19 - Limit Breaker

Sunny and Nephis looked surprised by what had happened. They both looked towards Shirou, who was looking down at the Carapace Demon's corpse. Sunny asked Shirou:

"Wha… how did you do that?!"

"Do what?"

"Don't play dumb!"

"Just a trick I learned." Shirou walked over to Sunny and reached out his hand. Sunny was confused, but grabbed it anyways.

[You have received a Memory: Midnight Shard.]

Sunny widened his eyes. They haven't gotten any memories at all during the last two weeks. This one had to be good, considering it had come from an awakened demon.

He looked through the runes, and was happy to see that it was a weapon memory. His [Azure Blade] wasn't strong enough to damage the demon, so this would definitely help in a similar situation.

————————————————————

Shirou looked towards Nephis, who was l panting quite heavily. He didn't think that she had to do anything too crazy during the fight. She should have been strong enough to withstand that.

Shirou had an idea as to why she was so exhausted.

————————————————————

"Your flaw, does it cause you to feel a burning pain?" Nephis flinched. She did not think that it was that obvious.

"How did you know?"

"My flaw causes me to feel other's pain. I felt the burning when you were healing Sunny after fighting the Centurion. I also felt it when you stabbed the Carapace Demon."

Nephis widened her eyes. She didn't think that someone would share their flaw so easily. She glanced at Sunny.

He's the only one who's flaw hasn't been revealed.

She shook her head. It was only natural for somebody to hide their flaw. Shirou was simply an anomaly. As she thought about his flaw, she realized something.

"Why didn't you react to it then?"

Shirou scratched the back of his head sheepishly.

"Well, it's just pain. It did throw me off against the Centurion though. My arm ended up getting cut off."

"…Does your Aspect also heal you?"

"Not really. I just stitched my arm back to my shoulder. It wasn't anything too bad."

Nephis stared in confusion.

What could he even stitch himself up with?

She decided that she didn't really want

to know. She turned and walked to the branch where Cassie was.

————————————————————

Shirou and Sunny watched as the Scavenger echo tore apart the Carapace Demon. It held up it's scythe as a trophy, and seemed to be doing a strange dance.

Sunny stared at the sun.

"Why is my echo so defective."

"Uh… at least you still have an echo?"

Sunny nodded in thought.

"Actually, I'm surprised that it had held out that long. I didn't think that it was strong enough to survive against an awakened demon."

"Y-yeah."

Shiro stared at a puddle that had moved towards him. He smiled at it.

[Nice job. That last attack was pretty cool. How did you do that anyways.]

[I just compressed water. When I shot it out, I used my wind to increase it's speed. I heard loud booming sound for some reason.]

[Oh. That's because it broke the sound barrier. Well, at least I think it did.]

[The sound barrier?]

[I'll tell you about it another time. Right now though, we need to open up this corpse.]

————————————————————

It took a while, but Shirou and Sunny had removed the soul shards from the Carapace Demon. Nephis and Cassie can be seen sitting next to the stump of the tree.

Sunny tossed the three soul shards to Nephis, who then gave one of them to Cassie.

Once they had sat down, Shirou decided to check his sword fragments.

Sword Fragments: [208/1000].

Shirou was now a fifth of the way to fully saturating his Forge Core. Overall, he was quite satisfied with himself.

The 4 of them decided to rest here for a few days, before setting off to the west.

————————————————————

Shirou did not know how, but everything had went wrong. The other three were under a mental attack, after eating from the fruits of the tree. Shirou himself had eaten the fruits, and was struck with some pain in his head. [Mind of Steel] had protected him from the attack.

Shirou also noticed that his sword fragments increased every time he ate a fruit.

Sword Fragments: [216/1000].

Shirou gained one sword fragments for each fruit he ate. After realizing this, he decided that it would be fine if he ate the fruits, since he couldn't get affected by the affliction.

[Ingvild, don't eat any of the fruits.]

[Why?]

[It's a mental attack. I'll be fine since I have some resistance to it.]

Shirou could eat as many of the fruits as he wanted, but it seemed that if he ate too many at once, [Mind of Steel] wouldn't be able to handle it. The growing pain as he ate back-to-back attested to that.

Shirou tried to stop his companions from eating from the tree, but unfortunately, they did not heed his warnings.

