Chapter 57
In Shirotsume Town
"No stop, stay back!" A woman screamed in terror as a rotten corpse roughly grabbed her by her hair and began dragging her out of her hiding space and the stench from the rotten corpse made her gag in disgust.
These undead were overrunning the entire town going around capturing the men women and children. The ones who put up some resistance against them were critically injured. The mayor was a distress signal sent to the rune knights and the nearby guild of fairy tail in the near by town of Magnolia but it was obvious that none will show up in time.
The citizens were basically gathered like cattle and placed in kneeling positions in front of a horrid monster.
It was a towering muscular abomination around 18 feet tall black stone like skin covered in cracks that oozed green luminescence, gigantic obsidian like wings that looked like shattered blades of rock. It sat on a large stone chair with a colossal jagged blade seemingly made of crystallized ore dripping green miasma.
Its hollow eyes looked down at the citizens with a predatory look and raised its left hand making some undeads pick up 27 citizens and dragged them in front of the monster. It stretched out its right arm which glowed green and made the 27 be covered in the green glow and made float in the air. They screamed in pain as their eyes also glowed green as they felt body parts were being forcefully ripped out of them.
The white glowing orbs came out of their mouths and floated straight into the monster's mouth who made a satisfactory sound at the test. The 27 fell roughly onto the ground motionless making the other people scream and cry in horror.
The monster analyzed the orbs in curiosity then took in all of them in its mouth and let out a satisfactory grunt at the taste. Its body glowed slightly and flexed its muscles feeling a bit of its strength increase just a bit. Looking back at the townspeople, others began praying to whatever god for a miracle and others just grimly accepted their demise.
But suddenly jets of water pierced through each and everyone of the un-dead minions while missing all the towns citizens.
The monster looked up at how dared to interrupt its meal but was hit with a huge fire blast destroying its makeshift throne and throwing the monster several meters away from the people and smashing through four houses.
The townspeople looked up at the sky and saw what they perceived as a dragon coming down to them.
A few moments earlier
In the sky a few Kilometers away
Ratholas Salem continued to fly fast towards the town with the two women on his back enjoying the ride. was close to the town but stopped a bit far away and thanks to his enhanced eye sight he saw the burning town and the townspeople being gathered by what he thought were the zombies in front of the fusion anomaly.
'Jeez it can summon an undead?' Salem wondered while looking at the big anomaly. From what he knows so far is that it was made from Allant from demon souls and the Scarmiglione from Final Fantasy.
He was familiar with Allant due to the fact he never played demon souls nor watched any gameplay videos on it so he had no idea what he can do, but he was a bit familiar with Scarmiglione and guessed that the whole summoning un-dead soldiers from that side. Though he wondered if its weakness to fire was still valid or did Allant cover that.
"Well that's an interesting site." Morrigan muttered while eyeing the Un-dead minions and the huge anomaly.
"'Interesting' is not the word I would describe for this situation senpai." Marella narrowed her eyes at the fires consuming engulfing the town and turned her attention to the Anomaly and its undead army, but the sight of the twelve bodies lying motionless on the ground. "Salem-san just what sort of surprises do we expect from this thing?"
"Um, besides making zombies, it has been successful in Earth magic from what I know."
"Well then let's quickly take care of the undead and move the battle with the anomaly else where to avoid casualties. Senpai can still use that shadow teleportation spell right? Can you take that thing as far away from the town and to a place with no population?"
Morrigan lazily laid flat on Salem. "I can but…"
"SENPAI!" Marella gave her friend a disapproving glare and made her sit up right.
Morrigan chuckled and placed"Alright it was just a little joke dear learn to lighten up. You're starting to get crows' feet, but yes I can send it far away. You'll have to hold it in place so I can send it to the mountain."
"Great now. Azure Halo." Marella chanted while extending her hands upwards and the moisture in the air began to vibrate, glowing in faint blue light. A massive circular disk of spinning water formed above them and was suspended in the sky. "Tears of the Sea Dragon!"
Hundreds of high-pressure droplets rained downwards like mini spears towards the undead minions piercing all of them multiple times while she was carefully making sure not to hit any person.
"Wow, nice." Salem complimented as he paid extra attention to the technique.
"Junior~ less gawking and more monster hunting~." Morrigan knocked oh his scales.
