25 Chapter 25 - Megalovania
It's already midnight and everyone's already sleeping in their own room in peace.
But, Yōta stays up late as he looks at the moon above from the window side with serious expression on his face.
The moon slowly turn into red for some reason as he narrows his eyes at the unusual phenomenon.
It's a sign of a crimson stain that fell from the moon has appeared.
["My dear Yōta..."] Ava-chan called out inside his head.
Yōta perked out and stands on his own feet, he opens the window carefully as to not make loud noise, "Yeah. I feel it too, Ava-chan."
["Northwest, 48,8 km ahead, deep forest near the creek."]
"Got it."
Yōta jumps through the window and steps on the tree nearby to accelerate more, he moves in lightning speed in the sky as to not alert the pedestrians below.
As he moves from building to building, he could feel two familiar auras approaching him from different directions.
"Momo-senpai, Aki-senpai." Yōta greeted the two when they appeared by his sides all of a sudden.
"Yōta-kun." Aki greeted him back with a nod and smile.
Momoyo on the other side punches her palm in excitement as she looks into their destination, she can feels something dangerous far ahead.
"Man, I wonder what type of Dead Apostle appeared this time! Last time, it was Nightmare one. They're good but not good enough."
"This is not a game, Momo-senpai." Yōta lightly chided his senior.
"He's right, Momo-chan." Aki joined in while looking at her friend with an unimpressed look, "This thing could easily destroy this city and kill a lot of people if we're not stopping them ASAP."
"Yeah, yeah, I know." Momoyo pouted as she averts her eyes from them, "Geez, let this sweet girl dream a little, would ya'?"
Yōta and Aki could only shakes their head at the Goddess of War's antics. She can be really hopeless at a time.
Ava-chan giggled cutely at the interactions between the three before she decides to join in the conversation through Mental Link, ["I think you will find this enemy fun and worth to fight, my dear Momoyo."]
"Oh. What makes you think so, Ava-chan?" Momoyo asked in curious manner.
Aki also looks quite interested at that statement. If she's being honest here, the last Dead Apostle isn't that really challenging even for her.
And the reason why Momoyo and Aki doesn't freak out or surprised at Ava-chan's voice suddenly appeared inside their heads is because they already confirmed her existence through Yōta beforehand.
These two are the only girls who knew about all of his secrets, including Tesshin.
He doesn't tell others about this not because he's trying to be secretive or anything but simply because they are not ready and strong enough to fight these monsters.
["It's because this one is an Ancestor."] Ava-chan dropped the bomb.
Yōta and Aki narrows their eyes in serious manner as they heard that, Momoyo on the other side couldn't stop herself from smiling at that statement.
Yōta grabs his trusted wooden sword tightly as he looks at it, he guesses he will need to release it to fight this one.
With it, it'll be more effective when he fight against the corrupt or evil beings like Dead Apostles, especially the Ancestors one.
And he can't really afford to use Higekiri in it's awakening state with his allies nearby after all.
"Hehe, then this one will gonna be fun for sure." Momoyo exclaimed before speeding up forward, leaving the two behind.
Yōta and Aki looks at each other for a moment and shake their head for one final time before accelerating their speed to catch up with Momoyo in front.
As they almost reached their destination, a cluster of bones suddenly appeared from nowhere and strike the three of them.
Momoyo throws a straight punch to the empty air in front of her, unleashing a massive shockwave that destroy all the bones that's coming at her.
Yōta and Aki grabs their swords respectively and performs an Iai-jutsu to turns the bones into a dust with one slash.
"What a warm welcome." Momoyo stated with big grin on her face as she looks at hundreds of skeletons charging at them up ahead.
"It seems the final boss finally noticed ours presence." Aki hummed as she steps ahead and stands side-by-side with Momoyo.
"Let's go, Aki-chan."
"Okay, Momo-chan."
Momoyo and Aki jumps into the charging skeletons with bravado. Yōta on the other side simply stand behind, looking at the situation and surrounding with very keen eyes.
He's looking for possible traps or something nearby. When fighting with Ancestors, you really won't know what will happen if you carelessly charge at their domain.
Aki crouches down to dodge an attack from the skeleton nearby before passing through a lot of them with nimble movements as she gathers a lot amount of Ki into her sword, "Blade Flow – Ejection Buster."
She turns her body to the skeletons she just passed by with fluid motion and swings her sword, launching a black beam of energy forward.
The beam of energy destroy twenty and more skeletons in one go.
Momoyo on the other side simply punches and kicks the shit out of the skeletons that's coming at her.
Momoyo and Aki moves in great chemistry as they constantly perform a combo attack to destroy a lot of skeletons in one go.
As they move forward to the deep forest while destroying any skeletons that's charging at them, the surrounding area becomes more sinister and eerie.
