Author notes;

So... exciting announcement to make! I'm having a website built. A real one, not just a patreon page. I've felt like Patreon is pretty limiting. So I went and it was hard because its not cheap but I'm trying to basically put up a site where I can show stories. This means I can have a web store there where I'll have ebooks up for sale. That's partly because I don't really trust amazon or anyone else that much. 

BUT more for readers benefit, I want to put up another free story there, similar to KTAW. I still will be doing this story and want to keep it going. So that's one thing good. And I hope to have some other free story there. Plus, one of the benefits for me and for readers is what I can do with a website is being able to have a sample survey system there. For example, I may have a starter story up with say 5 chapters or so and then have another one and then let readers vote there on which one to develop. And then I can even keep doing that in order to gather research data, etc. 

Anyway it sounds fun. And also I'd been worried about how to show more benefit for readers, which this solves issues for. 

The downside is that I don't know how long it will take for the site to be built. So I'll have to wait to update this, but this already started a few days ago. I hope to post more on this. Plus, I feel like people wanted something good also because I hadn't released chapters here as fast as I wanted. But this was partly why because I'd been working on how to move ahead, and making plans. 

Hope this makes you all feel good. :) 

 

 

 

Chapter 177

Ayumi point of view

Weird, why did I do that anyway? I’m suddenly feeling like extreme embarrassment that’s flooding throughout my being. I would have felt even worse but strangely I’m still intensely attracted to Shun even though I don’t know why. Normally I don’t just screw anyone I see. I can’t rationally explain why I crave sex with Shun right now though. In fact, I’d still want to fuck some more if it weren’t for the earthquake and needing a rest.

And…does that mean Shun is my husband now?

My parents were very hardcore extreme conservatives. You absolutely do not pursue flings with parents like that. And if they hear about it, arranged marriage would probably result. I grew up thinking you only have sex with the person you consider your spouse. I’ve always believed that. I never wanted to do anything halfway that was fake.

I’m …how did this happen?

But I feel cravings for him still.

Plus I feel so drawn to him.

But how did that escalate so quickly?! Love at first sight?

Does love at first site exist then? I’d never believed until…well…

I never believed such things until now. Plus I can’t get enough of that. Wow Shun was so good at sex! I find myself with another itch to go again. How do people deal with such feelings? The feeling of wanting to mate is so attractive and strong that it’s hard to resist once you know what it’s like.

So …I hope Shun is OK with a permanent relationship? Oh gosh…what will my parents say? I fucked one of my students too. I will…have to change schools probably if we ever got back to the real world. I’m lucky we’re on a different world come to think of it.

Wait what am I saying? We can’t get back. And even if we did my parents wouldn’t acknowledge me as their daughter looking like something that should be in a young adult ero game huh?

So…I inwardly sigh.

It all comes back to that horrific night when we were all pulled into this world. Everything is completely changed. I’ll be lucky if I can figure out how to survive and adapt to this world. I have to think about how to live from here.

But Shun seemed like he already knew about those things somehow. There was a confidence about him that was scary and yet addictive at the same time.

I have to hope that Shun will take care of me if I’m pregnant.

Err…this weird modified body that he called a demon body, does it even get pregnant?

How could I have fallen so easily on a first date. Momma wouldn’t like that, and it’s good she’s not here.

Why did I have sex with him? I remember very clearly that I had initiated it though, not him. Am I a fallen woman? Is this nymphomania?

Crap…it only takes once for that huh?

A lot of mixed feelings keep flowing through me.

Oh man…and I told myself I’d never do that. I didn’t expect to need birth control or that I’d be in this position did I?

The arena suddenly started to shake. It’s shaking and wobbling like an earthquake. There’s something weird about this place already even before the earthquake started come to think of it.

It woke me from my nap, or I guess I was in that state right before you wake up where your thoughts are just starting to get going. I was sleeping next to Shun on the bed sheet under us laid flat. After we’d had like two hours of intense sex. Or was it three?

“What’s going on?! Shun! HELP!” I cried out.

He shoots straight up at nearly the same time I do.

We both look up. All around us the whole place is shaking. The others look alarmed too, so this isn’t something they normally see I think. But they seem ready to confront whatever is going on still.

Will this place hold together? It won’t collapse will it? The shaking got intense enough that for a few seconds it was hard to even stand up. Then it started to die down.

“It’ll be OK. Ayumi, you’re about to see some really weird stuff but trust me OK. This is something we can handle and not any different than before,” Shun said.

He’s gotten his pants on quite quickly.

Why was his thing so big?! Come to think of it, penus sizes that big shouldn’t be natural. How did he get like that? And why is that thing didn’t split me in half? Somehow it wasn’t painful but was very pleasurable. So size does matter despite what people say? And…isn’t having a boyfriend with a size like that like something to brag about? I remembered other girls in college used to brag about whose boyfriend had the most size. Girls do talk about stuff like to just compare with each other too. Especially if it’s not something they dare ask their mom about.

“Ayumi! Hurry up move it!” Shun said again.

“Oh right, sorry I was distracted,” I said as he beckoned for me to follow him.

“Stay close,” he said.

I feel myself blushing.

I can’t believe it.

I think…Shun is my boyfriend isn’t he?

Even though the situation has changed, why can’t I stop thinking about sex? I still feel pretty wet and would rather go back to more sex but why is I’ve lost control so badly?

Yeah Shun is definitely my….boyfriend?

Wow.

