Leo and Jak began to fight their way back through the lines of demons. Their only saving grace was the fact the scion had so recklessly murdered its own kind during the fight otherwise, they would have been overwhelmed.
The demon was strong, stronger than most things Leo had faced but its ranged combat focus had allowed him to scrape through with a victory. The sheer size of the two forces with several heavyweights among them shook the earth around them even though it was a fighting retreat and not a battle proper. Jak’s slams and hammer-born explosions cleared the way for them until Hedrik was in sight again.
“Get behind the shields! Something is coming!” Hedrik called over a barrage of deflected shadow arrows and felflame lances.
Leo didn’t feel or see anything but he had no doubt something worse was about to show itself, it was the way of things lately. A wave of flame cleared the rest of the way with the shrieks of burning shadow fiends as they burst into flame only to be peppered by dozens of empowered arrows from the flanks.
Leo’s status was workable. His health and mana were still high enough but fighting the scion had depleted most of his stamina so he jogged back behind the line to stand beside Hedrik and look back toward where they had come. “What is coming? What do you see?!”
Hedrik growled and gestured back to the barely visible portal. Where a simple tear like the ones back in Hurius’s camp had once stood now a column of fluctuating power twisted and curved into the sky. The air around it crackled visibly even at this distance. Worse yet when his eyes focused on it a notification flashed into being.
Warning: The leader of this incursion is in the process of transposition.
Leo frowned and at the same moment, the pillar darkened from purple to almost black, and its base seemed to expand as something stepped through. A chill ran through The Order’s people and Leo took a step back reflexively.
[Seeker Shadow Lord | Abyssal Spawn 158]
A skeletal figure in pitch-black plate mail scanned the area around the anchor and the fact that Leo could feel the thing’s aura from this distance put his teeth on edge. Leo’s decent perception gave him a good look at the demon and the first thing he noticed other than the huge shadow hammer coalescing in the demon’s fist was its left arm. It was missing.
“Whatever it is it's injured. Keep moving!” Leo called with Jak and Hedrik repeating.
Leo had no idea why the demon had arrived injured, perhaps its journey here was hampered by the destroyed anchors. Not that Leo thought it would matter. The demon was far too strong to risk fighting. Leo had fought tier two enemies before but this one was something else.
As if the demon was reading his mind, Leo saw its skeletal jaw creak open far wider than any human would be able and an ear-piercing scream tore across the battlefield, “Let us feast, shadows! Let us purge this world!”
Leo was surprised to hear the demon speak the common tongue and judging by the expressions of the people around him they were too.
The Shadow Lord raised its fully formed hammer into the sky and Leo got a glimpse of three rings flashing across its knuckles, “Banners! Raise!” A sudden ripple ran threw the approaching legion and Leo spotted several shadow fiend banner bearers pause in their march and raise banners of simple black cloth on what appeared to be copper or bronze polls.
The Shadow Lord’s head tilted back so that its mouth was in line with its hammer, “Shadow’s Legion! Kill!” While the words boomed over the chaos an impenetrable black smoke poured from the demon's mouth, up the hand of its hammer, and from the hammer’s head it surged across the battlefield in a rush. When the smoke reached each of the upheld banners lances of darkness shot down the polls and into the chest of the bearer.
The marching shadow fiends seemed to pulse, writhing as a smog emanated from the bearers and seeped into the forms of their underlings.
“Gods! It’s a warlord class. Now we have no hope of victory…” Hedrik said barely audibly.
Leo’s stomach fell as he saw what Hedrik meant. The shadow fiends grew faster and stronger with every moment that passed. The scions and conjurers that had been such a hassle at the beginning all moved to the back of the attacking force as if they were just an insertion asset. Leo cursed. The Order’s forces were already at a horrible disadvantage but now they were completely outmatched. Shadow arrows that had been easily blocked or deflected before now shattered shields and barriers.
“Damn it! Keep moving! We must have faith that the other elders have noticed our plight!” Leo turned to the other elders, “I still have enough mana to assist in the retreat.”
Leo heard Hedrik argue but Leo ignored him as he moved back through the line and brought his flames to bear. Now that the scions and conjures were moving back his attacks would left uncontested. Leo would make use of that advantage.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
“Guard me! I will give us time!” The men around him nodded and several layers of barriers sprung up around him as he raised his sword of fire.
Leo had several skills he had not risked using up until a moment like this purely for the possible risk of them being dispelled or redirected but now, he could let loose.
“Smite of the Phoenix!” Mana turned to flame in Leo’s core and rushed across his body and into the length of his sword as he brought it down in a powerful sweeping arc. A lance of almost white flame hacked through the sky and as it fell it separated into dozens of spheres. The burning white spheres rained down upon the enemy like comets, each of them exploding into blinding domes of annihilation that put the work of the scions to shame.
