"Demonwire Penetrator."
Charybdis, which hadn't visibly or immediately responded to anything thus far, immediately gave an earth-shaking roar, as it felt the pain from Soei's most damaging Thread Art. Probably the first pain it'd felt in a long time.
Immediately, the beast's scales began flying off at bullet-like speeds, indiscriminately hitting anything in their way. I was forced to eat all of the scales near Benimaru and I.
Meanwhile, the others weren't having it as easy. (Except for Risa, who could eat the scales like I could, and Milim, who the scales mysteriously all missed.)
"Soei!" I shouted, watching all ten Soeis disappear.
'Do not worry, my lord. I merely lost four of my Replications.'
Dang. Insta-killing four Soeis. That's some serious power.
'Report. Charybdis energy levels… Roughly 2% lower than prior.' All of that, and we'd only done 2% worth of damage? Well, at least we'd done something.
And we'd learned about its scale-shot attack. That could've seriously damaged the Pegasus Knights if they'd not known about it beforehand. We even had a couple injuries. Apparently, the biggest injury had been Gabil, who'd had his leg smashed for an instant. (I say an instant because he'd had a pouch of Full Potions on his waist, which had been the main things that got damaged. According to him, the Charybdis scale that hit him barely even cracked his scales.)
…
(Risa POV)
"I really hate this." I muttered, sitting in Milim's lap in slime form. It'd been ten hours since we began this fight against Charybdis. Basically, we'd completely given up on outright killing the thing, instead moving to a war of attrition, using potions to keep going. Unfortunately, Potions couldn't fully restore the energy of anyone actually capable of damaging Charybdis, so we were working on shifts, with a quarter of us resting while the other three quarters attacked. Big Bro and I were switching out, keeping the fight up, since Big Bro was the only one who could actually stop all of Charybdis's scales, with his Gluttony.
"At least you're… what, halfway there or so?" Milim gauged, using her Dragon's Eye.
"Only halfway…!!" I whined. "The only thing that works on this dude is magic, but he just drains it!"
'Risa, you're up.'
"Okay, Big Bro! This is so stupid, by the way!" The stupid fish did the same thing, over and over again. Its scales were sharp and fast, enough to rip someone in two if they weren't paying attention, but it only had the two ways of attack, and it did the scale one in a regular, predictable interval. There wasn't anything new, nothing exciting about this battle. It was just really boring work.
'Wait! Risa, Milim, did you hear that?'
"Umm… Yeah. Lemme take a look here." Milim lazily looked at Charybdis, using her Dragon Eye on a deeper level than she'd bothered to do before. "Oh. Looks like Charybdis is using that Phobio guy as a core. Seems he's tracking me for some reason!"
'Yeah. So, I was keeping you outta this 'cause I thought he was here for us, but…'
"You're saying that i can tackle it, since it's here for me!?" Milim exclaimed, jumping to her feet excitedly, with me still in her arms.
"Milim-! Squeezing… too… tight-!"
"Oops! Sorry, Risa! Rimuru, you sure? Like totally, completely sure sure?!" Milim wanted confirmation before she destroyed it. Luckily for everyone involved, Big Bro had no problems giving it. In fact, he was not-so-secretly very relieved that we didn't have to deal with Charybdis any longer.
'Yeah. I'm the one that should be sorry here, keeping you from your guest for so long. But…' Big Bro immediately handed off all responsibilities, but…
"You want that Phobio guy safe, right, Rimuru?!" Milim instantly guessed what Big Bro was after.
'Think you can do it?'
"No problem! More controlled is stronger, right? I learned that from Risa, so I can do this!" Milim hopped off of the ground, hovering in front of Charybdis.
'Mmm…' It seemed something was eating at Big Bro, but whatever. Letting me go so that she had her hands free, Milim excitedly thrust her hands out in front of her, her clothes having changed to her usual skimpy outfit mid-flight.
"LET ME SHOW YOU WHAT RESTRAINT LOOKS LIKE! DRAGO-NOVA!"
Restraint? Milim actually was restraining herself beautifully with that attack, but it sure didn't look like it. An innumerable number of small energy blasts dispersed from Milim's hands like beautiful, twinkling stars, flying toward Charybdis in an awe-inspiring array. But every single one that landed on Charybdis did incredible damage, eating away at the giant fish. When the lights cleared from the sky, nothing remained of Charybdis, except its core. The majin, Phobio.
…
(Rimuru POV)
Incredible, devastating, and absolute. Milim kept her promise… that must've been holding back for her, in a way… Yeah, if I attempted to connect that display to the term 'holding back,' the wheels in my brain would just keep spinning forever, huh? Not even Wise One could analyze anything about it.
Once Charybdis had disappeared, I made sure to catch Phobio before he hit the ground. He was barely holding on to life at this point, and Charybdis had managed to almost completely overtake whatever was left of him. Which was why I needed to separate them.
Luckily, I had the Unique Skill, Deviant to separate Charybdis from Phobio, and my Gluttony to absorb whatever parts I separated. Running the skills in parallel felt like doing surgery, but eventually I managed.
'Report. Magic core of individual Charybdis successfully separated from individual Phobio. Consuming and isolating core. Analyzing core… Partially failed. Continuing analysis. Permission to run tests on core of individual Charybdis?'
Sure, whatever. Give me the rundown later.
…
(Risa POV)
After Big Bro sprinkled a bit of potion onto Phobio to ensure that he didn't die, the captain of the Pegasus knights walked up to him and asked about the magical weapon that he'd used to defeat Charybdis.
"Umm… The demon lord, Milim? It's her…" Big Bro said weakly, pointing at Milim.
"Ha-ha-ha. Not a funny joke, Sir Rimuru."
"It's not a joke! I'm a real demon lord, dammit!"
"Well, if you had a magical weapon like that, I wish you would have informed me in advance! We'll be expecting a real explanation later."
"Don't ignore mee!"
"Still, I'll let it slide. Whatever you did to defeat Charybdis is a stroke of good luck. That thing could have caused untold devastation." The knight captain said, "Well, if you would excuse me, I'd better report to his majesty."
"Thank you for your help." Big Bro told him, "I promise to provide the proper explanations to King Gazel shortly."