Chapter 20 - 20

It was a shock for Soma. He was inside his workshop and had just finished around 30% of the process needed to turn his hair into weapons of efficient genocide, when he felt an alert from one of his mystic codes. It had been weeks since he had given that bracelet mystic code to Aya in case of emergency or she asked for help and was never once called, but out of nowhere, there was a distress signal.

That mystic code could warn him in case she asked for help, which means he would likely still have some time, but the distress signal means her body is undergoing a lot of stress and is possibly close to death or in a deadly scenario. ​​

Stopping the body-altering process with haste he rushed out of his workshop, not even getting the time to put on a shirt or taking all the mystic codes he had prepared for a fight, he only took his sword and the rings he already had on hand. It took him around 45 seconds to reach Aya's home where the signal was coming from and he found the front door frozen and broken with Aya right in front of it with her mother bleeding out on the floor with a big ass ice spear in her shoulder and clearly having opened some arterie it shouldn't.

Overall, not the worst outcome by far. He was even amused that he got the signal that she was asking for help just as he arrived and heard her asking for help, but not because she herself was hurt or in a life or death situation, but to help her mother.

She was too kind, and he reinforced the thought that he would protect her. Kindness like that ought to be protected, he knew that much.

He quickly moved and ensured that Momoko, Aya's mother, would survive. Taking a deep breath of relief that he managed to make sure Aya and her mother would be alright, he froze for a fraction of a second as a scent hit him like a truck.

Devils. There must be more than 30 devils all across the town throwing their weight around and this was far too volatile a situation. The town was in serious danger and Soma would have to act.

How could he possibly be worthy of one day being a hero if he hides in this sort of situation?

Fuck that thought. A hero is born when capacity and situation coincides, and he has the capacity to help right now.

"Aya, I need you to do me a favour and climb on." Soma said as he crouched in front of her and showed her his back.

"W-Why?" She questioned, her face slightly flushed since piggy back riding someone was kind of an old childhood dream of hers and doing it now seemed weird and she was all confused.

"We need to get to my house quickly, it will be safer there." He promised and Aya decided to trust him.

No, she already almost blindly trusted him at this point, she was like someone dying of thirst who suddenly found an oasis. She now had someone she could rely on and trust after not being able to do neither for almost as long as she could remember.

Climbing on Soma's back he directed her to hold on tight, she looked like a koala as she held onto him. Reinforcing his entire body to the limit as blue lines of his magic circuits could be seen as he dashed forward, his speed now that his bones and body were stronger was such that it could completely overshadow Kiba's own speed and in a matter of seconds he was already inside his house.

As he stepped inside he yelled.

"Mittelt, Rintaro, get the fuck down here right now. We have stuff to do!"

Aya's ears started ringing after he yelled as he had no time to waste on putting her down before yelling. Moving fast he went to his own workshop and put both of the girls there.

As Aya got off his back he turned to her and spoke.

"Aya, I will try and explain everything I know about what is going on to you when this situation is resolved, but for now I want you to stay here. You have to stay here until I come back, do not touch anything and just rest for a bit." He spoke and then thought for a moment before just nodding to himself, he could not wait around and had things to do so he placed his finger on her mother's forehead and put her into a deep sleep to make sure she doesn't wake up and cause any issues before he comes back before leaving. He left Aya awake though since it would be better she stay awake in case anything were to happen since she could easily communicate with him if that happens.

Moving with all his speed he put on all his equipment to prepare for the fight. A jacket modified with primaveral runes on the outside to deflect damage, heat, poison, and resistant tearing as much as possible while on the inside there were layers of the bible pages all blessed with strong holy water and prayers. He had gone through the process of turning it into a pseudo Holy Shroud using a similar way to the one he learned from Saint Martha and David so the anti-demonic and evil properties of this jacket should protect him well enough. He also put on the rings that had the collected magic energy he had managed to store, shoes with runes that allow him to move faster with the help of wind runes, an Azoth Sword to increase the efficiency of his magecraft, a set of daggers with holy energy he forged using silver and gold while also blessing its process with holy water, and finally, he also took the weapons and the communication mystic codes he prepared for his two subordinates.

