16 Chapter 15: Arachne, Potimas and New Companions.

A/N:

" " : Dialogue,

' ' : Thought,

[ ] : System, Raphael,

"Italicized text" : Telepathy,

\\ \\: Parallel Wills,

// // : W System announcement.

< > : Majutsu/Conjuring usage.(Using MA energy for skills, spells, etc.)

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Location: Great Elroe Labyrinth, Upper Stratum

Dante POV

After calming down, I dust myself off and pat Shiraori's head while reassuring her that I am fine, then we teleport to the place where Shiraori had laid her eggs before we left the labyrinth. Shortly after, we feel a distortion in space and Güliedistosiez comes out from it. "I apologize for my interference in your matters. Please accept this as a token of apology." He says with a small bow to Shiraori, dropping multiple dragon corpses, which I could tell were weaker when compared to Kagna and Gehre but were still substantially large, but I had expected this as Ariel had no enmity with Shiraori so the Bottom Stratum dragons did not have to die in an attempt to protect Shiro.

"I had thought back to our meeting and the few times that I observed you and had noticed similarities between you and D. I merely wanted to confirm that they were only that and not some indication that D was trying to make a second self." He says and continues with a request that I personally saw as absurd.

"I will also make sure to not interfere with the reincarnated people. However, I request that you do not interfere with humanity as you have grown too powerful." He says, causing a vein to pop on my head. "I'm sorry that you got dragged into the issues of this world, but you really have become too powerful and when a powerful person gets involved with the society, it would cause chaos like the war this time." He says trying to justify telling Shiraori to isolate herself.

"I refuse." Shiraori says, her voice showing no compromise. "I cannot leave things to the people that are leading this world to its destruction." She says. "No matter what?" He asks. "Yes." She responds with finality in her tone. Güliedistosiez goes quiet for a few seconds and sighs. "From your eyes, do my actions seem laughable?" He asks in resignation. Shiraori simply responds saying he should do what he wishes to do.

"I see. Then I shall do what I must. Thank you." He says with a small bow then he opens a spatial gate but not before leaving a final message for her. "D has warned me too so I won't bother you for a while, but understand that if your actions go against what I must do then I will surely appear before you again. Farewell." He says as the gate closes.

"Well, at least he's sincere with his apology. This will provide you enough energy to evolve to Arachne while leaving enough for the remaining little ones to eat when they hatch." I say while looking at the 200 eggs that had not yet hatched. "I really hope the late bloomers pick up more speed in comparison to their elder siblings, otherwise they'll end up like the 400 that died." Shiraori says while thinking back to when majority of the 1,500 eggs she had laid with almost a third dying off before she came back to check up on them.

"Time to evolve, I guess. Don't go too crazy when you see my face okay." Shiraori says with a smug voice and slight blush then begins scarfing the dragons down after confirming the evolution. While the MA energy starts influencing her body, I notice some biomass start to protrude from slightly behind her head while her body grows slightly in size.

Thirty minutes pass, and I am now looking at a spider with a naked woman's upper half resting on the thorax of a sizable spider. She starts checking out her body before looking to me. She walks over to me and touches my face before tightly hugging me. "I-I-I did it." She says, testing out her voice for the first time while I stroke her hair. "Yes, you did." I respond and she levels her face with mine while looking intently at my lips. "May I?" She asks and I nod. She then places a chaste kiss on my lips. "Delicious." She says after withdrawing from the kiss. I put my hand behind her head and kiss her again, this one lasting for a few minutes.

Pulling away from the kiss, I look her in her upper eyes, they are red just as I expected. Smiling, I begin checking her out in her entirety. "You know, you're more beautiful than I expected, more curvaceous too." I say as my hands begin exploring her body to notice that not only is she more voluptuous than she would have been in the original, her skin while smooth and supple, has what feels like her exoskeleton right below it that connects her muscles and blood vessels to her skin, causing her to be quite pale.

"Really?" She says with a clear blush on her face. "Really." I say. Using her hands, she produces thread and shapes and stylizes it to become a white form fitting t-shirt that serves to not only protect her squishier upper half but also to accentuate her curves. Immediately after, her eggs start shaking as the Minimum Lesser Horo Neia started hatching from these new eggs and from her reaction to them, they're more powerful than their elder siblings were at their hatching.

Taking the remainder of her dragons, she left them there so that her little ones cold be fed before they went out to hunt. A few came up to me, stroking their heads on my legs. I put my hand down allowing them to climb onto my arm as I stroked and patted them. "The little ones are quite cute, don't you think?" She asks while eating with her lower mouth. "Yeah, they are and I'm hoping that one day they'll have both our genes." I respond without really thinking, causing her to blush red.

Clearing my throat I stand up and lower the Minimum Lesser Horo Neia to the floor and turn to Shiraori. "So, wanna go back and check on them?" I said, referring to the Keren family. "Yeah, let's go back and see how they're doing, especially the baby." She says as I open a portal to Keren County's outskirts.

