As Solomon returned to the walled city, Battered and bruised. The battle for first place on the leaderboards was heating up.

Why was it heating up? you might ask... Well, at first, because there was no reward for getting first place. The competition wasn't particularly fierce.

Due to this, the administrator of the second circle, The God of War was pulling his hair out. He had been looking forward to watching a heated and intense battle. But what he got instead was this.

"Look at these cowardly demons!" He bellowed, "Why won't they take the fight to the enemy? Nooo... Here they are ambushing the Shrike one at a time. What a bunch of fucking wastes."

Behind War, The god of strategy put his head in his hands. He didn't know why he was still surprised by War's antics but here he was. Once again, in disbelief at this idiot's stubborn attitude.

"What will get them to fight? hmm... should I just start killing them at random?" War asked thoughtfully.

Aghast, Strategy exclaimed, "Definitely not you maniac! If you kill them like that they will become even more cowardly."

War thought it through and came up with a solution, "What if I promise to kill one of them at random every day. That way, the longer the war lasts, the more chances they have to die."

Strategy was actually shocked by this... well... strategy. It would probably work, but he couldn't let it happen. It was wrong to kill people at random. Also, perhaps, more importantly, he didn't like the idea of War coming up with a strategy, that was kind of his thing.

With a sigh, he shut down War's plan, "Why do your plans always revolve around killing people. Have you never heard of positive reinforcement? Why not entice them into trying harder with rewards."

War looked thoughtful, "Hmm, what if we do both? Threaten them and reward them, wouldn't that be twice as effective."

Strategy looked dumbstruck, It's not like this was groundbreaking or anything. In fact, the carrot and the stick method was one of the most basic strategies of all time. He was more shocked that a meathead like War had come up with it.

He struggled to find a reason to turn it down. In the end, he could only begrudgingly agree to War's suggestion.

It was exactly this casual decision that had all the demons of the desert scrambling hand over foot to kill as many Shrike as possible.

At first, most demons were taking their time in fighting the Shrike. They were trying to get their bearings and gain a fuller understanding of their enemy. Take Solomon for example. That was until War sent them his message.

In unison, the demons fell to the ground. They were assaulted by a splitting pain in their heads as War's message burrowed its way into their minds.

"Right, you lazy bastards. Listen here. Since you are taking your sweet time with this I am going to give you some motivation." Bellowed War.

Of course, none of the demons could respond or complain. They could only clutch at their heads in agony.

"I have decided to use my assistant, Strategies, secret technique [The Carrot and the Stick]" He proclaimed proudly.

The demon's who were being forced to listen to War's bellowing declaration were baffled. 'Is he supposed to tell us that he is going to use the carrot and the stick method?' They wondered.

"[The Carrot and the Stick] secret technique consists of two special moves... The first is the Carrot. If you check the leaderboard, you will see the rewards offered for finishing in a high position." Proclaimed War.

"The second of the two moves is The Stick. I am rather proud of this move because I came up with it myself... Hahaha, So At random, I will kill 10 demons every day. The Higher you are on the leaderboard, the lower the chance you have of being chosen. Ha! What do you think of that? pretty clever right?"

The demons weren't impressed by this self-congratulating God. Frankly, they were pissed. All they had been doing, was minding their own business and now this ridiculous threat flopped down at their feet.

[The Horde] Usually lasted for two months, so that would mean at least 600 of them would die. Although there were over one hundred thousand demons here, having a guillotine constantly hanging over your head was terrifying.

Having finished what he had to say, War left the collective heads of the demons and they gradually got up from the ground.

Hyde and Fike were some of the fastest to recover. In the past few days, they had been wreaking havoc on the Shrike and had absorbed their fair share of damned souls. As a result, the crystal core inside their heart had grown and solidified. The result of this was that their bodies had grown far stronger.

It was their strengthened bodies that allowed them to recover quicker than the others. The second Hyde stood up and managed to shake off the lingering effects of the headache, he checked the Leaderboard.

Inside his head, a see-through projection appeared that only he could see. It was electronic and covered in thousands of names. The names belonged to demons, and they were ordered by the number of Shrikes they had killed.

Beside each name, was a number of points. This number represented the value of the Shrikes they had killed. 1 for a worker, 5 for a warrior, 25 for a general, 100 for a Lord and 500 for the progenitor. Although Solomon was the only demon who would know these names.

From the perspective of the rest of the demons, they were simply getting more points for killing the stronger Shrike.

Besides the number that represented points, was a percentage. This percentage showed the chance of you being picked to die each day.

The final thing that the leaderboard showed was the rewards. Or, to be more exact, the reward. There was only one reward and it was for first place. It simply said, recruitment.

"That's to be expected from the God of War I guess. He seems like an all or nothing kind of guy." Said Hyde when he had finished taking all of this in.

