'It already started?'

Sitting on the top of a medium-sized mountain, I immediately sprouted up from my place as I saw streaks of lightning falling from the sky.

'The formations of the cult sure are potent…'

"They really did start early…"

Looking at Blade who just spoke up and rose from his place as well, I nodded as we both jumped off the mountain!

'It had only been one week.'

It had only been less than 6 days after the cleansing of the demon seeds, precisely one week after we spoiled Crane's plan. Yet, the attack had already started, the overseers of the demons did indeed realize that something had gone wrong and decided to ascend to the surface almost two weeks earlier than they planned to.

There was no time to lose!

The lightning we just witnessed wasn't some sort of a natural phenomena, but it was in fact the very first step of phase two, counter-attack!

As we almost reached the ground, a sword flew off Blade's back as he landed on it while I simply latched to the mountain and slid off to its end. While I could also use the low altitude 'Sword Flying' ability by employing my weapon essence like Blade did, I had no plans to do that. The reason was very simple…

'That would be too slow.'

Compared to an ability that I just acquired one week ago and had no experience at, I trusted my natural agility more. Although I did look awkward running beside the floating Blade, I didn't mind as long as we could reach the opened gate as quickly as possible. Blade himself didn't even bother questioning my peculiar body speed.

'It really doesn't last that long…'

Merely a few minutes later as we already cut the distance between us and the descending lightning to a mere tenth of what it had originally been. The continuous waves of electricity were already starting to fade away, but we were able to spot a few other humans rushing through various methods to the same location.

Since we couldn't dispatch elites into the bases nor station forces to the Demon Nests in preparation, the only way it could be done was to discreetly disperse forces around in a small circle with the center being the demon nest itself.

Knowing that it would take two to three weeks at the most for everything to start, the powerhouses of the top sects didn't mind shrugging everything off for this task, especially thanks to the Cult of Elements setting up an 'alarm system��� to ensure that the situation of the demons launching a sneak attack wouldn't happen, and instead morph it to an equal confrontation.

Thanks to the crazy cult master being rational and cooperative out of habit, almost all of the apprentices within their formation department were sent all over the domain, naturally they didn't fork out the costs for everything, getting the crazy woman to agree easily was already a miracle...

Acknowledging the fact that a huge part of the Cult of Elements' inheritance was specialized in elemental formations, the top sects happily opened their treasuries for the sake of immediate deployment of powerful 'one-time burst' formations in front of every Special Demon Nest!

"He really guessed too well!"

A loud roar emerged from within the thick smoke!

Shining lines of pure dark elements sprouted and blew the smoke away, revealing a huge horde of demons. The source of the shout as well as the huge whirl of darkness wasn't hard to notice as he was standing right at the center of the horde with the special trademark of having three horns.

'So that's the commander?'

Although the lightning strikes which were continuously being hurled down for a few minutes seemed to hold a huge amount of intensity and power, leaving a long line of charred corpses in at the very front, the number of demons didn't look as if it had decreased by much…

"Or is it me that hoped too strongly?!"

The tri-horned demon with intense aura kept screaming out of context as his face full of rage stared at the forces that had gathered around, including me and Blade.

The strategy of dispersion was very simple, some pretended to be dispatched for missions around here, others just hid within ordinary villages, while the rest simply camped at unnoticeable locations like Blade and I did, that was the second part of my plan with which we managed to hide armies of sect elites around the domain without any of the demons' 'eyes' noticing!

Obviously, this wasn't only happening here, similar situations should be erupting around the domain, I could even spot one fire elemental explosion that was far from here. It was to be expected that the demons would attack simultaneously after all their preparation or they would blow up their cover…

Of course, their cover was already blown by me, but they didn't know that till this exact moment, leading to the current situation. The second phase of the plan could be said to have reached its peak step, engagement!

"Ah, so you really were left alive, then all of this should be your fault, right?"

The tri-horned demon's eyes finally settled on me as he said, it seemed that…

'He really did manage to see something through that coward.'

It hardly took more than a few seconds before he was able to recognize me, so it only made sense that he had an impression of my appearance...

"You should be the first to die then!"

Having literally disappeared from the middle of his 'stoned' horde who still didn't comprehend what was happening, the tri-horned commander appeared in front of the exact spot I was at as the halberd in his hand slashed downward, but...

"Your opponent is me."

Blade's sword simply met the halberd as the sound of the collision traveled to me who had similarly disappeared from my spot, already plunging into the demon horde!

'I should make the most of this!'

While the strongest opponents in the domain clashed, wasn't it the perfect moment for me to show my might against the mobs and throw essence into my endless hole of an EP bar?