Then he’s using magic again. I’m jealous. It’s obvious he has some weird powers and I guess that’s hard to accept but this world has already thrown my reality for a whirlwind when I found my body to be changed. At first I didn’t believe it but over the course of the last few hours he’s brought me up to speed slowly with one thing at a time. It seems hard to believe if I didn’t look like some kind of demon girl I wouldn’t believe it myself. It seems that in this world magic-users are like pro ball players. Everyone wants them around.

It seems that having magic in this world is a big advantage huh? I’ll have to research this further.

That’s taking getting used to by itself not counting this war crap.

I should be panicking more right now but I think this strange new beautiful body has forced my brain to react less panicky, less fearful in dangerous situations by replacing aggression instead of fear in those situations. Even without trying to my body is now tense and ready to attack but my mind is still trying to comprehend it.

He drew some like…neon symbols in the air with his finger and then released a bunch of that weird air vapor energy.

“EH?!” I yelped.

Just like that there’s another girl standing there in a flash of starlight. This one is huge. She’s like eight or nine feet tall and very pretty. She’s staring at me with intense jealousy and I’m staring at her but she gives Shun an accepting smile. Then we’re looking around while the arena is shaking. I don’t have enough time to study her over but she’s easily as pretty as me even in this new form.

Is this…people summoning?! What?! How?!

How can you summon people?

I want to ask more but now doesn’t feel right, I can feel from the intense mood. Both of them seem very worried. They are trying to coordinate something and I’m struggling to take it all in because so much is happening so quickly.

“Someone is trying to break in,” Shun told that …foxgirl?

Is that what she is a foxgirl? I feel kind of jealous actually. Well I shouldn’t but he trusts her so much and is looking at her instead of me.

And why do I feel so jealous? It’s not like me to be jealous, I thought. Besides even being tall my boobs are better than hers. I resumed listening to them as I shook off my internal mood swing thoughts.

“Ahh so it’s happening again huh? People just won’t leave us alone will they?” the big huge foxgirl said. At least I guess that’s what you might think when you see her but I don’t really know what her…classification as a species is.

“Probably, so we need to gear up fast,” Shun said.

“Err, what’s happening?” I said.

“Don’t worry this isn’t something new. We’ve dealt with it before. Those jerks are here to try to take us away from Shun,” the foxgirl said. She’s dressed in a mini skirt of some kind with a school uniform shirt tied bikini style under her chest. Actually that mini skirt is a bit too short. I should say something about it and how improper it is. Mother would never approve of me having friends like that. It looks like if she were to bend over everything would be pushed out.

“Don’t you think those clothes are a bit revealing?” I said to Ayumi.

“Really? And you are going to complain?” fox girl nodded back at me.

“Oh right…” I am naked huh.

“Put something on, I don’t want our guests getting ideas,” Shun said.

“Right…”

“Species such as yours often don’t wear clothes so it’s no surprise,” the giant tall and lean foxgirl said.

Wow, she’s going to be a lot of competition for Shun. Somehow I sighed.

“So this is Ayumi?” the fox girl asked Shun to confirm. She’s looking me over again. She has a curious calm expression even though we seem to be in some kind of danger.

“Yeah pretty much, she seems to be able to adjust somehow,” Shun managed to say while he’s still doing some magic stuff or whatever the hell that is.

“So …what’s she like? She didn’t look anything like that before huh?” the foxgirl asked him.

“Can we deal with that talk later? They are coming right?” Shun asked the fox girl.

She seems to know something about what’s going on, I noted, judging her reactions.

“Yeah they are. So you better be ready to fight soon,” the fox girl said to me.

Huh? They have heard something about me already? How long was I asleep then?

“Why am I so calm? I shouldn’t be? There’s something wrong with me I think. I don’t feel like my normal self,” I accidentally said aloud.

“It’ll be OK, just stay close to us. Your body is different so that must be affecting your mind because your blood is doing weird things as it goes through your head,” the tall foxgirl said.

Ahh that makes sense huh; somehow when they mentioned fighting instead of getting scared my body was getting like hyper like it wanted the fight. And I was feeling something like…the feeling of strength growing through me the more excited I got.

But at home I would have been the first one to trip on the way to first base in baseball.

Why are they so calm about the whole arena shaking? This whole situation is weird. When I asked them that the foxgirl explained this has happened before.

Their hands are steady. They aren’t running around. They aren’t panicking but still don’t like what’s going on. It’s a sign that trusting them is probably OK for now. For being normal people it seems interesting.

Crap.

While looking at each other in the same time Shun has also just finished some more of that weird magic and another girl appears. This time it’s Asakura that appears. I recognized her immediately but something is different about her. She looks a bit younger somehow, with more beautiful porecelain like skin. Oh and her boobs are fucking titantic sized. She’s also wearing clothes similar to the foxkin girl.

I hadn’t gotten a good look at her before until now.

How did that happen? It looks like wearing clothes to her must be difficult. I’m a bit jealous of them. But my upgraded version aren’t bad either.

“Asakura!” I cried out.

“Ayumi! I’m happy to see you!” she said back to me.

“Ladies focus. Get armed fast. Something is happening,” Shun barked.

“EH? With…” I was cut off.

I noticed Asakura has a sword scabbard on her belt.

She’s not only armed, she seems used to it like it’s a normal thing like teacher’s carrying pencils. It takes getting used to, with how this mentality seems off. She’s not hesitating in using it, nor does she seem clumsy with the blade either, which is weird for her, remembering how she was back at the school.

Oh weird, she had her back to me before but now I can see she’s topless with everything hanging out. I was surprised too that her cup size is bigger than mine, after another inspection.

Because I feel foggy in the head and we’d just had sex my brain sort of had taken time to realize it’s not normal for girls to not wear shirts. That’s weird too. Normally I should be all over noticing something like that and freaking out. And I feel intense feelings of passion and violence right now which isn’t normal for me either.