Leo didn’t slow in the slightest as he moved with the momentum of his blade, spinning to swing in a low savage arc, “Arc of the Burning Tide!”
A wave of a magnitude he had never achieved before roared from his blade, spreading to encompass the entire approaching line of demons. Hundreds fell in screaming and writhing heaps as shadow melted away from blackened bone. Leo’s mana plummeted with each skill but he didn’t stop.
Before his next skill four barriers around him shattered like glass as his nearby protectors died in a volley of shadow arrows but Leo didn’t dare let it slow him down as he let go of his sword with his left hand and planted it on the ground, “Burning Ascent!”
Fire exploded from his left hand into the earth and all across the battlefield where Jak’s hammer hand shattered the earth columns of lava burst forth into the sky to rain across the enemy.
Level up!
Level up!
Leo’s legs failed him as he tried to rise back to his feet. His mana had bottomed out with that last skill but he had killed hundreds in a very short time, even with their enhancement. However, it still wouldn’t be enough. Every moment more came through the anchor, less than before but still far too many.
A rough arm pulled Leo to his feet and jammed a vial into his mouth. Leo gasped slightly as it broke in his mouth even though he knew it wouldn’t cut him. His legs slowly regained their strength and when they did Leo looked up to see Jak with a disturbing smile on his face, “Impressive, Leo Brightwing. But I will not let you beat me in demon kills. Ha!”
Jak turned shoving Leo back a step before leaping from the shield line directly into the enemy. The man’s skin flashed several dozen colors and suddenly the battlefield began to shake even worse than before as his hammer came down, again and again shattering any kind of formation the demons held.
“Man is insane…” Leo marveled as he watched the madman slam his way through the demons. Even as he watched Leo could see the shock of Jak’s suicidal attack was wearing off and soon he would be surrounded and dealt with.
“Oh, yes definitely but I suppose we will have to join him,” Hedrik’s voice said from his left.
Leo shook his head and chuckled, “What about the rest?’
Hedrik looked annoyed but he gestured over his shoulder, “Jak’s forces are ignoring orders. They want to fight…”
Leo looked where he was pointing and saw almost every fighter they had returning, “Why?”
Hedrik pointed into the sky and for the first time tonight, Leo saw the moon. It was full and larger than he could ever remember seeing it before. But that isn’t what caught his eye. The moon was red, not just the pinkish red of a lunar eclipse but pure crimson. The color of blood.
“The Crimson Dawn…”
Leo smirked, “Well. It appears some of the prophecy was true at least,” Leo turned back to the recovering demon legion and the intimidating form of its leader and decided to take a note from Dalen’s book, “Enough running, enough hiding, tonight we fight for The Slayer!”
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The Slayer’s shell fell through space at the very edge of The Place Between. He moved quickly but he noticed the effect seemed more delayed than usual, almost as if the corpse who had sent him here had barely enough mana to accomplish the task.
The Slayer’s mind raced through all of its available information unhampered by his lesser self’s weaknesses. Soon that would change, his core was breached and only the destruction of his soul would free him of his superior influence. The Slayer knew that breaking his core now was not a valid option, he needed strength and he needed his core to focus that strength but a partial breach would give it the control it needed to perform its purpose.
It was an annoyance to be forced to delay his purpose earlier than expected. Interestingly while in the strange bubble of warping space, his wrath degradation had slowed. It was unlikely the space witch corpse had anticipated that effect so it was possible he may be able to remain in control upon arrival.
Possible but unlikely. If the corpse had any intelligence it would isolate him far from anything worth killing, if of course, the corpse had the resources to do so. What was more likely is that it would place him as far as possible from their location to extend their broken excuse for a life.
The Slayer could feel his transit coming to an end but something flashed at the edge of his awareness. Was it the screams of a dying fool? No. Something else. A single voice broke through whatever it was that separated them.
“Enough running, enough hiding, tonight we fight for The Slayer!”
An expression The Slayer had not felt on its face flashed across it for the barest instant before dying away. None could fight for him, none were worthy. All would die by his hand eventually…
Another voice cried out, “He Who Kills! Let us be a blade in your hand!”
“Let us die for your purpose, die at your will!”
“Let us kill this demon scum!”
The expression flashed across The Slayer’s face again but his gaze turned through the featurless gray of twisting space and locked onto a single point of darkness. The expression became a sneer.
“The broken and weak would fight demons?”
The Slayer’s will hardened around him like a shell of force and the twisting space froze. With one fist he reached out with a blade of will and tore the space around him apart to grab hold of that speck of pathetic darkness.
“Let us see if they are a weapon worth wielding…”