Game of Monsters - 121 (Patreon)

Disclaimer: I don’t own Highschool DxD.

-Will Light up the Night

The purple, flaming wave rushed towards him and he should have been afraid. The air was the one that changed first, at first feeling like when one places their hands too close over a heater but quickly growing to over a campfire and then it just hurt and burned. Joshua didn’t stay to feel that though, simply teleporting away and calling it day before the fire could reach him. He didn’t even stop twirling his daggers, who were ready.

Carnwenan was standing at attention like a noble knight.

Setan Kober was raring to go and slice like a madman.

Joshua could admit, in the privacy of his mind, that it felt nice. He was never a great fan of fighting, nor training, but he did it because there was no other choice. However, there was something good about facing someone that he couldn’t in a million years have dreamed of facing before and knowing he stood a chance. That his weapons felt so positively about the whole thing was a nice bonus.

He didn’t have much time to think though, as the fire came back for him.

He just teleported again, however.

“You aren’t going to do that forever, are you?” Walburga asked with a growl, staring at him in more annoyance than anything else. There was some feeling of disappointment there too, not only from her but from his weapons as they realized what he was going to do. He’d make it up to them though, eventually.

“Not forever, no,” Joshua answered casually with a shrug. If anything, that seemed to anger the witch further… but that was fine. It was what he wanted anyway, making his lips pull up into a smile.

“You’ll end up dead anyway!” she shouted at him, waving her hand at him again. The effect was the same, however. A wave of fire and a teleport. This time though, she was prepared, obviously. Instead of a straight flame, she turned this one into a wave that spread all around her in a circle.

He just teleported a second time and into the air this time, making a quick Neutral Shield to stand on.

“Are you gonna annoy me to death?” Walburga asked, looking up at him, feigning boredom. “Certainly a better option than those toys,” she added, and Joshua felt his weapons bristle at the insult. “Is that how you’ve been taking down these little hide outs of mine?” she asked then, and even though she was pretending like what he’d been doing all that time wasn’t a big deal, he knew differently.

“No, but I might try,” Joshua answered, his voice calm, even friendly some would say. A smile formed on his face, as he continued buying himself time. He just needed to figure some things out. In the meantime… “I gotta say, Longinus wielders have been disappointing so far. I thought something like Incinerate Anthem would-” He was almost interrupted by another attack, but he dodged it just as easily as the others. This time, she’d made a wave in the shape of a sphere… but she didn’t cover the whole inside of it as it spread. “-be more-” He continued, standing right before the woman. Unfortunately, she reacted faster than he’d expected, covering herself in the purple flames. “… impressive. This is almost sad,” he finished, teleporting away once more.

Tilting his head, he considered what to do. He didn’t think he’d be able to surprise the woman enough to use his daggers on her. Not just like that, no. He needed a better opportunity and for that he needed to improve his situation.

And for that, he just needed to come up with some things.

And he needed time for that. So, he’d have to keep it up a little.

“You take down an overconfident idiot and stall another and suddenly feel like you belong in the big leagues, huh?” Walburga asked him, insulted. “That’s just sad. Especially for someone that can only run.”

“It’s cute that you-” He teleport-dodged again. “-think you aren’t an overconfident idiot,” he continued easily, a grin on his face. His mind kept working. He kept reading the information his senses and his spells provided.

Because Walburga had burned those latter ones, but only some of them. The ones that touched her. The lockdown spells, the shield spells, the draining spells, all of them had been burned to nothing, even though that shouldn’t even be possible. It was still only the ones that directly touched her though, the ones that she noticed. So, everything else was still in place and his sensing spells continued doing good work, probably because he’d spent time camouflaging them so that nobody would be able to sense them, at least through magic, as best he could.

So, Joshua continued doing what he did best, analyzing, scheming, preparing…

… and he’d make his move eventually. He just needed time and the woman looked like she was going to give him all the time in the world.

