The New World, and the Land of Illusion. (Touhou Overlord crossover)

Blue Glass · May 9, 2023

Yes this story premise is rather outlandish but hey I figured such a thing is what is needed. Besides this popped up occasionally over the last year so might as well.

A groan escaped as consciousness slowly started to return to her. The feeling of grass and the faint feeling of a breeze greeted her. "What happened," She picked herself up as her head pounded. "I remember using a setup with that headset I borrowed for the spell and then…"

As the headache subsided she started to look around the area. She wasn't within a futuristic, or rather modern from her perspective, room within the universality she worked with. Instead, she was outside with grass, an open sky, and a faint nightly breeze.

Stars greeted her as she looked into the night sky. Renko had grown used to the difficulties of using her ability in the last few decades. With the use of magic to aid her such a problem wasn't as bad as it was but seeing the night sky without any need to help her made him recall a time when she was younger. Before those in remaining paranormal and the moon had cut off the leadership of the world in secret creating the conditions of how it was now. Before her learning of magic wrapped her very existence as a human into being the first Magician to be seen in the world of humans in a long time. Back in a time where she had been with her missing friend.

She closed her eyes as she thought back to that day. When they last saw each other. 'Merry…'

Reminiscing about the past could wait as right now she had something else to look into. A string of unexplained disappearances that had centered around the game YGGDRASIL. All of which looked random and were easily swept away. Indeed she would have ignored it herself if it wasn't for one thing. In one of the missing persons, someone she had known from her day job as a physics professor, had a slight taint of what she believed was magic.

Now here she was in a place where the sky could be seen again without aid. 'I should figure out where I am,' No sooner than she thought this did she activate her ability and found that everything was off. 'None of the constellations, and the moon isn't even the moon.'

Faced with weird stars, a moon that didn't feel like the moon, and the very obvious fact that everything seemed rather alright Renko could only assume she wasn't on earth anymore. Her first thought was she was in one of the "other realms" as those who still lingered in the human world called them. That thought was shut down immediately as the sky should be the same across all of them. Neither could this be the Lunarians' home on the moon.

Indeed whatever had brought her here couldn't be tied to the Lunarians. That left her with few possibilities. She was either in a completely different solar system or in a different universe. 'Did I accidentally open a wormhole?'

For a moment a pulse of energy had surged over the world. Most could not feel it and for those that did such a feeling was so brief that they had forgotten about it. A few knew that whatever that had been was something that piqued their interests. None more so than a large dragon who lay within a floating fortress. Tsaindorcus couldn't believe what he had felt that he almost thought his mind was playing tricks on him.

'My magic felt like it had been free,' Whatever it was had seemed for a moment to break the feeling of corruption that had edged itself into his inborn magic. It was as if something disturbed what had become reality.

As a Dragon Lord, a True Dragon Lord, he had to deal with the effects Tier Magic had on his own magical abilities. Wild Magic had suffered as a side effect of its proliferation. Mentally he cursed his father who had caused this mess overall in the first place. Yet, in a brief instance, the hold it had on his magic had been removed. For a moment he had the freedom of his power. As fast as it came it was gone. Almost like a delusion of his mind.

'If I recall this is happening around the time that another player is to come to this world,' There had to be a connection as in his centuries of life had taught him that there was no such thing as coincidence. 'Could it be the player or perhaps something else?'

Tsaindorcus highly doubted it was a player. Something else had probably been the cause of that. As he thought about it he noticed that something was off. Someone was here trying to hide. "Come out, I know you are there."

Whomever it is they both were amazing at entering without triggering any alarms of the fortress but also sucked at not revealing themselves to him. Coming out of the shadows was a young human woman dressed in an outfit that seemed off from everything he knew. A cape that a wizard or mage would wear alongside an outfit that seemed strange. In her hand was a device of some sort small and rectangular. On her face though wasn't a look of fear, a lot most humans would have when in the presence of a Dragon Lord, or perhaps one of awe at such a being. Her look seemed closer to wonder.

"I didn't think Gensokyo had a western dragon."

Sumireko didn't know why she appeared here, and where exactly she even was, but seeing a big westerner dragon was something that she wasn't complaining about. That did bring up a question of where she was exactly. Maybe, somewhere like former hell, or maybe the dragon had moved its lair to Gensokyo much like the Scarlet Devil Mansion was moved by its vampire mistress.

"What is this Gensokyo you speak of?"

The response from the dragon confused Sumireko. She was asleep which meant she was in Gensokyo right? "What are you talking about?"

Chaos had gripped Gensokyo as suddenly without warning storms of various kinds, mini earthquakes, and finally, tarrings of space opened and closed about. All within the span of minutes but the effects and resulting chaos was still being felt. Most of the inhabitants were in a panic about such an event likely being a new incident. For Yukari Yakumo that wasn't even the least of her worries.

In the instant that all that had happened, something had attacked the Hakurei barrier. For whatever reason it didn't try to collapse the barrier, nor did it try to force its way through the barrier. Instead, it was trying to take from Gensokyo, or as outlandish as it was to think of Gensokyo itself, and drag it somewhere else. Had Gensokyo just been a pocket realm isolated into itself it might have very well succeeded.

She was a bit grateful for the connections Gensokyo had though depending on how far it went Yukari could have a headache. Right now her focus should be on what had attempted to take Gensokyo and to see if anyone was missing. The phenomenon, either a spell or the act of some unknown force, had attempted to take Gensokyo and while it had failed she just knew it had to have been taken from Gensokyo. Finding who caused it was a priority that she was focused on but for some, it didn't seem to lead much of a trail.

Though that didn't mean there wasn't anything to follow, it was that it was confusing. One part felt as if it was from the future, time travel was something that she knew about having been stranded in the past, and only led to no real space. It seemed more along the lines of an illusion. A virtual world may be like something out of a cheap sci-fi movie. The second one, however, was near impossible to track because it felt like it was completely out of this world. Out of sync with time and space, another universe maybe she did have some experience with that.

Something had reached into their universe and tried to take Gensokyo. A feat that was under normal circumstances impressive and terrifying. However, it seems that there wasn't any real control over it. 'Still, whatever the reason Gensokyo has been affected by it.'

Before she attempted to see if she could go after who or what had done this, Yukari needed to check up on everyone in Gensokyo. First on the list was Reimu. Opening a gap she walked through and saw the state of the Shrine. While the Shrine was mostly intact, parts of the rooftop lying all around and the donation box was lying on the ground to the side, the grounds had been torn up. Damage that was all superficial thankfully to the Hakurei Barrier.

"Yukari what the hell is going on?!" Reimu had been caught off guard completely by the sudden incident. Whatever had just happened had torn up her shrine and she was pissed.

"Something tried to grab onto Gensokyo itself and spirit it away," An explanation that sounded ridiculous even by Gensokyo's own standards. Yet, it had been attempted by some outside source. "I managed to track it down but the thing is it's going to be rather difficult to get to who or what had caused this."

"So, Gensokyo is this world within a world that serves as a refuge, a refuge that you travel to in your sleep?" Tsaindorcus wondered what could have forced such a thing to happen though in her world he had a vague idea which such a place was probably filled with. Although, the term Western Dragon seemed rather strange to think about.

There was a possibility that she was from Yggdrasil. Despite his inability to use tier magic he was able to tell when it was used or if anything was made in the vein of them. What Sumireko had with her wasn't made with tier magic. "Yeah, though I guess I am not there."

Sumireko tried to think about where she could be. Maybe in some sort of Western hidden world? Which might explain why the dragon hadn't heard about Gensokyo. Still, a question popped up as to why she had ended up here herself but Sumireko just probably chalked that up to something supernatural that she didn't know about.

"So, what is the place called, your world I mean?"

The dragon was a bit surprised by how casual she was with talking about this. It was as if this wasn't anything but a minor inconvenience. Perhaps it was, she probably possessed a means to return home of some sort. Either that or she literally had no idea where she really was.

"The world has had a few names depending on who you ask, we Dragon Lords know it as Saindrok, the humans once called it Terris, I forget what the ancient beastmen called it, but to the players of Yggdrasil they called this the New World."

Of all of that, the only thing that sounded familiar was Yggdrasil. The World Tree of Norse mythology. Something that Sumireko did ask about it when she wanted to know about the other mythologies and how much was real. Almost no one she asked, which wasn't a lot admittedly, seemed to have an idea about what she was talking about. Kasen seemed familiar with it but told her that she shouldn't bother with asking about it. The term player threw everything she had expected into confusion.

'Wait players, does he mean something like a video game?' The multiple names for the world was concerning as well. As much as she would like to figure all this out Sumireko had a feeling it was better to not focus on it. "Well, I apologize for popping by but I think I should wake up now."

The dragon, if it could, would have given her a raised eyebrow at her phrasing. "You believe this to be a dream?"

"What, that's not what I mean," Besides she was still a bit wary about actually dreaming after the whole thing with her dream selves. "I travel between my world and Gensokyo when I sleep so if I wake up I should be back home."

In all his centuries he had never heard of something so out there. Technically, he heard that in a long time passed some old philosopher had predicted this as a possibility. That dreams could be used to travel to other worlds. Beyond that, he had no idea. "Really?"

"Of course, all I have to do is focus on my psychic powers to wake myself up and…" Sumireko blinked as nothing happened as she tried to force herself awake. Even if she was not within Gensokyo proper it was possible for her to still awake back up. If she couldn't awake back home but was standing here then there had to be only one possibility. She was awake and this was actually her real body.

"You're stuck here aren't you?"

Tsaindorcus figured that was the case. It had to be because of his father's ritual. She was stuck here against her will because of him. It was fortunate for them both that she showed up here instead of some random location on the planet below. As bad as the thought was, he really didn't want to risk seeing what would happen if someone unrelated to the players could do it if allowed to roam freely. He already felt responsible for all the suffering his father had brought to the world being his son and all.

Reimu didn't fully understand what Yukari was talking about when she spoke about other universes. She did understand enough to know that this wasn't exactly something anyone could really see coming, though she thought she saw her say something in a barely audible whisper. Whatever the case it didn't matter much to her. Unfortunately, dealing with the incident was another matter.

"So, traveling to who or what caused this is impossible?"

"Not impossible it's just rather difficult," Most of the issue was actually how faint the echo was. Sure, she still in a word had the pathway isolated but really she wouldn't try it right now. "Before anything is done I want to see if no one has gotten pulled in by it."

Yukari knew that was a pointless justification. She already figured that had happened already. Really, right now her immediate focus was dealing with her fellow sages who likely were also planning on what to do, and get them to help with the whole crossing realities. At the very least she needed a list of names for who was missing. It was good she sent Ran off to check up on everyone.

So, that about does the proof of concept/prologue. I would like to hear anyones thoughts. Well, assumimg this story gets anyone to see it.

Blue Glass · May 27, 2023

This took a lot longer then I thought it would but to be honest I am grateful that I at least got it out before the month ended. Sorry, but that's just kind of how it is.

According to Ran, it had seemed that no one was missing from the Human Village, the Myouren Temple, or the Divine Spirit Mausoleum. No one from the Forest of Magic seemed to be missing to their knowledge although that was hard to fully pen down given how she only paid a visit to those with a permanent residence there.

That's where the good news ended, however. The Scarlet Devil Mansion was missing both its mistress and her little sister. Youkai Mountain had a few missing inhabitants but the most notable was Sanae who just up and disappeared right in front of her shrine. Two others were missing from the bamboo forest exactly who was unknown as a few rabbits only told Ran, the fairies around the Misty Lake were in a panic which had to mean one or both of the greater fairies who lived there were missing. The Flower Garden of the Sun was missing its primary caretaker and inhabitant. What stopped Yukari from reading the list was the fact that Okina was one of those that had gone missing as her Servants had revealed in a panic.

One of the Sages of Gensokyo had gotten taken away by this mess somehow. Yukari would have probably laughed at such a thing if it wasn't concerning. "This is just within Gensokyo directly," An emergency meeting was going to need to be called in hopes of getting everything settled down amongst those in Gensokyo. "I can't imagine if this had affected any of the realms directly tied to it."

Her biggest hope was that at most it was isolated to just Gensokyo and them. Otherwise, there was going to be a whole host of headaches to deal with. Some of which are more understanding than others. Speaking of the issue at hand Yukari was certain that with some help she could trace the connection to the future in order to piggyback and force open a pathway to wherever they had ended up.

The only issue for her was that it would require her and two others. Someone who can control time was preferable, something that was easy enough to get as the head maid of the Scarlet Devil Mansion will be willing to help, but also someone who can feel or see the possibilities to ensure they time it right into forcing open a gateway from this lingering connection. Unfortunately, the only person she had on hand that could do so was also one of those missing. That made things more difficult than she had liked but not impossible.

"Ran, I need you to go to Tir Na Nog."

Her shikigami looked surprised to hear that. Tir Na Nog was far out of the way of Gensokyo. The realm that was the homeland of the fairies hidden within the unseen in the British Isles and current residence to the last of the Celtic Gods. "Is there any reason I should go there?"

"I need you to get someone," Probably the only other person she knew who would be willing to help and had the skill set to take the missing position. Otherwise, they are going to have to wing it and hope for the best.

One minute she was with Sakuya enjoying tea in her mansion and not long afterwards she felt something. A shift in the air followed by everything shaking and then the ground below her opening up as she fell into what could be described as a rift. Remilia had no idea what had happened and found herself landed in the middle of a woodland in a small clearing during the middle of the day. Naturally, on instinct, she had gathered her power to resist the sun's rays and race to the shade of the tree but for some reason, she didn't feel the sensation of pain from the sunlight.

Normally, a vampire will feel the pain as the sunlight cooks them into ash. Instead, she only felt mild discomfort. Which was strange as the sun didn't do that normally. Nowhere had it done that. Not back when she lived on the Outside World, Gensokyo, or during her time meeting with her distant relatives.

'I fell through a hole and ended up here,' That brought up a question about where she had even shown up. 'It has to be something that affected most of Gensokyo.'

Speaking of Gensokyo, Remilia noticed something off. In front of her materializing was an ethereal card. Just looking at it was enough to confirm something for Remilia. That the spell card system wasn't in effect at all. Which meant that wherever this was she was back to going about things in the old way of how things had been done. Alone as well which was something that Remilia hadn't really done in a long time. Only the clothes on her back and her spear which she always had on her for defense with her.

Looking around her immediate area Remilia noticed something that was very telling. It was faint, probably difficult to tell as someone had tried to hide the evidence, but a group of people had died here. Remilia had learned via necessity back when she lived in the late Middle Ages. Whoever did it only did enough to make it not so obvious. Likely hoping for the natural processes of the world to hide it. Turning away from the scene of what was probably a mass murder Remilia thought about what to do next.

Getting back home was an issue but she was certain that whatever had happened would be solved. It had to be because unfortunately for her she had no real way to return home on her own power. 'Maybe I can ask Patchi about that when I get back.'

After a few minutes of wandering in a random direction, Remilia was greeted with a larger clearing. Where she could see something, no someone, just standing there motionless. Her outfit reminded Remilia of a young noble lady. In her hands was a strange-looking thing that Remilia thought had the appearance of a lance of some sort. Deciding to get closer she could tell that she wasn't human.

"Who are you and why are you standing in the middle of nowhere?"

No response was given. In fact, there was no acknowledgment of her presence. She just stood there looking down like some kind of standing doll. Remilia was somewhat annoyed by the refusal to acknowledge her, and a bit put off by it as well. Something was wrong with her and Remilia was curious as to why. Either it was someone's ability or perhaps a spell.

Looking at her eyes from where she was it had seemed as if she was in a trance. Yet, something was off about this. "What I wouldn't give to have Patchi here though I wonder."

As she was about to touch her in the side of her vision Remilia caught that her lance thing moved and was aimed at her. With a flap of her wings, she moved back away from her. "Well, that's…"

Her outfit had suddenly changed in an instant. Almost like some kind of spell or perhaps this was her ability. "What do we have here?"

Shalltear Bloodfallen looked at the "little girl" before her. The wings coming out of her back was the most obvious trait that dismissed her rather human-like appearance overall. If Shalltear could take a guess she was probably a devil of some kind. 'She's not from Nazarick, that's obvious.'

Even if she didn't know everything in there personally she knew enough that no sort of devil or demon like her. She was a native of this world and probably liked so many of them so far, probably beneath her notice. "I wonder what a weak devil was hoping to accomplish in trying to attack me."

"Weak devil?" Remilia had been called many things. Weak wasn't one of them given that vampires are a naturally strong youkai. "You attempt to attack me and you call me weak?"

"Of course."

Remilia was insulted to even hear this. She was Remilia Scarlet, Mistress of the Scarlet Devil Mansion. She was someone to be feared and respected and here was this little upstart calling her weak. Remilia held out her hands as the spear gungnir appeared, answering her call. Pointing the weapon toward the newly armored girl. When this is all said and done she will regret those words.

"How did she get past the perimeter that Aura and Mare are supposed to set up around Shalltear?" No one could give him an answer and to be honest, Ainz really didn't think there even was one.

Aura's beasts were patrolling the perimeter that he had given her. The only way around it was to teleport or gate here. Which was the only way passed though he was somewhat certain that no one who could possibly do that would show up. Except of course, for whomever had done what had happened to Shalltear. Even then he didn't expect them to show up.

"She looks to be a young devil of some sort," Demiurge commented as it was kind of hard not to notice the very presence of wings on her back. "I can't make out what she is saying."

The mirror wasn't about to translate the conversation. Nor was it located in such a way to try to read lips. As the young devil got closer to Shalltear Ainz was conflicted on if they should interfere. Taking a gamble he decided it was best to watch and see what happened. 'If she's the culprit I can use Greater Teleportation to be there in front of them in no time while the other Floor Guardians will follow me.'

It wasn't a very sound plan of attack but getting the surprise drop on someone was as good a plan as any now. He couldn't double back and get all that he wanted for this fight without them getting away. In the mirror, he watched as his answer was given to him.

Shalltear attacked and the devil had to jump back. A few words are exchanged before the devil summoned a long red spear. Finally, they charged forward and to the immediate surprise of everyone present the first clash didn't end in the death of the devil. In fact, if Ainz was honest judging by the footwork of Shalltear, she seemed to be the one struggling in the clash.
Shaltear had expected nothing much from the winged girl, probably a devil of some kind, in front of her. So, far everyone that the inhabitants of the Tomb of Nazarick had faced in this world were weak and pathetic. Sure, she had dodged her first swing but to be honest that was more her putting in as much effort as she expected was necessary. Even this fight was expected to be rather easy as she expected to easily overpower this girl.

At the first clash, she was proved wrong immediately and soon she found herself fighting defensively when it came to the physical front. This little girl who she expected to be nothing wasn't just stronger than her physically but was also faster than her! When she tried to break and get some distance to counter-attack she closed it at a speed that Shalltear knew she didn't possess. Her attacks, rather her counterattacks as the momentum was on her opponent's side, were deflected and blocked, almost expertly though there was some degree of sloppiness. Like she had untold years of combat experience and training but had neglected it at one point relying on faded muscle memory.

Shalltear used Force Explosion to send a shockwave knocking Remilia back and into the air. If she couldn't overcome her on the physical front then she was going to try on the magical side. "Implosion!"

Remilia could feel her whole body tremble as something was trying to collapse her body. It hurt but to be honest, Remilia can overcome it. With a gasp of pain, she endured it and looked down. The magic didn't seem like anything she had seen, and with Patchouli she had seen a lot. Shalltear who was viewing this was able to gain an idea as to the possible level of her opponent.

'Probably in the nineties at the very least,' She knew from talk amongst her creators that levels didn't technically mean everything, one's build did, but it did give a general idea of the threat of the foe. Still, compared to like everything else they had faced so far, and believed such a thing was in itself worthy of respect.

Shalltear's surprise was added on as the devil waved her hand with a magic circle forming in front of her. From it, a blast of red light shot out and slammed into her tossing Shalltear back. Mentally she cursed herself for just thinking that she wasn't capable of at least some magic.

Having a Magician for a friend wasn't really just all for nothing. While Remilia wasn't as well versed in magic as Patchouli she had picked up quite a lot of it here and there. The only real issue was how little she had bothered to practice. Something she had slowly been fixing as of late.

Red threads shot out from circles that appeared around her as they reached to bind her opponent. Shalltear immediately took up for the sky as Remilia raised a hand and drew something into the air, lines that vaguely looked like a letter of some kind. Crushing it and then tossing it towards her. It split up midair as they formed into a cross around her.

The symbols reappeared and from them, the air burst open as four beams of dark red, almost black energy came out and hit her from all sides. Shalltear was blasted basically where she stood as she started to feel a negative effect on her body. A debuff of some kind that she immediately realized was affecting her HP and her agility.

"Gandr is a very simple curse but it's one that I found a lot of use for," Remilia commented as she raised her hand quickly writing another rune into the air and crushing it.

From her hand, she let out a blast of red lightning at her opponent which Struck her weakened foe knocking her back. With her teeth gritted Shalltear was going to have to cancel the debuff which was going to cost her MP. With a quick use of a Lesser Restoration, she nullified the curse. "Greater Teleportation!"

Disappearing Shalltear reappeared behind Remilia who just barely had enough time to get out of the way of the attack. Catching her off guard with something like that wasn't easy as Remilia had grown extremely used to people appearing behind her. With a slash of her claws, Remilia let out a magical slash cutting into Shalltear's armor and forcing her back.

Not wasting any more time Remilia thrusted forward with a slicing motion of her spear. Shalltear's reaction was just enough to cause the weapon to only slash through her chest and armor. A smug smirk formed on Remilia's face that was quickly gone as she watched time seem to reverse itself before her eyes as her attack was undone.

'What the…' Remilia's shock was all her foe needed as Shalltear thrust her lance into her stomach. Remilia could feel it trying to take her own energy and on reflex, she tried to resist it before flying back from the strike. She looked at her dress and the wound that had formed.

Such an injury was technically nothing. Youkai were rather sturdy when it came to what could actually kill them and as a vampire, Remilia possessed an innate healing factor on top of it. For Shalltear the healing effects of her lance wasn't as much as she had expected but it would have to do. As for her opponent, the strike hadn't done much of anything and she was certain that the wound looked like it was healing itself before her eyes.

On the other side of the mirror viewing as the fight went down the Floor Guardians and Ainz were practically speechless at the whole event. So far for the former there was a growing thought that the inhabitants of this new world were all pathetic and weak. Partly because of how they viewed things of considerable power seemed to be weaker themselves. Shalltear's state served as something of a wake-up call that someone or something out there was an actual threat. However, there was a difference between knowing and actually seeing something that could be considered a threat.

"Physically. She. Outstrips. Shalltear. In. Strength. And. Speed," Cocytus's observation was hard to deny as every time they clashed physically Shalltear had to move into the defensive. As if to prove his point again the two clashed with Shalltear being the one to react to her opponent's movements. "Though. As. Far. As. Magic. And. Skills. Is. Concerned. Shalltear. Seems. To. Have. The. Edge."

A use of Negative Impact was used to blast the young devil off of her in the mirror as Shalltear attempted to hold her in place with Force Sanctuary. It worked for a few moments before her opponent glowed red and managed to shatter the divine magic barrier with her spear. Shalltear threw a Purifying Javelin at her as that happened which was blocked by a magic circle summoned as some sort of barrier for a moment.

"An edge that doesn't seem to be much of an issue," By the looks of it her magic wasn't Tier Magic like they are used to. Something different and as such completely unknown in how it worked. "Lord Ainz, what do you make of her magical abilities?"

Ainz was pulled out of watching the fight as he tried to recall what had just been said. Truthfully the moment they clashed on even footing, well somewhat even footing, he had watched to figure out just who that was. By his assessment Shalltear was seemingly being overwhelmed physically and her magical abilities were being used to arguably make the fight even. Unlike everyone else who was commenting he was more watching the fight as he tried to figure out what was going on.

"I haven't seen anything like it," None of the spells he recognized. It was like they were seeing a different system of magic that held some visual familiarities but beyond that nothing else. "It's perhaps some sort of magic native to this world."

Something else to think about. A completely different system of magic could very likely lead to issues when facing it. Ainz continued to watch on as the fight continued to be the same as Shalltear was still seemingly on the back foot even if she was holding her own. "How do you all think this fight will end?"

"Shalltear is obviously at a disadvantage and it seems is fighting on the backfoot but I am confident that she will win," A statement that may have sounded crazy given the fight seemed to be going in the favor of the devil. "Shalltear has yet to use Einherjar."

"Vermilion Nova!" At that, a pillar of flames consumed Remilia which caused her to scream. It didn't last long as inside it the pillar waved about before it started to move and was then gathered within her hands of all things! "How the…"

Shalltear didn't get to respond as Remilia managed to reflect the spell right onto her. Having a sister who played with the Sword of Loki and who had an affinity for flames required that she have the means to counter her if the need arose. Shalltear screamed as her spell was used on her. On reflex, she attempted to use her Time Reverse skill again but this time Remilia was ready. With her hand raised she pulled the threads of fate and was able to nullify the effects of the skill.

'What the hell?!' That should have been nigh impossible without a counter-skill of some kind that specifically was meant to stop that.

Remilia raced forward and tried to thrust into Shalltear who in response used Mist Form to take no damage. Remilia turned over in time as Shalltear tried to attack her. Blocking it with her spear she freed one of her hands and at point-blank range blasted her. Shalltear was sent flying into the air and landed with a thud on the ground.

Picking herself back up, Shalltear cursed everything that was going on. She had been losing. She didn't even know how much MP her opponent even had as any spell done to figure it out failed to give her anything. By the looks of it, she still had MP to spare while she was running out.

'I underestimated her,' At this point, she was going to have to unleash her trump card in order to win.

