The Assault Battle, Part 2

"Damn it, this is making it impossible to focus on anything else."

He lashed out in frustration. Inside the phone clenched tight in his hand, a battle with far too much at stake was unfolding. Someone’s life, someone’s desire—everything was on the line. Amid the clash of countless minions and soldiers, as cries and screams tangled together, Lena was swinging a spear far larger than her own body and driving back the knight in plate armor.

"It truly is an astonishing ability, but now that I’ve grown used to it, I can start to see the pattern. You’re inexperienced as well, aren’t you?"

"Tch..."

Knight Robert, who had been wordlessly slashing with his sword, knocked aside her spear and spoke. Naturally, Lena’s face twisted with rage.

But anger alone did not translate neatly into skill. Robert had started out flustered, yes, but he had adapted quickly and was already counterattacking, whereas Lena, once he regained his composure, began to be steadily overwhelmed by his swordplay.

"Group up! They’re nothing but beasts! Form ranks and push them back!"

Now that he had fully regained his composure, Robert shouted commands to his soldiers.

"The captain...!"

"The defense commander’s winning! Everyone, gather up!"

Robert’s orders lifted the morale of the soldiers, which had been on the verge of collapse. They regrouped and began fighting as a coordinated force, and once Ascalas’s minions faced an enemy with real discipline, they could no longer rampage as they had before.

"I don’t care. Minions don’t need Dominion anyway, and Lena won’t betray me just because hers is a little low."

If the other side did not feel fear toward Ascalas, the Grand Lord’s Dominion would drop. But he only bit his lip as he glared at the phone screen, paying it no real mind. He knew the Grand Lord’s power over mindless dolls—the minions—was something separate from Dominion itself.

"At this rate, victory can’t be guaranteed. Trained soldiers really are formidable."

"Should we kill the commander? If so, the formation will collapse as quickly as it was gathered."

At Agares’s amused suggestion, he stared at the options that appeared on the screen. It might bruise Lena’s pride a little, but right now the victory of the whole was more important.

"I don’t know what kind of monsters you people were running around as in the Demon Realm. But you’ll pay for attacking our village and harming our people."

"...Look at him, getting all worked up."

Driven back, Lena bared her teeth and glared at Robert, who had soldiers clustered around him while pointing his sword at her. A knight’s sword and mana were far sturdier than anything a mere mercenary captain possessed.

There was no way she could win like this. Lena could not stand that fact.

"Advance!"

Robert, having regained his confidence, rallied his troops and ordered the charge, taking the lead himself.

"...Tch."

But the moment Lena received a single command, she did not rush forward to meet him. Instead, she clicked her tongue.

"T-This is..."

Robert, charging toward her, froze when the wooden house behind her burst apart and revealed the true shape of the enemy.

A huge spider clad in a hard shell from head to toe. The ground shook as it emerged, flashing its red eyes above massive venomous fangs. Then it opened its maw and spewed dark violet poison all around.

"Aaaagh!"

"My skin—my skin’s melting! I can’t breathe..."

"My eyes!"

The soldiers, struck head-on by the highly concentrated venom at point-blank range, screamed in unison and ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠staggered wildly. Ascalas’s condensed poison melted skin on contact and burned away mucous membranes if it entered the eyes or nose.

"You dare!"

Robert, too, fortified by mana throughout his body, hurriedly swung his sword and unleashed a gale to drive away the poison spreading on the wind, the sting and shock making his nerves jolt with pain.

But by then, the charge the soldiers had been making with such confidence had already collapsed.

"Ghk!"

Without any room to watch over the soldiers, Robert had to block the spider’s sweeping foreleg. The sheer force behind it, matching its massive body, drove him back so hard that his feet slid across the ground despite all his strength.

"You bastard! Let go of this!"

Then the Grand Lord’s tentacles shot toward his staggering body. With both arms and legs wrapped up, Robert struggled desperately, but that only created a glaring opening.

"I admit it. That I’m still ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠weak. That we are... all of us still, desperately lacking."

And then Lena, her face gone cold as she stared at Robert, lunged.

"So I’ll keep devouring you and growing stronger! Again and again!"

"What—Aaagh!"

Lena, her red pupils gleaming in her black eyes, kicked off the ground and opened her mouth wide, sinking her teeth straight into Robert’s throat.