“I grow tired of your babbling, Davis,” Walburga told him, like he was less and less of a threat by the second. That was perfect. That’s what he wanted, as he continued teleporting, further, closer. He faked a grimace as he was forced to use a shield to block the flames. The fire burned his energy at a breakneck pace but he had plenty of that stored in his remaining spells from what he’d stolen from the Hexennacht members. “I expected better, but I guess all legends are exaggerated.”

“Funny,” he said, under a sphere of his own magic. “I was going to say the same.”

“What-?” she started asking, but he didn’t stay still long enough to let her finish. Instead, he teleported away, further from where they’d been “fighting”. He stood over the array he’d cast for the raid. Some spells had fallen when Walburga made her entrance, but some continued active. Quickly, he recast some spells and added some more that he’d adapted on the fly.

Knowing that Walburga led Hexennacht had made preparing a little easier but not by much. There was only so much that he could learn from books, even if he had a lot of those. He could have gotten more precise information if he pulled his threads on the Church and Heaven’s side or maybe even with Azazel, but nobody could give him the precise information that he needed for his spells.

So, he’d prepared as best he could instead.

From there, Joshua picked all that he could gather in as short a time as his “fight” with Walburga had lasted. Granted, his scan wasn’t top notch like those at his home or anywhere that didn’t have a rush job done, but they’d do. Mostly because he’d made a bunch of very specific spells just for this and not for most anything else.

Now, with that information and some quick spellcrafting in his brain that was almost second nature after so long…

Joshua repaired the damage Incinerate Anthem had done to his spells and then added some more.

“You think that’ll do anything, Davis?!” Walburga shouted as he teleported back to where she was, grinning widely. Carnwennan and Setan Kober urged him to go in, but he needed a moment more. “I can literally burn your little spells! This is not-” she choked on her words though, when his changes took effect.

Walburga paled.

And Joshua grinned.

[}-o-{]

[Walburga]

What had Davis done?

That was all she could wonder as she felt the shift in her surroundings.

The first thing she’d noticed was the spells that prevented anyone from going in or out of the place. She’d been unconcerned about those though. She’d burned her way through those and she could do it again. Same for the shields that had come up, really.

The next thing she noticed was a little more… annoying, really. Those were the spells that slowly took away her magic. Those had been no problem before, of course, just like the other ones. Such should have been the case after Davis cast them again, she knew.

Except it wasn’t.

Walburga burnt them, but it did nothing. The spell disappeared for a fraction of a second before it seemed to appear again without Davis even moving from where he stood in front of her. He knew she noticed, however, if the lazy half-smile on his face was any indication.

“Neat, isn’t it?” he commented, like they were two people in the street and not magicians fighting to the death. “It was a little rude of you to just burn my spells, but I’ll forgive you… Easily replaced, after all,” Davis said.

Walburga felt a chill run down her spine as she looked at him then. She hadn’t really paid much attention before, but now… Now, her perception of the man was very different from a second before.

Before, the black markings that grew on his skin were a lot more silly in the casual clothing he wore. Instead, they were now a promise and a warning, like bright coloring in nature could be. Now, those signaled someone that should be taken seriously. They signaled someone that was far from normal and inconsequential.

Before, the lockdown and shield spells had been a cardboard surface that she could just burn a hole through. Instead, they were now a trap, one that loomed over her menacingly, a steel cage, circling beasts and the promise of no way out. It was all that and Walburga had never felt so claustrophobic in such an open space before.

Before, the spells that tried to take her energy were a silly thing, like someone trying to put out a forest fire with a water gun. Instead, they were now like the rain, falling on her, a drop at a time. Small and ephemeral by themselves but significant and unending when in groups. The spells surrounded her, syringes, mosquitos and the threat of emptiness. Walburga could feel them chipping away at her reserves, one negligible bit at a time.

“What’s the matter?” Davis asked, his half-smile turning into a sharp smirk. His eyes and expression, previously casual, became something much more menacing. “I thought I was going to burn,” he commented, starting to slowly approach her.

Unconsciously, Walburga took a step back. Not only because things were looking a lot more dire then and there, but also because the man kept playing with those knives. Weapons that were a lot more dangerous now that there was a seed of doubt in her mind that she could, at worst, get away.