But then the girl that looks like a giant fox beast woman did something and released energy similar to the way Shun does it and suddenly it looks like Asakura is wearing a shirt? This is weird. It’s like some kind of equip magic? Or something else? I’m not sure what or how but this magic stuff sure seems interesting.

“Clothing and equip magic,” the fox explained seeing my weird reaction.

“I-I see,” I managed.

“She actually does alter reality magic but it’s similar,” Shun corrected to the fox girl’s dismay.

“My name is Sylvie by the way,” the fox girl said.

Hmm, she doesn’t look like one of my students or the people I know. I wonder if she’s from this world or ours?

I should have said ‘nice to meet you’ but this situation is too strange for me still and I’m confused. I didn’t have time to react before Shun gives me a huge body shield and then hands a buckler to Asakura.

“What’s going on? What’s the trouble again?” I asked.

“We’re being attacked. Not an earthquake at all,” Shun said.

“What felt like a quake was them trying to puncture into our dimensional pocket from outside using magic. And it takes time for them to break into the dimensional pocket,” Sylvie added.

“EH?!”

“Don’t worry, we’ve beaten them back a few times already. This time won’t be any different. It’s just a question of what kind of surprises they’ll try to sucker punch us with. Stay moving and evade first and do not under any circumstances separate from him. And protect Shun at all costs,” Asakura said to coach me.

“Uh….OK,” I said.

“You still want to stay close to me,” Shun told me pointedly.

“But um,…I’m not used to fighting,” I protested.

“A demon body like that has natural combat and defensive instincts just trust them. For you it will be harder to stop fighting once it’s done than it will be for you to know how to fight. We’re actually going to have to worry about how to stop you from bloodlust when it’s time for it. And don’t run or go off on your own. Stay together,” the foxgirl said.

Come to think of it, if both Asakura and are both changed, then was this foxgirl from our school to or not? Where did she come from originally? Is she someone new I didn’t know or a changed form from our old school; they are both possibilities.

All of them are armed and Shun is pouring out more of that weird energy from his hands while drawing symbols in the air. I have no idea what’s going on. In the next minute he gives me a sword to go with the shield though.

“Stay close to me,” he ordered again to make sure I understood. I guess he’s worried about us separating.

It feels like the right thing to do. It’s like my body is on autopilot. Waving the sword around feels hypnotically thrilling and violent but somehow my brain and body want the violence. I almost swing it into Sylvie but she managed to help me get control of my senses. I still don’t get why I’m not panicked right now.

I should be tearing my hair out and crying like a kid but somehow I’m staying calm. Yeah this body has changed my mindset somehow.

Somehow I don’t mind him ordering me though he’s a bit younger than me. I can’t explain why but I should question that.

“There it is, I see the portal appearing where they are cutting through the aether,” the giant foxgirl said pointing forward.

I have a sinking feeling in my stomach from stress. I can’t believe this is happening!

Ugh.

I can’t get over it when I see the foxgirl. She’s scary and big, though not thick; still slender and graceful. Almost like a mini-giant; plus how feral she looks with those evil looking eyes. Asakura seems to think there’s nothing wrong with her though.

Near the middle of the arena a big black swirling vortex has appeared in the shape of a mirror. There’s eerie weird black ink that’s dissipating in the air around the oval mirror shape. It looks poisonous and feels gross somehow. It’s my instinct to be wary of it but I don’t know why.

There are shadows that look people appearing in the mirror and with no warning the foxgirl shoots lightning from her hands that arcs glowing through the air so fast I almost missed it. The impact was the portal’s opening where we briefly heard screams.

“So pretty…destruction is pretty…violence is pretty,” I heard someone saying in a metallic voice and realized it was me.

“You are weird,” Asakura gave me an odd look while saying.

“Violence is pretty…” I found my metallic voice saying.

This is so confusing. Something in my mind is like trying to act somewhat animal like and savage. I try to contain it but its scary the more I feel threatened its eeping out.

The others give me odd looks instead of thinking about the effect of the lighting bolt’s impact area that the foxkin girl just let loose.

She’s magic too? Or has it? What’s the proper term anyway? It was obvious she didn’t have anything like a machine or gun on her. That was the first thing I looked for when I saw her do that.

“What the frick?!” Asakura cried out.

“It’s going to be OK, Ayumi. Just trust Shun and don’t let those guys grab you,” Asakura said.

EH? Grab me? That didn’t sound good. I remembered now I’m naked.

“Darkness is me. Wo unto those that fall by my sword, for they shall be many. The world is my sand castle to destroy,” the metallic voice inside me called out again in a strange eerie way.

Asakura nearly tripped she’s so surprised because she knew me from before and I’m not like this.

I should have noticed earlier. I think I’m in like a drugged out state or this body is affecting my mind like I’d previously thought. Maybe both…? Or do I have two parts of my brain that conflict with each other?

“EEEECK!” I accidentally said out loud.

The others briefly kept telling me to shut up, and that noise is dangerous here.

If Shun sees me naked I don’t mind even though I should but I don’t want others to see me that way. Something is wrong with me for thinking that though huh? I want to make him mine and mine alone. Perhaps those other girls should…I peer at my sword.

Shun wouldn’t like that. So I don’t do it.

Within seconds there’s tons of creatures streaking out of the portal. They are strange gross evil looking creatures that are small and green with pointed ears but not cute in the least.

“My gosh, there are hundreds of them!” I cried out.

Shun again did something weird and a semi-transparent barrier fence appeared around the portal caging it into a U shape against the wall.

“That will buy us some time,” Shun said.

