Although the army looked impressive as it was marching towards the city, it was still quite some distance from the city. The soldiers belonging to the king got in positions, the group of beastmen that Orou now recognised as shamans spread out through the various buildings and alleyways, hiding behind the numerous soldiers in front of them. The king’s shaman was still standing by the king’s side, looking at both the barrier and the approaching army with a weird glint in his eyes.

As the army approached closer, Orou could clearly see that the black lines that ran through the beastmen bodies were the same as the black lines that he constantly saw around him, the black lines which he had carefully studied a few days ago. The main differences were that the black lines weren’t as active as they were regularly, though they still moved and squirmed. Although Orou wasn’t sure about it, he didn’t see the shimmering force that surrounded each of the black lines around those, which lines which went through the bodies. Remembering the black line they had seen in a jar, Orou once more carefully looked at the army, this time, turning on his spirit vision. As expected, the spirits around the army were in total disarray, doing their best to flee from the marching army. This caused a weird absence of spirits around the army which resembled the signs of something being invisible, though Orou and the rest could see the army perfectly fine.

The soldiers got tenser the closer the army approached, several of them had already drawn their swords, most likely under the effect of the drum. They were rearing to go and meet the enemy, but the presence of the king made them hesitant. Slowly but surely, the army reached the edge of the barrier, their footsteps resounding through the city as clearly and loudly as the drum. Laying one hand on the barrier, Vaar looking through it and licked his lips as he met eyes with the king. His eyes slowly turned into a deeper and deeper shade of red and his fur slightly stood up as he let out a low and guttural roar.

“I’ve waited for this day for years and years on end. Your barrier delayed me, but you should have known that I would find a way to escape,” barely withholding his rage, Vaar clenched his hand in a fist and punched the barrier, which made the barrier ripple, spreading the impact through the entire barrier. Still, the barrier stood strong and the king, similarly struggling to keep his emotions in check, said to Vaar: “Yes, I should have ended your life all of those years ago, but I was too soft at that time. This time, I won’t make the same mistake, I’ll make sure to see you bleed out on the edge of my sword.”

“You took what was rightfully mine, I should have been the one that sat on the throne and ruled over the rest of the beastmen. It’s finally time to reclaim what’s mine, the kingdom is only the first step. The foolish human kingdom though to weaken us by making sure we were properly equipped, but they didn’t know that this would be their downfall. I’ll conquer both it and the cowardly beastman kingdom, which has committed a heinous crime of accepting humans as equal, as well as conquer the kingdom of the God King.” At this point, Vaar was no longer looking at the king but at the possibilities and the future, which he planned to enact. The soldiers behind Vaar were shouting in agreement of Vaar’s words, raising up both their swords and shields.

“Although you broke the barrier that was trapping you in your village of exiles, you’re not going to break this one. As the kingdom advances and evolves, so does the barrier. How are you g-” as the king addressed Vaar, his speech was cut short as something black and twisted was pierced through his stomach, coming out on the other end with a burst of blood. At some point, the king’s shaman, who was standing by his side and calmly observing the conversation had made his way to the king’s back and with one smooth motion, pierced his sceptre through the king’s golden armor. The sceptre started shining with a menacing black light as Orou could see the black strands inside of the king’s body lose the shimmering force surrounding them and start to wreak havoc inside of the king’s body.

The king tried to speak, but all that he could do was cough out blood. Raising his crystal sword high in the air, the king made a sharp turn towards the shaman and with immense speed and strength, cleaved the shaman’s body in half. The crystal sword met no resistance as it cleaved through the body as if it was a piece of paper. The sword glimmered and the green crystals making up the sword lit up, causing the inside of the shaman’s body to start to crystallize and in a few seconds, the entirety of the shaman’s body had turned into a massive, green crystal. A second later, the crystal slightly shook and almost instantly, it collapsed into countless crystal shards, not a single piece of the shaman still remaining.

Although the king’s might was surprising, what was more surprising was the king’s shaman. After being shattered into countless crystals, the black strands, instead of dissipating into the air, started to slowly reform themselves into a man very similar to the shaman several meters from the king. Orou saw the shaman lose more than a few black strands in the process, but other than that, the black strands coalesced together and out of thin air, the shaman’s body appeared several meters from where he died. Unfortunately, the shaman didn’t escape unharmed as Orou saw a strange chain of spirits come from the crystal sword, linking together the crystal sword and the shaman’s body. The shaman twirled his sceptre and the chain snapped in the middle, though not before it turned the entirety of his hand into a crystal.

As all of this was happening, the barrier that surrounded the city was flickering. The shaman held a strange sort of crystal in his hands and when the shaman clenched his fist, the entire barrier shuddered before breaking into various pieces, releasing all of the spirits making up the barrier to freely roam the land once more. Without wasting a single second, Vaar raised his cane and the soldiers behind him started charging into the city, their swords drawn and the black lines excitedly squirming. For the first time, Orou noticed that the cane held within it an overwhelming amount of black lines. Pointing his cane towards the king, three black strands shot towards the king just like a bolt of lightning.

The king’s armor had magically restored itself as the several golden runes inscribed on it flashed. His body was covered in a golden light and the black strands within his body were quickly eliminated, his body restored to its original condition. He wanted to chase the shaman who betrayed him, but there was a more imminent threat coming his way. This time, the red crystal lit up and, emitting a strange but familiar red light, slashed down onto the three oncoming black strands. The sword pierced through the strands with ease and, cutting them in half, the red crystals once more lit up, causing the three strands to be sucked into the crystal sword, and in return, travel to the king’s body. The king looked slightly stronger and healthier than before, though Orou wasn’t quite sure.

The king’s soldiers were confused at first, especially the shamans who looked at the king’s shaman in shock in surprise, but as Vaar’s soldiers started charging towards them, they took up their swords and met them in battle. Empowered by the beat of the drum, each of their swings was filled with power and speed, easily tearing through Vaar’s soldier’s armor and through their bodies. In return, the black lines detached themselves from their bodies and struck out at the soldiers, either piercing through their bodies, infecting them from within or by simply strangling them. The shamans started chanting and swaying, creating a strange sort of dance as they started casting their various spells. Green vines grew around the enemies’ ankles, lightning struck down in the middle of the enemy army and the shamans started turning into various strange beasts, joining in the combat. Soldiers were rapidly dying as they had no way to defend themselves from the black lines, but the shaman’s spells and the soldier’s swords were causing as much damage as they were receiving. h

Grizz looked at Orou, clenched his two shortswords and leaped down from the building, intending on joining the fight between the two sides. Orou followed him and as he was about to cast a spell, he locked eyes with the king’s shaman, who had suddenly appeared right next to Grizz. Time moved in slow motion as he raised his sceptre, about to swing at Grizz’s head and it was all down on Orou to save him.