On a Godless Planet:Volume2B Chapter 41
Chapter 41: Shining in the Darkness 02[edit]
–The light that shines in the darkness accompanies the darkness that supports the light.
●
The first to move was Shifu.
Atop the dam weir, she turned her hair to iron and knew exactly what she had to do.
“Iron harvest!”
The dam was primarily made of reinforced concrete, so multiple harvests would be a challenge. Lake Okutama was water, so it would be nearly impossible there. The phase was different. But downstream was a different story. The riverside that acted as a floodway had been filled in during the collapse, so…
“Have some support!”
Thousands of metal blades emerged from the dirt ground and pierced the downstream side of the split dam as if sewing it up.
She reinforced it so it wouldn’t break any further. Because…
“Great job, Shifu! We don’t want that flooding out!”
This was Lake Okutama.
The dam reservoir went through a complex series of curves to form a lake more than 5km long. Only the downstream 2km of the lake were visible from the dam, but something was standing up from there.
It was the water monster. She had the upper body of a woman and a lower body like a group of snakes.
But…
“She’s more than a kilometer tall!”
Ki, who was waiting at the southern base of the dam, was right. The massive monster was in the process of standing up.
She had her hands on the lake surface and her countless snake legs thrashed at the water.
“…!!”
Several of those snake legs crashed into the dam from the upstream side.
●
Everything shook.
While holding unconscious Salacia in his arms and preparing to leave the watchtower, Mr. V noticed a school uniform shirt hanging on the entrance door.
“Thank you!”
He wrapped the shirt around naked Salacia, picked her back up, and exited. There he found…
“–––––!”
…something that looked so much like Salacia had earlier. Just a lot bigger.
She was attacking.
Water whips sliced through the wind to reach the reinforced concrete dam. The rapid strikes easily tore through the edge of the weir and swept away anything human-sized.
That meant the fences, the streetlights, the signs, and…
“Mr. V! Hurry to the other side!”
A horizontal sweep of a water snake leg more than 10m thick sliced through the watchtower more than breaking it.
Like a game of daruma otoshi, a chunk as thick as the snake leg was torn out of the center of the watchtower and the remaining upper portion lost its balance and fell toward the downstream side of the dam.
Mr. V heard the crashing sound of the watchtower being torn through. Since it all happened in an instant, it was a complex sound made up of countless pieces of destruction joined as one.
“Oh, no!”
Wreckage rained down. The metal bounced off the top of the weir and the glass loudly broke and shattered.
Mr. V hurried south, but…
“…!?”
She noticed him.
●
Ki saw Mr. V running her way.
“Helllllp!!”
The water monster was launching a barrage of attacks after him.
“…!!”
Her water snake legs were like a heavy bombing smashing the weir’s concrete. The destruction seemed to chase after Mr. V until it circled out ahead of him, but…
“Mr. V! Jump!”
Mr. V leaped to safety. His legs flailed pathetically in empty air until he landed, but the snake legs were immediately after him again.
“Mr. V! Slide!”
“Eh!?”
“Crouch and hit the jump button!”
Is that thunder god more flustered than he lets on?
<That would be Strider Hiryu.>
Ki wasn’t sure what that meant, but Mr. V wasn’t going to make it. So…
“Eshtar!”
“Yeah!? Need my help!? What should I do!?”
“Turn toward Mr. V!”
“Sure! Now what? Should I shoot a beam or something?”
Ki directed a casual full-power kick right into Eshtar’s rear, sending her flying forward.
●
Shifu saw that Mr. V wasn’t going to avoid the snake legs raining from the sky above.
Her only attack for the moment was to give Tooru’s long hammer a cutting edge. She was focused on reinforcing the dam, which prevented her from using any AoE spells. So…
“Mr. V’s in trouble!”
In fact, he was going to be hit. Ducking wasn’t going to help this time. Is he about to be squashed flat? she wondered.
A moment later, Eshita-chan flew in and landed right next to rolling Mr. V.
Eshita-chan pierced right through the snake leg falling from above.
“Eh?”
The water snake leg came apart, its water loudly splashing across the top of the dam.
It had been destroyed.
●
“Eh!? What was that!? Did someone just dump water on me!?”
“Um, Eshita-chan? I thought a hit from that would squash someone flat, so how’d you destroy it instead?”
“Well…” said Eshita-chan on the dam’s south side before suddenly clapping her hands together and smiling.
“Oh, I get it! I’m wearing all my clothes right now! I’m at full power!”
“So seven layers?”
“Yeah! I didn’t want my clothes washing away in that debris flow, so I ran back to the tent and grabbed them all! I have seven layers on now, so I’ll be fine!”