“Should we get the others yet?” the foxgirl said.

“No, if I’m not mistaken those guys have shamans that will try to eat holes in the barrier fence. And the others are already tired from the day’s activities,” Shun predicted.

“Shun, Ayumi needs a skirt and shirt. Looking like that she’ll draw more goblins. They are already staring at her,” Asakura reminded Shun, who is obviously in charge.

It’s weird that the other two aren’t in charge though. Isn’t Shun the youngest? And there are no other people but just us four?

“While we buy time put this on,” Shun said, handing me a black micro mini skirt. It’s the same design as the foxgirl and Asakura’s. The skirt isn’t much in size, plus I’m taller now than I was before but not by much. In fact if I were to sit on my heels I’m pretty sure my ass would hang out even though I don’t have any ass sag but just the right shape. Then they give me a bikini top too.

“What is this?” I complained.

“Normal clothes aren’t going to work for you. Your spines mess with that. Trust me, I’ve been there,” Asakura said.

I can complain about it later. For now I’m trying to get into both items quickly.

“What the heck? This won’t solve anything? It’s like stripper clothes!” I exclaimed. My metallic whine is high pitched suddenly.

“Your spinal appendages won’t let you wear anything without cutting it up like razors. Even this will probably only last a battle,” Shun said apologetically.

“F-fine,” I said.

“But they both have enchants on them to protect you, defensive stuff that will help you stay alive. So you won’t be defenseless,” Asakura said it like it was giving me armor.

I can’t believe Asakura of all people would say that. It’s what a boy would say trying to get a girl to wear skimpy clothes.

Well if Shun likes it…

The foxgirl must have noticed my disbelief. “It’s true. We’re not lying. Shun is a protection mage trust him,” she said.

Protection mage? Like a support class? I’m confused. He doesn’t seem like a support; he’s too confident and leading.

“Whatever,” I grumbled.

Somehow I have to trust them. By the time I got it on, when I look up there are already cracks in the barrier fence thing that Shun had casted.

“I thought that would endure longer before getting cracks,” Asakura said.

“It should have but I think they put the dispel magic or magic negation on some of the weapons of the captains and shamans,” the foxgirl said.

“Wait, if it’s like that will their weapons go through my runic shielding?” Shun said. He looked concerned for a second.

I have no idea what that meant but the others are still calm.

“Umm, I think it will just make the weapons hit harder I think. Don’t worry we’ll test it to be sure. There can’t not be some effect though since we’re pretty good mage wannabes,” the foxgirl replies.

Within another five minutes the cracked hole has widened and gotten bigger, resembling a really huge mouse entrance in the big fence around that magic portal thing. Little green men are still running out that are ugly and deformed like before though they are getting closer in this arena to us.

“What are those?” I asked.

“Goblins. They’re like midget orcs but not less dangerous. Don’t underestimate their swarming capacity especially,” Asakura said.

Already as a dozen of them come out Shun is shooting off what look like small magic shooting star darts non-stop. Four at a time they go out and hit a goblin and he dies while zipping through the air with perfect accuracy and a strange curving through the air. But he’s not fast enough. And it takes all four darts to kill one of those things.

The foxgirl looks really fierce and screams in rage. Then she releases what looks like a lightning bolt from her hands again. Instantly there’s like twenty bodies of the little green bastards.

Holy shit!

More evidence that magic is real!

They keep trying to cut them down but slowly and surely a bunch of the little green men are starting to take the field. The first few groups are trying to guard their portal so that others are coming out. But as the space fills up there’s more and more of them trying to go forward.

“Can you shoot them faster?” I wondered, looking at the foxgirl.

“I can’t fire too quickly because it’s hard on the body,” the foxgirl said while looking physical exhausted. She’s got a reaction on her body like she’s ran a marathon from just releasing that thing.

“So do I have magic too?” I asked.

“We don’t know yet,” Asakura said.

“It’s OK if I don’t but I don’t want to live hard in this place if possible,” I said.

“Wisely said,” Asakura said without facing me.

“If you do it will be more like physical enhancements probably but not like a nuking mage,” Shun guessed.

“That could be too. I hadn’t thought of that,” Asakura noted.

“Yeah for now just help us all stay alive. We’ll answer any questions you have later,” the foxgirl said.

Do you have any idea how stressful it is to have someone say just ‘stay alive’ when you have an army in front of you?

Slowly but surely more goblins are piling up but still haven’t fully closed to melee distance; they respect us being dangerous and are still closing in. This time they are forming ranks of rows and columns to get ready to charge at us. It’s looking kind of scary but the others still seem like things are OK.

But it seems the little green men…or goblins according to the others are also afraid of Sylvie and I. Our appearances are hard for them to handle despite, I would have thought people would find us sexy.

What the heck?

“Shun, we need to kill faster. They are coming in quicker and just using mass numbers,” Asakura said.

“Um…there’s a LOT of those,” I said with a lilt in my voice. “How are we supposed to stop them?”

“I get it. Hang tight,” he said.

Shun has killed maybe eight of them so far with endless amounts of those magic darts being fired off every few seconds.

Then the first squad of them charges us. I guess they are doing it like this to tire us out and wear us down; then have us swarmed later.

There’s a good twenty of them. I start to freak out. More are following after them to make for a mass wave of bodies to break over us like a tidal wave.

“Don’t worry, we’re faster and stronger than they are,” Asakura coached me. She must have seen how worried I looked.

Some of them are running straight for me. The wave keeps getting bigger, and bigger…

I feel nauseous.

Shun POV

I’m surprised this attack came so quickly after waking up Ayumi. I was hoping to not give her any more mental traumas than she already is going to have. It must have been tough to wake up to this. It was just bad luck really, and not our fault.

