Ruler Vol 5 Chapter 43
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Author: Anit666
Editor: Weasalopes
【Sam’s POV】
“I summon thee- Destroyers of Fate, the Knights of Sin!”
The moment the chant was finished, with me as the centre, a large black circular formation was carved on the ground. At my feet was the symbol of Hell, which was connected to several complex symbols and geometric patterns. At the circumference of this 14 metres wide formation were 7 smaller circles with just a symbol carved into the middle of them.
The symbol of Hell started shining with a violet hue, and I stepped back to let it reveal itself in its full glory. From the ground rose the Devil’s Enchanter, the Grand Piano created by Malphas himself. His finest piece, it is said that anyone who listens to the melody of Devil’s Enchanter loses all reason and submits to the will of the player.
I seated myself at the stool placed in front of the Enchanter and took a deep breath. With my left hand, I struck a dominant chord twice.
As if reacting to my action, the formation on the ground shone fiercely and sent forth a shockwave full of deathly aura. The violet shockwave easily tore through Phiria’s barrier, clashed with the several shells that were bombarding us and smashed them into smithereens. It went on to collide with the dome of blood covering us and knocked it into oblivion.
The battlefield returned to its former state. Serasta seemed shocked beyond belief, even though I hadn’t even started yet.
Understanding my intentions, Phiria and the others left me with my piano and went to stand at the edge of the hall. Now, between me and that vengeful Valkyrie stood only the piano. But Serasta was smart enough to not approach the Enchanter which was oozing with a deathly yet seductive aura.
I continued what I was doing and played an augmented chord with my right hand twice. Following this, the seven circles adorning the edges of this formation lit up with a red hue.
I placed my finger on the rightmost key, and slid it across the entire keyboard. Power built in the formation with each descending note.
The prelude was over when I struck the last chord, and all that power was released at once.
The seven circles glowed with blinding light, and from each of them jumped out a figure at supersonic speed. The seven figures somersaulted in the air and landed in front of me in a straight line, with their backs toward me. Their crimson capes fluttered as they turned to face me, and their armours rattled as they genuflected in front of me.
The Royal Guard of the Ruler of Hell, the Destroyers of Fate, the Knights of Sin. My first work and one of my finest creations, they had responded to the summons of their King and were ready to strike down any enemy standing before me.
“Be at ease.”
The 7 headless knights stood up and awaited my orders.
The ability Hellrave which I plundered from Malphas was a really overpowered ability that let its user summon literally any demon from Hell and make it do their bidding. There was no limit on how many demons could be summoned simultaneously, neither could any summoned demon resist the will of the user.
The only downside; the user would have to make the summoned demons fight through Devil’s Enchanter. The composition acted as the strings that controlled the puppet which was the summoned demon. The sophistication of the composition decided just how many ‘strings’ there would be, and thus how well the puppet would move. So, the better a piano player the summoner was, the more masterfully would the demons fight; the tempo of the music decided how many abilities the demon could use.
And… let’s just say that I’ve been out of touch for several years.
But worry not!
⟦Maxwell. Initiate the Omega protocol.⟧
⟦Haahh…⟧ He sighed. ⟦I still can’t believe that you made a protocol for this…⟧
He grumbled but did what was asked anyway.
With this, my piano skills should be back at their prime when they easily rivalled those of behemoths like Liszt and Beethoven.
⟦Seriously? You created a protocol specifically to retain your musical skills?⟧ Simone demanded with a ‘What the hell?’ tone.
⟦Of course.⟧
That’s just how important playing piano is to me.
Now, what should I play?
Hmm, since it’s not just any demon but the Knights of Sin themselves, they can easily overpower Seratsa. I’m sure that none of them would have stats lower than a million. Serasta, with a measly 85k, has simply no chance against them.
So I should play that. Its tempo isn’t that fast, and it describes her current situation perfectly.
‘D’- I played the first note.
“I have a task for you guys.”
‘E’- and then the second.
“Defeat the enemy without killing her.”
‘A’.
“You have 2 minutes 50 seconds to achieve this task.”
‘D’.
“Now go!”
I started playing the music, while the knights looked at each other, gathered in a circle and started a conversation. While they were doing that, Serasta, who had been scared shitless just by the pressure they were exerting, had summoned countless knights and artillery around her, and had started some sort of ritual.
｢Who’ll take her on?｣ Faultier asked; his voice also reverberated inside my mind.
