One of the paladins noticed him and stood up drawing his weapon. “Nothing will stop us from making contact with Celestia and summoning a servant of the great devine.” Kenshi put a hand on his chin and nodded. “Is that what you think you are doing?” He swapped to the staff of Merlin. “I had no intention of stopping you even though I'm fairly sure whatever comes out of that rift won't be an angel. I'll still wait patiently for you to finish. Who knows, maybe what you summon will actually be worth fighting.”
The paladins squinted, then shrugged. “You'll see. When the fruits of our devotion are ripe you'll see.” He then got back to the ritual as Kenshi waited for them to finish summoning whatever unholy abomination was altering their perception with magic to trick them into letting it in this world. Kenshi tapped his foot to the ground as he waited for what he assumed to be a demon or devil of some sort. Kenshi started to get impatient when finally the ripple turned into a tear in space and something started coming through.
The creature was large, perhaps even huge in size. It had a slightly translucent pale gray skin with its veins and arteries visible on its abdomen. Much of the rest of its body was covered in a chitin like armor that was a similar pale gray shade. It was vaguely humanoid, walking bipedal but in a stance that looked somewhat slouched. Its feet were thick, almost resembling that of a hippopotamus but was covered in chitin like a big leg and with four small evenly spaced almost triangular shapes coming off legs in a way that made one imagine them to be toes.
Coming off the side of its large naturally armored chest were four arms, two on each side. There were the main arms that came off what looked like a normal human shoulder structure ended in chitinous hands with two fingers and a thumb and looked almost like a skeleton with the gaps in the chitinous limb allowing one to see through a gap in the upper and lower arm. The second set of arms came off the side under the arms from the rib area and had a small ball joint. The arms themselves resemble the structure of a mantis but with two scythe-like claws on the end of each with a third folded to the arm facing the other way almost like a scythe thumb. The chitin scythes weren't proper blades but more thick blunt and serrated like crab claws.
On closer inspection one could see that each claw from this second hand looked like there were groves separating the serrated center from the sides in a way that looked like a joint that was running the wrong way. The chitin on its body was not entirely smooth and had thorn-like spike growths all throughout that almost seemed to be coming from the inside of the armor. Kenshi’s attention moved to the things head and face only to see something that looked like a short and fat worm or caterpillar of a neck the flopped forward flaccidly and had a round humanoid face that resembled a chubby person but instead of a normal mouth there was a round leech mouth and instead of one set of big round eyes it had two groups of small angular black formations that must have totaled ten eyes with five in each group.
Kenshi made a face of disgust at the creature. “That's… disturbing as fuck and definitely not an angel. I'm going to kill it with fire.” The monster oddly enough spoke in response. “Nolite timere.” It then chuckled in a way one would if they said something ironically. As if it said those words in jest. Kenshi wasn't going to stand around and wait for the abomination to attack first. He gestured the staff forward. “Fireball!” He shouted as he cast the AOE spells at high level. This took out all the Gibbering Masses and left the mages severely burned. Instead of attacking however, they cast healing magic in the monster.
The twenty paladins however moved into a formation and put up shields before tossing javelins at Kenshi. He easily dodged them but noticed magic coming off the shields creating a barrier that prevented him from casting magic behind the paladins. The strange monster laughed at the conflict and raised up one of its more human hands. A sickly green glowing ring appeared around its wrist and went out from its hand and expanded. As it moved it manifested a weapon in its right hand. A heavily serrated sword that resembled a macuahuitl.
Kenshi switched this weapon to a large two handed hammer that looked like a tenderizing hammer with an ice kick on the back that had a symbol that resembled a turtle shell but the symbol was drawn to look broken. He rushed in and slammed the shield of one of the paladins who was pushed back and staggered finding it hard to hold his shield. Kenshi then took the opening to smash downward on the paladin’s head crushing it like a melon.
The twenty mages all fired basic combat spells at Kenshi that all hit him directly without the shield up and despite each spell not doing much the damage would quickly add up if he didn't do anything about the casters. The other paladins tried to swarm and attack Kenshi but their blades and spears couldn't penetrate his armor. Kenshi swapped to the staff again and cast a second high level fireball but this time centered on himself.
All the mages fell dead and the paladins were nearly killed. Kenshi quickly downed a health potion to recover from the damage that was mostly self inflicted. The monster then reached out with its two secondary arms as it's left summoned another macuahuitl. The secondary arms each grabbed a paladin. Kenshi heard a sound that for some reason conjured the image in his mind of someone opening a soup can with a hand saw. The paladins in its claws were cut in half somehow and dropped into the monster's leech-like mouth.
