Offensive

The battle was growing bloodier and bloodier. The Essence around Ryun was shaking in his vision and sense as he turned on his intent on it. The Oblivion that made his body started devouring air and light around him, turning his appearance into a rippling vaguely wolf like shape. He charged through the enemy forces, firing his flicker and cutting monsters to pieces. A group of monsters blinked in close and fast, they attacked and hit him hard enough that he stumbled. Strains of Qi channeled from his core, one, two, four, then a dozen, leaving his body in a rush of Oblivion to fill the area around him. His understanding and intent focused, he pulled his aura back, shortened the range and then he grabbed hold of the Oblivion Qi around him. In a split second he shaped a dozen techniques in the air around him, a dozen orbs of pure darkness appeared, floating in the air. A moment later they each fired on their own, cutting down any monster around him, strafing across lines but slicing only flesh.

Ryun didn’t stop pushing his Qi out of his body, only lowered the amount as he started to shape techniques outside of it. But inside his body, he shaped another technique. His sense told him that the monsters around them had realized their threat. Thin beams of Oblivion were slicing monsters to pieces with every passing moment, while a rain of spears fell from up high, so many that they obscured the sky.

Ryun expanded his aura and kept firing with his orbs, replacing each that fired, keeping half a dozen of them around him at all times. He finished shaping the other technique and let his {Avatar of the Twilight Reaper} out. It manifested next to him, the intent of his body and Qi copied exactly. It would look and feel the same as Ryun himself, the Oblivion effect would prevent anything from identifying it as a copy.

As soon as it appeared, Ryun and it split off, the avatar taking a long leap to land in the middle of a monster group and unleashing a {Final End}. Ryun did the same, he leapt in the opposite direction. Attacks and monsters came at him, but Selia intercepted them all. He landed among a thick grouping of monsters, stomping and crushing some beneath his paws. Then he unleashed his own {Final End}. Monster disintegrated all around him as an expanding sphere of his technique washed over them.

They had been fighting non-stop since they joined the battle, and he had lost count just how many monsters they had killed. The area that had once been filled with the enemy was now a field full of death and destruction. They had changed the landscape, turned it into a crater filled plain—though that was mostly Selia. Ryun kept moving, hunting the monsters that were now trying to get away. The monsters had tried to gather and overwhelm them, but they had failed, their gathering had only made Selia and Ryun stronger. Now, Ryun could tell that there were less monsters because his stats were dropping. So, he went after them, chasing them, killing all the way.

His sense of the battle told him that the battle outside of the city had changed, the enemy was faltering, and the sects were rallying. Ryun and Selia moved with the monster tide, following, and killing across their lines. Nothing could stand in their way.

There was so much death everywhere around her, she could feel it. It made her stronger, so much stronger. A swing of her spear sent shockwaves through the air. Not even during the greatest battles in the Empire had she been this strong. Her Qi scorched everything in its path, her spear pierced the strongest of hides, the monsters died in front of her.

Her Battle Knowledge was pulsing in her mind, unraveling the flow of the battle before her eyes. The overwhelming assault of the monsters had slowed and was now being reversed. She beat her wings, sending a blast of heat and fire beneath her as she took to the sky. The monster’s unfortunate enough to be around her burned to ash in an instant. Those that survived were shattered by the sonic boom she caused as her stats pushed her over the territories Air Essence quality.

A monster with four leathery wings and a wide gaping maw swooped down on her. With a {Mist Burst} she evaded to the side, then cut it in half with a |Arc Swipe|. A blast of heat from her [Dawnfire Immolation] traveled down her spear and blasted out with her swing, carried through the air just from her swing alone. A group of flying monsters heading her way was engulfed by the remainder of her attack as it flew into the distance and dissipated.

She turned and looked at the line where the Sects had faltered, where the monsters had attempted to push them against the walls of the city. It was a wide field of battle, spanning kilometers before her. A large piece of the enemy army had punched through there, she had seen it happen as she had held the line at the edge of it. She had sent people to hold their flank to prevent the monsters from outmaneuvering them, but now she saw only death and destruction.