As soon as that thought crossed her mind she activated her skill Einherjar. To Remilia's surprise a copy of Shalltear, seemingly completely pure white, appeared from her and right next to herself. Both Shalltear and Einherjar raced towards Remilia and while Remilia did stop Shalltear's attack she did not stop Einherjar from cutting into her side.

A pulse of red energy burst from Remilia knocking back the both of them for a time. Remilia followed it up with a cut aimed at Shalltear only for Einherjar to take advantage of this to try and attack her from behind. Twirling around in time Remilia got out of the way and jumped backwards creating some distance.

No words are said but it was obvious that the momentum of the battle had changed. With Einherjar Shalltear knew she had the advantage. Sending out Einherjar to attack Remilia Shalltear figured she could use this as a chance to heal herself at least. Remilia blocked the constructs' attacks as she expected to be rushed from the side.

However, it didn't come as she predicted. Instead to the side, she saw a host of creatures being summoned from shadows only for them to immediately be attacked with Shalltear's body slowly healing with each attack. Sacrificing her servants or familiars in a way that seems utterly wasteful and barbaric to Remilia.

Still, there was no way Remilia was going to let her just heal herself. From all around her formed from small magic circles and red threads that tangled up the copy. A temporary solution to the attacking double but that was all she needed. Rocketing towards Shalltear a barrage of spears formed as they took out most of her summoned familiars either directly or forcing them to flee. The Floor Guardian had only a moment to get out of the way as Remilia's spear cut into her side through her armor.

Rolling a bit in midair to reposition herself, Remilia leaped forward as Shalltear blocked the incoming blow. Behind them both Einherjar broke from the bindings and raced to rejoin the fighting. Remilia broke off and flew upwards into the air as the copy failed to make contact. Looking down, Remilia saw as they both immediately turned to pursue her.

Raising her spear upwards arcs of red energy blasted down from the tip that seemed to act almost like lightning down at her foes. Shalltear used the last of her MP to cast Greater Teleportation appearing above her. Remilia broke her spell off to attack and used her wings to get out of the way at the last moment, narrowly dodging the strike aimed at her. Flipping in mid-air she landed on the ground below and looked back up at the both of them.

Remilia slammed the but of her spear into the ground as her energy seemed to explode from around her. A magic circle formed below her as she raised her spear into the air. The energy seemed to arced into the tip of the spear in her hands like a lightning rod.

Shalltear and her Einherjar raced to attack her, hoping to cancel the spell before she could finish it. Remilia brought down the tip into the ground as the gathered energy reacted. The magic circle all around her morphed its shapes into various runes as the energy within the strike was reflected back into it. A cascading effect as the built-up energy turned more violent. Right as Shalltear and her copy moved to strike the stored red energy erupted all around them in a blinding light.

As the light ceased dust and rubble from the ground fell as the clearing was torn apart and made into something better described as a blasted area. The grass in the ground had been burned and destroyed, the soil was blasted apart, and nearby trees had been destroyed almost completely. As the dust and smoke from the epicenter cleared it revealed only one figure still standing. Shalltear looked all around her for any sign of her foe.

That spell had been enough to kill her. Luckily for her then that she had a resurrection item. It had seemed that whatever that spell was it had taken out her opponent as well. A kind of suicidal spell that while not unheard of in Yggdrasil wasn't really used often if at all.

"Well, I must commend her on being willing to die to take me out."

"Sorry to disappoint you," Shalltear was caught off guard as the voice of Remilia spoke up. "But I will not be done in by my own attack."

Overhead the sky darkened as a crimson hue covered it. Reimilia flew there as she looked down at her opponent. Truth be told she hadn't had a fight like this in years, decades even. The last one was against a suicidal vampire hunter. One who could manipulate time and had an affinity for knives. The only person Remilia could say she would trust with her life. Looking at her opponent Remilia for a second could see her fate.

Her ability wasn't something she could truly control. Fate manipulation was really the ability to alter probability and one's actions. Fate was the culmination of one's choices, likely choices, and the possibilities that it created with all that in mind. A very difficult thing to control as some were naturally resistant to or could change it themselves because of an inherent awareness of its pull on some level.

"How strange your fate will continue even after your life's end at my hands."

Shalltear heard her words and had an idea what it might mean. She had died before defending Nazarick only to be brought back by her creator and the other Supreme Beings. She was going to fall and Lord Ainz would revive her. Even she couldn't deny it as her mp reserves were spent while her opponent still had some to spare on top of being physically superior to her.

A conflict of feelings raced in Shalltear's mind at everything. On the knowledge that Ainz might revive her, she felt both hatred, joy, and shame. At her opponent, she felt anger but also respect. Shalltear had made the mistake of thinking this world was filled with weaklings and here comes someone to show that she was wrong. Even if what she said was obvious Shalltear refused to let it happen.

Remilia lunged downwards from the sky as Shalltear found the ground below her breaking as she slid away from her attempt to block the impact. Remilia was quick on the follow-up as she thrusted her spear over and over as Shalltear was only barely able to hold it off.

Finally, it seemed that there was an opening for her to attack in the mess. Trying to thrust her own lance forward it was then where Remilia sprang her trap. Moving to the side Remilia stabbed her spear forward cutting right into Shalltear's forearm tearing through the armor and into the limb. Shalltear pulled her arm back but the loss of feeling was obvious as her weapon fell from her now useless hand.

Gungnir spun within Remilia's hand as she looked at the blood on the spear tip. When she cut into her foe she could smell the blood but didn't have any time to focus as she would immediately retaliate against her. Right now she knew that her enemy was spent and as such could take a moment to realize that her blood was foul. A living undead corpse.

"You're a living corpse of some sort that much is obvious but I don't know the type," Remilia cleaned the blood off with a swing of the weapon. "A Revenant maybe."

Shalltear was a bit insulted by that. She wasn't just some basic undead creature. "I'm a Vampire, a True Vampire!"

"A vampire?" Remilia couldn't suppress a laugh at this. "Please, you're not a vampire for I am one!"

"You're just some kind of devil!"

"An Oni technically, though depending on how one views it that can also be true," It was a nice play on words with the name of her mansion. "Although, I must confess both me and my sister are a bit different from the average even in that regard."

That all rested with the weapon in her hands. An heirloom of her family's bloodline and the reason for both her and her sister being born into the ranks of the bloodsuckers. Tossing her spear into the air Remilia jumped and grabbed onto it and readied the weapon to be thrown turning the spear into a javelin. As she did a demonically malicious and yet also serene and divine red light consumed the weapon. Without the limitations of the spell card rules, she could unleash the true power of the divine spear. For Gungnir was a spear that would never miss its target when thrown no matter the skill of its user or the attempt of its prey to flee. In her other hand, she created a large spare of red energy whose glow complemented the spear's own.

"Taste the fury of my true ancestor, Gungnir!"

The spear was tossed flying from her grasp as in her free hand she let loose the red ball. Shalltear was about to try to get out of the path of the spear yet something in the very back of her mind, a survival instinct that she had only just recently received, knew on some level the futility of it. For Remilia's own nature had been added to the spear to allow it to make its target feel their death, to feel that their fate was sealed the moment she tossed the spear.

The spear ripped right through her chest tearing right through her heart while energy condensed around it ripped through her whole chest. Following behind it Remilia's red energy ball collided with her and in doing so her body was engulfed in the scarlet blast. Overhead the mists parted as Remilia held her hand out as Gungnir returned to it. The broken and torn corpse of her foe lay on the ground. It had been a long time since she really had to kill someone.

Remilia turned her head towards the sky. Having lived in Gensokyo, and even before then, Remilia had gained an understanding of when someone was watching her from afar. During her fight, she had a suspicion this was the case. Holding out her hand she decided to see if this was the case as she cast an anti-divination spell.

Silence gripped the room as they watched Shalltear's corpse lay on the ground. Not only had the young devil managed to fight her on even terms. She had managed to kill her which forced the use of her resurrection item, and on top of all of that she managed to kill Shalltear again with less problems as she still possessed her magic.

To say their expectations had been shattered was an understatement. The Floor Guardians had just watched one of their own fall to what seemed like a native of the New World. In that moment the growing confidence in their strength within this world had somewhat been destroyed. Confirmation of beings in this world that could fight and even kill them did indeed exist.

However, when she managed to terminate the view from the mirror the shock at the end of the fight was replaced with paranoia. Ainz especially so as to him it looked like at first that she wasn't even aware of what had happened but when she terminated the view it made him literally rethink everything. Had she been aware the whole time that they had seen her? Had she gone and fought Shalltear in order to send a message of some sort? Was there more like her or was she just alone?

When his passive activated it tried to null his paranoia but Ainz literally couldn't stop as he tried to rack his mind around this. Most of his rapid thoughts are indeed in paranoia but there were also some parts of him trying to think positively, well probably in denial, about the whole thing. Maybe they weren't possibly tied to whomever had tried to take control of Shalltear and was possibly an enemy of them? If that was the case then attacking her after this was a bad idea.

"Lord Ainz?"

It was only when Albedo called to him did he realize that he had been caught in thought focusing a bit too much on the now turned off mirror. "What is it?"

"Aura and Mare are ready to move in and capture the devil," Albedo informed him as Ainz very quickly thought that was a bad idea. She just revealed that she knew she was being watched!

"What no don't!"

Everyone there looked at him in surprise at his statement. In an instant Ainz realized he might have messed up when he said that. Thinking fast he had to come up with an explanation. Luckily for him he had already thought up a good reason not too in his little worrisome thinking.

"First, she knew that she was being watched which means that she knows that she's expecting us to come after her," Now that he said it that sounded way too believable to not just be some random possibility. "Secondly, Shalltear fought her which means that she isn't the one who did that to her so we have no way of knowing if she is actually our enemy."

His arguments sounded rather weak, especially with his last one as even he didn't fully believe that. Ainz wasn't going to lie if they pushed him on it he was going to have to just give in. "You're right, how could we not have seen it?"

'Wow, they actually agreed with it?'

"Still, this event does reveal something important to note," Demiurge cut in as he cast a glance as the mirror returned to normal showing the blasted landscape with the corpse of Shalltear laying there. "There are indeed individuals in this world that pose a considerable threat."

You know it was a bit difficult in choosing the first interaction between Nazarick and inhabits of Gensokyo and after a few process of elimination I figured that this was the best idea. As for choosing Remilia I did so to give a general idea of the level of some in Gensokyo as her ability isn't directly combat focused, and taking some liberties she gives a good idea how the New World and Gensokyo stack up.

Blue Glass · Jun 21, 2023

Collecting Shalltear's corpse and planning to revive her wasn't much of an issue for Ainz. No, the real issue that seemed to dominate the Tomb of Nazarick was the aftermath of what this fight had entitled. A loss of the feeling of superiority that had slowly been growing within some of their minds. Ainz, however, was at an impasse on what exactly to do. His first thought was to try to track down the devil girl and maybe figure some things out. On the other hand, he could see how Nazarick was reacting to what she had done and represented. There was paranoia and a desire to ready the Tomb for the possibility of being attacked.

'Seriously, the lockdown turned into preparation for war,' Reviving Shalltear was put on hold for a moment as they did want to see if there was anything they could get that could tell them about the devil's weapon. For Ainz it seemed rather pointless but he could tell the Floor Guardians are a bit more wound up.

That wasn't to say he was mellow himself. Far from it as Ainz kind of felt more vindicated than ever at being as cautious as he was. The only real issue was that he kind of had to watch out not only for himself but for the whole Tomb. For a moment he wondered how different everything would be if he had come with nothing but himself.

'If it was such a thing I might have a more difficult time,' He thought about everything he had on hand with the Tomb versus just being alone. There was also the fact he wouldn't have anyone with him.

Ainz pushed those thoughts to the back of his mind. Walking into the throne room he saw that the Floor Guardians had gathered around and were already talking amongst themselves. As soon as he entered they ceased whatever they were talking about as soon as they saw him walking in. He had only caught the tail end of that conversation but it seemed to concern their little mystery.

"What were you all talking about?"

"We can't seem to locate the devil that took out Shalltear," That wasn't surprising. After the end of the fight, all the focus had turned more on getting Shalltear back and seeing if no one else had ended up attracted by the fact the sky turned red. "Nor have we come up from anything in the aftermath to give us an idea of how she did it."

Given it was some sort of native ability that they might not even be able to possess it didn't come as a surprise. All of which Ainz felt was to be expected. "I see," This also meant that there wasn't any reason not to resurrect Shalltear. 'I wonder if she'll remember anything when I do so?'

He hadn't tried to bring the dead back to life. Well, fully to life as he already knew about what happens when undead are summoned. Although, it could be different with Shalltear as he still had access to some of the systems of the Tomb despite not being in Yggdrasil. Ainz decided to file testing his ability to resurrect the dead on the natives for later.

"As it stands we should cease the lockdown of the Great Tomb of Nazarick," Prolonging it was only going to further make things difficult as is. "As for the devil, it's obvious that we lost her so it is best to continue as is but be much more careful with our interactions with the world."

Claiming the credit for killing Shalltear, or Honyopenyoko as he had told them, wasn't exactly difficult. It felt wrong given it wasn't his accomplishment but they had assumed it was so. Although, he did have to bullshit why the sky had been covered in a red mist. Yeah, that red mist the devil had unleashed managed to be seen by some travelers and was even visible according to some in the city. On the note, it turned out Shalltear had no memory of the whole thing which made the fact she had been defeated and killed by the devil a complete shock to her.

Regardless of the fact in the end he and Narberal, or as they are known Momon and Nabe, had become Adamantite adventurers. The highest level within the Adventurers Guild and walking around for the first two days was rather noticeable in how everyone treated them. Looks of awe and reverence were clear from most people. From other adventurers, there was clear envy and respect. Today though something else seems to have taken everyone's attention.

"Flying really?"

"Yeah, she just flew over the city clear as day."

"A girl landed near the mayor's

"My brother's a guard, he said that she's a foreign representative."

"A representative from where?"

The city was practically talking amongst themselves and it wasn't exactly hard to overhear them. E-Rantel also didn't play host to many foreign representatives, envoys would usually head for the capital directly after all, so this was a rather big deal to the population. Ainz could admit that he was curious about who it was but on the other hand, it didn't concern him right now. He had a lot more on his plate right now.

As he and Narberal walked into the Adventurers Guild building they could see a few of the city guards talking to the lady over the counter. Catching sight of them she pointed to the both of them as the guards walked up to him. "Sir Momon, Lady Nabe the mayor wishes to speak with both of you."

"Might I ask what is the reason for the good mayor to summon us?"

"His guest wishes to meet our city's great Adamantine adventurers so we are sent to fetch you, sir," With the guard's answer it seemed to Ainz that he was going to meet the representative who had the whole city talking.

"Very, well we won't keep them waiting."

A medieval fantasy world straight out of an RPG. That was the sort of place that Sumireko had found herself in. Tsaindorcus was rather helpful with getting her acquainted with the world and even helped her with getting settled into the place. Naturally, seeing how she was stuck here for the foreseeable future he decided to see about making her officially a diplomatic representative of the Argland Council State. A means so he could keep in touch with her while she explored the world without much issue. A bit strange that someone with no training or experience was being made such but hey not like she was complaining.

"To be perfectly honest I hadn't expected that you would come all the way here just to meet with adventurers," The mayor of E-Rantel Panasolei Gruze Day Rettenmaier, a rather portly man, took a sip of some tea. "It seems rather strange for a diplomatic representative to be interested in such things."

The only snag in her new role was that she was technically speaking having to represent a country. Sure, Tsaindorcus did give her a means to directly contact him if she needed it, but she didn't want to immediately use it all the same. "Well, I heard about two new rising stars who managed to make the Adamantine rank in a short time, you know."

"Oh, yes Darkness," Panasolei had expected that word had already been spreading about that across the kingdom. Raising through the ranks as fast as they had done was something that was of considerable note. "They had only recently made the rank after defeating a vampire by the name of Honyopenyoko I believe."

Sumireko wanted to laugh at how ridiculous that name was. It sounded fake to her like someone came up with it on the fly without any real thought put into it. Although, given she was in a new world the name might be real for all she knew. As for the name of the adventurer group, it sounded uncreative. If you ask her she could probably have come up with a far better name.

Walking into the room came the guards that the mayor had sent to fetch the adventurers and following behind them were two individuals who had to be the adventurers that made up the group with the uncreative name of Darkness. The first one to Sumireko was a man, at least she was certain was a man, wearing a full suit of black armor that covered him from head to toe. Next to him was a black-haired woman that Sumireko could admit was rather beautiful.

Having spent some time practicing she had tried to feel the surface emotions of people. Trying it on both of them the results were unexpected. For the woman there was disgust, and hatred hidden under what was a thin veil of calmness. Her neutral expression didn't match up though it was likely she could control her emotions. As for the armored man, she felt nothing. Well, it was nothing, there was dullness to his emotions that gave off the feeling of nothing. Like he wasn't even alive!

"Ah, Sir Momon and Lady Nabe it's good to see the both of you," Panasolei spoke up as Sumireko filed the strange feeling for later. "My guest here had been asked to meet you both so I apologize for any trouble this might have given you both."

"It's nothing really, we don't have anything important to do anyway," At least nothing important as adventurers. "I was told that you and your guest wanted to see us, sir?"

Panasolei motioned to the young woman who had not spoken. "Indeed, allow her to introduce herself."

"Sabrina Luminaria, representative for the Argland Council State," Sumireko introduced with a somewhat overly dramatic bow.

The pseudonym was something that Tsaindorcus had come up with as her name was kind of one that didn't exactly fit with humans around here. Their names sounded something that was mostly European or what vaguely sounded such. Although, apparently from what he recalled there was an island nation with names that sounded much like her own. Unfortunately, it was on the other side of the continent, a lot of hostile races blocked the two, and he really only knew about it because one of his fellow Dragon Lords had been there.

Ainz had heard a bit about the Argland Council State. From what he had gathered it was a nation that was ruled over by five dragons with an assortment of races underneath them to the north of the Re-Estize Kingdom. Arguably given such a thing he didn't expect the first person he would officially meet to be a human who back home wouldn't be much older than maybe sixteen or seventeen.

"I must admit it seems strange for a representative of another country to come all this way to E-Rantel," A fortress city didn't seem like someplace for a representative of another country after all. 'Perhaps something else is behind this?'

Could she be here because of a diplomatic visit to another country and was just stopping by? That was a plausible explanation though a nagging thought had it that she was possibly here because of the young devil. If it was the last reason then that would raise another question.

"Oh, I was on my way to meet with the envoy of the Argland Council State to the Dragon Kingdom when I heard about two new Adamantine adventurers and I figured I could stop by to say hello," That wasn't a lie though it wasn't the full truth. Sure, she had heard about them but she wanted to test something given how suspicious it was that they had risen through the tanks this quickly. "If it's no bother mind if you show me your power in a bit of a spar?"

A forest. One moment she was within the Garden of the Sun and the next she was here standing in the middle of some forest. All because something opened up within the Getting her bearings for a second, Yuuka could feel a faint void in nature nearby. Looking around she tried to make sense of where she currently was. She knew what some of the trees were but their placement around her was enough to know she wasn't in Gensokyo or even Japan for that matter.

Of course, this fact was probably difficult to pick up for most humans, and youkai. For ones like her who held a deep connection to the natural world such a thing was very obvious. Beyond that, the feeling of nature around her was slightly off. The difference between how things felt was akin to looking through a fog that didn't stop you from looking at everything but changed the colors of everything around you. Which made this very obvious to her that she wasn't in the Outside World but probably some place completely different.

'Whoever did this is going to be on Yukari's hit list,' Yuuka was almost certain that all of Gensokyo had been hit by what had happened to her and her home the Garden of the Sun. Yuuka's eyes narrowed as for a brief second the air around her was seemingly overcome by murderous intent. 'There better not be any damage to my garden.'

Unlikely that anyone would be willing to damage her flowers. The few fairies that lived in the Garden of the Sun are rather competent in not causing any terrible damage and any youkai in Gensokyo knew better than to piss off one of the strongest inhabitants. Was it possible that whoever did this had damaged her garden or will it be damaged by something else while she was away? Yes, and Yuuka would destroy them if she found that out.

Moving deeper into the forest she started to notice a lack of animals of any kind. From the small woodland creatures to even insects that tend to cover the world around them. It was as if everything in nature was running away from something. That is all except for Yuuka and one other entity that Yuuka felt watching her.

Closing her parasol she pointed the tip at it right at where she knew the watcher was. "Come out now."

Coming out from behind the forests was a green wooden-skinned woman with leaves for hair. Yuuka was almost taken aback at the appearance, not because of fear or disgust, but actually, because it had been almost three hundred years since she saw a youkai whose appearance wasn't generally humanish. In the centuries leading up to Gensokyo's creation most who could either because it was their natural state or via shapeshifting/magic/ability/raw force of will took on human-like forms. Those who couldn't or refused to either were hunted down or fled to other realms. The being in front of Yuuka seemed to be one of the latter which was something she hadn't heard of from anywhere in Gensokyo or from the realms tied to it.

A silence came as the unknown woman stood out in front of Yuuka, a bit surprised that she had managed to catch her watching her. Yuuka though had enough awareness of the world around her via her own nature that locating her was rather easy. Especially with all the nature around her.

"Who are you?" Yuuka rested her parasol on her shoulder as she looked at the woman. "You're not human that much is obvious."

"I'm Pinison Pol Perlia a dryad and you shouldn't go that way if you value your life."

Pinison's words made Yuuka look at her with a slightly raised eyebrow. The first thing was that she was supposed to be a dryad. Appearance-wise she did fit some kind of old fantasy book idea of it but Yuuka knew that dryads didn't look like that. No nymph looked literally like whatever they embodied and Yuuka should know. As for the latter half, it sounded like a warning for her life. Giving the feeling in nature she could feel it had to be caused by something.

"Why is is that?"

Everything about this was just kind of ridiculous and yet it was indeed happening. The representative from the Argland Council State wanted to see what they are made of and seemed like she would take no for an answer. Giving a small show wasn't really all that much of a bother and so he agreed to it. Sabrina had asked if there was some place they could do so and unfortunately, the only place that could be picked was outside the city.

That wasn't the ridiculous part. No, it came about when the representative wanted to be the one they would fight with. "Are you sure about this?"

Trying to convince her that it was possibly a bad idea was something that Ainz and the mayor of E-Rantel had been trying to get her to rethink. Yet, she just seemed to not care at all and seemed to just wave away any concerns. "Of course, it's not like this is a life or death thing after all."

It seems that there wasn't going to be any use in getting her to rethink this. At the very least this was something to take his mind off of everything happening back in Nazarick. With his swords at the ready, he swung making sure to have the flats of the weapon strike as to minimize the possibility of cutting into her.

Just before it made contact though his sword stopped as an invisible force grabbed onto it. Holding her hand out a shockwave of telekinetic force came out from her hand and knocked Ainz back, almost even knocking him on his back from the surprised force. 'What was that?'

It didn't seem to be magic, at least not a form of magic he used, but something similar enough. Sumireko turned over as two balls of lightning came at her. The two spheres met and seemed to explode in a flash of light with Sumireko not being seen standing at the spot or there being any sign she had been blasted back from the attack. Ainz's assessment was proven correct as Narberal was soon cut into by a bunch of cards thrown from overhead.

Overhead Sumireko floated with the air as all around her was a bunch of occult cards floating about with some in her hands. Ainz was quick to realize that she had teleported just before the Electrospheres had hit her. 'We're not dealing with someone who is in over their head.'

Going by the fact she could teleport she had to be able to use fifth-tier magic or at least something comparable to it. Ainz was certain right now that she wasn't even using tier magic at all. His thoughts didn't go much further as several of the cards were set alight and soon tossed at the both of them. Getting out of the way he jumped forward as he tried to aim for her only for Sumireko to fly out of the way with surprising ease. Turning her back around she held out her hand as she managed to catch a bolt of lightning aimed right at her within her hands. Electrokinesis wasn't something she had good practice with so she couldn't hold on to lightning for long but she didn't need to as Sumireko sent it right back at Narberal.

Narberal was only barely able to get out of the way of the ball of lightning while Sumireko raised her hand and sent another shockwave of telekinetic energy knocking her off her feet like a ragdoll. Ainz caught her with one of his arms as he looked at the floating girl who held a look of disappointment on her face.

"You know… I kind of expected much more from an adamantine ranked adventurer team."

In Gensokyo the spell card rules had mitigated the power imbalance that existed amongst everyone. Sumireko had been given a brief idea of what to expect as she was told that while she could have fought off most youkai on her own, maybe if such a thing hadn't existed the heavy hitters of Gensokyo would have been a completely different issue had she fought them. Right now she was in such a world where the spell cards didn't work and surprisingly it felt like she was a bit overleveled for most of the population.

Still, they were supposed to be suspiciously powerful, given how fast they had made it to the top rank of adventurers, and maybe even the "players" who tended to end up in this world every hundred years. If they were indeed them then they might not be all that of an issue in the end should they go about causing problems.

"Well, I see that you're quite skilled but unfortunately our maximum is not on your own," Ainz was still trying to hold his cards as he already assessed her possible strength. Admittedly, outside the devil, she was probably more than a match for everyone else seen so far.

"Oh, I've been holding back this whole time."

There was a small pause as her words seemed to take a moment to register. Sumireko was just using this to gauge the power of the two of them being possible players and so far she kind of wasn't impressed. Could they be hiding their full strength? Absolutely as she wasn't using all her tricks she had herself. For Ainz though the question was what was her upper limit.

"Could you show us a demonstration of your full power then?" She was the first individual from a nation that Ainz and Nazarick had little knowledge of. One who was claiming to be holding back so the question was just what was her full power like. "If it isn't too much to ask."