Now that things looked a little more dangerous, she was wary of those demonic and holy blades. ‘What kind of combination is that anyway?!’ she thought, taking a deep breath in as her expression turned back to a snarl. ‘And who the fuck does he think he is?!’ she added, her eye twitching as her purple flames exploded around her once more.

She didn’t have anything to worry about. She could take this man anyway, worrisome spells or not. Incinerate Anthem could take anything, could burn anything. She’d burn his spells again and again until he couldn’t cast them anymore. The energy had to come from somewhere and Walburga’s fire was a lot less expensive than his spells, she was sure.

Her fire would outlive the man’s spells.

‘Then why don’t I feel better?’ a tiny corner of her mind wondered as she gulped. The action was hidden, however, by the purple flames that continued to burn more and more magic, from both her and the man she was there to take care of. She just needed to continue and then kill the bastard.

Davis had truly been a thorn on her side, after all. Base after base started disappearing from the map. It was difficult to track down Stray Magic Associations at best, so very few people that weren’t hers knew about it. However, it kept happening and soon others started noticing that Hexennacht was less and less active. It didn’t take long for people to start putting two and two together.

Walburga had been waiting for this chance to right things. She couldn’t appear weak at the best of times, but with Khaos Brigade breathing down her neck? She needed to fix things before someone decided that she was too useless to keep around.

“Surrender,” the man told her. “Surrender. I’ll capture you, you’ll be imprisoned and that’ll be that. I want to know everything about-”

“You are delusional,” she told him. “I am Walburga, leader of Hexennacht and wielder of Incinerate Anthem. You are beneath me and I will show you why you shouldn’t have messed with powers you don’t know about! You don’t know who you’ve annoy-”

“You talking about Khaos?” the man asked her, his voice flat.

“So you know-”

“They are why I’ve been targeting you,” he informed her, freezing her where she was.

Nothing had pointed at him having something against Khaos. At least not enough to do something like this. Walburga would have known. Davis was too high profile not to have heard of it at some point. She kept an eye and an ear out for such things!

Joshua Davis was no nobody, she knew. She hadn’t known it was him that was attacking them, but she knew of him anyway. Nobody that was anyone in the magician world didn’t know of him. The man that could tweak magic into being whatever he wanted. The man that could take a spell and turn it into something completely different in no time at all.

Also the man that supposedly held a lot of sway in some prominent places too, one of which was the Youkai faction. The man that had supposedly defeated the wielder of Dimension Lost. The man that had supposedly stalled Annihilation Maker. Those latter two were flukes, she had heard, that had happened only because he was in the right place at the right time and had been lucky at the same time they were unlucky. The grapevine of Khaos Brigade had made sure she knew about those. Georg had been overconfident. Leonardo had to leave because of Azazel and Divine Dividing…

Unless some of the other rumors she heard were true instead, but…

All of those claims seemed ridiculous anyway. Walburga knew better than to believe them, because the Supernatural was full of crazy but it was never that crazy. Maybe there was some truth behind it all, but it was never as outlandish as it was told.

He might not have been a nobody, but he shouldn’t be on her level!

“But you don’t care, do you? You are just a crazy bitch and I knew that,” Davis said, chuckling lightly.

And yet, as she stood there with the man himself walked with his blonde hair turning brown…

“Somehow, I had still thought that…” he continued speaking before trailing off..

And yet, as she watched the man slowly approach her with a chuckle that echoed over the fire…

“I don't even know what I thought,” his voice was more of a growl then.

And yet, as she stepped back again even covered by her flames while the markings vanished from his body…

Despite all that, Walburga felt afraid.

She felt very afraid.

“I’m not burning,” Davis told her, his eyes piercing through the purple and shine of Incinerate Anthem to stare at her. “Why… Aren’t I burning-” he asked her, and it was like he was getting bigger the closer he got. Unnaturally so. “-Walburga?” he finished asking, with pits for eyes glaring at her and a grin that seemed to split his face.

