NOVEL NEXT Chapter 88: All Hail That Which Is Very Easy To Punch
"Alright, we've established that I can and will punch you in the face if I feel the need to. Now, Twist or whatever your real name is, let me just remind you of the facts here," Mikayla folded her arms and glared. "This entire simulation thing is something my friend set up for me so that I can get the Divine Techniques that I, as a demigod, am
supposed
to have. And the only reason her bosses who run the Ataraxian System permitted this is because there aren't any other living gods or demigods with Teamwork as a domain,"
[IF I DENY YOU MY POWER, I CAN REST ASSUAGED YOU WILL NEVER FIND AN ALTERNATIVE.]
"But that's not true. The point of this simulation thing is that Asika is showing me the memories of the world, of the System. And this is only the first one, she's already digging up others for me. That's what you are, right? A memory,"
[CORRECT.]
"Well, stop me if I'm wrong, but I think that means that you can only interfere with me because you were here, at this point in time," She gestured at the frozen Pierce Blastreyne. "Which means, I could just call Asika and tell her to focus on times I can learn from observing Pierce when you
weren't
around,"
Twist didn't respond for a long moment, and Mikayla grinned. It had been a bunch of educated guesses, but it sounded like she was bang on the money.
[YOU WILL NEVER UNLOCK THE FULL POTENTIAL OF {TEAMWORK} WITHOUT MY ASSISTANCE.]
"And yet if you refuse so unilaterally to offer that assistance, we have lost nothing by disregarding you!" Nocturnus chimed in, and Mikayla nodded her agreement.
"Look, you say I have nothing to offer you? I don't think that's true. The way Asika talked about this vision quest thing she programmed, it's usually illegal for non-faeries to view System logs like this. Right?"
The entity did not respond, but Nocturnus agreed. "Entirely true,"
"I am a historian, and I've had months of access to the libraries in Cloudscraper Academy, the single most prestigious hall of learning on the continent. You'd better believe that the first thing I did was look for records of previous Gods of Teamwork - er, hang on,"
She focused, imbuing the word with the Divinity she knew she possessed. "There
are no
Gods of {TEAMWORK}, not according to the history books. The Rainbow Ouroboros was abandoned by his followers and forgotten. And I'm gonna hazard a wild guess and say you were too. So, he's dead and gone. But you clearly aren't. Your revenge is achieved, so what comes next? Because I reckon I can make the world remember you,"
[YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU ARE OFFERING. YOU CANNOT FULFIL THIS PROMISE.]
"Yeah, maybe I can't," Mikayla pounded the Black Knight's fists together dramatically. "But maybe I
can
. Because, you see, I'm an isekai heroine now. And if there's one thing that twenty years of being a historical fantasy nerd has taught me, it's that
there's nothing an isekai hero can't do!"
Twist regarded her impassively for a moment, consideration in its milky gaze.
[YOU ARE FULL OF SHIT.]
Mikayla started, caught so off-guard that Nocturnus recovered before she did. "You revoke your words, you insolent cur!"
Mikayla laughed. "Well, maybe I am! Maybe I'll try and fail. But you're already just a memory. So what have you got to lose?"
Twist stared at her for a long moment.
[VERY WELL THEN. PROVE YOURSELF. LEARN MY NAME. IF YOU CAN ACHIEVE THAT MUCH, THEN I WILL ACCEPT YOUR SINCERITY.]
Mikayla lowly whistled. "I see. Alright, sure," It wasn't like she'd read
every
book in the library. Twist's true identity had to be in there somewhere.
[AND YOU MAY HAVE THIS TO ENSURE YOU DO NOT DIE IN THE INTERIM.]
". . Have what?"
The world shifted around Mikayla. The landscape she'd destroyed vanished. Pierce blipped out of existence and then reappeared with new surroundings.
Now he was standing in a fairly nondescript yard surrounded by walls of stone brick. He was flanked by two girls. The shorter was on the younger edge of teenage, with green hair, orange eyes and pale skin. She was some kind of beastkin (or something similar), though not of a race Mikayla recognised; four slim, curling horns were emerging from her hair and claws adorned her fingers.
The other woman was a chocolate-brown young adult with electric blue hair. Mikayla almost did a double-take upon seeing her. This was her first time seeing a black person in Raibalie.
"You're sure even trying to use this Technique is safe?" the black woman sounded worried. "You didn't exactly get it from a trustworthy source,"
"Yeah, well, the █████-" A buzzing filled Mikayla's ears as Pierce said what she assumed was a name, preventing her from making out even a single syllable. "- is counting on me to get his revenge. I don't think he would sabotage me,"
"Are we going to?" the horned girl piped up.