The demoness body she has is perfectly suited to this though, but I’m glad she doesn’t have goat legs or freaky feet like Akira.

But one thing I don’t get is how I ‘conquered’ her so easily. It shouldn’t have been that fast, unless she’s a race similar to mine? She was almost as conservative as Asakura back home, so something is definitely going on there with how her body is and how it’s changed her.

Nah that couldn’t be…

I keep my concentration on killing goblins.

The barrier fence is technically still up blocking their approach but it has a good four by eight square feet missing from it that goblins are chipping away at with special silver picks. So magic weapons of some types can whittle down and break pieces in barrier magic. That I did not know.

Some mage or shaman has cleverly armed them this way.

“Stay in the back near me,” I said to Ayumi.

We have Sylvie and Asakura in front. Asakura has already killed like four of them with power hits that are terrible to watch because they are so freaking gory. Ghoul bodies are really strong even though she looks harmless.

I then released another barrier fence to stop the massive tidal wave of goblins that was coming at us to close up and contain another part of them. This is really cool to have a skill like this; barrier magic rocks if you can keep up with the mana pool and mana loss. Already this is a major game changer even if I don’t ever get other skills. For example, if that fire mage dude Cassius were here, even with his massive explosions he would have been taken out and drowned in that tidal wave of charging goblins but I can briefly contain them.

Already many goblins were trampled to death by their brethren when the massive wall of them stopped and crashed into the barrier I’d put up. That’s got to be a sucky death too. When they get to goblin hell their brethren will be like comparing who had the most heroic death and those twerps will get to say they got killed by friendly fire stampeding.

I hope I don’t pay for it later with the mana usage.

This skill uses a lot of it so each time I use it I’m worried. Those barrier fences cost about 8 percent of my mana and that’s the second one I’ve used. We’ve only killed about fifty goblins so far too when there are hundreds of them pouring in. Purposely I’ve left a small gap where the edge of the fence reaches the arena wall. If I do this right the gap will invite them to go in slowly rather than spend time bashing up the fence. It will crowd control them to have to go through hopefully slower than our kill rate.

This is the most scared I’ve ever been. It’s not so much the goblins, but knowing the enemy has some kind of mage helps and that could make things unpredictable. The mage will try to hit us probably after using all the many, many fodder goblins that are rushing at us.

The smarter your opponent is, the harder it is to predict what they will do or how they will act.

Four of us against that many goblins…

It doesn’t look good.

I have to get us out of this, I just have to.

Ayumi has changed; she started out like looking afraid and wanting to run but now looks like she is drooling from seeing all the carnage. I can’t blame her but we steady her. She would have in fact if not for the slave collar that I have on her.

I’m shooting off more darts, while Sylvie sweeps her tails under like three more goblins to trip them and then impales one on her first hand held weapon after throwing them off balance. She’s able to maintain constant motions to defend herself this way and agilely turning away to dodge other things coming at her. She’s got about as much strength as Asakura does. Already the two of them have killed like twelve of them by themselves.

We’re making some progress and the flow is a bit slower. But the goblins keep coming through.

They tried to form a shooter line of goblin darters next with like twenty of them there in that gap spot that we’re trying to contain them in; but I’ve already got protection from missiles buffs on each of the girls and myself. The darts pelt the runic shielding and fall off while we keep shooting them down.

Then the line of darters gets smaller when Sylvie releases another bolt and kills that line along with like twelve others in the gap. She timed it well for when they were about to spill over the gap in the barrier too.

I’m sure of it now that Sylvie’s bolts are getting more powerful. But that also means she has more chance of getting tired when she uses the heavy bolts. It can be a bad sign though of her giving in to her fear and not managing her mana consumption well though.

The goblins have decided now to change tactics. Instead of switching to dissolve the second barrier fence they send over two small free shamans off to the side area to try to cut a hole in the area where they used to be to make it big enough for more to pass through at once while we’re shooting them down. If the hole stays its current size then I can pretty much shoot them down with magic missiles almost as fast as they get through.

Sylvie and Asakura dart forward to cover the breach. Taking Ayumi with me I come along a bit more cautiously. We form up while Asakura is hammering them like nails as soon as they come through the gap. With it like this I don’t even have to cast and Asakura’s force is terribly swift and dangerous.

We keep like this for about 30 more goblin deaths.

But then they switched tactics again.

“Get back!” Sylvie warned.

She caught it before I did. What did she sense? I’m still trying to tell but we follow her warning. We pull back another twenty feet just as a sand quicksand opened up where we’d been standing.

How did Sylvie see it? Is it another hidden skill she hasn’t told me about yet?

“Idiots. They put that quicksand right over their own gap in the fence,” Asakura noted.

“EH? Goblins have magic too?” Ayumi gasped.

“They aren’t really good at it but they can do some,” Fox murmured.

“Sure they do, but and they can be deadly too,” Asakura shot back.

“The quicksand is getting bigger,” Sylvie said.

We keep backing up. And again we move. But it keeps getting bigger. Not caring about the consequences now a good fifty diameter circle is now solid liquid quicksand. And because they were so aggressive about surprising us they didn’t warn their own people.

Dozens of goblins are sucked into their own quicksand. They are screaming in terror until their heads are pulled under to drown because of the equipment they are carrying which is pulling them down. Then they try to clamber over each other to use their brethren as lifeboats which don’t work.

And the quicksand keeps getting bigger. It’s on both sides of the fence and doesn’t look like the end will be any time soon with how it’s growing. Still five minutes later it keeps growing and we’re soon going to have over half the arena covered in a giant quicksand wasteland.