“What are you?!” she asked, shouted more like. Because how? How were the spells still caging her? How were they still sucking the energy out of her? There was nothing her fire couldn’t burn, so how?! “Why aren’t you burning?!”

“I was going to be nice,” the man said, his voice soft and yet carrying over to her. “I was going to be nice and channel my inner savior,” he told her. “But I don’t think so anymore. You wanted chaos, didn’t you?”

“You are nothing,” Walburga said, pulling at her flames like she never had before. She needed to burn his spells. She needed to burn her way out. Davis was more than she’d ever thought, but he wasn’t going to get her. Nothing could contain Incinerate Anthem! “You are nothing!”

The spells burned, but she couldn’t make a hole. Every layer of her cage had another behind it and they recovered before she could get through them all. Every spell that took her magic kept coming back no matter how much magic she poured into it.

“I’m nothing, aren’t I?” Davis asked, not with a chuckle but with a full on laugh this time. “Then what does that make you? Trapped by nothing. Weakened by nothing,” he continued, still laughing at her.

“Shut up!” she screamed, her fire flaring up even more and she pushed through the spells. They had to burn eventually. They had to die out. They would. And if that didn’t work, she could just burn Davis.

But he didn’t burn. Instead, he turned into… sand?! And then he floated, or flew, or something, to the side. And even without a mouth she could hear him laugh at her. Even as she tried to burn him, his voice echoed.

“What does that make you, Walburga?” he asked her, forming behind her and making her turn back to him reforming. “Defeated by nothing.”

“You haven’t beaten me!” she shouted, her purple flames flaring even more than before. Because all she wanted was to burn him. All she wanted was to burn the spells. All she wanted was to burn everything, so that he’d shut up and the cold hand of fear would release her heart. “You haven’t!” she cried out, sending a wave of flames where he was.

Only for him to teleport again.

“Why won’t you-?!” she started asking as she turned around again. Because she was sure that he’d appear behind her again, or to her sides or… But he didn’t, and her question was interrupted because suddenly speaking was hard. Suddenly there was a stabbing pain on her back. Suddenly, she felt like the area around her chest was burning and itching and festering and-

Another stabbing pain, this time cold and smooth and clean and-

“Why won’t you?” Davis asked as Walburga fell to her knees. The fire around her started dying out. Stopping herself from hitting the floor with her hands, she coughed and saw red splatter over the ground. “Longinus wielders have been disappointing,” he repeated at her while she saw feet appear next to her.

She wanted to burn him, so much…

And yet, all she could do was struggle to breath and create some weak fire that wasn’t even enough to keep the man’s spells away. All she could do was cough more blood and fall flat on her face. All she could do was whimper lightly as she felt the full might of Davis’ magic on her and the edges of her vision started closing in on her.

[}-o-{]

[Joshua Davis]

He let Set’s influence bleed away from him as he sighed.

Joshua had wanted to channel Shed’s power and he had… but he’d been so pissed off at Walburga midway through the whole encounter that he wanted to terrify her… And Set had been all for that, much more suited for the job than the savior deity.

There were a bunch of reasons for that to be the case. Set’s sand travel was a lot more effective at keeping him away from Walburga’s fire and a lot more effective at annoying her than just teleporting. It gave her the illusion that she could maybe hit him.

He was also much better for his goal of getting in her head. He had that much more unnerving feeling to him. Shed had some of that of his own, as a hunter, but he was also a savior. He was much better at reassuring people than he was scaring them like Set.

At the end there, Joshua had switched again though, because he needed Shed’s uncanny aim more than he needed more fear and sand travel. Not because he didn’t think he could hit Walburga, but because he wanted to hit her just right. From a distance and in the middle of her Longinus fire, Joshua hadn’t been confident on hitting precisely where he wanted by himself, even with his stats and skills.

“That fire,” he heard Jeanne beside him, having approached at some point. He turned towards her as Walburga continued gasping for air. Some of his spells had taken over though, keeping her alive. He didn’t want to let her die, after all. “That fire was… imposing.”