That’s such a half-assed concept, Shifu thought but didn’t say. And…
“Okay, let’s go with that.”
En-chan and Bil-chan showed up and grabbed Eshita-chan’s shoulders.
“Hey, wait! Go with what!? Are you carrying me away!?”
●
Shifu saw the Bil-Ki couple carry Eshita-chan alongside Mr. V as he ran.
And when the water monster attacked…
“There!”
They predicted where the attack would hit and placed Eshita-chan there while Mr. V sat at her feet. And then…
“––––!”
The water monster’s attacking leg couldn’t break Eshita-chan and was broken itself.
From there, they repeated the process.
When a snake leg swung down toward Mr. V, they placed Eshita-chan down and let the water break on her.
“Way to go, inspector.”
“Hey! I’ve never been treated with so little respect!”
“Thank you, Bilgamesh-senpai and Enkidu-senpai. I know you must already be exhausted after the previous fighting and spell use.”
“Oh, c’mon! You should be thanking me! Me! My sturdiness and clothing are the stars here! So you should be complimenting me!”
“Uhh, that’s quite something you’re doing there…”
“Yeah! That’s more like it!”
The very next moment, three attacks struck at once, but they were no match for her sturdiness and broke.
At any rate, they got get Mr. V to the opposite bank. En-chan waved to say he was safe. Which meant…
“Tooru!”
“Finally!”
<River, ver. River, ver.>
The river spirits were cheering them on from downstream. Probably.
That meant the spirits of the Lake Okutama area were on their side.
Local Shinto gods with cloths hiding their faces stood up in the mountain forest around the lake. The ones with special symbols on their inner suits were probably Bunrei gods who had been re-enshrined at a local shrine.
…Oh.
A Bunrei god who looked a lot like Senpai-chan was standing among the northern mountains. But it wasn’t her. Since she had cherry blossoms surrounding her at this time of year, it was probably her sister.
Shifu and Tooru held their hands together and clapped before summoning something.
Dark clouds formed in the sky, a metallic scent filled the air, and…
“Come on, lightning!”
●
Lightning and electrical discharges blossomed like flowers through the sky. It all intertwined before dropping straight down.
It was directed toward the hammer hilt held aloft by the thunder god.
It further condensed and rippled as further power was summoned from the sky.
“Let’s go, thunder god hammer!”
●
The water monster sensed danger.
“…!!”
Would she retreat or attack? Either way, she had to do something. So she altered her stance to try and face this threat after pursuing the fleeing man.
She couldn’t do it. She found her water body unable to turn around, move its legs, or even return to the lake water.
She found herself motionless, like she had frozen over.
“––––?”
A pillar was to blame. Made of white stone. But the ether pillar stood more than 100m tall and others just like it were arranged to surround her. What were they?
“I really didn’t want to help.”
There was a giant there. Not as big as the water monster, but it looked like an armored woman.
The giant in white and green armor was…
“God of War: Rulebound Goddess.”
A voice rang out while the giant pointed at her.
“Sing.
“The temple of harvest is there.
“The sacrifice for harvest is there.
“The harvest determines our land.
“The harvest provides our bonds.
“Become the harvest, embody the harvest, be the harvest.
“Bring our rules and our bonds to our temple.”
She heard it.
“Synkomidi Theon.”
Immediately, her entire body tore. No, everything forming her body was drawn toward the pillars surrounding her.
And the goddess pointed up into the heavens.
“I thank you for your gift of flesh.”
With those words, the attack struck.
An exceptionally large lightning strike fully split her already tearing body.
“Burn!!”
She and the lake water splashed up into the sky.
She was literally offered up to the heavens.
●
The largescale steam explosion was contained entirely within the temple pillars.
The barrier created by the pillars sent it shooting straight up and it arrived at the stratosphere in just over 10 seconds. There, the air currents and the steam’s own weight caused it to spread out and begin to fall. It turned to snow in the high altitude and turned to rain as it fell.
But the wind and the rain falling from so high split apart and became a mist as it fell.
No rain reached the ground.
Several rings of cloud formed in the sky and they simply spread out from there.
The moon shined in the sky, with the snake eye ring surrounding it.
After that, the altar absorbed the water, leaving only the emptied lake in the moonlight.
●
Good, thought Athena with a sigh.
The largescale battle was over and the heat filling everyone had faded. She still felt exposed in the long coat she had borrowed from Kido, so she made a mental note to summon Balancer later and get some actual clothes. But for now…
“Aunt.”
She called out to the white and green god of war standing atop the badly damaged dam.
“It’s over, isn’t it?”
Then she realized that her aunt and the thunder god were still looking to the lake.
