Ichiro blinked open his eyes. He was lying in the uncomfortable bed without a blanket, staring up at the unknown, decayed wooden ceiling. It was a dream, Ichiro thought while getting out of the bed. He stood up and stretched his body while looking around the room.
Ichiro was in a dimly lit room, with gray light streaming in through the dilapidated wooden window. Dried furniture stood there, worn out by passaging time. It was a common sight in an isekai story, but it looked like a real inn to him. He went over to the window and saw a cloudy sky outside.
Outside, there was a destroyed medieval fantasy town, with buildings that looked like a castle far away in the fog and a church standing among other structures. It looked like it had been in a war in the past. No one was around, though. Everything was still. There wasn’t any noise or activity. Just the sound of wind blowing.
Ichiro checked himself; he was naked except for his pants, which he had been wearing when he fell asleep. After that, he attempted to activate his ‘dream powers’ by creating something to wear, and it worked. After the snap of his fingers, a vortex formed on his body, with strands of blue energy flowing into it. They were transformed into the new armor material. It began taking shape, and it was finished in a matter of seconds. Ichiro was now dressed in a ragged brown cloak with a hood, a black leather breastplate, and thick, black metal greaves.
He didn’t know what he needs to do in this dream, so he explored. After walking out of the window, he found himself on the roof of a tall building. He walked to the edge of the building and jumped off of it. In the last second, before he touched the ground, the wind grabbed his cape and carried him to the ground. A few meters away, a colossal stone statue stood out against the landscape, and Ichiro landed next to it.
The statue was some sort of female goddess. Next to it, bones. Countless skeletons lay scattered all across the area.
Ichiro stared at them for a minute before realizing that they were not human. Well, almost. They were skeletal remains of a creature that resembled a human, and they were all covered in metal armor, ripped by something sharp, like claws.
He analyzed the scene again. This was a battle that happened recently, a few years ago, judging from how the skeletons were intact. Judging by the amount of debris around, it was probably a big fight. The bodies were all torn apart, and the ground was stained with blood.
Ichiro decided to look from the height and jumped up from the ground to a building nearby. He landed on the rooftop, and saw that the battle was continuous, and went towards the castle that hid in the fog. He parkoured through the roofs, following the destruction path of the battle. As he went higher, he could see more of the battlefield below. The more he went to the castle, the more destruction he saw. Buildings were toppled over, and the ground was littered with broken weapons and armor.
Ichiro stopped running until the giant crater filled with fog appeared. He jumped down to the ground, stopped at the rim of the crater. He looked inside a kilometer-wide crater. The thick fog obscured his view of what was inside. The castle was in the center, around 400 meters wide, and unnaturally colored crimson earth was raising it to the seemingly to the same height as the ground level was before or maybe even a little higher. His ragged cloak was fluttering backwards as the wind blew from the crater. There were no bridges or roads leading to the castle, and the fog in the crater was suspicious. Very suspicious.
It was too thick to be natural, like a fog created by a supernatural force.
So he used his ‘dream powers’ to create a glider. Teleportation was an option, but because the few months ago he did so in a nightmare, he was teleported right into the middle of an ambush and horrifyingly awoke after being pierced at every point in his body, he feared using it ever since then in unknown places.
Ichiro imagined of it, and it appeared on the ground almost immediately. The glider was gray and looked like a typical one. He took the handle, walked back, accelerated a little too rapidly, and flew into the air. He felt weightlessness for a few minutes before he reached his desired altitude of 50 meters above ground.
He focused on the castle while he was in midair. From a bird’s-eye view, the castle appeared even more erroneous. The exterior simply feels... off. The entity who created it must perish. Ichiro was now dead set on killing it, whatever it is. He aimed for the castle from above and shot down from the sky. The glider moved slowly while flying towards the castle at high speed, and it impacted with the castle’s top tower, making a tremendous impact with the outer wall.
Ichiro rolled over and crouched immediately upon entering, surveying the surroundings. He was in an opulent royal blue bedchamber with golden fixtures, gold wallpaper, a gigantic bed, and an expensive-looking wardrobe. He looked around the room carefully. There was no light source inside the room, but the dull gray light from the window was enough to brighten it up a little. Every piece of furniture had a coat of arms. Shield with a four-winged griffon... or is it a dragon? No, the shape is distinct. Is it a phoenix, then? No. It looks different. It has a tail, wings, and legs... It can’t be a phoenix, then.