A massive amount of enemy army had widened the gap and pushed through separating the Sect battlelines in two. And now they were dead. So many of them that her Death Sense was nearly overwhelmed. It was almost distracting, the insights that her perk provided. It was as if there were holes where there was supposed to be more death, but she didn’t dwell or try to understand the strange sensation. There were hundreds of thousands of dead, she could tell because of how powerful she was now. Her Death Empowerment filled her with power to rival anyone on the field of battle at the moment.

A maelstrom of black and green spears forged out of Qi was flying in all directions, so dense that it was hard to see beyond them. Some would impact a monster and explode. Others would pierce a monster than continue, flying through the air and piercing more. There were tens of thousands of them, and each was controlled expertly with precision that boggled the mind. In the center of it all stood a familiar woman, though changed. She floated on a slim disk made from her Qi, her size was larger than it usually was, but not overtly so. Two sets of horns rose from her head, framing black hair. Even from this distance Nayra could see her eyes blazing with green fire. Her hands were spread to her sides, her fingers moving as if she was playing an instrument—one that brought only death to everything around her.

Selia Jhan-Ekoa was a beacon shining from within a slightly purple haze that covered that part of the battlefield. But there was another, or rather two, rippling shapes whose only existence could be seen by the effects they left on the area around it. Nayra looked at one of the large ripples moving through the monster army on the ground, there was no perceivable shape just a black distortion that shook and twisted with every moment. Half a dozen black orbs streaked with violet and silver floated around it, following it closely. The monsters on the ground were just… dying. There were no flashy techniques, nothing to be seen at all. Invisible beams cut the monsters in half, shape, size, type, none of it mattered as they died. The shape was fast, and it left destruction everywhere it went. The air burst around it with every movement it made, the ground dented and rolled with every step, cracking and swallowing unfortunate monsters in its wake.

Every now and then, Nayra would see a wave of monsters try to overwhelm him, but then they would just disintegrate in a spherical motion, as if something was spreading from him. She knew it as the {Final End} technique, even though she couldn’t see anything aside from the aftereffects.

The two of them went through the monster army like a storm, like forces of nature unbound by any power. The level of destruction was on the levels of what she had witnessed before when the Emperor destroyed the Jewel of the Empire. When he and her mother fought against the unending army of the monsters in the desert. They were wrecking a third of the enemy army all by themselves.

And so, she could feel the tide turn. The monsters were pulling back from the other fronts, gathering in front of the two of them. Trying to control the storm.

Nayra turned her attention back to her lines beneath her as they pushed the monsters back. With a beat of her wings and a Valkyrie’s Descent, she came down on the enemy and continued to push the monsters back.

* * *

Eratemus strafed across the enemy line with his dragon mount spewing flame all the way. He had managed to delay the enemy long enough for the Sects to recover, but then something changed. He flew higher and looked on the opposite side of the city where a massive concentration of the enemy forces was being demolished by two people he recognized. The enemy was pulling forces from all fronts in response to losing so many of them there.

And yet, his experience told him that something wasn’t quite right. He flew over the shaking city, and beneath the battle that raged in the sky. He observed the entire field. It seemed like they were winning, at least outside of the city, but the battle still raged inside of it.

Eratemus pulled out formations out of his storage, sensory and scanning ones that required a lot of his Qi which he couldn’t easily restore in this vessel. Still, he spent it. One of his formations returned a ping that was… strange. Eratemus turned his eyes in the direction the formation pointed and saw… nothing, only empty land beyond the fighting. He used more formations, but none of them returned anything. The one that showed a ping was a formation that was supposed to detect stealthed individuals. The ping that it returned was strange as well. The direction was too wide, spanning kilometers, it could be a mistake. But Eratemus ordered his dragon in that direction. He flew over the battle and moved away from it. He approached the empty hills and plains, and now his other formations started to pick up on things. He frowned, but then there was a shimmering as if something passed over him, and the expanse changed. What was empty land and skies turned into something far different.

Monsters marched, a second army. And at its head was General that was familiar to him, the one that led the charge through the portal in the Tournament City, the one that fought Yirrel.

Eratemus turned around, heading back to the battlefields, he flew as fast as he could as flying Generals pursued him. The battle wasn’t won yet.