Chapter 41: How to ruin someone else's wedding pt4
Sovngarde.
"Frost!" commanded Alduin, standing in human form atop the head of Krahnahkriin, which was engulfing one of the mountain peaks of Sovngarde in a cloud of icy magic.
"More! More frost! Stop!"
Jumping off Krahnahkriin's head, Alduin found himself in the heart of the frozen blizzard. Soon, a frost dragoness landed beside him on the snow, known in the mortal world as Sister Margaret.
"Now that's more like the source of atronach power. Margaret, get to work" said Alduin, tossing Margaret a small bag of frost salt. "There are twenty measures in here."
"Five atronachs" said Margaret thoughtfully. "Shall I begin?"
"Go ahead." Said Alduin with a nod.
Dividing the frost salts into five equal parts, Margaret began reciting the spell. With each word she spoke, glowing clusters of air appeared over the handfuls of salt, their brightness growing. After a while, the snow on the mountaintop rushed into the clusters, pulling the frost salts in with it. Once all the salt was inside the mixture of air, magic, and snow, the glow crystallized and took on a humanoid form.
"How are you?" asked Alduin, momentarily distracted from watching the humanoid ice giants.
"Even as Dovah, it's very difficult to create atronachs with such magical background as this. Even proximity to Aetherius doesn't make this task any easier" Margaret replied, trying to catch her breath.
"You've done well, Krahnahkriin" Alduin said proudly. "Rest here for a day and watch over the atronachs. Tomorrow, I'll take you to Walburga."
"Yes, my lord." Krahnahkriin said as she bowed her head.
Gremory Clan's country villa. The fifth day of training.
Watching the head of the Occult Club train his servants, especially his brother, Alduin couldn't help but smile. What the Rias Gremory family was hoping to achieve by offering up the Ranking Game, Alduin didn't know, but it was obvious that Phoenix would have crushed Gremory in numbers alone.
"Gremory, I can understand your desire to make my brother stronger. Hell, I even put up with your queen's pestering to 'show off a few little tricks'" Alduin said, making air quotes with his fingers as he watched Issei doing push-ups.
"And notice that I kept silent when we were on our way here, loaded with all sorts of junk. But perhaps it's worth teaching Issei how to swing his fists or a club properly, rather than just training his endurance?"
"When you say 'kept silent' you mean the fact that you whipped Issei while sitting on his bag and encouraged him with unprintable words, Tatsumi-kun?" said Akeno, who had sat down next to Alduin on the veranda.
"As for your brother, his sacred gear doubles his strength every ten seconds, and the only limit to how strong its owner can become is the body's endurance. The stronger it is, the more amplification Issei can withstand."
"So that's what this is all about. Why don't we try using my method then?" Alduin asked, recalling the appropriate summoning spell. Yesterday, when he accidentally overheard Akeno explaining the principle of diabolic magic to Issei and Asia, he came up with a way to make spells of the School of Conjuration work.
Diabolic magic was based on imagination, and to use it well, one needed a clear idea of the desired result. Summoning spells, on the other hand, sent a mental call not to a specific object, but to a multitude of similar objects, and any representative of that group could respond to that call. For example, if a fire atronach was summoned, it could respond from any of the planes of Oblivion where they existed.
However, there were also spells for summoning specific creatures, mostly higher daedra, which required a clear idea of the object being summoned. And it was precisely with a clear idea of the desired object that Alduin's daedric sword summoning spell worked. He just focused on the blade from the Dragonborn's inventory. And by pouring more magic into the spell, he was able to transport that blade through the abyss separating Sovngarde and Nirn. Discontinuing the spell's sustenance resulted in the same effect as when summoning the shadow of the blade or the original. The original returned to its place in Sovngarde, while the shadow simply dissipated.
"What method?" Rias asked, sitting on Issei's back as he pushed himself up with an expression of unreadable lust.
