Chapter 233

Chapter 233, Stamp

The air echoed with each splitting of the earth.

Footsteps, roars, shouts, taunts, flapping of wings –  all sounds emanated from the mass of murderous intent approaching from ahead.

On one side of the wasteland was the Holy Warrior team, led by Giorno. On the other, about 20,000 monsters controlled by a Devil, who stood at the far end of it, surrounded by a jet-black aura.

The Holy City of Regalia was filled with fear and screams of despair.

Amid those voices were the war cries of three particular combatants.

On the left side…

One of the Holy Warriors, Lylia, sent flying the body of the first monster she had attacked, the S-ranked Black Double Dragon.

Thrown high into the sky, the Black Double Dragon lost consciousness almost instantly. Lylia proceeded to attack the other monsters with her sword – not its blade, but its flat surface – beheading the heads of two A-ranked Q-rems.

“KEHAHAHAHA! HELL YEAH! I’M REALLY FEELING IT! DIE, MONSTERS! YOU DON’T BELONG IN THIS WORLD!”

Lylia’s mouth widened into a crescent shape.

Her eyes were bloodshot, and her exposed body parts, be it her arms, shoulders, neck, thighs, and calves, all had bulging muscles and blood vessels. 

Although she was an Elf, she had just gone and turned into something improbable by mortal standards. The arcane energy aura around her turned a deep, dark green.

She was dishing out all available methods of attacks – striking, swinging, piercing, wrestling, dropping, throwing, ripping, smashing, cutting, and even biting. 

Lylia’s beautiful emerald green hair got stained with a rain of blood, and her face is constantly stained with a vermilion frenzy that would make even monsters flinch.

“NEXT! NEXT! NEXT!! DIE DIE DIE DIE!”

The torn earth split farther and farther apart, and the weak monsters… by Lylia’s standards, were thrown into the abyss below.

The voices filling the area were coming from two sources: Lylia’s pleasure of combat, and the monsters’ fear of Lylia.

Once only monsters of rank B or higher could be seen around her, Lylia stopped for a moment. The monsters stopped as well, disturbed by Lylia’s sudden change in action, but once they saw her sheathe her sword, they rushed at her again, grasping this opportunity to attack. 

“I bring down judgment in the name of God. My mind, my skill, my power, my life’s destiny, all embodied in this blade-“

Lylia, face down, quickly muttered something to herself.

Arcane energy gathered at her scabbard, and a single beam of light pierced down through the clouds, shining on Lylia alone.

No trace of power could be sensed from Lylia’s arms. And before anyone knew it, she had already swung it forward.

The monsters in front of Lylia stopped all movement, as if time itself had frozen.

And then-

“-Smiting Flash.”

Following another one of Lylia’s quick mutterings, all the monsters’ bodies liquefied like mud, and were sucked into the dry earth.

The only thing left on the earth was a mesh-like pattern of super-fine slash marks, each no bigger than a strand of hair.

A single attack of hers had returned hundreds of monsters’ lives to Mother Nature.

Lylia’s expression was perfectly peaceful, a complete one-eighty from how she was just moments ago. As she breathed out and straightened her posture, the countless monsters that still remained stopped moving.

Then the next movement came – Lylia’s peaceful face turned into a monstrous grin, and her body released several, overlapping auras in brown and blue.

She had invoked the effects of Fortify Resilience, Fortify Strength, Fortify Mind, Blinding Speed, and Flight.

Now Lylia’s face was flushed with pleasure, and at the same time, the vicinity was filled with the pressure of murderous intent stronger than even her fighting spirit.

One of the A-ranked monsters in front of Lylia, a Werewolf, snapped its teeth as if it had succumbed to fear and backed away. Once it turned its back, its body was on the ground the very next moment.

What had hit the Werewolf was so strong that no trace of the monster’s body was left behind. Looking at where it had landed, turned out it was a giant spear.

Gigantic silhouettes began to creep forward. At the sight of them, Lylia’s eyes sparkled with delight, and her mouth crooked with pure joy.

Five Ogre Kings advanced toward her, and next to them were more than ten Ogre Queens.

“…Hahehe… hehehe… ahihihihahaha!! COME ON! WE’RE JUST GETTING STARTED!”

Lylia pained her face an extra-wide grin.

Then she ran off again, rushing through a rain of countless spears.

“MOOOOOO!!”

The Crimson King Ox, one of the five legendary beasts, rushed ahead and roared, leaving visible sparks of pressure trailing behind it.

The Ox kept its posture lowered and its head facing the ground, plunging its way forward through all the monsters that stood in its way.

The larger monsters got gaping holes punched through their bodies, and the smaller and weaker ones got torn in half, unable to resist the sheer speed.

It destroyed and scattered one monster horde after another, achieving as much carnage as Lylia was.

Monsters that tried to come up behind it were kicked away by its powerful hind legs. While the attack appeared rough, it always would land squarely on the targets’ necks.

“MO… MO… MOOOOO!!”

Its movements and evasions were as excellent as when it had fought Pochi.

