Prince Reginald watched as agents of Abyss descended upon his army, and there was nothing he could do, as the delivered "Pure Annihilation".

The skeletons were not very fast, no, it would would be inappropriate to label them slow. Their running speed was second to none, the only relief to the defending army was, the unintelligent movements of these monsters.

Their strength was on par with the ogre captains, maybe beyond them. Their speed only second to the wolves, their reflexes shadowing the beastment, and their aim was perfect, always on target.

What gave the defending army room for breath, was their intellect. They only focused on the first target in front of them, and yet even that was causing devastating damage. The strongest of them, a bigger black skeleton with more complicated and sharp runes on its body, didn't target anything individually. It was firing black red magical projectiles at an unimaginable rate. And under the rain of the demonic bullets, countless soldiers were shredded to pieces.

Allen watched as the black unit of skeletons wrought carnage upon the army. Then he looked at the one who was most devastating of them all. The 10 meter tall, black red skeleton, raining projectiles. Although Allen had never seen a Gatling Gun before, he knew that the price of firing so many devastating projectiles at such a rate couldn't be small. At least he couldn't do it. Even with his hundreds of magical circles he couldn't do it.

Now Allen had a decision to make, one that would decide how much damage they would suffer. For their loss was already set in stone. It was decided the moment these monstrosities arrived that they would lose. As even a squad of tier 30 experts could not bring down a single one of them. The skeletons kept reforming no matter how many times they were killed. Thus the only option was to save as many as they could and retreat. Hoping, that these agents of devastation did not pursue them. And he had made his decision.

He operated his communication device, and then transmitted to all leaders.

"Syal, I need you to take your best 20000 warriors and engage the skeletons with the aim of delaying. Do not aim to destroy them. Order rest ofogres to retreat, and take as many as they can with them. Order them to not stop till they reach the stronghold in the forest."

"Very well.", intoned a serene voice, that one would not expect from an ogres mouth. But it didn't stop there.

" I Syal, vote for us to invoke the contract with the Orient. Let the immortal cultivators help us, else the damages will be heavy."

"Agreed"

"Agreed, motion passed. The cultivators will help. We will negotiate the prices later."

The voices if the leaders agreed, with only Prince Regald maintaining silence.

"Very well, we shall help. After all, the Orient continent is an ally of the Everglades."

Another voice intoned, speaking with an accent.

Soon the plan was implemented. The ogre sriding their wolves, picked as many as they could and the other cavalrymen of other races did so as well. They retreated.

A group of thirty thousand cultivators who were standing in a corner of the battle field, untouched by the carnage now flew on their treasures to engage the bone monstrosities along with the wolf riders.

As the army was retreating, Allen started invoking an incantation, with his hundreds of magic circles forming a single one, eminating bright light, which then formed a yellow shield around the retreating army.

The Bone Battalion too lost all interest in the retreating soldiers, once they were presented with the gift of 3 cultivators and 2 wolf riders per skeleton. The infantry skeletons were engaged with their opponents. The problem now faced by the army were the 3 Virtuoso rank skeletons hovering in the air, of which one was a mage type, making huge orbs of red lightning and devastating the army, on a sword wielding skeleton and the last one the giant gun wielding warlord, of whom blood energy was oozing.

Before they could move, the four leaders, who were now accompanied by a grim looking cultivator in daoist robes, saw a strange scene. The biggest skeleton, the one who wielded guns, suddenly stopped moving and got down. It stood on the ground, some sort of red energy from the dead bodies on the battlefield seeping in its bones. Yet the red lights on its body got dimmer.

The leaders thought that the it had malfunctioned, they knew that golems sometimes malfunctioned. But then they saw him grow in size, the Gatling Guns in its hand also going through a change.

The other leaders were confused, but as soon a Allen saw what was happening, he shivered.

And in a surprised shouting voice he said,

"That's not a golem. It's growing. It can get stronger. Move. As quickly as possible. Finish them off."

5 Virtuosos moved, 6 if we count Syal's mount, to attack the skeleton under metamorphosis.

Yet they were blocked by the other two Virtuosos of The Bone Battalion.

"I'll face the mage, go get the other two."

Allen cried as he engaged the mage in battle. He tried all sorts of spells, freezing the skeleton, buffing himself with speed and mana boost at the cost of a few items, and many arcane arts. Yet the skeleton mage only did two things, defend with a blood red shield and attack with black-red orbs. All variety of spells and all trucks rendered useless.

The sword wielding skeleton was capable of dealing with the other 5. It suddenly grew a black metal shield out of nowhere and with its Spartan fighting style, was infallible.

The leaders struggled for a long time, with Syal now accompanying Allen in his battle against the mage. As time went by, suddenly the red runes on gun wielding skeleton went very dim. But its eyes, burned with greater fire.

As this was happening, the cultivator from Orient had a bad premonition. He suddenly produced talismans, and threw it at all his allies, and the leaders caught hold of it by instinct. Before they could question his actions, the previously under metamorphosis skeleton raised its hand, then a beam of black light with very thin amount of red lightning surrounding it hit them. Before they could move the leaders disappeared.

They reappeared 30 kms from the battlefields location and what they saw from there would be imprinted in their minds. The black beam had caused a huge explosion, the remnants of which were few skeletons, and some of the cultivators and riders, who were retreating with haste.

Everything else was dead. Even the enemy army that had the protection of green shield had half their army obliterated.

They saw the battlefield field being void of anything except gore and corpses. The only thing moving was the agent of death standing in the middle if the field.

Its size had reduced, but now it had skelal wings, that spanned for 6 meters, and in its hand it held slender guns, with intricate carving. The guns looked like a piece of art, rather than weapons of mass destruction, yet when he pointed it at the group standing thirty kilometers away, they felt their scalp go numb.

"He is an Enlightened Being. It crossed the threshold of an Enlightened Being."

Prince Regald exclaimed. Today, did not go as he expected. Although no one would blame him for this, yet a loss was still a loss.

Still, they could do no more than retreat. And report what happened to their elders.

But how were they to move, when the skeleton was pointing its weapon at them.

But today was their lucky day, it relaxed its aim, an then ignored it. It closed it's wings around itself, and stood there like a statue. While the remnants of the previously confident defending army, retreated.