It's a sign that they're currently entering Dead Apostle Ancestor's domain.
The whole forest now are surrounded by all kind of bones, from a tree to earth, all of it becomes a bone that's stained in blood and darkness.
It's emitting a foul and rotten stench of the dead.
Yōta's wooden sword suddenly glowing in golden aura and vibrates in great intensity as it feels the presence of corrupt and evil being nearby.
He grabs the sword to calm it down and it works like magic, while it stops vibrating but the golden aura still presence as it coats the sword in comfort.
["What a foul aura."] Ava-chan commented as she also feels the presence that's currently agitating the Holy Sword.
"Yeah, this one is really a bad news." Yōta agreed before he looks toward Momoyo and Aki, "Please be careful you two. Don't charge at them so carelessly, okay? This one is definitely one of the 27 Dead Apostle Ancestors, and if my guess is right then it must be the one with Principle of Harvest."
"Fine." Momoyo hummed her answer while looking her surrounding in curious manner.
While the area is filled with foul and malicious aura, it's still quite fascinating to see a forest made of bones after all.
"I understand, Yōta-kun." Aki nods her head in acknowledgment.
["Judging by the domain and this malicious aura, it must be Sans the Blue Skeleton. He must be escaped into this dimension through the hole that's connected this world to the other after he freed himself from the Holy Church."] Ava-chan chimed in.
"Dead Apostles... What a troublesome beings." Yōta grumbled under his breath as he draws his wooden sword, "Not only I had to worry about the Beast, now I had to worry about other Ancestors coming into this world as well..."
["Ufufu. It's your own blunder that's causing all of this cluster fuck, my dear Yōta."] Ava-chan giggled cutely.
Yōta could only groans in defeat as he heard that.
It's true. All of this wouldn't happen if he didn't make a hole that's connecting other world into this one by accident in the past.
And he's paying the price right now.
As the trio of them walk through the forest in cautious manner, they can hear someone humming a slow song.
It's a combination of growl and distort sound which creates such an eerie voice, it was accompanied by a sound of cluster of bones clicking together.
Weirdly enough, they can feel how lazy and laid-back the voice is for some reason.
And then the voice changes into a loud cackle as the sound of bones clicking together also getting louder.
It sounds like a sacrificial drums.
The red moonlight shines brightly at something above the thrones made of bones, revealing a figure wearing a blue hoodie, a white t-shirt underneath, black shorts with white stripes, and a pair of slippers, casually sitting on the thrones in laid-back manner as he looks down on them.
As the figure donned the hoodie on its head, you can't see much except for an eerie white dots underneath and wide, toothy-grin on its face.
But they still could see that the figure is actually a skeleton with how his hands and legs are very visible right now, it's nothing but bones.
Even so he still looks quite intimidating with how he releases such malicious aura from his body.
And what makes him more scary is the fact that Yōta could see an infinite amount of KARMA is slowly bending and flowing to him.
Which means this creature could easily manipulate the KARMA itself.
"it's a beautiful day outside..." Sans started in his distorted voice, "birds are singing, flowers are blooming..."
The surrounding area suddenly vibrates with large magnitude as a thousand of bones floating in the sky and a sudden appearance of two giant beast's skeletals floating behind Sans alarmed the trio greatly.
"on days like these... kids like you..." Sans' left eye flashes light blue while his right pupil vanishes and the skeletals behind him opened its mouth widely with insane amount of malicious energy stored inside them.
"Merlin!!" Upon noticing the danger now, Yōta called out to the girl inside his soul as he jumps upfront and shove the wooden sword in his left hand forward, "Bring Judgment upon thy enemies. I command thee, release thy seal!"
["Approved."] Ava-chan a.k.a Merlin stated with soft smile on her face as part of her soul fuses into Yōta's and a large amount of magical powers burst out from his body, ["Show them what Sword of Humanity capable of, my dear Yōta."]
The wooden sword vibrates with great intensity as a golden cracks appeared on it before it shatters into thousand particles and reveal a red great sword that emits immeasurable amount of holy energy.
Excalibur Genesis finally made its appearance.
"should be burning in hell." Sans finished his sentence as he lazily points his bone finger to the trio below him.
It's the signal for two skeletals behind him to shoot a gigantic blue beams together with thousand and more bones are raining down on the trio without mercy.
"DOMINION!!"
Yōta hurriedly stabs Excalibur Genesis into the ground and the holy sword emits a bright light that forms a giant golden dome made of light.
It protected them from the continuous attack as the wave of bones after bones are reduced into nothingness when it makes contact with the dome meanwhile the beams that the skeletals shot were absorbed until there's nothing left.
The attribute of this dome is holy by nature.