There was a visible enough bump under the blanket in the bed and looked like someone was sleeping.
“Hello?”
No answer.
Ichiro approached the bed. He didn’t care about being silent, since he was not trying to wake up anyone. It was just to make sure there wasn’t anything dangerous in here. He lifted the blanket gently. It revealed a female skeleton. Ichiro’s eyes popped open from shock. Skeleton, again? Fuck! This is feeling like a pattern! He shook his head in disbelief.
The skeleton’s decaying hair was on the pillow under the skull, so Ichiro assumed the person was killed and then put down on the bed to rot. However, there was no evidence of rot. The corpse was fresh, as if it was only been left there for a short time. Whoever could do that was a being that could suck the flesh out of living beings and use it for themselves, which would explain why there was no rotting smell at all. Ichiro sighed and continued his search. He found some papers under the pillow, which were mostly gibberish written in a foreign language. Whatever.
He walked to the carved door, and kicked it open with his boot, which was still coated in the armor material, causing the door to fly away, revealing a darkness. A few seconds later, there was a loud crash. The doors had fallen to the ground.
Instead of the stairwell leading up to the tower, there was nothing but a hole in the floor. Ichiro was baffled, but it made sense if you assume the previous female skeleton was a prisoner and the being that lived here removed them to make sure she didn’t escape.
Ichiro calmed his thoughts, and simply jumped into the abyss because the sound of a crash wasn’t that far away.
He fell into the abyss with arms crossed and landed on his feet without breaking a sweat or even slowing down. The fall was probably less than 100 meters from the top of the tower to the bottom of the abyss.
Broken doors were embedded in the cracked huge rock slabs on his left and right. The torches illuminated the room he landed in, illuminating with warm color the small stone bricks on which the castle was built, revealing the heightened ceiling. There were stairs going upwards. The walls were decorated with shields and banners, all of which were adorned with a same crest as in that bedroom. A main hall.
Ichiro had a gut feeling that those stairs led to whatever the hell that being was. He jumped, completely avoiding the broken staircase. It collapsed after he passed them. After he landed, he turned around and looked at the ceiling of the room, which was about 10 meters above him. There were cracks in the ceiling, but no dust particles came down.
Following that, he was confronted with a massive door that resembled the one on the outside in design and size. There’s also a regular-sized door next to it. There were many armor stands of black knight armor with gold details embedded in them. They were to the left and right of that massive door.
“Finally, a battle!”
Ichiro exclaimed in his mind, believing that they were armor golems waiting to pounce on him as he approached a massive door. He walked to the doors, determined, and waited for them to come to life.
It did not happen. Curiously, he walked over to the one of them who was standing menacingly with the sword and casually opened the helmet. Inside was... a skeleton with no lower jaw.
“What the fuck?!”
Ichiro yelled out loud, startled by the sight. This dream was too riddled with skeletons.
“Is this a joke?”
He forgot about them and slammed the massive door open with force, disappointed by the battle that did not take place.
Door collided with the wall it was mounted on, and caused an earthquake that almost knocked Ichiro off his feet, and a loud roar that echoed through the castle. He looked at what was inside of the room.
Massive throne room, crammed with columns. Countless skeletons, each wearing various types of armor, holding various weapons from sword to staff, were laying on the ground. The red carpet led from the door to the crimson throne, and was devoid of the remains. Behind the throne was a massive stained glass window depicting the coat of arms Ichiro had seen in the furniture. The windows to the left and right cast harsh gray light into the room, which was mingled with the colors of the stained glass. Ichiro walked across the carpet, making a little noise, his gaze fixed on the throne. There was a 10-year-old white-haired child dressed in purple king’s garb, hidden in the shadows of a throne. He was lying on the throne, his head on one side, his legs stretching down on the other, seemingly unfazed by the earthquake caused by Ichiro. He looked at Ichiro with purple eyes, full of curiosity. Ichiro had the impression that it wasn’t his true form.
His eyes were filled with energy and determination. It seemed like this thing has been alive for centuries.
“Well, I’ve never expected such an intruder. The Leonhart Empire sent out a capable one! How did you know I was becoming bored? I was considering razing the entire city just so I could have something interesting to do.”
The boy smiled, a devilish smile on his face. He changed his posture and resumed his monologue. Ichiro kept his poker face on. What was he talking about? He did not know.
