"OK Shanoa. Let's continue training. I need to be as prepared as possible for what comes ahead, and you are the only person within this world I can count on." Strictly speaking, Chaos isn't actually within this world, as she's only linked to it by a rift. So you aren't actually lying to Shanoa.

Shanoa seems surprised by your decision to keep training with her, she has been quite the taskmaster throughout your training after all. "Alright then, but for our next stage of training, I am going to have to teach you Glyph magic. You've about reached the limit of what I can train you in without taking that step." Shanoa grabs hold of your hands, thankfully, at some point, the Arm of Time seems to have faded away and taken the form your arm usually has. There's no holes in your arm exposing the whirs and clicks of machinery anymore. In many ways, the robotic nature of the Arm of Time unnerves you more than the demonic appearance of the Arm of Ruin ever did.

"Argh!" You let out a noise of pained surprise as it feels as if somebody just jammed two large needles into both of your hands, but the pain quickly fades, and when you look down at your hands, you can see two large formless blots of black ink. Is this truly a prerequisite for Shanoa's magic then?

Shanoa seems satisfied by the splotches of ink on your hand. "There. I'll teach you the method for doing that yourself for when you're no longer in this world too, though it will be a sort of temporary ink that will only last for a few hours unless you want to actually go through the procedure to make it permanent... and I don't think there's anybody alive who would know how to do that anymore, and it's a procedure that you can only do to others." Shanoa then pulls a rapier from thin air with nothing but a flash of light from her left arm. "Now, the true beauty of glyph magic is that it's wielders are never without weaponry, and the strongest glyphs are just as powerful as the most powerful magical weaponry you can find. Not only that, but by expending a large portion of your magic power, you can perform something called a 'Glyph Union' in which you combine the two glyphs temporarily to gain a greater effect from them, for example, if you combined two sword glyphs, you would temporarily be able to swing about a devastatingly large sword. Of course though, performing Glyph Unions between two separate glyphs is more difficult, and should you not be able to manage the spell the effect will either fizzle out or you'll receive a significant amount of damage from the union going haywire." You nod along to Shanoa's explanation. "Now, I'm going to teach you how to manipulate that ink on your hand into the glyphs I intend to teach you, and then we'll practice actually fighting with them. Be warned though, fighting with Glyph Magic is not easy to learn." Shanoa warns you of the difficulty, but at this point it's not like you need something like that.

"I understand, Shanoa." You give your assent to her suggested course of action, and once again your training starts. This time even more intensive than the last, Shanoa doesn't hold back when it comes to attacking you with her magic either, and while you don't take any lethal wounds, you get countless cuts and bruises from the powerful weaponry she's swinging at you, and sometimes, you just can't manage to get up the correct counter glyph in time, if you attempt to dodge, then Shanoa just goes after you with a more powerful attack, causing you greater pain than you would otherwise experience.

Weeks of time pass like this. Shanoa slowly teaching you some of her most powerful glyphs, and then spending days training you in their usage, multiple times you feel as if you are going to die as a result of the brutal training, but eventually, Shanoa relents. She's taught you quite a variety of glyphs now, and while she focused less on teaching you glyphs that summon pure magical attacks like pillars of fire or spears of ice, she did apparently teach you all of her strongest weaponry glyphs. While she has yet to teach you how to use Glyph Union, you feel like you might be able to work it out on your own, and you don't know if you'll even need that power. With your current level of skill, you can shift the weapon you're using to whichever you feel is most suitable for the situation at any time. Though now that you've trained with Shanoa, you probably shouldn't just keep wasting time training with her. For all you know, time on the outside world is proceeding at a rapid speed, and you've just wasted years of time training with Shanoa.

Stepping outside the the chapel after thanking Shanoa for her assistance in training you, you spot Dario, apparently waiting for you... There feels like there's something different about the fire wielding man as he stares at you with a vicious grin. "Finished your training, have you?"

"Why actually, I have Dario. Have you been waiting out here for me so patiently, like a dog, waiting for his master to return?" Now that you've trained with Shanoa, you have absolute faith in your ability to defeat Dario. "As we both know, a dog is no good unless he can be made to heel!" You shout at Dario as you put your glyphs to the test, throwing three summoned knives directly at Dario!

Surprisingly, Dario doesn't even need to use his power to stop the attack, and just reaches up and deflects two of the knives with a hand and catches the final one by it's handle before it can hit him. "Nah. I've actually been doing some training of my own. While I originally wanted nothing to do with him, that Dracula guy was kind of insistent that he teach me how to 'better use my strength', as well as how to use a few of his own abilities, too." Dario grins at you, apparently enjoying the look of shock on your face. "I'm going to make you pay for killing me, you damn bastard!" Dario confidently announces before racing towards you with blazing speed far greater than what a human should be able to manage!

>Use your Glyph Magic to defend yourself!
>Use Dominus! Overwhelm him with physical power!
>Use the Power of Destruction! Cut him to pieces!
>Fight defensively! See just how much stronger Dario is before deciding on a course of action!
>Write-in...

>>4397761
>Fight defensively! See just how much stronger Dario is before deciding on a course of action!

>>4397761
>Fight defensively! See just how much stronger Dario is before deciding on a course of action!
Grudge match, let's go!

>>4397761
>Fight defensively! See just how much stronger Dario is before deciding on a course of action!
So the second round of training was a mistake after all. I should've stuck with my gut. Fucking glyph magic, of all things, while Dario had training from the wraith!

>>4397864
>Fight defensively! See just how much stronger Dario is before deciding on a course of action!
>>4397864
What were you expecting?
I think that all of our training with Shanoa is good for more than just the magic itself.
I mean we can now throw unlimited knives at people, and we must have mastered multiple weapons from all that training.
With any luck we've got the edge in experience now.

>>4397873
I figured she'd give us more training we could put to use for our main hand-to-hand style. We're not a weapon user in the first place, so this second round of training was a big chunk of wasted time. Real misstep.

>>4397883
You're thinking too narrowly, for the past god knows how long we've learned the best ways to counter all sorts of weaponry and fight better in combat.
Don't screech just because we've got ourselves a personal arsenal of weaponry now.
Glyph Union Scutum grants invulnerability iirc.
Even against Demonic Megiddo temporarily.
And we have Ice Magic to counter Dario now.

>>4397761
>Use your Glyph Magic to defend yourself!
Let's try out our new skills.

>>4397883
>tfw why train when the pod is so strong already
Every
time

>>4397918
I want to train bare-handed fighting. The first round of training with Shanoa was the best thing to do. The second round, where she taught us her shitty fighting style, was time that could've been spent better by training differently. How is this so hard to understand?

>>4397924
Glyph weapons are cool as shit. What's your fixation with hand to hand? POD and arm of time use too much energy and aren't viable for every single situation.

>>4397924
>her shitty fighting style
Fuck you barehand fag.
Expanding our bag of tricks was the best thing to do.

>>4397934
Like seriously now that Mistral is gone along with our armor, we can no longer fight hand to hand.
We wouldn't be having this problem if you retards didn't decide things needed to be "interesting."

File: 0969845723643.gif (2.8 MB, 480x360)

2.8 MB GIF

>>4397924

>>4397924
Bare-handed fighting sucks in Castlevania, and we don't have any defenses anymore, this was a really good use of time.

>>4397940
Mistral should still be alive though, she and Arthur had a connection that would kill the other if one died didn't they?
Anneliese probably took her contract card, but in the best scenario she just stripped us and left our armor in some chest somewhere without looking through it.

But what do you guys think Dracula's intentions in training Dario are?
Does he want us to grow even stronger than we already would've when we defeat Dario?
Did he want to see a good fight between us?
Is he hoping we'll get killed by him so he can take over our body?
Is he hoping Dario will win the fight and become dominant in our soul so he can watch his progress instead of ours?
Was he just bored and wanted to do something besides harassing Shanoa?

>>4398546
Maybe daddy D is just upset we went to Shanoa instead of him for help.

>>4398546
>Bare-handed fighting sucks in Castlevania
Depends on who you are. You can pull some JoJo tier shit with the right equipment and character, but Arthur is not built for brawling.

>>4398605
The only examples of extreme punch shenanigans in Castlevania come from either magic or magic items. Not from someone being good at punching.

>>4398748
That's what I said. Yes.

There's no point in revealing any of your strength to Dario just yet, first off, you need to see just how much stronger your opponent has been made by this training of his, then you'll be able to decide on just what you need to do in order to beat the bastard! Dario finishes his charge towards you, and attempts to land a flame propelled punch on your face with enough power to tear your head off!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rjaJpK5O_U

You swing to the side of the attack with practiced skill, before your training with Shanoa, that attack would've been lethal to you while you weren't using Dominus, but now through a combination of your natural instincts and the experience you've gotten fighting thanks to your own training with Shanoa, you can dodge him entirely. For a moment you consider following up with a counter punch, but then decide against it. Attempting to punch a man who can turn his entire body into flame in a single moment is probably a poor idea. At least not without some sort of magical protection on your hands, or the Power of Destruction.

Instead of following up with a counter punch, you do a flip through the air, showing off just how much you've managed to develop your acrobatic skills in your training with Shanoa, it's kind of showy and unnecessary, but you just can't help yourself from soaring over Dario's head with your apparently now superior skills in feats of athletics. You smirk at Dario's back as you land facing it. "Too slow, Dario. I could read that attack from a mile away! This isn't some bar brawl anymore, you know. Why don't you put some real effort in? Show me what it is that damn ghost taught you!" You don't truly know if you've got more skill than Dario now, but that attack he opened with gives you faith in just how much you've developed since you started training with Shanoa. Despite her somewhat harsh teaching style, the woman seems to have made sure that you're ready for facing a threat like Dario, at least.

Dario turns around to face you, a ball of flame in his hand, prepared to be thrown at you. "Oh? That? That was meant to tear your head off, actually. Guess you're not totally hopeless at fighting anymore, huh?" Dario sounds kind of bored by your taunting, he clearly didn't give his all on that last attack, so him getting angry that it failed would just be silly anyway.

"I'm afraid not Dario. I read that attack of yours as easy as I would read a book. You say you've been training, but honestly? I think you've been slacking off a bit!" You decide that seeing as you've already shown off that particular ability of yours, it would be fine if you just used more knives against Dario, willing the formless ink on both of your hands to take the form of Melio Culter, you fire a barrage of twelve knives towards Dario, who in response throws the ball of flame in his hand towards you and the knives, the ball of flame grows and expands into a black orb with a surface that cracks with heat like a black orb of molten lava, soaring through the air!

The twelve knives are all consumed by the growing sphere of heat, and you decide that getting out of the way of that projectile would definitely be wiser than attempting to block it or take it head on, especially as you're trying to limit your use of the Power of Destruction or Dominus until they can actually make a difference here. The growing ball of molten death soars past you, eventually growing so large that it scrapes along the ground, destroying a good portion of the grass before bursting into a fiery explosion.

The explosion would've been far more dangerous had it been closer to you, but as it stands, it's far enough away that all you feel is a warm breeze on your back. "Was that one of the new techniques that Dracula taught you, Dario? You really need to work on your aim." You taunt the man once again, and this time it's clear that that technique really was one of the stronger ones that he has learned. "How about I offer you a deal? If you submit to me now, and give up, I won't leave you a crippled mess by the end of this fight." While his new powers are impressive, you're still fairly certain you can deal with him. The Power of Destruction is superior to his own ability, and now that you seemingly have the edge when it comes to fighting, the outcome of this fight could only end in your favor.

>Despite his training, Dario doesn't seem to have a firm grasp on his new abilities! Punish him with the Power of Destruction! Try to erase large portions of his body instead of simply cutting off limbs to make healing more of a strain!
>Dario is probably stupid enough to agree to a one on one match without either of you relying on any of your powers, suggest that the two of you duke it out with nothing but your fists!
>Use the Ice glyph that Shanoa taught you in order to gain an advantage over Dario. If he manipulates flame, then water should be the natural counter!
>Write-in...