Clinging to his body like a leech, she screamed as she held his thrashing head and torso in place and drove her prominent fangs deeper and deeper.

Eating Knight Robert was not Lena’s choice. In fact, she felt ashamed that she, rather than the Grand Lord, was the one devouring him. To her, it felt like she was just proving how weak she was and making him invest in her again.

I can never, ever disappoint him again.

Her eyes flashed as she bit into the throat of a living man.

Devouring him was an order, but the fact that she had bitten into fresh flesh with her ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠mouth instead of using her tentacles, as she usually did, was proof of her own will.

"Aaah... Captain!"

"The captain’s been taken down!"

As the knight Robert, the very moment he appeared, was brought down in an instant by the Grand Lord hidden in the shadows, the soldiers fighting the minions were thrown into chaos once more.

Thinking about it calmly, they could have retreated in proper order.

But the Grand Lord’s overwhelming presence, and Robert’s death—the sturdy pillar holding them together—became an inescapable terror that swept over them all at once.

"Run! Run!"

"Aaaah, aaaaah!"

They turned and fled ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠in disarray. But the rough forest path belonged to Ascalas’s minions far more than to armored humans.

The fleeing soldiers, just like the mercenaries and villagers who had been chased here before them, were no longer fighting from the moment they ran. They were being hunted.

"Using favorable terrain, favorable matchups, and a favorable situation to flip the board with a hidden ace. You actually seem to have a talent for command."

It was a one-sided slaughter. Even Agares, certain of the outcome now, spoke with easy confidence.

"Explain this. What the hell is this?"

On the other hand, he kept tapping the screen and demanded an explanation while watching the whole scene unfold.

"This is the one I’ve already seen."

I pointed at one of the windows that had appeared. I had seen this before. It meant Lena and the Grand Lord could molt and grow into the next stage.

"What’s this one?"

I asked Agares about the line that appeared beneath it. A faint chuckle answered me, and one of the menus on the right side of the screen lit up. It was a new subcategory under growth, newly added right beside the cocooning used for molting.

"It is one of Ascalas’s abilities that becomes available anew when a certain threshold of growth is reached. Have a look. During the molting process, you may decide which aspects to strengthen further and which to discard."

I touched it. The only two possible targets were the units. For now, I chose Lena first.

"What on earth is this..."

"We’ll get to the detailed explanation later. For now, it would be best to harvest the spoils and form the cocoons somewhere safe."

Still dazed, I murmured the words, and Agares brought me back to myself. He was right. I quickly had the area cleaned up and moved Lena and the Grand Lord deeper into the safest part of the nest.

"The species your avatar belongs to, Ascalas, is a mysterious race created solely for you. By your own choice, no less. If you look at what they’ve shown so far, isn’t it obvious? They are your very own splinter selves."

...What nonsense.

"Merciless devouring, ravenous evolution, endless war. Those are the defining traits of Ascalas, and they are also your essence... Still not seeing it? Of course, you may not want to admit it. But that’s not what matters right now."

Inside the nest, Lena and the Grand Lord once again became cocoons. It was time to grow. On my screen, Lena lay there with her eyes closed, straight and still.

"The essence of Ascalas is, astonishingly enough, that you can choose the route of evolution however you please. Lena is your warrior. You can remodel her however you like. Of course, this is where your 'choice' becomes extremely important."

"Mm..."

Agares’s grand, overblown explanation only made me feel more intimidated than necessary. And with that came a fresh twist of guilt over the thought of doing whatever I wanted with Lena’s body. But when I reached out with trembling fingers and touched Lena’s form on the screen, what appeared was a little different from what I expected.

Select a trait to strengthen

1. Poison 2. Devour 3. Tentacles

1. Poison

Select a trait to discard

Since it asked me which trait to strengthen, I chose poison. Then it asked me which trait to discard. So it wasn’t free; if I wanted to strengthen one thing, I had to give up another.

3. Tentacles

After some thought, I picked tentacles. Looking closely, Lena had recently been using the long spear she carried with her through her body via tentacles as her main weapon, unlike the other minions.

"I’ve only adjusted her overall traits. Now choose what kind of being you want Lena to evolve into."

[Knight] [Priest] [Host] [Shaman] [Artillery]

That wasn’t all.

What appeared next was a list of classes that looked like something straight out of an RPG.