Others Summon, I Forge Beast Armor

As frustrated as he could be, Derek couldn’t do anything about it at the end of the day.

Attacking another student because they did not want to surrender an item was an undeniable offense. Imagine if somebody got hurt really bad or even died.

”You see why it isn’t good to treat everything like it belongs to you?” Lucy said. ”Maybe if you make a reasonable deal, they might give you the fragments. You could offer them something valuable in return instead of bullying them.”

”Sorry, but I don’t need them anymore,” Derek replied, against their expectations.

”What?” x3

”Let him be. He’s trying to play reverse psychology on us, so we’ll give it to him,” one student said, folding his arms and looking at Derek smugly as if to challenge the very mental trick. But Derek scoffed, turned away, and walked to the Unkindly Altar.

That same student unfolded his arms, stupefied.

Prince Derek has one fragment.

The altar requires seven! How does he plan to unlock it?

”Is he planning to force the altar open?” one of them whispered.

”No... he’s going to unlock it with his summon,” Lucy replied, putting two and two together based on how confident Derek was.

At the altar, Derek approached and looked at the key shape for a while, then looked at the Abomination Slime on his shoulder, a lump of sludge, pitch-black and alive. Shortly after, he gave the slime the seventh fragment to devour.

〖Success! Your beast consumed a spiritual conduit!〗

〖Please wait 9:59 min. for your beast to absorb attributes!〗

”I wonder what they would be,” Derek thought. ”But for now, Modred, take the shape of this key mould and mimic the properties...”

The slime was happy to do this.

It flowed from Derek’s shoulder and spread across his arm, then formed the full shape of all seven fragments. Then it compressed itself around the piece, copying every edge and indentation until it looked like the whole key—just black in color.

That’s when Lucy confirmed her suspicions.

”Derek!” she yelled as she ran to get him. But she was too late.

BOOOOOOM!

An explosion from the same altar, so fatal, it threw everyone anywhere it wanted, sending all six students rolling and groaning. Lucy herself crashed into a pipe and broke her spine, but since she was the mistress of the Malefic Spider, the contract undid the damage.

Meanwhile, Derek received the worst of the explosion because he was nearest to the altar, yet how he wasn’t killed was a mystery.

〖Congratulations! You have found the Unkindly—〗

〖ERROR...〗

〖ERROR...〗

〖System malfunction detected.〗

Everyone froze while trying to get up.

〖Guardian parameters have been corrupted.〗

〖Warning: Guardian strength may exceed the original specification by up to 10×.〗

.

”Ten times?”

Lucy pushed herself up, her face pale because she feared the worst.

Derek’s own system displayed the same warning, but he was very concerned about his summon, whom he put in the key mould. Later, Derek found Mordred crawling from under a rock, damaged and gooey, but it was healing itself.

”Mordred, you’ll be fine. Something went wrong, but I doubt it’s our fault...”

〖Unkindly Guardian detected.〗

〖Guardian: Unkindly Cockatrice.〗

”Cockatrice? I thought it was a Basilisk.” Derek wondered, looking at the altar for the guardian, who just appeared as promised immediately the altar is unlocked.

Bird upper body. Reptilian lower body. Thick legs with talons, and the tail of a wyvern or maybe a dragon.

Black feathers and signs of dragon wings somewhere—the Unkindly Cockatrice showed what little of itself could be seen. And the fact that not every part of it could be seen is what gave it horror.

This was not an ordinary creature. It looked corrupted and modified. Its presence altered everything around, starting from the chamber that couldn’t even contain its size.

Somewhere, Lucy trembled in fear with the other students as this catastrophe manifested, but she was also angry because she knew why.

”Derek, you idiot. You made your slime copy the key shape, not knowing the key has unique innate properties. Now your slime has interacted with the altar incorrectly...!”

The seven fragments that make up the key definitely had magic.

The Abomination Slime can mimic the shape of the key, but it can’t accurately mimic the magic, so when Derek asked his slime to act as the key, the Abomination Slime must donate its magic to the altar for it to work.

That’s why the Unkindly Cockatrice spawned, a guardian ten times stronger than intended.