>>4399663
>Despite his training, Dario doesn't seem to have a firm grasp on his new abilities! Punish him with the Power of Destruction! Try to erase large portions of his body instead of simply cutting off limbs to make healing more of a strain!

>>4399663
>Despite his training, Dario doesn't seem to have a firm grasp on his new abilities! Punish him with the Power of Destruction! Try to erase large portions of his body instead of simply cutting off limbs to make healing more of a strain!
I'm pretty sure pokemon rules don't apply to hellfire.

>>4399663
>Despite his training, Dario doesn't seem to have a firm grasp on his new abilities! Punish him with the Power of Destruction! Try to erase large portions of his body instead of simply cutting off limbs to make healing more of a strain!

>>4399663
>Despite his training, Dario doesn't seem to have a firm grasp on his new abilities! Punish him with the Power of Destruction! Try to erase large portions of his body instead of simply cutting off limbs to make healing more of a strain!

>>4399663
>Despite his training, Dario doesn't seem to have a firm grasp on his new abilities! Punish him with the Power of Destruction! Try to erase large portions of his body instead of simply cutting off limbs to make healing more of a strain!
I hope we get him on grudging respect terms

>>4399663
Be aggressive. Close distance with our shield and then use power of destruction. Avoid excessive strain associated with using it at range

Despite this training that Dario has apparently done, it looks as if he hasn't quite mastered the use of his new abilities, meaning just one thing. The time to fight defensively is over. You've found a potential weakness of his and now you intend to exploit that weakness. While you doubt actually killing Dario here is a good idea as you need to make him survive, you can freely use the Power of Destruction on him regardless, so long as you don't try to erase his his head with it, he should survive thanks to that broken regeneration ability of his.

Dario scoffs at your offer. "Submit to you? I don't think so! The one who's going to be a crippled mess after this fight is you, asshole!" He seems to think that his victory is assured. Seems that you'll have to to educate him just as to the difference between the two of you. If anything, it seems he might be falling into the exact same trap that you fell into when you fought him. All the power in the world is no good if you can't wield it properly, and against an opponent with more skill than you, there's no sense in just trying to throw bigger attacks at them. "Now get a load of this!" Flame pillars start to burn from the ground almost at random, you're in no danger of being hit by any of them, and of the ones that begin to generate closely to you, you just move aside from. When he's done, there are dozens of pillars of flame burning high into the sky.

"Really? Was that your grand plan? I'm not impressed. Were you actually expecting one of those to hit me, Dario?" Seriously, if that was his best, then you're just disappointed by your opponent. You were honestly expecting more from Dario than for him to just use such an easy to avoid attack.

It's at that very moment that a ball of flame appears directly from one of the pillars, giving you mere moments to raise your arm and will Melio Scutum into existence to protect yourself. "Of course not jackass!" You're forced to dodge and block more and more of the fire as Dario laughs hysterically somewhere in the background, what an annoying man.

Eventually, you get bored of having to avoid all these attacks, it doesn't feel like either of you are about to tire out any time soon. So really, all this is doing is making it easier for you to predict what sort of attacks to expect from him. Though you can't just dodge forever, and eventually you call upon the Power of Destruction. The random placement and attacks from these pillars has really cemented just how inexperienced Dario must be with his new abilities to you. Had he been wise, he would've formed some sort of cage for you and attacked with all the pillars at once, preventing a defense from being effective.

You wrap your entire body in the destructive energy, finding it strangely easier than normal, and you charge straight through one of the pillars of flame, directly towards the source of the laughing voice. You're going to punish him for his arrogance, that much you are certain of.

After cutting through multiple of the pillars, you finally find Dario, who seems completely shocked by your sudden appearance. Was he... Was he actually blindly attacking with those pillars? There's no way he would've been able to see what was going on from this distance with all that flame in the way, after all. "I might've lied about making you a cripple Dario!" As you charge forwards, you will the power coating your body to surge out in a wave towards the man's legs, which are immediately consumed by the destructive energy before you will the Power of Destruction to return to you. You laugh madly as your fire wielding adversary topples to the floor without his legs, mocking him for his own bout of laughter earlier. "Still feeling confident about your victory? I'm feeling particularly vindictive right now, Dario." His body turns into flames and he appears standing up, legs restored. "So tell me, just how many times is it do you think you'll be able to heal yourself like that? I know that you have a limit, after all."

"Enough times that it's not going to be a problem." Dario is probably bluffing. The more damage he takes and the more he actually has to reform, the less likely he'll be able to regenerate from your next attack. "You think your power is so great, don't you?" The pillars of flame behind you suddenly begin to shoot towards Dario, annoyingly, you are forced to dodge the flame lest you get caught in the rather literal crossfire. "Allow me to show you just what it is that asshole ghost taught me! Now!" The flames surround Dario and engulf him. "Behold my true form, and despair!" There's a flash of white, and you are forced to cover your eyes as Dario's body is changed entirely by the flames surrounding him.

File: Aguni.gif (22 KB, 392x236)

22 KB GIF

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OuV-jZ0RahE

In place of Dario is a huge beast of flames, something more akin to a god than a man. The demonic being flicks one of it's hands forward, and a torrent of flames erupts from the ground, forcing you to use the Power of Destruction to stop yourself from being cooked alive by the heat of the flame. You aren't intimidated by Dario's new form though, all he's done is made himself a bigger target. "Is that all? I'm not impressed, Dario."

The voice that responds is Dario's albeit far deeper than before. "We'll see just how confident you'll be after this then, jackass!" Yup, despite everything, this giant beast of flame is still the foul mouthed thug you've come to see Dario as. As the giant beast rushes towards you, both of it's huge hands poised to grab you and crush you to a pulp!

>"What? Did you forget how my ability works? Did you incinerate your brain?" Just allow the attacks to hit you, while coating your entire body with the Power of Destruction. It seems that using your ability is far less stressful on your body in this world.
>Dodge the attack and attack him from a distance with your glyphs. Something like this transformation has to be temporary, so you'll just wear him out in a battle of attrition!
>Pour a huge quantity of your magical energy into an ice spell, reinforced by your knowledge of the Grando glyph.
>Bring forth the power of the Arm of Time.
>Stop messing around, activate Dominus and the Power of Destruction at the same time to deal with this monster.
>Write-in...

>>4401489
>>Pour a huge quantity of your magical energy into an ice spell, reinforced by your knowledge of the Grando glyph.
We have magic, might as well smack him with it.

>>4401489
>Stop messing around, activate Dominus and the Power of Destruction at the same time to deal with this monster.
Now that we know he's got nothing left up his sleeve it's time to bring out our own big guns and finish him.

>>4401489
>Bring forth the power of the Arm of Time.
If it's a temporary form can we use the arm to make it expire more quickly while still making Dario burn a ton of energy?

>>4401489
>write-in: cover your body with the Power of Destruction the moment before his grab lands and then throw the covering forward into his body.

>>4401489
>>Dodge the attack and attack him from a distance with your glyphs. Something like this transformation has to be temporary, so you'll just wear him out in a battle of attrition!
Hey wait a minute where'd he get that?

>>4401489
>Dodge the attack and attack him from a distance with your glyphs. Something like this transformation has to be temporary, so you'll just wear him out in a battle of attrition!

>>4401489
>Dodge the attack and attack him from a distance with your glyphs. Something like this transformation has to be temporary, so you'll just wear him out in a battle of attrition!
Wait it out, learn his powers and abilities

You leap backwards in order to avoid the grasping hands of the huge demon, it's damn fast despite it's size though, and you only just barely manage to scrape past without it grabbing a hold of one of your limbs, you won't be attempting that again, at least not without being empowered by Dominus first. It's pretty clear that size isn't the only thing that Dario has increased through assuming this transformation, he's obviously much stronger physically, and honestly, it feels like he's gotten faster too.

You're thankful you did so much training with Shanoa, otherwise you wouldn't have been able to escape that last attack at all. Death isn't an option here. You'll defeat Dario because there is simply no other choice but to do so. You keep your distance from the colossal demon that Dario has turned himself into, using a combination of your glyphs to pelt Dario with knives, arrows and ice. While your glyphs don't seem to be doing that much damage to Dario, in a battle of attrition, you're winning. While his attacks are showy and dangerous looking, they are still telegraphed and predictable. For somebody who criticized your ability to fight in your last battle, Dario sure is making a lot of mistakes now. Did his power finally go to his head?

While he might look impressive, his use of that incredible power he's attained is anything but. Of course, you're forced to occasionally use Melio Scutum or the Power of Destruction in order to survive being hit by the more unavoidable attacks, but you wouldn't be having nearly so much luck dodging away from Dario's attacks if he weren't telegraphing them so much. Every single one of his attacks has some sort of tell to it before he uses it, you don't know if he's doing it on purpose or if it's just a limitation brought about through a rushed training, but as you fight, you get better and better at avoiding Dario's attacks and knowing just when to back away to avoid the otherwise unavoidable attacks that you would have to otherwise block.

This continues on for quite a while, as you and Dario play a deadly game of cat and mouse, with you purposely making your fiery adversary wear himself out as much as you possibly can while he tries to smash you to a pulp or burn you to ashes. "What's the matter Dario? All that power and that form and you seem to be struggling to kill a single man! Are you sure you actually trained?" This is getting kind of sad. While one would expect a battle between a man and a demon many times his size to be an epic occasion worthy of being written about in story books, the truth of the matter is that you're just dodging and blocking Dario's attacks while waiting for him to run out of energy. Problem is though, despite you managing to conserve your energy far better than Dario has been able to, the repeated uses of the Power of Destruction have started to take their toll on your own reserves too. Of course, considering that in many cases it was either you use the Power of Destruction or lose a limb to a burst of flame, it's a totally fair trade off.

"Shut... up!" The beast roars, and your taunting seems to have kindled Dario's rage towards you, waves of flame come crashing off the burning beast. Yes, feel free to exhaust yourself even more, Dario. Keep making these pointless attacks and you'll have run out of energy in no time at all! While you admit that Dario has managed to keep that form of his up for quite some time, there are subtle tells that he can't do it forever. He's started to slow, just a small amount, but after the hell that Shanoa put you through in your training, it's a weakness that you can easily pick up on. It's unfortunate that you can't actually discern any weak points on the body of the flaming demon the Dario has taken the form of, but you suppose that such a being, composed of flame as it is, wouldn't actually have any sort of weakness like that. Maybe if you dumped an ocean on top of it, you might get some results, but you've yet to see a river or stream in this world of yours. Never mind something so large as an ocean.

"Come on, Dario. I don't know why that Wraith decided to train you, but you can probably tell by now that this isn't a battle that you can win. Surrender, I can promise you that nothing bad will come of it." You actually can't promise him anything at all, but if a lie will net you the victory, you'll take it. It's not like you intend to break your word though, if the act of submitting his power to your own doesn't end up destroying him or something, you'll allow him to continue to exist. You feel like you owe him that much after cheap-shotting him back in the real world.

"Shut up, shut up, shut up! You..." Glowing red cracks start to form all over the hills that the fight has taken place on. You've actually moved quite a long way from Ecclesia during your battle with Dario, the chapel must be at least a few hundred meters away from you by now, which is good, because it spares it from being consumed by the glowing fissures opening up all around the demonic form of Dario. "...TALK TOO MUCH!" The fissures forming in the ground begin spewing out molten lava... Now this... This could be a problem.

>Finish this battle now! Push the Power of Destruction to it's limit and wipe out the majority of Dario's body!
>Put a stop to the danger! Push your magical ability to manipulate ice to it's limit and freeze the entire area!
>Go all out! Use both the Power of Destruction and Dominus in order to gain the upper hand!
>Time to finish things! Test out the Arm of Time on Dario!
>Write-in...

