Uncanny Valley | Rimuru x Arifureta

「 ✦ Rimuru Tempest ✦ 」

"How are the preparations?"

<>

I floated high above the mountain ranges, my form suspended near the cloud layer where the air was thin and cold. The altitude gave me a perfect vantage point of what lay below—and what I saw was both impressive and revolting in equal measure.

The monster horde stretched as far as the eye could see, a writhing black mass that had transformed the entire landscape into something from a nightmare. One hundred thousand creatures, just as I'd predicted, carpeting the valleys and hillsides like a living shadow.

The sheer diversity was staggering—some monsters were as large as hills themselves, their massive forms creating new geography wherever they moved. Others skittered between their legs like insects, while aerial monsters circled overhead.

Some of the creatures were so grotesquely otherworldly that even I felt a visceral disgust looking at them. Things that looked like they'd crawled out of someone's worst fever dream and decided to make themselves everyone else's problem.

Below ground, I could sense the massive tremors of burrowing creatures—things like gigantic sandworms that moved through solid rock as easily as water. The entire ecosystem of the mountain range had been replaced by this tide of destruction, all of it heading toward what remained of Ur.

"Right," I said to myself, my voice carrying easily through the thin air, "Let's proceed."

I raised my hand toward the sky. Using Law Manipulation, the cloud cover above me began to disperse. The natural weather patterns that had taken hours to form were unraveled in seconds, pushed aside like curtains to reveal the brilliant sun.

The sky became a perfect, crystalline blue, unmarred by even the smallest wisp of vapor.

Next came the water.

Massive droplets began to materialize throughout the airspace above the horde—each one a size larger than myself, perfectly spherical, and positioned all over. They appeared by the hundreds, then thousands, arranged in a complex three-dimensional grid that spanned the entire battlefield. The larger droplets served as primary lenses, while smaller ones materialized everywhere below, ready to act as mirrors and redirectors.

But I wasn't satisfied with the basic configuration.

Using Law Manipulation again, I began to modify the properties of each water formation. The natural physics of light refraction were enhanced, amplified, pushed beyond their normal limits. Where conventional sunlight might reach a few hundred to a few thousand degrees when focused, my modifications would achieve something far more devastating.

The inertia of the light itself was manipulated—what should have been gentle photons became concentrated streams of pure destruction. The heat properties were enhanced to the point where the focused beams would reach temperatures of over one million degrees Celsius.

Hot enough to vaporize steel instantly.

Hot enough to turn stone to plasma.

"Megiddo," I said simply, and the heavens opened.

The first beam struck like the finger of an angry god.

A pencil-thin line of searing light descended from the sky, passing through multiple water lenses that focused and amplified its power exponentially. When it struck the largest monster in the horde—a hill-sized abomination with too many eyes—the beam punched through its mass like it was made of paper, leaving behind a perfectly circular hole that glowed white-hot.

Then came the second beam. The third. The tenth.

Within seconds, hundreds of these divine lances were raining down from the sky, each one guided by Great Sage's perfect calculations. The smaller water droplets acted as mirrors, redirecting the beams at all sorts of angles, allowing me to strike targets that should have been impossible to hit directly.

The effect was beyond anything I had ever witnessed.

<>

The smaller droplets evaporated, shifted, and reformed, creating new angles of attack. The slaughter resumed immediately, the beams now coming from different directions as the mirrors redirected the focused sunlight into previously safe areas.

Each beam was absolute. There was no defense against physics itself—anti-magic barriers would've been useless when the attack was simply concentrated solar energy operating under enhanced natural laws. The monsters couldn't dodge what they couldn't see coming, couldn't block what was essentially weaponized starlight.

<>

I watched from my position in the sky as the massacre continued. Massive creatures that had dominated the landscape moments before were reduced to smoking craters.

Flying monsters caught in the beams were vaporized mid-flight, their remains raining down as ash. Even the burrowing creatures weren't safe—the beams punched through solid rock as easily as air, finding them in their tunnels and eliminating them instantly.

The light show was spectacular.

Hundreds to thousands of brilliant white lines connected sky to earth, creating a web of destruction that pulsed and shifted as the mirrors repositioned themselves. Each beam left the air itself glowing, ionized particles creating temporary aurora-like effects that painted the sky in colors.

<>

It was then that my Universal Sense picked up familiar presences near the outskirts of Ur. Hajime, Yue, and Shea were there, along with Aiko and her students. And with them was Tio, standing among the group and staring up at the light show with what I could only describe as complete bewilderment.

Through my enhanced perception, I could see their expressions clearly despite the distance. Hajime's jaw was hanging open, Yue's normally stoic face showed naked awe, while Shea's ears were flattened against her head in what looked like instinctive submission to superior power.

Aiko had her hands pressed to her mouth, tears streaming down her face as she watched the destruction of the force that had come to kill her. Her students were in similar states of shock, some crying, others laughing with relief and disbelief.

But it was Tio's reaction that interested me most, who was staring at my work with an expression that could only be described as religious awe. Her eyes were wide, her breathing shallow.

It was honestly creepy.

<>

The beams continued their work. What had been a sea of monsters was now a field of perfectly circular craters. The air itself was beginning to go hazy from the thermal effects, and I could see that the very stone of the mountains was starting to change color from the ambient temperature.

This was what divine judgment looked like. Not the chaotic destruction of an explosion, but concentrated stellar fury.