Moving to the front door he found both Mittelt and Rintaro there.

"What is it, boss man?" Rintaro questioned, he was just watching some nice big titties girl on youtube jumping and doing squats and did not like being interrupted.

"The town is under attack by an unknown number of devils, possibly strays. Their actions suggest a hierarchy and some sort of bigger plan, and we will stop whatever the fuck is going on. I want you both to take these, I will be directing you two to where you must fight by using these communication necklaces that will let us talk without any issues. I have also prepared some weapons for you both. Rintaro, this gun and sword are based on the ones you used before but improved considerably, they were reinforced by me and they should work much better than before. Mittelt, as you like using light spears I made this holy spear, it can concentrate and release light so I believe it should increase your combat efficiency by a decent margin. Also, here, use the Twilight Healing for now just in case you need to heal yourself or Rintaro out there."

The two looked slightly stunned but Soma had no time to waste going into more details.

"Move, move, move! The city's gonna burn and you two are just standing there? MOVE!" Pulling the two along they got to the streets and his subordinates looked around before Mittelt questioned.

"Soma, are you coming with us?" she was actually hoping he was. She hasn't seen him fight but she was quite sure having him around would make things safer.

"No, I will be more helpful from a vantage point to allow cover fire and coordination." He spoke as he took out his modified Starling Bow from inside himself. After the runes he put on the bow it now looked different, more aerodynamic and sharp, for lack of better description.

Not waiting to hear what the two had to say he accelerated, with the rings he now had he could be a bit more wasteful with his energy and used Mana Burst to move faster to reach the tallest building in the city. With his speed he got there within five minutes, not wanting to waste his time he used one of the rings he had on hand, it was a Mystic Code which slightly mimics the effect of presence concealment, and will make it hard to notice him while not attacking anyone. With that in effect he did not have to bother with stairs and directly scaled the building by running up the side while using wind magecraft to force an upward stream of air to appear to help push him higher till he got to the top of the building and was able to overlook the town.

Reinforcing his eyes and with his trained eyesight he could see in detail what was happening all over town from his vantage point, including the combat between Ravel and Mami. He cursed himself for not giving them emergency contact items, and decided to intervene when he saw that Mami apparently had a Sacred Gear that was creating way too many guns and would likely destroy a big portion of the town if not stopped.

Pulling the bowstring taut he aimed and was ready to shoot, it would pierce straight through the girl's head and likely blast her upper torso into a few thousand pieces, but Mami suddenly froze and fell down. Kiyoharu was standing there, he noted, another thing he would have to look into, but he quickly looked at the rest of the town. If Ravel and Kiyoharu started trying to blow up and damage something he would intervene, but for now he would give the two the benefit of the doubt by not giving the two a one-way ticket to the afterlife. As long as they didn't do anything evidently dangerous he could wait until after all this fiasco to find out exactly what they were hiding from him.

Besides, Soma still had plenty of targets to take care of, and he would do so without hesitation. Saving people, hunting monsters, the hero's business.

///---///

In the industrial district, something weird was going on.

The Sitri, Gremory, and Phenex Peerages were spread out in groups of twos and threes to combat the multiple stray devils that were spread across the town, there were far too many and all of them were in a berserk-like state. If they were not dealt fast it would be a huge disaster but arrows of light kept appearing out of seemingly nowhere.

Whenever one Peerage member looked like they would be in a pinch an arrow would come way too fast for them to react and the attacking Stray would have its head or parts of its body blown to smithereens.

This would be a good thing, but the issue was that the Peerage members did not know the person that was providing them support. It was especially unnerving since the arrows flew way too fast and had clear light and holy properties in them, being naturally deadly to all devils.

Sona cursed as she ducked under the slashing strike of a stray that looked like a mix of human and mantis, firing a blast of water at the enemy with enough force to send it flying upwards. Sending it close to Ruruko released a magic blast of lighting that hit the water-soaked mantis stray, frying it in mid-air.