>>4403081
>Time to finish things! Test out the Arm of Time on Dario!

>>4403081
>Go all out! Use both the Power of Destruction and Dominus in order to gain the upper hand!

>>4403081
>Go all out! Use both the Power of Destruction and Dominus in order to gain the upper hand!

>>4403081
>Go all out! Use both the Power of Destruction and Dominus in order to gain the upper hand!
Arm of Time for the clincher

>>4403081
>Time to finish things! Test out the Arm of Time on Dario!

>>4403081
>Go all out! Use both the Power of Destruction and Dominus in order to gain the upper hand!
I'm really iffy on using something that came from Aeon

>>4403155
We're being drained by using the Power of Destruction alone, using Dominus as well will drain us even faster, and the Arm of time is more draining than even that.
I don't think we'll be able to use it if we use Dominus.

>>4403682
Is this not a perfect opportunity to see if there are any drawbacks to using it besides the massive energy drain?
I doubt it has many anyway, since Chaos considered it a gain in strength and not a trap that would harm us later.

My concern with the current situation is that if Dario is turning the ground into lava, then what will activating Dominus here accomplish?
Is the hope that this attack of Dario's will drain him enough to end the fight before we run out of energy with our highly intensive ability?
We'll still be grounded, and walking on lava won't do many favors for Arthur's legs.
It seems that choice will just drain us as we dodge attacks we could prevent by stopping Dario or keeping the terrain in a neutral state so we can continue waiting him out.

Aw shit, nigga, something that just happened.

>>4403081
>Time to finish things! Test out the Arm of Time on Dario!

checking if I voted

>>4403081
OK
>Time to finish things! Test out the Arm of Time on Dario!
Let's finally use this thing. We only ever used Arm of Ruin once, and fuck stopping ourselves from using this arm shit any longer

ded?

>>4408242
Tied to death, it seems. I can see why he wouldn't want to break it.

>>4403081
>Time to finish things! Test out the Arm of Time on Dario!
Didn't even realize it was tied. Seems like he's just missing in action though.

>>4408242
>>4408251
QM went camping over the weekend. For some reason he only told his other quest about it and only posted there when he got back. We're the red-headed stepchild.

>>4409593
>QM only cares about his metagaming fate isekai quest because it has more samefagged votes
Whatis, I love this quest but seriously, what the fuck? Is attention all you write for?

File: 1313015686663.png (140 KB, 300x300)

140 KB PNG

>>4409693
Maybe if the players of this quest didn't actively sabotage it and fuck off last thread...

>>4409711
There's always a scapier goat, eh?

>>4409711
The only difference is that his Fate quest has more players and is relatively new.

>>4409593
>>4409693
Please stop accusing me of such things.
I've run this quest for almost a year now, to accuse me of not caring about it is kind of strange.
I apologize for not posting about my camping trip here, but I just thought that I had enough player crossover that somebody would mention it here.
I was apparently mistaken.

>>4409693
>Is attention all that you write for
If it were I would've dropped this quest back when I was struggling to pull two votes.

Alright. This last attack was clearly Dario's most powerful and energy intensive, and you can't use the Power of Destruction in order to defend yourself against it very well. Not unless you want to drop straight through the floor. The problem of using the Power of Destruction as a shield is that protecting the soles of your feet is simply not possible... Not unless you wanted to focus entirely on shifting the energy around your feet instead of actually fighting, and even then, that wouldn't protect you from the oppressive heat of the ground. Things might've been different if you were wearing the clothing Camellia made for you, but as things are now you aren't about to try to stand on molten lava.

However, a genius solution appears to the problem that has now appeared. Your new ability, you somehow instinctively seem to know just what it is capable of, and it seems like it would be the perfect weapon in this situation. You close your eyes and imagine unsealing the power now contained within your arm, the imagery of a clock ticking backwards at an incredibly high speed floods your mind, and you almost cry out from the pain it seems to cause you to see the clock. It's strange, but it almost seems as if it's forcing the imagery directly into your brain.

It hurts, but it's not enough to stop you from doing what has to be done. You can feel the tremendous drain on your energy as a result of unsealing that power to manipulate time itself from within your arm, just as you can feel the almost limitless depths of this new ability you command. You raise you arm and snap your fingers, removing the event that caused the fissures to cut deep swathes through the land and begin spewing forth molten lava. It's only been a few seconds since it began, after all.

It's a strange sight, seeing reality itself rearrange itself around you, as the terrain completely shifts to the way it once was. The mere act of using the ability was even more draining than unsealing it was, and you feel almost completely out of power... But you can't stop here. Dario still has the advantage over you, and there's probably nothing stopping him from just using that ability again. Never mind that, but as you are now, you don't even know if you'll have enough power left to actually wield the Power of Destruction upon dismissing the incredible strength this arm possesses.

"W-what did you just do?!" Dario roars in confusion, demanding to know just how you ended his attack. You don't bother to answer the demon roaring in confusion, and instead you spring forwards, heading towards his huge body as quickly as your body, unenhanced by anything but your natural strength as it is, can take you. It's thanks to the training you did with Shanoa that you're capable of generating enough speed without magical enhancements, honestly. If you didn't train as much as you did, you never would've been capable of this.

When you've closed the distance between yourself and the demon. you leap high into the air and draw the Arm of Time back for a punch. You don't know just what will happen to Dario upon being hit by the arm, but considering he's not alive anymore and should be some form of spirit or ghost, it should only damage him, instead of killing him outright.

The moment your fist makes contact with the flames making up Dario's demonic body, there's a huge explosion of energy that radiates out from that point, and you are thrown back, tumbling across the grassy fields as you try to stop yourself from falling any further. You dismiss the power of the arm draining you as you tumble, and look forward to see Dario screaming in pained anger as the flames that make up his body slowly burn out, until with a flash of white light, the transformation is ended in it's entirety and Dario drops to the floor.

You get up and approach Dario as quickly as your battered body can manage, but you aren't fast enough to reach Dario before he finishes getting up himself. Both of you are pretty sluggish at this point, and it's clear that neither of you will be able to rely on any more of your energy intensive powers anymore, not unless either of you really do want to die. Fortunately though, that means that Dario has expended his ability to regenerate from wounds entirely now.

He sees you as you approach, and gets into a fighting position. Seems he's not about to give up yet. "You've gotten a little bit stronger since last time... I'll give you that... But this isn't the end yet!" Seems like he intends to end this with a fist fight.

>Engage Dario in hand to hand combat. You don't need any gimmicks to beat this man, you'll just beat him with your skill alone.
>Pretend to engage Dario in hand to hand combat before using one of your glyphs to create a weapon to cripple him with.
>Use your surroundings to your advantage, kick Dario down the hill before jumping atop him and raining punches upon him.
>Write-in...

Bros I dunno. Fistfighting Dario when both are spent is kino, cheapshotting him a second time feels trite, and kicking him into a punch flurry feels like something he'd do in a bar brawl maybe? What do you guys think? Is writing in something good here doable?

>>4410224
>Engage Dario in hand to hand combat. You don't need any gimmicks to beat this man, you'll just beat him with your skill alone.

>>4410224
>Engage Dario in hand to hand combat. You don't need any gimmicks to beat this man, you'll just beat him with your skill alone.

>>4410224
>Engage Dario in hand to hand combat. You don't need any gimmicks to beat this man, you'll just beat him with your skill alone.
Doing this from the start would've saved us so much trouble.

>>4410224
>Use your surroundings to your advantage, kick Dario down the hill before jumping atop him and raining punches upon him.

>>4410230
If you have an idea, don't hesitate anon.

>>4410224
Fuck it lets do him justice
>Engage Dario in hand to hand combat. You don't need any gimmicks to beat this man, you'll just beat him with your skill alone.
Wonder if whatis will add in narration how Arthur feels better doing this, recalling how bad he felt cheapshotting Dario then telling himself it was him or us. Maybe? Maybe not? How do you guys want Arthur to be regarding things like this?

>>4410224
>Engage Dario in hand to hand combat. You don't need any gimmicks to beat this man, you'll just beat him with your skill alone.

>>4410224
>Engage Dario in hand to hand combat. You don't need any gimmicks to beat this man, you'll just beat him with your skill alone.
LET'S GO!

>>4410224
>Engage Dario in hand to hand combat. You don't need any gimmicks to beat this man, you'll just beat him with your skill alone.

Glyphs, Dominus, the Power of Destruction... All of these are pointless right now. Right now, what you have to do is clear. You need to defeat Dario on his own terms. He was pretty confident in his own fighting skill the last time you fought him properly, and it is quite true that you weren't anywhere close to his equal in fighting skill in that battle, but now you've surpassed him. Now that both of you are unable to use your supernatural abilities, things have basically already been settled.

"Come on then, Dario!" You mockingly mimic the fighting posture he has gotten himself into and stand at a distance from him, in an attempt to taunt him into making the first attack. Dario however doesn't move, apparently trying to get a measure for your physical ability. He's not so foolish as to believe you to be as weak as you once were when it comes to a bare knuckle brawl, not after what you managed to accomplish against him in the fight before. However, the man controls fire, and seems to have a very short fuse as a result. "What's the matter? Too much of a coward to attack your opponent? You just ought to surrender now, it's pretty clear who the winner of this fight is." You obviously don't expect Dario to surrender at this point, but you know that demanding his surrender is pretty much a guaranteed way to get him angry, so you aren't about to pass up on it.

Dario's face contorts in anger as you taunt him into action. "Alright then, bastard. If that's the way you want to be!" He begins to sprint towards you as quickly as his injured body can manage. You adjust your fighting position to be one that you're actually comfortable with using, not simply mimicking Dario's own stance as he runs towards you. You prepare yourself to block or dodge and attack that he might try to hit you with, only for his left hand to shoot forwards instead of his right like you were expecting him to throw. It makes absolutely no sense for him to attack with that hand! It's a completely wasted attack! You won't even need to counter him!

Then a spray of fine dirt flies from his now open hand, directly towards your eyes, blinding you and instinctively making you cover your eyes to attempt to protect them from any further injury. Unfortunately though, the damage is already done, and as you find yourself only capable of barely seeing out of one of your eyes, you are rocked by an uppercut that lands squarely on your chin, sending you hurtling backwards through the air. "Normally, I wouldn't have used such a cheap tactic like throwing dirt, but I figure after the shit that you pulled back when you killed me, it's only fair if I..." You try to follow Dario's movements with your single eye, but your vision is blurry, and you can't prevent him from landing another hard punch straight to your gut. "...make things even!"

You might have been mostly blinded by Dario's cheap shot, but that doesn't mean you are just going to stand there and take it, you visualize Dario's position and slam him with the hardest right hook you can manage. He's not expecting the attack at all, on account of you being blinded. He had probably assumed that he would've been able to use this as some sort of opportunity to get whatever revenge he wanted on you. "You're getting overconfident, Dario. Just because you've disabled my vision, it doesn't mean that you've won at all." You can't even really be that upset that Dario decided to use such a tactic against you. In a way, he's got something of a point. You did end up defeating him in a way that could really be considering cheating. That doesn't mean that you're just going to be happy about him cowardly trying to blind you for an advantage. It's just that you can understand why he did it. After all, you probably would've done the same thing if you were up against an opponent who didn't play fair.

Thankfully, the blinding effect of the dust isn't permanent, and you can already feel your vision returning to you as Dario charges in to attempt another attack. It's a predictable right hook that he's probably planning on following up with a flurry of punches. You dodge the punch, ducking right underneath it before springing upwards with an uppercut of your own. Dario lets out a grunt of pain as you follow it up with a barrage of punches to his torso. He's totally dazed as you finish your attack with a tremendously powerful kick straight delivered straight to his stomach. Your vision has almost completely returned to you now too. "D-damn it!" Dario shouts angrily as you stand over him triumphantly.