"Sure why not."

Deciding to give them a show, Sumireko raised her hand as within the city every piece of trash, alongside many things not nailed down, floated up and out over the heads of the citizens. All of it gathered over Sumireko's head, forming into a giant mass. Closed her hand the mass crushed down to almost half its size as its contents condensed into something that was vaguely spherical.

Sumireko threw her arm down. In doing so the condensed ball of random junk was sent slamming into the ground at high speeds and seemingly exploding as it made contact. Dirt, rocks, and dust fell into the sky as the city of E-Rantel was spared a shockwave from the impact by its walls but the ground still rumbled from the effects. Being near the epicenter Ainz dug one of his swords in and held on to Narberal as the shockwave passed them by. Once everything started to clear, a wide and somewhat deep crater was what greeted the both of them. An eyesore in the land around the city that was occasionally littered with the remains of some of the things that had been within the ball.

Floating just over the large hole in the ground was Sumireko whose back was still turned to them as she looked at the damage she had done. Only as soon as she saw it did she remember that she just might have scared the city. "I think I might have overdid it."

Aniz looking at the crater though had a different thought process. Such a thing was something he just knew was likely a thing that high-end Tier Magic could do within this world. For a second he wondered how he could get an exact idea of her power and then he was reminded that he had a spell to do just that. Casting Discern Enemy he hoped there wasn't anything getting in the way.

"Level seventy-six?" The spell seemed to have a hard time reading but level seventy-six was what seemed to be something that it seemed to end up on.

This also made him question the power of the Argland Council State if their leadership had someone like her under them. There was a lot that he didn't know about this world and both the young devil who took out Shalltear and "Sabrina" had made that clear to him. Narberal, however, who had no real idea of the actual level was just looking at the act of psychic power without a word though the look of utter shock was very much present on her face. Sure, compared to the Floor Guardians she wasn't special but this was the second strongest native they had seen behind the one who took out Shalltear.

If this was a taste of what the Argland Council State could do then Ainz was rather wary about what exactly the Dragon lead nation could do. He still had a lot to learn about the world. As for Sumireko, she realized looking at the giant crater that she was going to have to hope that this wouldn't cause an unnecessary scene given she kind of just unleashed what was effectively a meteor strike just outside the city.

A giant monster fell from the sky. Zy'tl Q'ae was its name and according to Pinison it had fallen asleep within the Great Forest of Tob, a place that Yuuka had no recognition of, and while a team of human adventurers had managed to stop the creature they only managed to beat a part of it before. Now Zy'tl Q'ae was waking up and devouring nature as it did so. However, Pinison seemed to hold out hope as she talked about the adventurers promising to come back and finish Zy'tl Q'ae.

"How long ago did they make this promise?" Something wasn't adding up and Yuuka had to be sure.

"Decades ago at least but I just know that they will come."

"Decades?" Yuuka wondered if she understood how time worked. Maybe she honestly did, which made Yuuka decide to try something else to get an accurate idea. "How many winters have passed over the forest since they made such a promise."

Pinison had to think about it for a second before the answer came to her. "Almost ninety I believe."

Yuuka had looked at her for a moment. She did know that humans didn't live that long right? Not unless one had diluted youkai or god blood both of which could impart longer lifespans, or turned into some kind of youkai. Magically expanding one's lifespan was also a thing but who wouldn't opt for being a magician over that? If she assumed the best possible scenario of the adventurers being in their late teens at best they would be pushing at a hundred years which wasn't typical of humans. Never mind, at that point they wouldn't be able to do much of anything.

"They're dead," Yuuka's words seemed to confuse her. It was as if she didn't even grasp or understand anything about humans. Had she been so alone that she either didn't remember or never at all learned anything about them? "Humans don't live that long, eighty years is the average lifespan for most, and even if they are alive past that point they aren't able to do anything."

Confusion was very much evident on Pinison's face as she tried to process those words. In her mind, it seemed impossible. She had been holding hope that they would come back and slay the creature for good. Now she was being told by this lady that they were dead. That they are not going to fulfill their promise because they're dead. Pinison was about to argue with her about it but the look in her eyes. The coldness within them was enough to get her to stay her tongue. She was dead serious about it. Her friends are dead.

"But if they're dead then there is nothing that can stop Zy'tl Q'ae…" Pinison slowly fell to her knees as the realization of how doomed everything was fully hit her. 'The forest will be consumed and the world will…'

Her thoughts didn't get to go any further as Yuuka just walked right past her in the direction of where Zy'tl Q'ae was. Pinison took a split moment to realize what was going on as Yuuka was heading in the direction of Zy'tl Q'ae. "What are you doing?"

"I am going to see this monster of yours."

Yuuka didn't respond to any of Pinson's words of worry as she continued toward the source of the wound in nature. As she got closer to the area she could feel a part of her recoil a bit. She was a being of nature after all so getting closer to the area affected was bound to have some effect on her. A clearing greeted her as she passed over what was deemed the spot where this thing was and on the other side, she was greeted with the creature that Pinison was so worried about.

Zy'tl Q'ae was a giant tree. Of course, Yuuka hadn't asked about what Zy'tl Q'ae was but the description of it falling from the sky onto the earth had made her think of something more along the lines of something from Heaven or maybe even a Lunarian experiment gone wrong. Instead, it was a large tree that was responsible for the void of nature within the forest. Zy'tl Q'ae's tentacle-like branches grabbed on and ripped whole trees from the ground, bringing them to its maw to eat whole. A tree monster that was eating trees.

"That's what you're afraid of?" Yuuka could tell that it had eaten much of the nature in the area. The animals had left, likely sensing the predator slowly awakening and left.

"Yes, and now that he's awakened I fear the whole forest is doomed," Despair was evident in Pinison's voice. Zy'tl Q'ae was practically unstoppable in her eyes. "Without my friends, there is nothing that can stop him!"

Yuuka just ignored her as she walked forward. This creature was attacking nature and while she normally wasn't extremely militant about such things, her garden being a noticeable exception, the way that Zy'tl Q'ae was doing it caused her to feel a hint of anger that she usually reserved for her garden being attacked. A feeling that anything connected to nature would feel. Without a word, she took steps into the clearing ignoring the peas of Pinson as she walked closer to the twisted tree.

"Over here."

Zy'tl Q'ae turned over to the woman and lashed out at her with one of his tentacles. Yuuka's response wasn't to dodge but instead to counter the strike with her own fist. Zy'tl Q'ae recoiled back in shock while Yuuka showed little to no trace that the impact had affected her at all. It tried to grab the woman to eat her, wrapping another of the branches around Yuuka. He tried to pull her up but Yuuka wasn't moving. It wasn't that she was too heavy to move as much as she was using her ability to fly to hold herself in place.

Attempting to strike at her Yuuka brought her parasol to block the as she blasted the branch holding her tearing it clean off. Zy'tl Q'ae recoiled back at this before it tried again to crush Yuuka with its tendrils failing as its onslaught was parried by the parasol in Yuuka's hands without much effort. Yuuka counterattacked with a blast of raw energy which did succeed in pushing the Zy'tl Q'ae back. Pinison, who was watching this, was surprised by the fact that she wasn't having nearly as many problems on her own as she had expected.

For Yuuka, however, all it took for a few hits for her to know that this was actually disappointing. There was some semblance of power behind the tree, anything that could drain nature had to possess it, but it was just mindless in its actions. No tactics, nothing beyond instinctual attacks and even then it had a rather limited awareness of its enemy. Arguably a Greater Fairy like either of the Three Fairies of Light, or the boisterous Ice Fairy of the Lake would give her a better fight on the grounds they knew what they were doing. It was time to stop playing around.

Power. Unbelievable power surged from the green-haired woman. No, she wasn't a woman at all. Zy'tl Q'ae and Pinison who were watching could feel it within their very being. Before them was a human-shaped thing. Nature itself was incarnated through her. A living avatar of nature's vengeance. The ground around her started to spring back to life as if to further drive home this fact. Something that wasn't even intentional on Yuuka's part but was a side effect of her unleashing all her might.

Zy'tl Q'ae was a mindless monster. Whatever consciousness it once possessed was long gone. However, even a mindless beast still felt the primal understanding of the world. Eat or be eaten, predator and prey. Before the trenant was a predator and it was the prey. Out of the ground a large sharp vine shot out and tore into the bark of the creature digging itself through the trunk.

The treant tried to trash about but it was for nothing as its tentacles were held in place by the vines gripping on its being. The vine pulled as the treant was hoisted up into the air before being forced to lean down and look at Yuuka right in where its eyes would have been. Even without a single thought in its mind, it could tell that it was "looking" at its death.

Yuuka closed her parasol and pointed it at the overgrown log. The spell card rules are not in effect and for Yuuka that was rather liberating to know. After all, this feral youkai needed to be put down anyway. At the tip of the flower energy gathered as Yuuka had a slight sadistic smile as the treant struggled to escape the predator before it.

"Master Spark!"

A ray of light and natural energy burst from the tip and utterly engulfed the body of the treant. The light rose up into the sky, up into the clouds which were immediately pushed away from the utter force of the unregulated blast. A strong gust of winds blew all around on ground level as the last of the energy dispersed itself from the tip. Overhead the rays of the sun touched down without the clouds obscuring it. The ground all around Yuuka had been brought back to life with a tap of her parasol on the ground.

The remaining ravaged ground sprang back to life as what had been made a dead wasteland soon turned into a blooming flower field. Pinison looked on at the repaired land as she couldn't believe what had happened. Walking a bit into the field she could almost feel nature rejoicing at being revived. Not a single trace of Zy'tl Q'ae remained as the monster had been obliterated.

Yuuka had done what the heroes couldn't have done. She had managed to kill the creature. "You made it look so effortless…"

"It was," Yuuka answered with a casual, almost disappointed tone in her voice as she looked at the newly created flower field. "I have fought demons and gods before, that mindless tree really didn't mean anything to me."

"Demons, and gods…"

She had said it so casually like it was nothing. Fighting a god was something that seemed so impossible to her and yet Yuuka acted like it was seemingly no big deal. Pinison recalled the utter feeling of power she had unleashed. How it felt to be before an embodiment of nature itself.

"What are you?"

Now that was a question that Yuuka didn't hear asked all that offended. Mainly because technically speaking she was something of a single specimen and because those that could be termed her kind didn't tend to show up in the Far East or Gensokyo. She did toy around with the idea of making another her though. Yuuka knew the process of her own creation and could replicate it with any sunflower if she so chose. Of course, doing so would make her said newborn youkai's mother for all intents and purposes. Beyond that, she did fit within one of the broad categories of nature spirits Though more specifically one that was made famous in the myths of a peninsula and island nation in the West.

"I am a Sunflower Nymph."

Death could be felt clinging to the very soil around her. On the moment she had landed here, she could feel the strange magical ambiance that had seemed to cling to her for an instant which failed to last. After all, despite being a severed arm she technically wasn't dead. Looking out at the plains she tried to see if anything about this looked familiar.

She had no clue just where in the world she was and the memories she had from her brief period as being complete didn't help either. No, she had to be in some other world. After all, she hazarded to guess she would be tossed here on her own. 'Well, the only thing to think of is what am I going to do.'

On one hand, she still wanted to go over her other half but the very brief time that had been one again made it clear how much the other half wouldn't allow that. Sure, she could try to take over again but there was no idea how long that would take to get back to Gensokyo. Given enough time she would likely be aware and already had a plan in place. No, that was just going to leave her in the same state she had been in.

'If I try to do the same thing she would just seal me away and I can't kill her because that will be killing myself,' The only other option was trying to completely separate each other. Something she just knew from that brief period while her other self had tried to see if possible. 'Well, first things first, just where the hell am I?'

Took longer then I had liked but I finally managed to get this ready. As for what I had planned these first few chapters are basically explaining were some of the Touhou characters end up and the effects they have on the world before Gensokyo finally comes by in order to get them all. So, I guess expect Overlord canon to derail with each one of them showing up. Which is already had but lets be real things can always get worse.

Blue Glass · Jul 21, 2023

She didn't know when the mist had rolled into the plains. What followed was various forms of walking dead. Corpses that seemed to wander up, skeletons armored with swords and shields, and even the decaying forms of what looked like warriors still dressed in their armor. All of which were annoyances than anything of an actual threat to her. The weapons and armor stood out though as she crushed the living dead. All of it was Western in design.

At first, she thought she was in the ruins of Helheim. An underworld found in the west that had mostly been abandoned. Kasen's knowledge of it was unfortunately rather limited as she only really had the basics of it in case of a visit or an incident that would require her to visit beyond Gensokyo. Yet, even then this didn't fit what little Kasen knew about Helheim. There was no ice that seemed to grip the plains.

As she crushed one of the annoying skeletons underfoot, a rather strange thing to think about given she was technically just an arm, she had to wonder just where she had ended up. For a moment she decided to try to summon up her own undead, the very people she had killed and eaten, only to find that she couldn't. No, she could, it's just something that was interfering with it. Something she couldn't describe beyond maybe a feeling of knowing something was there but being unable to grasp it.

In the mists, she could hear something. The echoing of metal clashing against metal. Someone else was fighting the undead in this mist. Turning in the direction of the sound she could make out faint shadows of the undead moving on something. 'Not much of a lead but it's not like I shouldn't be able to take on whatever is fighting them.'

Walking towards it she was greeted with what looked like humans dressed in similar armor to the undead. About a dozen knights, a term used for the European equivalent of Samurai as she recalled, fought it out against the skeletons and armored corpses. It seemed they could handle this themselves, as sad as it was given that these were so weak. Although, they could be useful in telling her just where the hell she was. Thinking it over she came to the conclusion that it was worth more to save them for her selfish ends than it was to let them have a chance to die.

For the knights of the Baharuth Empire, this was one of the unfortunate times when the undead had started to form up. Traveling through the Katze Plains always ran the risks of dealing with the undead. It was unfortunately one of those times when the undead started to spawn. As one of the armored zombies came to strike a knight from behind it was taken out by a sudden fist striking it from behind. In a swift motion, the newcomer attacked the remaining undead with a kick, a strike of her fists, and finally chopped to the last zombie head, taking it off.

In the aftermath, the knights are greeted with the individual who had aided them. It was a rather pretty woman with shoulder-length pink hair, a strange form of dress, and a pair of horns on her head. It was the horns that caught the attention of some of the men.

"Is she a demihuman of some kind?"

"No, I think she's a Sharp Horn."

"Are you an idiot, Sharp Horns have only one horn."

They didn't know what she was. This just proved to her that she wasn't lost within some far-off part of the other realms, nor was she in the Outside World because the outside had long past having warriors dress like this. The only option might be another world altogether. Was such a thing even possible?

"Miss I ask again why are you out in the plains?"

"Maybe she's an adventurer?"

"I don't think so, she's probably a Worker."

She was going to need to come up with an explanation. Right as she was about to speak a monstrous roar called out as everything turned to the side. Walking out of the fog was another of the undead. The leader of the armed men looked at the creature in front of him as he could swear it looked like something that was talked about by some of the men within the empire. A rare and dangerous undead that they had managed to capture.

"D-death Knight!"

Before they had time to process the Death Knight moved. With the large shield in one hand, it knocked aside a few of the men to the ground while it swung its sword clean through two of them without showing any signs of resistance. One tried to slash at the Death Knight from behind only for his attack to do nothing before he was backhanded by the shield across his face. The impact broke his skull and killed him.

As if sensing something nearby the Death Knight swung its shield around. For a moment it's balance was lost as the weapon was stopped. Not meeting resistance, but outright stopped suddenly. Its soulless eyes stared at the pink-haired horned woman who had caught its weapon with her bare hands. Immediately it tried to pull the shield back but to its surprise, the woman didn't budge. Instead, she pulled nearly tearing the arm off the armed undead from the surprising amount of physical strength, and cast the thing aside.

The Death Knight swung with its sword but missed as the woman moved to the side, twirling around it and delivering a strike that sent the undead creature flying off its feet and landing on the ground with a thud. The surviving men looked stunned almost completely at the ease with which she had done all of that. She turned to them for a split moment noticing that something had started to rise out from their now-dead companions' corpses.

With a sweep of her hand, she copped one of their heads off as soon as it turned to her. The rest ignored the warriors and much like their creator the undead focused their attention on her. A shockwave of air from a punch she threw was all it took to take them down. As for the creator of them, the Death Knight rose and let out a roar as it came swinging to take off her head. It intended to kill her but unfortunately, its desire to kill her was misplaced.

Its sword was caught by her almost casually. A sadistic smirk formed on her face as she could see the body language of the undead. If it possessed something of a mind then she knew that it was feeling fear. A shockwave was released from contact as she struck the undead directly. Its upper body was blown apart from the attack. The knights looked on in awe, and a bit of fear as she stared at them. The smile on her face was unsettling and in the back of their minds a feeling reserved for prey when faced with a predator.

"Now that minor inconvenience is out of the way," She could tell that they were looking at her with a mixture of awe and fear. It was something she missed when looking at warriors who had seen an Oni in action. "My name is Kasen Ibaraki."
Meeting Sabrina had seemed to cause something of a change as Ainz had seen in the last few days. For one Narberal seemed to have a slightly less hostile outlook with humans. How much of that was brought on by meeting one who was stronger than her, or how much brought on by the fact that it was starting to become clear that Nazarick wasn't the strongest thing Ainz couldn't say. Speaking of strength, Demiurge was becoming extremely interested in trying to find if any others like the young devil or the Argland Council State's representative existed after he had asked about it. He already was compiling a few suspects.

For one the Dragon Lords are something of note. Ancient dragons once were claimed to rule the world and while some have died and their reign was no more some still lived. The Argland Council State was ruled over by at least five of them and thanks to Sabrina they had an idea of just what their level of power could be. Another was the Dragon Kingdom which while not actually ruled by a Dragon Lord was instead ruled by the descendants of one. A Kingdom currently being invaded by Beastmen and the ruler was too young, at least physically so, to unleash any power she might have from her heritage.

Walking into his inn room Ainz dropped his Illusion and equipped his usual garb. Opening a gate spell he walked through and back into the Great Tomb greeted by Demiurge who seemed to have been awaiting his arrival. "My Lord, welcome back."

"Demiurge, I take it you made more progress on learning about anyone of notice?"

"Yes, though this one seems to be as mysterious as the young devil is," Demiurge handed out a drawn portrait, one that he had to be sure was as good as possible based on the description. "Mare was looking through the Great Forest of Tob when she came across a flower field with the middle of it that seemed completely out of place and a dryad that seemed to almost religiously worship the place."

Ainz took the image and was given a surprisingly well-drawn image of a beautiful woman with short green hair, red eyes, and an emotionally neutral expression. "She talked about a creature that we assumed was some kind of treant attacking the forest and devouring nature only for this woman to show up and put it down with one blast of something she called a Master Spark."

"What of the flower field, how did that come to be?" Ainz hadn't seen the woman anywhere now that he thought about it. She looked human but someone like that would probably be known to the Adventurers Guild or he would have seen her. "Do we know anything else about her?"

"According to the dryad the flower field came into being just from her unleashing her full power and she did have a small conversation with her before leaving," That actually sounded almost like she had Passive Terrain Alteration. Passive Terrain Alteration was something that no player in Yggdrasil was able to possess but some bosses did. All of them are high-level and a pain to fight. "She revealed her race as a sunflower nymph and that in her own words, she had fought demons and gods."

Sunflower Nymph wasn't exactly something that Yggdrisal had. The closest thing that came to Ainz's mind was Clytie, a somewhat notable quest giver supposedly based on an actual figure from Greek myth, a water nymph that turned into a sunflower. Naturally, this woman didn't look anything like her with the green hair and red eyes. The claim of fighting demons and gods though made Ainz give pause and think about something.

Do gods actually exist or rather do gods even exist in this world? Clerics, Priests, Paladins, and other such classes that rely on gods for magic do in this world. Does that mean that they exist or was it solely just the belief in of itself? If gods are indeed real then what exactly are the rules of how they even worked? All of these were questions that are further spurred on by the mystery woman.

'I am going to have to look more into it at some point,' Another thing on his to-do pile. "She didn't happen to tell the dryad her name?"

Demiurge gave a nod as at the very least they had a name to go with the individual. "Yuuka Kazami, I believe, was the name given."

Ainz paused as the name caught him off guard a bit. Mostly everyone he met in the New World had names that were European or something that was vaguely foreign sounding. So imagine his surprise as he heard a name that was Japanese of all things. "Did she say where she is going?" Ainz stopped as he decided to ask another question that finally pushed itself through. "Where is the dryad now?"

"She didn't seem like she wanted to leave the flower field so she remained there," Demiurge didn't find any reason to care about what happened to her. The information she gave was enough of a trade plus she was pathetically weak. "Unfortunately, she didn't know where she could be just that she went into the forest afterwards."

Locating her within the massive forest was something that Nazarick didn't have time to do. Besides it was easier to watch near the edge of the forest in case she did leave. Assuming she couldn't fly overhead which was a possibility. "By the way, our scouts have located Lizardmen tribes in the wetlands around Great Lake."

Ainz remembered hearing something about that while in the Adventurers Guild. Something about the lake having pillars of ice forming within the middle of it, cold mists covering the waters, and finally one talking about an unknown figure whose presence caused snow to fall. All of which only started happening three months ago and affected the whole lake. Well, almost the whole lake as the southern portion was seemingly unaffected.

'There must be something to that,' Maybe the Lizardmen had an agreement with the entity in the lake. Perhaps they are its servants or did they have summoned it? 'Only way to find out is to attack them.'

Recent events had been rather unfortunate for the Slane Theocracy. For one the attempt to help the Baharuth Empire with killing Gazef Stronoff had instead led to the Sunlight Scripture being dissolved with their members being most likely all dead. Next was the Black Scripture's failed mission to use the relic Downfall of Castle and Country Catastrophe Dragon Lord. Both of which happened to be close to each other but so far there wasn't anything to connect the two of them.

The losses didn't really concern them in the long term. For one the Sunlight Scripture could be replaced in a decade, and while they had failed the relic was still with them. Using it on the Dragon Lord after it resurrects wasn't an ideal plan but it shouldn't revive within their lands, however, given it hadn't shown itself the Cardinals figured that there was plenty of time on that front.

With all that said the Cardinals still had a nation to run and that meant focusing their attention on their neighbors. One of which was currently being overrun by Beastmen and in a war that was effectively one of extermination. Being a human nation right next to them being invaded, the Slane Theocracy's diplomatic gaze was always on the progress of the war. Mainly because they didn't want to have to intervene unless necessary beyond the amount already given they were themselves in a war with the Elf Country to the south.

"What do you mean the Beastmen invasion has slowed down?" The emissary they had in the Dragon Kingdom had sent one of their messengers to report on the current ongoing war. Per their consultations, the Dragon Kingdom should still be fighting in

"The beastmen invasion has slowed down in the Dragon Kingdom, enough that the Dragon Kingdom is making slow but stable progress in retaking their lands," That was strange as the Dragon Kingdom had largely been fighting defensively since the start hoping to slow down before starting a counter-offense. "The strangest thing is that amongst the new groups of refugees are people who we had thought were all doomed given how deep they are within the occupied lands including some who had been captured for information."

From what the leadership of the Slane Theocracy had gathered the Dragon Kingdom wouldn't have been able to retake their lands without large direct military aid, something only likely to happen once things got dire enough for the Bah Empire to intervene as the hostile demihumans get closer to their borders. The Dragon Kingdom really shouldn't be able to push back and nor should the Beastmen be slowed enough for it to be possible without something drastic happening.

"Do we know anything about who or what might have caused this?" Infighting was very likely though that was something likely to be saved until near-total victory was achieved.

"Some of the refugees claim it was a champion sent by the gods, others go as far as to claim that the individual was a god, or rather a goddess, had appeared to answer their prayers," That caused a tense silence to fill the room as the words left the man's mouth.

The Six Cardinals took a moment to process what this could all mean. The Cardinal of Wind was the first to speak. "Do we have a description of this person?"

"A young human woman with a white and blue outfit, green hair, and what looked to be a snake and a frog accessory in her hair," It wasn't much of a description, to be honest. Some of the others had exaggerations about the woman. Likely as a response to having someone save them from a traumatic experience. "Apparently, she is strong enough to overpower the beastmen with little issues with her magic and even grant miracles from healing the sick, and injured, to even seemingly reviving the recently dead."

A woman strong enough to be able to heal, raise the dead, and be able to almost turn the tide of a war single-handedly was something that seemed impossible for even most legendary heroes and Adamantine Adventurers. In fact, it sounded nigh impossible except for a few beings to be able to accomplish. Except the Slane Theocracy did possess individuals who could do so if they wished.

The Cardinal of Fire decided to speak up, saying what they were all thinking. "Could she be a God-kin?"

The children of the Six Great Gods were powerful, some more than a match for a whole army even. Such individuals are who the Slane Theocracy took great pains to keep within their nation. Even still it wasn't completely impossible for one to show up outside their borders. Especially, given one of their previous God-kins did have a habit of sleeping around when he was alive, and as much as they would like to say they knew everyone he had slept with there was always the possibility they missed one… or several.

"Strange that the Dragon Kingdom seemed to hide a God-kin from us," The Cardinal of Light gave this a bit more thought at how strange this was. Having a God-kin was something the other Human Kingdoms would do their best to conceal from the Slane Theocracy but any of them wouldn't hesitate to deploy them if they had faced such a threat as the beastmen did to the Dragon Kingdom.

"Unless the Dragon Kingdom didn't know they had one," Now that was also possible and surprisingly enough very likely. Most of the nearby nations didn't have the means to track down such a thing outside of nobility as they could. "Regardless of the reason this brings up a question of what we should do."

