chapter 35: Unexpected Combatant

Salem Pov

It was early morning and I just got up and stretched a little, then checked the time on my phone. It was only 5:30 am so I decided to get a bath and luckily the maid told us where the bathroom meant for the guests were. I walked through the hallway of the mansion requip a towel and toothbrush and man I really loved this magic.

I got to the bathrooms and knocked on the door.

"Hang on, I'm almost done." I heard Kagura's voice on the other side so I waited for her to come out which she did with a towel around her body.

"Um Kagura wow." I stared at her voluptuous body but I wasn't sure if a blush was present on my face.

"Salem-san please stop staring so much." She said a little nervously with a small blush on her face.

"Sorry about that." I apologised to her.

"It's fine I'm the one at fault here as I was the one who came out like this. I thought neither you or Morrigan-san would actually get up this early" She sighed.

"Why were you up this early? I get that you were training but should you save your strength for the mission?"

"It was just a brief training section with nothing major."

"If you say so but man, I really admire your work ethic." I might train a bunch too but it was more of work smarter not harder route most of the time.

"Thank you, Salem-san. I'll go get dressed you can enter the shower." She then began to walk to her room and I couldn't help but stare a little. "I can feel you staring Salem-san so don't push it." She turned and gave him a mean glare.

"Sorry~." I quickly got in the shower.

After I got my bath and brushed my teeth, I was currently wearing red pants, black shirt, black open hoodie, fingerless gloves and sandals. I was just in my room for while looking at my phone as I analysed the two anomalies we will face today.

The Viper queen and the other one it was currently with. It was a high S-class monster from Bayonetta called Beloved. It's been a while since I played that game but I remember the game was just as crazy as the devil may cry. Too bad I never played the third Bayonetta game.

'Speaking of which I should really finish the job here.' I thought to myself. Over the past two years I have just been taking care of some of the monsters in one country rather than leaving for another one because I needed strength for the other ones.

Now I remembered Morpheus' warnings that because some stronger ones existed it will cause more to appear in the dimensional rift. I decided from now on I will stay in the area and try my hardest to finish the job and Taiyo is going to be my first one.

Continuing to look at my phone, I saw the two anomalies were moving fast to a town called Gurīn'õku town which was a little far from here. "That's not good." I thought as I was about to rush off to tell the others but I ran into a brown-haired maid by the door.

"Shupiwe-son breakfast is ready." She told me. I think there were about ten of them and they all had pretty high magic power from what I could sense.

"Kay." I answered and got up and tied my bandanna around my neck and ran to the large dining room table.

I found them all by the dinner table waiting for me. Harumi had a similar outfit which she wore yesterday, Morrigan wore a black turtleneck and brown pants, and Kagura wore what I could describe as a blue kendo uniform.

"Salem-san what's wrong?" Kagura asked me.

"Yo, I think breakfast would have to wait." I told them.

"Seriously Junior you see all this delicious food here why would I skip on this." Morrigan argued.

"Because the anomalies are heading to a place called Gurīn'õku town and moving fast." I told them.

"Shuipwa-san, how do you know this?" She asked seriously.

"Magic." I simply answered and she just looked at me suspiciously.

"You should listen to him, Harumi. Salem has a specialty when it comes to these things." Morrigan backed me up.

"Hm okay." Raiden let it go and got up. "Keep the food edible and tell the rest that I'll be gone for a little while."

"Yes Raiden-sama." The maid bowed and the four of us left to take care of business.

As we exited the Japanese style mansion, she quickly told us to grab on to her as she activated her transport spell in less than 2 minutes we were in the town. It seems that it was already under siege by the monsters. I didn't really comprehend the town's appearance as there was fire everywhere and I saw a couple of people either badly injured or dead which made me flinch a little.

"Seems like we arrived a little too late." Raiden steely said looking at the carnage.

"Yo Kagura you, okay?" I asked as Kagura seemed to have frozen a little, her eyes widened and her hands gripping her sword tightly while shaking a bit.

"I-I'm fine I just got a little shaken that's all." She breathed out heavily.

Suddenly I got an eerily feeling around us and I pinpointed that it was somewhere below us. Morrigan and Raiden seemed to have sensed it as well but Kagura was another story. I immediately grabbed her and jumped on a nearby roof along with Morrigan and Raiden. The viper queen came out of a dark shadow on the ground where we stood.

"Well, I found one of them and I'm guessing the behemoth is where the explosions are being heard." I commented.

"From what I can see and nice moves Junior." Morrigan said with a sly smirk and I knew what she was talking about as Kagura was still in my arms.

"You can put me down now." Kagura said, a little embarrassed.

"Oh right sorry." I apologised as I put her down.

"Mikazuchi-san I think it would be best if you didn't take part in this battle." Raiden suggested.

"What why?" Kagura asked her.

"Because your mind seems elsewhere which is dangerous on the battlefield."