A moment later, something entered her view.
There was a hill to the right. The sloped hill cast a shadow over the long, curving shape of Lake Okutama. It had a small village, it was covered in trees, and it was several dozen meters tall.
A woman was visible beyond that hill.
“Eh?”
●
Not on the hill.
Beyond it. On the other side of the slope covered in trees. And if she could hide behind that hill…
…Um, she’s along the diagonal line connecting me and the hill’s slope, so…
She had to be at least 300m tall.
She slowly walked past the hill and toward them through the nearly drained lake.
She was the water monster.
Except this one was around three times the size of the one they had just defeated. And…
“–––––”
The lake water and river water the water monster must have been holding back now rushed in toward the dam. The current swallowed up the dirt and reached the large water monster.
“…!”
She took in the dark soil and rocks, meaning she was no longer just made of water.
“Could it be?”
It had to be.
This was the true water monster that had been revived by the mold and the remaining human material after Salacia was removed. The previous one had only been split off of this one. Meaning…
“She’s learned what we can do!”
She was approaching even as Athena spoke. At 300m tall and 2km across, the large water monster formed earth and rock cannons from one side of her body to another.
She spread them out like wings and aimed them all at the dam.
“…!!”
She launched a merciless bombardment.
●
It was an onslaught.
The noise and shocks overpowered all else with pure pressure pushing in from upstream.
Water spray and concrete shards scattered like sparks and chunks of rock flew into the sky downstream.
The mountain cried and the water roared. And within it all…
“Damn!”
Demeter had summoned her temple pillars on the upstream side of the dam.
Synkomidi Theon was a field spell that applied a destiny-level rule on whatever was inside. You could call it a spell that offered a live sacrifice to a god. But now she activated it as a wall.
“Reflect the power attempting to destroy the altar!”
That was a divine wall. As massive as the enemy was, the earth and rock cannons were based in ordinary physical force. Too many blasts would still be a threat, but…
“This will hold for 5 minutes! Do you have any way of fighting back!?”
“I can use my thunder god hammer one more time!”
And how would he use it against that? And even if he could, could it actually destroy that water monster?
She wanted something more. And…
“What is that water monster after!?”
“The human!”
Demeter heard Neptune’s voice while the rocks and water smashed and splashed against the pillars.
“The water monster nearly reached a released manifestation thanks to the human material within her and now Salacia’s mold is guiding her to search for her child! She was only just born, so she is using the basic actions brought to her by the water. So…”
“So if she isn’t stopped at this dam, she could gain more intelligence and escape into the water pipes or to another river!?”
“Yes! She must be defeated here!”
But how? No, that’s my job to figure out.
I am an inspector after all.
“Hey, Eshtar! What the hades are you doing!?”
“Huh!? I just did a bunch of work, so I’m treating myself to some Ethnican! And why are you singling me out when you’re an inspector too!? You do it!”
“Aren’t you singling her out in the same way?”
“Sh-shut up. And what’s Iwanaga-hime doing right now!?”
“S-sorry. We got Sumeragi-kun to safety and he just woke up, but…”
After some hesitation, she continued within all the noise and shaking.
“Sorry! This is an important time for Sumeragi-kun and Kido-san!”
●
I came to and found myself looking up at a big boob. It wasn’t the moon. I wasn’t misinterpreting what I saw. That’s important, okay!?
I was all wet, so I could tell I had fallen into the river again. And while I didn’t know where I was, it was somewhere low down. I could tell because I had to look through the treetops to the night sky.
I was lying down and I could hear something really hard crashing together in the distance. Were those rocks?
And…
“–––––”
Kido-senpai was holding me.
But she wasn’t her usual self.
She had white and black skin and gold eyes. The arms holding me had snakelike scales and her legs were…well, not human. They looked like a bunch of snakes.
“Are you awake, Izumi?”
She smiled down at me.
“Now that you have seen me like this, we must say goodbye.”
●
Yes, I had seen it.
Kido-senpai had jumped out to save me and we had been swallowed up by the current.
But she had taken on this form to protect me. Then when I woke back up, I found myself looking at her in this form.
“Izumi, I will now go rescue the others who are fighting upstream. Once that is over, I will not return here.”
She smiled, showing off her sharp teeth.
“So is there anything you want to say before I go?”
I nodded and made the groping motion that opens my Revelation Boards.
“Hell yes! It’s time for a Kido-senpai interview!!”
Interlude[edit]
“I’m so excited! What should I ask first!?”
“I-I will answer anything as long as it isn’t too personal.”
| Back to Chapter 40 | Return to Main Page | Forward to Chapter 42 |
