It was midday, and Kiefer had spent the morning preparing for his trip. Isana was quiet the whole morning, just like Sher, but would smile whenever Kiefer turned to cast a glance on her. Up until last night, she had always been the one on the offensive, and yet, for the first time ever, Kiefer attacked and left her completely defenseless. She didn’t know what to say or do around him anymore, just thinking of him brought back the brief but vivid memory from last night. Tracing her lips with her fingertips gently, Isana smiled.

Within the 12 hours between sunrise and midday, Kiefer had been busy stuffing his PD with all the things he would need. He had also modified his armour once again, taking mithril ingots from the palace treasury as if it were his own to replace the orihalcom scalemail pauldrons and platemail waist guard. He then added the scarlet metal to his own shield, increasing its weight once again.

The red metal extended from the silver diamond shield in a curved wall, along his arm and beyond his shoulders, like a smaller version of his tower shield. The shield was attached to his gauntlet and using more mithril Kiefer crafted a duplicate to attach to his right gauntlet. Splitting the heavy orihalcom shield onto both arms, Kiefer did not feel as lopsided when in combat, and if he wanted, he could instantly conjure up 2 large tower shields on each side of his body.

Within his PD, Kiefer had stuffed it with preserved food a sturdy tent that he crafted from Demon bear pelt. With multiple thick blankets some cooking utensils and a large chest filled to the brim with orihalcom ores. It was almost all that Arigan had, but nevertheless, the king still willingly gave it to Kiefer. Finally, the trio approached the edge of the barrier facing the Border Mountains, and stepped outside.

Kiefer lead the group, taking slow and deliberate steps in the jungle, while Isana followed closely behind. Sher was struggling to fit in Isana’s valley, now a little too tight for her with her wings. Kiefer stoped abruptly and turned around to look at the 2 titans. They were now near the base of the mountain after having trekked for a few hours. The forest floor was dark and humid and sunlight barely made it down. Kiefer could still see the snow covered peak of the first mountain through the tiny gaps in the canopy.

“What is it Kii?” (Isana)

“Sana, Sher. I want you to attack me.” (Kiefer)

“What???” (Sher and Isana)

“I need to gauge your abilities, so I want you to attack me for real. We are far enough from Arigan to avoid collateral damage, so you 2 can go all out.” Kiefer explained, Sher now floating beside Isana after giving up on squeezing inside her old spot.

“You know there’s no way we can do that to you. So why not just practice on something else? Like the mountain for example. Let’s compete to see who can destroy that mountain first.” Isana rejected Kiefer’s idea casually, instead offering up a more terrifying suggestion as if it were her daily routine destroying mountains.

“No, that won’t be effective. How about this - If either of you can get me to admit defeat, I will do whatever you want for a da-“ … *BAM!!*

Before Kiefer could finish his sentence, Isana had already rushed in front of Kiefer and struck him with her fist. Kiefer managed to withstand it thanks to his mana armour, if only barely, while being shot through the forest and breaking several trees in a row.

Sher had transformed into her true form and was preparing her breath attack. Isana did not let Kiefer rest, following him as he was thrown through the forest and following up with an overhead kick. Kiefer put up his dome shield which was smashed to smithereens by the kick, deflecting the trajectory of Isana’s leg enough to leave a crater in the ground next to him.

Kiefer smiled. He now knew how much stronger the 2 titans had gotten, as he dodged Sher’s laser attack. Sher atomized a path through the forest, melting a tunnel into the side of the mountain in the distance. Kiefer took to the air using his mana footholds and lured Sher and Isana out above the forest canopy. They did not even give him the chance to equip his new armour so he tried to create some distance between them.

As fast as Kiefer was dashing through the air, Sher was chasing behind him, creating small hurricanes with each flap of her angelic wings. Isana had also transformed into her 4 winged dragon form and was circling around to cut off Kiefer.

Kiefer observed their speeds and was flabbergasted by how fast Isana had become, and how agile the 2 of them were. With the additional wings, they could make tight corners mid-flight to match Kiefer as he tried to escape the 2 reptiles. Isana and Sher would take turns to fire lasers and icy blasts to change Kiefer’s directions and trap him between the 2.

Still void of the opportunity to don his armour, Kiefer decided to kick things up a notch. He slowed down just a little as Isana fired a breath of ice shards ahead of him to divert him. Kiefer pretended to hesitate for a split second, which Sher caught as she flew straight towards him, attempting to knock him into Isana.

Just at the moment when Sher charged in, Kiefer Jumped higher up into the air in an instant, and conjured up a giant acceleration rune directly in front of Sher. With not enough distance to stop, Sher collided with the rune, accelerating her towards the incoming Isana and causing both of them to crash into the base of the mountain.

Taking this chance to catch his breath, Kiefer opened up his PD and immediately donned his armour while still running to create space and more time between him and his attackers. Finally in full mithril and orihalcom armour, Kiefer could stop worrying about his mana supply and go all out. He deployed his supergravity field to slow down the approaching titans while he took aim.