With quick thinking we were able to keep ahead of the moving edge of it.

The goblins on the other hand, don’t have anywhere to go. There are too many of them on that side to escape or maneuver properly.

This gives us a chance to get ready while we figure out a new position in a controlled retreat.

I redid the buffs that were low on power.

It’s also a good time to experiment with the secondary slave crystals.

I equipped Haruka’s slave crystal onto myself for a stat boost. Then I tried to do the same thing with Rina and Sunghee’s crystals each. At first it didn’t work but when I used a recall spell on Rina, then I was able to equip hers onto myself too. If I’ve read this right I should have a 20% increase in stats from Rina and Haruka. Even though Rina has been cat polymorphed she still has stats that I can gain bonuses from.

I left Sunghee’s in the real world to be safe because she’s guarding my sleep.

When I feel the grip in my hands I do feel tougher and a bit surer of my footwork. So it does work and there’s a good feeling from it. If worst came to worst I could even pull out Ayumi and equip her but I’m terribly worried about the consequences on me that might have since it’s clear she’s prone to bloodlust and carnage while I’m trying to fight following demon impulses.

The goblins are stills creaming while the quicksand continues to increase. The whole arenas sand is now resembling liquidy ocean and very dangerous looking. It even has strange big ripple like waves that are frothing about.

“I guess they plan to drown us,” Asakura noted.

Whole piles of goblins fall into the quicksand. They continue to thrash about trying to get out but their brethren are losing their footing too and there’s nowhere to go.

“Shun, in the back, there’s a single goblin shaman,” Sylvie noted.

“A-are we go-going to be OK?” Ayumi chattered in fear suddenly. Her knees were like almost knocked together too in an awkward barely controlled situation of trying to keep herself from probably…peeing herself.

The bloodlust wore off? Maybe it only lasts so long. She’d gone from wanting to terrorize them to suddenly exhausted. It shows she’s still getting used to that new body.

Hey if it were my first goblin battle I’d be like that too. So would other people actually, so I can’t complain.

“It’s funny that you have a demon girl body and ask that,” Asakura noted.

“Eh? I’m a demon girl?!” Ayumi said in shock.

“I don’t think she was ready to be told that yet,” Shun said to her.

“Well…probably. It’s not definite yet,” Asakura said.

“We’ll be OK, I think. Don’t worry Ayumi you will be OK,” I said.

“That worries me almost as much as that sand ocean stuff,” Ayumi cried out.

The quicksand keeps growing.

“What do we do Shun?” Fox asked.

“I don’t like this,” Ayumi whined in fear. I can’t blame her.

“That goblin shaman must be pretty powerful to sacrifice his own troops like that. He’s drowned more than we’ll ever kill directly,” Asakura noted.

“IS that one of the big four?” Asakura said in follow up.

Oh shit. She could be right. No wonder he can turn a huge arena into a quicksand mire that’s creeping up towards us.

The quicksand keeps growing, it’s now at least ¾ of the arena and now hundreds of goblins have drowned and are still drowning.

We’re in the part that isn’t engulfed still. But that could change soon.

We can hear the cackling laughter of the bad ass boss goblin in the back. Turns out he’s a hobgoblin shaman of some kind.

And he’s walking towards us easily over the quicksand like it’s nothing to him even while all the others are drowning, screaming, and pleading for mercy. Sometimes they try to grab hold of him but he just stabs them with the bottom part of his staff and keeps walking towards us.

“I have a bad feeling about that guy,” Asakura said.

Ayumi is whimpering. It’s her first battle; she’s not doing so badly. She’s shaking all over though.

The big boss shaman stopped at my barrier fence and examines it. His voice reaches out to us easily. “Not bad. Your barrier fence is pretty good but it won’t stop me. I have to compliment your feeble attempt at craftsmanship in magic however.”

He lifts his staff against the barrier fence and says something violently in goblin tongue. The fence shattered all across the line. None of the other shamans could shatter the whole thing at once, they could only do like cubic square one foot sections. This guy made the whole thing just collapse within seconds after it fragmented into hundreds of pieces and fell into the sand lake.

“Holy shit!” Sylvie cried out.

The goblin laughs at us harshly with a deep voice for such a tiny body.

And at almost the same time as Sylvie releasing her lightning bolt he released his own. Sylvie’s bolt of red lightning hit his black inky liquid lightning bolt hit each other and cancelled out.

“What was that?” Asakura said.

“He counter spelled it,” I guessed.

“That’s bad. It means he’s pretty strong,” Sylvie said.

“That’s true,” Asakura said.

I tried shooting out magic missiles at him while debuffing him. Neither worked. He deflected and knocked away the energy with his staff somehow.

Then Sylvie tried to shoot an imitation of my magic missiles and they were swatted away by his staff a second time while he laughed at us.

“He’s l-l-laughing at us?!” Ayumi cried out.

I thought I saw Sylvie’s face twist into fear just now. But then the mask of emotions hid it away again.

We took turns trying to hit him with more debuffs. He keeps swatting them away.

He then tried to shoot another one of those liquid inky black lightning bolts at us, but I deflected that with a runic shield. But then I had to get back up off the ground from getting knocked over and the shield failed though it soaked up all the damage somehow. I re-casted my runic shielding just as he shot off another bolt.

Again I’m knocked down on my ass. I renewed the shield again. His bolts aren’t as damaging as Fox’s I think, but he can somehow do more of them and with more frequency so that makes him way more dangerous. I’m lucky my shielding has been worked on so much to be able to handle this. If I were any weaker the leftover parts of the enemy’s bolt would be burning me too.