"I was getting to it." He scoffed and shot a huge blast of fire from his mouth directly striking the anomaly sending it smashing through four houses and quickly flew to the ground and landed with a loud thud.
The town's people flinched at the sight of such a creature but then they saw two very beautiful women jump down from its back and the creature transformed into a white haired dark skinned boy.
The mayor rose when he spotted Marella and sighed in relief and thanked the heavens above that mages had arrived.
"Aquino-sama, thank you for answering our distress call."
"You're the mayor of this town, correct." He nodded at her question. "We're sorry about the late assistance. How many casualties so far."
"Twenty-seven an…" He was interrupted by a loud boom in the direction of the anomaly
"RAAAGHHHH!" The anomaly roared in rage causing the whole town to shake.
"Neermind. EVERYONE GET TO SAFETY!" Marella ordered the town's people to all run away from the battlefield.
"Wow, looks like you really pissed Junior~." Morrigan nudged Salem a bit who simply hummed as he was noticing that not much of a mark was left on the anomaly.
"Looks like we can't afford to waste anymore." Marella took in a deep breath and charged at the fusion anomaly.
"Sea Dragon's Trench Flow!" She chanted and disappeared in a column of water and reappeared behind the monster. "Sea Dragon's Abyssal Grasp!" Marella created multiple water tendrils wrapping around the anomaly holding it down but it began to struggle to get free. "SENPAI ANYTIME NOW!"
"Coming~ coming~." She waved her hand and turned to Salem. "Aright kiddo get ready and your performance better not disappoint me~."
"Meh, you don't have to worry, I'll show you how far I've grown ." Salem cracked his knuckles.
"Actions speak louder than words Junior~." The both of them zoomed to the anomaly and Morrigan began to chant.
"ABYSS OPEN!"
With that the three were engulfed in a shadowy vortex from below and disappeared from the town.
On Mount Hakobe
The shadow of a snow covered tree expanded and the shadow vortex rose from it.
"RAAGHH!!" The anomaly finally broke out of the water binding with a strong gust of wind and the three mages jumped back a safe distance.
"Fuck you Morrigan. Couldn't you choose a warmer place to send us!" Salem complained to his mentor and used his re-quip up a fur jacket.
"Aw my poor baby~. I'm so sorry but Marella told me to teleport this thing as far from the people so our going to have to bear with it~." Morrigan replied in a mocking note.
"Hey don't bring me to this senpai! And I still don't think it's a good idea to leave him to handle this alone." Marella thought it was irresponsible for Morrigan.
"Salem is a lot tougher than your swan, Marella , just let him." Morrigan waved it off and Meralla jaw dropped a bit at the jab but let out a cry of surprise with a blush on her face when the green eyed woman wrapped her arm around her waist. "Alright good luck kiddo~." She brought out her wings and quickly flew off.
Salem looked back at the anomaly who was carefully watching him then reached for its blade quickly unsheathing it with a battle cry resulting in a very strong gust of wind making snow fly everywhere. Salem covered his face and tightened his ground and pointed it at him as if accepting his challenge.
'A little dramatic isn't it?' Salem humorously thought but his eyes widened when it sped in front of him and its sword was already coming down to cut him I half.
Salem barely jumped to the side and avoided the strike, but when the obsidian blade hit the ground large shards of rock were shot out from snowy ground left to right. The attack managed to land a direct hit on Salem knocking him back but he flipped and skidded on all fours.
He looked up again and saw the fusion was already near him and was about to quickly strike at him again but he quickly transformed into owl dodging the strike, flew above its head transforming back to normal but with the head of Glacier wolf head and shot an ice beam to its head freezing it and disorienting it. Salem quickly followed that by turning scale green and shot a huge jet of water to its chest but it clumsily zoomed away slamming on a tree and broke the ice on its face.
On instinct it blocked and water blasted from Salem making it drag across the and through nine trees. When it was over Salem continued by running fast towards his foe and turned his feet into the glacier wolf's making large shards of ice beneath his feet towards the anomaly who didn't move an inch.
With a grunt and mighty swing of its sword the ice attack was completely intercepted. Salem appeared behind it and delivered a strong hit to its leg with his dinosaur tail which it kneel followed with a large blast of water to the side of its head sending smashing on the ground.
"RRAARRGGHH!!"