Not waiting for a moment Sona opened a communication line and spoke.

"Reya, did you find the source of the arrows?"

"Yes, Kaichou." The Bishop of Sona, Reya, said without hesitation. She was a descendant of a long line of magic users and knew a lot about different types of magic, detection magic being one of them. "The source is around three kilometers away at the top of that new skyscraper. I can't see the attacker due to the distance but there is no doubt it is coming from there."

Sona cursed, this was probably even WORSE than the strays in her opinion. A sniper that can attack from such a distance with a yet unknown affiliation, for all Sona knew they could simply be waiting for them to deal with the strays before striking at them and she did not like the chances of how many of them would die before even getting to this person, and that is if they didn't teleport or just run away.

With profound irritation, she told Reya to continue looking into the location of the other strays and expose their precise locations to everyone as a command tower. With that settled, Sona used her communication magic to get in contact with someone else.

"Hey, bratty sister, what ya want? You need me to babysit you taking care of the riff-raff?" Dimaria, Serafal's Rook that was posted in town by her sister in case of emergency, questioned.

Dimaria was completely uninterested in joining the combat going on, thinking that this was a good chance of making Sona experience a glimpse of what a battlefield is like and how chaotic it can get so she would grow more experienced. Dimaria was a soldier from the time of the Great War, rising in ranks from battle after battle and she lived and breathed war at the time. The peace of nowadays was the epitome of boredom for her, but she would not 'rock the boat' so to say, instead, she would rather see their race prosper, but never forgetting about war and to be prepared for the inevitable.

"Dimaria, we are having an issue. A person of unknown motives is on top of the skyscraper in the middle of town. They are sniping the strays one after another but we do not yet know if they will come after us next seeing as we know nothing about this person and they are using light arrows." Sona explained quickly.

Dimaria raised a brow before questioning.

"And you want me to go take care of it then?"

"Yes, capture this person if possible, do not kill unless necessary since we still have to find out what this third party wants and what is going on." Sona said and Dimaria showed a sharp smile like a predator.

"My pleasure." She said and dismissed the communication with Sona who bristled slightly at the dismissal. She was not used to people without proper decorum or who acted as thugs when interacting with her. It was part of the reason Soma got under her skin.

With that dealt with she continued moving to the next target. There were still many strays she had no intention of letting anything happen to this town, it was her responsibility after all.

///---///

Connla was nervous, things were not going according to plan at all.

The plan was simple, he was to cause chaos before running away using his shadows, he should only worry about that, letting the hypnotized stray devils take the brunt of the attack of the devil peerages. They had an advantage in numbers of at two to one, so why are things like this now?

Connla was loving the first ten to twenty minutes of the fighting, he used his shadows to intercept the explosions sent by the Bomb Queen, Yubelluna, and redirect them at the other devils of town. The ability to make these devils hurt one another, to not know how to react and fight as their attacks are redirected and causing friendly fire, this ability was far too fun.

It made Connla feel powerful, feel like he really was a chosen one that deserves to be a descendant of a hero much like the supreme leader and existence that is Cao Cao.

Things were going great... until they weren't.

Light arrows started coming down on the strays all around and Connla had to run away using his gear to avoid becoming a smudge on the wall.

He had already jumped nine times to different locations and not even ten seconds after teleporting and his shadow constructs were being shot at again. It was infuriating, and the looming presence of death looming over him was terrifying.

It made Connla's heart beat erratically, it felt like his heart would explode at any moment now, it was terrifying to be confronted with his own mortality and more terrifying than even the first time he met his idol and leader Cao Cao.

Hyperventilating Connla crouched behind a building and looked to the side as he saw a stray that looked like a pink ogre appearing on the street. Demolishing a building as it passed it, standing at four meters tall and being clearly extremely tough, Connla could only stare dispassionately as this giant that could give even him some trouble have its brains explode as another damn arrow of light flew at it with such a speed that it was barely more than a blur.

