“You think this is enough to defeat me?” Aoyuki said. “That shows you are merely a fool who happened to go mad one day. You are not worthy of being my foe.”
The fake C jabbered angrily at Aoyuki, because even in the thralls of madness, he knew when he was being ridiculed. As soon as the poisonous shadows reached Aoyuki, he manifested spikes to lacerate her.
Aoyuki released her foe from the Beast Chain collar and leaped into the air to avoid the protrusions. Since she had won the all-out brawl against the fake C, she no longer felt the need to prove her fealty to Light.
On the other hand, the fake C prattled away incoherently, admonishing Aoyuki in his own way for being doltish enough to try and flee even though there was clearly nowhere to go. But while still airborne, Aoyuki impassively slapped the Beast Chain collar around her own neck, and despite having a neck that was willow-thin and dainty, the collar fit snugly.
“Summon Embodiment: Mythical Creature, Phoenix!” As soon as these words passed her lips, wings of crimson flame sprouted from her back and held her aloft. One flap of her new fiery wings reduced the elongated shadow spikes reaching out toward her to ash. Shocked and confused at this development, the fake C chittered away again, but Aoyuki simply looked down on the Master and purred: “Mrroww!”
No, Aoyuki didn’t have the innate capability to grow wings of fire on her back. It was all thanks to the powers imbued in her Beast Chain. Not only could the phantasma-class weapon automatically track and capture a monster, it could also transfer abilities to her from any of her tamed minions. Of course, that wasn’t the full extent of what the Beast Chain could do.
“Mrrew.” Aoyuki landed back on the ground, unable to deal with the contortions of the air around her for long while in flight. Despite having the Phoenix’s wings, she wasn’t an expert flier, especially in such preternatural conditions. There was no real reason to turn this battle aerial anyway.
“Summon Embodiment: Primal God Wolf, Fenrir,” Aoyuki said the moment she landed. Her flaming wings disappeared to be replaced by Fenrir’s claws on both hands. She waved her claws from side to side, which caused all the shadow spikes in the arena to freeze and become a forest of icicles.
“Summon Embodiment: Hound of Hades, Cerberus.” Borrowing the powers of the three-headed beast this time, Aoyuki took a huge breath that completely filled her lungs.
“Rrrow!” She exhaled a destructive energy blast that crushed the frozen shadows, sending the icy fragments raining down on the fake C for good measure. The Master babbled in abject bewilderment at the maelstrom that had been sent his way, awed by Aoyuki’s rapidly shifting powers. He still had some fight left in him, however, and he proceeded to pump even more of his life energy into his right arm-lance that was still embedded in the ground, before commanding the curse-filled shadows on the ground, walls, and ceiling to spread out again. He also made the shadows resonate even more this time.
“Nrrow!” Aoyuki once again manifested Fenrir’s claws on her hands and attempted to freeze the shadows once more, but the fake C blabbered something that indicated he was already wise to her tricks. He used the dark shadows to peel away a layer of the arena floor and sent it shooting upward to use as a shield against the freezing blast. He repeated this tactic again and again to ward off more Fenrir-style blasts, then extended shadow spikes from the ceiling in an attempt to spear his opponent.
Aoyuki clicked her tongue in annoyance and evaded the spikes with relative ease. She wasn’t free to attack continuously, because that would leave her open to counterattacks, and she needed to protect her still-immobile monsters from these new shadow spikes. If all the lances did was injure the creatures, they would easily recover from any wounds inflicted on them, but the spikes were also able to rob their targets of life energy, meaning that if Aoyuki didn’t stop them before they struck, she would be forced to use gacha cards to negate all the damage caused by the spikes, and trying to carry out additional tasks like that would soon have her with her back against the wall.
Realizing this was an opening, the fake C babbled like crazy and manifested a flurry of shadow spikes that sprouted from every corner of the arena and extended in every direction. The fake C was plainly trying to engulf all of his opponents, like a snake with a wide-open jaw bearing down on live prey. Because the arena was deep underground, there was almost no avenue of escape, which meant if the fake C could fill the place with his malevolent shadows and the spikes that grew from them, there was a good chance he would emerge victorious.
At least, that was if he could continue spreading his shadows. Aoyuki coolly observed the fake C’s counterattack without showing any signs of panic.
“Primal God Wolf, Fenrir, and Mythical Creature, Phoenix—integrate,” Aoyuki chanted. “Iceflower Firedance!”