Therefore any corrupt and evil-based attacks will be banished into nothingness by it's holy grace upon contact.
"What a ridiculous power..." Yōta grumbled under his breath as he looks at the chaos outside of the dome.
The bones outside are moving in chaotic manner while raining down on the dome and two giant skeletals above still shoot the beams without stopping as well.
"How long he's gonna continue this?" Momoyo asked while crossing her arms over her ample chest.
"I don't know..." Aki shakes her head as she draws her sword from its sheath and takes a stance, "But I think we should attack him with ranged-attack first. You know, facing the final boss in old-fashioned ways of hitting and running strategy."
"It's a good idea." Yōta nods his head as he draws the Excalibur Genesis from the ground, "This dome will maintain its power for 5 minutes more before it finally collapse."
"It'll be enough." Momoyo said while punching her palm in excited manner.
"Okay then." Yōta nods his head and takes his stance with holding the holy sword with two hands as the blade starts to glow in golden light.
Momoyo besides him simply shove her open-palm in front and gathers massive amount of Ki inside, it makes her palm lit in red aura.
Aki on the other side slides two of her fingers on the blade's side, she coats the blade in darkness and shapes them into a longer blade, extending its reach, "Dark Cloaked: Black Blade..."
"Destination!!!"
"Killer Fireflies!!!"
"Avidya Wild Slash!!!"
Yōta, Momoyo, and Aki respectively throw theirs ranged-based attacks rapidly at Sans.
And the Blue Skeleton forced to stops his continuous attack and form a massive wall of bones to protect himself from the trio's attacks.
As they constantly throw their ranged attacks, three of them makes eye contact with each other.
Momoyo and Aki nods their head at the same time before they vanish from their spot, leaving a trail of dust behind.
Momoyo jumps high above, surpassing the height of the massive wall made of bones before she propels herself diagonally onto Sans below.
"welp." Sans jumps on his feet lazily before he brings his foot up and deliver a straight kick upwards to intercepts Momoyo's charge.
BOOM!
A punch and kick meet each other in mid-way, and it seems their strength are equal as both of them didn't budge at all even after they generate more power into their respective fist and leg.
Aki then burst her way in with lightning-speed before she delivers two slashes at Sans.
But the Blue Skeleton simply moves his hand to the side and one of the skeletal faces appeared in front of Aki to block her attacks.
The skeletal then opens its mouth and fires a projectile beam toward the swordswoman.
"Blade Flow – Black Cocoon!"
Aki spins her coated sword hurriedly and creates a spherical shell of darkness around to protect her from the projectile beam.
Momoyo used the distraction to her advantage as she slips her way in with such fluid movements before throwing a straight punch to Sans' face.
It blows Sans far into a distance, smashing his thrones and all.
"Nice distraction, Aki-chan." Momoyo gives Aki a thumb up.
Aki simply nods her head in acknowledgement as she squints her eyes to look far ahead.
There's smoke surrounding the area with Sans inside, he doesn't move at all but Aki doesn't believe that simple attack from Momoyo earlier would really do anything against him.
As Momoyo and Aki looks up ahead, Yōta on the other side passes the two by with extreme speed, the blade of his holy sword vibrates in power, ready to release the holy energy stored inside.
"Sin Cleaver!"
He jumps ahead and swings his sword in wide arc, releasing a gigantic holy wave that contains the will of Excalibur towards Sans.
Sans squints his empty sockets at the holy wave that's coming at him before he thrusts his left hand forward, wills the two skeletal faces to appear in front of him.
He wills them to shoot the projectil beam continuously, but he noticed it seems meaningless as the wave simply destroy the beam with ease.
Sans then thrusts both of his hands as his left eye burns brighter than ever, the skeletal faces starts spinning clockwise in front of him as it gathers a more potent malicious and curse energy before shooting it straight forward.
The dark read beam meets the golden energy wave in midways, while the beam couldn't push the wave completely, but it still succeeded on stopping it.
"Tch!" Yōta clicks his tongue in annoyance when he saw his Sin Cleaver get stopped.
Fighting against Ancestor inside their Idea Blood's domain is really annoying.
Sans' Principle of his Idea Blood is Harvest. It gives him abilities over harvesting, in this case he able to harvest a lot of bones through his imagination or from his past victims.
Just like two skeletal faces that's floating around him right now. They are originated from dragons that he killed and harvested it into his weapons of choice.
"you look frustrated about something." Sans casually stated while slightly tilt his head in Yōta's direction, his toothy-grins is still present as ever, "guess i'm pretty good at my job, huh?"
"Shut up..." Yōta growls as he raises the holy sword near to his head, "I'm gonna erase you from this world for good."
"heh heh heh heh..." Sans chuckles in his distorted voice, "if you can really do it, then it'll be lovely. but..."