He moves to get up once again but you stomp on his right hand with as much force as you can muster, rendering it an unusable broken mess. "It's over." You announce the end of your battle. At this point, there's nothing Dario can do. He's completely spent.

>Give Dario one last chance to submit to you and to surrender his powers to you.
>Kill Dario here and now. Hopefully the power will go to you anyway.
>Knock Dario out and carry him to Chaos. See if she knows what to do.
>Write-in...

>>4411621
>Knock Dario out and carry him to Chaos. See if she knows what to do.

>>4411621
>Give Dario one last chance to submit to you and to surrender his powers to you.
Come on Dario, you know you wanna be our Sasuke

>>4411619
>Dario pocket sands Arthur
Is nobody going to talk about this?

>>4411621
>Give Dario one last chance to submit to you and to surrender his powers to you.
He's cool. We should do this with Dmitrii too when we get him

>>4411621
>Give Dario one last chance to submit to you and to surrender his powers to you.

>>4411621
>Knock Dario out and carry him to Chaos. See if she knows what to do.

>>4411705
I thought everyone here already knew Dario is a coward who likes talking big, so it came as no surprise to me.
Really made me confused why people wanted to fight him fair and square.

>>4411621
>Give Dario one last chance to submit to you and to surrender his powers to you.

>>4411621
>Give Dario one last chance to submit to you and to surrender his powers to you.
SUBMIT

This fight is truly over now, there's nothing that Dario can do to turn the tide at this point, he's been beaten, both in the use of dark power and in a physical fight. "One last chance, Dario. Surrender and acknowledge me as your superior, and that will be the end. You've been defeated now, so just give up." You look your fire wielding adversary straight in the eye. "Or are you going to force me to make good on my promise to cripple you?" You've had just about enough of fighting Dario at this point.

Dario growls at you in rage, before his anger is eventually forced aside. "Fine. I'll admit that you got the better of me. You're... stronger... than I am." He is clearly angry that he's forced to say those last words but seeing as he has been utterly defeated, it's not like he has any sort of choice in the matter. "Are you happy now?" Dario is clearly livid, but he can't really argue against you at this point. Not unless he wants you to stomp on his other hand.

"Not really. Pledge your fealty to me, and I'll call that the end of it." He may have accepted his defeat, but he hasn't actually sworn any sort of loyalty or submitted to you at all, so that's the next step in actually gaining his power and as a result making yourself far more powerful than you were before.

"Fine, whatever. I don't care anymore. We fought and I lost." You don't know if Dario even understands what the word fealty means. It seems like he was far more hostile to the idea of admitting his defeat than he is of the idea of working for somebody else, does he really only care about his own strength to that degree? You don't really understand that mindset. Of course, being powerful is important, but it should only be a means to achieving a goal. To make the pursuit of strength your goal itself will only lead you to disappointment at the end of your journey. "If you want me to work for you or something, I guess I have no choice. I'd never work for a guy who I could beat the shit out of." Dario gives you some more insight into his personality. It seems that you really had to defeat him utterly for him to finally submit to you. "But that doesn't mean I'm happy that you got me killed and yourself trapped here, you're my only link to the world outside these shitty hills, don't forget." There's no big change that shows you've gained access to Dario's abilities, instead, the world remains just as it was, only now you understand that you are capable of using Dario's ability. The Power of Flame.

"Very well then. From now on, you'll serve me in whatever way I require you to... Which will mostly be me using your power, should I require it." Being able to utilize Dario's abilities will be very useful in the battles to come. Anneliese won't stand a chance against you now, you think.

"Yeah, fine. But don't get carried away with yourself and think that what I can do with my power is something somebody like you could just pull off. I spent a long time getting used to my abilities." Slightly irritating, but you suppose that makes sense. After all, when you first gained the Power of Destruction you weren't able to use it properly at all. Dominus was thankfully a simpler affair, considering that all it does is flood your body with dark energy to enhance you. "You're a real piece of shit, by the way. But if this is the way things gotta be, then that's that, I suppose." You were half expecting that Dario would simply disappear when you got him to submit. But it seems like he'll be sticking around after all. At least his outright hatred for you has become something more like grudging respect.

"Think of me what you will, Dario." You conjure a small ball of flame in your palm with the new Power you now command. It's different from how magical fire feels, the fire conjured by the Power of Flame feels far more intense... and far more malevolent. You turn back to Dario. "But know that you are speaking to the next Dark Lord." Dario doesn't look impressed by that, but you really don't care what he thinks at this point. His opinion matters very little now you have access to his power. Now that Dario has been dealt with, you'll need to make a decision of what to do next.

>Go see the Wraith of Dracula and challenge him to a battle.
>Go see the Wraith of Dracula, demand he train you.
>Ask Dario something (What?)
>Go see Chaos. You are ready to leave.
>Go see Chaos. You want to ask her what she thinks you should do next.
>Write-in...

>>4413296
>Go see Chaos. You want to ask her what she thinks you should do next.
Let's go see if she thinks we're strong enough to defeat Anneliese or take on Dracula yet.

>>4413296
>Go see Chaos. You want to ask her what she thinks you should do next.
Time for that check-up.

>>4413296
>Go see Chaos. You want to ask her what she thinks you should do next.
What now mom?

>>4413296
>Go see Chaos. You want to ask her what she thinks you should do next.

>>4413296
>Go see Chaos. You want to ask her what she thinks you should do next.
WHEN WILL WE FREE HER AND GIVE HER MORE THAN JUST HEADPATS?

>>4414098
We can ask her about yanking her out of the Chaotic Realm when we go see her.

>>4414152
We all know that would be a terrible idea so how about no.

>>4414380
I think it's a good idea, and it flows nicely into Arthur's desire to help Chaos.
But even if we don't talk about that in particular I'd still like to spend some time getting to know her better before we leave here since this is a nice opportunity to do so without interruptions.

>I don't wanna be controlled by anyone, I'm the master of my own destiny and I'll go full evil to keep it that way
>unless chaos tells me what to do
waifufags everyone

>>4413296
>Go see the Wraith of Dracula, demand he train you.
Chaos already gave us her recommendations for getting stronger, we don't need to check back in now. We trained with Shanoa and beat Dario, now it's time to see if Dracula is willing to teach us anything and if not try our hand at taking him on.
>>4414726
You have a vote too.

>>4414756
>Chaos already gave us her recommendations for getting stronger
So she did. Huh.

>>4413296
Switching >>4413321 to
>Go see the Wraith of Dracula, demand he train you.

>>4413296
>Go see the Wraith of Dracula, demand he train you.

>>4413296
changing vote from >>4414098 to
>Go see the Wraith of Dracula, demand he train you.
these guys in >>4414756 and >>4414859 are correct

While you would like to see Chaos and ask for her advice, that's not really something you ought to prioritize. She already told you what exactly you ought to do already, and you don't want to upset her by doubting the advice she already decided to give you. "I suppose we'll meet again at some point Dario. In the meantime, could you please get yourself a new hobby that doesn't involve arson?" Like seriously, this man needs to find something to do other than trying to get stronger and setting things on fire. That's a very dangerous combination of interests, after all.

Dario stares at you for a moment before responding. "No." How very predictable of him. Oh well, you suppose that it's not like he'll be able to do any major damage aside from burning down some forests that seem to have no actual value. If he tries anything with Dracula or Shanoa's dwellings you doubt that he'll get very far. Even now, you doubt that you'd be able to defeat Shanoa if she actually fought to kill you instead of simply training you. Especially because she's basically taught you everything that you know about fighting.

"Great, I'm glad that you've seen things my way." You can't be bothered to deal with Dario and his petty refusal to do as you ask him, so you just leave him to his own devices and walk away from him. It's time for you to go and see Dracula, but you don't really know where he could be. You feel like asking Dario might be a good idea, but then decide against asking him as you make the connection. Dracula's Wraith wasn't in his castle because he was training Dario. So now he's finished training the man who was previously an obstacle on your path to becoming the Dark Lord, he should logically have returned to his castle.

The trek to Dracula's castle is thankfully short... you think. In this realm, time does have a way of getting away from you, but before long, you've found yourself at main gate leading into the castle. Sealed tightly shut. Looks like somebody doesn't want any visitors.

Too bad. You wrap your right arm in the Power of Destruction and cut straight through the magically reinforced wood of the thick wooden gates, creating a small entrance for yourself and stepping straight through. "Dracula! I demand that you train me!" You yell out as you enter the dark hall leading deeper into the castle. You receive no response from Dracula himself though, and instead a swarm of bats converges upon you from the ceiling. You don't have any inclination to attempt to carry out pest control on the animals physically, so you instead just will the Grando glyph onto your left hand and create a spray of freezing wind to kill the creatures before they even reach you. Seems that the Wraith really doesn't want you to meet him.

He's going to have to use some more powerful creatures than just bats if he wants to prevent you from meeting him though, if that was supposed to stop you, or even slow you down, it's no wonder that Dracula has been defeated so many times in the past. satisfied that the bats are truly dead as the last one hits the floor and shatters into frozen dust, you take a step forward. The moment you do however, portions of the floor seem to fall away, revealing bottomless oblivion beneath them. However, there's still a very obvious path to the other side of the room and closer to Dracula.

Then the true purpose of the floor falling away is made clear to you, as from the newly made holes in the floor come dozens of... flying heads? What's more though, these flying heads all have quite the peculiar appearance, too, even for floating heads. Their hair is made of snakes that seem to be alive, snapping wildly as the strange disembodied heads draw closer to you. You aren't foolish though, snakes for hair could really only mean one thing as to what these things are based upon. Medusa, the Gorgon with a petrifying glare. Seeing as you haven't already been petrified, then that can only mean that either these things are incapable of such a thing, or require another method to petrify people.

Regardless, you quickly come to the conclusion that being hit by one of these things could only end poorly for you. So with that in mind you...

>Use the Power of Destruction to create a barrier around yourself and just walk to the next room.
>Use Melio Culter to throw knives at any of the Medusa Heads that come close.
>Use Dominus to enhance your speed, avoid each and every one of them.
>Test out your new Power. Burn them to ashes.
>Write-in...

>>4414956
>Use Melio Culter to throw knives at any of the Medusa Heads that come close.
Nothing a dagger between the eyes wouldn't fix.

>>4414956
>Use Melio Culter to throw knives at any of the Medusa Heads that come close.
What would be playing here? Cursed castle corridor? Abandoned castle from CoD? A classicvania piece?

>>4414968
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQMIsw5fMKc
Stalker

>>4414956
>Use Melio Culter to throw knives at any of the Medusa Heads that come close.

>>4414956
>Use Melio Culter to throw knives at any of the Medusa Heads that come close.

>>4414956
>Test out your new Power. Burn them to ashes

>>4414956
>Use Melio Culter to throw knives at any of the Medusa Heads that come close.

>>4414956
>Test out your new Power. Burn them to ashes.
How about we have some fun with our new toy instead of going right into a Grant impression, huh?

>>4414974
PLEASE TELL ME YOU WILL USE THIS SONG SOMETIME IN THE QUEST
PLEASE ITS TOO GOOD TO NEVER USE IN THIS QUEST
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-dqUDvpLYU

These monsters, while appearing to be somewhat dangerous, compared to what you've faced already, all these things could possibly be is a nuisance. You shift the glyph ink on both of your hands to that of Melio Culter. You activate the glyphs as you throw your hands out in an arc, the knives generated by the glyph appearing mid swing, sending four of the six knives hurtling towards the disembodied heads and burying themselves deep into them. Instead of merely dropping to the floor though, the heads burn into flames upon being killed. Well, they won't be a trip hazard, at least.

You continue throwing the knives at the creatures for a while, killing any that approach you, but for every one of the heads you kill, it seems like there is one ready to to replace them. While you would like to clear out the room of these monsters, it's pretty clear to you that such a thing just isn't possible right now. There seems to be an almost inexhaustible supply of these creatures. There's no choice but to just press on!