“It was,” he agreed, even if he’d likely felt it less than her. Channeling deities had a way of making big things seem smaller. His sister didn’t have that, however. He was impressed that she’d even approached as fast as she had.

He was even more impressed that she didn’t seem affected by what he’d done. What he was doing, really, keeping an enemy alive and in agony. She didn’t know why he was doing that though and she still seemed perfectly fine. It was like the girl didn’t even think he could do something wrong.

Which was both reassuring and scary at the same time.

“You haven’t killed her yet,” Jeanne pointed out, not quite a question but more of an observation.

“Longinus,” Joshua answered anyway. Just in case, he continued. “I don’t want her Sacred Gear to go back into the system. I’d rather know where it is. Besides, hers is special.”

“Why?” Jeanne asked, tilting her head. She was either trying to remember something about Incinerate Anthem or waiting for the voices to tell her something. Maybe it was even both things. Ultimately, she didn’t seem to find answers of her own.

“Incinerate Anthem can choose to willingly abandon a wielder,” he explained, making her eyes widen. “So, there’s even more reasons than usual.”

“Like information,” she added, drawing a proud smile from him that had her preening. Just like there’d been a reason to let Georg live back when he’d attacked them, there was a reason to keep someone as high profile as Walburga alive. She clearly knew a thing or two about Khaos Brigade and Joshua was going to find out all of the secrets she could know.

“Exactly,” he replied unnecessarily, feeling the Fallen and Kuroka approaching. “Business as usual, you four. Get to it. Raynare, you are in charge,” he ordered, drawing nods all around and watching as they moved towards the base as they usually would.

‘Wonder if that’ll get easier at some point,’ Joshua thought in regards to his last words. More precisely, about how at ease he was uttering such a command. There was a time when he wouldn’t have trusted Raynare with breathing for herself and now he was giving her command of people and having her do things for him.

‘This world is full of surprises,’ he thought wryly as he turned back to Walburga. His wards were almost done draining her completely, so he leaned down and grabbed Setan Kober before pulling it out of her back. The boons in place quickly got to healing the damage while he moved to pull out Carnwennan.

Both weapons were happy to have dealt the finishing blow, but they hadn’t seen nearly as much action as they wished. He’d make it up to them later. Incinerate Anthem was more than a worthy adversary but it was very ill-suited for them. With some luck, the next big shot he faced would allow him to use his daggers.

He could feel both of their agreements in his mind, making him smile.

[Quest Complete: Defeat Walburga.

Reward:

+25 Levels to all Stats.

+15 Levels to Ward Magic.

+15 Levels to Hex Magic.

+10 Levels to Boon Magic.

+10 Levels to Throwing Weapons.

+20 Levels to Heat Resistance.

+20 Levels to Light Resistance.]

He’d barely started reading the screen when he froze, however.

“Josh,” Jeanne mumbled beside him, looking at the same time he did as his head snapped towards Walburga. Or, more precisely, towards the purple flame that floated out of her. Roughly the size of his fist, the thing stopped as it hovered in front of his face.

His attention was then stolen by a game screen appearing, but not blue like usual or beige like the Egyptian ones. No, this one was bright white and shining with iridescent light. It was a familiar sight, if an old one. It was the same kind of screen that had told him to help Jeanne.

[Quest: Find a new Wielder for Incinerate Anthem.

Reward:

+???]

‘Well, this is… something…’

[} Chapter End {]

Hey guys! How’s it going?

Well, fight scenes aren’t something that I have a lot of confidence with, admittedly, and fighting chapters even less. However, I’m somewhat happy with this one. I know it’s not the greatest fight of all time, but Joshua isn’t a very fight oriented person and his “fight style” reflects that. There likely won’t be many or any grand shounen style fights, if you know what I mean.

Regardless, I hope you enjoyed the chapter.

Discord Link: discord.gg/UTDransjJZ

Random Question: Any guesses for who’s gonna get Incinerate Anthem?

See you.