Aldred was panicking.

He knew as soon as he saw that full moon abomination emerge from the Demon's chest that things had gone from bad to worse.

He should have known after the Demon was so lax with the safety of his other weapons, it was all because he only needed one for the abomination to fuse with it.

And Aldred couldn't have left a worse weapon to become a full moon abomination.

Aldred was so shocked at the fact that there was a second full moon abomination that he forgot to dodge the horrible axe.

Kai's first thought when watching Aldred lose a leg was that the large gray wolf could just use his healing ability on himself to regenerate the leg.

But Aldred's restoration did not work in that way.

Restoration could only be used to bring something back to the way it was. A tree into a sapling, that would be an example. But it did not work as well on living beings. Aldred would not be able to bring someone back from the dead as their life force had already left their body.

Sadly, it's not like restoration was even an option to bring his leg back in the first place.

The double headed axe, the Demon's final weapon that was now a full moon abomination, had the ability to delay the time a cut took to heal.

Previously, the axe would have been able to delay Aldred by a few hours, depending on how deep the cut was. Now that it was a full moon abomination though...

Aldred inwardly knew that it would take at least a few days to heal his leg.

And he did not have a few days.

Jumping backwards to try and put some distance between him and the two full moon abominations, Aldred growled as countless ideas and plans started forming in his mind.

The situation was, to put it bluntly, hopeless.

One full moon abomination was somewhat bearable, but two?

Unless there was someone hidden among the crowd of humans that could temporarily gain power equivalent to Aldred or either of the full moon abominations, Aldred saw no way of winning.

But did that mean Aldred was going to give up? To give into the Demon that had tried to take his life countless times in the long time Aldred had been alive? To abandon Failure's, the man who saved his life and basically raised him, goal of revenge?

Hell no.

A desparate idea clawed it's way into Aldred's mind. It was worth a shot, but he did not see it working.

"Restore!"

The word escaped Aldred's snout quickly, but he did not aim it at his bleeding stump or the area around him.

No, he aimed it at the Demon's axe.

His plan was simple, restore the full moon weapon to before it was actually a full moon weapon.

It didn't work.

The axe somehow just ignored what Aldred said, remaining completely the same.

This was not the first time Aldred had seen an abomination in the form of a weapon. He had seen many in fact, but majority had been quarter moon abominations.

But there was something vastly different about the Demon's weapon.

For starters, the weapon wasn't the actual abomination, it was whatever was inside the Demon's chest that had fused with it.

But whatever fused with the axe was a strange, unseen type of abomination.

Aldred could tell from the way the axe managed to ignore his command that the axe and full moon abomination were now one, meaning he wouldn't be able to separate them no matter what.

That itself was something Aldred had never encountered before. What sort of abomination could shed its actual body and become one with a weapon?

And a full moon abomination was meant to be sentient, yet this was was just williningly following the Demon's commands.

Aldred couldn't figure out for the life of him what was going on.

There was three possible options as to what that weird full moon abomination actually was.

One, Eye of the Moon had decided to give his executioners a gift so they could massacre the beasts easier. That itself sounded absolutely preposterous, why would a god be so obsessed with something that happened a long, long time ago. Their lifespan was much longer than anyone else's after all.

Still, it did sound like something that bastard would do.

Two, the Demon had figured out a way to artificially create a full moon abomination. That itself sounded as crazy as Eye of the Moon helping the Moon Legion out, but there was no limit to what one's innate ability could accomplish.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

Innate abilities were not fair. There could be one that made someone see slightly further in the dark, but there could be another that allowed someone to steal the stats of anything they've killed, making them much stronger than they should be for their level.

There was also an equal chance that someone could have the ability to create artificial life forms, Aldred had no way to tell.

Three, there had been a second full moon abomination out there somewhere that Aldred was unable to sniff out, but he failed to sniff it out because of how weak it was. It sounded possible that there was a full moon abomination so weak that it could die before it even got the chance to grow.

But that would mean that the Demon had somehow found it, kept it hidden inside their chest until Aldred had destroyed two of its remaining three weapons, called the act a gift from their god and allowed the incredibly weak full moon abomination to fuse with the chosen weapon, giving it basically a second life.

Out of all of those, the third option sounded the most plausible.

That didn't make the situation any less dreadful though.

But Aldred still had to fight. Even with a missing leg, he was the only one who could stand up to the two full moon abominations. If he failed to do so, everyone was dead.

Even the humans on both sides of the war...

Then, their world would be doomed.

On the otherside of the battlefield, Kai stood in shock as he blankly stared at Aldred's leg, which was laying on the ground in a pool of blood.

Swallowing, Kai said a small prayer for Aldred, but that was all he could do.

He still had to deal with the stronger abominations that were running rampant under the Mother Tree.

He was sure Aldred would be fine, he had been alive a long time after all.

Plus, when he glanced over at Failure, the charismatic man was not worried.