<>

The pattern continued. The water droplets shifted and reformed with each wave, ensuring that no corner of the battlefield was left untouched. The beams came from every angle, redirected and refracted through the complex lens system I had created.

I found myself thinking of Ted, probably still getting high in his bar, completely unaware that his town was being saved by what could only be described as a controlled solar flare.

The irony wasn't lost on me—while he philosophized about the unfairness of the world and the burden placed on the powerful, I was literally weaponizing physics to protect people who would never even know my name.

<>

The slaughter was beautiful. No monster was too large, too armored, or too well-hidden. The beams found them all, reduced them all to the same fate—instant vaporization under the concentrated fury of a million-degree solar lance.

This was Megiddo. This was the wrath of heaven made manifest through the manipulation of natural law.

And I was just getting started.

Because in the distance, I've found my target.

"Found you, Shimizu Yukitoshi."

··—–—⚜—–—···

「 ✦ Tio Klarus ✦ 」

It was only a few hours ago when I first laid eyes on him at Ted's Last Call.

The moment I stepped through the door of that grimy little place, my instincts screamed at me with a primal warning I hadn't felt in ages. There, sitting casually at the bar with an empty drink in hand, was something that defied every understanding I had of power hierarchies in this world.

He introduced himself as Rimuru.

I'd managed to play it cool then, engaging in casual conversation as if I weren't acutely aware that I was in the presence of something supernatural. My dragonman pride had demanded I maintain composure, even as every fiber of my being recognized the vast chasm between our strengths.

But now, watching this massacre unfold before my eyes, I could no longer suppress the awe that threatened to overwhelm me entirely.

Suspended thousands of meters above us, Rimuru floated like a deity of destruction, performing the annihilation of a hundred-thousand-strong monster horde. Beams of concentrated solar energy descended from the heavens in perfect formation, each one guided immaculately to eliminate all targets across the vast battlefield.

This was beyond anything I could comprehend.

I had lived for centuries. I considered myself one of the strongest beings on this continent, a force of nature that few could challenge. Yet what I was witnessing now made all of that seem insignificant.

Each beam that fell from the sky carried the concentrated fury of a star. The accuracy and preciseness was absolute—no wasted movement, no collateral damage beyond what was necessary. Where armies would have struggled for weeks against such numbers, Rimuru was erasing the entire horde in mere minutes.

I looked around at the others, noting their reactions to this impossible spectacle. The tiny teacher Aiko had tears streaming down her face, relief and disbelief warring in her expression. Her escorts were in various states of shock, some laughing hysterically while others simply stared in stunned silence. Shea's rabbit ears were pressed flat against her head, her instincts clearly recognizing the presence of an apex predator.

But it was Hajime Nagumo's expression that caught my attention most.

The white-haired boy who overwhelmed me before stood rigid, his artificial arm clenched into a fist. His face was a mask of conflicted emotions—awe, frustration, and something that looked almost like despair. I had heard of his history with Rimuru, how he and Yue had made it their mission to surpass him, to claim the title of strongest for themselves.

Looking at him now, I could understand if that resolve wavered. How do you aspire to surpass something that operates on a completely different level of existence?

Yue, standing beside Hajime, was equally silent. Her golden eyes tracked the falling beams with an expression I couldn't quite read, but I could sense the wheels turning in her mind.

My gaze returned to the figure suspended in the sky, and without thinking, a single adjective escaped my lips.

"The strongest."

It wasn't hyperbole or an emotional outburst. It was a simple statement of fact, as obvious as saying the sky was blue or fire was hot. Rimuru existed on a plane of power so far beyond anything else in this world that comparisons became meaningless.

Is he even mortal? The thought crossed my mind as I watched him. Perhaps he was an unknown god, walking among mortals for reasons only he could understand. It would explain the unbelievable nature of what I was witnessing.

The beams continued to fall, each one precisely targeted, each one eliminating dozens of monsters in an instant. The very air seemed to sing with power, ionized particles creating aurora-like effects that painted the sky in brilliant colors. It was beautiful and terrifying in equal measure.

And then, strangely, mysteriously, I felt something I hadn't experienced in decades.

The desire to kneel.

Not from fear—though there was certainly that—but from something like the recognition of absolute superiority. This wasn't about the balance of power or territorial disputes. This was about witnessing perfection in action and wanting to be part of it.

I wanted to follow him.

The thought should have been disturbing.

I was Tio Klarus, the princess of the proud and powerful Dragonmen who had never bowed to anyone. Yet here I was, and all I could think about was how much I wanted to serve such a person.

The monster horde was nearly gone now, reduced to scattered craters and ash across the mountainside. What had been an unstoppable tide of destruction mere minutes ago was now nothing more than a smoldering wasteland, conquered by focused starlight and superior will.

As the last of the beams faded and Rimuru began his descent, I found myself trembling. Whatever came next, whatever plans or schemes or simple whims drove someone of his caliber, I wanted to be part of it.

For the first time in my very long life, I had found something worth following.

Someone worth serving.

The supernatural being I had met seemed to see right through everything. Every mask, every pretense, every illusion of strength and independence. He had smiled politely, spoken casually, treated me as an equal in conversation while we both knew the truth of what stood between us.

And now, watching the smoldering ruins of what had been an unstoppable horde, I understood with crystalline clarity what I had been in the presence of.

A true god is real... and so small.

Unassuming. Humble, even. Here was truth incarnate, standing barely taller than an average human, speaking with warmth instead of thunderous rigidness.

The strongest.