For Mother!
Shiraori PoV:
Location: Shiraori's Current Position: The Moon Sized Body or 'Space Debris', Wide Expanse of Space
I stared blankly at the shattered scraps of the spaceship in front of me. Oops! I guess I overdid that a bit. We could have used this spaceship but whatever. I guess it can be fixed with some handy magic.
It's not my fault that this commander Vork whatever suddenly launched an attack trying to destroy our location.
Yes, I used the handy Evil Eye of Past Sight as usual to figure out what was happening the instant my spread out clones notified me of the incoming spaceships. I was just chilling while admiring the vast empty stretches of space everywhere when these guys showed up.
The Skrulls and the Brood. My first space trip and I have already run into members of different iconic marvel villain camps. Unfortunately, villain alliances end in failure most of the times unless the authors wanted to create a powerful villain camp for a challenging storyline.
Otherwise, as a 'villain' myself, I could have signed mutual restraining orders with all the other villains out there so we don't get webbed into each other's business.
To be fair, I could have just teleported us away from this little moon the second I found out in order to avoid any conflict at all, but it seems that my senses have dulled down a bit as I have not seriously fought in a long time.
Yea, it really has been a long time, huh. The last I seriously fought must have been a few years already. Even when I went on 'expeditions' with the guild members, we all fought together against boss monsters. Basically, I have not been challenged for a while.
Which is not bad, per se. It means I have done a decent job of ensuring I live. But it also means that I might be disadvantaged in a possible fight against a more powerful opponent.
By the way, those flaming rocks from a while earlier don't count as they were basically mob monsters. Neither did my spell tests in different timelines.
Even if my motto is not to underestimate those much weaker than myself, as I did claw my way up to my current strength, I did end up unilaterally crushing them. I mean, I did use a super-tier spell to instantly finish that fight.
Anyway, out of reflex I ended up opening a fissure and sending the energy beams shot towards our location back at some of the spaceships that were approaching here. Quite a few got destroyed.
I also used some of threads to make quick work of the dreadnought. It didn't seem to have enough brute force to destroy my space-laced threads, after all.
But that was not the important point!
It would cause more trouble if these guys notified their bosses. I don't want an analogue of xianxia cliché, where instead the bosses will come to clean up the messes of their subordinates. You know how if you face slap a young master, their entire ancestral line shows up for revenge. Who knows if such cliches could happen here as well?
More importantly, my loot! Those spaceships are my loot that I won fair and square by crushing them. I won't accept my victory stash being lost just like that.
So I isolated all the approaching spaceships, even the destroyed ones into another dimension. As an added bonus, they won't be able to contact the outside world either.
"I. Apologise. For. Not. Protecting. You. Myself. Lady White." Cocytus bowed and spoke in self-blame. Sophia was also clenching her fists because I used space magic myself to repel the attack instead of her.
'Don't worry. It's been a while since I have fought anyway! Those guys in Nazarick also didn't let me fight much even if I was stronger than many of them' I replied. My sickness lie might have played a part.
Not that it stopped me as I just went and killed monsters when they were offline. No one could stop me as a master of space magic. Of course, this was only during my earlier years when I joined Ainz Ooal Gown.
I just kinda chilled later on as I thought I would already be invincible in the New World. But believe it or not I went through a phase where I went around picking fights with powerful monsters. I sure was immature back then.
'I will also be fighting today. Both of you get ready as well.' I commanded without caring more about this conversation.
Since I have this chance, I might as well enjoy this light workout. According to that commander whatever, this was a small fleet with not many powerful or well-known opponents.
The Brood did not currently have the signature large numbers that made the swarm dangerous. Nor were any of the queens present.
Another way to think of it is that there are no 'named' enemies in both these fleets. So I won't be pulled into the regular bullshit Marvel shenanigans while at the same time relaxing my body.
During this period of time when we chit chatted, both the Skrull and Brood fleets approached our location. Haa, these bloodthirsty warmongers sure do love running towards danger. Luckily, no one on my side is similar to these guys.
From that commanders memories, I knew that the Skrull ships had already used up most of their energy reserves in that trick they had pulled earlier. The Brood must still have lots of excess energy reserves remaining.
