Chapter Thirteen: Beast Transformation of Rage
That shout did jog something in my memory.
“Fragarach Custom X!” the Projectile Hero shouted, launching a skill with the same name as the deadly weapons.
“Air Strike Shield! Second Shield! Dritte Shield! Change Shield!” I shouted, rattling off my own skills. “Everyone, stay back!” I deployed plenty of shields alongside my floating ones and then turned them all into my sakura stone of destiny shield and readied another skill. A moment later the thrown sword hit the gemstone and multiplied into countless weapons before raining down on us. My shields started to absorb the impacts, cracking and breaking as they did so. These shields should have had incredible effects against a hero’s weapon. Our enemies clearly knew something of pacifier techniques. Their holy weapon hero was being held captive. They weren’t going to listen to anything our pacifiers had to say anyway—or they had already been conditioned not to.
With a grunt, I stepped forward to take as many of the flying swords on my own body as I could. I wanted to keep the damage from Raphtalia and the others as much as possible. My defenses were quickly shredded and I started to take cuts into my body. It really hurt, and it was only a matter of time before I got torn to pieces. They were crafty, coming up with an attack like this. I recalled how Trash had used a skill called Magic Prism as part of a skill combination, allowing him to reflect magic exactly as he desired and use it to attack. It looked like their target might have been me all along, because the flying swords were still focusing entirely on me. I wasn’t going to let them get away with it!
I used the life force Gather the best I could, activating Hate Reaction and increasing its accuracy.
“Mr. Naofumi!” Raphtalia exclaimed.
“Shield Hero!” said Ruft.
“Bubba!” shouted Keel.
“Don’t worry about me! Go!” I shouted back.
“I can’t!” Raphtalia cried out.
“Don’t worry! You guys focus on attacking! While they hit me, you hit them!” I replied through gritted teeth. I didn’t know how long this weapon-reflecting skill was going to last, but I wasn’t going to last much longer myself if we didn’t take our attackers out!
“—got this!” S’yne was the first, flying right for the Piensa forces and the Staff and Projectile Heroes.
“Optical Wings! Give me more . . . more power!” S’yne shouted. Her wings glowed even brighter and she hit the lead Projectile Hero with an incredible impact. It was easy to imagine how the Projectile Hero would fight based on what we’d seen Rishia do. It wasn’t a weapon especially suited to close combat.
“Raphtalia, keep up! This is no time to hesitate!” S’yne called back.
“But Mr. Naofumi! Those swords!” Raphtalia shouted.
“Don’t worry! Just end this fight as quickly as you can!” Ruft told her.
“That’z right! If we don’t defeat theze enemiez, the Zhield Hero will fall! Attack with everything you’ve got, right now!” Shadow shouted.
“Raph!” Raph Shadow shouted. All three of them were telling Raphtalia to get her head back in the game. But she continued to watch me, stunned into inactivity.
“Bubba . . . I’m going to do it . . . I’ve decided! I’m going to become stronger to help you all out!” Keel snapped back to herself with a roar and started flipping in the air. The icon to confirm beast transformation support popped up in my field of vision. Directions for Change Shield also appeared along with it. I’d seen this pattern before, but it still took me a moment to realize . . . this was for Keel! It seemed other magic could increase the variations of available transformations. I took a moment to consider who else could collaborate on this. Raphtalia and the Raphs could offer light and dark, which might be interesting, but I couldn’t be sure that would make it any stronger. They could use illusions already, so we didn’t need that. The same went for Shadow. S’yne . . . I wasn’t sure about. As for my healing and support magic . . . I wasn’t sure they would help. I just didn’t want Keel to push herself too hard. If things took a wrong turn, I would just end it.
“Change Shield!” I activated beast transformation support along with Change Shield at the same time. The two float shields changed into the black and white Shield of Compassion and Shield of Wrath. Keel’s body thumped, jerked, and her fur turned red and black. She gave a louder roar as she morphed into a four-legged form that was wreathed in black fire. Then she rushed forward. At that speed, she could actually match S’yne and Raphtalia.
“What now?!” the puma exclaimed.
“A beast transformation!” the fox shouted.
“No more hurting Bubba!” Keel growled. As she dashed forward, she left afterimages behind. She turned into the form of a cerberus amid the black fire and threw herself boldly at the Piensa soldiers.
“I can’t let Keel do all the work!” Raphtalia said. “This power is a marker for illusions! True magic that lays waste to all, illusions that confound our foes! The Heavenly Emperor orders you! Sink my enemies into an ocean of illusion! Demon Emperor: Illusory Layers!” Raphtalia promptly launched her own magic, sinking all our foes into deep and complex illusions.
“More trouble!” the fox exclaimed. “This is powerful illusion magic . . . I know these are illusions and I can’t get rid of them! What kind of monster is she?!”
“Even the staff vassal weapon can’t analyze this spell,” the Staff Hero reported. “This is how strong you need to be to defeat our true enemy?”
“We can’t just give up!” the Projectile Hero replied. “If we can’t tell where they are, we should attack in all directions at once!”
“Okay!” the Staff Hero agreed. The two of them raised their weapons and started firing off skills.