Therefore, Shirou decided that he would have to do something very reckless.

If there are no fruits on the tree, then there is nothing to eat from.

Shirou started to devour as many fruits as possible without breaking [Mind of Steel]. He could feel his sword fragments skyrocketing.

————————————————————

After around a month, Shirou realized that the fruits on the tree will simply regrow. The rate at which he ate them did not match the rate at which they grew.

Shirou heard someone walking towards him, and strangely enough, it was Sunny.

"Uh… Shirou, why don't you stop eating those fruits. I think that something might be wrong with that tree."

Shirou widened his eyes.

"Wha- how did you get out of it?!"

Sunny then sent him a confused look.

"Out of what?"

"The mind control!"

Sunny stepped back cautiously.

"How did you know about that, yet still kept eating the fruits?"

"Huh? Obviously, I thought that if I ate all of the fruits, that there would be nothing else to eat from. The fruits grew back faster though…"

Sunny just stared at Shirou. He held up his hands, wrapped them around Shirou's neck, and squeezed.

————————————————————

An few minutes later, Sunny can be seen with his hands covered in blood. Shirou was right next to him, eating another fruit.

"What the hell was that?!"

"…You tried to strangle me."

Sunny clicked his tongue, before recalling something.

"Wait, how did the tree not effect you?"

"I'm resistant to mental attacks, remember?"

"Oh…"

Shirou finished eating the fruit.

"Oh, I've hit 1000 sword fragments!"

Sunny turned to Shirou in disbelief.

"How many fruits did you eat?!"

"A bit less than 800, why?"

[Your Forge Core is being constructed…]

"Huh?"

A moment later, Shirou felt an excruciating pain piercing his soul. It was as if somebody had shoved a miniature sword down his throat, and had it expand from within his stomach. Shirou sat there in confusion at what was happening.

Once the pain ended, Shirou looked at his runes.

Name: Shirou

True Name: Forged In Hell

Rank: Dreamer

Class: Monster

Forge Core: [2/7]

Sword Fragments: [0/2000].

Attributes: [Spark Of Divinity], [Master Of Swords], [Mind Of Steel], [Anomaly].

Memories: [Washing Pole], [Rebellion], [War Medallion], [Shroud of Justice].

Echoes: —

Aspect: [Sword Incarnation]

Aspect Rank: [Divine]

Aspect Description: [You are a sword who was forged in the depths of hell and quenched with the divine blood of the War Goddess. You were the greatest creation greatest blacksmith of them all, which makes you a sword above all the rest. All types of weapons recognize you as their master. The blacksmith created you in his own image, and left behind one simple, yet daunting task. Destroy Fate.]

Innate Ability: [Bloodstained]

Ability Description: [The blood of the War Goddess does not flow through you, as swords are not alive. When stained with the blood of the War Goddess, you are able to perform at your fullest potential.]

Aspect Abilities: [Living Sword]

Aspect Legacy: [Fleshforge]

Fleshforge Description: [The War Goddess accepted an offering of humanity from the heroic Forged In Hell. In respect of his sense of Justice, and value of life, she bestowed upon him the ability to truly become the sword itself. This was only possible due to his ability to abandon his humanity for the sake of others.]

Legacy Relics:

First Relic: [Claimed]

Second Relic: [Locked]

Third Relic: [Locked]

Fourth Relic: [Locked]

Fifth Relic: [Locked]

Sixth Relic: [Locked]

Seventh Relic: [Locked]

Blades: [Ingvild of the Storm].

Shirou read through his runes and found two glaring differences. He turned to Sunny with some sweat on his face.

"Uh… Sunny?"

"What?"

"…I just grew a new soul core."

"…What."

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After a long conversation with Sunny about this strange situation, they had come to a conclusion that it was connected to how they had Divine Aspects.

Sunny decided to climb the tree in order to find the source, and had came back down to tell him that he had killed an unborn great devil. Although it would be unbelievable to most, Shirou accepted his words as fact.

For the next few days, Sunny and Shirou had managed to convince Nephis into making a boat with them. The purpose of it was to not allow either Nephis or Cassie to escape when they leave, as they would all be stuck on the boat.

Nephis mindlessly agreed to making the boat, as she did not connect the idea of "making a boat" to "leaving the island where her beloved tree was".