Getting the possible God-kin should be a priority. However, the fact was she was within the occupied territory of the Dragon Kingdom. The Slane Theocracy was already dealing with two losses of forces though getting another God-kin would both cover that and maybe even more. Which meant that they had to send in a team to extract her. A task that needed to be done with as little risk to them as possible and as quickly as well. Stealth was also something of note though in this case, the refugees had likely let it slide which meant that they didn't need secrecy.

"A small force will be sent to the Dragon Kingdom under the pretense of helping with the war effort," It would serve to help maintain relations with the Kingdom and get the possible God-kin out of there.

At first, she didn't know what had happened. One minute everything was chaotic and the next she ended up face-first into the lake. Well, getting out wasn't an issue but once she did she learned that this wasn't Gensokyo. As a being of nature, she could instinctively feel the difference. Even so, at first, she remained as she usually did. The creatures in this new place were weaker than her and didn't really threaten her.

For a time she just wondered if this was some sort of incident that would be solved soon and she would be pulled home. After an accident where she was taken out by a lucky native creature, that all changed. When one of her kind died it wasn't death. They would respawn for a lack of a better term where they are tied too owed to the fact they are small embodiments of nature itself. On the chance whatever they are tied to is destroyed and they are killed they instead respawn in the ancestral homeland, Tir Na Nog. Unfortunately, for her, she was too far, for the lack of a better term for how she could describe it, for both. So, instead, she had to pull from the energies she had on hand. Herself.

Each resurrection cost her power. She got smaller, and less powerful, and with each time she was faced with something that was a foreign concept to fairies, true death. Utter fear consumed her at the point that she was reduced to a normal lesser fairy. Her nature was disjointed by this feeling of impending death and the normal carefree state that was edged into her.

Looking back it was a good thing she met that Lizardman with a weapon of ice. He hadn't immediately attacked her when he saw her. No, instead he was curious about what she was having never seen anything like her. Her gaze had turned on the weapon he had on him and she had asked about it. A weapon made from the first time the lake froze over and then it hit her.

How could she had not have thought of that? Maybe it had been the fear of death that was clouding her smarts. Regardless, there was a big lake, a lake that had frozen over much like the lake where she was born, and it wasn't hard to tie herself to it. It did cost her current body but in the end, she was reborn. Well, maybe there was this strange thing in the background trying to enter into her but when it did, it just went silent. Like those earmuffs she had taken that could block out loud sounds. Oh, and she had grown strong. The nature here was rather vast and overwhelming, it actually supercharged her! Furthered her growth into something she knew she was always able to become!
Zaryusu Shasha looked at the mists that form just beyond the wetlands. A slight detour on his task to get the tribes to cooperate for the invasion but he just knew, if war was to come to them then they needed all the help they could get. He could feel Frost Pain react as he looked on at the mist. Pulling it out he could almost feel the cold within reacting as the air around him chilled right off it.

When she tied herself to the lake the weapon seemed to react to her. Its powers almost changing in response. Perhaps, it was due to the nature of its creation, made from when the lake first froze over, and her own nature as a living force of nature.

"Oh, hey Zary," Zaryusu was pulled from his thoughts as the mists dissipated. "What brings you to see me?"

Flying a bit off the edge of the lake one would mistake her at first glance for a teenage human girl. The icicle-shaped wings fluttered about from her back which betrayed her inhuman nature. An Ice Fairy, an embodiment of the force of nature, and hilariously enough someone most of his kind would probably be terrified of given their coldblooded nature.

"Cirno… what is on top of your head?"

Cirnor looked up at the mix of wood, beads, and animal bones that formed into something that seemed like a makeshift crown. Not only that but around her next was something of a tribal necklace whose design was familiar to Zaryusu. "Oh, I found those frogmen you told me about and beat them up."

"You… beat them up?" Zaryusu took a moment to process this. Sure, she showed her power when she appeared taking on this form. Much of the lake had frozen over for just a moment that it had most of the tribes wondering in a panic for a few days about what had happened. "You defeated them all by yourself?"

"Yeah, they started talking bad about me, and after I beat them all and their pets with my ice they now do whatever I say!" That wasn't the only thing they now created these statues of her alongside leaving things for her on this elevated table at the edge of their settlement. "Hey, you haven't answered my question!"

"I am gathering my people to war in order to stand against a force that threatens our very lives" He should focus right now to see if she would help, and then continue his mission to get the tribes to unite. "I come to ask if you will help us as I do not know if this Ainz will stop at just us or attempt to take the whole lake for himself."

First, Cirno found the name of this guy rather dumb sounding. Almost like someone just made it up. Secondly, she didn't like the idea of someone threatening her new, though hopefully temporary, home that she was edged into. Finally, if someone was giving out a challenge then it would only make sense that they do so to her. Yet, this Ainz fellow didn't and instead decided to fight Zary's people. An insult against her as she was the strongest person here!

"I'm in, just tell me where!"

Zaryusu was almost surprised by how easy it had been to get her to agree. Although, she seemed rather prideful and boastful in herself. It made sense that she would take it as a challenge. A challenge that had passed her up for someone else. Regardless Zaryusu was grateful for such a thing as it did mean they had one as powerful as her in the coming battle.
Ainz looked over at the undead army that had been amassed. Sent over to the spot where the Lizardmen were making camp. All the tribes it seemed were amassing, likely to fight for their lives against the army. The truth was that Ainz kind of didn't care about victory in the upcoming battle. No, he was hoping that the threat of genocide would be enough for them to seek out the entity in the lake for aid.

He was honestly fixated on the area around the camp for any of the signs of the being. No pillars of ice were present nor any of the mists. 'Maybe I assumed a relationship that didn't exist.'

Honestly, he didn't care for this invasion. This was more to boost morale and give more of the Guardians something to do. He had been told of the idea to create a fake Nazarick as an emergency. Its construction was currently halted as they had to do a sweep to assess just how many high-level beings were actually in the forest after learning about Yuuka. It was likely that by the end of it, there shouldn't be anything left to find within the forest.

"Lord Ainz you seem awfully fixated on watching the Lizardmen encampment for these last few hours," He was brought out of his thoughts as Albedo questioned him. Had he really been staring that long looking for a sign of the entity of the Lake? "Is there something you're looking for?"

The answer was obviously yes. Though it was less staring at the encampment all the time and more looking for the signs of something that wasn't there. "I heard rumors in the Adventurers Guild about something inhabiting the lake and wanted to see if it was another being of interest."

"So, you expected that if we attacked the Lizardmen that it would show itself?" It sounded brilliant though if anyone else had done it Albedo would probably recognize it risky.

"Something like that," Ainz kind of hoped that doing so could maybe leave with him getting some sort of information on it. In a more unrealistic but optimistic way maybe even an ally, or at least something on the other "Beings of Interest" found in the world. "I had originally assumed that the whole lake was their territory and that perhaps the invasion of the Lizardmen tribes on the lake's southern wetlands would grab their attention."

"If you wish we could call the invasion off and search the lake instead."

It was rather tempting to do so. He felt kind of like a fool for starting a war basically on an assumption. "As much as I would like that we announced that we were to fight the Lizardmen and to turn back now would tarnish the name of Ainz Ooal Gown."

He allowed the invasion to go through and he kind of felt obligated to see it through to the end. Even if he technically allowed it under a false assumption. It could be that the entity didn't control the whole lake, or it could mean that it didn't care about the inhabitants of the lake. In any event, Ainz figured it wasn't something to worry about. He turned the Mirror of Remote Viewing off. Unknown to him, had he looked at it for a second longer he would catch a glimpse of a light mist forming around the camp that wasn't there before.

Something was going on within the capital of Re-Estize. That much was obvious to Sebas when both he and Solution ended up in the city as they posed as a wealthy young woman and her butler. There was talk about a thief of some sort within the city. One that no one could actually describe as their memories of them were gone with only a vague idea that someone had been there and a few missing food. A few of the local kids even talked about having a friend that they couldn't remember who played with them every now and again.

It got to the point where a few of the adventurers in the area had tried to append the thief for rewards but they also had a hard time. Most forgot almost immediately after setting a trap while others had been found unconscious with no idea what had attacked them. It seemed that someone was editing people's memories in such a way as to get by. The only issue was that a few times it seemed that a whole group was subjected to it almost immediately after whomever had escaped. Sebas didn't know of any form of tier magic that could do that.

"Gods damn it someone stole from my bakery again!" Sebas paused as he heard a shout of frustration as he passed by one of the shops that had been subjected to the thief.

Sebas figured that the criminal in question wasn't very far but was he someone to catch a thief? Perhaps, his creator would most likely try that if he could. "Oh, I haven't seen you before."

Sebas was caught from these thoughts as a young woman dressed in a bright yellow dress with light green hair. What caught his attention the most were two things. One that she was floating off the ground basically in the open and two there was a purple orb-like thing with long organic cables tied to it and to points on her body. The orb as Sebas was quick to note was a closed eyeball.

Sebas was cut off guard by her sudden appearance. Actually, how did she sneak up on him given his Ki Sense? Her casual floating explained why there was no sound at least but it should have gotten people's attention more so than it was giving him. Indeed the people around them were looking at her in awe though the moment they turned away they seemed to just go about their day. Maybe, she was someone that was known to the people of the city?"

"I am sorry but I am new here I don't believe we've met," This was all strange and suspicious but Sebas pushed that aside. "I am Sebas Tian, I am a butler doing tasks for my lady and you are?"

"Strange you remind me of the Scarlet Devil Mansions gatekeeper," The girl floated about around him as she spoke, as if ignoring his question. Either that or not really acknowledging it. "Although, your mind's colors are rather off."

It wasn't actually his conscious mind she was referring to either. The subconscious was a way she could be said to navigate the world. Yet, when she met him she was reminded of the subconscious of that two-tailed cat that lived on the surface alongside the nine-tailed fox that was seen with one of the Sages of Gensokyo. She liked playing with the cat though her attempt at getting other cats to listen to her, and failing, was funny.

"My colors are off?" A phrase that didn't make any sort of sense at all to him. As Sebas stared at the strange girl he spotted something within Koishi's hands. A croissant, a freshly baked croissant much like the ones taken from the bakery. 'Wait is she the thief.'

If she was the thief then how the hell had no one been able to describe what she looks like? Her brightly colored outfit and the third eye attached to her body via long organic cables are a dead giveaway. She wasn't human as well, visibly non-human even. So, the question was how is it that she is just floating about the city for him to see?

"Anyway, mister I got to go," She flew off waving behind her as she did so with the crosscut in hand. "Oh, by the way, my name is Koishi!"

"Wait," Sebas tried to grab her, moving at rather impressive speeds as he realized what was going but when she turned the corner and disappeared from his vision he stopped. As soon as she was out of sight he was suddenly hit with a blank in his mind.. "Who was I asking to wait?"

His mind was drawing a blank. Sebas knew he had interacted with someone but beyond that, he had no memory of who. Their appearance was just gone from his mind, as was their name, and all of his recent short-term memory. Naturally, he should report this to his lord but an issue showed itself. What exactly was he supposed to tell him had happened?

I kind of always pictured that Koishi was a thief of some kind, though not an intentional one. It would of course just be done mostly for food as she has to eat, or rather feels she does because others subconscious minds say they do.

Blue Glass · Aug 5, 2023

Getting to Tir Na Nog was a bit harder than one would expect. Unlike most of the other realms, it didn't connect in some way through the many realms of the Underworld like the various hells. Opening a gap to it was technically possible though Yukari was too focused on keeping the connection to the cause of this incident to open one. Which left the only method available in the modern day. Which was to ride down one of the rivers of the dead and with the proper guide, either a fairy who had been to Tir Na Nog at some point or something from there which would keep a passive connection to the realm no matter how long it had been.

Yukari had given them a piece of a twinge from a tree that grew within Tir Na Nog. Even with something so minor getting to the homeland of the fairies wasn't an issue at all. The moment Ran and Chen set foot on the shores of the realm they are greeted with a realm that seemed untamed with nature. Fairies flew over the trees and gossiped amongst themselves in many different languages. Some they could understand, others they did, and a few that are dead having no one in the modern day but the oldest of youkai and gods who could still recall their meanings.

"So, did Lady Yukari tell us where to look?"

"She hasn't been here before herself so she had no idea," Yukari had spent time across a much the other world realms before founding Gensokyo, thanks to seemingly having knowledge when most youkai didn't. In fact, she seemed to have a lot of knowledge of things in the Outside World before they were even invented. "I believe we should ask around."

Strangely the fairies all around seemed to be hiding or running away from something as they went in deeper. The sounds of monstrous roars, the sounds of trees being snapped apart, and flashes of fire alongside sounds of explosions echoed across the land. There was a battle going on nearby. Ran pulled Chen as they decided to avoid whatever it was.

Unfortunately, as they turned side large mass crashed into the ground in front of them. A small cloud of dust rose as something else slammed into whatever had been tossed down before being thrown off. As the dust settled Ran and Chen were greeted with a newly made clearing and the two beings who caused this. Two large western dragons.

One is a bulky dragon with a deep crimson. The other is a more slender and streamlined dragon with scales as white as snow. "Damn it woman, what is your time of the month!?"

The red dragon's comment didn't seem to go over well with his white counterpart. She was visibly pissed. "Ddraig I am going to castrate you!"

"You can try Albionia!"

Sure, they should be trying to avoid a fight that was between the two dragons. However, for one they nearly ended up harming them, and two Chen was with her. Ran really didn't like having Chen hear such things. "Excuse me!"

"What/what!?"

The two dragons turned to the voice and both stopped as they stared confused at the sight of the two of them. "Who and what are you two supposed to be?"

"I think she's one of the eastern foxes and the other is a cat."

"Wait, you mean a Huli jing?"

"No, I think she's a Kumiho."

"I'm a Kitsune," It had been a while since someone had mistaken her for one of the other predominant eastern foxes. Mainly because most of Gensokyo were from Japan or had some understanding of what the differences are. "I am Ran Yakumo and this is Chen and while you were fighting you almost slammed into us."

The two dragons would admit that they didn't care much about the whole almost getting someone caught in the crossfire. Well, unless it was someone of note within Tir Na Nog that wouldn't take kindly to a fight near them. No, they both focus on the name of the Kitsune. There was something familiar about it that was at the back of their mind.

"Wait, Yakumo," It finally hit the red dragon where he heard that name. "You mean the self-styled Dark Lord from Nippon?"

"Oh, right that Warlord that actually led an attack on the Lunarians despite how crazy that was."

There were a few things that Yukari was honestly a bit embarrassed about that not many talked about in Gensokyo. One of them was the time that Yukari in her younger years as a powerful greater youkai styled herself a "Dark Lord" which was to her quite an embarrassing phase. Her invasion against the Lunarians though was something that many outside of Gensokyo knew her for doing and to some while it did seem crazy to others it was something to be respected.

"Yes, I am her shikigami," Neither of the dragons understood what that term even meant. All they did know was that this fox was related to a notable figure amongst the worlds of the supernatural.

Both of the dragons had practically forgotten about their fight as they were now obviously focused on the foreigners. "Well, what are you doing here then?"

"We're here to find Abe-No-Seimei," Chen's response caused them both to look confused for a second as while it did sound familiar they didn't know anyone named that. That was before the red dragon realized who that could be.

"Oh, it must be one of his many pseudonyms when he decides to leave for the human world," The dragon motioned with his wing off to the northeast. "Go this way and you should see a lake, his home is the tower not far from its shore."

Taking Chen's hand the two of them flew off in the direction. Through the forest that seemed to change in the seasons wildly as they did before they came across a large still lake covered at the sides in a low mist all along its edges. Standing up along the shoreline was an old stone crystal tower with vines and moss growing on it. All around it was a small garden of flowers. Landing a bit in front of it the two walked up to the old yet preserved wooden door.

Ran was about to knock when the door opened. On the other side was a man dressed in something that seemed to be an old black robe patched over with blue bracers and various stripes of a dull gray color. His skin was slightly pale and his hair was a dull silver. The beard of a similar shape almost gave him the look of an old man which clashed with the fact his face showed little to no signs of aging outside of his prime. He stared at her and Chen with dull gray eyes as he held an ice pack of some sort to his head.

"... Was it Yukari, Okina, the Lunarians, or someone else?"

Ran knew that he was asking what was going on in Gensokyo. "Something happened that caused some of the inhabitants to get taken away, as to who and why Lady Yukari believes it is probably from another universe by way of the future."

"Well, that explains why I got a sudden headache that caused me to drop to the floor and convulse for a good five minutes that still hadn't finally gone away," He removed the ice pack from his head and spoke something to himself in a low tone. "Seriously, what the hell that just came out of left field."

Shaking his head he opened the door and motioned them both in. "Alright, come on in and give me the details."

Mists hang off from the waters. Despite typically being a sign of water evaporating there was a slight chill to the feeling of these mists. It was less like it was truly mists and more like small floating snow. The chill wasn't enough to truly bother the Lizardmen but the leaders of the five tribes did find it utterly strange. Zaryusu, however, knew that it meant that Cirno was nearby. Likely waiting for a time to strike the undead.

"I heard about the cold mists that had appeared in the middle of the lake but never have they come down here," Shasuryu Shasha, Zaryusu's older brother, looked out at the mists that hugged near the mud around them. "You seem to be looking into the mists like you expect something to come out of it."

Zaryusu turned to his brother as he figured he might as well tell him. "I do as the mists come from someone who lives in the lake," Frost Pain was reacting which was enough of a reason to know that she was somewhat nearby. "It was just before I returned to our tribe after a small trip, at first I saw her as this small creature but the moment she saw Frost Pain she seemed to fly onto the lake and then disappeared for a moment before she came out in what I can only describe as her true self."

"This wouldn't happen to be when the lake froze over for a brief period?" Shasuryu remembered that day when ice covered the ground only to break apart and then turn back into water.

Zaryusu was about to answer as the sky turned dark with black clouds forming. A sign that the undead army were almost here. "We'll talk about this later."

Outside the mud and mist-covered edges of the wetlands, the undead army arrived. The battle for the fate of the Lizardmen had begun. From their camp, the Lizardmen sailed forth as the undead marched forward. The two forces clashing together, each seemingly evenly matched. As the undead cavalry started to charge forward the mists which seemed to grow from all the fighting were soon parted as a wave of cold came crashing down on the undead. Ice started to form on their arms, legs, and the rest of their bodies. It wasn't enough to stop them from moving but it stiffened their movements. A few had gotten mostly surrounded and frozen by the ice effectively becoming

The Elder Lich looked on as the wave of ice and cold consumed the undead. He was forced to move back a bit as he caught sight of largely jagged spikes of ice came landing down in front of him. "So, you're the leader of these undead?"

Looking up the lich was greeted by what at first glance appeared to be a blue-haired teenage girl but catching the wings shaped of ice he knew otherwise. "Who are you and why are you interfering with my master's desires?"

"Master's?" She assumed that this was the guy leading the invasion that Zaryusu told her about. Cirno was so disappointed at this. "Oh, great you're just a minion of some kind lame."

"Lame?" The Elder Lich was insulted by how she was seemingly dismissing him. "I am Iguva, creation, and servant of the Supreme Being Ainz Ooal Gown!"

"Yeah, so I am Cirno, the Lady of the Lake!" She would have used one of her other nicknames like the "Strongest Fairy in Gensokyo" but she wasn't inside of Gensokyo. So, maybe she might as well use the title those sentient frogs gave her. "I don't care what you are, I want to face your boss."

If Iguva wasn't undead he probably would have completely lost his cool. After all, this creature interfered with the battle that he was to lead to bring his master glory and was now demanding to see him. Iguva unleashed a fireball right at her. The flames collided with her form… and did absolutely nothing as it made contact with something that was so cold that it put the fire out. Cirno just laughed at the attempt. Both the raven from hell and the long silver-haired woman living in the Bamboo Forest could unleash far greater heat than that without much effort.

With her hands raised Cirno formed a ball of snow and threw it right at Iguva tossing him off his feet and into the mud below. His expression was of sheer shock for a brief moment as watched as she landed. On mere contact, the mud froze as if the very essence of cold was what made up her very being.

"Wow, I was holding back a bunch and that sent you flying," Cirno was both amazed by her strength and disappointed by how weak this supposed leading minion was. "Man, your master either sent me a small fry or Zary is overselling how strong he even is."

Even though Iguva had a good idea as to her level and strength being way beyond his own. Kind of hard to dismiss it when she did slow down his, now utterly destroyed as the Lizardmen basically were just mopping them up, army ignoring his fireball and not taking him seriously at all. With all of that, most other beings would cut their losses and leave. Iguva was fighting for his great creator so surrender was not an option.

Around him, four undead minions spawned into being each armed and ready to fight. Cirno though wasn't having any of this. "Deep Freeze!"

A wave of cold and ice rolled over the undead. Iguva was half frozen in ice unable to move his legs, his right arm fully due to ice creeping up his shoulder, and his left arm only somewhat as his wrist was caught in ice. As for the undead around him. They are frozen solid. Unable to move on their own and prisoners of the ice.

Cirno floated up to him, her arms crossed, a smug triumphant look on her as she looked at the living corpse in front of her. "Looks like you're my prisoner now."

As Cirno gloated, Iguva decided to see if he could break his wrist free. For a second it looked like he wasn't going to succeed and then the ice gave way. He immediately grabbed onto Cirno's left arm and let his Negative Touch hoping to cause some damage. At first it seemed that notice happened. Iguva's eyes widened in surprise before all feeling in his hand was utterly gone. Looking at it the narcotic limb was frozen solid by the barely contained nature energy. As Iguva tried to pull back he ended up snapping his hand, wrist, and part of his forearm. Cirno looked at the frozen hand and tried to get it to let go as she shook her arm frantically before grabbing and pulling it off as its frozen fingers fell to the ground below.

"Wh-who are you?" Iguva stuttered as he was starting to realize that he had no hope at all against her.

"I already told you, my name is Cirno, the Lady of the Lake!" Cirno wondered if he was even listening or just ignored her. "Now, seeing as you're my prisoner, I want you to tell me where your boss is so I can beat him up!"

Iguva paused for a moment at this. Did she think she was just going to walk up to his master and beat him up? It was absurd to even entertain such an idea. Even if she was stronger them him Iguva was certain she was nothing to the Floor Guardians let alone the Supreme Being himself! An insult was what it was.

"You think you can just beat up the Great One?!" Anger was clear in the undead voice. "He whose power is to control death itself?"

"I already know someone who can do that," Corno wasn't even impressed as it sounded like a knockoff of the ghost princess's ability. Besides she was a fairy and given the vast amount of uptabbed natural energy even if the lake was gone Cirno could almost certainly come back anyway. "Besides, I have faced everything from powerful magicians to gods."

Cirno raised her hand up and froze the rest of Iguva. Imprisoning him within a large icicle. Cirnor let out a sigh as this was all so lame. Sure, she had a captive, kept alive as she was almost certain that an undead wouldn't die from being frozen like when she practiced on most frogs, but she really had wanted to face that Ainz's guy. Looking up to the sky she decided to voice her frustrations not even realizing that someone was watching him.

"I am going to find you Ainz and when I do I will beat you up you hear me!" Turning around she saw that the Lizardmen had finished the battle and the leaders of the tribes coming up to her. Each of them except for Zaryusu looked at her with confused expressions. "Well, Zary I caught the minion leading the undead at least."

On one hand, Ainz was proven correct in his assumption that the entity of the lake would indeed show up. However, he didn't expect it to look like a teenage girl, a fairy actually, that just froze part of the army and took out the Elder Lich like it wasn't even a challenge. Although, he should have guessed that given that seems to be the trend of things. Nor did her declaration that this was her lake.

No, her rather boastful declaration of wanting to fight him to prove who was the strongest. There was something almost comically childish about this. Yet, while he found this a bit of a mix between unbelievable and hilarious the Floor Guardians who were with him had completely different thoughts.

"What makes her think she can demand such a thing?"

"Just who even is she?"

Albedo though didn't seem all that insulted, or if she was she was putting it aside. Still, she was looking at the boosting fairy and couldn't help but have mixed feelings. "Is she who you were hoping would join the Lizardmen?"

"... I believe she is." Ainz had finally managed to collect himself as he was still processing the weirdness of all of this. "I guess I was right with my assumption about her taking offense to someone invading her lands."

Whatever the other Floor Guardians could be said to have felt about what was going on it ceased as they heard Ainz and Albedo talking. "My Lord, did you expect this to happen?"

"I had heard of rumors about the lake from adventures and I had figured that maybe the entity they referred to would come if we tried to invade the lake," Having her show up was more or less a lucky guess though Ainz didn't know if they would figure that out.

Still, the fairy, Cirno has she introduced herself thanks to his new and approved Mirror of Remote Viewing, had also dropped that she had faced gods. It once again brought up the thought he had on whether gods existed in this world in some sort of form. Maybe brushing up on the local faiths once all this was done was in order.

"I see so the invasion against the Lizardmen was more a means to drag her out then?" Demiurge had recalled his master seemed to think over for a second when he pressed the idea of invasion. With hindsight, it was clear he was thinking about the rumors he had heard. "What about her challenge?"

Her claims that she was going to find and beat him up weren't something that any of the Floor Guardians could take lightly. Maybe it was laughable, that her level wasn't anywhere near able to accomplish such a task, or she could be like the young devil and be powerful enough to actually pose a considerable threat. In any scenario, it seemed ludicrous that she was getting to demand such a thing. While for Ainz there was a bit of a debate on if he should do so.

One part of his mind told him that he shouldn't as she was still something of an unknown. He couldn't use his spell to gauge her level through the mirror, only what he had seen her do. It all consisted of her unleashing ice and cold to aid the Lizardmen in victory followed by her overpowering the lich he had created to face the Lizardmen pretty easily. At the very least she was somewhere on the higher end in terms of level, or it could be because of how she used magic. Much like the young devil, and Sabrina, her powers didn't seem to fall into Tier Magic. Which meant it had to be of the native magic system to the world.