But, while the being pretending to be a boy talked, he planned his ultimate attack, which took some time to realize. Never let your guard down, especially in the presence of the ‘shadow being.’ He realized this fairly early on, when the nightmares first began. He’d ‘died’ to it many times.
“I first noticed you in the princess’s tower when you were looking for her... Oh, your expression when you looked at her was amusing. Ha-ha-ha! I absorbed her weeks ago, when she attempted suicide. Do you want to know what her last words were?”
The boy pointed at his face, and it changed to the beautiful woman’s head, hair became long and changed from white to golden blonde, but the body and purple eyes remained the same. Shapeshifter. With dealing with them, Ichiro had another bag of terrible memories. Fortunately, he was preparing an effective attack against them.
“You will not be forgiven by the Goddess...”
Shapeshifter said it mockingly, and then it quickly changed back to the boy’s head.
“BITCH! I WAS SENT HERE BY THE GODDESS TO BE A CHOSEN ONE! YOU CANNOT HOLD ME BACK!”
He stood up from the chair, the royal purple robe flapping behind him. His voice reverberated in the hall.
“She gave me a cheat, OP ability, and it allows me to absorb anyone’s abilities! He-he. Idiot goddess. You think you can stop me?”
While Ichiro concentrated on the final touches of an attack, the apparently reincarnated one laughed. He produced a throwing knife in his right hand and concealed it. After the reincarnated one had finished laughing, he changed his pose and resumed speaking.
“You’re a quiet person, aren’t you? Are you waiting for an opportunity? That is fine. You may try anything. But if you kill me, you’ll lose your chance to defeat my master... He is far more powerful than you might imagine.”
Ichiro had already predicted that. That being looked like a main character of those isekai stories. It would probably be much easier if he could get rid of it now. However, his attack was taking time. He just nodded, and that boy continued speaking.
“I don’t know about you, but I have all the time in the world. I see your knife in the back of your right hand. You may wonder how I know this. Everything is because this castle is my domain! I can do whatever I want here! Look...”
The apparent domain holder raised one hand to the side, and the golden goblet appeared. There was a crimson liquid inside and drank it. He threw it to the ground a few seconds later, and the ground absorbed the goblet.
A red streak was coming from his mouth into his pale skin, and a droplet of the liquid was dripping onto his purple robe. Damn, Ichiro had to think hard about how to counter the domain. He devised a strategy after some quick thinking.
“So, what are you going to do now, silent type? Will you attack me and die? Or do you want to surrender and become one with me? I’m going to give you two chances to attack me, since I’m generous today.“
He spoke with a mocking tone, as if he were talking to someone he knew very well. But oh boy, he didn’t know what Ichiro was preparing for him. He needed time. He needed to add specific details to each attack he planned to counter the domain problem. Anti-magic. His enemy’s shapeshifting looked like to be of the magical variety, so that was the first step in his plan.
“I’d like to ask a question.”
“Finally, our silent hero spoke! I grant you the special honor of answering your question before you die.”
“Did you build this horrendous castle? You’re making the world’s greatest architects spin in their graves, you know?”
Ichiro pointed the throwing knife accusingly at him. Ichiro’s answer made the boy laugh again. He eventually calmed down after a few minutes. He wiped the tear from his eye and spoke. It gave Ichiro enough time to complete his ultimate invisible attack.
“Yes. I am the architect of this castle! And the one who made the castle the way it is today is the one sitting on the throne right now! I did it myself, using the abilities I gleaned from hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians. So yes. What are you going to do about it? Kill me?”
Ichiro smirked and prepared his attack. The being who called himself king had no clue how strong Ichiro actually was.
“Yes.”
He hurled the knife at the being at breakneck speed, but the being easily caught it with the tentacles that sprouted from everywhere. The throne was overrun with tentacles, which were connected to the being. The throne was literally covered in them.
“What a waste of a perfectly wonderful weapon... Well, that’s what happens when you attack me without preparation. This happens when you underestimate a god!”
It rushed at him, but it didn’t reach Ichiro because the being disintegrated into fine dust and the dust fell into the throne.
“Wh... a... t...”
The dust settled down on the carpet, which was stained with blood. The bloody pattern resembled an ancient Japanese painting.