It sent out a mighty howl unleashed a super sonic attack causing the ground to shake and crack. This attack broke Salem's attack and sent him back while covering his ears. It took the chance to quickly get its sword and swing vertically at Salem who was still recovering from the previous attack was directly at the side followed by a green wave sending flying and crushing to the mountain side making a crater.
"Quite the screamer isn't it?" Morrigan flinched as both her and Marella were covering their ears from the attack.
"Tell me about it, my ear will be ringing for a bit. Are sure still sure Salem--san can handle this alone" Marealla asked but Morrigan didn't answer and just continued to watch the battle.
'FFFUUUCCK!' Salem cursed as he touched his side but if he were to be honest the pain he was feeling in his ears was worse than his arm. His clothes from his jacket and shirt were eroded and there was a purple green on his skin. The strangest thing was that he felt a bit of his energy sapped by him. 'Just like that Arashi gut.' He thought that close combat was not a good idea.
Salem's pointy ears pointed up as he sensed another attack coming so he jumped out of the way of a large erosion wave but noticed that speed was a little off, like he was slower. More waves of erosion followed so he went into his sparrow form but in a small size dodging all the attacks. He made a maneuver higher in the sky and went into his demi-rathalos form and shot multiple fire blasts at it.
"Hellzone." He snapped his fingers as the fireballs which missed all came crushing down on it.
It tried parrying them but the majority managed to land direct hits. Finally when it was done in a stream of lightning Salem in his new Zeraro form landed a strong chop on the side of its face lightly cracking the spot sending him dragged back some meters.
He was hopping in a boxing stance with electricity surging on his fists and slammed them together making another surge and disappeared and began appearing like a yellow blur. But he underestimated how fast this form was so he missed his target and stopped in drag, tripped and rolled on the ground but still stopped on his feet.
"Oh man that wa…" He stopped talking as he dodged another multiple erosion waves.
Salem noticed that some were changing direction and he recognized the tactic the anomaly was using so he went into his Darkrai form when he felt it zoom behind ready to slice him in half he dived into the shadows.
Morrigan's eyes widened at what he just did and was ready to go into the shadow after him but sensed he didn't dive in too deep so and was close by which was alright for now.
Salem had come from behind its shadow and hit it with a large point blank sending him in the air and followed by switching back to the Zeraro with a glow of Ethernano.
"Close Combat!" He unleashed an onslaught of combos on the anomalies body causing dents to appear all around it and some green ooze to spill out of its body.
"W-What i-in the…" Salem felt his body get weaker when he was done with his attack and took a bit of a breather. He remembered that close combat was a move which decreased a Pokemon defense so he guessed this is what it felt like.
But spikes of earth rose from the ground directly hitting Salem and it hurt worse than last time and followed by an erosion wave sending him skidding on the ground. It zoomed in front of him ready to strike him down but Salem turned clotted his body in electricity avoiding the attack and bounced all around while getting good hits in with his Plasma fist.
The Obsidian knight zoomed away gaining some distance and Salem stopped a few feet away from it and looked at it a bit curiously. It rushed at him again but Salem bolted away again a good distance away and stopped by a tree noticing it wasn't following him and just stood there waiting for him to make a move.
'Oh I see it can only move like that in short bursts but let's try something else." He began doing the Goku stretches and switching into his demi-kistune form. "Here I come~." He winked and fired fast shots with blue fire from each of his tails towards his opponent.
The anomaly briefly zoomed away from two of them and used its sword to intercept three others. Its sword glowed green clotted with erosion magic then swung behind it landing a direct hit on Kistune-Salem whose eyes were wide as his clothes and skin got eroded and unleashed a large wave sending Salem to a tip of the mountain side destroying it.
It let out a grunt but in the ground below a huge blue fire and lightning column of wide diameter engulfing it making it roar in pain and after the attack was done it knelled out the ground with it's body shaking as it began to crack but it was then trapped in a large water dome.
Sounds of intense electricity began to be heard in the battle field as Salem was now in his full Zingore form with lightning violently crackling all over his body with his paw raised in the air.
"Resounding through the air, the roar of thunder, plunge from the heavens and reap destruction! RAGING BOLT!!"
The huge lightning bolt descended down towards the fusion and anomaly causing a huge explosion with a huge dust cloud and a good part of the mountain range to shake as the aftermath.
"Well that was a little overboard, maybe restraint should be the lesson you should consider teaching him." Marella had a deadpanned look at all the destruction.
