Rupegia

Chapter 182: Drowning in the Wave – Part 3

After a couple of hours of intense [Soul Touch] therapy, I feel good enough to walk again, so the girls take me to where our wounded are recovering.

"Royalty is present!" the officer announces our arrival, and the girls all stand up and salute.

"Your Highness!" a couple of them happily exclaim and beam at us.

I happily wave and approach the "patients," who are merely resting in the "recreation" area of the barracks lent to us. They've all been fully healed already, but they aren't allowed to return to duty just yet to let their bodies adjust to the healed parts.

"I came to check how you're all doing," I soothingly state.

"We're fine!" an elven girl happily shouts.

"Don't worry about that! We're more worried about you!" a dog girl follows up with a concerned tone.

And I smile bitterly. "Still recovering. My mana organ was strained to the limit, so… no Ravaging for a couple of days, maybe."

"We'll survive," another elven girl wryly jokes.

"The Queens will suffer a bit, though," Hukarere cheekily follows.

So Yunia slowly turns to her and gives a quick return bite, "And you'll starve."

I love this lewd bantering more than anything… but I have to ruin the mood.

"What about the two we lost?" I soberly interject.

"I'm here!" an imperial girl shouts as she happily raises her hand and waves.

I choke on my spit and cough.

"Ingrid is having fun with her girlfriend," another Companion calmly shares.

"I'll go call them," an elven girl volunteers and leaves.

Then I focus on my [Sense Presence] and realize that the girl who raised her hand is a spirit.

But the imperial girl walks forward and starts blurting out with a bubbly tone, "I'd like to bind my spirit as soon as possible. It feels like I'm constantly floating, and it's kind of uncomfortable."

I raise my claws and ask for patience, "Wait, wait… this isn't something that should be done hastily."

She nods and smiles sweetly. "I apologize, Your Highness, but I'm eager to serve with this immortal body, now."

Oh, boy…

I ask for help from the wives, but they don't really see much of a problem with this.

"Everyone appreciates your consideration, Wolfy," Alissa softly states, and she grabs my scaled hand, then gives it a kiss.

I awkwardly scratch a horn as I try to gather my thoughts, but this is harder than usual due to my exhaustion. Then I suddenly feel an angelic presence enter my thoughts, and she starts to massage my mind to help ease the effort of putting words together.

Ingrid appears in the doorway, and she's a tall Sommerlande with dark skin, while her "girlfriend" is an elven court mage, a frail-looking thing. They're both naked, and I see that their pussies are dripping with delicious lewd fluids that run down their legs, briefly making me forget what I was talking about.

The angel in my mind gathers my thoughts again for me with a sigh, and then I breathe in deeply and slowly begin, "You've already served one life. To serve another isn't a simple decision to make because you're possibly sacrificing your time in Paradise in exchange for the ability to remain here.

"As someone with high 'Piety,' blessed by Gods, and married to a priestess, I don't want any of you to feel pressured into giving up your God-given right of being rewarded with Paradise. This is especially important because that time is given to you precisely because you served a noble cause.

"Therefore, I'm declaring a new rule regarding the binding of souls of fallen soldiers: you must wait for a whole day-cycle before you're allowed to be bound. Only those who truly have the will and the perseverance to endure the call to Paradise may sacrifice it to serve us again."

And they quietly gasp in surprise. It isn't normal for a spirit to remain attached to the land for a whole day, let alone a whole day-cycle. Most people immediately depart for Paradise the moment they die and only return briefly for a last goodbye at their funerals.

But not only are these girls all soldiers, they're also fervent, fanatical, and passionate, so this is just a small test for them.

After the shock has settled, I soothingly encourage them, "I believe you two can do it, but this is a test that you must go through."

"What about Lorena? She didn't have to stay," a Companion wonders.

That one isn't a Companion; she's a Lordsguard that died during battle in the Misty Low Forest against the heretics. But then she was scouted by Oritiki because her high loyalty and eagerness to serve weren't tainted by the Cock-worshiping of the Companions.

Yunia is currently more eloquent than me, so she makes a reasonable excuse, "We hadn't thought of this rule at that time, so we have to accept, without resenting her, that she has bypassed this test. But also, let's not forget that she has endured gruesome training alongside the Celestial Horns to learn how to control a 'battle-body' that we're developing."

And I calmly nod in agreement.

But then the naked Sommerlande spirit girl advances forward and promptly falls on her knee before us. "I swear to Your Highnesses that I'll pass this test and rejoin our ranks!" she boldly swears, and stares at me expectantly.

The imperial spirit girl then rushes forward and kneels, then also swears, "I also swear to Your Highnesses that we'll return and gladly serve you again with our immortal bodies!"

"Almost immortal. The gem is a key weakness," Hukarere wisely warns them.

