NOVEL WEB Chapter 291 – Failure
Weeks went by since the world descended into endless warring. In the end, no matter how many were slain, the demons did set foot onto the shores of the Calm Blue and managed to build their first outpost. It was erected on the corpses of thousands of their kind, making it hard for them to push forward into the heart of the land. For now. Even though the Empire gave up on holding the entire shoreline as it was an impossibility in the long run, Feynor planned to let them in and lead them towards a particular path, so they would know where to focus their armies. It helped them narrow the conflicts to a few critical junctures and not all over the southern border.
The first waves of demons finally arrived in the eastern part, where the Storm Coast was. They were funneled into the chokepoints they built up. Thankfully, the long line, where land met with the ocean, was way more rugged, filled with big and tall, sharp rock formations. Thanks to that, it made it much easier to defend than the slim and even shoreline of the Calm Blue. The main battle point became the now empty, ruined capital city of the Enjin Kingdom, the ex-headquarters of Heaven's Gate. Their established harbors were made in a natural land formation, and for the attacking demons, it also was an instinct to come ashore there.
What awaited them was a meat grinder and the most high-level cultivators and demons, combining their spells and strengths. While in the south, it was a more conventional war, in a sense, on this coast, Harmony-level cultivators were in the air, changing the earth's shape and controlling the waters and nature's elements in pushing back the demons. The old city that saw so much destruction in only the last decade finally caved in. This time nothing remained; the different layers of land collapsed in on themselves, becoming a complete death zone, burying the old city underneath as the battles waged here daily.
It was amongst these grueling skirmishes where the demons were still pushing to come ashore when the two angler fishes arrived. Scanning the land from the waters, they were shocked at the fact that humans and demons worked together, and the 'disciples' of Skoorn could not gain the upper hand.
"What is going on here?" the one with the raspy voice asked. She was ready to jump in and massacre humans left and right, pleasing her boiling blood that had been driving her mad since Skoorn's 'order.'
"It seems this side of the world was neglected by us! They are looking even stronger than the cultivators on the other side!" the other said calmly but coldly to her sister. What she should have mentioned was that even if the people here were weaker in terms of cultivation, the fact that they worked together this well multiplied their strengths way more than anyone thought was possible.
"What should we do? Most of the demons in this region have gone to the south… I heard they finally put their fins on land! Only this side is still in a stalemate."
"Then we are going to buy time for the southern front! I don't believe they can stand up to us!" The other snorted, showing her fierce side, usually masked by her cheerful voice.
The sisters, flying out from the waters and turning into human form in the air as a typhoon raged above them, looked like two 20-year-old girls with beautiful bodies wrapped in sparkling, bluish fish scales. The only frightening point was their faces that remained that of an anglerfish. The carnage and constant spells being fired off caused the wild Storm Coast to truly descend into an apocalyptic state as the wind easily reached 140 km/h speeds. The rain never stopped falling, and lightning was flashing above all of them like a never-ending light show. The sisters just appeared and did not even take two steps towards the shore when they stopped, watching two others standing in front of them. One was Aerthus, while the other was Rumira, now both of them in the Demigod realm, immediately coming here to stop the newcomers from interfering with the rest.
"One human and one demon." the one with the raspy voice said, scanning them up and down.
"My name is Aerthus." he introduced himself, cupping his hands.
"Rumira." repeated the queen of the foxes with a simple nod, but her eyes were burning in pinkish flames.
"I am Raska," answered the older one, introducing her raspy-sounding sister, too "she is Asha, my sister."
"We know you are in the service of the God named Skoorn." Aerthus nodded, watching their weird faces. "If you leave now, we won't pursue your transgression against our homes."
"Hahaha… sister… these guys are funny!" Asha laughed loudly.
"You are in a weird position if you think this can be avoided by simply talking!" Raska shook her head, "We received our decree! Your kind is going to be our food of ours, and that is that! Whatever our God planned now turned into a simple thing! You perish, and we grow stronger on your flesh!" She smirked, her multiple, long teeth glinting in the lightning strikes going over their heads.
As soon as her lips parted completely, Aerthus was already behind her, aiming a punch at her spine as his answer, not bothering anymore with trying to go peacefully about it. Before Asha could chomp forward to protect her sister's back, she had to back off and not close her mouth as a burst of pink flame appeared right between her jaws, coming from Rumira's finger, pointing at her. Thanks to the interference, Aerthus's palm landed on the back of Raska, but her scaly skin easily withstood the force of his attack. Turning around, her angler, dangling from her forehead, lit up in a blinding blue light, burning the eyes of not just Aerthus but both Rumira's and her sister's too. She used that small moment to bite forward, and as soon as she felt flesh between her teeth, she just chomped, chewed, and tore at it relentlessly. When the light finally died off, and they could see again, Aerthus was missing half of his side. His left arm and his organs were dangling outside as he backed off.