It’s a result of the taboo in Derek’s slime!

Now, how were they supposed to defeat something that was created wrongly and empowered leagues beyond its prototype?

The Unkindly Cockatrice is very savage and is the incarnation of the word malice. Cruel and unforgiving, it lowered its head and roared as loudly as possible while its dragon wings flapped in the darkness.

The chamber trembled in its shadow, and yet, so gripped in fear, Lucy knew she must fight.

”Everyone! Let’s be careful! This is a big one... If we can attack it together, we might have a chance. Lilith, go!”

She gripped her scythe as Lilith was in front, running to the Guardian. Lucy thought she just rallied the students, but the silence behind her said otherwise. And when she looked back, she found out that they and their beasts had turned to stone as a result of the Unkindly Cockatrice’s Petrification.

Lucy was shocked, and her body trembled because she wasn’t sure if they were dead yet.

〖Notice! You are currently immune to Petrification from an entity due to Resonance with your beast.〗

”Haa... Haa...”

This was a bad time to have a panic attack!

If Lillith didn’t possess petrification immunity, Lucy would be a statue right now like the other students!

Lucy had no choice but to gather her wits and slay this abomination responsible for this!

”Get up and cover your eyes, you fool!” Lucy roared as she ran past a dazed Derek to face the wake of something serpentine yet feathery, and draconian. She couldn’t even see where the creature starts or ends, but at least with petrification immunity, Lucy was the ideal summoner here.

CROOAAARRR!!!! Roared the cockatrice as the Malefic Spider scurried very close to it.

Lilith even tried to use her own Petrification against the Guardian, but unfortunately, it had immunity too, and it was even stronger immunity.

Since they were even in this area, Lucy was somewhat glad this might just be the fight she can prove herself to herself.

She asked Lilith to leap away from the Cockatrice’s talons, then use Silk to trigger a Web Trap for the monster’s legs. The trap held for some seconds, but the Cockatrice broke free from it, then flew up just a bit and flapped its dragon wings, releasing hot winds at the Malefic Spider. Finally, it roared again, and dragonfire followed!

”Lilith, shield yourself! Now, dodge, it’s about to use its tail!”

FWOOSH!

SMASSSHHH!

A wall on the left crumbled badly as the tail of the behemoth hit it, but its target was Lucy’s spider.

Lucy couldn’t believe she could fight this well with her summon. They were on a different level now. Resonance must have improved because Lucy can now give instructions she didn’t know her spider could do.

After the Guardian missed with its tail, Lucy asked for Blacken!

This staggered the Unkindly Cockatrice!

So, it retaliated with plumes and hail that forced Lucy to take shelter and Lilith to retreat to protect her. Then the cockatrice dived at them, showing half its size for the kill!

CRUSSSHHH!

The statues of those four students and their beasts got destroyed, which meant death.

As Lucy and Lilith escaped the Cockatrice’s dive, she felt very bad for her fellow students, but she must slay the Cockatrice if she wanted to do them any good.

With ”Kite!” and ”Anchor!”, Lilith ensured that the Guardian would not touch her. It breathed fire everywhere. Black fire. Red fire. Whatever it could do to catch the spider, but the cockatrice was too big, so there was little space for Lilith to maneuver.

Finally, the Cockatrice caught her and used its talons to tear a good portion of her body.

”Lilith, retreat and use Vent!” Lucy instructed hastily because she was scared the Cockatrice would have killed her beast.

On the other hand, Vent wasn’t an offense or defense skill. But if Lilith activates Vent, the air current it forms will bring so much dust and smoke from this chamber, and this dust and smoke helps impair the Cockatrice’s vision so Lilith can recover.

Frustrated, the Unkindly Cockatrice poured dragonfire everywhere and anywhere it could, so at least one wisp could touch its foes, yet how Lucy and Lilith survived that purge was shocking.

Later, the monster found them in a corner when the dust and smoke reduced, so it went for them without even thinking about it, snaking in the air like a phoenix, cruel and malicious, with fire coming out of its mouth.

But Lucy and her spider were prepared for it!