Facing the 2 approaching titans, Kiefer conjured up 50 mid ranged silver bullets and stacked 3 acceleration runes in front of each one, firing the barrage at the 2 titans. As he fired, he kept making more bullets aiming at the dodging Isana. While Isana dodge the barrage by soaring to the side, Sher had stopped approaching him and released 3 white scales from each wing tip.

Seeing this, Kiefer kept the barrage aiming at the circling Isana while pointing his left palm at the now stationary Sher. Kiefer created the long range ballistic bullet and stacked 5 acceleration runes in front of it, firing as soon as the last rune was done. However, just before the bullet reached its target, the 6 white feathers were in position and a huge purple hexagram formed between the feathers, followed by numerous overlaying runic circles within the hexagram. The ballistic bullet struck the hexagram, destroying one rune circle after another, before finally coming to a stop.

Sher smiled, revealing her pearly whites, and shot a beam straight into the hexagram. Meanwhile Isana had summoned a large runic circle above Kiefer’s head. Through that rune, a giant ice meteor shard descended freezing everything around it as it approached Kiefer. Kiefer attempted to dodge the falling ice shard, but was instead surrounded by Sher’s laser beams. The hexagram had divided Sher’s beam into 6 smaller beams which curved through the air instead of shooting in a straight line. The 6 beams were approaching from Kiefer’s sides and bottom, leaving Kiefer no room to avoid the falling ice meteor.

Kiefer was exhilarated by their improvements. Molding his red shields in both arms, Kiefer encased himself in a red orihalcom sphere, then overlayed 20 layers of mana armour over the ball. Sher’s beams arrived at their target first, decimating the mana armour while putting dents in Kiefer’s orihalcom shell. Kiefer immediately started replenishing his mana from Sher’s magical attack that his mana armour failed to stop. Following which, Kiefer reinforced his mana armour at the top where the ice shard was expected to hit.

As the giant ice shard struck Kiefer’s mana, it penetrated all of his mana armour layers, losing most of its energy in the process. Finally, it failed to penetrate Kiefer’s orihalcom shell, leaving a great dent and several small cracks radiating from the point of impact. The shard pressed against the red ball, plummeting to the ground with it. Kiefer’s orihalcom shell was embedded halfway inside the forest floor, while the ice shard shattered into sparkling dust and snow.

Without taking any chances, Isana flew down immediately, and encased the shell and the ground below it in a thick layer of magical ice, while Sher controlled her 6 feathers and embedded them inside the ground around the ice ball. Within moments, Sher had erected yet another hexagram, this time a runic prison meant to hold Kiefer inside.

Finally, the 2 titans relaxed, still in their giant reptilian forms, staring at the prisoned ice ball of orihalcom with Kiefer within. Isana yelled out jubilantly, “Kii! Remember your promise! You need to listen to me for a whol -!”

She did not manage to finish her sentence when Kiefer appeared behind her and stuck her neck with his mana whips. Sher stared at him, eyes wide open, wondering how he escaped and looked back at her prison, observing the red ball that was still encased in ice. Looking back at Kiefer, He did not have his orihalcom shield anymore, just his diamond mithril shields. However, as she was staring at him, he disappeared once again and this time, was on her back, working his mana threads around her body like he did the first time they fought.

Isana was sent tumbling through the forest floors, still struggling to orientate herself. The unexpected strike from Kiefer had caused her a serious concussion as she had not been prepared to take the blow. Her eyes still spinning, limbs wobbly, she looked at the fight between Kiefer and Sher.

As Kiefer tried to restrain Sher, she sent out lightning sparks between the spikes on her back. This caused Kiefer to disappear once again and appear some distance from her. Sher, shot her beam at Kiefer while Isana, finally recovered enough, came charging through the forest towards Kiefer. Sher filled the entire air with high voltage electric sparks, setting nearby trees on fire, while Isana started up a blizzard around Kiefer, quenching the fires and freezing the ground.

Unaware to the 2 titans, Kiefer had started to deploy his trump card. Above Kiefer, high above the canopy, a singularity formed, and it grew exponentially larger as it sucked in all matter and light around it. Before Isana could reach Kiefer, the blizzard she conjured was swirling towards the singularity, just as Sher’s beam curved upwards away from Kiefer. Trees were uprooted and dirt crumbled away from the ground towards the singularity.

Once the black hole grew to about 4m wide, Sher and Isana could no longer resist the pull and were gradually sucked towards the blackhole. Fearing for their life, they looked at Kiefer, but could not see any of his expressions under the mask. Kiefer promptly set up a mana field around the black hole, preventing any matter from moving any closer to the blackhole. The field was powered by the gravitons released by the blackhole and acted as an invisible wall, separating the blackhole from its surroundings.

Nonetheless, the gravitational pull was still present and Sher and Isana, along with numerous trees were plastered to the external wall of the mana field, completely immobilized as more dirt kept piling on top of them. Finally knowing that they have lost, Isana yelled out from under the dirt, “Fine! We lose! So stop this thing already!”