"Hahahaha! Weaklings!" Asha laughed, but she once again had to dodge as swirls of pink flames were chasing her in the air. Rumira looked utterly calm; her nine white fox tails were swinging hypnotically behind her, controlling the multiple strands of flames, pursuing the demon relentlessly.
"..." Raska quickly felt something was off about how calm both Rumira and Aerthus were. Especially because when she watched, Aerthus only sighed as he completely recovered in under 3 seconds, without any change in his energy output and expression. It was an experience that made her feel a bit of fear now. "This is going to be… troublesome."
She was not wrong in saying that. As their battle went on, no matter what kind of injury she inflicted on her opponent, Aerthus's body simply recovered from it. Biting off his arm? It just regrew. Spewing acidic water at him? His flesh regenerated faster than she could burn it off. The most frightening thing was that he slowly but surely became even more resistant to her powers. Raska's and Asha's primary weapon was the strength in their teeth. It could rip through everything and anything they ever tried. Even the turtle demons, said to have the strongest defense, were bitten through easily. Yet now she found it increasingly harder to inflict damage on a human's flesh.
In reality, it was not her teeth that were losing their effectiveness, but her mind was getting flustered, unsure about what she believed, making her hesitate more and more… and hesitation for a follower of Skoorn was a spiral that only led downwards. Since the start, it was not the difference in their strength that was starting to push their battle to one side's favor but simply their prior experience. The demons lived their lives in the ocean since they gained intelligence, experiencing what it was to hunt and fight amongst their clans, tribes, and their own kind. Thinking it was the same on land. Only having limited contact with humans as they rarely ventured to the surface. For Aerthus, it was completely different; he had not just crossed the Western Desert by himself. He spent long, long centuries on the other side, fighting against different cultivators with a plethora of different affinities, a lot of the time struggling to keep his own life with even his special gift. It just couldn't match up with what the demons came packing with.
By now, he completely got a read on his enemy's strength, type of moves, and habits in a fight, quickly recognizing the patterns and reading her actions before she even executed them. He could reinforce his own body where she would meet it; he could avoid her attacks or nullify them with an equal force, and by now, making so much contact with Raska's body, he even managed to harmonize himself with her aura and energies. It was the moment when the battle was fully decided. He moved in sync with Raska, no matter what she did. Aerthus perfectly reacted to her every thought. It confused and bewildered the demon what she was seeing, resulting in Aerthus's fingers sinking into her body, tearing through it like a knife. It shocked the angler fish but it was too late to do anything. Her heart was grabbed onto and crushed, keeping her jaw wide open. Aerthus was not about to leave it just like that, making sure his enemy won't have a chance at recovering. He grabbed onto her jaw, pulling it apart, tearing Raska's head into two, scooping out her demonic core for good measure.
Her sister did not even realize Raska's death. Asha was too occupied with dodging those annoying, pink flames that never stopped following her. Rumira was not about to give her even an inch or a second to rest; the long stretched-out fire trails took on the shape of running foxes chasing their target in the air. No matter what she tried, she could not blind them as they were immune to it, being pure manifestations of Rumira's powers. When one finally caught up and hit her, the expected heat did not come. Not from the outside, anyway. Where the fire really roared up was inside Asha's mind. Suddenly the rest of the pink foxes were much more alluring, something that should not be dodged but embraced, and that is what she did. When the second one hit her, absorbed into her body, she was sure this was the best feeling in the world, ever!
"Gotcha…" Rumira smiled, focusing and force-feeding her the rest of her spells as Asha turned into an unmoving, blubbering mess, happily approaching her. What was even scarier was how quickly all the strength she built up by worshiping Skoorn left her. The reason was simple; by the time she was hit by all of the strands of fire, she was worshiping not Skoorn but Rumira, wanting to do anything she said to her.
Asha's strength evaporated in seconds, turning her thin and frail, and when Rumira said to her one word, 'die,' she simply tore out her own demonic core from her body, presenting it to her before falling back into the ocean.
"This was not that bad!" Aerthus chuckled, arriving next to her. "I expected worse!"
"I just hope the rest that may come here will be just as inexperienced! If all the followers of that God are simply focusing on killing and weeding out the weak, what remains are people who are nothing but simpletons. Way too rigid and bland for a battle of this scale!"
"I agree." Aerthus nodded, gently hugging her waist amidst the still-raging typhoon around them. "The so-called weak people are the ones who come up with ideas on how to make up for their weaknesses! Without the perspective to overcome their flaws, what remains are nothing but easily trapped monsters, slain by the 'weaker' ones!"
"Let's go back…." She snuggled up to him with a satisfied smile. "We can relieve some of our people. Now we know what power levels we can expect, and we can send reinforcement to the south! Your Elders and the elite force of Thunder Valley are enough here!"
"Mmhm." He nodded, agreeing with her. "I already sent the Ren Battalion down to the south."
"Ahahaha… you really call them that?" Rumira laughed, getting a chuckle out of him too.
"It is made up of her disciples. Led by her father… so it was also evident what name I would choose for them!"