"The hell is going on? No one said anything about this! No, I want to go home. I don't wanna die, I don't wanna die, I don't wanna die." Connla said as he hugged himself in the fetal position, thinking every second could be his last, as a communication circle appeared near his ears.

"Connla, what is going on? The strays are dropping way too fast and we only managed to capture 6 of the users, if this goes on we won't be able to complete the mission." Georg questioned. He was currently inside his own dimension while observing the situation using his gear, but he was focusing more on the devils in order to gather more information about them as they are high profile targets, so he had missed most of the light arrows situation going on now.

"T-There is another party we didn't know about. They keep shooting these light arrows and it kills everyone it hits." Connla said and Georg snorted.

"Then just go and kill the one shooting! We can't keep losing our pawns this quickly."

"I would go there if I could, but they are three kilometers away according to the Starlings and I can't jump to that distance and if I try to approach thoughtlessly I will be killed!" Connla said.

"Tch, that is why I told Cao Cao to mind control all the pawns." Georg grumbled under his breath in a way that Connla heard but refused to comprehend, refusing the mere notion that he was just a pawn like all the strays being butchered around him. "Anyway, I will teleport you to that building where this sniper is so you go ahead and eliminate whoever it is before they ruin everything!"

Connla heard this and his eyes that were terrified now shined with malice, his mind turned from fear of death to a desire to kill the one who made him feel so pathetic. If this person was an archer that focused so much on fighting from a distance then they should not be as strong in close combat which Connla excels at thanks to his Sacred Gear.

With that, he would certainly be able to deal with this person.

"That works, send me there." Connla said, in his mind already thinking of how he would eviscerate the person who made him feel weak even if for just a moment.

Georg didn't bother with Connla anymore, sending him inside the building in a matter of seconds before returning his attention to his other tasks. He had more to worry about as he just got the message from Jeanne just now that one of the targets managed to run away and was in some sort of secured location according to one of Jeanne's squad members. The whole place was extremely warded, from what Deux said, not something that can be dealt with quickly.

He could have just let that one go, it would take time to capture the little girl anyway and they didn't have forever, but according to Deux who faced her, the target had a gear able to teleport others shot by it.

That could be EXTREMELY useful for the whole faction! With that, they could deal so much easier with enemies in some of their operations by isolating targets or downright capturing them instantly, and that is without counting the escape method it could allow. Georg is the one that usually took care of this sort of thing, but he was just one person and the faction lacked other members able to do this sort of work. He was overworked as it was and was needed for far too many things, someone who could be made to see the light of their righteous cause and incidentally help lessen his workload would be a Godsend.

He already talked with Jeanne to let this girl be last and focus on capturing the others and when the others were captured he would go personally to take the girl and crack the wards protecting her. He wouldn't let such a useful tool get away from their righteous grasp.

Georg quickly used his Longinus, Dimension Lost, to transport Connla to where he wanted him to go. It only took a few seconds to do so and soon Connla was inside the building three floors below where Soma was still shooting. There were some people around the building but Connla didn't care about their inconsequential existence and simply moved forward, jumping from shadow to shadow until he was in front of the door leading to the roof.

Connla looked through the small opening of the door and could see Soma calmly shooting arrow after arrow almost mechanically at the distant enemy. Taking a deep breath Connla activated his Sacred Gear.

Shadows surged upwards from his feet and took the form of blades and beasts all advancing at once towards Soma who was still shooting his arrows.

When the attack was close to hitting him Soma dropped the bow and took out his sword instead.

FLASH

It was an instant. One moment shadows all were coming at once towards Soma, and the next all of them were cut into tiny pieces as Soma looked dispassionately in the direction where the shadows came from. A sword in hand gleaming in the moonlight.

"Shit!" Connla cursed, already starting to sink into the shadows. Unfortunately for the hero descendant, Soma had learned how to deal with stupid assassins who failed in their attempts.

