Chapter 9-283: Buddhas and Devils (1/2)

Four Rays hit two of the devic guards with their hawk helms and metallic wings. Devic guards were made from the souls of enslaved Powered, installed in powerful bodies and made to serve eternally as warriors, as they couldn’t ascend up the steps of Buddha-hood to being an Arhat, or beyond that to one of the True Sattivas. They had silver skin, golden armor, and unflinching, complete obedience to their Buddhist masters.

They did not, however, have the ability to just dodge Rays, so I was pretty sure the Split Paired Admixtured Shardrays were not going to have much problem.

There were four Anaganis accompanying the Arhat in charge; not quite so fat, not staying in faux meditative poses, only one of them chubby. All of them had golden skin and bald heads and were clad in orange robes, while their porker of a boss was in a combination of black, orange, and gold that no doubt indicated its preferred path of ascension, which I had had an academic’s interest in that I quashed in the name of Feeding it to the Land.

The Chains tore through all fifty of its escorts. I could have accommodated a hundred, but a little overkill was fine.

Fred’s Grit cracked at the same time the circle in the sky was lighting up with acidic green light. They didn’t have any particular resistance to acidic energies, so why not abuse them? Especially when I could top it off with a concentrated Ravage to bring out the sins of their empty philosophy and its enforced slavery and sear their minds and souls with it.

Because I’m nice that way, ripping your false faith apart as you die forever, Arsehats...

The flying fatarsehat whipped about, looking not too different from a robed beach ball with a macabre-grinning head atop it, and the E-plumbum shot carrying a Greysphere buried itself inside it.

Master Fred was already in motion as it started to fall. They leapt off from Sleipner, going up as all the Buddhists came down in Baneflaming sludge, Idiot singing into their hand, Grit resolving into its Revolver form. Dark wings and darker horns sprouted from them, and a very impressive movement rate suddenly doubled as the second pair of wings blossomed. They were diving on the Arsehat as it hit the ground and rebounded with some difficulty to its short, stout legs.

It didn’t have any of the Qi-abilities it should have had, and there was a rather malevolent look deep in its eyes, the big smile more a grimace than anything as it tried to sway aside from the incoming charge.

Four wings banked and gripped the air like it was a chute. Hotfoot had no problems altering its path on a charge, and so Master Fred hit the thing at something like 200 mph.

Idiot was up, Idiot was abruptly down, a solid wall of Banefire was bisecting the golden body and its non-fancy, nope, nope, robes, the Sword completely slipping through the clapping hands that ‘should’ have caught and held the blow, and simply couldn’t deal with that level of strength. Then Master Fred crashed right into it, and despite the eight-foot bloated sucker having to weigh a good ton, they tore it right off its feet.

The reddening eyes looked down at the gun inside its mouth, and then eight rounds blew out of the magazine in less than a second.

You’d think that having eight rounds of heavy reality blowing out the back of your head would kill you, but nope, the Arsehat kept right on moving, a heavy palm knocking Master Fred to the side, trying to create some distance.

Master Fred was already performing a mid-air somersault, wings grabbing and playing with the wind as if it was solid at will. The palm hit their back as their leg extended, hooking its arm. The force of the palm basically just snapped their back up and over it, Idiot up again above it as it looked up in disbelief. Now their entire body was between it and any defense it could raise, their other foot pressing down against its other hand, wings stroking the air to keep them in absolute relative position as it tried to dodge.

This time, Idiot split its reinforced shining golden pate, Golden Armor, Divine Bones, and Sacred Flesh right in two. Take that, Body-Tempering 401!

Golden Body meets adamantine, has problems with Pierce Damage Reduction and Might 70, and, well, it wasn’t Idiot-proof, oddly.

Idiot powered right down through its skull, throat, breastbone, and ended up down somewhere in its guts, mostly because they left it there.

“The Land thanks you for your charity, O Man Ipad Me Hu Mmmm...”

The mispronunciation of the Mantra in Sattivan was exquisite, especially when fourteen different voices did it in a chaotic mess all at the same time. The entire body of the Arsehat seemed to convulse in shock and revulsion at the horror and blasphemy of what it had just heard, and that crack in composure was all that was required.

There was a huge explosion that a mere Greysphere couldn’t suppress... but could turn most of it into a pretty light show of vivus consuming a lot of Nirvanic energy that didn’t want to die, as it was supposed to reincarnate and exist forever.

Too bad, so sad.

Master Fred drifted down from above right down in front of where I was still sitting on Sleipner, four wings delivering them precisely and gently to the seat. Colorful vivus fell down all around us for a good thirty seconds, joining the burning sludge scattered all over the place. Valuables like, oh, enhanced Weapons and Armor given to the devic guards, and Prayer Beads and ear hoops of gold and rings and no, no, they were above material things, no sir... I gathered all the pious contributions from their faithful to Burn away.

“Well done,” I congratulated them. I hadn’t minded spending time each day so the Amazons, Warlocks, and Priestesses could get their time in. Sama had been chiming in from the distance to give advice to all the hackers and shooters, and they’d definitely been eager to put all the lessons to practice.

It was their first time uniting all the Pacts and hitting something with Seven Dragons swordplay and footwork. Wingwork? Worked out pretty well...

“Why don’t you ride Sleipner to keep your Lived-line intact, and chart us out a course to clean some of these Shrines to speed things up?” Master Fred asked in their layered voice, conveying all sorts of their eagerness to enjoy being a true Hunting Angel of the Heavens.

“You got it.” They could fly at least 200 mph, and wouldn’t have to hug roads, so they should be perfectly capable of keeping up with me and Sleipner. With a Land Pact, they should also be able to quickly alter the Formation’s key parts to reverse its effect.

“Thank you.” They lifted off again, flitting as easily as a moth, a hundred feet in the air in a second, swooping and shooting off to the south to the next target I had painted into the Map for all of them.

I turned my eyes back to that looming Dome as I slid forward into the lower seat I never requested, and very seldom sat in. Where would I get my nice set of shoulders to lean on if that happened?