Unsurprisingly, Halar was the first to make contact with Solaris. Both opponent hammers clashed in a conflagration of earth and fire, visibly melting the air and generating a heat wave that Damien felt from a mile away.
The others came in an instant later, moving through the aftereffects towards an unmoved Solaris. Golden lightning boomed from Aelar, scything out in jagged lines that could have melted a large river down to its rocky bed. Openly, Solaris scoffed, waving his hands and dispersing the probing attack. A whistling sound cut through the booming thunder as three arrows impacted Solaris one after the other, an explosion capable of erasing mountains erupting a moment later. Damien, yet to move, watched as the smoke finally cleared. Yet before it even did so, they could see the smoking outline of a humanoid figure, a humanoid figure who proved to be unharmed as the smoke finally cleared. There wasn't even a scratch on his silk robe.
Solaris laughed as his form finally came into view, waving his hands and dispersing the rest of the smoke. "An admirable effort," he said, hands folded behind his back. "But I must not have made it clear. This battle Is not going to be between us."
Seeing their confusion, the Solarian Emperor smiled devilishly, "Did you think I just sat on my thumb while my cities were being overrun and my armies devastated?
"Your continuous victories have made you all complacent, and you will pay dearly for that."
Behind him, in the distance, the signature-colored portals of the Solaria Empire rose towards the sky, three in number. And from them came– Damien's eyes widened in horror and revulsion as swarms of abominations poured out of the portals, eliciting bone-chilling screeches as they caught sight of the alliance soldiers who were yet to fully retreat.
The creatures– humanoid with crimson solidified blood in the shape of blades for arms, instead of flesh. Their legs were a mix of different creatures from the Bovidae family, sprinting across the battlefield with speed comparable to any early-tier Monarch. Their faces were also the same, a blend of different beasts, both sapient and non-sapient, all bared with deadly-looking fangs.
Attached to their backs were wings made of hundreds of tiny blade-like feathers, also of solidified blood. Some of those monsters took to the air, flapping their bat-like wings and sending dozens of deadly sharp blades down at the alliance soldiers.
But those were not what made Damien look away in revulsion; it was their torsos. Their bodies weren't covered in any kind of skin or scales or furs; they were made of muscles, blood-soaked muscles.
"What have you done?!" Damien roared in part fury, part horror.
"This?" Solaris was still smiling, waving his hands at the abominations. "These are your recompense. You have had your time, now it is mine."
"This isn't just happening here," Aelar said, his voice an undertone of fury. "I have just received an emergency message, these... Grotesque creatures are already on Aesland."
"Same as I," Yuseria said, her fury in full display.
"And I," Halar added, surprisingly calm. "My brother has just requested I return." He looked at Solaris. "You have won this round." And then like dust, he disappeared, the others following a second later.
Damien didn't know how to react. His emotions shifted from horror to fury and then back as he watched the creatures tear into the remaining alliance soldiers. Confusingly, they ignored those from the Empire.
Solaris, Seeing this, smiled. "I will let you try your hand in the futility of trying to prevent this; Not out of any form of pity but just because I want to see you despair when you eventually realize the depths of your loss."
Like a fire doused by water, Damien's emotions cooled, becoming something cold, a feeling he paid no attention to as he pushed it to the back of his mind. "You will regret this."
"No, I won't," Solaris replied, his form already dematerializing. "Take your time to despair properly, Elason, because your death will come thereafter." And then he was gone.
Damien was furious, but there was nothing he could do to Solaris, yet. So he forced his mindset into salvaging what remained of the tired forces below fighting for survival.
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***
Monarch Merene swiped her sword, a dozen needles erupting and slamming into three of the abominations, carrying them into the ones behind. Her breath came out heavily, but fear kept her from any form of relaxation.
She had been among the Monarch shields tasked with the protection of the lower realmers against the stray techniques of the Spirit lords, so she was very exhausted after the battle, a combination of fear and spirit strain from all the stray techniques misdirected enough to see her grounded for atleast two days. Fear had soon taken hold as their only Spirit lord guardian was pushed to the brink of death, a death which would have foretold an equal experience for her and the other Monarchs. Thankfully, the arrival of the calamity had changed her status from that of a walking corpse to a woman about to go on a rest, a short one, but still, a rest nonetheless.
Her hopeful dream was then quashed by the arrival of a man whom she'd immediately figured out as the Solarian Emperor, a cold-looking man.