'She called herself the Lady of the Lake,' For a moment Ainz was reminded of the tale of King Arthur, of the fairy from the lake that gifted him his sword Excalibur. How strangely similar that all was though it was probably a title of someone with actual authority as she had come to Lizardmen's aid and was acting almost like he would if someone invaded Nazarick. 'Hmm… perhaps.'

"I am the Lord of Nazarick and she claims to be the Lady of the Lake that we have invaded," Standing up he gripped the Staff of Ainz Ooal Gown as he decided to play up the role of the Lord. Much like he was still back in Yggdrasil as a role-player. "If so she has won the battle and issued a challenge between rulers."

Amongst the Lizardmen there was a strange mix of celebration at the victory and curiosity about the girl who had joined them, froze the army of undead, and finally easily overpowered the commander of the undead. A being who aided them for seemingly no reason, or more accurately aided one of them because she knew them. Zaryusu had to be the one to explain who she was because of that fact. At least what he suspected she was.

"Wait, she's the spirit of the lake?" Sukyu Juju, the Chieftain of the Small Fang Tribe was trying to make sure he was following what Zaryusu was talking about.

"I believe so," Zaryusu held on to his weapon as they all could notice it reacting with Cirno nearby. "When she first fully rose from the lake she instantly froze the whole thing and whenever I am near her Frost Pain reacts to her feeling stronger."

Frost Pain was said to have been made from the ice when the lake first froze over. The implications of it reacting to Cirno, alongside her being responsible for the brief moment the whole lake froze over, was rather obvious to most of them listening to him. "I see why she is here and why did she help us then?"

"Because I had asked her," Zaryusu turned over to the Nature Spirit who was trying to interrogate her prisoner as his head was only barely unfrozen enough for Cirno to talk to him. "She treats the lake, all of it as her home and when I talked about Ainz's invading she wanted to fight him herself."

It explained her partly freezing the army for them before she went off to face the commander on her own. She had probably thought he was Ainz and was disappointed that he was in her words a minion. Still, the ease with which she dealt with him was no laughing matter and gave some more credence to her being an old nature spirit that lived within the lake.

"Why does she have a Toadmen necklace?" Crusch Lulu had noticed it though she didn't pay much attention at first glance.

"She also told me that she had conquered the Toadmen from the north side of the lake," For the Lizardmen who were pushed out by them, it was kind of a big deal that someone was able to conquer them. Even more so when someone basically did it all by themselves. "To be honest, given what she could do already, I didn't see it as far-fetched."

Speaking of the little nature spirit she was trying to get the location of where Ainz was located. All so she could go there and prove who was the strongest. Naturally, Iguva was being rather uncooperative with his captor. "For the last time, I will not betray my Great One by telling you where he is located!"

One of the Lizardmen warriors who stood watching the fairy interrogating her captive decided to give his thoughts. "Is there any way you can just get the information out of him another way?"

"No, I am not a satori so I can't just read his mind," The Lizardmen watching the both of them looked at each other silently wondering what a "satori" was. "So, come on and tell me where he is, I already captured you!"

It was annoying to Iguva at how childish her demands were. Yet, he really couldn't do anything about it. The fairy far outclassed him and he suspected it was basically because she needed him that he hadn't been killed. However, he was starting to wish that she did as she wasn't dropping this childish idea that because she had beaten him that he would let her just walk into Nazarick. Where the hell did she even get that idea from, to begin with anyway? What kind of society or world operated under such assumptions?

The sky overhead suddenly darkened again as the same ominous clouds filled the sky. At once the whole camp looked in the direction of where the clouds had come from as the partly frozen mud froze over completely. A large golem had lumbered over and threw into the ice a large platform of a perfectly curved black stone.

Another group of skeleton creatures walked up, forming a makeshift stairway up the large platform and others formed into two perfect lines. To the Lizardmen who had heard had left their homes and those who heard about the world beyond the lake it was obvious what this was, a Royal Procession. One after another, figures walked up to the platform. The skeleton wrapped in robes took a seat on a throne that had appeared behind him. He raised a hand as bloated face-covered monstrosities floated around.

"The Great One has come personally," Iguva was in awe though his attention was back at his captor. "Do you not see you have no chance my lord will be victorio-"

Cirno refroze his head to shut him up from pointless monologuing. Cirno shot into the air and flew up to the assembled host floating just off from the platform's edge. She wasn't going to let this continue as while it did look important this all felt a bit too dumb to her. "Which one of you is Ainz?"

Maybe it was how upfront she was, or perhaps how rude her action seemed to be but the Floor Guardians were honestly annoyed by her. Demiurge figured he might give this upstart a bit of a reality check. "You will shut up and listen to our lord speak!"

Despite the power behind the voice, its compulsion was ignored. There were the Sages of Gensokyo, the Shrine Maiden of the Hakurei Bloodline, the Garden of the Sun's Caretaker, and finally the Absolute Judge of Black and White. All of which Cirno could say had been terrifying in their own way, whose very words could command an authority that demanded to be listened by damn near everyone within Gensokyo when they wanted it so, and thanks to that Cirno could feel how hollow the attempt was by the guy in the suit.

"What was that attempt to sound scary?"

Demiurge didn't know if he should be impressed by how she seemed utterly immune to his command Mantra or insulted that she maintained her cocky attitude with him. It seemed nothing had affected her at all about their precession even though it seemed to have done so to the Lizardmen under her. So, focused on her goal to fight, she might be ignoring all of them standing next to their leader, or they didn't pose a threat to her in the slightest. Demiurge found that thought utterly ludicrous even if she was acting like it was the case.

"Demiurge that's enough," Ainz got up as he looked at the fairy who floated off the ground. "Lady of the Lake, as the Lord of Nazarick, I Ainz Ooal Gown accept your challenge to a duel!"

Cirno turned over to him at this landing on top of the perfectly made stone and started up at his eyes. There wasn't even a look of any sort of intimidation on her part. After all, why would there be if someone had actually faced gods before him? For a second he wondered if this was a good idea but he reassured himself. He had prepared to give her a challenge and had plenty of items on hand just in case.

"Alright, so you want this to be a duel then, one on one?" Cirno hadn't really seen a real duel in a long time. Well, technically one can say that the spell card rules made it almost a normal thing but this world didn't have it.

"Indeed, a duel to decide the fate of the Lizardmen," Ainz's words echoed out to the Lizardmen down below.

To say that this got them talking amongst themselves was an understatement. Having their fate decided by two other beings, both of which were seemingly more than capable of forcing the issue, felt wrong to most of them. Effectively, giving up their agency as a race. However, the Royal Procession had been done as much as a show of force as an elaborate way to greet them. Overall it was Ainz showing he could kill them all.

A few moments was all it took for Cirno and Ainz to stare each other down on top of the frozen mud that now served as their arena. On one side were the Lizardmen, practically forced to watch as the two fought for their fate, and on the other side were the Floor Guardians. The ruler of Nazarick looked at his opponent as he tried to guess what class she might be comparable to.

Using his spell to check her level he wanted to make sure he was accurately prepared like he had hoped. 'Hmm, level ninety-three.'

With a significant gap between him and most of the New World being drastic their actions amounted to very little. The gap between them both, however, wasn't all that much. In fact, he knew depending on one's opponent's "build" he could very much fall to someone who was ten or even in extremely well min-maxed occasions twenty levels lower. In PvP level was only one thing that determined the fight.

Cocytus stood to the side taking the role of the mediator between the duel. "The. Rules. Are. Simple. No. One. Can. Intervene. The. Fight. Continues. Until. One. Surrenders. Or. Dies." Neither made a move as Cocytus raised up one of his arms. "Begin!"

Swords, spears, shields, and the like hung over the room with everything from a small, strangely modern, cooking place to one side and a magical laboratory on the other. The centerpiece, and what passed for a table, was a glass casket that showed a blonde-haired man in his thirties laid down in full armor with his eyes closed in a peaceful sleep. Well, either that or he was dead. It was really hard to tell either way.

Chen was looking at the skull of something that at first glance seemed dog-like with features of a cat skull held in a glass case. She wasn't able to read what was written but Ran could. On it read the "Skull of Cath Palug" with a small bit saying, "Do not attempt to revive under any circumstances' in all red letters. Ran wasn't completely familiar with the various youkai of the west but something about it told her that the warning was there for a reason.

"Ran, Chen alright I think I am ready to see what Yukari wants."

Coming out of the spiral doorway that led to the rooms up the tower was the man from before dressed in a simple gray suit vest over a black shirt, and black dress pants, with white gloves covering his hands. All of which was draped over by a cloak that was black on the inside white on the outside with bird bright birth feathers along the edges. As he walked down he straightened out the feeling of the vest and the cloak.

"Wait," He held up a hand as he walked over to a sheathed sword held on a rack. "We might as well try to take a shortcut to Gensokyo."

"A shortcut?" Getting to the realm of fairies from Gensokyo required a long trip through the rivers at the boundary of the realms of the dead. "Isn't Tir Na Nog disconnected from most of the other realms?"

"Well, yes but just in case I managed to make a connection between the lake in Gensokyo and the lake just outside in case I foresaw something extremely dangerous," Opening the door he let out a sigh. "Unfortunately, I am not the one who controls the lake over here as you can guess."

Outside fairies gathered around flying about without a care in the world, almost having little get-togethers around the lake. As they saw the three of them walking up to the lake they quickly all turned and watched them talking amongst each other in the ancestral language of the fairies. Only one of them understood what they were saying and it didn't really matter at all. Stopping at the water's edge he picked up a small stone and tossed it into the unnaturally still water.

"Hey Vivian, I need to talk to you!"

For a few moments nothing happened. Then the lake's waters started to ripple rather violently. All the fairies that flew about moved to the edges of the lake and looked on with something of both awe and reverence as a big flash of water erupted upwards sending waves that surprisingly did cause a single drop of water to leave the lake. As soon as this happened the waters returned to their unnatural stillness.

Standing on top of the water was someone dressed in a simple yet regal dress. Someone who Ran realized looked almost exactly like the ice fairy of the Misty Lake. The only real differences being physical order her and her wings not being in the shape of icicles but instead what looked like water waves. The only other thing of note was a sword held within its sheath that was within her hands as she rose from the lake.

"Myrddin what is it?"

You know the one of the most common fanon thing is that Cirno is a full idiot. Which is canonically not the case as she not only is literate she also is good at math. It's really that she's a fairy and fairies are basically childish by nature of being well immortal. Oh, and yes I decided to give a glimpse into another part of the realms of the supernatural. Tir Na Nog is just catch all for every celtic other world up to and including the Arthurian Legend. Plus, I have been dropping bits of other realms so I might as well.

Blue Glass · Aug 5, 2023

Here is the first codex or the like in order to help people keep track while also revealing where some of the individuals are in terms of the New World.

Known Touhous within the New World.

Remilia Scarlet

Flandre Scarlet

Yuuka Kazami

Renko Usami

Sumireko Usami

Koishi Komeiji

Cirno

Okina Matara

Kasen's Arm

Sanae Kochiya

Current location of the known Touhou characters of the New World.

Renko Usami: Unknown

Sumireko Usami: In route to the Dragon Kingdom

Yuuka Kazami: Formerly the Great Forest of Tob, current location unknown

Remilia Scarlet: Re-Estize Kingdom countryside

Koishi Komeiji: Re-Estize Capital

Sanae Kochiya: Somewhere within the Demihuman Occupied part of the Dragon Kingdom.

Cirno: The Great Lake

Flandre Scarlet: Unknown

Okina Matara: Unknown

Kasen's Arm: Katze Plains near the Baharuth Empire

Touhou Level if compared to to the Yggdrisal System*. Used for only those who have physically appeared in the story.

Remilia Scarlet: 94

Yuuka Kazami: 100+

Sumireko Usami: 76

Kasen's Arm: 100

Cirno: 60 (Original) 93 (Current)

Koishi Komeiji: 85

Renko Usami: 79

*Levels do not strickly matter beyond as much a vague idea of were the opponent is at. Being an RPG more weight is placed on build and skill layout.

Blue Glass · Sep 7, 2023

No sooner as Cocytus' hand fell did Cirno make the first move. With her hands raised she sent a large ball of ice and snow crashing at him. Ainz wasn't expecting her to seemingly go all out immediately on the attack, he had probably expected her first move to do something like reinforce herself or as such, and didn't really have time to get out of the attack's way.

Ainz crashed to the ground as the ball exploded in front of him on contact. It hurt, despite his magic resistances, and his Ice Immunity, the spell had hurt him. He immediately righted himself using a means of levitation.

Immediately he berated himself for letting that happen and assuming that he could power through her ice magic. 'Right, she doesn't use Tier Magic.'

They used different Magic Systems which meant what should have granted him a possible edge against her was probably not going to work. Perhaps it worked both ways. "Firebolt!"

A first-tier spell was chosen to test this theory. Cirno didn't block it as the flames made contact with her, and seemed to dissipate harmlessly over her. At first, one would assume it was magic resistance but Ainz was able to pick up that the flames dissipated in a way that seemed less like it hit something immune to it and like it hit an invisible barrier. More accurately it hit a barrier of cold air.

'Ice spells are out and possibly so are low-tier fire spells,' His first assumption that she was set up purely for ice magic was starting to seem true. However, seeing how she can bypass immunity to ice, reducing it to just a resistance it seems, such a thing wasn't an issue.

With his skeletal hands up he let loose a bolt of lightning while Cirno tried to block it with a wall of ice. On contact, the ice exploded as a brilliant flash of ice crystals and sparks of electricity danced in the air around Cirno. Reacting she jumped back and out of the way as a far stronger stream of flames came down at her. Cirno raised her hand up as a wave of cold at him intent to freeze him.

Ainz flew out of the way of the oncoming cold. Hands raised lightning gathered within them. "Triple Maximized Magic, Vermilion Nova!"

For a second Cirno thought the spell failed until the feeling of being burned consumed her senses. A pillar of flame consumed her and Cirno screamed in both surprise and pain. On reflex, she immediately let out a burst of her energy as all around a wave of ice and snow pulsed from her body. As the flames dissipated violently Cirno actually took a second to compare it to the fire users she knew.

It was nowhere near the level of the hell raven's, then again she was supposedly more of a sun powered, and Mokou's flames were technically stronger though she didn't have a need to pull them out unless absolutely necessary. Cirno didn't dwell on this though as there was an enemy in front of her. With a wave of her hand, a large pillar of ice sprung forward at Ainz while a layer of ice formed over her body into a crude set of armor while in her left hand, a lance of ice formed.

Racing forward the pillar of ice formed Ainz to move out of the way as Cirno tried to stab him with the lance of ice. Just barely was he able to dodge out of the way of the attack before Cirno formed something that looked like a hammer of ice in her free hand. Smashing it across his chest, Ainz was sent to the ground below. Cirno flew down as she tried to impale him with the lance again only for Ainz to roll out of the way.

'Is it just me or are her physical attacks strangely weak?' It reminded him of someone like himself trying to attack physically without using Perfect Warrior. 'Wait, is she a pure magic caster?'

If that was the case why was she fighting him physically? Pulling out the Staff of Ainz Ooal Gown he blocked a swing with another ice construct. He wasn't being overpowered by her physically at all. In fact, he was probably a little bit stronger than her on that front! Cirno used the opportunity to point her hand at him as she readied a blast of ice.

A large misshapen and jagged mass of cold formed in front of her. For a second she wondered if she had gotten him but as the ice cleared there was nothing within it. Instead from the reflection of the ice Cirno caught sight of Ainz behind her for a second. Turning around she was met by a Ray of Negative Energy and reacting quickly was able to bring up an ice barrier to block the spell. As the negative energies clashed with her Cirno could swear she could almost sense the decay in the air. Like the spell was aimed at breaking down organic nature.

A command was sent to the frozen ground below her. Ainz felt something holding him in place as he turned down to notice that ice had formed over his feet holding him in place. 'Damn it.'

Looking back he was greeted with a barrage of icicles that slammed into him. Ainz raised up his hands as a ray of lightning arced from his fingers and slammed into a giant boulder of ice that came at him. The resulting explosion tossed them both back, breaking the ice holding Ainz in place. Getting back up he quickly thought about what to do. Pulling the Staff of Ainz Ooal Gown again he used its powers to summon into being two Primal Elementals.

Both the Water and Air were poor choices. Something told him that she would just freeze the former and the latter wasn't much of a threat either. Ainz was iffy on the Earth Elemental which left the last too. Appearing in front was both the Fire Primal Elemental and the Star Primal Elemental. The burning bull-headed elemental was next to the hooded star-covered space elemental.

Cirno stared at both of them as she could feel something off about both of them. It was like they were embodiments of nature like herself but muted, controlled, one part incomplete and one part not dissimilar to when she turned to create and control constructs of ice. With a roar, the Fire Primal unleashed a large blade of flames aimed at Cirno who countered by increasing the intensity of the cold coming off of her which caused the flames to dissipate just off of her. The Star Primal unleashed a ray of light that cut through the dying flames and grazed a bit at Cirno's shoulder.

Raising both her hands mists rose from the lake and soon covered the whole area as a blizzard formed across the area. The Fire Primal Elemental was covered by the cold as it seemed to be trying to put him out while the Star Primal Elemental attempted to cut through the nearly blinding storm to attack her. As it fired at the area where Cirno had been it hit nothing as Cirno had already left the area.

Before either could look for her overhead both it and the Fire Primal were crushed under a large iceberg. The Fire Primal on reflex tried to escape with heat but all it did was convert the ice into water as steam arose from the flickering elemental that was finally put out by a large icicle shard piercing through its head.

The Star Primal Elemental destroyed the ice holding it down and was able to get out of the way as Cirno tossed down a spear made of hardened ice aimed at it. As the both of them fought, Ainz took this opportunity to start planning out what he needed. He didn't need physical defensive buffs, only ones to limit the damage and a few to keep her at arm's length without trying to trap him. Opening his inventory he had to swap out some of the useless equips for something better.

Overhead Cirno raced towards the Elemental as she called on the frozen ground from below. The ice moved upwards and held the Star Primal Elemental in place as Cirno formed what looked like a giant lance and smashed into the elemental which on reflex grabbed on the ice lance and tried to fight off being pierced through. Unfortunately, the Ice below it moved up, and soon coveted it completely. Cirno hardened the ice until it finally started to crack from the pressure she was forcing on it. With a snap, it shattered into pieces as the elemental's remains fell apart within the broken ice.

Cirno's attention turned over to her actual opponent. With a toss a small jagged piece of ice went out and hit Ainz's hands while it reached into some kind of opening in space. Cirno raced forward as she gathered energy in her hands.

"Grasping Heart!" A spectra heart appeared in his hands and was crushed. Cirno felt her own heart stop as the gathered energy within her hands dissipated.

In an instant, her body broke down into snow and ice. No sooner as it did, barely having time to fall, the fragments of cold swirled around in a vortex and reformed into Cirno. She blinked for a few moments at what had happened while Ainz, having viewed the obvious use of a resurrection spell or skill, mentality cursed as he prepared for the fight to continue. Cirno, however, had a completely different thought process.

"Wait, does that mean I lost?!" Her outburst as she turned over to Cocytus for an answer.

Silence hung over the area as the denizens of Nazarick found her outburst a bit confusing. Immediate resurrection in a fight wasn't considered losing, YGGDRASIL special PvP matches allowed it after all. "No. Immediate. Resurrection. Is. Not. A. Cause. For. Defeat."

Hearing this Cirno couldn't help but laugh. If these were the rules that they worked under then they must have never faced a fairy before. Sure, most normal fairies would take a while to reconstitute a body but Greater Fairies could do so on the spot though with great strain the more they had to. Cirno right now was at the peak of what a fairy was capable of. Instant resurrection was easier and the strain was lessened to nothing due to how close she was to the place where she was tied.

"Well, if that is the case I already won."

Such a boost seemed like the height of arrogance. That one simple resurrection was all it took to claim victory. 'She must be full of herself if she thinks that will be all it takes to beat me.'

'THIS IS BULLSHIT!'

As soon as his frustration built did it pass. Still, he had killed her two more times with the same result. He was low on MP, even with taking percussion in the battle to limit his loss of MP. Physically speaking he was being worn down and didn't think he could keep up the fight. Sure, as undead he technically didn't get tired but the fighting and cold was another matter. As for his opponent, that was a completely different matter.

Her resurrection came with no level cost. She was still at the same level she had been since the duel began or showed any signs of resurrection sickness debuffs common to repeated resurrections. Nor was she running low on MP or whatever it was that served as her equivalent. Apparently, if anything when he watched her unleash various cold spells the cost was almost immediately restored. It was as if the duel itself wasn't even affecting her. Hell, her clothes weren't showing any signs of the fighting as if they were more or less a part of her being.

In terms of magical versatility, he outstripped her. Raw damage output he also outstripped her. He was the more physically tanky of the two, something hilarious to think about as he was a spellcaster which wasn't known for taking damage, and if he wanted could probably become physically stronger with his Perfect Warrior spell. Yet, all that didn't matter if he couldn't outlast her in a fight of endurance.

Surrender was a logical conclusion if he couldn't win. However, this wasn't YGGDRASIL's official PvP tournaments. Surrendering had other implications especially with the Floor Guardians being real beings, and the fact that he didn't want to. Mentally he was thinking of a way to come out on top. This wasn't exactly a low-level resurrection spell, or perhaps it was equivalent to a skill? Either way, he probably couldn't keep her from doing so if that was the case. High-tier resurrection was the one thing he didn't have any way to counter.

Well, almost any way to counter it. There was a theory in his mind about what he could try. First, things first he had to get a fair bit away in order to allow this to work. "Greater Teleportation."

He disappeared in a flash and reappeared far out of the way as Cirno tried to locate him. A ball of lightning was sent at her from the side blasting into her and nearly tossing her out of the air. Turning to the direction, almost beyond her ability to see, was Ainz holding a wand in each of his hands. Cirno let out several icicle lances at him in retaliation. Ainz brought his other wand up as a barrier formed negating the icicles. A long-range attack barrier that protested against magical attacks at a certain range.

There was only one charge in it. Effectively unless to him for any real fighting outside of an NPC engagement back in YGGDRASIL but it seems using it was a good idea. Cirno flew up close, effectively taking the bait. "The Goal Of All Life Is Death!"

Behind him, a clock formed as he had just twelve seconds before it was done. Cirno came at him with a spear made of ice. As she readied to throw it Ainz dropped the now worthless wand and pulled out a scroll. With a glow, the spell written on the scroll was activated. A cone of flames crashed into the spear of ice creating a thermal explosion that tossed Cirno back. Cirno immediately backed up and in a surprise to him formed what looked like armor made of ice and a sword in hand. Now was his chance to get rid of the one thing that was stopping him.

A small part of him wanted to curse, wasting the second of only three charges the ring possessed but it was the only way. Shooting Star activated and with it, he could use Wish Upon a Star. "It's time I stop your skill to resurrect!"

With that, a debuff was placed on Cirno that should prevent her from resurrecting. For a brief second Cirno actually had panic as she thought that meant he had served her link to the lake. On reflex she pulled on that part but before she had time to react to what she found the hand on the clock had almost run out.

"It ends here," Behind Ainz the hand hit twelve. "I will remember you, Lady of the Lake."

A flash of light consumed the area that Ainz had brought them both to. The ice-covered wetlands were consumed as death itself slammed into the environment. Being far enough away the effect didn't reach the spectators watching it. However, those who are living could still feel that anything that was alive was dying. It did as the skill practically burned away all life down to the microbial level and made it so that everything around the area that was living would die.

As the light faded away Ainz looked on at the newly made wasteland. The mud below had been basically dried from the rapid flash of light. The grasses nearby were gone. A clear sky covered him in almost a sign of victory. She was finally dead, his spell having done the trick as she was unable to resurrect.

'Finally…' Ainz stopped as he noticed that the temperature was rapidly decreasing. Dead scorched ground was starting to turn into permafrost. 'It can't be-'

Snow and cold swirled around as yet again for the fourth time in this duel Cirno reappeared. His wish seemingly had no effect to stop her resurrection. Impossible didn't begin to describe it as he was certain he had wished to block off any resurrection skills! Suddenly, a dreadful thought entered into his mind. Her ability to resurrect wasn't a skill. Nor was it a spell as it seemed she was incapable of healing or the like that usually required it.

'A passive,' Every part of his mind wanted to rage at how utterly absurd this was. Even his undead nature was having a hard time repressing the mixture of emotions that he was feeling. 'IT WAS A GOD DAMN PASSIVE!'

No wonder she was so sure she could win. Literally, the only thing that could theoretically stop someone with a passive instant resurrection was something he did not have. If he did there was no way in hell he would use it given the cost of doing so. "Well, if that is the case I already won."

Everything made sense now. To her, this fight wasn't a struggle for life or death. This whole fight was effectively a trap, a farce the moment he agreed to it. Cirno had won the moment that it was stated that resurrection was allowed. For she could keep going no matter how many times it took. In a sense it wasn't a matter of if she could win, but a matter of how long it would take to do so. Anything could be brought down if you had a virtually infinite number of tries after all.

"... I stood no chance."

Cirno, however, was utterly horrified. Sure, the wish to stop her resurrection wasn't going to work, that was a fundamental part of being a fairy and required effort that was close to impossible to achieve without severing them from the source, but in that moment Cirno could feel what was done. Life wasn't nature, grass, trees, and animals are just a part of it. Nature included everything from volcanoes to water, to even stuff like light. Still, despite being a fairy of ice and fundamentally tied to water, Cirno felt what he had done in the moment she was without her body.

