MIGHT AS WELL BE OP

Anthony's teammates, Seraphim, Dale, Reynold, Kingsley, Clement, and Spectre, were already engaged on a distant front of the battlefield, each contending with their own chosen adversaries.

The Abandoned Desert of Ruins, vast and desolate, stretched for millions of kilometers, its expanse teeming with countless combatants. Here, there was no shortage of space to clash, nor of enemies to face.

The Forsaken Cult swarmed like an unending colony of ants, their numbers appearing inexhaustible; for every foe struck down, more emerged, flooding the battlefield in endless waves.

From Reynold's back, a pair of magnificent phoenix wings had already unfurled, blazing with otherworldly phoenix flamss as he carved his way through the battlefield with a gleaming rapier in hand.

Each powerful beat of those wings cut against the air, granting him the uncanny ability to alter his trajectory in an instant, shifting direction, adjusting speed, or halting his momentum with effortless ease.

Their presence elevated his agility to an almost unnatural level. Reynold seldom relied on these wings in battle, but now, necessity demanded it.

Scarlet lightning danced and cracked along the length of his rapier as his wings pulsed with force, his legs weaving in a fluid, almost ethereal rhythm across the chaos.

He paid no heed to the wounds etching themselves into his flesh; his phoenix-born regeneration had already stirred to life. Though slower than the recovery of vampires, it was still swift enough to stop the bleeding before it could hinder him.

With a single thrust, his opponent was driven backward, an instant later, a stone pillar behind them exploded into dust, as though punched through by a force far beyond mortal strength.

The impact didn't merely shatter the column, it annihilated it entirely, leaving behind a gaping void where it once stood.

A prickling instinct flared at the back of Reynold's mind, something was behind him.

He knew his current speed alone would not save him in time. In that instant, his innate talent; Momentum control, surged to life, driving his velocity to its absolute peak.

With a thunderous sonic crack, his phoenix wings beat once with explosive force, propelling him skyward in a streak of motion.

Even as he ascended, flames of the phoenix erupted around him, crimson and incandescent, blazing into existence with a wrathful brilliance.

They screamed downward in a torrent of searing heat, a predatory dive of fire and fury, scorching everything caught beneath their descent.

----

Seraphim moved like an assassin slipping through the midnight veil, her presence a whisper, her spiritual energy surging and propelling her forward in ghostlike strides.

Then, without warning, her steps halted. An enemy lunged, a jagged blade plunging into her chest, shattering her heart in a single, brutal strike. The zombie's lips twisted in triumph, only for its victory to crumble in the same instant.

The Seraphim before it dissolved into nothingness, an ephemeral mirage.

Before the demon could even process the deception, the real Seraphim was already there. Her fist crashed into its skull with such force that the head exploded in a spray of bone and gore, ending it instantly.

Her spiritual energy pulsed again, cloaking her form in perfect invisibility. From that unseen space, hundreds of spectral clones rippled outward, each brandishing a different weapon as they surged toward the enemy lines.

They were illusions, phantoms meant only to scatter and misdirect, while the true Seraphim slipped through the confusion like a blade between ribs. She carved through their formation as effortlessly as teeth tearing into soft flesh.

Even in the chaos, her purpose was not solely destruction. Each time she darted past a fallen ally, her hand would brush over their wounds, spiritual energy knitting torn flesh and closing bleeding gashes.

Then she would vanish again, leaving only the fading warmth of her healing touch before striking elsewhere. Her form was a flicker, a phantom healer and executioner in one, moving faster than the eye could follow.

Her mind drifted back to Anthony's words, etched into her memory:

"Illusion and reality are but two faces of the same coin, it all depends on how you choose to see it. With enough mastery over your illusions, you can blur the boundary between them, make others question their very perception. After all, reality is only another kind of illusion, and illusion is only another form of reality."