"Lend me my brother, and you'll find out" Alduin smiled, making Issei's skin crawl.
"And what do i have to do?" asked Issei cautiously, while standing up and taking a few steps away. Just in case.
Alduin's smile grew wide as he lifted his hand, which was engulfed in a vivid purple aura.
"Survive" he said with satisfaction. With a snap of his fingers, a purple flash next to him conjured up an ice atronach that ran towards Issei, waving its club-like arms.
Issei stared at the rapidly approaching monster with his eyes wide and jaw slack in terror, until his mind made the only logical decision. Run!
"Don't worry, Asia will patch you up!" Alduin shouted after the fleeing Issei.
"Hyodo-kun, what if something happens to Issei?" exclaimed Rias.
"Then Asia or I will heal him. This ice block has been given strict orders not to kill, only to injure. After all, the more dangerous the situation, the faster we learn." he replied.
"Ara, you're so cruel to your brother" Akeno said, licking her lips with a strange smile on her face. "I like it."
"If he can hold out against one for more than an hour, he'll be able to run from two. Then three and so on" he added.
Issei managed to last for over an hour only after three days, when he figured out, or more likely, someone suggested to him, to use his sacred gear. As a result, he was now running from three ice atronachs, constantly complaining to Rias.
Rias, however, seeing how Issei managed to increase the number of his power-ups from three to ten in three days, only comforted him but did not rush to cancel this training. The artifact glove on Issei's left hand grew larger, and four days before the Rating Game, he announced that he was able to communicate with the dragon imprisoned in his sacred gear.
By the end of the two weeks allotted for preparation for the Rating Game, Issei had mastered the Balance Breaker, though he could only maintain it for fifteen seconds.
Meanwhile, Alduin wondered what he would use to deal with Riser's servants. Walburga had reported that Hell was buzzing like a beehive after the scroll was stolen, to the extent that information about dragon attacks on one of the most secure laboratories in Hell had leaked to other realms. And in order not to ruin the relationships that had not even formed yet, he would have to give up on the full Shout of Unrelenting Force and Fire Breath Thu'ums. His favorite Thu'ums.
Mentally slapping himself for his impulsiveness, Alduin began to think about what piece of steel he could wield during the Rating Game.
At night before the game, Alduin stepped outside to get away from the villa and venture into Sovngarde to check on the Dovahkiin's supplies. However, he overheard a conversation between Rias Gremory and his brother that delayed him a bit.
"...But we're up against Phenex. The sacred beast, the immortal bird. Despite being a clan of devils, they descended from phoenixes, preserving their legendary ability - immortality."
"Immortality? Is that even possible?" Issei was surprised.
"Yes. Thanks to their regeneration, they're practically invulnerable. It's the reason why the Phenex clan quickly rose in the rankings of the Game when it became popular. It's hard to lose when you're immortal."
"Sorry. It's my fault that you were challenged."
"No, it wasn't your fault. If anything, it made it possible to get right to the point. My father thinks I'll lose, that's why he set up this game."
"Um, President, why are you against the wedding?"
"I'm the daughter of the Gremory clan. They've never seen me as an individual. I've always been a Gremory, and to Raiser Phoenix, I'm important as a Gremory first and foremost, not as Rias. I'm proud of my clan, but I want my chosen one to love me, not the connections to my clan."
"I would love you regardless of your name and status" Issei interrupted Rias, "I don't know anything about devils and their hierarchy, but I'm standing here looking at you... Rias-sempai, you're the best..."
Alduin didn't listen any further, as he cloaked himself in invisibility and silently left the villa's territory.
"Oh, I see. I thought my little brother was so eager to protect Gremory just to keep that chicken from touching her breasts, but it turns out it's not that simple. It seems like my brother has fallen in love. At least, his state seems to match what they call 'first love' in the books. If that's the case, then may luck be on his side, he'll need it" Alduin thought, opening a portal to Sovngarde.
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