Souls Online: Mythic Ascension
Chapter 278: Army of Elise (II)

Chapter 278: Army of Elise (II)

Adam’s body burned with rage as he charged at Elise yet his head remained cool. He couldn’t afford to rush in without a plan. Despite the complaints about his body becoming more and more chimeric, the bone limbs had proven more than useful as he dextrously used them to fend off Elise’s summoned monsters.

That was when something that didn’t seem right came to Adam’s mind. Where had these supposed ’summons’ come from? Nothing had burst out of any of the graves like that, in fact Elise had lashed out with her tentacles and sent them into the ground before everything truly started.

He glanced at Elise and scanned her with analysis. The result caused him to burst out in a mocking laugh.

"Alone to the very end aren’t you, Sister!"

The last word was spat out as if it tasted of sewage and rotten meat.

BOSS: Demon of Companionship (Abomination)

Unique Rank

Name: Elise

Age: 35

Level: 15(?)

Status: Parasitized

HP: 43,763/50,000

MP: ?/?

ATK: 0

MATK: 0

DEF:100,000,000

MDEF: 100,000,000

Dodge: 0

Strength: 20

Endurance: 999

Agility: 0

Dexterity: 30

Intelligence: 40

Wisdom: 0

Charisma: 0

Luck: -99

Skills: Audience for the Unworthy, Invitation to Suffer, Army of One, Suffer Together, Commandment of Friendship. Woe is me.

He realized why she didn’t attack him outright from the get go. She would have had a better chance of getting him with a sneak attack. It’s not that she didn’t want to. It was because she couldn’t!

Her health bar was also tied to her minions. Killing them would eventually kill her. His only regret was that it would practically be impossible for him to crack her defence.

Adam’s grin widened as the pieces finally fell into place. She wasn’t summoning at all. She was using her own body! The tentacles hadn’t just pierced the ground randomly. They had been planting, self propagating and spreading like a disease. These things weren’t pulled from some hellish realm. They had been twisted into existence through her own body, her own life force. They were fragments of her, shards torn from whatever remained of Elise.

"Army of One... you really weren’t kidding with that one," he muttered, eyes narrowing.

One of the abominations lunged at him. Adam spun low, letting his bone limbs slice it apart in a single elegant sweep. Bits of the creature splattered against the cemetery wall. At the same time, Elise flinched violently in the air, her body shuddering as her health bar ticked down slightly.

He didn’t need to beat her defenses. He needed to butcher her friends.

Another beast charged him, a twisted hound with a crown of thorns fused into its skull. Its jaw snapped too wide, like a snake unhinging to swallow him whole. He ducked under it and drove his dagger upward, letting his arachnid limbs anchor him as he kicked off the creature’s chest and vaulted backward.

[-437]

Elise hissed in pain and reeled, her slime coiling tighter around her limbs. The parasites that gave her form had no interest in nobility or pride. They only cared about survival.

Adam pointed his dagger at her, face twisted in cruel satisfaction.

"Some Demon of Companionship you turned out to be. The only thing by your side is rot and puppets that can’t even scream for themselves."

Her head jerked around. The fake smile on her lips stretched far too wide now. Her eye boiled in its socket as it rolled toward him, full of hatred.

"You... peasant..." she gurgled.

Another wave of creatures burst from the corrupted soil. But now Adam knew what they were. Not a summon. Not a spell. Just pieces of her, desperate to belong to anything.

And he was going to cut every last one of them down.

Leo’s voice came from behind him, clipped and clear. "You figured it out?"

"Yeah," Adam said without looking back. "She’s hollow. Everything we kill eats her alive from the inside."

"Then let’s give her the attention she’s begging for," Rachel said, vaulting over a broken statue.

Crystal was already carving through a wall of flesh and bone, her blade a blur. Greg, halfway between his largest form and normal, swung a metal-covered fist through three creatures at once, scattering them like bowling pins.

Aria’s voice rang out again, high and sharp, driving them forward. Her melody shifted. Urgent now. Less of a song and more of a command. They obeyed.

Penny stayed crouched behind the gravestone, gripping Moku to her chest with shaking arms as she watched the battlefield change. She could see Elise unraveling. Not physically. Emotionally. The heiress mask was cracking. Her movements were erratic. Her words lost all of their regal weight.

"Stop looking at me like that. Stop it!" Elise shrieked. "You’re nothing. You’re all nothing!"

Leo couldn’t help but laugh a little as he covered Adam’s back with a barrage of gunfire as the latter kept slaughtering the minions as close as he could to Elise herself.

"If we’re nothing, doesn’t that mean you are dying for nothing?"

Rachel who was nearby, spinning her staff around her like a whirlwind chortled

"I heard that! Am I rubbing off on you~?"

Leo rolled his eyes in response.

"Yeah. That will be the day!"

"Can we have less talking, more killing please?!"

Luna asked as she swung her axe, cleaving a bear-like monster in half from head to crotch. She was covered in the black ichor the monsters spewed but seemed relatively unaffected if one disregarded the look of sheer displeasure on her face.

Elise hovered above the battlefield, slime writhing across her body like a nest of worms. Her eye bulged as more of her health slipped away with every abomination her so-called companions destroyed.

Below her, the group fought with terrifying coordination. Crystal was a blur of precision, carving a path through the flesh wall. Greg crushed anything in his way with bone-cracking punches. Rachel danced through the chaos, laughing as she spun her staff like a ribbon of death. Leo and Adam moved in tandem, covering each other with gunfire and bone limbs, never once hesitating.

And they were talking.

Chatting.

Joking.

Elise’s lip curled as she watched them. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. They were supposed to be afraid. They were supposed to break.

She raised her arms, screeching over the din, voice cracking with fury. "Why are you talking like that?! Why are you laughing?! This is war! This is despair! You should be begging for mercy!"

Nobody stopped. Nobody even looked at her.

"Look at me!" she shrieked, her voice rising to a pitch that made even the nearest monsters hesitate. "I am the Demon of Companionship! I am your better!"

Luna shoved her axe into the skull of another creature and yanked it free with a grunt. "You really think shouting your title makes it true?"

They all recognized it. Just like every other Demon before it, their title was the farthest thing from what they were.

And as the Demon of Companionship, Elise could not be any more alone.