"NO! I CAN STILL HELP IN THE BATTLE!" She yelled determinedly.

"Alright but you'll fight with me then."

"R-Really." Kagura looked taken back by how fast Raiden accepted.

"Yes, this creature has the ability to create minions through some innate shadow magic and I need you to take them out while also getting some citizens who might be caught in the crossfire. " Raiden instructed which Kagura nodded.

"Alright, Junior guesses were on ours." Morrigan said to me. We both waved goodbye to the two swordswomen and jumped off to face our anomaly.

As we hopped towards it, I saw an alright pillar seemingly appear further away at the west side of the town. I had a bad feeling so I checked my phone and saw a third anomaly appeared out of nowhere. It was the Tsukuyomi from the god eater and it was a low S-class threat.

"Nigga how in the fuck?" I cursed and turned to Morrigan "Hey I think it's best we each take care of one." I told her.

"Oh, look who just put on their big boy pants~." She commented. "I'm guessing that light show was caused by another one?"

"Yep, and I have to learn to take care of bigger threats by myself someday." I answered but I saw her face go serious which rarely happened.

"Okay but if something out of the ordinary happens, screech for help as loud as you can and I'll be there okay." She said seriously.

"Got it." I nodded and so we went our separate ways.

I jumped from the building and turned my arms into that of a giant sparrow and took flight to the Tsukuyomi. I was wondering why the Tsukiyomi was here though as it seemed to just teleport out of nowhere. So many questions ran through my mind. I saw the town a little better and it seemed to have a large sum up of large oak trees in it.

I reached a good distance from my target and observed the Tsukuyomi from a distance and saw it was a very tall feminine like figure. It was fighting about thirteen samurai but they seemed not to do any damage to it what's so ever while some others were evacuating the people. With incredible speeds it used its metallic-like hair to literally tear some of the samurai in two from the gut down. Fired barrages of what seemed like light spheres, killing more samurai and destroying some buildings.

"D-Damn." I whispered as I took a deep breath at the gruesome and destructive scene. I held in my lunch and steeled my resolve. "Okay , so it's super-fast and uses light magic." I never played god eater before though I have watched the anime a little and know these things have crazy durability and are weak to those god eater weapons which I do not have.

To make it worse it uses light magic, one of the fastest forms of magic. But he noticed something about elemental magic over the years and that it's not really exactly the element itself, for example my lightning in my Zinogre form was much slower than Laxus's. So it's light attacks aren't light speed as I can steel basically see them move.

I snapped out of my thoughts as the thing caused a big pillar of light causing more damage. 'Okay time to act now. I have to stop this thing before it does more damage.' I thought to myself but then the thing seemed to turn in my direction and looked at me.

Out of nowhere it threw a light beam at me to my surprise. I didn't have time to react as the attack hit landed directly, throwing me some feet to the ground. I twisted my body and landed on my feet but skidded a little on the ground leaving a trail.

"D-Damn as expected from an S-Class anomaly." I flinched in pain as I got up and twisted my arm a little.

A small building in front of me burst and the Tsukuyomi flew straight for me fast and on instinct threw myself to the ground as it passed me but as it was doing so I double kicked it to the abdomen sending it back some feet but I floated in the air. It then made balls of light balls to fling at me but I quickly sprinted myself up and got out of my spot to which it threw the attack. Though that didn't deter it as it began to throw dozens more light spheres at me.

'Beast soul: Were-cheetah!" I transformed to give myself used my advanced speed to dodge the attack. I was on all fours and used my great agility and senses of the were-cheetah to agilely dodge the attacks.

I noticed the Tsukuyomi began to fly after me and it was quickly gaining on me much to my surprise. It used its metallic hair to attack, which I jumped to avoid. I was a pole to quickly spin on it building some momentum and launch myself at the anomaly while also switching to my rabbit form due to it having the best leg strength double kicking it to its face sending it back.

The Tsukuyomi's body then glowed bright white then suddenly disappeared from my sight and barely it came but the anomaly had delivered a devastating attack sending me flying. I switched to my hybrid Ankylosaurus form to at least reduce the damage from me slamming from building to building. It suddenly appeared behind me and knocked me harder than it was above me and hit me to the ground, destroying a little store and making a crater.

"FIRE DRAGON'S ROAR!!" I shot a huge blast of fire from my mouth knocking the anomaly back higher to the sky. I was in my Teostra form but it was only 40% of its power any higher and I would have some good minutes before I lost it. In this form I had most of my human features but I had dragon scales, my hair was a white brown mixture and a little wilder, a tail and wings.

The Tsukuyomi seemed unaffected by my attack and threw huge beams of light at me which I flapped my wings and dodged. The anomaly flew towards me and the two began clashing in the sky. It then threw a bunch of those light orbs at me.