Hearing that, Kiefer grinned, and destroyed the blackhole, causing everything stuck on the mana field to fall to the ground, including 2 large reptiles. With feathers ruffled, and hair a mess, tiny Sher and human Isana came waltzing down the small hill of dirt and trees, looking at the stretch of barren ground that Kiefer was standing on.

The spar had lasted no more than 15 minutes, ending in complete and utter defeat of the 2 titans, along with the destruction of the forest and half a mountain. See the 2 of them taking their time to walk over to him, Kiefer opened his PD, and within his PD, opened another dimension gate, leading to the space behind the 2 titans. He stepped in through both portals, and appeared behind Sher and Isana.

Kiefer had cracked the problem of inter-dimensional travel a week ago and had been eager to put it to the test in actual combat. He was still limited to travelling between points in space that he could visually confirm within the last 3 seconds.

In the earlier fight, he had escaped once the ice shard broke through his mana armour around the orihalcom ball, and cut off his own mana leakage to avoid being detected. Then he waited for the moment the titans let their guard down to strike again.

With the fight concluded, and the trio exhausted, they decided to rest for the day while Kiefer came up with ways to coordinate their attacks. Apparently Sher had been communicating with Isana telepathically during the fight, which was why their teamwork seemed so in sync.

Setting up his demon bear pelt tent in the middle of all the destruction, Kiefer lit a campfire and sat on a log he gathered from nearby, next to Isana. As they nibbled on the dried beef jerky while staring into the fire, the sky grew dark as the twin moons rose over the mountains. They just sat and talked the whole night, talking about every little thing and laughing at memories they had while travelling together.

Kiefer reminisced about his family back on earth, and his past, while Isana recalled memories from millennia ago about stupid bouts she had gotten in with Wanda. Isana went on about how she had helped Wanda teach young Sher about the world and how Wanda had given up some of her territory to Sher as a gift to a baby sister.

Soon, the trio was asleep, Kiefer leaning against the log facing the fire. Isana next to him with a thick blanket draped over both of them, and Sher, wrapped up in her own fluffy feathers, coiled up on the blanket on Kiefer’s lap. As the cold spring wind caressed their faces, they snuggled closer to each other, accompanied by the warmth of their companion.

The ground was dyed red, as the weeds and patches of grass seen growing around were fed the blood of humans and anthropomorphs alike. The Drigor army from the capital city Diantes consisted of humans defending during the day, and undead attacking during the night. The surrounding 3 avian titan’s provinces were home to the all kinds of demi-humans and their army was categorized according to each race’s strengths and weaknesses.

This war had been going on for centuries, with both sides now unclear the reason it started or even who struck first. They only knew they fought to protect themselves. As the undead army attacked the 3 provinces at night, radiating outwards from Diantes, the demi-humans would retaliate near dawn and attack during the day. Humans in Drigor would fall back to their forward bases and defend until night came and the usual moaning and groaning of zombies and crackling of skeletons resounded around them.

With no side having any real advantages, casualties just pile up every day, and with every death, the undead army gains one more soldier. Forces were spread so thin at some point in the war, armies on both sides would refuse to go to battle, with commanders leading only a handful of soldiers to skirmish the enemy.

Spies and Saboteurs thrived during this war, especially from the demi-human race. There were cat-people who specialized in agile movements and stealth, who relay information to their respective leaders. Treants were great at ambushing supply convoys, cutting off the breathing tube to forward human bases and forcing them to fall back.

Not as talented as the humans in magic, the demi-humans employed the help of wood elves from Rashael who specialized in nature and healing magic. The humans in Drigor on the other hand hired Dwarves to help smith excellent weapons, with an almost direct supply of metals coming from Grandu.

Over the years of constant battle, the demi-humans had begun to develop fire based magic weapons, with materials supplied by Fiora. It was the most effective way of dealing with the undead, aside from completely crushing them into pieces.

It was the dead of the night. Standing atop a hill, under the twin moons, was a Demi-human from the wolf tribe. He was 2.5m tall, had a sharp, crisp wolf head, and a bulky muscular body. With one long howl, the wolfman raised his crimson halberd high above his head, flames licking its blade, and yelled one word, “ATTAAAACKKK!!!!”

Large towering creatures over 10m tall began dragging their feet forwards, towards the sea of undead crawling towards them. The giants had finally picked a side and Commander Raywof was chosen to lead the first ever night attack against the undead. The giants raised their heavy metal clubs and swung them carelessly against the hordes of skeletons and zombies, turning them into bone meal and meat paste. The measly pokes and prods of steel weapons held by the undead could not penetrate the tough skin of the giants.

In the darkness of the night, dimly lit by the moons, flashes of scarlet flames could be seen dancing in the battle field as Raywof cut and sliced his way through the hordes alongside his giant army. He was drowning in the battle, indescribably happy that for the first time, the demi humans were able to hold their own against the undead army at night.

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