The rest of the paladins, now near death, all ran back and to the side of the monster. Kenshi waited to see what would happen only for the monster to grab another two paladins and repeat the feeding. The burn marks on its body from the second fireball healing. It was recovering from the damage by consuming the paladins. The monster let out a sinister chuckle. “Nolite timere. Non est dolor post mortem.” Its wicked cackling continued.
Kenshi looked at his staff. “(I've already used the two ninth tier slots on this thing. But I'd actually do more damage if I cast a spell and used twin spell with maximize magic. Although that burns through spell slots really quickly.)” “Twin maximize magic, chain lightning!” Two bolts of lightning fire out the staff and strike the monster causing lightning to shoot off it and kill six of the remaining fifteen paladins leaving nine of them left. The monster, clearly wounded, frantically grabs and starts chopping and eating paladins leaving five left.
Kenshi chuckled. “I can do this all day. You'll run out of healing eventually. In fact, I think I'll kill what's left now. Twin maximize magic, chain lightning!” He cast the spell a second time killing the last of the paladins. The monster then finally approached Kenshi with its swords in hand and its claws at the ready. There was a scraping and clicking sound from the claws. Kenshi looked and that's when he noticed the middle part with the odd joint that made no sense at first was moving up and down rapidly like a jigsaw blade. He realized that was how it was cutting through the armor.
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
“What in the hell are you?!” The monster chuckled. “Non sum de Inferno. Nec sum de Caelo. Ego sum exsulis. Civis Purgatorii. Ego sum… Nephilim.” Kenshi was able to understand some of what it said. It was an exile, something banished to purgatory. A Nephilim. Though he didn't exactly know what that meant. “I guess what you are and where you come from doesn't matter. If you can bleed, you can die.” The monster swung at him with both swords, Kenshi barely able to dodge. It then tried to grapple him in its claws. He rapidly switched to the blood ax and shield so he could block the attacks.
Kenshi still had to back away because the saw blade effect was going to rip his weapon out of his hand. Once at a distance he tossed the ax into the monster and took the staff out again. “Twin maximize magic, ray of frost!” Six beams of ice struck the monster doing some damage. He then sent the staff away as the monster charged at him and he recalled the ax. The monster bled out of the cut as it swung its weapons and swiped with its claws wildly. “Mori! Morior! Emorior! Demorior!” After several swings were dodged, blocked, or parried; one with the club saw landed and sent Kenshi flying.
Kenshi hit a wall with a thud before hitting the floor. He staggered up, tossed the ax and brought forth the staff one more time. Twin maximize ray of fire!” Six bolts of fire strike the monster and Kenshi once again sends away the staff to recall the tossed ax, leaving a bleeding wound. As the monster rushed in to make more wild attacks that Kenshi is able to avoid, the man makes several more cuts at the monster with his ax.
Kenshi chuckled. “This is actually not a bad flight. You're definitely making me work for it.” The monster starts slamming the macuahuitl downward with Kenshi being forced to keep backwards with each attack and is only able to retaliate by tossing and recalling the ax. The monster continued to shout at him as it destroyed the floor leaving rubble everywhere trying to hit Kenshi. “Mori. Mori mori. Morimorimorimorimori!”
Kenshi moved back and recalled the ax one last time to see it bleeding profusely and huffing from its effort. Kenshi too was huffing and had collected some injuries from being slammed to a wall and knocked around by the large macuahuitl swords. The monster stumbled and lumbered forward. “Hoc non delebitur. Hoc non remittetur.” It then collapsed dead on the floor, still bleeding. Kenshi switched back to the staff to cast Dimension Door and tossed the corpse into it.
With the job done Kenshi slowly made his way back out the dungeon, grabbing the tied up people on his way out. Once outside he saw the lady paladin was still outside with a few dead gibbering masses and knocked out holy men. He sighed. “I guess I'll toss these into my Dimension Door too and we can take them into custody together.” He casts the spell and tossed the restrained people into it. “What's your name miss?”
The woman shifted back and forth for a moment before responding with her slight French accent. “Jeanne.” Kenshi nodded. “Well unfortunately some of the men died in the crossfire. Anyway, I'll teleport you to wherever we are taking these men.” The woman nodded before indicating they'll be taking them to the main temple in the country where a cardinal would handle it. Once the men and the lady were dropped off and payment received, Kenshi gave his farewells and teleported to a monster expert he knew to look at what he killed.