Pierce cast her a look that Mikayla couldn't quite peg as either reproachful of sympathetic. "I know you're hurting, Grace, but revenge doesn't solve anything,"
Mikayla's eyes widened and she mentally noted that down. Was this the same Grace that Pierce had been sent to find in the previous vision? This had to be some time further along Pierce's timeline, then.
Grace chewed her lip, looking down at her feet. "If you say so," she mumbled.
"It's called 'When Many Hands Wield One Blade'. You don't have a blade," the older woman reasoned.
"Well, Tyria, if that turns out to be a requirement I'll be counting on you to make me one," Pierce cast her a winning smile.
Mikayla saw her response to that. That was a blush. That was the most obvious blush she'd ever seen. Had Pierce noticed that? He couldn't
not
have, right?
Whoever this girl was, she had a
thing
for the Champion of Teamwork.
"Still, let's at least see what this Divine Technique does by itself!" he cheerily insisted, Faith Points appearing around his hands like a tiny galaxy.
The vision slowed down as the Faith Points flowed into Pierce's flute. The secrets of the universe seemed to unfold before Mikayla's eyes, and she saw the Faith Points become a complicated pattern that etched itself into her memory, tessellating into not so much a shape as a circular rotation of forms that each flowed into the next, constantly transforming in a cycle. It was complicated, more complicated than any ordinary Technique she'd seen by a hundredfold, but the energies seemed to not only know what to do of their own volition, but want to do it. It was as though the Faith Points were fulfilling their intrinsic purpose by becoming the Divine Technique.
The pattern slowed down, settling on rotating between three core forms. At the same time, white conduits of energy snaked out into the chests of Pierce and his two friends, changing to different colours once they'd made contact. Pierce's was a rich orange-gold, Grace emitted a stormy grey, while Tyria projected a vibrant electric blue. Even though she hadn't seen their Techniques in action, Mikayla could sense that these were the colours of their auras.
The three states of the Divine Technique each took on the same colours, and mentally dissecting the spellform that was being burned into her mind told Mikayla that the version associated with Pierce was the centre of the Technique, that the other two existed to empower the main one.
The entire process was so involved and complicated that she was almost disappointed when, for all the buildup, all that happened was a glowing, three-colour blade erupting from the foot joint of the flute.
Tyria's frown summed it up best. ". . All that for a sword?"
"Do you even know how to use a sword?" Grace innocently asked.
"Let's find out," Pierce decided, advancing towards the training dummy that they'd set up and experimentally slashing at it.
There was an eruption of blinding light. The divine blade seemed to cut through the world itself, becoming a pillar of energy that ripped straight through the dummy like tissue paper and carved a gaping hole into the wall. Pierce yelped in shock, aborting the swing halfway through and trying to balance it in his hands. The sword flickered out of existence as soon as it was being held still.
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All three of the people who'd actually been there, and Mikayla too, stared in amazement at the massive gash that had been carved into rear wall of the yard, the chunks of charred wood and stone toppling to the ground, and the massive hole that had been taken out of the training dummy.
A wide grin split Pierce's face. "So. Think that's flashy enough for Hare?"
Before Mikayla could see what his friends thought of the Divine Technique, the projected world froze and began to fade away.
"Lass? Did you see it? Have you got the Technique?" Nocturnus' voice rang in her ears, but everything was going hazy and there wasn't any air in Mikayla's lungs with which to respond.
<=====}—o
Nya's anxious face was the first thing Mikayla saw when she opened her eyes. "How did it go?"
A white-and-gold notification blossomed in her vision. "Pretty good," Mikayla assessed, flicking it into Nya's vision.
[{WHEN MANY HANDS WIELD ONE BLADE} (Basic) (
Divine Technique
): Draw strength from your bonds with your allies to unleash a Sacred Smite. This Technique bypasses all forms of damage resistance or immunity and inflicts True damage. This Technique will only inflict fatal damage if the user wishes it to. Costs 50 Faith Points. Damage scales with quantity and quality of the relationships drawn on.]
Nya lowly whistled. "Intriguing. We must test this out,"
"Hm," Mikayla adjusted her screens, bringing up a readout.
[YOUR CURRENT FAITH POINT TOTAL IS: 3,170.]
"Faith Points are a pretty finite resource with so few people worshipping me, at current it'd take twelve and a half days to regenerate a single use of this Technique . . but you're right, we need to see exactly what this does,"
"Precisely. As much as we can measure something as unquantifiable as the 'quality of the relationships drawn on'," Nya looked disgruntled as she reread the description. "Shall we ask if Keldryn is available?"
"No need. You and me are friends, trying it with just one person supporting should be a pretty low-power and safe version of the Technique," Mikayla guessed.