Living things just ceased to be in the area. Not only what the eye could see. In the air and in the ground the small organisms had died. What was worse was whatever it was, it was still lingering in the area. Trying to keep everything dead. This was her lake right now and part of it was now just a wasteland. In that moment Cirno countered it as best she could, flooding cold and ice to counter the effects and while she had succeeded in getting rid of the extremes, like the ever-present decaying effect on life, the area would never be truly repairable for years at minimum.

"What did you do," Around her body ice crystals started to form as her shock and horror were being replaced with anger and rage. A pure all-consuming rage that fairies rarely felt. "DO!"

At that, a wave of cold lashed out from her body. Cirno's hair started to spike a bit as ice literally began to consume it. There was a feeling of pain as she began to subconsciously push her powers to their limit, breaking whatever mental defense existed to protect her body from breaking down. A vortex of snow and ice formed around her completely obscuring her form. A lot of energy was built up and for many, they could almost feel the killing intent hidden behind her.

"Younger Dryas!"

In that instant, a flash of cold and ice rapidly outwards from her form. Everything it touched was frozen over. Large pillars of ice and snow ripped through the whole area. When the violent outburst was over snow started to slowly fall to the ground as if it was suddenly the middle of winter. Cirno stood there a feeling of visible exhaustion shown as her energy reserves were depleted and only now being restored by the natural energies she was tied to. It was slow and her body was numbed. A sign of the amount of power she had unleashed in an instant. All around here it was an ice and snow-covered wasteland. Large pillars of ice were shot out in all directions with various shapes. Reaching high into the air. The temperature around was forced into freezing, completely negating the warm summer air and forcing it to endure temperatures that were below zero.

Her power held on to this state before she released it. Causing the ice to dissolve and the snow to disappear into the water. The onlookers didn't fully escape unscathed either. The Floor Guardians had used everything in an instance to block the effects of the spell with a variety of successes, the Lizardmen would have just straight up been killed had Zaryusu not in a fit of instinct brought up Frost Pain which reacted to her and shielded them from the worst of it. Still, even they would have died had she not released the cold when she did.

Finally, there was her opponent. Ainz was on his knees, the Staff of Ainz Ooal Gown barely keeping him up as he watched the object he had hastily brought out burn away in front of him. It was the only reason he had survived but even still he was barely holding on to life or rather undeath.

'That…' He could feel the effort it took to not fall over. 'That had to be on par with Super Tier Magic.'

Cirno slowly walked up to him. The rules of the match still echoed a bit in her mind. Surrender or to the death. He was close to it and hadn't surrendered at all. She was probably going to have to kill him. Holding out her hand she gathered what energy she could as she prepared to unleash the finishing blow.

"I surrender."

Silence filled the area as the words left Ainz's mouth. Whatever was gathered within Cirno's hands was gone. "That means I won."

Cirno held a small celebration at the victory as she knew this meant the Lizardmen were saved. Speaking of the Lizardmen to them, the fight they had witnessed was extraordinary. Power was displayed that utterly showed how hopeless a fight against the undead leader was. Yet, even then the spirit of the lake was able to stand up before him. Even death couldn't stop her as she just kept coming back again and again. Finally, Ainz had used a power he claimed would stop her from resurrecting, and then after getting to a far-off distance that made it almost impossible to see he unleashed something that could be described as divine wrath.

With only a slight delay Cirno came back and then unleashed her own. An attack that could have killed them all. Zaryusu looked down at Frost Pain so consumed by the sudden feeling to use it to protect them, a completely foolish idea in hindsight, but he felt like he had to. The weapon had absorbed into itself most the shockwave of cold sparing every one of his kind and from the end, he now held it reforged. Molded into something that looked like a large talon in the shape of a blade.

Almost completely unwieldy by its looks though surprisingly light. It was also far more powerful than it had been before. More like it had been blessed by some being of great power, or that it had been remade by the source of what had made it. He was the only one aware of the changes as all the onlooking Lizardmen were at a loss for words at what they had just witnessed.

A battle between two foes that vastly outstripped any of them. Like something out of the legends of the other races. Sure, the Lizardmen who had traveled out into the nearby human kingdoms had returned with stories of their gods but to them, it didn't seem anything more than stories. Some more open-minded could believe that there was something there. Watching the two figures that had gone into battle made those aware and understand what the human stories had talked about.

For the Floor Guardians, there were no words that left as they watched the seemingly unstoppable fairy celebrate while Ainz struggled to stay up. They couldn't quite hear what had gone on but it wasn't hard to take a guess. "Did Lord Ainz surrender?"

Everyone who had watched moved closer as Cirno now did with the high of victory offered her hand up to help Ainz up. "Now that was the most fun I had in a month," Though hadn't forgotten the reason for why he was here, and her face gained a serious expression as she looked at her defeated foe. "Say, you won't going to kill the Lizardmen if you had won, right?"

Ainz looked at her outstretched hand as he thought carefully about how he should answer this. If she wished to kill him despite honoring the duel there was legitimately nothing Nazarick could do to defeat her. "No, I had only threatened it to bring you out."

"You caused an incident to get to me?" Back in Gensokyo such a thing never happened. Incidents usually didn't happen unless they targeted either Gensokyo as a whole or the shrine maiden. "Alright, I've decided," Her serious expression gave way to a goofy carefree smile. "You'll be my new friend!"

'... What?' He had come here effectively declaring war on her, fought a life-or-death duel, and now after winning she decided just to declare him her friend. This was just absurd to even think about.

The feeling of the Floor Guardians, when they returned to Nazarick with Ainz was one that could best be described as conflicted. On one hand, the whole invasion of the Lizardmen was technically a success. While it wasn't what they originally had expected they had brought out the being of notice from the lake. Whatever feeling of success though was crushed by the fact that Lord Ainz had lost a one-on-one duel with her. A passive that instantly resurrects you with no cost and quickly regenerates your MP? Such a thing sounded ridiculous and yet the Lady of the Lake possessed both.

Even then the feeling of defeat was mitigated by the fact that the Lady of the Lake decided that Ainz was now her friend. Nazarick failed to conquer the Lizardmen and in the end, got the ruler of the lake they lived in to effectively become their ally. Overall, this should be something of a victory even with everything that had gone on. Yet, it didn't feel like it to most of them.

"Please my great master forgive me for my utter failure!" There was also the issue of the captive that Cirno had returned to them.

Iguva was on the ground bowing and begging for forgiveness as soon as they had returned. The lich didn't even know about the fight between the Lady of the Lake and the Lord of Nazarick. All he cared about was the fact that he led an army, got captured, and was now in front of his creator.

Ainz for his part didn't really want to deal with this. "It's alright Iguva as you can guess you didn't stand a chance against Cirno," A part of him wondered why Cirno hadn't killed him given that he likely wouldn't tell her anything. "Even I can't win against endurance like hers."

Iguva seemed visibly shaken at such a thing. Such a thought of his creator failing seemed utterly impossible to think about and yet his master was implying as such. "May I ask what happened between you and Cirno?"

"I fought her and lost," It wouldn't be nor should it be a secret. "I could overpower her in terms of magical might, even killed her a few times, but her ability to always resurrect was something that I couldn't overcome."

The idea of beings out there that Ainz couldn't defeat seemed to be something that was beyond the lich's idea to process but it wasn't something that was so impossible that the Floor Guardians couldn't understand. They had overheard the Supreme Beings having failed, being defeated by other players individually, even as groups against some of the strongest beings in the nine worlds. Cirno's victory was one of pure endurance, not one of power, but even still it had to be acknowledged as a victory nonetheless.

"You may not know this but Nazarick had not always been in this world," Ainz figured that this might become a thing. Those who came over from YGGDRASIL for instance knew about the other members of Ainz Ooal Gown and that he wasn't the top dog there but the newly made summons like Iguva did not. "There I was not the strongest being around, in fact, several of my friends, the other Supreme Beings of Nazarick were my betters."

Iguva had a hard time understanding this. Yet, he only knew so little about Nazarick. Indeed he was extremely lucky that Cirno didn't just kill him. However, hearing his creator, a being he had absolute loyalty and the loyalty of other powerful beings, talk about someone being better than him was surreal. Yet, it was coming out of his mouth so it was a fact.

"How many Great One do you suspect exist in this world that can beat you?"

His words might seem a bit out of line to the others but it actually was something to think about. So far it seems that a being of interest kept turning up every now and again the more Nazarick moved into the world. It seemed as though as they stepped more and more into events more of those who could fight and threatened them became known. It was almost like they seemed to be popping into existence recently, or perhaps they had always been here?

"I do not know how many exist in the world but that is something I intend to find out."

Four and a half months. That was how long she had found herself lost in this strange new world. It was like something out of an old fantasy manga, light novel, or video game her mother once shared with her before she passed on. Finding humans in this world was strange to think about in of itself which pointed more to her being in an alternate universe over some alien planet that seemed very similar. The magic system was fundamentally different as well which furthers this point.

Speaking of humans and the fantasy world there were indeed multiple other races that inhabited the world and of course, there was something that was enviable. Some of them hated each other for a variety of reasons, jealousy, slavery, and apparently some ate each other. That last one wasn't surprising to hear given some youkai tended to do so. Which made her rather grateful for being a Magician as she really didn't need to eat humans. Not like being a Magician mattered much as she was still treated as a human anyway.

A lot of beastmen, trolls, and other things wanted to and tried to eat her. Most of them were now dead as she learned the power divide between her and them was vastly in her favor. For the most part until she ended up stumbling into a living skeleton's lair and had a fight with something that actually showed signs of being stronger than most of the others she had faced though it wasn't much.

'I really shouldn't have fought him,' Turns out whoever that was had been a subordinate of something that was far stronger, and now Renko was dealing with a small army of the undead.

"A single woman?" The leader of the undead was a tall skeleton of one of the beastmen, maybe a wolf or some kind of catman who was dressed in high-quality robes and golden jewels.

"Here I expected a group of adventurers of some kind," On one hand, it was disappointing that his original estimate was off. On the other hand, it looked like this woman was powerful enough that if he killed and raised her that he would have a powerful ally that could help him and by extension the Corpus of the Abyss.

Off to the side, the dimming orange of sunset was fading away as the darkness of night started to set in. The stars become visible overhead. Renko stared at the army in front of her and the leader wondering just how she ended up in this mess. "Can we talk this out instead of fighting?"

Renko was kind of getting annoyed by the fact that she was fighting a lot more than she usually had to. There was also the issue of just killing those who attacked her and it was getting a bit unsettling after a while. Renko was a Magician and not one of the more enthusiastic youkai at the act of killing after all.

"We'll have much to talk about once I raise your corpse!"

With that, he commanded his small force to attack while Renko raised her right hand into the air. In the sky it seemed like the stars gained various lines connecting together into magic circles. "Fine, have it your way."

Renko brought her hand down as from the bounds of the firmament meteors started to rain down on them. Many of the lesser undead were just destroyed either from direct impacts or the various shockwaves. The leader of the undead forces cursed before floating up and away as one of the stray meteorites came crashing down near him.

Looking down at the destruction the area was filled with little craters and the remains of various undead screwed around. Looking up with her black outside cape flowing with the wind revealing the bright color and various runes underneath Renko stared back at him. "Quite a show of power." It was one that did make him hesitate a bit at fighting her. "I admit I underestimated you."

She wasn't a normal human that was for sure. There was no way about it. Yet, she didn't show any signs of the use of Tier Magic. Looking through the Corpus of the Abyss members' eyes an unknown observer watched as the woman engaged in battle with him. As the fight went on, well it was more her having the clear edge while the Corpus member was immediately on the defensive, it was more apparent that she wasn't using Tier Magic, Martial Arts, Wild Magic, or anything more but an unknown form of magic.

Finally, with a blast of energy, the feed was cut off as the Corpus member had been killed. 'Just what has the Dragon Emperor's actions brought to this world this time?!'

There was no other way to his knowledge for her to be anything else but another invader brought in by that old fool's ritual. The Players had been bad enough especially with what they had done to the world and now something else had ended up in the world around the same time that the next Player could show up. Around the same time that for a brief moment, Wild Magic had been freed from its corruption by Tier Magic.

"Wait, does she have a hand in that?"

Could it be that her magic was the key to freeing Wild Magic from the corruption imposed on it by Tier Magic? If he could get his hands on some of it then that could mean he could use Wild Magic without the drawbacks. Combining it with the Tier Magic he had, rather begrudgingly at first, mastered alongside this third magic would make him unstable. With that he could take over the world and ensure that every new Player who comes to this world ends up dead and raised to serve him. A laugh could be heard as the plan came together.

Cure Elim Los Malvar, leader of the Corpus of the Abyss, couldn't wait to meet this woman face to face.

"So, you need to get to Gensokyo and you want to use the doorway that is connected to my lake?" Vivian looked at the three of them, well more at Myrddin, as she thought about their request. Truthfully, she almost forgot that her lake had been made a backdoor for the half-devil to get to that little artificial realm in the Far East. "Alright, but you know the rules you have to beat me in a duel!"

"I don't think that's necessary."

Vivian looked at him in confusion. "What are you talking about, you have Durendal with you!"

She motioned to the sword in his hands. It was his favorite, and the one one he practiced with the most, weapon after all. "You do know that I haven't been to Gensokyo in like fifty years, this is more for my personal defense."

"Gensokyo has moved on to a non-lethal method since the last time you were there," Myrddin turned as Ran cut into this.

"Huh," Myrddin stared at her but Ran got the feeling he wasn't staring at her but at something tied to her. "So, the current Hakuri came up with a less life-threatening method to solve her issues and Yukari ended up conspiring with Sigurd's descendant to popularize it."

In his hands magic gathered as he attempted to make his own card based on how he had seen Ran make her own after Yukari explained it. After a few seconds, the gathered energy took the form of a glowing card. Myrddin looked at it for a few moments as he started to think about what this actually could mean. It was a way to bypass the need to directly eat humans, something that was sorely needed for a few of the youkai still hidden in the Outside World and those within other refuges beyond Gensokyo.

'I am surprised that Yukari hasn't offered this to New Jotunheim as a means to secure Gensokyo's interests with its western counterpart,' Well, if she wouldn't he could. Although, he didn't rule out if she wasn't aware that might be a possibility had he visited Gensokyo again. 'Probably intended to spring it on me after a few rounds of testing.'

Whatever the case there was something else to worry about. The card returned to its creator. "Back on track I kind of foresaw I wouldn't have to and I am taking a hunch that it has something to do with the two of them."

Myrddin motioned to Ran and Chen who Vivian only now took a moment to properly take a look at. "A two-tail cat and a nine-tailed fox?" She seemed for a second to be in thought as she tried to remember something. "You're that Dark Lady's servants?"

"...Yes."

"Alright, so why does Myrddin think you will just let me open up the pathway from my lake?"

"Maybe because you look like a fairy back in Gensokyo named Cirno," Chen was confused by this whole thing but figured it had something to do with that.

Vivian blinked at this. A fairy that looked like her? "Cirno, is she a fairy tied to the lake on the other end of that passageway, also how old is she?"

"She showed up in Gensokyo about eighty years ago," Ran recalled when she first showed up in the middle of a rather harsh few days in the middle of winter which was brought on by the lake. "As for where she is tied to it is the misty lake, as she seems to have control over the lesser fairies in the area."

There was a pause for a few seconds as Vivian processed this. She turned to Myrddin, her face red with a mix of emotions but luckily she knew were to vent one of them. "MYRDDIN YOU LEFT ME WITH A DAUGHTER!"

Well, this took longer then I had liked to finish. Well, that and it kind of had to be rewritten in a few places. Choosing not to use Spell Cards was a mistake.

Blue Glass · Sep 28, 2023

Walking out of a portal Ainz re-equipped his armor and swords of his adventurer persona. It took two days after his duel with the Lady of the Lake for everything to settle down back at Nazarick. In that time Aura had finished looking through anything of note within the Forest of Tob. Besides a Naga and a Troll, who were both supposedly on par with his pet hamster there really wasn't anything else of any note. The Great Forest was practically under Nazarick's control now with the exception of the area around the lake which fell under the dominion of Cirno.

Which reminded him as to way he currently was looking forward to returning to his adventurer persona. Demiurge had explained to the other Floor Guardians that he had suspected that Ainz had wanted to take over the world. 'How did he even think I want to do that anyway?'

Taking over the world for only a split second sounded fun to some part of him. However, that was quickly pushed aside by the very fact he had just fought someone who was unstoppable, that Shalltear had died to a young-looking devil who was aware she was being watched, and the fact that there others in the world who might be more than able to stop Nazarick. Yet, Demiurge had unknowingly sold the Floor Guardians on that being his own plan. Because of that, he had to pretend he wanted to go along with this even though he was hesitant.

"Narberal isn't here…" Not surprising as he did tell her she was going to have to wander around the city or something to give the illusion that Darkness wasn't cooped up in their room. It didn't matter if he wasn't seen out in the city as long as "Nabe" was people would just assume he was as well. 'I think I should check in at the Adventurers Guild maybe to see if any other rumors exist.'

He did feel like he should explain what was going on with the Great Lake but after a second brushed it aside. Cirno didn't strike him as someone who would just kill anyone who entered her territory, not unless they forced her to. Besides anyone who did try to fight her stood no real chance with her broken passive anyway. If they even could hurt her.

Walking out across the city Ainz stopped as he crossed the local temple or church that he didn't pay much attention to. At least not before he started to wonder about how gods work in this world. 'I should come by here later.'

Entering into the adventure guild building he took time to look at the various jobs listing. His grasp of the native written language was still limited though he did notice that one of the listings was written in two different languages. 'I should ask about this.'

Taking the paper he was about to but as he passed by a seat he overheard the adventurers. "Hey, did you hear about the sightings of undead?"

"What from the graveyard or the plains?"

"No, what's more, the undead seem to be controlled given that they are seen with things in their hands."

"You think it's a necromancer?"

"Maybe it's the Corpus?

"Corpus?" Ainz decided to cut in as he had a feeling that this might be something he should know. Especially given the last bit of rumors led to him meeting the Lady of the Lake. "If you don't mind me asking what are you talking about?"

"It's an old group of undead, the Corpus of the Abyss, much of what is known about them comes from two hundred years ago like them possibly being part of the destruction of Inveria," Sure, it did run counter to the story of the vampire Landfall being responsible but the rumor of the Corpus being responsible was older and did have some backing. "They did attempt to invade the Slane Theocracy and fight the Thirteen Heroes but beyond that, it's mostly hearsay."

'Not a lot to go off on in terms of what this group is capable of,' Ainz had no frame of reference for both beyond the fact the Slane Theocracy is still standing and the Thirteen Heroes disbanded instead of being killed. Neither of which he understood their full capabilities. 'Should I risk it by looking into these rumors?'

"All the sightings seem to end up here," Ainz stood within a small hilly grove of trees. It was about a day or two travel from the fortress city but with a Gate, it wasn't much of an issue. No, the only problem was trying to find where the Corpus was located.

"Lord Ainz," Ainz turned over as Narberal who pointed to the ground just to the side of them. "These look like skeleton tracks."

Ainz didn't even notice at first, indeed given they are a bit off the commonly traveled paths it was hard to tell, but recent heavy rains had left the ground muddy enough that tracks were still visible even if already fading away. By the looks of things, they were heading deeper into the trees around where a large hill should be. As they followed the tracks the clutter of the leaves started to make it somewhat harder to track but eventually, there was something that seemed to be worn about the ground. This path was commonly used.

Finally, they came across what was a cave within the hill that while it seemed natural at a passing glance. As they got closer the stones on the floor seemed unnatural to say the least. Sure, it did at first seem to be erosion but they were almost completely flat, and deeper within the cave looked like stairs more than simple rock.

'This must be the hideout,' Ainz thought about the entrance to Nazarick. Maybe they should put a bit more work into hiding it than they did originally.

"Narberal, I am going in, you stay out here in case I need backup," Ainz pulled out a pair of scrolls that contained a Gate spell. "I will message you and you will head back to Nazarick and pick up whoever is there."

"You're going in on your own?"

He had several summoning items on him, something he had decided to take a look into from the vaults and other storages alongside a few of his former guild mates' weapons at the ready. Technically, speaking he wasn't going in alone as much as he was going in to scout the strength and respond accordingly. Narberal, standing watch and being able to leave to get the Floor Guardians was more if he did end up accidentally facing something he shouldn't.

"Between the two of us, I am the highest level," Sure, levels didn't mean everything but the gap between them both was such that it mattered no matter what. "Besides, you have probably heard about my fight with the Lady of the Lake I take it?"

She did but only today. Narberal didn't know what to think about hearing that he had been defeated. "I have," Corno as she was called was supposedly strong enough to hurt him but the real issue was that nothing could seemingly kill her for good. "You think someone similar to her is in there?"

"No, though I wouldn't put it past that who or whatever is in there isn't high level as is," Nothing about how the general population saw in terms of power gave him a reliable scale anyway. In fact, no one understood what a level seemingly was, or even a build for that matter.

Walking down the caves Ainz didn't get far until he found what appeared to be a stone wall that was at a glance in the darkness around him seemed like it was nature. Looking around he cast Detect Illusion. As he did to the right a semi-transparent mirage gave way as a well-kept wooden door appeared. Opening it up he was greeted with a leaver. Pulling on it caused the ground in the middle of the room to move out of the way and reveal a flight of stairs leading deeper inside. Ainz was quick to compare this to some early-game dungeons.

'Well, then let's see what I will find.'

A modest-sized dungeon with a handful of easily noticed traps was what greeted him. A few zombies here and there but nothing he couldn't take out. It seemed almost a chore but as he walked into the various rooms he noticed objects. Items he recognized from YGGDRASIL, were mostly low-tier trash, but a few pieces of gear that were rather mid-tier. Something that could be made with the right knowledge.

However, what really caught his eye was pieces of what looked to be ruined walls. Inside a rather large room a piece of weathered, broken, and somewhat put back together stone. On it was what seemed to be writing that made no sense even more than the native language but what did catch his eye was a picture. A long serpent-like beast with a pair of clawed arms and a dragon's head. Around it were several images of what seemed to be traditional-looking dragons.

'Lindworm,' Though if the image was to be believed this creature was massive compared to the Lindworms in YGGDRASIL. The next image broken and caved at places showed what could have been a circle of something and a crude image of a person with what might be a bow. 'Not much to go on there.'

The very last image in this piece was the most broken. Just a large head with two claws, the crude image of the supposed archer, and finally what was likely another dragon next to the archer. Both of which were attacking the lindworm in some sort of battle.

'How old is this?'

Come to think of it, he didn't seem much in the way of old ruins dotting the nearby landscapes. Admittedly, if this world was anything like his own when it came to society and history then it was obvious that whatever works of some older civilization were probably not appropriated. So many ruins became such even if the area had been continuously inhabited because the new rulers had no care for them. There was also the possibility population had developed a radical cultural shift and no longer cared for the works of their ancestors. After all, one of his former Guildmates had talked about how the Rosetta Stone was found within the walls of a fortress being used as a brick of all things despite it being able to translate Ancient Egyptian when no one could.

That did beg the question of how far back recorded history even went for everyone here. Did any of the kingdoms or raves have objects sitting in some trophy case, or inside a random building that told of a people long gone? 'You would have probably on on a tangent about the importance of museums and learning from the past.'

Turning around, Ainz walked down the next flight of stairs to come across a large room with several doors closed and a single figure in the room. Clocked in decorated high-quality-looking ropes was an Elder Lich who looked back at the armored figure in front of him.

"I had a feeling that there was an intruder, imagine my surprise it's an Adamantine Adventurer," He looked Ainz up and down. "Honestly, you don't look like a woman so I take it you're a recent addition?"

"You can say that," Ainz pulled both of his swords up as he pointed at the Elder Lich who didn't seem frightened at all. "Are you a member of the Corpus of the Abyss?"

"Oh, I see a new big-shot adventurer managed to track me down to prove his worth," The Elder Lich seemed almost bored at this. "Please I fought and killed some of the Slann Theocracy's best," He pointed to Ainz with a bony hand. "Do you really think you scare me?"

Hearing this Ainz decided to use Discern Enemy to get a reading on how strong this Elder Lich was. 'He's level fifty-seven…'

Comparing him to some of the other New World inhabitants he came up wanting. Admittedly, he was comparing the lich in front of him to Cirno, the devil that beat Shalltear, and Sabrina who all outclassed him in the level department. Compared to his first enemies in the New World before the devil girl he was a step or two above them. In fact, he was about in the ballpark of the Pleiades.

The Elder Lich raised his hands as the large doors gave way as dozens of skeleton warriors, armed zombies, and lesser revenants. All low-tier trash that Ainz wasn't worried about. "Unfortunately, adventurer, I can't let you leave here alive."

He brought his hands down as the undead rushed Ainz. Swinging his large swords, Ainz was able to take out several with each swing but predictably they were just distractions. Within the Elder Lich's hands gathered negative energy. A cone of negative energy pulsed out into the undead horde and hit Ainz who did show any signs of being affected by the spell. The surprise was evident at first by the Elder Lich but he knew that there were ways to negate the effects of Negative Energy within the world even if rare to come by for the living. Instead, he decided to focus on a high-level spell that he was unlikely to survive.

Lightning arced between his hands before he let out the seventh-tier spell. "Chain Dragon Lightning!"

The lightning strike raced forward, tearing through the undead as almost an afterthought as it arced into its target. As the electricity arced through the armor Ainz stood there unmoving. This spell had a greater effectiveness against those wearing armor, a bonus to its effect, but his spell resistances, magical defense, and the gap between them levels were vast. In short, the spell did effectively nothing at all to him.