And they both nod at her.

I sigh rather frustratedly and insist on explaining again, "You two are missing the point. I'll accept your vow in a day-cycle and not a second sooner. Now, I give you leave to return to your families or to travel wherever you wish. Until the time to renew your vows, you're back to being commoners again."

The tall Sommerlande woman glances at her elven girlfriend and smirks. "My family is here, so I'll remain."

And the imperial girl also smirks as she suggestively remarks, "I'll remain here in case you come to visit the Companions. All the Chimeras say that your seed is addictive, so I feel like I should get started on that."

I shake my head at these stubborn but loyal soldiers. It isn't unexpected that they've become like this, but we still shouldn't encourage them.

But now that I've done my duty, I (very begrudgingly) leave the horny women, then open a [Gate] back to the fortress.

"Ugh… it still feels unpleasant," I quietly whine with a frown of pain.

"Y-Your Highness!" a Lordsguard exclaims in surprise, a bit of a slip-up from him since they aren't supposed to shout like that. This also alerts two Companions nearby, who rush over to me, their faces tense and slightly confused.

So I calmly soothe them and explain, "Don't worry, everyone, I've recovered enough to visit. Now, get me a Space mage. Alissa, Yunia, and Hukarere are still back home."

Now with a proper escort, we make our way to the command area. Hana is representing us in Yunia's and my absences, and she's supervising things as Oritiki, Alcander, and Hihiriwa discuss how to better defend against and counter the titan's Light magic and explosives. They're hunched over a table that's full of maps, and I also see a 3D hologram, an attempt to better represent the fortress' layout, but it becomes hard to visualize the interior, so it isn't that helpful.

Caterina, Urmeie, and the Earthlings, minus Samkelo, are also present, but they're just on standby in case of attack.

Hana senses us and turns around, then immediately questions as we approach, "Wolfy, what's going on? I can barely hear your thoughts."

I sigh softly and answer, "I think my soul got weakened, or something. [Soul Touch] helps it heal, but I can't stay in bed all day long right now."

"Good. The men will always have higher morale when their Lord is present," Urmeie sternly grunts.

And I flash a smile of agreement. "Exactly. So, what's the situation?"

Now that the "titans" have shown themselves, they must continue to pressure us, or else they're just letting us freely fortify our foothold, so we're expecting an attack at any moment. I can summon the rest of the wives when the titans do come, but it's unlikely that I'll be able to participate much in battle until my [Soul Touch] therapy is done.

We also can't trust the portals anymore after the Dungeon Master did that little teleporting trick, so we have all of our Space court mages on standby. The dungeon could even send monsters through the portal in the center of our fortress, for all we know, so we've also sealed it as a precaution.

"Can't the 'Dee-Em' just kill us when we try to cross a portal?" Lily suddenly utters something wise.

And Urmeie gives a small reassurance, "Dungeons were created by the power of the God of Creation; therefore, there are certain rules they must obey. One of these rules is that there's always an open path to the core, so I think the danger of the portals is limited."

"Why do you know more about this than us?" Ciel blurts out. She already knows the part about the path to the core, but she never heard about the reasoning for that being Creation's will.

"I live above the greatest dungeon in the entire Realm," Urmeie replies matter-of-factly.

"True 'dat," I hum with a chuckle.

"That's a cute slang," she remarks and gives me an intense stare, sounding mildly… aroused.

I'd like to flirt with her, but now's not the time, so I stop the conversation from derailing. "But anyway, any portal we take could potentially take us somewhere dangerous, like a room full of monsters ready to tear at us."

And Urmeei agrees, "That's a possibility, especially if there's evidence suggesting the portal is a 'trap.'"

Then Alissa makes a reasonable suggestion, "We should warn the Chimeras to stay away from the portals, too."

"There's clearly a malicious intelligence behind this dungeon, so they could be in danger, too," I add with a nod.

"Very well," Hihiriwa accepts our directions and starts writing a letter.

After that, I join the others on standby while Yunia continues treating my soul.

A few minutes later, a Lordsguard arrives with news for Hihiriwa. "The altered [Wind Shield] gem has arrived," the young soldier eagerly reports.

And the dragon-headed man grins toothily as he assuredly announces, "Excellent, now the fortress will be impervious to those 'explosives.'"

But just as he starts to leave to inspect the gem, we hear a sharp whistle sound twice.

"The portal!" Oritiki exclaims and rushes out.

"That's the signal for something happening to the portal!" Hana explains to me and follows her.

That's quite the coincidence…

I make a small effort and use our connection to warn Lina, and then I look through Hana's eyes. It's very uncomfortable to use [Bind] right now, but it's doable for short periods of time, and since she's quite fast, it only takes her a few seconds to get to the portal room… and the portal is gone.

