While Others Cultivate, I Use My Multiverse System-Chapter 213: Puppet master
Chapter 213: Puppet master
So this was the danger that this mission was all about. And this danger was condensed to a figure of a relatively young warrior, around his middle twenties, currently clashing with Longinus.
"Can you stand?!" Using the very little window of opportunity, Longinus shouted to me. He was losing ground at a visible rate, unable to cope with the attacks of the swordsman.
"Give me a moment!" For a moment, I was scared. But in the next second, I realized how there was nothing for me to be scared about.
No matter how insanely strong this swordsman was, he was still a human. And the human body was pretty fragile.
I couldn't defeat him with cold weapons. Swords, spears, knives… In face of his obviously supreme blade-skills, I wouldn't even get close enough to him so that I would be able to actually attack him. Even without facing him directly yet, I could see how my head would be looped off in such a scenario.
But I had a huge variety of hot weapons on me. Adding all the Sander stones still in my possession and other tricks I had up my sleeve, this kind of fight…
I shouldn't consider a fight in the first place.
"On my mark, listen to whatever I say!" I shouted to Longinus who was slowly losing his ability to even as much as to ward off the swordsman's attack!
But I didn't prepare a single surprise for that opponent. Rather than that, I was ready to unleash hell on him at any given moment.
Another hit, this time from above his head, landed on Longinus' shield. His knees caved in. Right now, the swordsman would only need mere seconds to finish Longinus off.
"DUCK!" sensing the opportunity, I shouted. My automatic rifle was already prepared and pointed directly at Longinus.
So he tried to follow my order… But already on his knees, with the sword still pressing on his shield, he failed. Rather than ducking, he was simply defeated, with the enemy's sword sneaking underneath his shield and cutting the straps that helped Longinus hold on to the protection.
"Now, you die." The slim man announced, raising his sword once again. Then, our eyes meet. Just as I pressed the trigger of my weapon, which I set to an automatic fire beforehand.
Tratatatata….
The flurry of lead bullets instantly covered the man. In an instant, this pinnacle swordsman found several new holes in his body, out of which blood quickly started seeping. Then, without any more of his dramatic acts, he simply fell to the ground as nothing but a mere corpse.
"Agh!" Longinus shouted in pain. Looking down, I realized that my spray… Didn't fully reach its designed destination.
"Hold on!" Rushing to the man, I dropped on my knees before him. After a quick inspection, I realized that he had quite a lucky encounter with the earth-produced lead.
"Don't worry, you will be fine." Rather than playing around with his wound, I took out my knife before infusing my energy into it. With a mana-enhanced blade, I managed to easily cut the bent part of the armor that was pressing against the man's back.
Just as expected, outside of a pretty huge bruise, the unlucky friendly fire didn't cause any real injury.
"What was that…" Finally managing to wrestle with his own pain, Longinus looked at the corpse of the swordsman.
"An automatic weapon. Think of it as a bow that can shot much further, penetrate almost everything, and shoots several projectiles every breath." Even if there was some kind of spell working in the background that allowed me to communicate freely with the inhabitants of the world I was visiting, it didn't mean that I could convey the meaning of the words that didn't exist in the local culture in the first place.
That's why, rather than explaining the physical reactions causing the bullet to come out of the barrel, rather than explaining the complicated mechanism of reloading and all the other inner-work of the gun, I ended up using the simplest analogies that I could think off.
"I didn't mean that…" Longinus informed me, turning all my explanations pointless in just a second. "I meant him." Standing up with my help, the young mercenary picked his shield once again before looking at the crowd of people that was now torn between rushing all at us and backing down.
"He was a good swordsman. What else there is to it?" Surprised that Longinus still had some qualms about the situation, I looked at him with curiosity.
Because there was no reason for me to be hasty whatsoever. While the two of us was dealing with that swordsman, Teria didn't stop her own part of the work. And from what I could see in the distance, those who got to meet her before she heated up were the only luckers who managed to avoid a lengthy and painful death.