You continue throwing the knives at the floating heads while you dash through the room, determined to reach the exit. It's really surprisingly easy, these monsters just aren't fast enough to be a threat. If they had a petrifying gaze things would be far more troublesome, but as they are, this is only slightly more difficult than just walking through the corridor would've been normally. If this is all that Dracula has got to stop or slow people down, then you ought to reach him in no time at all!

Dodging past the creatures that are trying to block you access from the next room, you reach the wooden door leading into the next part of the castle and with a mighty kick, force them open. You are almost hit by a few of the Medusa Heads while you're distracted, but you manage to just about avoid allowing them to even graze by you as you leave the room through the now open doors. Though you do have to throw a few more knives at the creatures as you make sure that you securely shut the doors behind you. Even after closing the doors, you can hear them thumping hopelessly against the strong wood, they just don't have the strength necessary to force the door open as you did. Whatever magical force propels them isn't one that allows them to exert much physical force, it seems.

Ah well, those heads don't really require you to think about them much anymore, you've quite clearly gotten past them, and it wasn't even that difficult either. However, as you look at the room that you have found yourself in, you quickly come to realize that you have a choice ahead of you. The room you are in is a small rectangular room with four doors in it. The door you came in, of course, and three doors that seem to lead to different parts of the castle.

The middle door is an open passageway that seems to leave to some variety of a cave, it is completely at odds with the rest of the castle, or would be, if not for the passage to its left, which seems to be a cave of similar variety to the one through the middle path, however, the rock seems to have a blue hue to it and the passageway has a downward incline. Strangely enough, the rock making up this tunnel seems to be glistening with moisture, despite there being no presence of any sort of water source or even any indication of moisture on the stone columns that lead into it. You can however hear the sound of crashing water coming from within.

Then there's the last passageway. Which isn't a cave at all. No, instead, the passageway to the right is instead a portcullis that seems to be securely shut. The floor of this passageway seems to be sand, though the red hues mixed in with the yellow color of the sand give you pause. The passageway to the right is the only one that maintains any sort of human construction to it, with walls made of marble brick.

You've got a choice, it seems. You're going to have to go through one of these passageways to reach Dracula. It's quite frustrating, but the Castle seems to have completely changed it's layout since you were last here, so you can't even rely on your previous journeys through the castle, especially not now that it's full of beings that seem to want to cause you harm. Still, you can't just allow yourself to be put off by this much, you've got to get through the castle anyway, if you want to leave this place.

>Go through the passageway to the right, through the portcullis.
>Go through the passageway in the centre, into the cave.
>Go through the passageway to the left, descend into the watery depths.
>Write-in...

>>4416311
>Go through the passageway to the right, through the portcullis

>>4416311
>Go through the passageway to the right, through the portcullis.
let's see
>The floor of this passageway seems to be sand, though the red hues mixed in with the yellow color of the sand give you pause.
Reminds me of Portrait of Ruin.

>>4416311
>Go through the passageway in the centre, into the cave.

>>4416311
>Go through the passageway to the right, through the portcullis.
This is the colosseum area from Symphony of the Night, isn't it?

>>4416311
>Go through the passageway to the right, through the portcullis.
Let's get this road on the show.

You'll take the exit to the right, through the portcullis. You don't exactly feel like going cave delving today, and you feel like getting yourself soaked even less. It's really the only choice you have here. Though you don't have a key or anything that might allow you to unlock the portcullis, a quick use of the Power of Destruction easily tears through the metal bars of the portcullis. You might've had difficulty getting through the gate without some sort of key, but your powers really make breaking through something like this almost completely effortless.

You move through the long corridor quickly, the sandy floor muffling your footsteps as you go, and the only thing to light your way are torches that appear at almost random intervals through the long tunnel. After what feels like you've walked an entire mile through the tunnel, you can finally see the exit, an almost blinding brightness ahead of you. You quicken your pace upon realizing you are close to the end of the tunnel, and you soon find yourself at the end of the tunnel, prevented from going further by another portcullis.

You're just about to cut through this one with the Power of Destruction too, just before it slowly begins to raise, allowing you passage into a wide open space filled with ruined walls and columns made of dusty looking yellow stone. Around you is a magnificent looking Colosseum that doesn't appear to have undergone any wear or damage at all. How on Earth did a building like this fit inside that Castle? While you ponder on the impossibility of the situation, a voice rings out, gargled like a bad recording, it's not a voice that you recognize either. If anything, the only person who's voice that this reminds you of would be J's but his voice is of a lower pitch. "Open Hell's gate! Come forth, my servants!" At the command of the voice, you see at least a dozen pillars of light flash briefly, reaching all the way into the sky. "Crush this flee who invades my castle!" Seems that this Colosseum is meant to serve as your grave. Maybe these monsters will provide more of a challenge than those decapitated heads from the last room.

Just as you think of the lack of challenge in the last, one of the walls in front of you is shattered into pieces and a snarling humanoid wolf creatures bursts towards you! You are forced to dive out of the way of the attack, it's coming too quickly for you to think of a proper counterattack and you tumble across the floor, rolling in order to get to your feet once again.

You turn to face your opponent, the beast is almost ten feet tall, and it stares at you with hungry eyes. This monster can't be anything but a Werewolf... Though looking up, you see that the sun is at it's zenith, shining down on the arena you have found yourself in. Perhaps it's as a result of this world being a false one, but you feel the entire situation is being made unfair on you. Of course, what makes the situation even less fair is that this isn't just a fight between you and this huge wolf creature. At some point, multiple smaller werewolves made their presence known, these ones only about six to seven foot tall. It's quite clear to you that the huge beast must be their leader.

The werewolves remain at a distance from you, the leader eying you carefully and the smaller beasts perching atop the walls and stone pillars filling the arena. Looks like they are waiting for you to make the next move. You aren't intimidated by these creatures at all, the only advantage they have on their side is superior numbers, whereas you have a whole variety of things you could do to crush these simple minded beasts.

>Use the Power of Destruction to end the miserable existence of these monsters.
>Activate Dominus and tear them apart.
>Use the Power of Flame to incinerate the beasts.
>Use your glyphs in order to defeat your enemies.
>Write-in...

>>4418361
>Use the Power of Flame to incinerate the beasts.

>>4418361
>Use the Power of Flame to incinerate the beasts.

>>4418361
>Use the Power of Flame to incinerate the beasts.
Aw shit, time for electric guitar shreds of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgQf4aHkwTE

>>4418669
Damn it!
I forgot to add the music track onto the update.

>>4418671
SEE >>4415685
ANSWER THE DAMN QUESTION

>>4418675
If the opportunity arises, sure!

>>4418361
>Use your glyphs in order to defeat your enemies.

>>4418361
>Use the Power of Flame to incinerate the beasts.

>>4418361
>Use your glyphs in order to defeat your enemies.
Things are never as simple as they appear.

>>4418848
That's why we shouldn't try to beat all our enemies with the same tool. We need to get acquainted with using Flame in real combat ASAP, so we have a solid handle on it by the time we're next faced with a Candidate-level enemy. I wanted to start with the easy medusa heads, but these werewolves are also a good target to develop it on.

This is an excellent opportunity to test out just how powerful your new ability is. These werewolves are obviously quite powerful, but not really all too much of a threat to you. Not anymore. As intimidating as the biggest of the werewolves looks, to you, such beasts who rely on naught but physical strength to be a threat aren't exactly dangerous. After all, they can be as big and as physically strong as they like, but the Power of Destruction will pass through their hides regardless of how durable they might be.

However, you don't need to use the Power of Destruction right now. It's just overkill against such beasts, to automatically resort to one of your greatest abilities. No, that ought to be reserved for true threats, not vicious beasts like these brutish wolf humanoids. If you had your weaponry on you, you would probably just use Agartha to blow them away. Even with the true power of the weapon sealed, it is still an immensely effective tool, after all. Right now though, you find yourself with the wish to try out the Power of Flame on these creatures.

While Dario did say that truly mastering the ability would take a lot of practice and training, you understand that Dario is kind of an idiot. So while it might have taken him an incredibly long time to master the use of the power, Dario is the sort of person who would take an awfully long time to realize that the stove is hot. Or that ice is cold. The man is just a complete idiot, honestly. At least he's not too stupid to know when he's beaten though, otherwise you'd probably still be kicking him in the ribs trying to make him give up his power to you.

Of course, calling upon that man's power power is quite an odd sensation, it's not the same indescribable feeling as the one you experience when you use your own power, and it's not like the overpowering sensation of Dominus. No, the Power of Flame makes you simply feel as if a flame is burning within you, growing greater and greater at a steady pace.

There's no real visible difference after you've called upon the power though, other than maybe your body temperature having raised a small amount. The wolves don't seem to have noticed your activation of the ability either, oh well, that will only make dealing with them easier. While you don't exactly have a perfect understanding of the ability, you can instinctively understand the Power well enough to make good use of it here.

You smirk as you look the pack leader dead in the eyes before snapping your fingers with your left hand, causing pillars of flame to erupt beneath all of the smaller werewolves. The usage of the ability like this drains you, but nowhere near as much as the Power of Destruction would have.

The smaller wolves are mostly slow to react to this use of your power, and the vast majority of the creatures are enveloped in the pillars of flame and are incinerated on the spot. A few of them are quick enough to avoid the pillars of flame, but only about half of the smaller creatures manage to avoid the flames without taking any damage at all, with lots of the wolves having arms and legs flash vaporized by the intense heat of the flame. You can understand how this sort of power could easily go to somebodies head. While the Power of Destruction is immensely powerful in it's own right, it's not a power that you can show off with like this unparalleled ability to manipulate fire is. You feel like you would need to give somebody an explanation as to why the Power of Destruction is incredibly lethal and powerful, whereas the Power of Flame speaks for itself.

The wolves that survived the attack are unsurprisingly enraged by your sudden use of your Power, and you merely smile as the howls of rage and anger reach your ears. These beasts are merely the constructs of a dream, after all. They exist solely to be an obstacle for you to destroy on your path to escape this world and get your revenge on Anneliese. Of course, these creatures aren't that much of a threat to you, and the Wraith should know that. So what purpose could he have for sending them to attack you? To delay you perhaps? Could he plan to stop you from leaving this dream world for some reason? He's already shown himself to be able to make himself quite impossible to find should he wish it, so it's not like he could be trying to hide away from you.

You ponder on the Wraith's motivations as you dodge out of the way of the slashes of one of the enraged werewolf's terrifyingly sharp looking claws, countering his strike with a burst of flame from your hand that burns the poor creature's face off, leaving the grimacing skull of an snarling wolf man staring back at you for a moment before it collapses in a useless heap.

Your battle against the smaller wolves continues for a while, with the larger werewolf seemingly having resigned himself into a position of observation... is it trying to learn how you fight by using it's minions as sacrifices? The tactic is cruel, but potentially quite effective... If you weren't merely using this as an opportunity to learn your new Power. All that the leader of the werewolves is doing is throwing away the lives of his underlings senselessly, and giving himself no support for when he himself does battle with you.

You grow more and more used to the Power of Flame as you wipe out the smaller wolves, until all that is left is the largest werewolf, glaring at you with a great hatred in his eyes. Finally, after it paces about you for a moment, it finally decides to make its move. Bounding towards you and leaping at you, one claw outstretched while his other hand protects his face!

>Up the firepower. Burn his entire body away.
>Switch to using the Power of Destruction, cut him in half.
>Switch to using Dominus. Meet him head on!
>Try dodging the attack and setting him ablaze!
>Write-in...

>>4420042
>Switch to using the Power of Destruction, cut him in half.

>>4420042
>Switch to using the Power of Destruction, cut him in half.
Maximum style option.

>>4420042
>Switch to using the Power of Destruction, cut him in half.
Style and grace

>>4420042
>Up the firepower. Burn his entire body away.

