Aznod clenched his fists as he looked at the city of Ashtanu, forcing himself not to speak. Every whimper or gasp in the city had turned into casualties, and nearly half the city had been destroyed at this point, even with Udona’s warning. He could only imagine how it was on the rest of the planet, not daring to spread his senses out.
He looked over at Udona, preparing to comfort her, only for her face to suddenly turn pale. What’s the matter? Did it break through one of the barriers?
Udona shook her head slowly, looking up. Aznod followed her gaze, but did not immediately see anything. It was still the middle of the day, so the sun was high in the sky. It wasn’t until Udona’s voice entered his mind that he understood the problem. There is now an additional apocalypse of darkness… We are losing the light from the furthest stars first. In under an hour, it will remove all light.
Also… machinery is changing into humanoid appearances. Thankfully, they are destroying themselves by ‘talking’ when they are created. I feel the presence of other void beasts outside the barrier, but I can’t tell what they’re doing.
Aznod’s eyes went wide in alarm, barely suppressing the gasp that tried to rise from his throat. They are no longer operating the same as before? He asked, to which Udona shook her head.
I don’t know what changed, but they are attacking far more rampantly now.
Immediately, the battle within the void had become intense. Tsubaki and I focused on the four monsters attacking Earth. My summons were engaging the beasts around Deckan. The Last Gasp was busy defending both Lorek and Spica, while Leowynn’s army tried to clear up the other worlds with their numbers. It was no longer a question of ‘would’ we win, but how long it would take, and how many casualties we would face in the process.
On the side of Tsubaki and myself, the four void beasts were ferocious, launching their attacks while keeping only a strand of their power on the world. There was a clown-like figure that cackled as he launched powerful blasts in the void. Going by his strength, I assumed that this was the one that had already been ‘feeding’ on Earth for a while now.
Aside from that, the other three were vaguely humanoid figures, though they seemed far more feral than the one that Dana had defeated. I had neither the time nor inclination to discover what rules they operated on.
I split a portion of my focus on observing Tsubaki and each of the void beasts, as Leowynn had taught me. While dodging to the side of a dark burst of energy, I materialized the guns that I had practiced creating, and took aim at the clown. With a flick of my thumb, both of the pistols were set to their ‘fire’ element.
As soon as I pulled the trigger, the clown seemed to sense something wrong. It ducked out of the path of my bullets, letting two red lines whiz past its body. It cackled again, as if to taunt me, charging up another blast in its hands.
One thing that I had learned by training with Leowynn in the void was that dodging ranged attacks was incredibly easy, so long as you had proper control over your own time. In fact, I was rarely ever able to land a hit on Leowynn in our battles because of this. After an attack left the control of its user, it would no longer be able to accelerate to catch its target.
Thus, I accelerated myself just long enough to move out of the way of his attack, while continuing to fire my pistols. However, just as I did, the clown kept moving aside to avoid them, even when I increased the speed of my bullets. Every time it did, it cackled, as if enjoying the show. Judging by its sharp claws, it should have been able to engage in melee combat, but preferred to taunt its opponent.
After firing nearly a hundred shots, I lowered my pistols, causing the clown to look at me in what must have been confusion. It shot another, smaller blast, as if trying to taunt me into continuing the fight, but a red line pierced the blast as it was flying towards me, causing the void beast to look alarmed.
Bullet Hell. This was a technique that I had come up with while practicing with Leowynn. It was only possible to use due to the martial intent that I possessed, focusing on homing bullets. The weakness of ranged attacks in the void was that they could no longer accelerate or change direction after leaving the user’s control. However, my bullets never left my control from the start.
After each shot, I slowed the bullets to a stop in the distance, setting up an array that I was prepared to activate at a moment’s notice. Now, I had created a hell of a hundred fire bullets, and it was ready to activate.
The clown seemed to sense the danger, no longer interested in taunting me, and charged forward with elongated claws. However, my expression was cold, more than a dozen red lines curving through the void. He dodged repeatedly, but more and more bullets came, with the ones that missed their targets turning around.
By the time that he had crossed half of the distance, the first bullet pierced his leg, causing him to stagger. In that moment, more than fifty red lines pierced through his body at the same time. Seeing him begin to dissolve, I turned to look at Tsubaki’s battlefield, where she was busy fighting against the three weaker beasts.
