Hikari Howard felt like falling.

Not an unusual feeling by itself, due to being used to it with the trips between the Ark and the Astral Plane as well as occasionally falling in the latter.

Problem is she didn't remember falling unconscious.

She opened her eyes, only to see some kind of falling and armed zombie coming towards her.

"Crap!" she cursed while summoning her Arm Legion to punch it away from her. She used that momentaneous respite to watch her surroundings. Various types of monsters were also falling in large numbers and the sky was unnaturally red.

She immediately looked upwards, only to see something that made her skin crawl.

Up in the sky, there were fissures from which the monsters came that reminded of gates, only that these had psychedelic colors and patterns, lacking the cubism of the red and black portals to the accursed digital hell. Not to say that these monsters didn't resemble chimeras at all, more like zombies, trolls and other fantasy like creatures. While the Astral Plane gives its chimeras the form of mythological beings, they looked otherworldly enough to not completely resemble typical fantasy designs, not to say about the sense of wrongness they exude due to their corrupting influence towards reality.

This wasn't the Astral Plane, at least.

She checked downwards. There was some countryside landscape with a village that wouldn't be out of place in the Middle Ages or in one of the fantasy novels she likes to read, and it was obviously under attack from those monsters, if the fires and the far away but rapidly approaching screams are any indication.

That also means she wasn't in the Ark either. And she didn't hold her hopes that she was in one of the very few mainland areas left without redshift. The Astral Plane was interested in assimilating life, especially sapient. Even if they survived the initial global outbreak, without an effective means to defend themselves from the chimeras or to prevent redshifting, they would be as good as dead. So, that left with a crazy-but-no-so-improbable theory.

She was in another world.

Normal people would just laugh at her, but when dealing with invisible extradimensional monsters hellbent on corrupting everything and everyone into data on a daily basis while using neurologically-linked captured versions of said monsters, skepticism wasn't an option.

Just now, she has to survive the fall without being squashed towards the ground or killed by the beasts. She would search answers after.

She stabilized herself on a proper freefall position while her Legions took care of any close monsters by shooting, slashing or just punching them.

Legion's Shield

It wasn't Jules day, neither for the village.

Everyone knew that things were more difficult with the appearance of the waves. Melromarc already suffered with the first one, both with the civilians at that now ruined demi-human village as well as the soldiers sent to subjugate the interdimensional invasion.

The worst thing is that it exacerbated everything bad happening in the kingdom, prompting the king Aultcray Melromarc XXXII to summon the Legendary Four Cardinal Heroes, very probably putting his country on a very delicate situation in international politics, especially while the queen Mirellia Q Melromarc was away to discuss the Hero summonings with the other nations.

And right now, the second Wave was raining its malice to the underprepared farming village of Rute, Jules being just one of the victims.

He was just a simple farmer, what the hell did he do to deserve this?! That must be one of the only things in his mind right now. The other was to just run away in search for a safe zone.

Unfortunately, he didn't watch were he was for he crashed into something, which made him fall backwards to the ground. After grimacing from the impact, he observed what he bumped into.

He regretted it.

The "thing" he bumped into was an ogre-like zombie, which right now was slowly moving to kill the poor fool that met its way.

Jules couldn't only move backwards, unable to stand up due to his fear, until he met a nearby wall.

"Shit!" he cursed. He couldn't do anything, he wasn't much of a fighter. The only thing he could was watch his would be killer prepare its monstrous arm to crush him like a mere insect.

He wanted nothing more than to close his eyes, to run, but wasn't unable to do those things, so he desperately prayed to God. For help. For a Hero.

Then there was a loud noise of smashing and a rain of blood and guts.

AN: Cliffhangers!

This project was another of the crossovers I wish to realize in the setting of Rising of the Shield Hero: postapocalyptic cyberpunk policewoman with a Stand-like entity from a anime-like stylish action game put into a cruel RPG-like dark high fantasy world from an isekai light novel/manga/anime with a morally questionable protagonist who can only defend? Yup. The protagonists will bicker a lot with tons of points in each side's favour.

Except with money, they will both agree to try to obtain more money and resources. Astral Chain players like me know the pain of upgrading Legions and the X-Baton. Especially with rare and premium Material Codes.

Not to say that the Astral Plane gives me an excuse to connect various worlds in Astral Chain crossovers. Who is to say that it didn't try to corrupt and repurpose other planets that weren't Earth?

I'm still playing the game, but this story takes place months after the Aether fight, so the player character is and will be more of a badass, especially with stat bonuses and level ups.

By the way, this is the first Astral Chain crossover in , so please, try to write some and comment.