With a mana burst, he rushed at Connla. Seeing as the boy already had his shins inside the shadow Soma did not hesitate, his holy blade flashed forward cutting off the parts already inside the shadow and pulling Connla away from the shadow.

Connla screamed in pain, but Soma had no time to deal with this little failure's screams of pain, instead, he ran back to the edge of the building and dropped Connla there.

"Listen, maggot. You came after my life and clearly wanted to kill me, you were also helping those stray devils cause damage to town so your fate is already sealed. What you can do is tell me everything you know about what is going on, or I can carve you open piece by piece in between shooting all your little friends down there and afterward remove just your head, leave it in a tank of water, and put your soul inside said head before I use the tank as my toilet for the foreseeable future. What is gonna be, asshole?" As Soma spoke he flashed a hint of his bloodlust at Connla, enough to only make him terrified, but this useless sack of shit passed out.

Not wanting to wait until this shit wakes up Soma looks at the prone form on the floor and kicks it right in the balls. The pain forces Connla to wake up with a silent scream of agony, eyes watering as he feels like his balls were crushed.

Soma did not give a fuck. With a flick of his fingers, he projected a simple carving knife and put it right above Connla's eye.

"We will now play a fun game. There are many questions I want an answer to, and you will tell me all of them. Whenever I ask you something you will tell me, if you hesitate, lie, or ramble I will make you suffer. Every time you fail, you will pay for it." Soma said.

"A-And if I tell you everything, will you let me go?" Connla said, terror in his voice as the knife was so close to his eye that he could feel it pressing on it.

"No, you will die regardless." Soma said.

"Then I will tell you nothing. I will not betray my companions." Connla said his fear of death was great but with it being inevitable, he decided to not betray his idol/messiah.

"You say that, but making you speak won't even be hard." Soma said as he stood back up and pressed a foot at Connla's head. Connla wanted to scream insults back at him but it was then that Soma started the torture.

In the Throne, there were few people that Soma would admit to fear extensively. One such person was Prelati, one of the ones he spent the most time with, learning from him about illusions and the Outer Gods, and while Soma was not yet confident in making any pact with those beings in exchange for power, illusion magecraft was another matter.

He was not as proficient as Prelati who could create illusions so powerful as to affect several heroic spirits at once from a distance and even ensnare them into it to the point that injuries from the illusions become real. But, Soma excelled in one specific type of illusion he used with the teachings of the crazy psycho loli queen, We Zentian.

What Soma was using on Connla right now, is torture illusion.

This would make anyone go insane quite easily, he could extend the perception of time of anyone affected by it by a hundred times making every second feel like it takes a hundred seconds, and, inside the illusion, all types of tortures would be enforced one after another. It was unending torture that would only grow worse as Soma would take it to just the limit of what Connla could survive and keep it there, never allowing him to grow used to the pain and always changing it just enough to feel 'fresh'.

It was a twisted thing that was only to be used against the worst enemies and especially during interrogation, but it was effective for sure.

Soma held Connla inside the illusion for around ten seconds before releasing it, for Connla this was over 15 minutes of concentrated and brutal torture that was enough to make him prefer death over it after the first minute in that torture.

"So, ready to start answering?"

"F-Fuck yo-"

And right back to the torture illusion he went. Soma just decided to keep Connla there for another 30 seconds while he started to pick targets in the distance and shoot them using his arrows. He had some time still and even if he couldn't stop whatever plan was going on properly, if he could make sure his family and friends were safe then he wouldn't cry over those who die in the conflict.

He was doing what he could, but even if he wanted to be a hero he knew he wasn't a miracle worker and there was only so much he could realistically do.

Now, will Connla break first or will the rest of the enemies be annihilated first? That was the question really.

Well, meanwhile he could at least take advantage of something, namely that he could see two bow users in the industrial area that were releasing arrows similar to the ones that his Starling bow used to produce, only in different colors. Using his communication mystic code he contacted both of his subordinates, they had new targets to deal with as Soma really wanted those bows and he would like some decent spoils of war from this shit show.