While an unexpected battle was ongoing close to the impromptu prison camp, a certain person had chosen to sneak in through the surprising attack to complete a different goal. This person was a demon, sent to aid the East in their efforts against the West, South and North.
He had grey skin which was characteristic of most demons, dusty brown hair that was combed neatly and wore a light tunic, and pants. He walked bare footed, with both arms behind his back. Two dark horns jutted out of his head and both eyes of his were closed as he walked, his ears doing all the ‘seeing’ for him.
He stopped before a cave, a low and peaceful snore erupting from within. He had found what the East had been searching for so desperately throughout this entire war. The ‘Wild Card’ that would end the entire battlefield in the East’s favour.
A thin smile spread across the demon’s face as he took on a fighting stance – hips lowered, left arm pulled in and right arm hovering right in front of him. He took in a deep breath as he charged up Ki – most simply called it aura.
“Ha!”, like a bullet, she shot his left arm towards the cave, releasing a golden ball of light, aimed for what rested inside the cave. Shockingly, the attack didn’t make it past the cave’s entrance. The demon’s ears perked up as he performed a wide area search with his ability [Presence Detection].
Nothing came up on his radar. It was unfortunate, truly, for if he weren’t blind, he would have noticed the oddity of the amount of mist in the area. Especially the thick mist that completely negated his ki attack.
The mist was moving, quickly, sweeping the ground beneath the blind demon, spiralling around him. The demon couldn’t see or sense anything but, his skill [Sixth Sense] warned him that something bad was about to happen. As he stood there, waiting for the slightest sense of life or an incoming attack, the mist that was oddly moving around him grew fangs and closed shut at breakneck speed, making a loud ‘SNAP’ sound, revealing a massive white wolf head.
“That was far too close for comfort.”, The blind demon said, a cold sweat running down his forehead. He barely managed to move out at the last second, and even then, the distance between him and the wolf head was barely a metre long.
The eyes of the wolf head glared at the demon. “You are quick on your feet, I see.”
Right before he got killed, the blind demon sensed the wolf’s intent to kill him and managed to move out of the way, although from the looks of things, his gauging wasn’t nearly as efficient as he would prefer it to be. At least, the blind demon martial artist could finally sense his opponent.
“And you are quite the patient predator.”, He responded to the voice that entered his head. “Wha-”
Before he could ask his question, another wolf head came rushing for his neck from the right. Sensing the killing intent, he managed to side step the attack. Just then, another wolf head came from behind, forcing the martial artist to somersault over the head. From below, a fourth wolf head had its maw at the ready.
Reflexively, he shot a ki blast at the head, destroying it so he could land. By now, all sense of relaxedness he had, vanished from his face and was now replaced by a stern expression. Suddenly, all he could feel was killing intent all around him. Like he was swimming in a pool of killing intent, that was light enough for him to move through. Clearly, this opponent of his wasn’t someone he could light-heartedly brush aside. And their brutish attempts at devouring him whole only suggested to him that they were definitely a monster.
“Who am I fighting, if I may ask?”, He was already in position for a surprise attack. But just in case, he encased himself with protective ki, using [Tempered Body].
After a few seconds of silence, the wolf responded to his question.
“Shiroi, Captain of the Hyakkiyako Familia!”, the wolf declared their identity, however that didn’t help him identify what exactly she was. If anything, it had given him a different question.
“Hyakkiyako Familia?”, He tilted his head quizzically. However, that was all he was getting from Shiroi. The white wolf proceeded with her violent and ruthless attacks, the demon being forced to simply dodge or negate.
“Tch!”, having had enough of the wolf’s stubbornness, the demon performed a sweeping kick infused with mana, clearing the existing mist within a 5-metre radius of him. This was simply to test out a theory though, and he was right. Given how he couldn’t sense the killing intent as severely as he did originally, he surmised that the opponent was spreading their very being through the air. It was as if they became the very air itself, however he knew better.
There were skills that allowed some monsters to transform their bodies into various states. This had to be one of those skills, and if a ki-powered sweep kick managed to push back the body, the skill had to be along the lines of [Fog Body] or [Mist Body]. An extremely versatile skill that made the user’s nigh untouchable and virtually unavoidable. However, such a skill had a fatal flaw.