…Which meant that it was not perfect, but it worked around that by using the larger monsters’ bodies as shields for its blind spots.

Despite all its power, however, Seki’teigyu still was the Holy Warrior party’s sole vulnerability.

As was the case with Pochi, it was a Heavenly Beast, but they were without the ‘Holy Warrior’ title and the benefits it entailed. In fact, Asley had taken that concern into account when he had decided to work together with Pochi during this battle.

That was also why Giorno had chosen to take the center section of the Devil King’s army, and Lylia the left. With the Seki’teigyu in between the two Holy Warriors, they could rescue it whenever needed.

Another reason was that they had already known how Asley and Pochi would operate on the remaining right section, deeming that they would not need as much help.

Seki’teigyu was not necessarily unaware of all those considerations, either, which was why it could give its all.

From an outside perspective, one would think that it did not need any help at all.

“Hahahaha! The Ox’s got some real attitude! Maybe it should learn a thing or two from Shiro… nah, maybe that’s too much!”

The strongest Holy Warrior, Hero Giorno, looked as carefree as ever as he beheaded a Chaos Lizard, an SS-ranked monster.

Chaos Lizard – jet black eyes, jet black scales. The unwritten rule among adventurers was to run away immediately run away upon seeing one. It was a powerful enemy that ranked high even among Rank SS monsters.

Giorno was powerful enough to defeat such a monster in the blink of an eye. In fact, Asley and Pochi’s first meeting with Giorno was right after his victory over a Kiryu, the strongest SS-ranked monster.

More than a year had passed since then. It was only natural to assume that they had gotten stronger, just as Asley and Pochi had.

Moreover, they had been stationed in the city of Sodom, the front-front lines of fighting against the Devil King’s army. Their leveling rate was undoubtedly one of the highest a fighter could get in the world, even if not as much as Asley and Pochi… only because of their XP-Booster’s Artifacts.

As Asley had previously investigated, Giorno’s technique involved enchanting his blade with condensed arcane energy, giving it the power to pierce right through high-ranked monsters’ bodies.

He had also invoked Fortify Resilience, Fortify Strength, Fortify Mind, Blinding Speed, and Flight, just as Lylia had, in addition to Asley’s All Up buffing spell.

All those power-ups together had given Giorno unparalleled strength, enabling him to slay monsters while being more carefree and calm than usual.

“Hmm, Poer and Shiro sure have gotten stronger. What a surprise! They looked like just some random nobodies when I first met them… never thought I’d be wrong for once!”

Giorno did a flip in the air and swung his sword, shooting shockwaves with his special High-frequency Blade skill.

This special technique of his was no longer in use in Asley’s original era. Not even Charlie the Thousand Morphing Blade knew how to.

In a world without Limit Breakthrough, the limited MP pools meant that very few high-level techniques could be used.

And even if there was enough MP, there was a huge gap in experience between this era, which was infested with countless powerful monsters, and that era, where even the Devil King’s Fetal Stage had yet to begin.

“Also, that Shiro… it feels like her existence itself has changed. I wonder what happened…”

Giorno narrowed his eyes and stared hard at Pochi.

In his golden eyes was Pochi with Asley on her back. She was running both her mouth and with her feet, bolting around, jumping up and down, and generally annoying her Master with her movements’ randomness.

“Hey! Why are we going that way?! What happened to our coordination?! We’ve been fighting together for years!”

“I was only letting you hitch a ride, Master! This is just too much for me to take! Oh, take care of those ones over there, sir!”

“You’re not the only one struggling, you know! I also wanna go home and curl up in the closet right about now! Look, just blast a breath attack that way!”

“KAHHHHHH! You’re not acting like a Holy Warrior at all, you know?! You could learn a thing or two from Giorno, sir! He’s already wiped out a whole lot of them! Oh, and don’t forget about my Tropical Deluxe dish for dinner, sir! Ten servings of them!”

“Hey, I never said I’d make you that much! One serving a day for three days! That’s all you get! Pochi Pad Bomb!”

“Don’t worry about the details, sir! The Emperor’s probably going to throw a party for us! WITH PALACE FOOD! Pochi Pad Stamp!”

“Damn it… that’s all you think about in a WAR?! FOOD?! And what the hell is up with that Pochi Pad Stamp?! You’re just punching them with your paws! Rise, Whirlwind!”

“What else am I supposed to be working towards?! Oh, that? I just borrowed its name from your spell, sir! Air Claw!”

“You could’ve said that you took it from YOUR OWN NAME! Wait, how’d the fight go on so smoothly?! Muscle Punch!”

“Ahahahaha! Following your movements is easy-peasy for the almighty Pochi! Easy! Peasy!”

“You haven’t been focused on the fight at all, dammit!!”

“You’re so noisy, Master!!”

“Tell that to yourself, damned furball!!”

This large-scale battle against the Devil King’s army was set to leave its name in history.

Although the left side was the most violent, filled with collisions and screams, the right side with the fool and his dog ended up being the most lively of all.