"I wonder what recruitment means though?" asked Hyde.

"Who knows..." replied Fike. "It's not like we will get it anyway so let's not worry about it."

Hyde expressed his protest "Hey! why do you need to be so negative we're... we are in..." Hyde looked down the leaderboard and found his name. He was tied with Fike for 1000th place. They each had 36 points.

So far, they had managed to kill 16 workers and 4 warriors. Hyde attention was taken from their points to the percentage beside their names. 0.1%

"Hahaha look at this Fike! there's no chance that we will die." He laughed

Nevertheless, Fike was frowning. He really didn't like the fact that there was a chance he could die at all. He was already itching to get back to killing Shrike. As long as they got into the top 100, they would be exempted from the danger of dying.

"Hmm, I don't like this anyway. I think we should get back to killing them so we can get into the top 100. If we get too complacent, we might end up getting pushed further down." Fike muttered.

This didn't escape Hyde's sharp hearing, but he was currently preoccupied with something.

Hyde was standing on top of the sand-dune barrier looking down at the forest. Behind him, the sun was beginning to rise up over the sands, lighting up the desert.

Fike was standing a couple of metres away, looking agitated. He really wanted to get back to killing the Shrikes, but he knew what Hyde was doing was important.

To explain the importance of Hyde's actions, you would have to go back to when they killed their first Shrike. After the pair had absorbed their first damned soul, a crystalline core had begun forming in the hearts.

They had both felt strange energy flowing out from their hearts and into their body. This energy had begun to strengthen their bodies and brought with it other, stranger changes.

Hyde had first noticed these changes when he next breathed out fire. The flames, which were orange at first had become a darker hue and had become even hotter. At the same time, he felt the energy flowing throughout his body weaken slightly.

After he had explained his experience to Fike, they came up with a theory. The crystalline thing in their hearts was created from the energy of the damned souls, and the energy it produced could strengthen Hyde's flames.

The next morning, when the sun had started to rise, Hyde felt a pang in his heart. And, the crystal began to heat up when the light from the sun hit him.

Hyde had felt energy building up inside of him as the crystal kept heating up. On instinct, he had directed the energy down through his arms and out of his hands.

Shockingly, when the energy reached the tips of his fingers, a small flame was formed. It was weak and didn't burn particularly hot. But, Hyde had created it by himself.

From then on, he had felt that throughout the day, he was stronger. Likewise, during the night, he felt depleted. It wasn't hard for him to figure out that the sun was enhancing him in some way.

That was why Fike was currently watching over Hyde as he meditated beneath the light of the morning sun.

The transparent orange flame that perpetually surrounded Hyde was flaring up and flickered hypnotically.

Hyde was holding his hands together, cupping them around something that Fike couldn't quite see. In those cupped hands, floated a ball of ghostly flame. It continued to burn despite having no fuel and looked particularly mystical.

Hyde wasn't the only person who had gained a strange ability from this energy. Fike could also manipulate this energy... he just didn't fully understand what it did.

When he moved the energy from his heart to his fingertips, nothing would happen. Unlike when Hyde would do it, no flame was produced.

At first, Fike was baffled. When the energy would leave his fingertips, the air would shimmer slightly, but that was it.

He had tried releasing it from other body parts, but the effects were the same. The air would just shimmer slightly.

During the night, when Hyde was weaker, they would return to the barricade of sand and wait for morning. With plenty of time on his hands, Fike would sit there and experiment with the energy.

Thanks to his experiments and attempts, Fike's control of the energy had become more delicate and intricate. And, on the third day, his persistence was rewarded.

While he was projecting the energy from his fingertips, a gust of wind picked up some of the nearby desert sands. The sands had drifted with the winds in front of Fike. Until... the sand came into contact with the energy he had been releasing.

Fike had been shocked. In front of him, roughly a handful of the sand was frozen in place. It vibrated slightly in the air, like a video that was skipping.

In his shock, Fike stopped releasing the energy from his hands. When he did so, the sand shot off into the distance, despite the wind having already died down.

Fike continued to experiment through the rest of the night and eventually discovered the basics of his abilities. At first, he had dropped various objects and frozen them in place before releasing them and allowing them to fall to the ground.

The next thing he tried was the reverse. He began throwing objects up into the sky and then freezing them in place. This time, when he released them, they would continue flying up into the air.

By now, he had pretty much figured it out. He could freeze objects in place, while still allowing them to retain their momentum. He needed to release a certain amount of energy to freeze the objects, and then he had to continuously release a smaller amount of energy to keep them frozen. The large the object, the more energy he would have to release.

Fike was pulled out of his thoughts when Hyde stood up from his mediation. The flames that usually surrounded him had grown slightly darker and looked ghostly in the morning sun.

Flames were burning in Hyde's eyes and he was grinning. "Let's go kill us some Shrikes!"