Lina quickly wraps things up in case a "scrubber" is about to be activated, but then we hear a long, shrill whistle.

This one, I know. It means we're under attack.

"MIRRORS OUT!" an officer nearby orders the Lordsguard, and then the fortress starts to shake as explosions rock us from all directions.

"ACTIVATE THE SHIELD!" Hihiriwa howls at the Space mage, and the young man desperately feeds all of his mana into the gem, but it was already charged, so it immediately activates, and the explosions stop.

Meanwhile, we quickly make our way to the nearest viewport, and we see flashing bright lights coming from down the corridor. Using the enchantments to see and move in 4D is painful, but bearable, for now.

But then an officer stops us.

"Your Highnesses! The light will burn your eyes!" he cautions us worriedly.

"Not mine," Lily confidently states.

I grit my teeth and summon a bird. "I'll use this to see outside. I need to know what we're fighting."

And the officer quickly describes it, "Hundreds of little portals suddenly appeared all around the fortress and deployed robed figures, and then the light almost blinded me."

Same as before. They lack creativity.

I nod, and then Lily and I enter the viewing port room. Just being inside it is uncomfortable due to the bright light and rising heat. Then I cover the little bird with a helmet and raise it to the window while Lily peeks out from the side.

All I get is a glimpse of innumerable robed figures waving around huge sabers of light. Then a beam passes by our opening and harms the bird's eyes while also making the helmet glow red with heat.

"This is Star Wars on steroids, or something," Lily quietly remarks.

And I can't help but snort softly. "I hope the mirrors work."

Then we return to the others and explain what we saw.

"How the fuck are we going to do this?" Urmeie questions confusedly.

Then Lina arrives with the rest of our group, and they've brought hundreds of upgraded sets of armor.

"We fuck them in the ass," I growl dangerously.

And the Space mage opens a [Gate] far outside the fortress.

Our armor has been repaired, courtesy of Lina, and a coat of highly reflective chemicals has been applied to it, courtesy of Samkelo and his chemistry degree. For once, the dwarf is useful. Except that now we've all become silver surfers, which is kind of intimidating if you look at it in a certain way.

But a little bit of weirdness is a cheap price to pay for the ability to approach these fuckers without being burned by their stupid sabers of light.

Gify, we're almost there.

"Gih!" she diligently reports.

Excellent.

Lethal. Efficient. Decisive. These are the qualities we want to instill in our men.

And the moment we come into sight of the monster army besieging our fortress, Gify gives the signal, and the counterattack begins.

You see, I did most of the work last time, or rather, the Gods did, but now, everyone's itching for a chance to prove themselves. And so, our men start pouring out of the fortress like a horde of angry beasts.

There's no advantage to staying inside and hunkering down when we're fully ready to take them on. The beams are now reflecting off our armor and mirror shields while the frag grenades are being intercepted by the mages, so it's time to bloody their noses.

Our opponents are spread all over, surrounding our fortress from all sides, but they're scattered, and they seem less numerous than what we saw during the ambush. There's something new, though: they aren't all mages, and a good number of them are armored in shiny plate armor, so we'll have to plow through them to reach the laser beams.

And there's a group of shiny tin cans staring right at us, as if they were expecting our little flanking maneuver.

"THANT! NOW'S YOUR TIME TO SHINE!" I shout as we run.

The snow cat starts to look around, and with how "open" the architecture is, not to mention all the "extra" from the fourth dimension, he can see quite a lot. Then he starts to slow down, so I stay with him and keep two Companions for bodyguards while everyone else moves on.

The mana consumption of the 4D helmet and necklace feels like there's someone constantly pressing a finger on a wound, and it's so irritating that it's hard to ignore the pain and focus on the battle, so it's best that I stay back. Still, my instant [Gate] and summoning of the wives are too important for me to just stay inside the fortress.

"I can feel the light…" Thant suddenly mumbles, still focused on the waving laser beams as they scorch our… geometrically confusing fortress.

"Grab the light and stop it from burning my men!" I hastily suggest. Mirrors and sunglasses won't protect your eyes from a huge laser pointing at your face, so they aren't impervious just yet.

Then the cat extends his right hand and starts to scowl, showing his nice set of white fangs, but I don't see any changes in the lasers. So he puts more effort into it, and his whole arm starts to shiver, and then the lights start to flicker.

"You're doing it!" I cheer for him.

And a daring smile starts to appear on his (rather cute) furry mug as he angrily grumbles, "This light… IS MINE!"

Then he yanks his arm, and all of the beams turn to us.

Wait! FUCK!

I cast [Earth Wall] and create a shelter as I pull my bodyguards towards me, but I don't feel any heat. So I turn around and notice that the beams are bending and slipping into orbits around Thant, as if they were made of floating water.