Before they try anything else, I guess I'll make my move first. I opened another fissure and countless eyes peeked out from it looking towards the direction of the spaceships. These were of course more of my clones.
They simultaneously used the Evil Eye of Gluttony towards the ships and hungrily started devouring the energy from them.
Muhahaha, let's fully squeeze out every last drop of that sweet, juicy energy until their ships are useless in a fight. While this was happening, I quickly spoke to the two behind me:
'Once their ships fail, they will of course try and fight physically with us. You can choose not to hold back. It's up to you really.'
"Of course, Master! Leave the fighting to me. In fact, I will gladly crush them all, hehehe…" Sophia replied with a creepy laugh at the end.
*Thud*"You. Mean. Both. Of. Us." Cocytus slammed his halberd and spoke while exhaling cold air.
Oh, that reminds me. Don't the Brood also have weapons that target the victims minds? The ones that target subconscious fears and hatred? I doubt the guardians would succumb to that. I guess their biggest fear is something happening to me.
Cocytus's equipment granted him resistance to fear and mind-affecting effects originating from external sources and Vampy was an undead.
Although, they probably don't need it, might as well play it safe to avoid trouble. I used the [Administrator] skill and added
It seemed that they felt some sort of change happen to them thanks to gaining the new resistance skill and both of them promptly thanked me. I just waved my hand and said:
'I will take on the enemies from those seven ships. You can handle the rest.' I feel like I have communicated too much today. Even a person with exceptional communication skills like me will feel tired after interacting too much with other. Just kidding!
Moving on, two of the seven ships belonged to the Skrulls while the rest were under the Brood. There were still about a dozen more ships worth of enemies for them to split up amongst themselves.
Based on how strong these guys are from the commander's memories, I know I can fight all of them if need be but why bother. Let the kids have fun amongst themselves as well.
The clones had managed to suck them dry just in the nick of time as the ships began to deviate from their flight path. Noticing the loss of energy reserves, a massive swarm of enemies left the ships and rushed towards our general direction like an angry mob.
Some of them, specifically the Brood, did comprise of a swarm. They were insectoid alien creatures, at the end of the day.
After they exited, I just used space magic to conveniently stow away my loot. Demiurge sure will be happy with the present I'll give him. Not only the technology but even the dead bodies of all the enemies which can be raised as undead or used for other research.
Maybe I can also take some of them back alive. An alive specimen must be more valuable than a dead one right?
Anyway, I am more interested in the Brood than the Skrulls. I can totally copy their tactics for my benefit.
I mean I can become the Marvel equivalent of a Queen of Blades after absorbing the benefits of rest of the swarms in existence and then eliminating them or putting them to other uses. I can create my own version of a zerg disaster.
I won't allow anyone to tell me that's not a cool idea.
I want a swarm of my own now. I guess, the babies count as something of a swarm but not the ideal one I have in mind. I can input the beneficial adaptations of the horde, the swarm etc into the spider babies and create a fearsome spider swarm that I can unleash on annoying enemies.
Since I am setting up the persona of the 'Evil Goddess D' anyway, having another swarm under my control besides evil minions makes total sense right? Right? The more I think about it, the more I love the idea.
There won't be a Queen of Blades in this multiverse, but rather me. The terrifying goddess that spreads unending disasters to my enemies.
'For the Swarm!' Such an involuntary thought passed through my mind as my inner chunni self gushed at how cool such a scenario might be. My parallel minds nodded in approval as well. Great minds think alike after all.
My charming thoughts aside, the enemies were almost upon us. I moved towards my section of enemies and trapped many of them with microscopic threads, halting their advance.
Seemingly noticing that I had laid a trap comprising of webs, the Brood started teleporting in an attempt to approach me.
"Devour! For the hive," They growled. But damn are they ugly and disgusting. These guys would fit right into the Great Elroe Labyrinth. They have that same sort of vibe going on with a lot of the friends I fought in there.
Hmph. How dare you try and teleport in front of me, huh? You are courting death! Ahem, I mean they couldn't harm me in any shape or form as I was the superior space manipulator.