She had understood his meaning well enough. With sufficient talent, illusions could be drawn into reality, made tangible and undeniable. But she knew such a feat was far easier spoken than achieved. Though gifted, Seraphim doubted her ability to fully manifest illusion as truth.

Even so, her continuous training and refined spiritual discipline had borne fruit. Now, her phantasms were not merely visual trickery, they could inflict harm, and she herself could dissolve into illusion, becoming untouchable.

In that instant, her spiritual energy surged outward, rippling in a complex rhythm as the illusion bent wholly to her will. The air trembled, then ruptured. From the illusion emerged a monstrous, calamitous being, towering hundreds of meters like a true dragon wrought from nightmare.

Six arms jutted from its massive frame, each clutching a different weapon, while two bestial heads surveyed the battlefield with murderous intent. From its back, a forest of writhing tentacles slithered and lashed, their movements like the coils of some deep-sea horror brought to land.

ROOOARR

A deafening bellow ripped from the creature's twin throats, its resonance shaking the very air and making the desert itself tremble.

Standing atop its massive head like a sovereign upon her throne, Seraphim's gaze swept the battlefield. With a single, silent command, her colossal illusion obeyed.

The behemoth raised a spiked club the size of a siege tower, its movements slow only from sheer mass, then brought it down with the force of a falling meteor.

The impact was cataclysmic, earth split and sand erupted as a wave of destruction swept across the field, carving through enemies as effortlessly as a scythe through ripened grain.

In its other hands, weapons of every make descended in a storm of carnage, each swing obliterating scores of cultists. The writhing tentacles upon its back lashed out like vipers, snapping through the air and snuffing out every foe within reach.

Seraphim felt the cost almost instantly, her spiritual energy was being consumed at a ferocious rate, like a fire devouring dry kindling. But she did not falter.

This was the perfect crucible to push her boundaries, a battlefield where she could etch her progress into hard-won experience.

Uncorking a vial, she drank deeply of a potent spiritual energy potion, its raw essence flooding her core with renewed energy.

With renewed vigor, she created a second monstrosity. Side by side, the twin titans waded into the fray, their every step a sentence of death, their combined onslaught a symphony of annihilation.

To the Forsaken Cult, they were no mere illusions.

They were the embodiment of dread itself, twin gods of death descending upon the battlefield.

----

Dale clicked his tongue in frustration as Seraphim flaunted her power. His spear whirled in a precise arc over his neck as he deflected a strike, before he drove it forward in a lethal thrust, severing a demon's head cleanly from its shoulders.

He didn't pause to admire his kill.

With a single gesture, the shadows scattered across the battlefield writhed to life, twisting into serpentine forms that slithered along the ground. They coiled around enemies, crushing bones, or shot upward in piercing strikes, rending through flesh and armor alike.

A sudden whisper of movement, Dale's form blurred backward, sidestepping just as the air where his head had been exploded outward under a colossal force.

'A Titan,' he noted calmly.

Even with a vampire's innate superhuman strength, he knew better than to engage it directly. Titans were the embodiment of brute force, stamina, and endurance; meeting them head-on was to court death.

The titan pulled back for another punch, but Dale was already moving. The blood soaking the sands answered his call, rising and coiling into thick chains, their density and durability growing by the second under his will.

With a flicker of thought, four blood-forged chains lashed forward, binding each of the Titan's limbs.

The titan roared and strained, cracks splintering along its restraints, but Dale was quicker. Aura surged along his spear, and with a brutal thrust, he drove the weapon into its chest. The sickening sound of tearing flesh echoed in the chaos.

But he knew that alone would never be enough. Titans were resilient beyond reason. In the same breath, he seized control of the blood pouring from the wound, shaping it with razor precision.

The creature's own life essence solidified into jagged spikes within its body, erupting outward until the Titan froze mid-struggle. Light fled its eyes, and it collapsed like a felled mountain, lifeless.

Dale was already gone before the corpse hit the ground. There were too many enemies, and no time to dwell on the death of a single Titan.