>>4420042
>Switch to using the Power of Destruction, cut him in half.
jebaited

Time to put an end to this. As the wolf bounds forwards towards you, you dismiss the Power of Flame and feel your body return to a normal temperature as you do. You look at the werewolf with a neutral face as it leaps towards you, until it's eventually only a few meters away from you, and you've yet to make a single move to defend yourself from it's attack. The werewolf probably thinks that he's managed to get you in a corner, and that he's about to kill you while you can't think of a way to defend yourself from his attack.

You then smirk as you take a step forwards, finally making your move when the huge beast's claws are just about to collide with you and stepping forwards with complete confidence in your own invincibility. It happens in just a split second as you raise your right arm as quickly as you can manage just moments after avoiding the two deadly claws of the beast. Normally, doing such a thing would be incredibly foolish as an attempt to dodge the monster's attack, as you would still have the colossal bulk of it's body colliding with you at high speed, which would easily be able to break your bones.

Of course, you won't be having such a problem, as your arm, now coated in the chaotic energy that erases all that it touches brought into existence by the Power of Destruction, cleaves a straight vertical pathway all the way upwards through the body of the werewolf, cleanly splitting it in two. You are forced to tilt your body to the side in order to pass through the narrow passageway you cleaved through the body of the wolf without one of the halves of it's newly made corpse hitting you, and despite your best efforts, end up getting coated in the creatures blood as it sprays from it's separated body. At least you don't get any in your mouth, you don't exactly know how supernatural afflictions work after all, especially not within the world of your dreams.

Still, with the last of the werewolves defeated with barely any effort on your part, you can hardly hold yourself back from laughing out loud, and you succumb to the urge to let loose a bellow of laughter at this really quite pathetic attempt to slow you down. As you laugh, you look to the sky and start to shout "Is that all you've got, Wraith?! You're going to try to stop me from reaching you with these pathetic obstacles?!" You openly taunt the vampire at this point. His betrayal is quite obvious at this point. From training Dario into being a genuine threat to you to filling this Castle with monsters that mean you harm, he's clearly not got your best intentions at heart. But what exactly could he be after?

Just as you're about to move onwards and out of the Colosseum, you notice that your path is being blocked by a man cloaked in shadows. It's not quite the wraith, no. His appearance is too different, and he's quite a bit shorter. What you can tell by how he's standing in your way though, is that he must be another enemy for you to defeat. The shadow remains silent as it stares directly at you. Then, without warning, the shadow flicks one of it's arms outwards, and a spinning circular disk of pitch black energy shoots out towards you!

Unlike with the wolf, something tells you that this attack isn't one that you're capable of dodging, and you instead resort to using the Power of Destruction to cut the disk in half, noting that it wasn't a disk that was thrown at all, but instead some form of cross. Whatever this shadow is, you can tell that it's a major threat. Then, it opens it's mouth, and that same gargled voice you heard from before that apparently summoned the beast emerges from it. "Die, Monster! You don't belong in this world!" Once again, the voice sounds like a bad recording, just what is this thing?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrsRokgOodU

As he shouts what you can only imagine is supposed to be some sort of battle cry, the shadow sprints forwards, brandishing some sort of whip as his weapon. Is that thing really supposed to be a threat to you? A whip? What a joke. He would've been better off just sticking to those crosses, but you suppose that you can't really expect some clearly insane shadow to be capable of intelligent decisions during a battle.

>Wait for the Shadow to approach you and use the Power of Destruction to destroy that whip of his before following up with another attack.
>Use the Power of Flame to attack the Shadow, keep your distance from him.
>Combat the Shadow with your Glyph magic. Try to figure out just what this enemy is capable of.
>Use Dominus and attempt to face this enemy in physical combat. While you might not have a weapon, you doubt that it will make too much of a difference.
>Fight defensively without specifically relying on any of your abilities.
>Write-in...

>>4421637
>Wait for the Shadow to approach you and use the Power of Destruction to destroy that whip of his before following up with another attack.

>>4421637
>Once again, the voice sounds like a bad recording, just what is this thing?
>While you ponder on the impossibility of the situation, a voice rings out, gargled like a bad recording, it's not a voice that you recognize either. If anything, the only person who's voice that this reminds you of would be J's but his voice is of a lower pitch.
Is Arthur literally just hearing the voiceclips of Richter AS THEY WERE in SotN? That's hilarious. Wonder how he'd react to hearing Dracula's ham acting.
My vote is
>Combat the Shadow with your Glyph magic. Try to figure out just what this enemy is capable of.
Treat this like a videogame boss.

>>4421637
>>Use the Power of Flame to attack the Shadow, keep your distance from him.
I feel like it's going to be better to use Flame as it gets stronger as the fight progresses.

>>4421637
>Wait for the Shadow to approach you and use the Power of Destruction to destroy that whip of his before following up with another attack.
Even when used by a shadow inside our own mind, I still want to treat Vampire Killer with the utmost caution. We can fight any way we want after it's broken, but out first priority should be to destroy that weapon.

>>4421637
>Combat the Shadow with your Glyph magic. Try to figure out just what this enemy is capable of.
This one isn't like the others, so let's not treat it as such.

>>4421637
>Combat the Shadow with your Glyph magic. Try to figure out just what this enemy is capable of.

>>4421637
>Wait for the Shadow to approach you and use the Power of Destruction to destroy that whip of his before following up with another attack.

>>4421756
>>4421637
Switching to
>Combat the Shadow with your Glyph magic. Try to figure out just what this enemy is capable of.

You need to act fast. That whip of his might not look like a threat by itself, but you can't take the chance that it's not some sort of magical weapon. This enemy is clearly one that is too dangerous to attempt to test your new powers on. This must be the Wraith's true plan to stop you from proceeding. Could those werewolves have just been to try to tire you out and make you waste your power through the use of your Chaotic Powers? Not a bad plan, actually. Though you still don't exactly feel tired, you don't want to waste your energy throwing out attacks that might not connect with the man.

With that in mind, just before the man's whip makes contact with your bare arm, you bring forth Melio Scutum, in order to form a shield to protect yourself from the strike. With any luck, the sudden appearance of the shield will startle the shadow for long enough when his attack has no effect that you'll be able to impale him with Melio Secare with your other hand. Unfortunately, the very moment that the whip makes contact with the shield, you are launched meters backwards through the air. While the shield itself isn't damaged at all by the impact, that doesn't stop the force of the attack from spreading through the shield and crucially, through you. It's like you were just hit by a truck!

As you slam into a stone pillar, you realize that this enemy represents a tremendous threat, this opponent isn't one that you would've had a chance at defeating back before you completed your training with Shanoa. For one, that spinning disk of energy that he launched at you was dangerous enough, the very fact that this opponent has a method to attack you without entering into close quarters with you where you excel automatically makes him a far greater threat than say, a near mindless beast attempting to use size as an advantage. But what's more, this shadow is clearly very skilled in close quarter combat himself, you can tell that just by how he carries himself. While the werewolves were completely hopeless against you, something about the way that this shadow moves gives you reason to believe that not only does it have a superior skill than yourself, but that it has superior skill compared to even Shanoa!

The question repeats itself over and over in your head as you look at the stoic looking shadow "What are you?". You can make out what looks like some sort of headband fluttering in the wind as it stares at you, giving you a brief respite. But it's clear to you that this isn't going to be the sort of fight that can be won merely by fighting defensively. You're going to need to go on the offensive at some point, but just by looking at your opponent, you can hardly see any sort of weakness to his technique! Even when he's just standing there, preparing for another attack, you don't really know if you'll be able to land a hit with your glyph magic alone. Though an idea forms, and you start to trace a glyph on the floor just beneath you as you figure out just how to distract this enemy.

With as little confidence as you have in actually being able to land a blow on this shadow with your glyph magic, you still decide to give it a shot. Summoning a bunch of knives in both your hands while the shadow remains at a relatively safe distance. All in all, you end up throwing at least three dozen knives towards the humanoid shadow, and it's really not the sort of attack that any man would be capable of dodging, at least not without at least deflecting a few of the knives. You're really just trying to take measure of your adversary's true strength before deciding on a concrete strategy to defeat.

As the knives soar towards the man, it seems as if he's not even going to bother to dodge the dozens of projectiles shooting towards him. What the hell is it doing? Just as it is about to be hit by the first knife though, the man dashes forwards into the knives, his black shadowy weapon whipping about at speeds faster than even your eyes are capable of visualizing, outright destroying each and every knife that even comes close to the man as he charges towards you once again!

This time, you're not going to be caught unaware by his incredible physical strength. If blocking his attacks isn't a viable strategy, then you suppose that you'll just have to dodge them! You roll to the side just as the man is approaching, and his charge is rendered pointless as you manage to get out of both his range as well as the dangerously long reach of that whip, which he wields with such precision and skill that it almost seems alive itself.

However, he fell for your trap. As he's now standing in the exact position you were when you dodged his attack. That is to say, he's standing directly on top of a Luminato Glyph. Which is primed to activate in that very circumstance! On cue, the glyph beneath the shadows feet erupts in a blinding explosion of light. It's only that you knew what to expect that you covered your eyes moments before the blast explodes into a bright light that consumes the entire Colosseum in the glow of its radiance. You weren't expecting your trap to have that much of an effect!

As the brightness subsides, you quickly realize that the trap seems to have worked. While the Shadow doesn't seem to have been directly damaged by the energy of the Glyph, it does appear to be clawing at and covering its eyes. It worked! It's distracted! This is your chance to defeat this enemy once and for all! While you know that blinding your opponent and attacking it when it is unable to respond is a somewhat low blow, in this world of dreams, you can hardly be faulted for not treating your opponents with any sort of respect. After all, other than Dario, Shanoa and Dracula, it's not like any of your world's permanent residents are actually real.

>Approach the Shadow and finish it off with the Power of Destruction.
>Use the Power of Destruction to kill the shadow at range.
>Activate Dominus and tear the shadow apart while it is unable to defend itself.
>Try using the Power of Flame in conjunction with the Power of Destruction.
>Write-in...

>>4423901
>Try using the Power of Flame in conjunction with the Power of Destruction.

>>4423901
>Use the Power of Destruction to kill the shadow at range.

>>4423901
>Try using the Power of Flame in conjunction with the Power of Destruction.

Is now really the time to experiment with powers? Why? This is a serious foe. I'm not even convinced that he's actually stunned. It could be a trap.

>>4424061
Using just the PoD is fine with me, I was just thinking that it would have more of an effect if used in conjunction with the PoF and create an all-consuming flame.

>>4423901
>Use the Power of Destruction to kill the shadow at range.
Much as I hate doing things at range, I'll have to give you this one. It's the sensible thing to do.

>>4424061
Point.

>>4423901
>Use the Power of Destruction to kill the shadow at range.

>>4423901
>Use the Power of Destruction to kill the shadow at range.
Will he use the Vampire Killer to cleave through the PoD or something? Either way, this is our one shot at taking him out. Wait a second, isn't the "use PoD to fire a beam" literally just a Freeza Death Beam but it deletes things?

>>4423901
>Use the Power of Destruction to kill the shadow at range

There's just no way you're going to get into close quarters with this monstrously powerful foe again. You were lucky that you managed to block that single strike from his whip already. You don't want to push your luck in getting close enough to actually engage this shadow physically. You don't even know just how long the trap you set is going to be effective for, after all. By the time you close the distance to him he may well have already recovered from being blinded.

So, if you can't close the distance to him, you'll just have to deal with him in another way! A truly unblockable attack that is guaranteed to kill or seriously maim if it hits, it's your only option. Of course, your glyphs aren't capable of such an effect. Nor is the Power of Flame, even. No. The only ability that you have that is capable of dealing with this enemy is the ability that no matter how much experience you gain or how much other power you take control of, will always be the one that you will always acknowledge as your most reliable and deadliest weapon of all. That's right, the only way that you are going to seize victory in this battle is by using the Power of Destruction!