When we looked over to the city, we saw it under attack by Ohts Kingdom soldiers. "How did they... Did they send another group using a different road?" Shiraori asks as she looks around for the people. "Yeah and not only that, elves were involved." I say pointing to an elf that is running to the lord's mansion. "Damn it!" She shouts as she jumps of some platforms to get to the mansion faster.

Using Chronokinesis, I stop time on only the soldiers so that they would remain after we're done with the elves, while also giving the remaining commoners and adventurers enough time to escape.

Flickering from my position, I stop at the door of the mansion and see two vampires, a butler and a baby, under attack by the elves, with Potimas at the head of the attack. "Babe, kill the Ohts Kingdom soldiers outside first, I'll keep her safe." I tell Shiraori as she stops on a roof.

"Okay, you better." She says as she turns around to kill them. I snap my fingers, teleporting the vamps behind me, putting them in a barrier and shocking the elves as they saw no precursor to their teleportation. Potimas then looks at the corpses of the parents before turning to me. I dash to him and put a hand over his face and slam him into the ground while altering its material under my feet, causing cracks on his robotic body.(A/N: In case you haven't noticed, Dante's controlling the amount of force and damage he releases.)

Shortly after, Shiraori teleports in slashing 2 of the elves in half and uses her Evil Eyes to kill the rest. Seeing that, I pull Potimas off the ground and punch him towards Shiraori and she punts him to a wall, after which she goes and heals Sophia, the baby and Merazophis, the butler of their injuries.

Shakily standing up, Potimas looks at Shiraori and starts talking. "Hmm, looks like a strange creature has interfered, but who are you? You seem to be Ariel's kin but I've never seen any monster like you before." He says immediately setting off alarm bells in her head as she tries to appraise him but fails and then she attempts to teleport Sophia and Merazophis away, but Potimas stops her. "I don't think so. <Anti-Magic Barrier> Activate." He says casting a barrier where every external ability gained from the system is disabled which shocks Shiraori into stillness for a few seconds as she notices any skills she tries to use outside her body are immediately eliminated.

"There is no point in asking who you are as you will die here. My name is Potimas Harrifenas. Now turn back to a soul and become the foundation of our world." He says, then dashes at Shiraori with his sword in hand. She dodges his slashes and a strong kick aimed at her head then her eyes widen. 'Seems like she noticed. The Anti-Magic Barrier only affects the environment, not the internals of the beings within it.' I think seeing as she is dodging the moves before they get too close.

After dodging a few more blows, she suddenly lunges at Potimas while holding his hand and uses her scythes to slash at his waist, but to her surprise, her scythes break after getting through his skin. Noticing that something was off, she backed off. This gave him time to breathe and release a compartment in his arm that unfolded to show a gun and he immediately began firing at her.

She dodges most of the energy bullets but some begin chipping away at her body. Eventually she uses her advantage as a spider monster to run up the wall to the ceiling directly above him and propel herself downward to him. Seeing this Potimas aims his gun at her human half and fires, ripping through most of it. He thinks it is over until the remaining mouth widens into a dark smile and she punches his head forcing it to turn at a 270° angle.

Since this was a robotic body this only caused it to be down for a few seconds as he stood up and aimed the gun at her, preparing a finisher. Seeing all this, I chose to intervene and use telekinesis twist all his limbs and destroy their functionality causing the energy bullet he was charging to rebound and explode, blasting him away from her.

He gets up with clear confusion on what is left of his face. "How are you using skills in my Anti-Magic Barrier?" He asks as he struggles to look at me. "Wouldn't you like to know." I say as I lift him off the floor. "Ariel, you there? There's someone here you might need to see." I transmit to Ariel who is in the. Bottom Stratum of the labyrinth. "Who? Your girlfriend?" She asks sounding almost tired. "No, unfortunately. It's someone far worse, your father or at least one of his bodies. Don't worry about running here, I'll teleport you here." I say opening a portal to her.

Stepping through, she looks at Shiraori who was still lacking her face and nods in greeting, then she turns to face Potimas and her killing intent burst out as she wanted to immediately get rid of him. "Potimas, why are you here?" She says, anger clearly in her tone. "I wonder, why am I here?" He says with a slight frown on his face, but Ariel is unamused as she stomps the floor, cratering it.

"I do not have patience for your nonsense, you scum. You have been hiding in your village, but now you choose to show yourself, even going as far as to attempt killing every single person in a country, I want to know why." She says with her hand in a claw shape. "Hmph, if you want me to talk, you're going to have to do better than that, little girl!" He shouts, taunting her.