“You’re defeat is inevitable, young one. You can’t match my power,” he croaked in his toady sounding voice.

He shot another lightning bolt, this one left me bleeding and burned from being knocked back another eight feet. Still the shielding that failed did catch much of the damage but now it hurts all over. I casted runic shielding again before even getting back up and when I do I see he’s already hitting all of us with some kind of weird grease sludge that’s knocked everyone to the ground.

This is going to make things even worse than they are now. It’s tough for me to accept that we’re being forced back too. I don’t want the match to end this way.

“He’s some kind of earth mage,” Sylvie shouted to me.

“That’s good but we’re still trapped,” Asakura said.

Ayumi is close to me. “….magic….who would have…arggh…” I heard her muttering to herself.

All of them have their shields intact but they are on the floor still trying to get up.

“I wonder which of your women I should take first. You know I have twenty three wives just for me alone? I am breeding whole villages of just my descendants alone. I’m basically goblin royalty. And for your information those twenty three wives were all taken from humans like you. I have breeding pits of human girls. Human women are perfect breeding materials,” the head goblin shaman cackled. His roving eyes keep going back and forth between Asakura and Ayumi.

Sylvie and I pull ourselves to our feet but the other two are still struggling. I was able to get to my feet from the extra stat boosts provided by the secondary slave crystals while Sylvie’s stats were just high to begin with.

That and from what the goblin shaman boss had just said makes Ayumi so afraid she’s lost her voice.

Finally I managed to connect a debuff on the shaman, even though he’d blocked everything before and even my stuns.

Will my stuns even work on him?

“What?! HOW?!” he cried out. He can’t believe I landed the stat debuff on him. My stun is getting blocked too. He’s amazed that I landed the debuff on him though. I guess it’s partly to the extra stats borrowed with equipment slave crystals.

So I have something to fight back with, where if I hadn’t opened up this new slave crystal equip thing I wouldn’t have even been able to do that.

At the same time Sylvie shoots a lightning bolt at him. She knocks him on his ass and he doesn’t swat it away in time with his staff. Hell, he shouldn’t even be able to deflect magic like that unless his staff is some kind of artifact. But the damage was minimal, and he wasn’t taken out. In the first place mages take less damage from magic anyway because we use it all the time; and he’s even leagues beyond that in trying to resist with that ability of his.

We keep trying to hit him with more magic missiles but he bats away nine out of ten volleys playing with us like we’re toys to break with a sneaky malicious grin on his face like he enjoys pain and giving it too. With the debuff in place we’re somehow staying alive and able to only very rarely land a hit. He tries to toast us again with more lightning bolts of that inky sludge version which shouldn’t even be real but is.

I recasted runic shielding as fast as I can before being knocked down again.

Then I’m knocked down three more times after that repeating the same process and trying to survive. Each time it’s getting harder to get back up. I barely get the shielding up in time. The others are avoiding me just so that we don’t have more than one shield fail at once; which would be game over for all of us.

Am I….going to lose?

No! I can’t accept that!

“It’s time you’ve learned your place human scum,” he said.

With that suddenly mud golems have somehow swum up upon us unawares. While swimming through the water with ease like water snakes we can see them sweeping in our direction from over where he’d planted them. We’d had very little warning he’d even released mud elements other than the waves and ripples they make in the quicksand sea and the remaining amount of space we had to use of solid ground was already covered by his grease spells which are still making everyone slip all over and slide back to the ground except for me and Sylvie because of having higher stats.

I’m shocked.

A goblin shaman can do all this? I hadn’t run into one this strong yet until now.

I recast another shield to compensate for the little goblin shaman’s next lightning attack. But then I had to de-summon Asakura before she was crushed by the mud golem’s next attack. But rather than put her back on the field I equipped her as a third equipment crystal.

I’m feeling a huge burst of power now. Asakura from having the ghoul familiar status had really high stats already. So if I were to estimate the amount of power gained from equipping her it would probably be something like a 14% increase from before after equipping her. And that was beyond the 20% I had from the other two already. (Rina, Haruka, Asakura in slave crystals, equip mode)

Sylvie manages to arc her energy weapon through the closest mud elemental and then through the next one, both are instantly fried because she’d burned out like a third of her mana in that brief three seconds.

But now she’s tired. She’s heaving from heavy breathing. She manages to dodge the next attack by the third and last mud elemental.

“How did you do that?!” the goblin shrieked at us.

“Cheater!” he screamed.

“Cheater! CHEATER! CHEATERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!! You shouldn’t be able to stop my attacks!” he looks like he’s livid mad.

“I’m scared!” Ayumi said next to me.

Sylvie and I shoot more magic missiles at him for another half hour, during which we find out not only does he have a huge mana capacity but also he’s got some kind of earth armor that is absorbing most but not all of the damage whenever we get something through.

At least he’s not regenerating himself. That’s the only good thing happening now.

He’s also changed to have the mud elemental guard him instead of doing offence. That means we’ve at least let him know we’re a threat. There are times when he cries out in pain and a small amount of blood on his shoulder but that’s all.

“What is that?” I asked.

“Some kind of Stoneskin damage absorption enchant,” Sylvie said.

“EH?! Why does he get that and not us?” Ayumi screeched in fear. She’s shaking in the knees but I can’t comfort her. Also I don’t want her to just be de-summoned because she needs to see we can beat the goblins.

But I’m starting to wonder if we can.

This guy is just too powerful.

I still have a good chunk of mana left because we’ve been careful and I’ve been concentrating on only using it for magic missiles and runic shielding which are my best gas mileage spells. I’m also sure though that each time the goblin swats away spells with his staff that it does cost him energy.