It wasn't long before they were in one of the spare training areas near the girls' dormitory. "I'm gonna try it at max size. This is a Technique that no one's used since before Armour Cores were invented, we need to make sure it's compatible," Mikayla asserted, looking up at her target; a seventy-foot-tall tree that was covered in scratches and stains, that had been in use as a training dummy for who knew how long and created by the Cloudscraper Druids for specifically that purpose.
"Best of luck," Nya offered and backed up, giving her the space she needed to summon the Black Knight and its Sword, burning her Mana to grow to full size.
"Ah, good, I'm back," Nocturnus' voice filled her ears, and he let out a hearty chuckle. "That was certainly a productive vision,"
"Yeah, interesting day huh?" Mikayla nodded idly. "We're testing out the Divine Technique. Here, take a look," With a thought, she recalled the prompt, displaying it in the corner of her vision for Nocturnus to read.
"Draw strength from your bonds with your allies?" Nocturnus parroted. "Do you suppose that
I
count?"
Mikayla lowly whistled. "Ooooooh. We are
cheating
this,"
'What are you waiting for? Get on with it!" Nya shouted up at her. Mikayla nodded, remembering the spellform that had been burned into her mind, and imagined it wrapping around her Sword.
Something felt different as soon as she even tried to use the Technique. It was similar to when she touched the Blessing of Teamwork, but entirely contained within herself. The colourful not-Mana that she realised now was Faith energy flowed down through her arms - and she realised a little too late that it was the Black Knight's arms, not her own - and into her sword, but it was still part of her. Like the sword had become an extension of herself.
For the first time, Mikayla got a taste of what it felt like to be more than human, to dip her toes into the divine. To reach beyond one's flesh and inflict her will made manifest on the world. It was heady, it made her feel strong, unstoppable, and she let out an involuntary shriek of pure euphoria.
The cyclically shifting pattern snapped into place, and a ribbon of white light extended down and flowed into Nya's chest, changing to purple and siphoning something infinitely ineffable from within Nya's being. Unseen, another one connected Mikayla to her own Core Controller, to the mind within the Black Knight, turning to deep obsidian.
Mikayla's own red united the two colours and wove them together, turning her Sword into a pillar of light. She swung at the seventy-foot-tall tree with a wordless shriek, and the world parted from the force of her blow.
It was entirely reasonable to expect that the tree would have been cut in half by the strike.
Instead, it exploded.
The sheer energy from the slash seemed to suffuse the tree, flowing into it and destroying it from the inside out. Mikayla could sense that she could halt the destruction if she wanted - that she could use this against someone she wanted to fight beside in future and spare their life - but she let the energies rampage, watched the tree's branches spontaneously combust and its roots become colourful flares that split the ground. Its trunk ruptured and shattered into pieces.
A shower of smoking splinters scattered across the Black Knight's armour, and Mikayla let out a harsh breath. "That was epic,"
"Incredible! A finishing move worthy of my apprentice! The monsters shall tremble in fear of your wrath! Now strike a pose!" Nocturnus commanded.
"Still not gonna happen," Mikayla breathed heavily, shaking out her arms to test them. That had been
draining
. Aches and pains raced up and down her arms. Even knowing that it wasn't her real body moving, she buried the tip of her Sword into the ground and leant on it.
"Embrace the pain, lass. Let it remind you of how much stronger you might yet become," Nocturnus boomed.
Mikayla resisted the urge to say something sassy. Nocturnus was speaking from experience, she was sure. The violent old ghost had been Level 112, after all - that was even higher than Dean Wujing, who she knew was considered one of the strongest in Guili.
"You should be proud. Today has been very productive indeed," He chuckled. "I must say, the Nomad certainly gave us an easy time of it with that so-called quest. Only a deaf man could have failed it,"
Mikayla blinked. ". . the what?"
"The Nomad. The god who patronised Pierce Blastreyne and now you. It tasked you with discovering its name, but then Pierce said it quite clearly during the scene it showed you to teach you this Technique. That was either quite brazen or quite foolish of it,"
Mikayla hesitated. ". . My ears were stuffed full of bees when Pierce said that name. He was specifically preventing me from hearing it . . are you for real? He forgot to censor it for you?"
". . Indeed he did," Nocturnus confirmed in a tone of dawning realisation.
Mikayla burst out laughing. Because she couldn't think of any other way to respond to that. It was absurd. It was cheaty. So much for the quest to seek out lost knowledge! . .
Wait, actually, crap.
"We . . we can't go right back in there and tell him that,"
"I agree. He did not seem like the type to be reasonable about accepting the blame for his own mistakes," Nocturnus sounded approving.
"We'll still need to do research. Find a source to cite. But now that we actually have a name to look for, it'll be much easier," Mikayla cackled. "We have got this Demigod thing in the bag,"