“[Battle God Technique: Path Paver]!”, Declaring the technique aloud, the blind demon punched a fist full of kill in the direction of the killing intent right before him, clearing aside a great majority of the mist.
“[Battle God Technique: Mountain Carver]!”, Powerfully, he roared and swung his arm in an arc, sending a bow of golden ki behind him, cutting apart trees and severing the mist.
“[Battle God Technique: Giant Frenzy]!”, He performed a barrage of uncontrolled punches in random directions, shooting powerful shockwaves all around, and spinning fast enough to create a massive fan that pushed away all the mist.
If his opponent was wise, they’d form their body back before their body completely dispersed into the wind. In the moment that they did that, he would attack them and draw out as much information from them as possible.
As he was thinking this, he felt killing intent from behind. He almost disregarded it, but his [Sixth Sense] was ringing far too hard. Before he noticed it, a living being had entered his sense range and was closing in on him. Confused, that was when he realised that whoever he was fighting hadn’t used a skill that transformed their body, but had conjured up such an element. For Martial Artist such as himself, such a tricky opponent was deadly.
With a big gulp and using the momentum from his [Giant Frenzy] attack, the blind demon spun around, narrowly avoiding death from behind. He felt a sharp object graze his skin and draw black blood.
“Reiman did warn that those they would send to wake up the Ursa Minor would be tricky, but I didn’t expect much from the East. You clearly are not of the East.”, the powerful presence muttered as it slowly turned around to face him. “Explain to me what a creature that doesn’t belong in any part of Larm is doing in the West, close to a taboo area. Who dares to disturb the Ursa Minor!”
‘Minor? If that thing down there is the baby, then where’ the mother?’
“State your name before I kill you where you stand.”, The wolf ordered for an introduction.
The demon, although wary, decided to respond. “My name is Beryl. I hold no special position like yourself.”
That was a lie. Under normal circumstances, the demon wouldn’t hesitate to give his real name and boldly declare what position he held and under whom he served. This time however, the demon was feeling like he might not find this battle so easy to complete. He had already heard from his associate about a certain mastermind demon having been manipulating events in Larm in secret.
Considering the East and North had allied up to battle against the South and West, the demon couldn’t help but feel like that was where this demon had aligned themselves. And there was that ‘Hyakkiyako Familia’ name from earlier. He wasn’t certain, but his [Sixth Sense] was telling him that the name was relevant. He couldn’t be certain under any means, but he felt like the monster before him held some connection to the mastermind who was also a candidate for the demon lord position.
If he were to announce his true name and master, and through some unforeseen events, lost, that would only be to the detriment of his master.
For this reason, this demon was Beryl for now.
“Beryl, hmm? You stand before the king of timber wolves! Shiroi of the West! I will assume you have made your peace already.”
As soon as the monster declared, mist wolves jumped at the blind demon, their maws open, hungry for his flesh.
***
“[Solar Flare]!”, Yuuna roared, casting a ball of golden fire into the sky. This ball, exploded, spreading tendrils of golden tentacle flames that burnt through anything they touched. Several harpies were shot down using this one attack, however, even more so of those harpies simply disappeared once the flames touched them. What made the whole scenario more unfortunate was the fact that this wide area attack hadn’t done much to cut down the numbers of the opposing forces.
Griffons, wyverns and manticores, all were swooping down, plucking up members of West and dropping them to their deaths.
“[Water Sphere]!”, Tsuna managed to catch some of the falling allies through multiple water spheres, but a good number of them fell to their deaths and Tsuna was finding it difficult to continuously cast the spheres of water. The power she received was great, but not Almighty.
The cyclopes were also doing their best, their spear-bearers shooting down enemies, but the spears simply flew threw some of the enemies, like a magic spell. It made some doubt if they were real, but those very monsters’ attacks landed and caused damage.
The worst part of all of this were the dragons. The two massive green scaled dragons that heartlessly fired their own breath attacks, causing the most amount of damage there. Due to the sheer size of the attacks, most of West found it next to impossible to avoid taking some form of damage.