"I sincerely hope you don't explode!" I warily shout.

"What?!" he confusedly quacks back.

And I point a claw at the orbiting beams. "You've got a lot of fucking deadly light in your hands. Be careful with it!"

He soberly nods at me and looks up as he searches for a particularly crowded area, and then I get the feeling that he's about to do something dumb.

Before I can say anything, he swings his arm upward, and the light follows his gesture. Then we hear a *boom*, and he raises his eyebrows in surprise.

"I sincerely fucking hope you didn't kill any of my men!" I bark angrily at the reckless cat.

He turns his fearful eyes to me and reassures, "No, no! I didn't see anyone but monsters over there!"

So I grit my teeth and caution him again, "Be more careful next time!"

"I will!" he stiffly agrees and nods repeatedly.

Then I focus on the wives again.

Due to how our bodies are very "thin" in the fourth dimension, a shield wall is actually unviable, so our tactics degrade back into a simple brawl. And to make matters worse, our skill in fighting in 4D isn't significantly better than the monsters'. Thankfully, we can still use Aoi to trample the tin cans, the golems to pound them down, and the three barbarians to crush whatever survives.

But I feel blind without my summons to observe the battle, so I focus on observing things and searching for danger. Then I see it: a tall "titan" in full silver armor decorated with skulls, but the concerning part is that he's T-posing, deep behind the mass of tin cans we're fighting.

Roxanne starts charging a big [Explosion] to disrupt him, and then what looks like long silver nails appear, hovering over every last one of his joints, and my stomach sinks with a bad feeling. Yunia's [Precognition] activates, and she reflexively jumps back, but it still remains triggered, and my finger hovers over the "summon" button of the wives.

The next second, the nails sink into the silver titan's joints, and a blinding pain makes me scream, but no sound comes out. I quickly recover my awareness and see that the whole battlefield is now absolutely silent.

Everyone is standing still, frozen, and I can't move a muscle except for my eyes and my lungs. Everyone except the golems, Hukarere, Lily, and the tin cans.

As if they were expecting this, the monsters calmly switch to hammers and daggers to get through our heavy armor.

NO! NOT. ONE. MORE. DEATH!

I desperately try to press all the buttons for spells inside my mind, but nothing happens.

"It's like someone's used [Chain Life] on our entire souls!" Yunia exclaims through [Bind].

"It's also like [Martyrism]!" Roxanne follows up, but she knows almost nothing about that esoteric magic school.

That's right, [Bind] still works! So I take over Jarn and summon her extra arms, then turn the tin cans into percussion instruments while Alissa and Roxanne take over Ted and Suzy, respectively. Hukarere starts desperately swinging her halberd around to keep the monsters away, but she's just one against many…

And Lily turns into a berserker.

"LILY! THE ONE WITH THE BLOODY NAILS! BEHIND THE ARMY!" I use Jarn's voice to shout at her, but as if they were expecting this, the monsters start to swarm the angry loli.

"YOU FUCKING CUNTS!" she roars in rage, reverting back to her crude and toxic nature.

"YOUR HIGHNESSES!" Oritiki's voice reaches our ears, and I'd sigh in relief if I could.

She arrives with the rest of the Celestial Horns in a flurry of white feathers, their armor shining with a fearless light and their glaives falling upon necks like guillotines. But while they keep the tin cans back, there are still too few Horns to win this battle.

"GET THE ONE WITH THE BLOODY NAILS!" Jarn shouts again.

Oritiki and Paraaone turn around, then immediately spot the still T-posing titan, the nails now completely red as blood streams down from its joints. They flap their wings and shoot toward it, but the monster points a palm at them, and a sudden explosion sends them flying with so much force that they'd be dead if they weren't already.

But this also clears a path to him.

"THAT ONE?!" Lily shouts and points forward with her Artifact hammer.

"THAT ONE!" the three golems shout back in unison.

"OOO-KAAAY!" she boldly roars as she shoots towards him.

The nailed bastard turns its palm towards her and creates another explosion, but when the dust settles, she's still standing, though her armor now has a coating of shrapnel. Then she continues charging forward.

Another explosion, and the coating thickens, but she remains standing. Then a third, and she starts to look like a porcupine, but not a single drop of blood appears on her armor.

Then she finally reaches him, and her hammer hits his shoulder like a truck, bringing him down and crushing him into a mess of metal and blood.

The paralysis instantly wears off, and the battle resumes.

But a swarm of gray spheres appears and envelops the titans, then immediately flies away, taking the monster army with them.

Again, they came and went in the blink of an eye, and we barely managed to hurt their numbers. They might even be able to do this all day… so we need a faster, more efficient way of dealing with them.

And I breathe heavily as my bloodthirst makes me aroused.