Well, he could have been, but his face didn't share his current emotion.

Scouring the battlefield, Kai looked for an abomination that looked strong enough for it to be a proper fight, but not too strong so that Kai was worried.

And he found one.

A quarter moon abomination that looked like a lion, but had a strange horn directly above its quarter moon eye.

Not wanting to waste any more time in his transformation, Kai dashed at the abomination that was currently attacking a small group of humans.

Without warning, Kai thrust his horrible looking blade into the belly of the unsuspecting lion. He then promptly gripped the hilt with both hands and pulled it through the lion abominations body, creating an ugly line along its side.

The blade cut through much easier than Kai thought it would, so he ended up pulling Life Eater through the lions body and out the front of its neck.

Oh... That was easier than I-

The lion roared loudly, indicating that it was not actually dead. Expecting to just be able to stab the lion again, Kai turned to face the incredibly injured lion just in time to...

See its horn glow red.

Shit-

Without warning, Kai was flung backwards as a ball of invisible force struck him in the chest, sent out of the abominations horn.

Kai howled in pain as his back struck the hard bark of one of the many trees that was behind him just a moment ago.

He saw stars as he slowly tried to stand up, he was surprised that Sofia wasn't among them, considering her whole shtick was constellations.

As he stood up, Kai saw the lion that he injured.

And injured it was.

Even though Kai had only attacked it a single time, it was already on its last legs. Kai had pulled a sword through half its body after all, he wasn't sure anything would be able to survive that.

Still, Kai was angry that he had grown complacent. This was not a place one grew complacent. If the lion was stronger or even if just its horn attack was stronger, Kai could have died.

Sullenly, Kai started making his way back over to the lion to end its life.

But when he was just over half way, the lion's whole body shuddered and it fell to the ground, dead.

You have slain quarter moon abomination: Horned Ravager

Kai sighed. Maybe he would have to challenge a gibbous moon abomination to get an actual fight, or maybe just that abomination was incredibly weak in comparison to other quarter moon abominations.

Then again, did Kai want an actual fight? Was there any reason to put himself in unnecessary danger?

Probably not, but Kai still wanted to.

Turning around, Kai saw a group of three humans that he saved from that horned lion.

All three were frozen still, varied looks on their face. Awe, curiosity...

...Fear

Noticing the third look, Kai glanced at the corpse of the lion and let out a:

"Huh"

He had killed it pretty easily, even if he did slip up at the end, but those three had been struggling against it.

Or maybe they were upset he had stolen their kill?

Nah, alls fair in war, right?

Turning back to face the small group, Kai grinned, his fangs poking out of his mouth as he gave the group a thumbs up.

They did not reciprocate the gesture, now all of them were frozen in confusion.

Well, the guy on the right did, he smiled happily and gave Kai a thumbs up in return.

Kai sighed and shook his head, turning back to the battlefield to look for another abomination to take out before it could kill anyone else.

That was before he heard a gruff voice shout out though.

"Failure!"

Turning to the source of the voice, Kai saw Aldred desparately dodging all of the full moon abominations attacks. The gray wolf seemed to be struggling massively due to the fact he lost a leg, he couldn't even take to the air as it looked like he needed to follow a certain order of steps to do so.

"I'm on it!"

Without delay, Failure outstretched both his hands towards the dodging wolf and began huffing, as if preparing himself.

Then, the whole ground shook.

Kai froze in shock as he thought something had gone wrong.

But what happened was even more strange.

A large wooden root shot out of the ground under Aldred.

The root was about as wide as one of the tree tree trunks surrounding the battlefield, but then it started compacting.

It started folding in on itself, getting smaller but stronger and sturdier.

It compacted, compacted, compacted and compacted some more, until eventually, Failure was satisfied.

The root was now about the same width as one of Aldred's legs.

Wondering what Failure was planning, Kai watched in shock horror as the tip of the compacted root shot into Aldred's bloody stump.

The root wriggled around as Aldred grimaced in pain, but did not react too much.

Kai did though, what the hell was-

The root then cut off as it was completetly pulled out of the ground, revealing a small, wooden paw at the bottom.

The compacted root pulled itself further into Aldred's body until it was in far enough to be even.

Kai's grimaced in awe and disgust at what he just watched.

Failure had created a makeshift wooden leg for Aldred out of a tree stump.

Turning away from Aldred to look at Failure, Kai's face paled at what he saw.

Failure was not in good shape.

He was hunched over, heaving as he attempted to catch his breath.

His flawless skin was was flaking as it peeled off his body, Failure had really overdone himself by creating the leg. How strong would he have had to make it for it to be able to endure Aldred's strength-

Kai froze, then frowned as he squinted to get a better look.

As Failure's skin peeled away, it revealed small, intricate lines on the charismatic man's body, almost like-

Kai's eyes widened in shock as his whole body trembled.

Finally, everything in this damn forest made a whole lot more sense.