The arrival of the infamous Solaris had immediately foretold a grim future for all who would be caught in the crosshairs of what was surely building up to be a devastating battle. Even the Monarch shields in their full battle ready form would have been erased in seconds if they tried deflecting any stray techniques from those two monsters.
The arrival of another three figures – rulers, judging from their appearance – had then sealed their grim future. No being of a lower realm could survive the proximity of a Spirit lord battle, talk less of five. The whole terrain for miles would be turned into a wasteland.
Thankfully, again, the figures seemed to have gone straight into a discussion, a heated one if she had anything to say about it. This brief calm had aided more than half the allied soldiers in the field to retreat through the portals. A calm which had then been disturbed as the Spirit lords engaged in a brief yet devastating battle that saw over a thousand fighters dead, all in seconds.
When the brief spat had ended, Merene had expected it to be all, since they had immediately gone back to their worded spats. Now, the sight of the abominations before her made her wish for the simpleness of deflecting Spirit lord's attacks. Already, she had seen men being dragged by those monsters, their screams immediately cut short as their bodies were blocked from view.
Her flaming snake construct moved behind her, chomping down on a creature that had been aiming for her back. It took considerable effort for her construct to finally end the thing, which saw her willpower strained to the brink of collapse, but still, she didn't hold back. It would be better to fight her hardest right now than hold back for a later future. Death could come at any time.
And death did come...
...in the form of a furious-looking man descending over the twisting forms of millions of abominations. Soldiers cheered and hopeful calls were shouted out as the walking grey-eyed calamity hovered like a butcher's knife over their enemies. Merene relaxed a little, devoting more willpower to her construct to keep it whole and functioning.
"GET BEHIND ME AND BACK INTO THE PORTALS!" His voice echoed In every mind, a slice of anger bleeding into its gentle tone.
Merene immediately obeyed, beginning her retreat alongside the little survivors. They formed into a square formation as they moved, the injured taking shelter in the middle while those in working form shielded them, preventing any of those things from breaching.
Merene, still facing the swarms of abominations, could still see that despite their valiant effort in stemming the tide, the creatures seemed unending. Her eyes widened in horror as, from the ranks of the abominations, smoke-shrouded forms began emerging. Familiar forms.
Repulsion spread through the ranks as soldiers who were already dead began picking themselves up, their bodies rising onto their feet like puppets attached to strings. Their moving forms were sluggish yet fast, no doubt capable of matching up to a lord. And their eyes? Merene's heart bled as she stared into those dead eyes, dead eyes that were filled with nothing but hunger. No life. No emotions, nor any kind of remembrance could be seen in them. Their forms were just walking puppets.
Screams of horror and heart-rending emotional pain erupted as soldiers watched the bodies of their loved ones desecrated in such a vile manner. Chaos threatened to engulf them as morale was brought to an all-time low, but order kept them from rushing toward the walking dead.
A wall of grey energy rose up in between the soldiers and the large swarm, shielding the soldiers and leaving the small clusters that were already past the line for the soldiers to deal with.
"YOU HAVE BLED AND HAVE WATCHED THE BODIES OF YOUR LOVED ONES DEFILED IN A MANNER EVEN REPULSIVE TO THE SOUL; I BLEED WITH YOU AND I LAY DOWN THIS PROMISE ON MY LIFE. AS LONG AS I STILL DRAW BREATH, VENGEANCE SHALL BE CARRIED OUT!" The voice of the Calamity sounded in their minds, this time allowing for the soldiers to witness his fury. "BUT NOW IS NOT THE TIME TO WALLOW IN DESPAIR. YOUR SURVIVAL IS STILL AT STAKE, FIGHT FOR IT!"
Merene emotions calmed. It was not gone, though, only contained to the back of her mind. A reminder. She saw the same effect play out on the faces of the other soldiers, their resolve firm and projected out for all to see.
Seemingly satisfied with their response, the calamity acted.
The air was sucked away as something began forming in the sky. The atmosphere transformed into a dark grey hue, its effects projecting a bleak future. And on the sky appeared a large star, grey in color and brimming with barely contained energy.
Soldiers began making their way through the portals, watching as other stars, these ones lacking the same power, rained down from the sky at the abominations in ground shaking explosions.
Merene, being one of the few Monarchs and the one with the highest authority presently, was the last to step back through.
Her last sight before the portal closed was of the large star descending on the swarm in an explosion of cataclysmic proportions.