Icy flower blossoms and flaming feathers shot out of Aoyuki’s hands and whipped through the air like a whirlwind. The icy blooms froze all of the shadows and spikes in a flash, while the flaming feathers melted everything they touched. Due to this rapid switch between being superheated and superchilled, as well as the sheer mass of shadows Aoyuki had targeted, the twin attacks caused an explosion that roared around the arena and destroyed the shadows and the thicket of spikes protruding from them. The fake C babbled in shock and despair as one of his last trump cards went up in smoke. He had sacrificed most of his remaining lifespan for this ploy, though Aoyuki hadn’t quite hammered the final nails into his coffin yet.
“Hound of Hades, Cerberus, and Deathtrap, Acid Spider—integrate,” Aoyuki called out. “Acid Lancer!”
This time, Aoyuki borrowed powers from the UR Level 7000, Deathtrap, Acid Spider, as well as from Cerberus. Although the Acid Spider’s power level was quite a bit lower than Cerberus’s, the acid venom it secreted was able to melt any living and nonliving target. Aoyuki coated Cerberus’s howling blast with the Acid Spider’s venom and landed a direct hit on the fake C, who screamed from the unimaginable pain of having his flesh both torn away and melted at the same time.
Yet not only did the Beast Chain allow Aoyuki to borrow powers from her monster familiars, but the weapon also allowed her to combine those powers to create entirely new abilities. Although of course, it went without saying that it was a skill that came with limits. One of these was that the more powers Aoyuki mixed together, the less control she could exercise over them, while another was that if the powers weren’t compatible, the combined abilities would just fail to activate.
It was also quite a useless skill to possess unless the person using it had a vast stable of monsters to borrow powers from. However, in Aoyuki’s case, not only was she a powerful Genius Monster Tamer, but she also had a steady supply of monsters on hand from the Unlimited Gacha. If it weren’t for Light’s Gift, Aoyuki would have needed to trek to all the corners of the world to find the kinds of monsters that would be useful to her. That would have meant climbing the highest mountains, searching the lowest depths of dungeons, and trudging to all the hardest-to-reach places. Even assuming there were that many high-level monsters to be tamed—which was unlikely in the first place—it would’ve taken her far too long to assemble the kind of roster she needed.
But as Light’s lieutenant, Aoyuki had ready access to the monsters the Unlimited Gacha spawned each and every day. All she needed to do was wait for an especially powerful creature to be pulled, then tame it. In a sense, Aoyuki was the perfect fit for Light’s Gift, though at the same time, there was such a thing as having it too good. But that’s a story for another day.
The fake C was also Level 9999, meaning despite being mutilated, he willed himself to muster his remaining strength and launch yet another attack. This time, he amassed all of the remaining shadows into a dark spear that was bigger than the lance attached to his forearm, then aimed this new weapon at Aoyuki.
“Living Fortress, Armor Crab, and War Puppet, Orlok—integrate,” Aoyuki called out. “Armor Shield Puppet!”
The UR Level 7000, Living Fortress, Armor Crab was—as the name suggested—a giant crab clad in what looked like a customized suit of armor. The monster looked adorable, but as its power level implied, its armor was nigh on impregnable. The SSSR Level 4000, War Puppet, Orlok was a golem made of metal that was proficient in both defensive and offensive capabilities, though its one weak point was that it wasn’t very agile (compared to other high-level summons).
Because these two familiars had superelevated defensive stats, Aoyuki decided to borrow their powers to manifest a near-indestructible mana shield, which easily deflected the giant shadow spear and prevented the fake C from stabbing her and siphoning off much-needed life force.
“Hound of Hades, Cerberus, and Living Fortress, Armor Crab—integrate,” Aoyuki. “Fortified Cannon!”
The fake C rambled in astonishment as Aoyuki fired the Armor Crab’s carapace at him like it was some supersonic cannonball. Before he could even move, the armor connected and sent him careening into the wall behind him, eliciting yet another incoherent scream. He slid down the wall limply, but Aoyuki wasn’t about to show him any mercy.
“If you must fight back, then fight back,” Aoyuki taunted, glaring down at her opponent. “With me as its conduit, my master’s Unlimited Gacha will crush anything you can muster up.”
There was no tactic the fake C could try against Aoyuki that would lead to victory for him, since she could just beat him back by combining the powers of monsters she’d tamed. In other words, Aoyuki was this supposed Master’s worst enemy. The fake C bayed in frail desperation, but Aoyuki started battering him again and didn’t stop until he was completely unable to move.