922: Wolfking, Fanaticism, Wisdom

『Fran! Sorry to keep you waiting!』

「I barely waited at all.」

I felt like I was gone for ages after diving into my mental world, but it seems like it only lasted a few minutes in reality.

Well, in those few minutes, the battlefield certainly changed drastically!

Fran had already moved quite a distance away from the walls, and was completely surrounded by antidemons. To Fran as she is now though, this only made things simpler for her.

She needed to avoid blowing up our comrades, after all.

「Teryaah!」

When I got back, she was in the middle of annihilating the entire vicinity with black lightning.

（Master, ready?）

『Yeah!』

I understood the full extent of Fran’s evolution the moment she grabbed my hilt. It wasn’t just a boost to her stats, but her swordsmans.h.i.+p as well.

I felt a strange high, just like when Fran wielded me in her Sword G.o.d Transformation state.

『Swing me around as much as you want now!』

「Nn!」

Fran pulled me out from her back and used that momentum for a swing. This was a simple slash with a bit of mana applied, but it exceeded the power of your average holy sword art.

「Haaah!」

『Hahaha! Amazing! You’re just plain amazing, Fran!』

「Nn!」

So this is Divine Beast Form’s true potential! I thought we were going fast earlier, but she was just getting warmed up! Such terrifying speed!

Fran moved so fast that even her afterimages got left in the dust. She deleted countless antidemons with every swing, and the shockwave of those swings blasted away countless more.

Meanwhile, she left a veritable storm of black lightning in her wake, electrocuting those who were spared.

We were literally unbeatable. It didn’t matter if the antidemons were black or red, they might as well have been goblins.

Fran continued swinging me at every antidemon that caught her eye, each of them erased instantly.

「Master! This is! This is so much fun!」

『Y-You sure seem happy!』

「Nn!」

Fran was smiling, way more excited than usual. That seems to be a side-effect of the Divine Beast Form too.

I’m guessing it’s a combination of the elation of having gained such enormous power, as well as the increased aggressiveness at becoming closer to a beast.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen her smile this much.

（Hey, Master! What kinda power did you get?）

『Oh, you wanna see?』

（Nn!）

『Okay. Let me show you the skills I got!』

（Yay!）

Looks like I’m getting a bit excited too. Maybe the song of adventurers inspires excitement in the listeners as well.

『Here we go! Skill [Wolfking] activate!』

Woos.h.!.+

I felt a tremendous amount of mana drain out of me. Well, I mean, it would have been a tremendous amount.

But for me as I am now, it’s practically nothing.

「Hmm?」

Black mana covered Fran, taking the form of a thin veil over her entire body.

The black veil felt different from the nastiness of evil energy, or the ferocity of her black lightning. I guess you could say it had a kinda regal air?

Clad in black mana, Fran gave off an aura of dignity and stature that would make one naturally want to follow her. This was very similar to the aura Fenrir gave off.

The Wolfking skill was an enhancement skill making use of Fenrir’s mana, but that’s not the only thing it did.

Something also changed on my side. My decorative cord grew and branched out at a tremendous speed. At the same time, I could see the branches beginning to intertwine with each other, and forming some kind of shape.

And as they took form, some threads branched out further into even more shapes, which also kept getting larger. Now, it looked like there was a huge bunch of grapes lying next to me.

Each of the grapes enlarged, before snapping away from the bunch after reaching max size.

「「「 Grrr! 」」」

「Metal wolves?」

『This is the power of Wolfking.』

I produced several metal wolves, each about five meters in length. Their intimidating appearance gave me a sense of deja vu.

『That’s…… That’s me from back then!』

Back when I stole Ashwrath’s Mad Ogre with Skilltaker, I went out of control. I had activated Potential Release, then turned into a metal wolf to a.s.sault Kiara and the others.

To be honest, my memories of the incident were kinda blurry, but I still remember what I looked like. These wolves took a very similar shape.

The Wolfking skill strengthens my wielder with Fenrir’s mana, and also creates these metal wolves.

Just as the name implies, it turns my wielder into the king of wolves. Perhaps it’s supposed to reflect how wolves form packs.

『Get ‘em!』

「Graaah!」

「Wow, so cool!」

The metal wolves were quite formidable. Their fangs and claws easily tore the antidemons apart, and their armor repelled the strikes from lower-cla.s.s antidemons. Few antidemons could keep up with the speed of their movements, so the wolves shredded them without much resistance.

As a pack, they would be capable of going head-to-head with Urus.h.i.+ before he got enhanced by Oratorio. Well, they wouldn’t win though.

（Are you controlling all of them?）

『That’s about half true.』

These metal wolves acted as autonomous familiars, thinking and moving by themselves. They’re pretty much robots, so they weren’t capable of conscious thought.

However, all the metal wolves were connected to me. They generally acted on their own, but I could also order them manually. And right now, I exercised complete control over all of them.

Normally this kind of control would be impossible for me. I do have the Parallel Processing skill, but that’s not nearly adequate for such a feat.

What made this possible was combining my Fanaticism skill and Wisdom skill with Wolfking. The metal wolves created by Wolfking were all connected through Fanaticism, and Wisdom allowed me to control them perfectly.

Wisdom was the skill inherited from Cherubim――aka Announcer-san. Everyone always talks about it being a divine sword capable of accessing and rewriting information in the divine domain. That’s what it’s known for, but I have to say its processing power was pretty insane too.

After all, it has the information processing ability to instantly find and select the desired information from a library containing all the information in the world. Controlling ten metal wolves at the same time would be a piece of cake.

Wolfking, Fanaticism, and Wisdom. Each skill was much weaker when compared to the original.

Wolfking’s power should be stronger, and command entire legions. Fanaticism’s power should be more disgusting and abhorrent. Wisdom’s power should be way faster and smarter.

Each probably contained less than one-tenth of the original’s power. That said, by combining them, I was able to do things that never should have been possible in the first place.

『What’s more, I can do this too!』

I gave the command, and one of the metal wolves exploded. This was no self-destruction. The portion of me making up the body of the wolf turned back into steel threads, flying about and laying waste to its surroundings.

After the steel threads slew over a hundred antidemons, they took the form of a wolf again. Those wolves were still completely a part of me.

（Master, that’s so cool!）

『Heheh. I know right?』