As the shadow attempts to recover from the sudden blinding effect of the explosion of light that went off beneath his feet, you create a ball of destructive energy in your hand and will it to fire towards your enemy as quickly as you possibly can! The projectile soars towards the shadow at an incredible speed, and it takes quite a lot out of you just shooting the damn thing, but you know that all you need is for the energy to make contact with the shadow while it is stunned and the battle will be over!

Then, just as the ball of energy is about to make contact with your enemy, that shadowy whip of his seems to surge to life with a flick of his wrist in order to intercept your attack! No matter, nothing he can do can protect him from the Power of Destruction! It's too close for him to avoid now! Though just as you are about to celebrate the defeat of an immensely powerful adversary, you notice something very strange indeed occurring. As the projectile of destructive energy has collided with the shadowy black whip and seems to have... stopped? No, that's not quite true. The Power of Destruction is still destroying the weapon, but for some reason, it has been slowed to the point of almost completely being made immobile as a result of trying to cut through that whip!

By the time that the projectile actually manages to cleave through the whip, the shadowy man himself has long since moved out of the way of your attack. Though he looks down at his now shortened whip before looking back to you. For some reason, he doesn't seem all that bothered over the partial destruction of his weapon. Which is totally bizarre, considering how well it seemed to be able to resist the Power of Destruction itself. Though as the Shadow looks at you, something about him seems to change. "Magnificent, you are mighty indeed. But now feel my unbridled wrath!" His voice is still gargled as he speaks, and it's really quite obvious that this man isn't really intelligent at all. He points to the sky with a single finger, mimicking a move you can recall seeing once before... Hold on a minute, that pose looks familiar...

"Hydro Storm!"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H23LoZSdywc

The man uses a move that you saw J use once before, and whereas the rain falling from the sky felt only slightly hot when J used it, for some reason, now every droplet of rain that touches you scalds you as if it were boiling! You are forced to use a Grando glyph in order to shield yourself from the deluge of deadly rain, forming a makeshift shelter while the rain soaks the sand of the stadium. The shadow of the man is still standing in the middle of the storm with his finger pointing to the sky. It seems that he's unable to attack you while keeping the rain active. Though a problem you quickly realize that you're going to face is the fact that your shelter of ice is quickly evaporating in the burning rain. You need to act fast and finish this fight before you end up dead!

>Go for another projectile attack. Now that his whip is damaged, he shouldn't be able to defend himself from it.
>Push the Power of Destruction to the very limit and attempt to form a wave of destruction to wipe the shadow away completely.
>Activate Dominus along with the Power of Destruction, defeat the Shadow with as much power as you can muster.
>If he's distracted by using his spell, then that means that he won't be able to guard the exit should you make a run for it... So why not just leave?
>Write-in...

>>4425148
>Push the Power of Destruction to the very limit and attempt to form a wave of destruction to wipe the shadow away completely.

This is kinda what I thought Arthur would do the first time.

>>4425156
You wanna go for that when he can probably backflip effortlessly over the wave, or uppercut dodge? Remember the backflip is how you even survive that one Shaft's Ghost attack in his fight, so he's already got that much.

>>4425148
>If he's distracted by using his spell, then that means that he won't be able to guard the exit should you make a run for it... So why not just leave?
Bye bitch.

>>4425148
>Go for another projectile attack. Now that his whip is damaged, he shouldn't be able to defend himself from it.
Optimal as it either hits or he ends his move.

>>4425148
>Activate Dominus along with the Power of Destruction, defeat the Shadow with as much power as you can muster.

Was the power of destruction always constrained to an orb? I thought we could just select an area from range to be deleted.That wasn't at all what I expected.

>>4425312
It's not, but if you wanted to specify what you wanted to do with the Power, then you can always specify it with a Write-in.
Arthur is a little hesitant to use the Power of Destruction recklessly though, even in the Dream World, so he played things safe.

>>4425160
I was thinking the wave would be more like a wall.

>>4425148
>>4425156
>>4425312
I'll just change to this, even if it's not an official write-in

>>4425174
Why do you wanna Dark Souls it and simply run from this very anime bossfight? Did Arthur even notice the Castlevania boss doors blocking the way out?

>>4425255
I feel this is the better choice, but why not do something like "Power of Flame to make a high-DPS damage source right under the boss while they're standing still"? Is it because of Hydro Storm maybe fucking with that too? Wait can't we just conjure the PoD right under his feet in a disc so he merely "falls" right into the magic erase zone?

>>4425265
A lot of magic drain when we have how many more rooms of this path to go, right? And the boss is probably very durable as he is.

>>4425351
What do you think of this idea then?
>Muster your strength and manifest the Power of Destruction right below the Shadow's feet as a disc! Standing still means all he can do is cancel his attack or risk at least his feet being destroyed. Either way, he becomes far less maneuverable, maybe even an open target... except for that damnable whip of his...

>>4425605
>boss doors
Even if they existed Arthur could just destroy them.

>What about this?
Why not make the disk as big as his body so he has to fall into it?

>>4425606
Good plan. You wanna go for that disc then?

>>4425612
Richter can high jump can't he?
I'd personally go for a sphere instead of a disc.

>>4425148
>>4425351
>>4425605
>>4425612
Sure, I suppose I'll change to that, if it activates before he realizes it then he'll be doomed, and if he jumps he'll be airborne and easier to hit.

>>4425148
Go for the disc plan >>4425605

Well, if he's not going to stop using that rainfall ability, then he's going to regret it. While you might be pinned down and unable to close the distance on this shadow without leaving your cover, you don't actually need to leave your cover at all in order to hit him. While your first attempt to put an end to this enemy with the Power of Destruction may have ended in a relative failure, you aren't about to allow that mistake to repeat itself. No. Your next attack will put an end to this fight. It has to, before this shadow decides to use an attack that doesn't give you breathing room like this rain of burning water. You'll end this battle!

You place the palm of your hand on the floor and summon a vast quantity of the energy of the Power of Destruction on the sandy floor, which ends up looking like a strange sort of puddle of pitch black oil coating the ground. It takes some effort to have it so that the energy making up the Power of Destruction doesn't just sink through the floor and instead rests upon it. Then again, it's not really resting on the floor at all, in reality the destructive energy is hovering micrometers just above the floor in order to prevent it from cutting giant swathes in the ground.

With a mental command, you order the black swirling pool outwards towards your enemy, and it snakes across the floor towards your opponent as if it were an animal. The black tendril of killing energy making its way towards the shadowy hunter almost looks alive with the way it moves in order to reach its target.

As it gets into range of the shadow, you fast realize that he has yet to realize the true nature of your attack. For some reason, this enemy doesn't actually seem all too bright. Of course, while it is clearly fantastically well trained and nearly unbeatable in a fair fight, the fact that it isn't suspicious as to what you are doing proves to you that you aren't actually fighting a real person at all, and just cobbled together shadow of some immensely powerful foe. A pity, an enemy this powerful would've probably made an excellent teacher, if his mind hadn't clearly been robbed from him, this man could possibly be an even greater trainer than even Shanoa was.

As it reaches the boots of your enemy, you finally command the energy to expand outwards, and in the blink of an eye, it has gone from a long snakelike tendril to what looks like some sort of cartoon hole in the floor directly underneath the shadow. Of course though, it would be a far less heinous trap if it were merely a hole. No, this 'hole' is one that erases any foolish enough to dare entering it from existence itself. Or it would at least erase their body parts as fast as gravity allows.

Just as the hole opens up, the shadow seems to realize the true meaning behind your attack, and attempts to get away from the hole now opened beneath his feet, however, he's far too late to get out of this one unscathed! Despite his attempts to flee from your trap, the shadow isn't fast enough to save his feet, and despite an attempt to flinging himself backwards, it still ends up losing the capacity to walk. Perfect. Now is just the trivial task of finishing off an immobile enemy. You command the the energy forming the hole to once again take on a shape suitable for moving itself, and it turns into that long snake-like form once again in order to pursue your enemy. You'd really like to be able to finish him off with your own hands, but there's no guarantee that this enemy won't have some last minute trump card of his own to pull out should you attempt to approach him.

Before you can reach him to deliver the finishing blow however, he instead dissipates into pitch black smoke, and a single set of applauding hands reaches your ears. The slow rhythmic clapping clearly sarcastic in some way. "Bravo, Arthur. While that simulacrum wasn't close to even the power of the first Belmont, that was a fine display of your own strength. You've become quite a bit more powerful since I saw you last, haven't you?" A familiar voice rings through the arena, and there's only a single man such a smug and self assured tone could belong to in this world. The previous Dark Lord

"Dracula!" You angrily bellow the name of the vampire who has very likely become your enemy. You don't know if you're actually strong enough to defeat the vampire lord right now, especially not after spending so much of your energy in order to defeat that Shadow. "Why have you betrayed me?" You demand an answer from Dracula, though you look around the Colosseum with wariness as you do. He's not revealed himself yet and he could strike at you from anywhere.

"Betrayed you, Arthur? Treachery would imply that I was somehow subservient to you in some way. No, I have never considered you to be my better, and I never will, either. After all, you're only a human." There's a deep booming laughter from around you, and you still have no idea just where it's coming from.

"Only a human?" The fact that this vampire, a creature who by his very existence has at least some humanity within him due to his very origin, is kind of ridiculous. "So were you! You were once a human just like me!"

"Now... That? That's not quite true." The wraith cryptically denies your accusation. "Now, I look forward to properly confronting you in my throne room, you've passed my little test to see if you were at all worthy of actually doing battle with now, after all." Wait... That's all this battle was? A test of the wraith to determine whether you were worth fighting or not? "Though I will say this, should you ever actually face a true Belmont in Combat. Don't expect the whip that they use to yield to any of your powers. The genuine article is far superior to any replica I was able to make to be used by that automaton." The wraith of Dracula appears as he finishes speaking, almost as if to taunt you into attacking him.

>Just move on. Ignore the vampire until the time is right to fight him.
>Attack the Wraith.
>Ask the Wraith a question about something. (Write-in...)
>Write-in....

Can we just turn around and just leave? It would be absolutely hilarious.

>>4426618
>Just move on. Ignore the vampire until the time is right to fight him.
Sequence breaking only makes things riskier.

>>4426618
>Just move on. Ignore the vampire until the time is right to fight him.
Not falling for it.

>>4426638
We don't even know how to say "What?" yet.

>>4426618
>>Ask the Wraith a question about something. (Write-in...)
Why did you train Dario? The thought that you might consider him a better dark lord candidate than I is laughable.

>>4426618
>Ask the Wraith a question about something. (What is Anneliese doing to me? If you were never human, then are you the personification of Dracula's vampiric side?)

>>4426618
>Ask the Wraith a question about something. (What is Anneliese doing to me? If you were never human, then are you the personification of Dracula's vampiric side?)
>Just move on. Ignore the vampire until the time is right to fight him.

Unfortunately I won't be able to get an update done today, as through the day I've barely had enough time to even write an update for my other quest from trying to get started writing almost ten hours ago thanks to RL obligations
However, tomorrow, my schedule should be entirely free, so I'll get an additional update for this quest done, if votes allow.

Also, the vote here is somewhat tied.
I changed my secure tripcode in case my last tripcode got caught up in the wave of cracks.

While the Wraith might be trying to bait you into fighting him, you aren't even close to being in peak condition right now after that fight with the shadow, and it stands that if you tried to do battle with the Wraith of Dracula right now, you would quickly find yourself fighting a losing battle. You don't even know if you have it in you to use the Power of Destruction again for now, so really, the best thing for you to do when it comes to dealing with the Wraith here is to simply ignore him. You can save your questions for him when you confront him in his throne room. But for now, you won't deal with your predecessor at all. "I'm not in any sort of mood to be dealing with you, right now, Wraith. I don't know what your game is, but I'm not going to let you get what you want." It's clear to you now that whatever the Wraith wants, it's almost certainly not going to be anything beneficial to you.