"Alright, enough of this." I say, before grabbing his head and infiltrating his mental link to all his bodies and projecting his memories as holograms for Ariel and Shiraori to see while forcibly deactivating the Anti-Magic Barrier and altering his memories of this event to the same way it went in the original. "I see. So one of the reincarnated people was an elf." Ariel says with her hand on her chin while Shiraori, who has now regenerated, is looking shakily at the hologram showing Filmøs as a baby. "Oka-sensei" She calls out her old name.

"Oka-sensei?" Ariel asks. "It seems to be the old name of the baby, but how is she important to you and your past life, Shiraori?" She asks Shiraori. "She saved my life once. I had always wanted to repay her but I couldn't." She explained. "Hmm, maybe you'll get your chance to do just that in this life." I say, then turn off the holograms as they have reached his most recent memories.

I then toss his body to Ariel. "He's all yours." I say and watch as she destroys the robot with a single swipe of her arm.

"Well, now we have to talk about the elephant in the room. Shiro-chan, mind talking with them about it." I say, subtly nudging her to interact with other people more. "Right. But first, let's bury the parents. I believe it would be better for the current situation that we do so." She says and I nod.

Using telekinesis and geokinesis, I carry them outside and create coffins and graves for Sophia's parents and bury them. Merazophis puts a keepsake from each of them on their graves rather than a headstone. A sword for the father and an umbrella for the mother, with a flower on both their graves.

"Thank you all so very much. Please, excuse my rudeness but who are you all?" He asks us. "In all honesty, I was just dragged into this. The spider girl and the human were the ones who chose to help you." Ariel says dryly. "But why would they?" He asks, getting slightly wary of us.

Exhaling, Shiraori begins explaining. "It's because that baby and I are from the same place, or rather, the same world." Shiraori says, pointing at herself and Sophia. "What!? What do you mean?" Merazophis asks surprised. 'I mean, if I knew basically everything about someone from when they were born and someone else comes by saying they knew them even before then, I'd also be surprised.' I think while watching the conversation from the side.

"Allow me to explain. You see, there are countless worlds that exist with different beings living in them and normally you can't interact with other worlds. However, some people from this world tried attacking someone in another world and lost control of the attack, killing 25 young people. A god who felt responsible for their deaths gathered their souls and allowed them all to be reborn in this world with their memories intact, that's what reincarnating means. And your young lady and I are part of those 25 people, so is that elf baby that was shown on those holograms." Shiraori explains to Merazophis who is receiving shock after shock while learning about the origins of Sophia and some truth about the world he lives in.

"Not to mention, Ariel over here is the current Demon King and Shiraori is the one you all referred to as the Divine Beast." I say just to drive the final nail in. "So mind introducing yourself, young lady?" I say to Sophia as she gains the Telepathy skill.

"My name is Sophia, no, Negishi Shouko." She says, surprising Merazophis. "I'm sorry for turning you into a vampire, Mera, but there really wasn't anything else I could have done at the time." She says, apologizing to Merazophis.

"No, Lady Sophia, there's nothing to apologize for. If it wasn't for you, I would not have been able to survive nor would I have this power that I currently possess. I'm sorry that I couldn't protect the Lord and the Lady." He says with a bowed head to Sophia. "But you can't live as a human anymore, you know?" She says, still apologetic.

"It's better this way. After all, a human life would be too short to serve the young lady." Merazophis says with a clawed hand on his chest. "Merazophis, you'll still stay with me?" She asks with tears forming in her eyes. "The Lord and Lady have entrusted you to me. I will serve you for as long as I live." Merazophis says, pledging his life and allegiance to Sophia. "Merazophis..." She says in a tearful tone.

*Sniffle*

I hear a light sniffle and turn to see Ariel having a slightly sad face with some tears falling from her eyes that she quickly wipes away but Shiraori and I notice. "How about you come with us?" Ariel asks them as they turn to her in confusion, then she goes on to explain herself.

"I am the Demon King, the most powerful being within the system, so no one would be capable of threatening you under my protection and he is the most powerful being in the entire world, regardless of connection to the system, not to mention, you can freely live as a vampire in the demon realm." She says, first pointing to herself then to me.

"I will do as the young lady decides." Merazophis says, a small smile on his face. "Can I think about it for a while?" Sophia asks and I respond. "Sure, take your time. While she's doing that, why don't we go finish the remaining Ohts Kingdom soldiers that are attacking the city." I say to Shiraori and she nods.

*10 minutes later*

Returning to the mansion's courtyard, we see Ariel with her arms folded, almost as if waiting for us. "So I take it that she's made her decision." I say as we land. "Yeah. So Shiraori, teleport us somewhere close to Sariella's capital city." She says in a slightly demanding tone. "First off, she might be your kin but it gives you no right to boss her around and secondly, I've already opened a portal, so let's get moving." I say pointing to a portal in front of a tree in the courtyard.

Ariel steps through first, with Sophia and Merazophis following immediately after her. Shiraori however, was having cold feet. Nudging her from behind, I reassure her that everything will be okay and we step into the portal to the next major phase of our journey in this world.

Chapter end.