"T-this can't be!" Even adamantine adventurers couldn't just seemingly shrug off a seventh-tier spell! "What are you!?"

Ainz had his two swords disappear into his inventory as he removed his helmet revealing his true face. The bony skull of the Overlord stared back at him. "For one I am not alive as you can see."

With no point in hiding his identity, Ainz switched his equipment back to his usual garb which caused the Elder Lich to freeze up for a second. A memory long passed, almost faded to nothing but still there to be recalled. Of an individual that looked almost exactly like him who was there and had killed his previous coven hundreds of years ago.

'He's dead,' The Slane Theocracy had hidden it but the lich knew the truth. That one of their gods had unambiguously died at the hands of someone else. 'There is no way he can be him!'

The Elder Lich looked on in fear as he tried to think of something to stop Ainz. There was only one possibility that he could do. 'Please Elder Coffin I am in need of aid!'

Ainz brought up his hands and let out a blast of flames. As the Elder Lich expected to meet his end a wave of energy came over him as his personality faded into the background of his mind. 'Assuming Direct Control!'

The fire hit a freshly summoned wall of bones that was more than able to block it. As the bones faded away it revealed that the Elder Lich wasn't exactly an Elder Lich anymore. At first, Ainz did mistaken him for an Overlord like himself. 'No, he's an Archlich."

In YGGDRASIL it was something of a divergence class from Overlord in the Lich family. It wasn't picked because the requirement for it was something that one didn't do unless your whole Guild was made up of lichs, a gimmick build basically that had no purpose. Because of it, the only times it was seen was with certain end-raid bosses that happened to be Dracolichs.

"I am amazed that he called, usually Rinik wouldn't dare call me for aid," The Archlich spoke, though the voice coming through it wasn't this "Rinik". No, it had to be someone else. "I can see why he did."

Ainz was now on guard. Using this chance he did a quick Discern Enemy. According to his spell, his opponent's level is now sitting at level ninety. If this was indeed as it was in YGGDRASIL then the being currently controlling the Archlich was anywhere from level ninety-five to level one hundred. Both of which meant that whoever it was wasn't someone to underestimate. Which meant that yet again another being of interest had made itself known to him.

'Honestly, at this point, there is like one hidden in every cave just off the road,' That was probably not the case but at this point, the string of them showing up lately was starting to be a bit concerning. Right now he had to try and be a bit diplomatic even though they were probably far past it. "I believe there is a bit of a misunderstanding going on…"

"A misunderstanding?" Elder Coffin laughed through Rinik's body. The moment he took over the Elder Lich all the Elder Lich knew was given to him. "You came here as Adventurers, Adamantine I might add but you're not that," The Archlich pointed at Ainz. "In fact, I believe I saw someone who looked a lot like you who came here almost six hundred years ago from another world."

That caught Ainz's attention. Did that mean he wasn't the first, well it was only logical given that things from YGGDRASIL existed here but the way he was talking about him. "How do you know?"

"Because you are far too strong," The Archlich raised a bony finger as the one controlling him started to list the ways. "You effectively showed up seemingly out of nowhere so you can't have gotten to the level in this world," Another was raised signifying the second reason. "Finally, the only ones who tend to reach your Tier Magic level are those who are tied to the players in some form or fashion."

Ainz didn't immediately respond as he processed everything that was said. The way he talked about it did make sense as there was like no way to properly explain where someone like him came from. "Are you someone from YGGDRASIL?"

For a moment the one puppeting the Archlich finally felt like a missing piece in a puzzle was put in place. A light chuckle came over him. "No, but I did how to say eat one of the Players like you and gained part of their knowledge and abilities."

Another powerful native it seems who probably had experience dealing with people like him. One that was likely hostile and could now use Tier Magic. 'Just my luck.'

"Well, pleasantries aside," The controlled Archlich raised his arms up as Ainz realized what was going on without him even needing to say it. "You attacked my servant so it's only fair I attack you won't you say?"

On one hand, this was enough of a threat that he would take it seriously. However, the Archlich was who was being controlled and it was unlikely the controller could have optimized the builds without a menu, forums, and other third-party tools. Ainz had the edge and this time it was unlikely that the native had any broken resurrection passive!

The Archlich glowed as unknown symbols and runes formed around him. "Form Break!"

After his small blackout, a few things had changed for Sebas. For one he found himself being more on watch whenever he heard about a thief, or people talking like someone had been nearby. Sebas knew that he should contact Nazarick about the developers but he didn't have anything beyond a blackout. No one could explain what had happened either. He had let a Shadow Demon scout out in case they could find anything.

The demon didn't come back at all. Either something had killed or captured it. Asking for more to scout out the city was a possibility but that many moving around could draw attention to them. "I'm telling you there is something off about that storehouse!"

"What are you talking about?"

"I was within there and when I came back out I completely forgot what was going on and I'm not the only one who dealt with that."

"Really?"

"Yes, almost everyone who goes there can't remember, except one guy who went in at sunset and said it looked like someone was living inside the storehouse!"

"Excuse me gentlemen," Sebas cut into the conversation, causing both men to turn to him. "Are you saying that someone or something is living inside the storehouse and no one can remember who?"

"Yeah, some of us have been thinking about sending a request to the city guards or the adventurer guild about it," One of the two men pointed to the old, somewhat run-down but still viable, storehouse down the street. "If you want to look for yourself it's that building over there."

"I believe I will," There was something up about the building and something told Sebas it fit with the blank in his mind. A missing part of his memories he couldn't access. 'Perhaps it is the lair of who or what seems to be causing this to the rest of the city.'

As Sebas walked into the room he noticed that while a bunch of crates and wooden barrels filled the place there were signs of someone repurposing things. A crate way out of the way from the rest with smaller ones around it like a table and chair set. Cups and utensils resting on top of the makeshift table. A punch of barrels were tied together over a bunch of straw, cloth, and pillows into a makeshift bed. A pile of junk piled up in one corner with clothes, toys, books, and tools making it up. Random objects seemed tossed around the room from balls to pieces of wood.

On the side of a rather large box, drawn in crayons, were four crude images. First, was what looked like a two-tailed black cat pushing a wheelbarrow around. The second was a bird with a red orb in its chest standing on top of a large yellow orb circle with yellow lines coming off of it. Finally, the last two were a pair of apes or maybe monkeys. Both had an eyeball in their hands with the difference being their colors. One was pink while the other was light green.

Someone had indeed turned this into a makeshift home of sorts. "Oh, hey you're back," Floating down from a higher room from the ledge Koishi came to see her newest guest. "No, you're that off-color guy."

It was like a switch had gone off. Something that had been remembered but wasn't returned. Sebas had met her before and she had done something to him. The moment his gaze had left her did he forgot all about her. "Koishi," That was the name of the girl in front of him. "You, how did you make me forget about you?!"

"If you remember me then you didn't forget," There wasn't anything of greater substance in Koishi's words but to be honest there wasn't much in the subconscious to reflect off of him. Besides the moment he saw her Koishi could feel the fight or flight instinct flare up.

Unadulterated, rather simple, and violent was the only way to describe it if she could. Most other people she met had something more developed, tempered by their consciousness. His was closer to a wild animal whose actions were driven more by lower brain functions, overlapped by a consciousness that didn't control it.

"Oh, you want to fight?" To anyone asking that it would seem weird but to Koishi who was reflecting herself off of his subconscious it seemed completely reasonable. Koishi's expression briefly changed to that of a careful expression as she pulled out a knife seemingly out of nowhere. "Let's play then."

Even with the debuff put on him that removed his immunities Ainz's assessment of his abilities proved mostly correct. He did indeed have the advantage as the Archlich was just auto-leveled and as such given a more standard build. No proper specialization which while it did offer variety it did not make it good at anything of note.

The only reason Ainz hadn't already won the fight was that the thing controlling the Archlich had something that Ainz hadn't encountered up to this point. Custom-made Tier Magic spells. First, he denied him use of summons with a spell called Slave Invalidation. Such a thing was next to unthinkable in YGGDRASIL without a World Item or the Wish On a Star spell. Next, he possessed a way to harm the undead with Negative Energy. Necro Bane Reversal which seemed to be an area of effect spell which swapped what energies healed undead, or made it so Negative Energy hurt them. Finally, there was the last one which Ainz almost wanted to call bullshit if there wasn't a boss skill based on what it was back in YGGDRASIL. Phantom Equipment, a spell that literally undoes all the effects of the items he had equipped, and made it so he couldn't use the abilities of the ones he had on himself.

All of which meant he was without a good chunk of his usual boosts and abilities. Which, didn't matter as much as he still had the advantage against his opponent. "Maximize Magic, Dimension Slash!"

With a wave of his hand, a rift in space formed and cleaved into the Archlich in front of him. Its body seemed to fall in two before a new spell was uttered. "Stitched Together."

The body parts seemed to be forcefully reattached to itself. It wasn't true healing, though for the undead it could in a way be said to artificially create temporary HP for true healing. 'This is getting me nowhere.'

Elder Coffin knew that his opponent was going to win. It was obvious from the start that Rinik wasn't able to cut it. Indeed, it was probably because his "build" as the player once called it, was what was deemed a "standard set" because of his actions. No, specialization or unique tricks that came about. All players and their descendants apparently started to try for such a thing the former more so than the latter as to optimize what they could do.

Recalling Rinik to him was needed though that had one issue. What Rinik was working on, and the things had gained would fall into the hands of this player if he did so. 'I will have to destroy everything.'

There was the possibility that the player had servants with him. Dropping the whole dungeon on top of their heads might not prevent them from recovering any of it but it was best to ensure they didn't get everything. A lesser of two evils it seemed. Stopping for a moment on the other side the Dracolich readied a spell to destroy everything. "Over Magic and Delay Magic, Spell Remote Detonation."

With these two spells he had cast he should be able to set off the spell regardless of if he is actually in the area. Pulling on Rinik's MP he cast the last needed spell. "Greater Teleportation!"

Nothing happened as Rinik remained where he was. Dracolich cursed as he realized what was going on. A Dimension Lock was in place. For a second he started to weigh the usefulness of Rinik to see if he warrants being saved from this. In a short weighting of the cost and benefits he just barely made the cut.

"Dimension Break!"

For a second the illusion of reality cracking like glass covered the area. This spell was the first one ever designed for the express purpose of getting around spells that prevent teleportation and the like. "Greater Teleportation!"

In a flash, Rinik disappeared from the area leaving Ainz to himself as the victor. As he did leave all the debuff he had placed on him disappeared as well. "He managed to flee."

For a second he had thought about capturing the Archlich but given it was obviously being empowered by the one controlling it the moment he did Rinik would just revert back to an Elder Lich. That was assuming his real opponent could just terminate him remotely.

"How could he…" Ainz was quick to remember that he was underground. "Greater Teleportation!"

Just as he cast the spell did the Tenth-Tier Spell activated. The whole dungeon was ripped up as the floors above it came crashing down due to the use of Earthquake. Outside of the cave entrance that led to it the ground gave way, collapsing into and being ripped open by what looked like a sinkhole, all the while an earthquake shook the area powered in part by the collapsing earth. Near the very end of this Ainz reappeared in front of the entrance.

Narberal was quick to his side but Ainz chose to ignore her for right now. Turning around to the collapsed cave Ainz thought about his confrontation with the controlled Archlich who had just tried to bury him alive. A thought now entered his mind as he had some time to think about it.

Was that their leader he had just fought through the Archlich or had he just fought a high-ranking member in their organization?
Rinik could feel his consciousness return to him as his body returned to the state it was before it had been taken over. The Elder Lich's mind started to try to process what had happened, what its body had seen, heard and had said. Finally, the thoughts of his master during that time echoed for just a moment before fading away into just a vague understanding of what he was doing.

"Well, Rinik you should be thankful you're still here," The Elder Lich looked up as he realized just where he was. Within the center chamber of his master's lair.

A great albino dragon looked at him, its long neck and tail seemingly out of place with its bulgy midsection. The dragon looked down at him. Just because he was weighed to be worth it didn't mean he wasn't annoyed by what it had to do and it showed given the look it gave him.

"I apologize, Elder Coffin," Rinik dropped to the ground and gave the great beast a blow. "I had underestimated the adventurers and fell for their trap."

"Come now you and I both know that wasn't some mere adventurer," Cure Elim should have guessed that the players would come anyway. Just because someone else, someone new and whose power held the key to his desire, did not mean that no players had come. 'I wonder if I should try and tell the Emperor's son about the player.'

If there was something the Elder Coffin Dragon Lord and the Platinum Dragon Lord could agree on it was the threat of the Players. Beyond that, there was nothing they shared and even trying to meet directly was grounds for them both to fight. 'No, I shouldn't have to inform him about it.'

Besides, the player wasn't his priority right now. If the both of them did end up crossing paths, or if say their servants did, then he would just have to crush them. After all, there hadn't been a player who hadn't let his own hubris or the hubris of their servants end in their death.

Floating around the city Koishi did run into a bit of trouble here and there. Most of the time that was solvable by just getting out of the area as they forgot all about her. Their minds forget all about her as the memory gets buried into the subconscious. Then there was that group who tried to capture her. Youkai hunters maybe or something but they sucked at it. The instinct to fight or flee didn't register as much more annoying than some random stray pet that Koishi normally would play with.

This guy who was similar to the fox and cat Yakumos was not like them. Her fight-or-flee instinct was actively registering him as a threat. All around her balls of hearts and lights pulsed outwards seeming to glitch, for the lock of a better word, as Koishi was starting to try and force out danmaku. With the spell cards not working her powers instead seemingly reacted with the psychic energy from the collective subconscious in the area around her. In essence, she was firing psionic attacks and as she did so she was starting to give form to people's fears.

Shadowy constructs of psionic energy that moved to join in the assault. Sebas found them more bothersome than actually a threat. The only issue was as he punched them apart they tended to just get reabsorbed and remade. All around the building was starting to wrap, as if reality was starting to change and bend. In truth, this was all an illusion, the whims of the subconscious of the population of capital bleeding out from Koishi and into the world around her as she fought Sebas.

Weapons fail like rain, hands moved up from the ground, eyes staring from the ceiling, a mouth opening and closing at random everywhere. Sebas tried to knock out the strange girl that was the cause of all of this but when he did his fist seemed to pass right through her! 'An illusion?'

A flesh feeling of pain from his side caught his attention. Looking down he saw blood pouring out of him. Turning around he caught of glimpse of Koishi with a knife in her hands that had fresh drops of blood on it. Sebas turned to the satori and tried to hit her, all the while feeling something was wrong. As he did his fist passed through the illusion and instead, he felt something slash into his outstretched arm.

Pulling it back he noticed the cut that sliced the tendon of his arm clean threw. 'What in the…' All around him was copy after copy of Koishi. 'More illusions?'

They each moved to attack as Sebas moved himself trying to block an attack against what should be the real one. He felt a pull to the right and tried to move out of the way as a slash that was originally aimed at his throat instead cut into his shoulder. The many Koishis floated around as he tried to pay attention to which one had been the one to cut into him. As he did his vision blurred and twisted, sounds of people talking alongside animal sounds echoing softly in his ears like endless static, Sebas could smell scents of everything from freshly made sweets to the most unpleasant things one could think of. Somehow she had compromised his senses making it nearly impossible to actually track her. Nearly, as there was one sense that he had.

Closing his eyes Sebas decided to rely more on his ability to feel chi, something Monks could do to offset the debuffs that inflicted blindness and the like. 'She's in front of me!?'

Sebas had expected her to be behind him or off to the side not right in front of him. Although, given she was able to throw off all his other senses and create illusions of herself he shouldn't be surprised that she chose to instead fight from the front. It wasn't a bad plan, all things considered. Sebas moved as he came to attack her, barely registering in his conscious thoughts.

Koishi was able to pick up his subconscious impulse. She tried to get out of the way as he locked on to her despite his senses being messed up by her. Instead of his fist hitting her square in the chest it instead hit her arm, just missing enough to not completely shatter the bone in it. She hurt, her mind could register the pain as she floated far back as the knife in her hand fell and edged itself into the ground. Looking at him her eyes caught sight of his closed eyes as he continued to face her direction.

Was he like that gate guard from the red mansion, and could locate her without the aid of his five senses? Such a thought seemed strange for someone without a consciousness to have but the idea that she couldn't think or remember anything was a misnomer. A misunderstanding of the role of the conscious and the subconscious. Memory was the domain of both and while it was harder for her to process, Koishi did know things. One of which was that she didn't really stand much of a chance against someone if she couldn't whittle them down or use stealth to kill them outright.

Fighting was not an option if that was the case. All of the subconscious impulses that had leaked out moved towards her and through her. With her closed third eye as the focus out came a mad fusion thing. Hands in the form of wings, eyes inside mouths, all of which were on a body that was one part bug-like and another part something that seemed slimy. Sebas delivered a swift punch to destroy the thing but all it did was cause its form to randomize as it rushed into him knocking him into the wall. Koishi took her opportunity and raced for the door out of the room.

Sebas managing to break through the psionic manifestation went to give chase but the moment the door closed and Koishi was out of sight he suddenly stopped. The thing that Koishi had formed was gone and what greeted him was a destroyed storehouse with a simply looking knife on the floor out of place as it stood dug into the ground.

Walking up to the out-of-place object he picked it up as a memory came to him. Of this knife cutting into him repeatedly. Looking around his body he noticed the cuts in both his skin and his clothes that seemed to match it. 'This… is just a normal knife.'

Sebas found it strange that such a thing could hurt him. Yet, he was looking exactly at the thing that did. The only issue was how it could even do something like that. A blurry image, a recent memory of someone that was buried into the back of his mind. One that he couldn't recall fully as there was a block of some sort. However, a name rang out in his head that was tied to the individual he knew was responsible for all of this.

'Koishi…'

Took slightly longer then I had liked. Figured I should give Nazarick some win as well they do kind of need it so I figured that I can use this chapter for that.

Blue Glass · Sep 29, 2023

Here is a basic class build idea of some of the Touhou Characters of the story so far. It's rather basic as I don't want to focus on stats, which mind you is probably subjective and the Touhou series does a poor job explaining it due to the nature of the settings combat system. A few passive/skills of note are listed as well. Oh, and because this is via the YGGDRASIL perspective Magicians, Hermits, Lunarians (Non God and Rabbit ones at least), and Celestials will be treated as Humans. They will get a separate page.

Remilia Scarlet

Race: True Vampire*

Level: 94

Racial Levels: True Vampire 10, Jotun** 3, Valkyrie 2, Onikin 5

Job Levels: Fighter 10, Sorcerer 10, Mage 5, Runic Mage 10, Battlemage 5, Dark Princess 2, Arcane Knight 5, Knight 10, Grand Knight: Lancer 3, etc 4

Ability: Manipulation of Fate: Ability Classes: Fatewaver 5, Oracle 5

Skills/Passives: Oni Might, Vampire Speed, High Regeneration, Fate Awareness

Kasen's Arm

Race: Oni (True Blood)

Level: 100

Racial Levels: Onikin 10, Oni 10

Job Classes: Fighter 5, Sorcerer 10, Necromancer 10, Barbarian 10, Bandit 10, Hermit 5, Kishin 5, Forbidden Arts Master 5

Ability: Guiding animals. Ability Classes: Beastmaster 10, Dark Tamer*** 10

Skills/Passives: Oni Might, Lie Detection, Alcohol Empowerment, Beast Dominance

Cirno

Race: Grand Fairy****

Level: 93

Racial Levels: Fairy 10, Greater Fairy 10, Grand Fairy 5, Water Elemental 5, Ice Elemental 10, Air Elemental 5, Nymph 5

Job Classes: Sorcerer 10, Mage 10, Elementalist (Water) 10, Bard 3

Ability: Manipulating cold. Ability Classes: Cryomancer 10 (Note: All Spellcaster classes are locked into Ice Magic)

Skills/Passives: Nature Connection, Fairy Existence, Fairy Resurrection, Ice Immunity, Fire Resistance

Koishi Komeiji

Race: Satori

Level: 85

Racial Levels: Beastmen (Apemen) 5, Satori 10

Job Classes: Psionicist 10, Rogue 5, Stalker 10, Assassin 10, High Assassin 5, Illusionist 10, Shadow Blade 5

Ability: Manipulation of the Subconscious. Ability Classes: Mind Reader 5, Medium 5, Summoner 5

Skills/Passives: Subconscious Reflection, Mental Delusion, Subconscious Manifestation, Five Senses Confusion.

Yuuka Kazami

Race: Greater Nymph (Sunflower)

Level: 100+

Racial Levels: Nymph (Sunflower) 10, Greater Nymph 10, Fairy 5, Elemental (Earth) 10, Botanical Horror 5

Job Classes: Druid 10, High Druid 10, Nature's Herald 5, Fighter 15, Nature's Wrath 5, Gardener 10, Elementalist (Earth) 5, Warlord 5, etc 15

Ability: Flower Manipulation. Ability Classes: Flower Master 10, etc 5

Skills/Passives: Nature Connection, Terrain Terraforming

*Touhou Vampires are treated not as a form of undead but as a kind of Onikin

** Jotun are the western counterpart/equivalent to Oni. Commonly mistaken as a race of giants.

*** Class is Restricted to Kasen's Arm, Kasen herself has High Tamer.

**** Original Race, Greater Fairy. Evolution into Grand Fairy is only possible due to being the daughter of a Grand Fairy.

Blue Glass · Nov 1, 2023

So, I know that it's a bit short but I was making another story and I had to split the attention for this story with it. I only realized Halloween came up a bit too close to this and so I figured I would do an interlude instead of a full chapter.

Either way I apologize for the length and hope you at least like it.

"Did I take a wrong turn?"

She was in a forest. That wasn't something that should be wrong here. Instead what was wrong was that she appeared somewhere else. That portal she opened should have existed within the Forest of Magic, not far from the house of whom she was going to meet. Around her was an unfamiliar forest that didn't even have the same trees!

To add on the sun had almost completely set over the horizon instead of it being midday like when she had passed through. 'There was something off about the portal when I stepped through it.'

Originally, she didn't think anything of it. Portals opening to and from Makai tend to have something off about them with no issue. Looking around she tried to get a sense of just where she was. It wasn't Gensokyo's Forest of Magic, and she had opened a portal that should have taken her to the space that Gensokyo occupied within the scope of the realms.

'Is this New Jotunheim?' The space that Gensokyo occupied relative to all the realms was on the same plane as Europe's youkai refuge. A place that she hadn't been to but had heard about from the devils who had come to live in Makai under her. 'I hope I am not within the Outside World.'

It would be an issue if she was. Looking around she decided to head in some random direction. If nothing came of it then she'll head into the air and fly up to get a better idea. The shadows of the trees would make it difficult to see but for her, it wasn't an issue. Walking through the forest she noticed the movements of animals. Some of them stared back at her before racing away. As if knowing just what she was.

Just as she was about to give up on the walking and fly up into the air she noticed a faint glow. Flickering in the shadow of trees. 'A fire?'

Moving closer to the flickering glow she could see that the flames weren't going out of control which meant it was a campfire. As she got closer she could make out two figures sitting together over it. One looked like a knight covered in full dark plate armor and the other a raven-haired woman.

'Maybe they can help me,' Walking out from the shadow of the forest she decided to make herself known. "Excuse me, I hope I'm not bothering you."

Ainz looked at the newcomer. A woman dressed in red robes, with white hair and a side tail that was held in place with a pair of red orbs. She gave off the appearance of someone who was of nobility at a glance though her being out here was suspicious. Namely, because she didn't show any signs of having anything on her to defend herself which given they were off the roads was almost mandatory.

"Sorry, we didn't expect to meet anyone out here," Ainz motioned to a log that was down to the side. "You're welcome to take a seat by the fire, miss…"

"Shinki," The woman introduced as she took a seat on the log that was offered to her. "Shinki Margatroid."

Her name caught Ainz off for a bit. The first name sounded Japanese but her last name sounded somewhat European. Yet another thing that seemed suspicious about her. "If you don't mind me asking, what exactly are you doing out here by yourself?"

"Oh, it was a mishap with a portal," Shinki looked more closely at the two of them as she could tell something was off about them both. Especially with the girl whose appearance seemed fake to her. 'It's not an illusion so she's probably a shapeshifter of some sort.'

Ainz didn't immediately respond as her words rested. Opening up portals didn't seem to be something most people could do in this world. '... It's only been a few hours.'

Was he dealing with another one? Another being of interest that just randomly showed up in a forest after he had gone through the dungeon and fought one controlling a lich? Using Discern Enemy felt almost mandatory at this point. Which was saying something as Ainz had gotten more use out of it than he did in years.

'Let's see she's level… one hundred!?' This was the highest confirmed level for a New Worlder he had seen! Though there was a chance the person controlling Rinik was level one hundred it was also likely they were at minimum level ninety-five. 'Just who on earth am I talking to here?'

A part of him wanted to be defensive. After Cirno and dealing with the custom spells of the lich's puppeteer he was starting to dread the power of the New Worlders. Never mind, his luck seemed to be extremely wrapped given he kept running into them.

"Excuse me for asking but you're companion," Shinki's eyes focused on her and Narberal felt more like she was staring directly into her soul. "She's a shapeshifter of some sort, correct?"

There was a pause as her words left her mouth. None were more surprised than Narberal who had no idea what was going on with the girl. "How do you know?"

"Well, I dealt with Doppelgangers and Tanuki before," Mostly, the former thought she hadn't met any of the latter outside that Tanuki that crossed over between Gensokyo and the Outside World. "Though it was more my divine senses that picked it up."

"Divine senses?"

"Well, I am a goddess, a devil goddess to be precise," Shinki's response was extremely casual. If she wasn't in the Outside World then there wasn't any reason to hide her identity.