The Wraith begins to fade from view as you "Indeed? Then we shall meet at the pinnacle of the Castle, in my throne room. That was where you were headed anyway, was it not?" Of course, that doesn't stop the Wraith from managing to be really quite irritating, of course he knows where you're headed, he's the one who decided to try to hide the rift to Chaos away from you, after all. Something you aren't going to ever forgive him for.

Instead of interacting with him further, you just turn around and continue onward out of the Colosseum. You don't need to be dealing with somebody like the Wraith right now, and if you can avoid a fight with him for now, that would be for the best. While Chaos did seem to believe it possible for you to defeat the Wraith to claim his power, it's obviously not something that you will be able to do with you basically running on fumes. You'd like to rest, but you find it unlikely that you'll find a place in the accursed castle that isn't swarming with monsters or other dangers.

"The end is fast approaching, you know." The cryptic parting comment of the wraith causes you spare a glance back towards the wraith as you leave. Only for him to have already finished his disappearing act. "And... Don't complain if what you receive from supporting Chaos so fully doesn't quite get you what you envisioned it would..." His voice is bitter as it fades away.

You remain silent as the presence fully fades. You don't know just why Dracula's Wraith has such a distrust of Chaos, nor do you even really care that much at this point. It's quite obvious that he never really wanted to carry out her wishes in the first place, yet despite that, Chaos always gave him extra chance after extra chance in the form of resurrections. If she truly meant ill towards her Dark Lord, would she have really done something like that? Even to somebody like Dracula, who as you understand it was such an immense failure in his duty of being the Dark Lord, not only managed to get defeated many times in the past, but conclusively managed to get both himself killed as well as the forces that might support Chaos sundered and weakened tremendously. While the forces opposing you are perhaps at the strongest they have ever been.

Satisfied that the Wraith has nothing else to say, you leave the Colosseum from the exit opposite the entrance that took you into the arena, and soon find yourself walking down a long dark tunnel again. It's not long however until you finally reach the door at the end of the tunnel, fortunately it's not a portcullis either, but instead, the door in front of you is a partially opened extravagantly designed wooden door trimmed with gold. It seems outright bizarre that such a door would lead out into a Colosseum, but perhaps this is merely as a result of the Castle's shifting nature. After all, the layout of the rooms is completely different from your last visit, so it's almost certainly related to that.

You open the door and walk through it to find yourself standing in a long corridor with stone floors, there are a small number of windows in the room from which moonlight shines through. Hold on... wasn't it just daylight in the Colosseum? You don't really know what to think as it seems that the time has gone from midday in the Colosseum to the pitch black of night in this corridor, you certainly didn't travel for long enough for something like that to have happened.

Putting aside the matter of the time outside somehow varying room by room, you take note of the rest of the room. It's a long straight corridor with red carpeted stairs that lead to a large set of double doors. But those aren't what draw your attention most in this room, instead, it's the three statues standing in the center of the room. Beautifully sculpted statues of angels locked in battle. One of them wears a crown, carries a beautifully forged spear and shield, and has blue motes of light circling around it. It has the regal look of a king or some other royalty.

Another carries no weapon, and instead it is surrounded by a legion of beasts of all variety, wolves, lions, eagles and bears surround this angel, ready to defend it from the attack of the other two. This statue unlike the spear wielding angel glows with a purple aura. It looks more savage than the regal statue, almost as if the snarl on it's face is hiding a true monster.

The final angel however seems to be totally disinterested in the battle it is a part of, holding no weapon and making no move to attack the other two sculptures, it doesn't even seem to realize that it too is caught up in the conflict of the other two, or perhaps it just doesn't care? It is surrounded by wisps of darkness that make the statue look somewhat dangerous, despite it's apparent non-interest.

Strangely though, all of the angels seem to call out to you in some way. As you look at them, you find them all calling out for you to touch them.

>Touch the spear wielding angel.
>Touch the angel surrounded by beasts.
>Touch the disinterested looking angel.
>Ignore the three statues and just walk up the stairs.
>Write-in...

>>4428953
>Ignore the three statues and just walk up the stairs.
Nope, not dealing with this cryptic horoscope bullshit

>>4428953
>Touch the spear wielding angel.

>>4428953
>Touch the disinterested looking angel.
I feel good about this one

>>4428953
>Touch the spear wielding angel.
Kingly is always good.

>>4428953
>Touch the disinterested looking angel.

>>4428953
>Touch the spear wielding angel.
It's good to be king.

Of the three statues before you, one calls to you more than any of the others, you aren't sure what it is that calls you the spear wielding angel in particular, whether it be the fact that it is the only one of the three that is actually using a melee weapon to engage its two adversaries instead of relying upon beasts to do it's bidding or appearing completely bored with the battle. Or perhaps it's to do with the appearances of the angels that you are called to the one wearing the crown. You have started to fancy yourself as something of a ruler, honestly. With how much you're willing to sacrifice on your journey to become the Dark Lord, it's not too much of surprise to you that you have these feelings.

But whatever your reason for touching the statue over any of the others, you can hardly believe what happens in the moments after you touch the spear wielding statue though, as at the very moment your skin makes contact with the cold stone surface of the statue, it suddenly animates! In an instant, the angel whips its spear towards the angel surrounded by beasts, and strikes it with such force that the statue is instantly smashed to tiny pieces and powder. Even before the pieces of that statue have finished falling, however, the angel drops the spear it was holding, and it instead holds out its now empty hand towards in the direction of the motionless disinterested looking statue, moments before spikes of solid rock smash forth from the ground to shatter the opposing statue into dust just like the other statue. The black and purple energy from the other two statues seems to linger in place for a while before the energy moves downwards, apparently being absorbed into the ground.

You just stand there for a moment, somewhat stunned by the the sudden act of violence the angelic spear man statue just wrought upon its two counterparts. You really weren't expecting that to happen at all! The spikes retract into the earth and leave no trace that they ever burst out of the stone floor at all, melding perfectly with the environment around them.

As you try to puzzle out the meaning behind the living statue's sudden act of violence, it turns towards you, and for a very brief moment, you ready yourself for a fight! You can't rely on the Power of Destruction, so you'll just have to think of a different way to beat this thing!

But just as you begin getting yourself into a posture more suited to taking on this stone giant, it instead does something even more unexpected than it's sudden violence towards the other two statues. The spear wielding crowned angel doesn't actually attack you at all. Instead it... kneels to you? You don't really know what to make of it, but the solemn looking angel statue is kneeling to you, despite the crown on it's own head. Whatever this thing is, it clearly isn't your enemy... But why exactly would it be in this castle? If it has decided to recognize you as it's master, then does that mean you can order it to do your bidding? It's clearly a very powerful weapon, it's already showcased how powerful it is by smashing those other statues with complete ease.

But just as you expect the statue to get up once again in order to follow your commands, it doesn't. Instead, the blue motes of light floating about it all begin to be drawn to you, you don't even attempt to dodge them either, somehow, you know they aren't dangerous to you at all. As the blue light flows into you, you begin to feel your strength returning to you in full, the energy not only completely restoring you, but also making you feel even stronger than you were before!

But as the last of the blue lights fades away, the angelic statue that was the source of them crumbles to dust and fades away completely. Not like the two statues it smashed, which still have fragments scattered about the floor, the spear wielding statue is completely gone. All that remains of it are the spear and shield it once wielded that both lay discarded on the floor, both are really too large for human usage, the spear is just too large and bulky to be of any use to you, even if the weight itself wasn't a problem, and as for the shield, you really have no use of something like a shield when you can just create a nigh impenetrable shield with your glyphs.

As you go to move towards the large set of doors at the top of the stairs, you feel... strange. Different. It doesn't feel wrong, but you just feel as if you've found a new part of yourself, a burning desire to rule over everything burns brightly in your heart for a moment before it fades away, leaving you confused as to the source of that grand ambition.

>Try to figure out what exactly the blue light did to you.
>Just move onwards, you feel like you're getting close now.
>Go back through the Colosseum and take another path, you don't like the look of those double doors.
>Write-in...

>>4429858
>Try to figure out what exactly the blue light did to you.

>>4429858
>Try to figure out what exactly the blue light did to you.
We should 100% the castle before fighting the Big D.

>>4429858
>Try to figure out what exactly the blue light did to you.
So it was the power of control, huh?
Wonder what the other two were then.

>>4429858
>Just move onwards, you feel like you're getting close now.

>>4429858
>Try to figure out what exactly the blue light did to you.
Another Power?

>>4429858
>Just move onwards, you feel like you're getting close now.

No. You aren't just about to move on just yet. You need to find out just what the hell that blue light did to you. While you don't feel any adverse effects and feel even stronger than you did before you expended so much of your energy, you aren't satisfied with just that much knowledge. No, you need to find out just what change it brought about within your body before you go any further. While it might have appeared to have been beneficial at the time, there is always the chance that it might come with some unforeseen drawback that ends up crippling you at a later point. You'd be a fool to trust anything within the Wraith's castle to be entirely benevolent towards you. So far since you've entered this castle, almost everything has tried it's damnedest to kill you or otherwise injure you.

You look up to the imposing double doors and know that a great danger lurks just beyond them, so just running into that danger while you've got this doubt in your head about whatever happened to you when that light entered your body and obviously made some sort of change to you would just be completely foolish. You've had your fair share of being foolish already, as well as your fair share of being beaten and pushed aside by those who were stronger than the man you were before. No, it's clear to you now that the only way you're going to ever achieve success on this path of yours is to be ruthless in your ambition.

But how are you supposed to figure out what the light did to you? While it would be a lie to say that you felt nothing change when it entered your body, it didn't actually do much beside give you a burst of emotions and the feeling of a change somewhere in your body. You try to focus on whatever changed, a strange feeling deep in your soul that wasn't there before. You increase the intensity of your focus to the highest extent you are capable of managing, entering a meditative state as you try to find out what the angel statue did to you. As you touch upon something deep within yourself, a splitting pain runs through your body, and shocks you out of your deep focus.

"Aaaaaargh!" You roar in pain as the after effect from trying to discover just what the hell happened to you rip through your body, while the damage appears to be entirely mental and your body isn't actually falling apart like it actually feels to be doing, you are still rendered almost completely immobile by the pain being wrought upon you.

You clench your fists and grit your teeth as you try to concentrate, to ignore the immense pain running through you. This? This is nothing. If you were somebody who would yield to a mere bit of pain, then what sort of a king would you be? No, it is not befitting of the supreme ruler to be stopped by something as minor as this. With a great noise of heavy exertion, you rise to your feet. The pain wracking your body has yet to stop, but you understand that you could dismiss the thing causing you pain at any time. However, it is much more beneficial to your goals right now to keep it active for as long as you are capable of managing... This... This is the Power of Control.

With a victorious laugh, you hold out your left hand and...

>Assert your control over others.
>Assert your control over yourself.
>Assert your control over the room.
>Assert your control over this world of dreams.
>Write-in...
New thread tomorrow, I guess.

>>4431247
>Assert your control over this world of dreams.

>>4431247
>Assert your control over yourself.
Do I smell a buff?

>>4431247
>Assert your control over yourself.
Being in control of himself is perfect for Arthur's ambitions.

Doesn't assuming control over this dreamworld make the most sense? We can quickly wrap shit up here and then leave when we feel like. Maybe.

>>4431273
I'd like to control the dreamworld as well, but Arthur is a bit lacking in personal security.
But even if it worked, we'd still have to directly compete with Dracula for control over it, and that would be massively taxing and avoidable if we just defeat him.

>>4431247
>>Assert your control over yourself.
The greatest power is the power over one's self.

>>4431247
>Assert your control over yourself.
Us first. All else second.

>>4431247
>Assert your control over yourself.
The man who is to rule the world must first rule themselves.

>>4432627
>>4432627
>>4432627
New Thread.