"You seriously didn't notice?!" Longinus shouted, turning his wide-open eyes on me as if I was some kind of monster in human skin.
"What was there," in the middle of my words, a body suddenly fell from the skies. But rather than turning into a pool of blood and flesh, it instantly stood up, taking the exact same position as the man before, "to worry about." I finished my sentence only due to the momentum of my lips.
"So that's one trick of yours." the strange body finally figured out its position, before speaking with the very same voice as the dead swordsman from before. "Note, the ugly one has pretty powerful, distance magic." As soon as the man spoke those words, he rushed forward.
Thankfully, before it could deal any damage to either of us, Longinus split its body into two with a single swing of his massive sword.
"Huh?" Shocked by the ongoing event, I was unable to articulate anything smart. For the very first time since I appeared in this world, I met something that I didn't know how to deal with.
"It's not over." Ignoring the pain that was clearly tearing his mind apart, Longinus took the position.
Only to sidestep and execute a slash to the side the next moment, turning yet another body into nothing more but several pieces of bloodless flesh.
It was then when I finally understood what was going on.
"Those bodies… They are not human. They are puppets!" Shouting to the Longinus at the front, I looked up. Since all the bodies were falling from above, that was where I hoped to find the enemy.
But rather than some magnificent figure capable of producing such skillful minions… I only saw a whole new portion of bodies already falling down!
"ABOVE!" Pushing my body to its limits, I rushed forward before crashing into Lonignus's back. Only my swift reaction saved him from being crushed into a body that only the super-eater of earth could ever obtain.
One by one, those strange mannequins continued to appear, all born in the skies only to crashland into the tough ground below their place of birth.
But that didn't make any sense. Even magic had its own rules. So unless someone was powerful enough to spawn or move this amount of puppets to a place high in the skies, he was bound to hide somewhere there as well!
And truth be told, if that man had enough power to either transport or directly create those puppets at a distance, he could just kill us with a single thought in the first place!
"Longinus, I have a task for you." Watching how the mercenary dealt with nearly half of those puppets before one of them finally managed to get past him and grab the sword from before, I resigned myself to my fate.
"What?!" Desperately defending both me and himself from the onslaught of attacks that ensued as soon as the puppet's hand made contact with the sword, Longinus couldn't spare me any free thought anymore.
"Go find Teria and escape with her. Tell her that I'm going to get a little bit serious now." Pulling out Sander's barrier recurring stone, I swallowed a gulp of saliva that instantly appeared in my mouth.
"Can't you see…" Longinus attempted to protest. But I had my own eyes to see that he was struggling to stop his opponent when he was alone, but when faced with its reincarnation supported by an army of puppets… Even defending turned into an arduous task for the young mercenary.
And in his current position, there was no way he could free himself from the battle to be able to escape!
'Since the owner of those puppets is hiding above and still remain hidden, there is one way to deal with him.' I took into account the time that the recurring stone would need to actually activate properly, pushing its activator down.
In an instant, the heat started oozing out of the stone's surface. And with that, my time was extremely limited.
But I didn't intend to just swallow Longinus in the disaster. If I dared to do something like this, I would have to deal with Hubriel… And I couldn't discount the chance that he was far more powerful than he was giving away!
So rather than just hoping for the best, I pulled the last two carved stones that I still had on myself. Two stones that couldn't change the tide of the battle…
But could save a man who was in a pinch.
I pressed both of their activators at once, before pointing my hand at Longinus.
"Let's meet after the battle. Our job is not over yet!" I shouted at the same time as a powerful gale suddenly erupted from one of the stones before an enormous boulder suddenly rose from below my feet and rushed in the direction I was pointing my hand at.
Forced out of their stable footing with the gale, neither Longinus nor his opponent could do anything when the boulder crashed into them, sending both of them a considerable distance away.
And then, the recurring barrier stone in my head reached its limit, unleashing a spatial disaster into the area.