Unlike myself, Tsubaki did not specialize in ranged attacks. While she was able to use them, her specialty was in melee, where she had a significant advantage in the void. To me, it was no surprise that she had already dealt with two of the monsters, and was quickly working on the third.
“Awaken the dragon!” The pirate queen called out, one hand slapping against the railing of the ship. There was a rumble, the figurehead at the front squirming as it rose from the ship. It was an elongated dragon, its body the same gold as the rest of the ship. The dragon released a howl that resonated through the void, causing the beasts around Lorek and Spica to stiffen.
“Lena! It’s your turn! The ship is yours!” She announced, a small halfling walking forward with a determined expression.
“Yes, captain!” She shouted firmly, clasping her hands together. “May our path to victory never waver…”
As she muttered these words, her body seemed to melt, spiritual energy surging from her to surround the ship. When it solidified, it took the form of an illusory compass, pointing towards the monsters in the distance.
“Soraya, my gun!” The captain shouted with a mad grin, a heroc woman charging over. Her body distorted, turning into a black pistol in the captain’s hands. “All crew, show them our flame!”
The captain aimed her pistol forward, pulling the trigger. However, no bullet appeared with the sound of the gunshot. Instead, a hole suddenly opened in the forehead of a large, feline beast. Likewise, half the crew had assumed their combat forms, held in the hands of the other half. Whether it was sword or gun, attacks were launched almost comically into the air as if they were just waving their arms. With every attack, a wound appeared on whichever beast the giant compass pointed towards.
This was the ability that Lena had created to assist the crew, one that had made her highly valued by the pirate queen. Using her compass form, she would interfere with space, causing two effects to occur. The first, any attacks launched from within the compass would be directed at the enemy she pointed towards. The second…
One of the beasts opened its mouth wide, a green stream of light shooting out. Along the way, it condensed into innumerable vines, reaching out in an attempt to ensnare the Last Gasp. However, the vines seemed to twist around the compass, unable to touch it. This was the second effect, to isolate the space around the ship.
Through these two effects, Lena could both protect the ship and aid in its offense. Unless the opponent also had the ability to interfere with space, she was confident that they would not be broken through.
Leowynn’s expression was heavy as she led the charge towards the remaining worlds. Her army had the largest task of all, needing to deal with roughly half of the enemy forces by themselves. Yet, this was to be expected, as their army was far larger than the others. They might not be specialists like Tsubaki, the Last Gasp, or the Keeper’s summons. However, even as rank and file soldiers, their numbers were in the hundreds.
“This isn’t the time to discuss priority, anymore!” Leowynn shouted, waving her hand towards the distant worlds. “Everyone, divide and conquer. Use your powers to the best of your abilities. You outnumber the opponents twenty to one, so use this to your advantage!”
Her heart sank whenever she thought about all of the people that had refused evacuation, knowing that most of them had probably died at this point. She had to force those thoughts out of her mind, though, knowing that they shouldn’t be so stubborn the next time such an order was given.
As the army charged, Leowynn’s eyes caught sight of a red figure trailing behind, furrowing her brow. “Scarlet, you’re not a Fallen. Why are you here?”
Scarlet turned to look at Leowynn, a small smile on her lips. “Sister… isn’t it obvious?” She asked, her red dress flowing beneath her. Leowynn felt as if it had begun to mix with the fabric of the void. “These beasts are endangering dad’s worlds. They’ve killed so many of his people. They even killed your disciple. I’m…”
Scarlet’s body seemed to shift, turning blood red as she grew. “I’m rather angry right now. You won’t begrudge me wanting to join this battle myself, will you?” She asked, her voice turning into a deep rumble as her body turned more ferocious, a demonic figure with a gaping maw and razor sharp claws.
Leowynn bit back her retort, shaking her head. “Go.” She said simply, and Scarlet vanished from view.
Her snarling voice appeared behind one of the void beasts, latching onto its neck and dragging it away from Kione. “These beasts possess neither ki nor blood… but all things can be dyed red.” She asserted, her grip tightening as the monster flailed in her grasp, its body slowly changing color.
Leowynn had to specifically send a message to the rest of the army, warning them not to attack Scarlet by mistake. In her current form, it would be easy to mistake her for a monster. Furthermore… Leowynn suddenly felt as if the burden that their forces had to face had lessened with such a monster on their side.
With that thought in mind, Leowynn called upon her own divine artifact, a pitch black sword, and flung herself into the melee.
