act meant to be seen as his normal self, but both times, the first thing he voiced was appreciation for his companions. Reen and the others were happy about the recognition while thinking, That’s so like him in their own way.
“Now, we are finally at the starting line.”
This applied both to the quest to retrieve Luna’s organas and the effort to use Sol’s overwhelming strength not only to protect humanity but to lead them to greater abundance. As he said, they were just getting started.