Ichiro activated the attack just as the knife was thrown, and the being revealed its true form. The knife was merely a distraction. The actual attack comprised two nanometer thick and several meters long blades made of hardened mana molecules, spaced 10 nanometers apart and surrounding the target from all sides. It wasn’t visible from any sight, even with the target’s magical far-sight. They flew into the target as quickly as the knife was thrown, ripping and tearing all connections, including the soul one, bit by bit. The greater the damage at the molecular level, the longer it would take to regenerate itself. All because the shapeshifters’ building blocks are around 20 nanometers thick, so it is first needed to regenerate them before moving on to other parts. He had read it on some obscure manga he got from an obscure place. Ichiro did not know how they could regenerate from that.
Shapeshifters based on magic were vulnerable to anti-magic, as were domain users if they disconnected from it. He tested it on a few weak ‘shadow beings’ and it worked for some reason, so it had a good chance of working against a foe in front of him. Ichiro labelled it ‘Death by a Billion Cuts,’ but in reality, it was executed with even more cuts, and then another one. The attacks were extremely precise, and Ichiro could not stop until he destroyed the being completely. The only thing that prevented him from continuing his attack was a sudden change of heart.
If that being was a domain holder, he needed to destroy the domain, too. He summoned a dark red portal from which he grabbed the scorched flamethrower, which was linked to a portal via a tube. It was the ‘Gehenna Flamethrower,’ a hellish-looking flamethrower with a portal to the Hell dimension. Purifying flame from the depths of Hell that were difficult to extinguish. It was far weaker than the ‘Armageddon Flamethrower,’ which was linked to the dimension where Armageddon occurred, but it did the job. He didn’t summon the latter because he burned himself to death with it before waking up one time. The Armageddon flames were far too powerful.
Ichiro aimed the flamethrower at the dust and began spraying the flame everywhere. First, the location of the shapeshifter to ensure that he did not regenerate, and then every other location on the ground and walls. The flames reached the ceiling and the floor. Every single part of the room was covered in flame.
After a few minutes of burning, the room was filled with black smoke, and Ichiro could barely see through it. He returned the flamethrower to the portal and shook his hands at the job well done. Everything around him was on fire, and the damage to him was blocked by his armor, so he couldn’t feel anything, except an occasional pain.
The purifying flames cleansed the stone, columns, skeletons of previous victims, and weakened the domain itself.
But when he tried to leave, he was punched in the chest by a fist from the ground. He flew at high speeds towards the stained glass, and was subsequently defenestrated from it.
Glass shattered and flew away with Ichiro onto the city’s streets, bypassing the crater filled with fog. Ichiro finally stopped himself after about 3-4 kilometers into the city. He used his powers to slow himself down, and stood in the sky, much like in the manga about a shinigami wielding a massive sword, looking toward a castle. The fire raged on, and pure black smoke billowed from the castle.
Ichiro’s head was racing with questions. Who the hell punched him? He was sure he saw the ground punch him. But there was something else that bothered him more than that.
Few seconds later, a huge earthquake struck with the castle at its epicenter. The castle rose into the air, revealing the rest of the body, which had been hidden behind the fog.
“Fucking hell. What the fuck is this?” 1 A sudden boss music: youtu.be/RNiMosWCtzk
He looked closer and realized that the castle was a living being. It looked like it was an actual enemy, not that boy was. It looked ‘shadow being’, he had defeated two days ago, but much larger. Larger than those cosmic eyes he defeated using mirrors a few months ago. As it climbed up the crater, a black mass in the shape of a humanoid wriggled. Each movement triggered an earthquake, and each time it moved, it left cracks in the castle, making it collapse. Its body was surrounded by tentacles, and each tentacle had a mind of its own, acting independently.
The height of that being was over two kilometers, and it looked like it had the same weight as a mountain. It looked like one giant monster, and it would crush everything in its path if it were to move in that direction.
He knew he wouldn’t be able to defeat it. There was only one option. Ichiro summoned from the white portal a black 2000s phone and dialed the number he had saved for this exact moment. He did not know if this was still active, but he will try his luck, anyway. After two rings, a voice answered.
“Hello? Interim Angel Mikael speaking. Commander Ichiro? Is that you?”
“Yes. I need your help. I require a Tactical Holy Nuke sent to my current location.“
“A tactical nuke? This is your third tactical nuke this month, Commander. I will not allow it to be used if the danger level is not high. Please wait while I connect to your location...”
After a few seconds, the being finally exited the crater. It roared loudly and began moving toward the town, leaving a trail of destruction behind, walking towards him.