“Hey man, I've got something extra special today.” Kenshi announced before plopping the corpse on the floor. The expert looked it over with special glasses with multiple lenses. “I have no idea what this is. Never seen anything like it.” Kenshi grumbled. “It said something about being a Nephilim. That mean anything?” The man's eyes widened as he slowly turned to look at Kenshi. “It spoke? Are you absolutely sure that it said it was a Nephilim?” Kenshi shrugged. “It was speaking another language but I caught the words banished, purgatory, and Nephilim.”
The man places a bag of coins on the table. “Leave the corpse with me. I'll send you notes later. I want some time alone with this thing.” Kenshi nodded. “Alright then. Maybe I should have grabbed a gibbering mass too. Oh well. Not like I need the money.” He takes it anyway. “See ya later gator.” He then left the building and headed to an inn. “I need a nice long nap, and maybe a woman in my bed. The elves here definitely don't look like I expected but I'm sure they'll still be worth trying out at least once. After all, as the main character I'll build up a harem of girls from every race anyways.”
Kenshi made his way into the largest bar and inn, started paying for other people's drinks, and awkwardly hitting on female adventurers. If not for him already being publicly known as the summoned hero, they probably wouldn't give him the time of day. But because he is, they let his awkwardness slide and try to have a good time. After some drinks and light-hearted banter, Kenshi managed to talk a female light elf mage into sharing his bed that night.
They got up to the room, Kenshi stashed everything but some boxers, hopped into bed, and beckoned the lady to join him by rubbing on the blanket beside him. The light elf mage began to slowly take off her robes, her alabaster white skin surprisingly smooth looking despite the fact that elves looked somewhat insectoid. They were mammals like humans however, as evidenced by the supple but clearly present breasts. Small and close to the chest like those of a stereotypical professional runner with nipples as pale as the rest of her.
The elves' strange black eyes with blue and purple dots in a circle forming the equivalent of an iris looked away from Kenshi's gaze as she pulled the bottom of her robe and her lower underwear off revealing her thin waist. Kenshi could see her cleft of Venus and a small tuft of white hair on her pubis. The mage looked young, but since this world requires you to be an adult to join the adventurers guild he didn't think too much of it. He simply laid back as the elf woman slowly and shyly climbed into the bed above him.
Kenshi reached up and gently rubbed her pointed ears before grabbing what looked like horns on her head. Based on the texture however, were more likely antlers. He pulled her in for a kiss that she shyly returned but when he suddenly stopped she pulled back to ask what was wrong. She quickly got an answer before speaking as the man suddenly began to snore loudly. The elf eyes his ring that stashed everything magically and tried to remove it. When she found it wouldn't budge she simply laid at his side and put the blanket over them before speaking in elvish. “
Kenshi woke up in a daze, he had forgotten that he has little to no resistance to poisons like alcohol without an item. He looked over to the light elf sleeping naked next to him and did a fist pump. “(I'll definitely have to get an elf a second time so I actually remember it, but I actually managed to land a woman. Isekai life is awesome!)” Kenshi slipped out from under the covers, got dressed using his ring, and snuck out of the room. He made his way to the street and looked around with a big goofy grin on his face, ready to take on the day.
Kenshi decided to go back to the big church in Gallia to check their library to find anything he could on Nephilim. He scanned shelf after shelf but couldn't find anything. He quickly found a high cleric and pulled them to the side. “Hello, yes, hi. Summoned hero on official business. I'm looking for anything you have on Nephilim.” The man looked around then back at the hero. “Keep your voice down, this is a library. Also, for something like that you'll have to ask the archbishop or cardinal.”
Kenshi grunted and started looking for someone of higher rank to talk to. After a while he ran into Archbishop Frederick arguing with another Archbishop. “Sorry to interrupt what is likely an important debate but in my last mission I encountered a difficult to fight monster and wanted to learn more about it. Apparently the knowledge is restricted or something.” Frederick sighed. “Okay summoned hero, you've got my attention.”
Kenshi did a chop motion with his hand. “Nephilim.” Both the archbishops went pale. “That uhhh… is definitely restricted knowledge. I'll take you to the forbidden section since as the hero all our resources are at your disposal.” Frederick leads Kenshi into a basement with locked up bookshelves. Frederick opened one and grabbed three books. “This is everything. I know it's not much but it's all we have. Even recording knowledge on Nephilim was forbidden by a previous pope and only these old texts survive.”
Kenshi took the books and pages through them. He spent the next several hours reading. When he was done he closed the book and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Ugh, the first two books weren't even about Nephilim. Celestial civil wars, intermingling between angels and demons, twisted offspring that mindlessly ate people and caused chaos. What a mess.” He returned the books before making his way back out and looking for another quest worthy of his time.