The Blue Skeleton suddenly disappears from his spot and appeared after in front of Yōta with two of skeletal faces in his hands, "do you think i'm just gonna stand idly and let you do it?"
BOOM! BOOM!
Sans releases two giant Gaster Blasters at Yōta in point-blank.
Yōta was blown far away, while he is fast enough to block the beams but the power of the beams are powerful enough to blast him.
He also received burns on his body as he had singed skin and soot all over it.
Momoyo and Aki doesn't idle long too as they make their move at the same time when Sans attacked Yōta.
Momoyo coats her fist with pure Ki and Color of Supreme Kings to strengthen it before she delivers a devastating punch to Sans, "Kawakami Style Revised – Conqueror's Punch!"
The Blue Skeleton swiftly moves one of his skeletal faces to protect him, but it couldn't stop Momoyo's attack as her punch break through his defense and it lands dead on his neck.
Aki who moves behind Momoyo earlier, crouches her body low and extend her free arm forward. She then begins to super condense the darkness into her blade before unleashing a devastating thrust towards Sans' torso, "Blade Flow – Death Thrust!"
Momoyo's punch and Aki's thrust are powerful enough to destroy Sans' head and torso respectively before blasting him far into the distance.
Sans' body rolls and smacks everything like a ragdoll and it doesn't show any sign of it will stop any time soon.
The body finally stops after it smacks the mountain up ahead.
But even if they able to destroy its head and torso, they don't believe it'll be good enough to stop Ancestor.
And true to what they thought, Sans broken body moves erratically like puppet before it stands up on its own feet.
He then wills his Idea Blood to harvest new head and torso for him, and just like that he comes back into his original form like nothing happened.
"that was good one, not gonna lie." Sans remarked while tapping his skeleton head, he then slowly turns his head to Momoyo and Aki before his left eye burn yellow, "but it's not good enough."
The girls suddenly feel their body being pushed away by greater force as they smacks the wall made of bones behind them.
Unfortunately, the bones behind them are not a flat one but it's a spiky one.
They can feel the spike starts to pierce their behind as the gravity force in front of them are pushing them back more and more.
Momoyo and Aki are trying to push their way through this, but it seems Sans is have the advantage right now.
"Sword Trace!!!"
Yōta comes in clutch as he swings his holy sword at Sans from his blind spot.
Sans was late to avoid the attack and could only takes it dead on, and the slash is strong enough even to cut space.
The trace of holy energy that the sword released earlier causes multiple chain of explosion on Sans upon coming in contact with it.
"gaaaahhhhhh!!!"
The Blue Skeleton screams in pain as the holy energy successfully damaging his body and burn him from inside.
He jumps backward to make a distance between them as he blasts the holy energy out from his body with brute force.
"this holy energy... i see, so you are one of the arthur's spawns... what a troublesome being..." Sans hissed in annoyance before he harvest thirteen of skeletal faces behind him.
He can't really afford to play this game in lazy manner like usual.
"Instant Recovery." Momoyo focuses her energy to speed up her regeneration before she touches Aki's shoulder and do the same to her, "Instant Healing."
With this, two of them are coming back to full health.
["His defense mechanism for his soul is quite tough. As expected from Ancestor, I guess. You need to deal more damage to him so you can burn his sould for good, my dear Yōta."]
"I know, Merlin." Yōta replied while holding his holy sword sideways, "This gonna take long, at least I'm pretty grateful that tomorrow is holiday."
"Hehe, you're right." Aki inclined her head in agreement, "As the student council, I can't really afford to skip my class after all."
"My, what a good student you are, Aki-chan." Momoyo playfully remarked with smile.
Even in this situation, the three of them still could afford to laugh in carefree manner.
"Well, let's just finish this up so I can get my beauty sleep." Momoyo said with her whole body suddenly lits in golden aura as golden scales grow on her arms, outer torso, back, and legs as well as six horns on her head, claws on the hands and feet, and a long tail. She also sprouted 2 massive scaly wings on her back.
"That I can agree." Aki stabbed her sword onto the ground and a black substance suddenly pouring out from it as the substance slowly growing up and shaped into black Mizuchi, the legendary serpent-like creature.
"Yeah, I need my sleep too, because tomorrow, my cute little sister is visiting me!" Yōta exclaimed while holding his sword in front of his chest, "May this sword exist solely for Humanity!" Excalibur Genesis releases a large amount of holy energy upon releasing as Yōta's hair suddenly turns into white and his color scheme also shifts to white and blue with yellow highlights while donning a hood and mask to cover half of his face. He also sprouted 6 massive wings on his back.
"Awakening of the Dragon!"
"Secret Flow – Like a Soaring Dragon!"
"Awakening!