'Fire dragons scorching embers!' I flapped wings hard making hundreds of ember attacks to intercept the orbs destroying them and making an explosion with each one successfully destroyed.

I shot forward fast at the Tsukuyomi and used to blow a huge stream of smoke at it covering a good portion of the sky area we were fighting, hopefully to confuse it which seemed to work. And flew quietly closer to it as I got my spell ready.

"Fire dragon's roar!" I shot my attack again to its head but it dodged though the attack struck its halo a little bit and unlike other times I saw it flinch in pain. "Found a weak spot.' I thought but with it showing some fire resistance it would take a lot to bring it down especially since all my highly offensive winged transformations are fire based.

The Tsukuyomi glowed white again and disappeared but unlike my were-cheetah form I couldn't somewhat keep track of it now as it struck me hard flinging me away and I began reading something as my body sparked. It appeared behind me and I instantly let it loose.

'Fire dragon's inferno explosion!' I used the explosion parts of the Teostra magic making a huge explosion but it also seemed to throw a very strong attack as I rocketed to the ground digging and skidding on the ground. "'Cough' F-Fuck." I coughed up some blood as my body was damaged badly

I looked up and saw that the Tsukuyomi was damaged and the blast still damaged it's halo but it was slowly healing. I clicked my tongue as I couldn't use the full extent of this form's power in a crowded location like this. I could use my Quetzalcoatl form as it's my current strongest and has more than fire-based abilities.

The thing made multiple light rays come down and I switched to my were-cheetah form getting out of them to a further location as the light rays destroyed the block. Though I wonder where the people evacuated already as even though I couldn't see, smell or hear anyone around I couldn't help but wonder.

I ran up the building and used requip to bring out my gun and fire densely concentrated blasts of magic at the things halo but three managed to hit. Though it didn't have a face to show emotion it let out an anger cry though it sounded a bit female.

Then I saw huge magic circles about maybe 80 to 90 metres big or more appear above the sky. I was about to zoom out of there but a huge beam of light came down onto me and the surrounding area. I transformed into my Ankylosaurus form to lessen the damage but I ready got a good amount and it took a lot of pain tolerance to successfully transform again.

After some agonising seconds I was barely standing on the ground with a crater as wide as the circle if not a tad bit wider with the buildings around destroyed and there was fire everywhere. My body was blooded and steaming as I fell on my knees transforming back to normal. I was panting heavily as I then decided to take a page out of the dragon slayer's play book and with what magic I had left I turned into 7% of my Teostra and barely had the draconic features, just slight scales. I then began breathing in the fires around me mostly from the burning or destroyed trees which were around refilling my magic and stamina but not healing my injuries.

"Alright now that I have some fire in my belly!" I smirked viciously as blood dripped from my mouth. "Beast Soul: Zinogre!" I went into my hybrid Zinogre form. I immediately shot a big blast of lightning from my hand hitting the anomaly.

AHHH!! It screeched as it seemed to be reacting to lightning more so guess I found its weakness. My original plan was to just paralyse it and hit it with a full wind blast with my Quetzalcoatl form but this works too.

As my attack paralysed, I shot a beam of electricity from my mouth hitting its halo making it scream again. It then throws light rays at me but is intercepted by clotting myself in lighting and dodging most of them. it was a copy of Laxus's lightning body but I wasn't as he was or you were-cheetah form. It used its light body technique too and we clashed around the city area. It was bigger, faster, physically stronger and more durable, not to mention my injuries are making it harder for me to win.

I hit the building as I got up and it was recovering from its speed attack. Guess using light magic on the body has bigger consequences than it thought of not properly controlled.

"Lightning cage!" I chanted as I shot an attack which wrapped itself around the Tsukuyomi, shocking it and holding it in place. "Full beast mode." I went into my complete Zinogre form which had gotten bigger over the past year. I opened my mouth and a big magic circle appeared in front of me.

"HOWLING THUNDER!!" I roared and fired the attack to the anomaly's halo. I screeched in pain as the attack ended and it fell to the ground with its halo broken. I turned back to normal and fell to my knees panting then coughed up some blood. I panted heavily as the amount of magic used and my body condition did not mix.

It began to turn purple and I did my thing with my phone and sent it to Morpheus.

"D-Damn I hope these guys have insurance." I breathed out as I think my fight caused a good amount of destruction from my battle than felt multiple earthquakes indicating the others might be turning it up. "I should probably shake on Morrigan." I got up but fell on my back. "Oh god it hurts." I moaned in pain.

End of Pov

Elsewhere

"Meh, not bad for a child though you're still very much pathetically weak in the grand scheme." The same blonde who watched Morrigan and Salem in Belum hummed in as she watched the battle between Salem and Tsukuyomi while drinking some sake.

"Still, you're a fire dragon now how interesting~." She formed a smirk on her face. "Now that you're out of the black dragon's territory I think it's time we met."