Once the the boat was complete, Shirou carried Cassie, who was kicking and screaming.

…She's just going to hurt herself.

Once he got near the boat, he noticed Nephis pinning down Sunny. He couldn't hear, but Sunny seemed to say something to get her to calm down. They had all gotten onto the boat and were sailing away.

Ingvild was in her liquid form. She was moving underwater to look for threats.

As he thought about her, Shirou summoned her runes while Cassie was still flailing around.

Name: Ingvild of the Storm

True Name: —

Soul Core: Awakened

Soul Shards: [382/1000].

Aspect: [Storm Priestess].

Aspect Rank: [Divine].

Aspect Description: [There was once a priestess who carried the blood of the Storm God. Wherever she walks, the sea parts and storms disperse. She had achieved a higher level of divinity after offering herself to a Divine Sword. THE WORLD SHALL WITNESS THE REBIRTH OF THE SEA SERPENT.]

Attributes: [Mark of Divinity], [Undrowning], [Child of Storms], [Reforged].

Aspect Abilities: [Galebreathe], [Sea-Sunk], [Vorpal Blade].

Noble Phantasms: [Storm Ruler].

Ingvild had spent the past month killing all different types of Nightmare Creatures. Now that he thought about it, he probably only ate less than 500 fruits.

He realized that Ingvild could probably also gain more cores if the only requirement was to have a Divine Aspect.

After awhile, Cassie had stopped moving. Shirou let go of her, before she suddenly jumped on top of him. She started to sob as she kept on apologizing.

"Uh… don't worry about it? I mean, I got to eat a lot of the fruits, so I think it was worth it?"

He heard Sunny and Nephis palm their faces.

Suddenly, he had gotten a message from Ingvild.

[Shirou! Something is moving towards you!]

Shirou's eyes widened.

[Do you think you can kill it?]

[…I don't know.]

Shirou turned to the rest of the group.

"Something is coming this way. We need to move fast. And don't make any noise."

For a few minutes, nothing happened. That was until Ingvild sent a message.

[TAKE COVER!]

Shirou did not, in fact, take cover. He looked around before seeing large tentacles coming towards the boat. They wrapped around the hull and caused the boat to flip over.

[Ingvild!]

She immediately took physical form, before grabbing onto his arm.

[Look for Cassie!]

She nodded and swam into the direction she had sensed Cassie. [Child of Storms] gave her an enhanced sense while underwater.

She grabbed Cassie before taking them to the nearest landform. The hand of a large statue was sticking out of the middle of the water. Ingvild had used [Galebreathe] to get them there in record time.

Ingvild reverted to her liquid state while Shirou pulled Cassie onto the statue. Sunny had climbed up a few moments after.

"I'll go find Nephis, you help Cassie!"

Sunny nodded before making sure that Cassie had no water in her lungs.

Shirou jumped into the water before being grabbed by a familiar hand. Ingvild launched them into the direction of the Nightmare Creature.

Shirou couldn't see it's main body, but he saw Nephis being grabbed by a tentacle. Ingvild slashed the tentacle open, setting Nephis free. Shirou grabbed onto her before summoning the [War Medallion]. He let it float in the ocean as Ingvild used her wind to send them away.

Once they arrived, Ingvild reverted to liquid form again. He heaved Nephis onto the hand before climbing onto it himself. Shirou saw Sunny sitting next to an unconscious Cassie. He waved at him before looking at Nephis.

She was coughing up water before white flames covered her body. She screamed for a few seconds before passing out. Any wounds she once had were completely gone.

[Your Memory was destroyed.]

As Shirou read the runes, he decided that it was a worthwhile sacrifice. He was able to save Nephis due to it after all. He laid on his back and looked up at the stars in the sky.

After a few minutes, Sunny called out to him. He turned around to see Sunny pointing off into the distance with a grin on his face. When he got a look at it, he had a similar grin placed on his face. He went up to Sunny and wrapped an arm around his shoulder.

"Do you think that they have some good food there?"

"What are you talking about? Is Nightmare Creature meat not good enough?"

Shirou and Sunny just laughed after facing such a harrowing foe.

It seemed that insanity was contagious.

[End of Volume One: Child of Swords.]