The mages of West tried their hardest, but most of their attacks couldn’t pierce the incredibly hard scales of the terrors of the sky that rained down violent heat at them.
Unfortunately, their opponent weren’t only the masters of the sky. The captured mountain trolls and goblins had gotten vigour to resume their fight once more and were giving an insane onslaught from the ground below. Worse, their number appeared to have multiplied somehow as well.
The goblins and cyclopes weren’t fairing too well, even with the likes of the goblin captains and the chiefs of the cyclops army giving it their all to minimise casualties as well as cause severe damage to the opposing side.
But then, as if waiting for this exact moment, a loud howl echoed throughout the battlefield. No one stopped to see where it came from due to fear of being struck down, by the opponent, but even the North couldn’t ignore it when more and more howling sounds echoed, as if bouncing off each other.
Following this massive display, was a blinding twinkling light from the sky. Like stars falling to the earth, arrows poured down violently, piercing the skulls of the opposing side that were unfortunate enough to be in its trajectory.
“Hide you-!”, a random war goblin shouted, but was immediately squashed by a nearby troll. He looked up and felt no fear as he saw both dragons flapping their wings so hard, the arrows were completely thrown off-guard, some going as far as hitting members of the West themselves.
Yuuna tried her best to incinerate the arrows, but underestimated just how strong those arrows were and only unleashed fire arrows at her own allies. It was up to Tsuna to protect them and her range, although wide, couldn’t possibly protect everyone. What once seemed like a great aid, was now causing great damage on their side.
Like a storm of hell fire, smoke rose to the sky, streaking behind the arrows. However, as if the arrows never existed, they simply disappeared from the battlefield, leaving absolutely everyone baffled. There was no proper explanation as to what just happened, but the West chose to use this moment of disarray to their advantage.
A loud howl echoed across the battlefield as members of the Fenrir Alliance charged onto the battlefield, behind them, the entire goblin, orc and kobold armies. All announcing their presence with their war cries and weapons waving through the sky, the army joined up with their allies and clashed with their enemies.
With an army of wyverns, harpies, gryphons, mountain trolls, mountain goblins and manticores fighting against an army of goblins, kobolds, cyclopes, wolves and treants, the West had descended into utter madness, the battlefield now resembling a scene out of a fictional story.
And to add to the madness, a pillar of white light fired off from within the forest, piercing through the wing of one of the dragons, causing it to lose control and plummet to the ground.
A might roar like thunder erupted. The ground shook as trees fell and a quick shadow blitzed through the forest. The owner of this shadow emerged onto the battlefield, stomping on the bodies of mountain trolls and goblins that tried to get out of the way.
The monster jumped to the sky, going to a height that no one would expect for a creature of its size to be able to and plucking down wyverns and gryphons like they were nothing more than treats to it. Bouncing off wyvern to wyvern and attacking cruelly and viciously with their claws, the monster shredded through the North.
Some harpies tried to use wind magic on the monster, but the monster’s lilac-coloured scales completely nullified any attack. Their sharp, jagged fangs bit through those attacking harpies and their tail got and strangled any that tried to flee out of its range.
A wyvern flew in, tackling the monster off of another wyvern to send it plummeting, but a crystal surface formed underneath monster, allowing it to maintain its position in the sky. To the wyvern that tackled the monster, a crystal shard was sent barrelling through its skull.
With another roar, crystal spikes started to materialise around the monster. Ten, twenty, fifty, hundred, two-hundred, five hundred, one thousand, a seemingly infinite amount of spikes formed around the monster, only for those spikes to break into at least 10 different pieces, multiplying their number ten-fold and shooting out in seemingly random directions.
Still, not a single piece hit any member of the West. Raw power, precision, speed and ruthlessness were displayed effortlessly by this monstrosity.
This monster was the first ever familiar of the master of the West. A drake with scales harder than diamond, yet lustrous enough to possess the same value. Claws that could shred through steel like it was paper and a tail that was as fast and deadly as lightning. Four jet-black horns grew out of the drake’s head in sharp contrast to the platinum mane growing, giving it an all too majestic look. Amethyst, the Twilight Crystal Drake had finally made her awe-inspiring debut in the war.