"Hmm it's still alive huh impressive." Salem transformed into his demi-owl form and took to the skies to look down at the large crater and looked at the kneeling but there were cracks all over its body and green ooze spilling from it missing one of its arms. "You're a really tough guy."
Its eyes glowed green as it let out another sonic howl and there was a lot more anger in this howl but Salem dodged this one though still flinched as his owl ears added to his enhanced hearing.
The anomaly stretched its remaining arm making its blade come to his and a green aura surrounded it and the ground began to shake and undead 40 Vulcan crawled come out of the ground but beneath it wasn't done there as a huge undead dragon also spawned from the ground as well and took the skies and let out a roar. They all stood behind the anomaly which placed its sword in the ground and stood firm.
"I-Is this thing aura farming on me right now?" Salem's jaw dropped at the sight which he admitted was pretty cool so he took his phone and took a picture.
"Senpai."Marella gritted her teeth in frustration.
"Shssh relax love and let him do his thing." Morrigan shushed the red headed dragon. 'What are you going to do now, my little changeling?'
The dragon blasted fire at him but Salem stretched out his hand making the Teostra mouth appear on it and began sucking in the fire. After it was done he gagged at the taste but at least he got a bit of a refill. The anomaly let out a roar and began running to Salem with its army following their master.
Salem looked at the army in front of him and looked around the snowy area.
"Animal Soul: Glacier Wolf!" Salem the transformations full form. "Here I call it ice and snow. Blizzard Veil!" The environment went into a full blown villain covering the whole mountain side blinding the army.
The un-dead army all moved around looking for their target and despite being undead they still had their feature and their type of vulcan being adapted to these types of cod environments but they couldn't really see properly or sniff up their target.
Salem needed to finish the army fast as it's taking a good amount of magic to keep the spell up so he brought up the new blade he got from the Orochi's corpse clotting it in and Whispers gun pumping it with a lot of magic. He took a deep breath and transformed into the were--cheetah.
"Gotta go fast."
In a burst of mach speeds he disappeared from his spot then went around the area cutting the Vulcan's heads off one by one and they never knew what was coming as well as destroying their heads with the gun. But he also had to dodge large fireballs from the undead dragon and erosion waves from the fusion anomaly. They still didn't know where he was so they were just random attacks which also hit the undead Vulcans.
The fusion grew impatient so it began to focus its attention on its blade and slammed it to the ground causing the entire mountain side to be covered in rock spikes jetting from the ground. It looked up and saw Salem in the air with his Teostra wings giving it the middle finger along with blowing raspberries and laughing at it.
The anomaly had reached its boiling point and let out a frustrated yell and commanded the dragon to it and jumped on it then they took to the skies after Salem.
They began chasing Salem through the skies as he dodged every long ranged attack from the both of them. He used his wings to send out embers from his wings to agitate it more, and continued to lead them with the chase and when they got to a certain area flaming blue shackles from four sides wrapped around the anomaly and the undead dragon courtesy of kitsune clones of Salem.
Salem had already to the sky though and smirked excitedly as he eyed the flying dragon. Sure it was undead and was not as strong as when it was alive but a dragon was a dragon.
"Lets go wild!"He transformed into his Demi-Teostra form making Marella's eyes widen. "Fire Dragon's Secret art: Cauterizing Nova!" He gathered a large amount of fire and explosion magic into a ball and threw it down to the two and was getting bigger and bigger engulfing them.
He heard the anomaly let out a loud howl scream as it consumed by the attack and once it hit the ground a large dome of fire which destroyed the mountain side and completely melted all the ice and snow around.
Salem landed at the completely broken obsidian body of the anomaly but twelve glowing orbs shot out from its body and went back to the bodies they were stolen from. "Huh neat." He hummed and brought out his phone and the anomaly began to turn purple and he sent it to Morpheus. "So Morrigan what did you think?" He turned to his teacher who flew down to the crater while holding the sea dragon slayer.
"Well hum well my dear boy to start, first you were off guard in the beginning of the fight which was a rookie mistake, second your recovery time is still terrible, after you were hit with that sonic attack and were taken out of the fight and if that thing were stronger it would have killed you. Finally remember not to use a form you're not familiar with in a fight otherwise it might cost you like what happened with that lightning feline thing and the two of us have to have a talk about that new little shadow creature of yours. So I'll give you a 67 for your performance. " Morrigan finished her assessment.