I used Evil Eye of Static and Evil Eye of Extinction simultaneously disintegrating the ones who teleported towards me from existence before closing my eyes again. That was probably overkill.
Note to self, don't use the more powerful evil eyes like Evil Eye of Extinction needlessly. I still want their bodies. There's still plenty of them around so that's not an issue.
Another member of the brood teleported behind me and tried to bite me while another used those mind manipulating guns to attack my mind. Sorry, but that's useless. I have no blind spots due to [Fluoroscopy].
I just used a sickle on the spider part of my body to rip that brood apart before killing the other one with some convenient threads. I am not using my boundary field as it seems unnecessary.
At the same time, some Skrulls modified their bodies to have a pair of wings on their back and morphed their body parts into weapons. They flew over and slashed at me while growling one after another.
I easily dodged the attack of the first Skrull before punching its head off with a single strike. This was followed by catching two other Skrulls and slamming them together. I did have physical strength beyond the system.
The energy blasts they hurled towards me were of course sent back to them with some convenient dimensional magecraft.
Opening my eyes again, I simultaneously used Evil Eye of Static and Grudge on the enemies directly in front of me. They stood frozen where they were as their stats were sapped away and added to my own. Since there was no system here, it was more like sapping away life force of the opponent.
Other projectile attacks were intercepted by my Attract-Repulse Evil Eyes. Evil Eye skills sure are convenient, huh. They are perfect to be spammed against a horde of enemies like this one.
'[Triplet Maximize Magic: Reality Slash]' I cast the YGGDRASIL spell as the fabric of space was cleaved killing enemies that once again approached me by manoeuvring away from all the obstacles in their path.
YGGDRASIL's magic system did make magic a lot easier. I can use conjuring to cast a similar space magic to [Reality Slash] but it takes unnecessary effort. If there was a convenient YGGDRASIL spell available for what I required, I would use it.
I once again used magecraft and rain down multiple bullets of darkness penetrating huge swathes of the swarm and killing them.
Hmm, let's also check how the others are doing. It shouldn't be difficult for them to fight these guys. I focused my vision towards Sophia after delegating my parallel minds control of my body.
What I saw was loads of zombies created from Skrulls attacking the swarm. Hum, it seems she used the [Undead King] skill. As for Sophia:
"Die! Die! DIEE.." She shouted while crazily swinging her sword. Yea, let's not bother about her.
On the other hand, there were tons of Skrulls frozen around Cocytus while he swung down his halberd without hesitation, killing enemies in the process. It seems he was not paying attention to that whole honouring the opponent stuff today.
Perhaps being an insectoid being himself, he felt like crushing the Brood to prove his superiority? Or maybe it's because I am here.
I switched my focus back to my own fight. I could just use some destructive magic or even super-tier spells and quickly end the fight but I was reluctant to do so.
I know! Let the brats also enjoy fighting. This can be training for them to become my personal swarm in the future. After I had this thought, I quickly got to work.
I had to play the part I had to play after all. Might as well start practising now. I switched back to my human form.
I used magic to change my appearance to that of a high school girl with waist-length, straight black hair and eyes of various colours. My clothes changed to a school uniform and a pair of glasses as shadows shrouded me leaving behind only a grin visible on my face.
I then looked towards the brats who started crawling out from other pocket dimensions. They had also been shrouded in my magic to look a dark version of themselves. Everything had to follow a certain theme!
'Kill them all! This is your first training session to become a worthy arachnid disaster for me. For the swarm!' Muheheh. All my parallel minds were laughing inside crazily while thinking about how cool all of this is.
I can just tell Cocytus not to kill any more of his set of enemies and apprehend them alive while using my set to train the brats.
The babies looked towards Brood while ignoring the few remaining Skrulls as if feeling challenged and declared loudly:
"For Mother!" And then they started charging towards the confused Brood.
There's still lots more to be achieved for making the dream of creating a swarm a reality. I should thank the Brood for appearing in front of me right? They did inspire me with a new impromptu idea.
Well, for now I'll just sit back and watch my swarm undergo its first step of training.
***
~Hope you enjoyed reading!