Something like that can’t be for free. But he’s somehow just freakishly strong!

Another hour of combat passes, while we just keep getting more tired. I’m managing it by runic shielding attrition but I will need a lot of rest after this.

My arms hurt, my joints hurt, my head hurts, and I want to lie down. I also have that feeling of muscle tremors like when you feel like you have no sugar left in your body and you crave something to eat because you’ve used too much energy.

“Hang in there,” Ayumi said next to me with a weak afraid voice.

She’s seeing that I’m the lynchpin holding things together. She’s still trying to manage being able to hold a weapon. It’s not bad considering she ended up with us on the worst of all bosses so far.

“Sylvie come close to me,” I said.

“Gotcha,” she responded.

And in the midst of all this there are goblin bodies as far as the eye can see and covering most of the arena but very few of them look bloody since they have drowned so much that they have bodies stacked on top of bodies with only hands, feet or legs sticking up out of the quicksand.

“This is so awful,” Ayumi said.

“We can do this,” Sylvie said.

“We can?” Ayumi sounds very afraid.

We exchange more blows of him trying to crush my runic shielding. It collapses on every hit, but still he’s not managed to hit us since the shielding is taking most of the beating every time.

I also now have salt burn on my face or what feels like it from sand stinging me as it hits us from the turbulence around us. It’s like when your flesh is wet and the salt gets into it when it’s raw. It feels like that but I can’t do anything about it yet because I have to carefully match his timing and speed with my shielding recasts.

During the next half hour of fighting we keep up our cat and almost dead but not quite mouse game with us avoiding becoming fried to a crisp. We did manage four more hits on his armor enchant, now there’s a bit more blood than before but he’s only breathing hard and limping but not actually stopping his attacks. The slow down only helps to match his speed just a bit more.

“Shun please stay alive,” Ayumi said while crying.

“We’ll be fine,” I said a bit too forcefully. It was like that because I’m not so sure.

“How is it that guy can do that every time? He’s just throwing off our bolts like its nothing,” Sylvie said.

We now have three de-buffs on him still but now we’re only hitting him 80% of the time.

Then finally the next flurry of magic missiles hits him and his armor cracked open for good. Rather than the shielding having a visible earthy color we can see real flesh.

“WHAT?! CHEATER!!!!!!!!!!!!!” he screams a long line of profanity while having little tourette’s syndrome fits.

That was the signal.

On the sly I’d activated my telekinesis rig of two spells lashed together to hold me up. Then I grabbed Sylvie and we pushed through a dimension door.

The goblin is in shock when we disappeared in front of him, “WHAT? Where?!” he glanced around just as Sylvie unleashed her full burst of the energy sword on him which looks like swinging a big pillar of lightning and fire swirled together against his back directly at his head in a surprise move from behind.

And he was supposed to die!

…

He didn’t die?!

What?

We’d been saving that up to surprise him from behind and this happened?!

“What the fuck?!” Sylvie gasped in shock when the blow is blocked or rather absorped. Not by the goblin himself, but there’s another creature standing there behind him that’s holding the energy sword’s blade even while his hand and arm are disintegrating from Sylvie’s blow dissolving most of it. He also had a weapon in that hand before too but he’d lost it in the quicksand when Sylvie chopped his arm off.

That’s like bad way to end up, losing an arm like that.

I can’t believe it. He had an ace up his sleeve to save himself this whole time.

“What the fuck is that?!” I heard Ayumi gasp from about a hundred meters away.

We’re staring at I think…there’s no other way to tell what it is that can give off an eerie feeling like this. The guy there that appeared, who now looks like he has one arm, is stunned and looking very surprised that something out maneuvered him. He looks like similar to Asakura with pale skin, blood red eyes, and slicked back black hair and dark clothes in a strangely too young body but a male version of the same thing instead. By too young I don’t mind childish, but I mean some kind of unnatural immortality. He’s obviously an undead. He keeps using what’s left of the stump of his arm to block Sylvie’s attacks even while his arm is piece by piece dissolving.

Is he a ghoul too? Or something else?

“Fuck,” I swore. I already know its another strong guy, and the goblin still can cast spells.

We lost the element of surprise and our planned ambush probably can’t be repeated.

Already the big boss goblin shaman is trying to begin a new sequence of armor enchant to renew what took us like two or three hours of fighting to wear down.

I tried to hit a stun on the goblin but the problem is that undead thing that had been invisible there before covering him.

“I see you’ve found my vampire mercenary,” the goblin cackled.

“Vampire?!” we exclaimed.

“Ahh shit, we’re fucked,” Sylvie exclaimed.

“It figures…if this world is full of evil shit then it would have shitty evil vampires with it,” I said.

Fox tried to keep hacking it up but the guy somehow pulled a sword out from somewhere in his bags. He’s trying to deflect her blows but now it’s just slicing off bits of the vampire’s sword while my stun is trying to stay on the other goblin.

I’m trying to recover but there’s not much I can.

If we lose the chance to stop the killing blow on the big boss goblin shaman we’ll lose. If he gets his armor enchant backup we’re screwed. And he had an extra hidden bodyguard that he was saving to the end.

We’re trying to desperately hang on while Sylvie is cutting bits off his sword while that guy doesn’t even flinch from some pretty amazing discipline. The vampire is powerful and fearless.

We’re about to lose.

Fuck.

NO!

I’ve also used everything I can think of. And I’ve not got a lot of mana left now.

“After everything else so far, now there’s a fucking vampire?!” Sylvie said while trying to get through it. The vampire still blocking, even though she just shredded some smaller bits of his arm stump off; but to that guy its probably just business as usual.