On her back, she undid her six wings before the shapeshifter and the armored man. Seeing them Ainz took a moment not to respond but to use another spell to verify her claims. This one was to tell him the race of the person in front of him. As soon as he got the feedback his mind stopped for a second. Her race was indeed a deity. Well, technically it was Archdevil God but that didn't matter to him right now.

'An actual fucking god just wandered into my camp on accident…' The absurdity of the thought was something he wouldn't have months ago.

"Lord Ainz Sabes has reported that there is someone or something in the capital of Re-" Albedo chose then to speak to him through a message but Ainz just cut her off.

"Albedo, whatever it is, can wait," Now this was not helping him right now. "I just found myself in the company of an actual god."

"What!?" Albedo on the other side was caught completely off guard at this. "Lord Ainz do you need backup?!"

"No, but stay ready just in case."

So far many of the beings of interest within the New World had proven to be unknown variables. Just because he knew her level meant nothing. Back in YGGDRASIL fighting Gods in raids was a challenge to parties that didn't come prepared. Some were even strong enough that they were deemed impossible to win against. Never mind, Cirno had claimed she had fought gods before and he knew how broken her passive was.

"M-my lady you honor us with your presence," Ainz played up the part of his adventurer persona unsure of if he was even playing it convincingly. He didn't think he would have to meet a god so suddenly after all. "How can we be of service to you?"

Shinki was a bit surprised by his reaction. Sure, gods like herself could get such a response, though maybe it was because of her state as an Archdevil. If this was New Jotunheim like she thought then it would make sense as they likely had more dealings with her kind than an Eastern Realm like Gensokyo. They probably thought she was related to one of the big devil houses.

'An assumption that wouldn't be wrong,' Thinking about her family did remind of of what she was doing. She needed directions of where she was exactly so she could travel to Gensokyo and meet her daughter. "You wouldn't happen to have a map or could you point me to a city so I can get my bearings?"

'... She's lost?!' A god was here because she was lost. At first, he wanted to ask how that was but quickly another part of him pushed that aside. "Here."

Ainz handed her the map that he had on hand. Taking it Shinki looked at it and was bewildered. New Jotunheim as the name implies was built from the remains of the realm of Jotunheim. None of the names on the map though made any sort of sense. Judging by the map it was likely what she was in was a completely separate continent. A continent that had to be in a completely separate world.

Somehow her portal had tossed her into another universe. Shinki knew that shouldn't have happened. Getting back home could be a problem. She still held a faint connection to her home of Makai, her essence woven practically into the foundations of the realm. Whatever force that brought her here, whoever it was who did it, they will be who she needs to find and force to send her back. Closing the map she held her hand as in a flash of light a copy of the map formed.

"Thank you," Handing back the original Shinki pocketed her copy and let out an overly dramatic sigh. "Oh, Alice I can't believe I messed up this much!" Shinki slumped over in defeat as her wings went limp. "My daughter probably wondering where I am…"

'Her daughter?'

Ainz didn't have any picture of what he would do if for some reason he encountered a New World God. The sight of the one in front of him definitely wasn't what he had expected. Something out of an old mythology was his first thought or perhaps a sentient force of nature. What he was seeing her sounded more like a mother who was confused and making a scene after messing something up for her child.

Shinki let out a sigh as she composed herself. Right now she had to focus on what was happening. She was somehow lost in a completely New World. Options on how to get back were her first priority. The only issue was she had no idea how this place worked.

If there were any gods native to this world she could try to ask them but there was an issue in of itself. Without any knowledge of them, she might end up appearing in front of one who would attack her on sight. Was that a bit extreme to think about? Yes, it was to an extent but Shinki had been rejected once before from her father's pantheon despite technically being of their divine tribe. Who knew how they would handle a goddess who was also a devil?

"Lo-," Narberal caught herself as she almost used his real name. She spoke just loud enough for the both of them. "Momon, what are we going to do about her?"

"Right now we do nothing as I would rather not fight her," He was cautious about doing anything against her and there wasn't any reason either. What did catch him was her words on a daughter, something to file for later if he met anyone with her last name. "Lady Shinki, do you require any help that we could offer?"

"No," Standing up Shinki created a card in her hands and handed it to Ainz. "Here, I owe you for your help," There was something written on it but Ainz couldn't make out the language on it. "If you need me just burn this and I will appear to help you."

As she finished handing it to her Shinki raved her hand to the side as another portal opened up with an image of the nearly large town there. Shinki walked through and left the two of them. Ainz took a moment to look at the small card in his hands as the realization of what just happened hit him.

'A god gave me an 'I owe you'…'

Blue Glass · May 2, 2024

Alright this took way longer then it should have but then again that's what I get for writing another story and not realizing this year would be one that has my free attention split. Huh, not like I can apologize as I am way passed that point. After all, its been about... 6 months. Yeah, I'll just get on with the story.

"A third-eyed girl that was able to erase memories when someone wasn't looking?" Here he thought meeting with a goddess was the strangest thing he would hear about today. First, some sort of powerful undead puppeteer, next an archdevil goddess, and now he is learning about this. "How much do you remember about your encounters with her?"

Sebas paused as he tried to recall everything. Despite having his memory jolted by the knife, retaining it proved to be a hassle in itself. Whatever passive ability the girl, Koishi, as he reminded himself, possessed was very good at its goal. The specifics of the fight were lost but the general knowledge was retained with Sebas able to fill in the blanks.

"The first time I had completely forgotten and I probably would have the second time if it wasn't for this," Sebas handed Ainz the simple knife. "This was the weapon she had used that had cut into me."

By the looks of things, it was an ordinary kitchen knife. Thinking looks are deceiving, Ainz attempted a spell to learn what it was. 'This is an ordinary kitchen knife!'

This being able to injure Sebas shouldn't be possible at all. Yet, he was certain that this was indeed the weapon used on him. "As for the fight much of it is a blur though what I was able to retain was that she was able to create something similar to illusions and completely throw off the five senses," Sebas grabbed his throat for a moment as one bit that wasn't a blur was her going for his neck. "It was only thanks to my ability to sense chi that I was able to attack her."

'Manipulation of the five senses and being able to create illusions on top of it,' Ainz looked down at the simple kitchen knife as he was starting to get a sort of picture of what she likely was. Naturally, he immediately fell to an Assassin of sorts as it would fit the closest. "Do you have anything else of note?"

"Only her name, Koishi."

Not much to work with but given she could erase anyone's memory of her was understandable. Still, it was enough for Ainz and everyone else in the room to get an idea of her combat potential. "By the sounds of things we should send an undead to find her."

Demiurge's assessment seemed reasonable. At least from the perspective of YGGDRASIL. Unfortunately, this wasn't YGGDRASIL and if Cirno was anything to go on such assumptions did not translate one to one. "No, that would be another problem, and by the sound of things she isn't a threat unless we make her one."

Besides he was certain that an actual threat existed with Corpus of the Abyss. Even if overall the power of most members was just at the rank that Rinik was, they still possessed a leader whose power could be level one hundred. Who could turn them into an Archlich at a moment's notice with completely unknown Tier Spells. Never mind, the fact he did just meet a goddess who confirmed for him that the gods are very real things in this world.

Now that he was thinking about possible fighting between Nazarick and the Corpus he noticed that someone was missing. Someone who hadn't been seen in a while. "Where's Shalltear and Aura?"

When he had resurrected her Shalltear had no memory of what had happened. When she had been told she had failed her mission she seemed heartbroken and wanted to apologize. Perhaps if it had gone on a bit she might have even been a bit depressed by it. However, that all seemed to change when she was told who had taken her out.

"Shalltear went off to a remote location to train herself," Ainz suspected he knew the reason for this being the young devil who had defeated her. "As for Aura, she's hunting something that's caught her attention."

Destruction covered the abandoned plains before her as Shalltear destroyed another of the stray Skeleton Warriors that had seemingly spawned from this place. No effort was needed to do so and that alone frustrated her more than she had expected. All her thoughts had been on her failure to Lord Ainz and her death at the hands of some young devil.

'How could I let that happen?!' Her death wasn't what she found the most egregious of the information. No, it was the fact as far as everyone could see she was the one struggling against the devil when they fought. 'Faster, stronger, and was able to kill me not just once but twice.'

To add insult to injury she had after the act shown that she was aware that they had been watched. To make things worse after her little fight more, and more of these Beings of Interest started showing up. One of which ended up defeating Lord Ainz by the sheer fact she couldn't stay dead! As illogical as it seemed she was starting to blame this on herself.

As the mists around rolled over she saw a shadow walking through that she couldn't quite make out. Regardless she rushed forward figuring it was another undead spawned by the mists. To her surprise, her lance was batted away by an umbrella of all things. A punch then connected with her chest and she was sent flying back almost like a ragdoll by the strength behind it. Shalltear had to take a moment to just reinforce herself from the sudden and powerful hit.

'What the…' Pulling herself back up she was greeted by a green-haired woman who stared at her with red eyes that almost priced through her very soul.

"Huh, most of the dead have been mindless skeletons and reanimated corpses," Yuuka looked at the much more intelligent undead before her. Instead of a mindless attempt to get back up and attack, there was a moment's hesitation which denoted higher reasoning. "Now before we continue, why did you attack me?"

Her look was surprisingly enough able to scare Shalltear. "I thought you were an undead the plains spawned."

Her explanation caused the green-haired woman to let up her stare for a moment as Shalltear took a second to use Life Essence and Mana Essence. She couldn't quite figure out someone's level on her own but this could give her some idea, alongside the brief clash if one could call it that, at what her level was. What she got made her eyes go wide and almost caused her to fall back at the sheer level of both. In simple terms it was overwhelming.

'This much is impossible, it's greater than most of the Supreme Beings…' Shalltear wished she could get a concrete estimate but she was certain that the green-haired woman was level one hundred. She couldn't be certain though as she didn't have any means to accurately measure but regardless she figured that trying to fight wasn't a good idea. "Great and I came out without any means to contact Nazarick.'

It wasn't like she expected anything from this place. Her first visit here just had pathetic undead. No Being of Interest seemed to call this place home. She had overheard something of a Ghost Ship from Demiurge but she hadn't seen any sign of that. No, what she had mostly seen was just lonely skeletons and zombies. Until now though it was obvious that whomever this was didn't fall into the ranks of the undead.

"I do not think this plain could ever spawn a Nymph like me," Yuuka pointed her umbrella at Shalltear. To the vampire, it seemed strange that a parasol was being used to threaten her but the power behind the Nymph was clear. "You, however, I have no idea what kind of undead you are."

"I'm a Vampire."

"A vampire?" Yuuka was genuinely confused by hearing this. There was no way this undead girl was at all a vampire. "You're not a vampire."

"What are you talking about?" Shalltear was insulted by this. Yet, strangely enough, this felt familiar to her somehow. "I am a True Vampire!"

"Vampires aren't undead they're a type of Oni, Jotun, or devil depending on who you ask," Yuuka might be wrong on that as it was clear that wherever she was didn't follow the same rules of her world back home. However, despite some differences, it seemed the undead here did share enough similarities with some of those back home.

For just a moment Shalltear could feel something at the very edge of her consciousness. A memory that wasn't quite there. Even though she couldn't directly pull on it she knew in some capacity that it had happened. Shalltear knew that this had to be from the fight that she couldn't remember. The fight against the young devil that had killed her.

Wandering the countryside for a time had given Remilia a better idea of the world she was in. For one she could confirm that this was a Kingdom that seemed to run on a High Medieval state of feudalism. A struggle between the king and the nobility was known to the villagers who were under the control of one or the other. Amongst the nobility, there was a divide between those who sided with the King and those who sided amongst themselves.

From the pattern, Remilia could pick up lesser independent nobles and those who are said to live within the cities sided with the King. Those who are powerful with land to their names sided against the King's authority. A division that she would have assumed without much bother although the division wasn't as clear cut as to be expected. Medieval power dynamics was something that Remilia had learned but never really got to see much in action beyond the Holy Roman Empire in her life.

Speaking of the nobility Remilia was more than able to pass herself off as one. Which wasn't hard as she was a noble herself. Her full name though didn't seem to fit the noble naming convictions of the Kingdom. Much to her annoyance at times.

"Remilia Kriemhilde la Scarlet?" Her name repeated to her more than it had in centuries. Only Patchouli bothered to ever use her full name and only when they were together. "You're not from this kingdom or the empire that's for certain."

Another nation of this New World that Remilia had heard about. The so-called main enemy of this kingdom that fought an on-and-off war with it. "No, I am from a far-off land known as the Kingdom of France."

"France huh," The village leader tried to recall if he had ever heard of such a place. Most of the village's interactions were with traders and men from the local lord who would keep them up to date about a few topics. "Must be far away from here."

Far away was putting it lightly. Still, despite the obvious implications Remilia wasn't worried about being stuck here forever. After all, she felt it through fate that Gensokyo would find her. The how didn't matter as it could be a team effort or Yukari would probably go to Ginnungagap using the remains of Yggdrasil to breach the gap between universes where it was weakest. What did matter was what to do until that happened.

"Sir," A panicked voice as one of the village farmers came in, cutting into her conversation. "Their back."

The mood shifted as the village leader cursed under his breath. "They said they wouldn't be back for another week," Remembering his guest he turned over to Remilia. "Sorry, I need to deal with this for a moment my lady."

"No need to apologize," Remilia just waved it off as she put up a disinterested face. Acting like the usual noble disinterested in the goings on of some former land.

As soon as he had left though Remilia instead of just waiting got up from her seat. Truth was she wasn't interested in what it likely was but seeing as she had nothing better to do. Drawing into the air with her finger a glowing rune formed before activating. This was something she had come up with after the incident with the escapee from hell as a precaution against intruders. Maybe when she got back she could cast it on Patchouli's library.

"I thought you wouldn't be back for another week," The Village Chief's voice was the first one she heard. It did seem whoever this was wasn't who he wanted to see.

"Relax we're only here to make sure nothing happened to the product," The owner of the unknown voice was very uncaring and even condescending with just his tone. "After all one of the warehouses had gotten hit not far from here and well we have to see if you weren't in on it."

It seems that this wasn't the local lord's men who had come by to seek their tithe. Neither was it a local church or equivalent. "No, we know better than to go against the Eight Fingers."

"Really now?" A new voice spoke up though from the sounds of things it belonged to someone who was with the first unknown voice. "Well, we'll take your word but we're coming by every now and again for insurance you see."

There was a pause as it seemed that the very sketchy figures had left. Finally, all of it was cut off as the villager from before. "We know they are in the forest so why are we just letting them continue to control us?"

"You know we can't afford it nor can we ask for the local lord to help," The village chief's voice had a tinge of despair to it. A sign to Remilia that he was speaking from experience. "Besides, the warehouse was taken out by a traveler last I heard."

Remilia heard enough as she canceled the spell. There was a small pause before she made a choice. A few minutes later the Village Chief reentered the room to find that Remilia was nowhere to be found. Later on, one of the farmers would talk about how he saw what he assumed was a bat flying out from the village chief's house.

Locating the encampment of a bunch of bandits was not that hard. All Remilia had to do was go off the beaten path and let fate do the rest. One would question just wandering without much rhythm or reason but for Remilia such a thing typically didn't matter. Her ability practically altered probability itself at times to make things just happen for her. The only issue was that it occasionally changed things to her detriment.

True enough the camp came up to her at the edge of a small stream amongst a slight clearing with what looked like ruined basic stone walls from a fort of some sort. Flying down why still in her bat form she tried to listen into the conversation that was being had. "I'm telling you working for the Eight Fingers is the best idea the boss ever had."

'Eight Fingers?' Right, the village leaders said something about them to the group of bandits. Now that she thought about it there was a strange plant being grown in fields that Remilia hadn't put much thought into.

"Yeah, sure beats exploiting villages for supplies."

"Don't we still do that anyway?"

"Yeah but having the backing of the largest syndicate in the kingdom?"

By the sounds of things, there was some sort of organized crime group within the kingdom. Using bandits as expendable enforcers which Remilia was certain could be purged at a moment's notice. By the sounds of it, the bandits typically extorted villages for supplies but seeing as they didn't with the one she was at hinted that the village had a connection to the Eight Fingers.

'The plants,' Drugs, those had to be plants used to make drugs of some sort.

Dropping from her spot listening in Remilia wondered what she should do about all of this. Stopping the bandits was something she could do and given how she had nothing better to do as she waited for Yukari to send a retrieval team. Taking on a crime syndicate that likely has embedded itself into the kingdom like a tumor?

'Why not,' If the nobility here wasn't doing their job then she would just take it on herself. Shifting back into her humanoid form safe for her wings Remilia walked forward to the camp. 'Time to put up the little lost girl act.'

One of the benefits, and curses, of being a vampire was to never age and be eternally young. Well, she didn't necessarily have to look young, her shapeshifting abilities could age up her form if she so desired, but it typically felt weird to do so. Plus, she was honestly far more comfortable in this state just like her sister. Hiding her wings was all that was needed.

For the two lookouts at the camp, it had gotten rather boring. Just standing around in case of some adventurer, men from the local lord, or even some monster came by. Which hardly if ever happens given where they set up their base. Sure, being bandits action shouldn't be something they wanted but there was no fun if they didn't get into a little fight now and again.

"Hey mister," One of the guards got cut out just before dozing off to sleep by an innocent-sounding voice that triggered some primitive instinct. Turning to look down he was greeted with what looked like a lost noble girl who gave him a smile that felt off. "Do you mind helping me?"

'Something is not right here,' Shinki hadn't intended to wander into the local temple but it had kind of just happened. Usually, there was something that showed that this was a place of worship on the outside.

The only thing that seemed out of place was how big the building was, giving off the idea that this was the seat of the local town mayor, or whatever it was that was the town's leader. Instead, the moment she set foot into it she felt it. Consecration is one of the methods to enshrine the divine into an area. Yet, what caught her attention was the feeling behind it. Amongst gods, there was a sort of extra sense. One that could feel the presence of another within their place of worship and the state of the divine being in question. Shinki was feeling a hollow sensation.

This wasn't the feeling of a consecrated land to a god that didn't exist. Such places did exist but typically after a certain amount of time and followers a new god would form. In those cases, the feeling was more of a faint echo. No, hollowness only came about if a god had died.

Back home there were generally two different kinds of gods, the Old and New. Old Gods were those who didn't need faith to exist. Either from the fact they predated humanity, to their nature allowing them to persist without any worshipers or another sort of power. A trade-off was that if they died it was ridiculously difficult if not impossible to revive them without the aid of another Old God. It was the New Gods who needed faith or some other energy source to persist in the world. For them, death was less of an issue. So long as they had enough followers and faith they could revive themselves in a sort of self-reincarnation. Shinki would by these metrics count as one of the Old Gods even if she was quite young when compared to most of her kind.

"If this is even similar to how it is back home then why is it that they still have a temple and worship them?" Old Gods didn't need to acknowledge their faithful while in many cases they weren't even worshiped. Acknowledged sure but even someone who worshiped them would stop doing so when they realized they were dead as there is no real point too. "Could it be that their faith is causing blessings to happen that they attribute to them?"

A possibility that could happen if the right circumstances played out. Faith of the masses if they kept being focused on dead gods who couldn't revive with it could eventually form into a Pseudo-Consciousness. A type of will that would react in such a way that could easily be mistaken for a god by those who did not know any better. Such a thing did happen back home though to see it happening here was strange.

'Shouldn't there be other gods that could tell them that theirs is dead?' Part of why that was so hard to do came about because of how offending another deity could inform them. Such a thing did get rarer as more resistive rules and agreements had set in. 'Maybe I should check to see where the deity here is…'

Maybe reviving a dead god would allow her to receive some sort of help returning home. At least it would give them enough of a reason to hear her out. Walking up to the altar she could feel the hollowness starting to uneasy her. Like someone being confronted with the mortality of seeing their dead body. Reaching out her hand Shinki's eyes closed as she focused on following the thread connecting the altar to the god enshrined.

A black sky dotted with the lights of stars unfiltered by clouds or even air greeted her. The empty void of space meant she wasn't on the planet. If she was a human or even some forms of youkai she might be suffocating right now had she brought her body. Fortunately, as a god, she could survive such conditions albeit with discomfort. Looking forward she was greeted with the sight of what looked to be the surface of the moon which, going by the fact that there was no planet hanging in the sky, should mean this was the far side.

'What happened here?!' All around here the ground was torn apart in a way that was impossible for mere space rocks impacting its surface to do. Large gashes in the ground and jagged rocks rose into the nonexistent sky. 'This looks like a battlefield.'

Out of the corner of her eye just below her, she caught something sticking out. Taking a few steps back her eyes widened as she looked at just what it was. Bones, still seemingly fresh despite the body having long decayed. The remains of a god, no the remains of the god that was consecrated within the temple. Shinki looked out again into the battlefield as she started to notice the remains of various gods. An arm bone, a rib, or even bits of a skull. That wasn't all now that she got a good look. Edged into the ground was something else. Dust that seemed to be of a completely different substance than the moon with something that she could feel lingering from it even in her astral form.

It had to be the remains of whatever had done this sort of thing but Shinki wasn't quite so sure. Without being able to interact with it she had no idea. Furthermore, she wasn't the best to try. As good as she was with magic part of that was inborn knowledge from her nature and she didn't have the means to attempt such a thing.

As for her plan to revive the god that was enshrined, there were a few issues. For one she didn't know if her surge of power to do so wouldn't revive whatever that was. It probably would revive the other gods nearby, at least she was certain the other bones belonged to other deities, but they wouldn't exactly all be in the best of shape.

Opening her eyes back in the temple, Shinki just looked at the shrine in front of her. The god this was dedicated to was dead, and a Pseudo-Consciousness was likely in control of it. Worse case scenario Shinki might be the only god currently alive in this world. If that was the case then getting back home was just made so much harder.

There had been something that had caught Aura's attention. At the very end of the Forest of Tobe, a large section of the trees had been knocked over with the ground torn apart. A trail of destroyed trees leads into the mountains before seemingly going cold. That was until she came across remains. Only a few heavily broken bones and a bit of scales. Both of which came from a dragon and the bones showed signs of being chewed by something.

By the looks of things, something had been eating a dragon. It was hard to tell exactly what it was or if it was truly predation but Aura was certain it was something to look into. After a few minutes of sharing with nothing to show for it the Dark Elf jopped off her Kirin, an equestrian like dragon, and looked around trying to find any sort of sign. "Great the trail gone co-"

The ground suddenly erupted around them as one of the cliffs just broke apart. In a panic, the Kirin managed to jump away unknowingly avoiding the piercing jaws that had just broken through the ground and almost carved into its draconian flesh. Even Aura was forced back by the explosion of dust and stone. As soon as it settled down the Dark Elf got a good look at what had just torn apart the cliffside.

"A giant centipede?" Indeed it looked like a giant centipede. A common low-level creature back in YGGDRASIL found in low-level caves and the like.

Only those were typically no bigger than a person owing to their trash mob state. This one though was bigger, and by the looks of things much, much longer. Already it was raised on its legs and was looking down at them from a height that would allow it to look down at even dragons. Turning its attention back at Kirin the large centipede lunged down as it tried again to bite into the horse-like dragon seemingly trying to eat it. Kirin only just barely got out of the way as the giant centipede smashed into the ground ripping apart the rock from the sheer force of its impact.

Kirin was visibly afraid as the centipede's eyes looked at it. Centipedes are supposed to have rather basic eyesight, something that even the giant centipedes shared with players able to sneak up to them without invisibility due to how poor it was. Yet, the instincts in the Kirin's mind screamed that this was not the case with this creature. All but confirmed as instead of moving its antennae to smell where the Kirin had gone the centipede merely moved its head so its eyes could lock back on it.

Aura though looking at this strangely massive centipede was quickly starting to put everything together. The thing that she had been tracking at the forest's edge, which seemed to be predating on dragons of all things, was this giant centipede monster. Using a skill she decided to check what this centipede's level was to get a much better idea. Kirin's reactions seem rather justified. Her skill showed that the centipede was level ninety-eight.

Suddenly the fact that it was hunting and feeding on dragons made more sense. Taking her bow out, Aura had decided that she was going to try and tame this creature for Nazarick if she could. Lightning arrows were let loose and on impact with the centipede's carapace they all but bounded off with only the electric charges. Admittedly, given the stats she saw Aura wasn't surprised that the arrow didn't do much though bouncing off the carapace wasn't what she was expecting.

The centipede had felt the electric shocks and turned over to Aura with its head moving around as it tried to find the source of what had hit it with lightning. What happened next surprised Aura as this was something that giant centipedes shouldn't be able to even do. They weren't anything more but as intelligent as lower animals after all.

"Alright, who did that?!"

Blue Glass · Jun 30, 2024

So I figured everyone deserves an explanation as to why updates seem to be slow with it taking six months to update this. Truth is when I started this story I had originally opened to be over with it in about a year. That turned out to be false. Instead I found myself in a strange feeling of disinterest and a creative mess.

Going to a few old friends in fanfiction and hearing them I realized something. I might be hitting that period where many fanfic writers just stop altogether due to their sheer age. Yes, age as I am 29 going to be 30 soon and I have been doing this for close to 15 years in some form or another. Ever since I was a sophomore in high school when I found FFN by accident while looking through early youtube and started reading and then writing with Yugioh GX on some account I don't remember the password for anymore. That took me down a long winding pathway that lead me to doing this across four sites in that decade and a half.

Regardless, what I am saying is that I don't know if I will even be able to finish this story or well any story again as to be honest I don't know if this is truly temporary or if I am just done with this part of my life. I at least owe it to you all unlike so many other writers to give you a heads up. If I don't update this, any other fanfic, or create a new one in a year then you can guess that I am now… well retired.

The New World, and the Land of Illusion. (Touhou Overlord crossover)

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