Ichiro sighed. This was going to hurt a lot. He ran in the air, while holding the phone to his ear and talking to the interim.
“Okay, I’m connected... HOLY MOTHER OF JESUS, WHAT IS THAT? WHAT THE HELL IS THIS BEING?!”
Ichiro heard the interim screaming hysterically after a few moments of silence. It sounded as if he were having her last day on earth. He kept repeating ‘Holy Mother of Jesus’ repeatedly.
“I just... stumbled on it. So, send a nuke... please?”
“Commander, I’ve got it. Class K, Danger Level 9. Target locked. TACTICAL HOLY NUKE, INCOMING! Ten, nine, eight...”
Ichiro began running even faster, trying to reach the outskirts of the city before the nuke arrived. The massive black blob of mass was coming behind him at an even faster speed.
“Seven... six... five... four... three... two... one... zero! Godlexa, play ‘Ave Maria.’”
A small golden portal appeared in the middle of them both, while the phone played the music. A heavily decorated gold nuke ejected from it and flew at the torso of the being. The nuke hit the being and detonated with the force of a nuclear bomb. It was a direct hit. The blast was so intense, even the nearby buildings were blown away, and the shockwave caused the entire planet to shake. Enormous bright flash of light erupted from the center of the explosion and spread outwards at supersonic speed. The entire being exploded and vanished from existence.
But Ichiro wasn’t paying attention, was blinded with light and thinking about how to get away from the most dangerous thing he could imagine: the tactical holy nuke. He remember thinking in his dream about a weapon that could wipe out the ‘shadow being’ and its minions in a single strike. He had saved an angel in one dream, and it was him, an interim angel, who had such weapons. Ichiro did not know why he thought of it right now, but he didn’t have time to think about it now.
Ichiro teleported over short distances, propelled himself at Mach 5 speed, and removed friction. He had already traveled about 50 kilometers in 15 seconds. But he couldn’t get away from it. The wave of golden light engulfed him, and his consciousness disappeared into the blinding light. The pain was nonexistent, but he could feel himself melting away, with the music slowly fading.
***
*GASP*
Ichiro awoke suddenly, forcing his torso into an upright position. It took him some time to realize where he was. He was in the medieval aesthetic hotel. He took deep breaths, felt sweat on every part of his body, and felt his heart pounding at an alarming rate.
It had all been a nightmare. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply, and then opened them again. He was in his room. It looked exactly as it did when he slept.
Ichiro sighed and reached for the phone, which was nearby. He launched the ‘Dream Diary’ app and tapped the ‘create new log’ button. The app contained the last moments of his nightmares. He could recall the most recent events with ease, but what happened in the middle of a dream he could only recall in fragments. He used the virtual keyboard to write something.
[I was annihilated by my nuke. Again. I’m tired of this shit. Mental note: never do that again at close range.]
Ichiro saved it and put the phone away. He tucked himself into bed, attempting to forget what had happened. After a few minutes, he fell asleep again. He dreamed about cuddling with adorable kittens. His subconscious seemed to be a fan of fluffy cats.
***
Interim Angel Mikael looked at his holographic panel, where the holy tactical nuke landed a few minutes ago. It was not there anymore, and only the crater remained from the blast. A large crest shaped cloud appeared over the crater.
Mikael was glad that the problem with corruption was dealt with once and for all. He also liked that the commander had come up with a solution so quickly, though he would not admit that publicly.
“Thank you, Ichiro.”
He remembered the time when he almost died in the battle against such being a year ago. If not for Ichiro’s intervention, he would have perished that day. So Mikael was deeply in debt. Even the interim angels were valuable to the Great One, and that was why they received special treatment. That was one reason Ichiro was given permission to use the arsenal of the angels.
In the outer realm, where angels patrolled, Ichiro was simply known as...
The Wanderer.
Rewritten 27/11/2022
Overall changed a structure a bit
Removed the unnecessary details, added new ones, far more focused ones.
Added more character explanation for the angel.
Here's extra for opening the spoiler:
Tactical Holy Nuke, the warheads, and a bomb variant. Description written in Standard Angel Language.
Corrupted Goddess
I think that the begging is a bit drawn out with too much descriptions (makes one want to skip a bit of it). So, yeah. A bit less off the top and a bit more to the bottom.
Godlexa, how to survive a tactical holy nuke? What do you mean define the term "survive"?! There is no t...!!
I love this story