｢Not me.｣ Gier replied sounding bored.
｢Meh.｣ Lust just exhaled.
｢Taking on such a pathetic creature? No thanks.｣ Neid wasn’t interested either.
Zorn and Vollerei just averted their gazes. Stolz finally sighed and declared.
｢Fine, I’ll deal with her.｣
Oh, so the mighty Stolz will personally step on the arena and dispatch the enemy. How nice of him.
He stepped forward while the others bade farewell to him and gathered around me. It was clear that they wanted to converse with me, but none of them spoke anything, perhaps because I was busy with playing the piano and they didn’t want to disturb me.
Stolz cracked his fingers one by one- his own version of ordering the enemy to put up a good fight-, unsheathed his sword and started walking towards Serasta while scraping the sword on the ground. After all, it would be beyond insulting to Stolz if he subdued the enemy without giving her a chance to retaliate.
Serasta sensed the approaching black armoured headless knight, and ordered the artilleries to open fire at him.
Around hundred artillery spewed their Blood Shells at him, and in the blink of an eye they were already on Stolz.
Of course, just before they could touch him, they disintegrated, and Stolz continued walking with the same gait as before.
Stolz’s unique passive skill: Overrule. Any attack that Stolz considered below himself would simply disintegrate before reaching him. This skill was basically the weaponized version of ‘Your attack isn’t worthy to touch me’. It really suited someone as prideful as Stolz.
Serasta panicked a bit when her artillery shells did absolutely no damage to him, and switched her tactics. The firing stopped and the Blood Knights stepped out to battle Stolz. The soldiers who had vowed to protect their master right till their last breath, brandished their swords, spears, bows, hammers, axes, nunchucks (what?) et cetera and lunged at Stolz simultaneously.
Of course, in the eyes of Stolz, they held less value than the inedible weeds growing at the side of a road. Both the knights and their weapons disintegrated before they could touch him, and he continued walking in Serasta’s direction with his former gait.
By the way, Stolz was left with only one minute.
“Aaarrrghhhh! WHY. INTERFERE?!” She shrieked and clawed at her hair.
She then joined her hands, closed her eyes and started mumbling, as if she was praying. A small flame lit up at the centre point of the magical formation she had carved into the ground, and the fire followed the engravings and started spreading out.
At the rate they were going, the fire would take 30 seconds to spread to the entire formation, Stolz would take 35 seconds to reach Serasta, and my song would finish in 40 seconds.
The artilleries moved to buy time for their master. Around 20 of them started firing at Stolz, while the rest twisted and turned and combined to form a… railgun?
Bruh, wat?
Hmm, rather than a railgun, it seemed more like a mana cannon. The cannon was 4 metres long and 1 metre wide. At its mouth, a humongous amount of blood and mana was being collected and concentrated. That ball of bloody mana held so much raw energy that I could feel it from where I was playing the piano, and it was so dense that the space around it was being warped.
When Stolz was 10 seconds away from her, the mana cannon fired. With a deafening roar, a laser beam wide enough to completely swallow Stolz shot out from the cannon.
It rent the ground and shook the air as it made its way towards Stolz. And when it clashed with him, the beam parted into parts; it simply wasn’t strong enough to pierce Stolz’s overwhelming defence provided by his ‘Overrule’.
However, the two beams recombined behind Stolz and continued on the path they were travelling on, towards us.
The super powerful laser beam’s actual target was me, not Stolz. Did Seratsa realize that I was controlling him through Devil’s Enchanter? In her current state? Just how monstrous are her battle instincts?
While wondering that, I quickly switched from ‘DEAD’ to ‘Moonlight Sonata’s 3rd movement‘. Due to the sudden increase in tempo, Faultier was able to move and erect a barrier in front of us. The laser rammed into the barrier with an explosive force, and a contest of strength started between them.
The one to emerge victorious… was Faultier’s barrier. As the power behind the beam subsided and it vanished, what was left behind was a pulverised battleground. Its overwhelming power had dug out a trench from where the beam had passed through, while its sheer heat had melted the ground around the trench.
By now, Stolz had reached Serasta. The battle was over, and to signify it, he raised his sword overhead.
But at that moment-
“I. IMPLORE. YOU. TO. ANSWER. MY. SUMMON! O. SPIRIT. KING. SOLIS. FEUZARU!”
-Serasta completed her ritual.
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