"Geez only 67." Salem's pointy ears dropped a bit flash backs of his mom yelling and hitting at him for getting anything below.
Morrigan sighed and patted his head. "Oh don't give me that sad puppy face I said I'll be training you seriously didn't I. But your ability to think fast on your feet and step up openings was impressive so I'll give you a point on that. So I'll up it to 70."
"Here Salem-san let me heal you." Marella began to use her water magic to heal his injuries. "You were very impressive out there and like Morrigan said your ability to adapt in the battle was very impressive. You were also fluidly creative with your transformations. Very few take-over mages can shift between so many forms without losing coherence. If it were up to me I'll give you an 85 especially with that dragon form." She wink.
"Thanks a lot." His wolf tail came out and it wagged a bit.
"Excuse me don't smother Marella and I'm supposed to be the mentor here to get your own student." Morrigan brought Salem's head into her chest while playfully shooing Marella away.
"Get off me." He tried to move away but her grip was too strong.
"Sorry I didn't mean to overstep my boulders." Marella chuckled while looking at the two and was starting to doubt that they weren't related. "But if I have to nitpick a bit the amount of collateral damage around the mountain range was unnecessary." She pointed at all the destruction caused by the mountain.
"Eish. My bad." The white-haired mage sheepishly.
"Well don't worry about it, let's go back to the town. Senpai do you mind?" The two shapeshifters brought out their wings and flew off. "Ahem!"
"Just kidding love~." Morrigan came back and picked her up then flew off again.
Back at Shirotsume town
After flew back to the town Marella wanted to go around just for a quick check up.
"Well everything looks fine and I heard the people who got their souls stolen have woken up." Marella sighed in relief.
"So love is the mayor going to pay us a reward money for this~." asked Morrigan while leaning on the hood of her car while Salem was in his cat form just laying on the roof listening to music as his special headphones could adjust size to whatever form he is in but he opened one eye at the mention of reward money but Marella.
Marella shook her head but still smiled. "Honestly, money is the only thing you think about."
Morrigan just winked "You've known me for a long time now dear you should know. Plus a woman has to get food on her table somehow~."
"Well sorry to disappoint you but there's no reward for both of this time. But I'm sure that the satisfaction of you saving the town should be enough."
"Hmm how boring~." Morrigan took out and began smoking a cigarette.
Salem couldn't help but ask. "Shouldn't the rune knights be here by now?"
Marella sighed a bit frustrated. "Those people have a special talent for arriving when the situation has already happened or has been taken care of so I'll give them ten more minutes or so."
"So I'm guessing you're staying for a bit."
"Yeah a couple people got really hurt so I need to help heal them up."
"Alright since that's what we might as well go off." Morrigan got into the car's driver's seat and Salem got into the passenger seat.
"Bye you two. Don't try not to get into too much trouble."
"BYEII~." The two dark skinned green eyed duo winked and Morrigan drove away.
Marella waved and began walking deeper into the town but sensed four magic signatures coming towards the town she drove to their direction and saw a group consisting of three males and a female.
The first was a man in his 30s brown hair in a pompadour style and smoking a cigarette.
The next was a young man around the age of 17/18 with beige hair kept in a bowl cut with two large bangs framing on the sides of his face.
Thirdly was a young woman around 18/19 with straight, pale lavender hair set in a bowl cut style, with the fringe covering the left part of her forehead, and the right side exposed.
Finally was a slime young man about 18/19 with orange hair covered with a high fur-trimmed hat.
Her sudden appearance made the mages jump in surprise but their eyes completely went wide when they got a good look at her.
"E-Erza." The girl muttered causing Marella to raise an eyebrow.
She was aware that her and the deceased Titania shared a similar hair colour but she was sure that was the only similarity they shared.
"Sorry I'm not her but I take it your fairy tail mages?"
The oldest of the group stepped forward. "'Cough' Y-Yes ma'am my name is Wakabe Mine and this is Laki Olietta, Jet and Max Alors. We are here regarding the distress signal."
'Well at least they were faster than the rune knights.' Marella thought to herself.
Author note:
Alright guys hope you all enjoyed the chapter and don't be afraid to leave a comment on your thoughts on the chapter and leave a review of the over all story.