God of Trash

Chapter 187. New Sword, Who Dis?

They’d been in the woods all morning, waiting in their predetermined spots for the ambushees to show up. Most of them had thought it was somewhat stupid to try and enact an ambush, with no ability to disguise their auras, but when Madame Quast asked for an ambush, you complied, you didn’t ask why or tell her she had a bad idea. Since she’d started following that sketchy alchemical manual, her power had skyrocketed, but her brainpower and sanity had plummeted. She’d transformed from the largely-rational, if somewhat unnecessarily cruel Shinko Quast, to the aggressive and a little bit cuckoo Madame Quast. They all knew she was destined for a bad end, but until that day came, all they could do was grin and bear it.“Hey, is Gus back yet? Didn’t he say he was going to go deal with that kid?” Tiana asked.

“No… I lost track of his signature a while back,” Anders responded.

“That isn’t good,” Tiana muttered, looking around her.

A dark shadow materialized behind her, holding a strange sword that wobbled on the wind.

“Tiana!”

He only had enough time to scream before the boy struck home, slamming the sword through Tiana’s chest. Anders rushed forward, only for the sword to surge through her chest and seek him out, as though with a mind of its own. He threw himself backward and managed to dodge a center-mass hit, though the sword scraped by his arm, leaving a purple-black mark behind it. The mark expanded, chewing a hole into his bicep. The young man flicked his sword, cutting it through Tiana’s decaying body as much as sliding her off of it, and darted after Anders. He had enough time to raise his sword with his good hand before the blow landed, but to no avail. The young man’s flexible sword bent around his blade and sought out his heart nonetheless. He felt the pain of corruption, and then nothing at all.

Rhys looked at his new sword appraisingly, constantly amazed at how good it was. It was making these battles with Tier 3s downright laughable. He knelt, absorbing the two newest victims before their energy could dissipate. The upside of an easy battle was that their bodies had more energy, since they had no time to expend their mana. He could easily re-core half the mages back home with this kind of energy, and maybe even look at upgrading a few of them, too… though he knew he’d be better off expanding his low-level mage base and training them a little, so he could offload more of his work. Rather than getting a few more Tier 2s, he needed to get Mouse and Lira up to Tier 3, and maybe work on raising himself to Tier 4.

Two signatures closed in on him. Rhys kicked off, dashing into the woods. Even if the new sword made things trivial, he wasn’t going to stand around for other people to get an opening shot off on him. He had no illusions about his chances if the opponent got a shot off in whatever their path was; it would turn a trivial battle into a real battle and might even seriously wound him, neither of which he wanted to deal with when he had a battle with a Tier 4 on the horizon. That signature hadn’t moved, for some reason; he wasn’t sure whether to be worried, or laugh it off.

On one hand, he didn’t need to worry about her (he assumed the boss was the woman on the magical walkie-talkie) attacking while he was dealing with a bunch of Tier 3s at the same time, but on the other hand, she could very well be preparing a dangerous technique that took some time to activate, but which would oko him when it hit. He’d read enough trashy manga to know just how serious the boss not entering the battle until the very end could be. Let’s finish this up quickly and go fight the boss. One way or another, the sooner he fought the boss, the better it would be for him, and for everyone else (on his side, anyways).

Fire raced through the trees. He jumped to the side, but it turned and chased after him, revealing the form of a rabbit composed of flames. The rabbit leaped at his chest, and he slashed into it, cutting it apart.hat hadn’t moved since the start. I hope Mouse and Lira are still okay. And still waiting, and not panicking that I haven’t called back, he thought, as he closed in on the Tier 4. He’d really thought walkie-talkie lady would be closer to the portal, but wisely, she’d been quite some distance from it.

But now he’d cleared out the forest, and, from the familiar Tier 3 signature closing in on him from behind, Sable had dealt with her men, too. He turned his eyes ahead. One left. One last powerful core to add to his stores of power.