With the light of this new day

“I’ll take you on!” a loud shout came from the city and Bethor flew into the air, fully prepared for the battle.

“Haha, you dared to rebel against me, your king! You will pay with your life for it,” Atelon growled back, pointing his shiny sword at Bethor.

“Let’s go further away unless you wish to kill your little slaves,” Bethor looked at the city from the corners of his eyes. Elena charged towards the city, while Dred stood in the back and controlled his small army of Imps. Audrey used Earth Magic to carve a long trench into the ground where she hid her body from plain sight. Stopping beside her, Elena waited for the Imps to catch the people’s attention.

“I’ll kill off a few of their magicians, and when somebody tries to attack me, you will get them. They will probably try to catch me with a group once I killed enough people, so make sure to pick off our opponents with large-scale spells. The humans from Dink will soon come here and help you in that. Dred will tell them to stay in the outer parts of the forest, out of sight,” Elena told her plans briefly.

The army of Imps focused on no more than three magicians in the back, who had round barriers surrounding their bodies. Seeing that they couldn’t get through it, she used her Devour to make their barriers collapse.

“What the fuck?! Something is sucking away my Mana from my barrier!” one of them shouted with a panicked face. Swinging his arm, a wave of fire flew through the air, killing at least fifty Imps in one go. As Elena got through their barriers, her shadow connected with all three of them and slowly started to copy their genes and devour the energy of their cells. But thanks to their high magical resistance, the process was quite slow.

“Well, while I’m sucking them dry and they are occupied with the Imps, I’ll look for the sneaky ones,” Elena said with a smirk and sneaked out of the trench in her Shadow Form, her presence unnoticed. She trod through the plain and reached the dust cloud covering the city. Shaking her left arm, a dark cloud left the tips of her fingers, making it even harder to see anything, and the slowly fading sun didn’t help either.

Closing her eyes, she stopped in place and focused on people who used Dark Magic. Although it was different from her Devour ability, it was still very similar, so she was more sensitive when it came to Dark Magic.

I found you. She ran towards the gate where they first entered the city. On the top of it, she saw a man, cloaked in black leather armor. Turning into her Shadow Form once again, she climbed up the wall.

She felt the black-clothed man’s Sense run through her body numerous times, but he never noticed her. Her bacteria entered his body and started to devour his mind. Appearing behind him, she whispered into his ear, “Hello, dear~”

The man turned around with a startled face, his dagger already in his hand, but he was too late. Elena thrust her dagger into his abdomen, cutting through his skin, his muscles, nerves, reaching his stomach. A thick layer of Ice covered the man’s body and feeling his blood leave his body, he couldn’t help but start shivering. Thanks to Ekilsta’s effects, he couldn’t even move.

He saw Elena’s crazed eyes, filled with nothing but her lust for blood. His blood. He felt her dagger turn in his stomach, turning his organs into even more of a mess than they already were. Her Dark Magic poured into his stomach, making him rot from the inside. A pungent smell filled the air as his skin turned yellow, then gray, until it simply fell off like a shell. His eyes fell out and his bones turned into dust. Raising her black dagger, Elena didn’t see even as much as a speck of blood left on it.

“I’m done here and those three idiots are still within my range, let’s find the next guy nearby,” she mused to herself, turning into a shadow and disappearing from the scene. Let’s see how you defend your back when there is nobody to spot for you! Blind fire sucks~

---

“What is this crap? It just won’t stop and I’m losing my strength!” one of the three young magicians shouted in fear.

“I don’t know but if this goes on we will rot! Why are we even here?! I wanted to spend my time with a few women in the capital!”

“You idiots, stop whining. We are here to kill the rebels! Just use your Mana to suppress the rotting effect. Once we found its location, we will take care of its source,” the last one replied, his barrier still standing strong. Using his Mana, a few Earth Spikes shot out of the ground and killed the remaining Imps. “These trash creatures… where are they coming from?” Looking towards the forest, he couldn’t help but rub his eyes.

“What’s it?”

“It’s just that I felt as if a pair of green eyes were glaring at me through this thick dust cloud.”

“You must be imagining things,” the whining young man tried to get back at him, but the latter didn’t react to his provocation. Closing his eyes, he focused on the source of spell that was trying to devour them. “I can’t find the exact source, but I know the general location. Let’s go towards the gate,” the calm boy replied, his black hair covered in dust. Nodding their heads, the other two followed his lead.

But after taking a few steps, the dust cloud turned black, blocking their sight completely. Using Wind Magic, they tried to clear it away but with no success. “Tsk, we will have to fight in this darkness if we want to catch our opponent. Let’s stay close to each other since we don’t know how powerful this person is.”

“Alright,” both of them nodded their heads. Their army was consisting of Warriors and Magicians. The first line pushed through the city, while their line was supposed to support them. But as soon as they entered the city, a strange dust cloud surrounded them and even if they used spell cancels or Wind Magic, it didn’t disappear. But they didn’t see the dust cloud turn this thick and black before.

*Tap* *Tap* *Tap*

“Who is there?!” the black haired guy shouted, raising his staff towards the direction of the sound, only to see two people appear in front of them, wearing their tabards. “Huh, you are one of us. Come and help us find a tricky Magician,” he said as he sighed out of relief.

“What? Are you being attacked by some strange spell too? It’s trying to devour our bodies and Mana!” one of the two new guys shouted, showing his skin, which turned black in a few patches. Raising his hand, the black haired boy had smaller patches, but it still stung and turned his whole arm numb.

“Yes, I don’t even want to see my feet at the moment, it hurts like hell. Let’s go quickly and find this magician-” he couldn’t finish his sentence since he heard footsteps again. Turning around, he saw three human-sized demon-like creatures. Inspect!

Name: Unnamed

Race: Alp

Level: 178

Allegiance: Dred

A smirk formed on his face, looking down at the weak creatures, but his eyes opened wide in the next moment when they jumped into the air and turned into three meters tall, muscular monsters. The one in the front swung its arm and the black haired boy had no time to evade after being cocky and standing there for too long. He crashed into the wall and slid to the ground, his back and his head hurt. “Ugh, shit!” he cursed out loud as he stood up, rubbing the back of his head.

But looking around, he realized that he was alone, nothing but darkness surrounding him.

“AAARGGHHH!” a gut-wrenching scream resounded not far away. Feeling afraid and alone, he quickly ran towards the sound, finding the ‘whining’ guy. He laid on the ground, his head resting on a rock and holding his abdomen as he was coughing up blood continuously.

“What happened?” the black haired boy knelt beside him and grabbed his armour. But as soon as he freed his upper half, he turned around and puked the contents of his stomach. He saw the guy’s guts twitching, some kind of green liquid corroding them. “Ugh, so fucking foul!” he cursed out through gritted teeth.

“D-Don’t leave me here! Help me! Use healing Magic!”

“What the fuck happened?!”

“I- I don’t know! *cough* A black panther rushed past beside me and in the next moment I was on the ground in this *cough* state! AAARGH, it’s unbearable, do something!” the guy continued his whining and placed his hand on his stomach, only to corrode his hands too.

He is a lost cause, the boy thought as he stood up.

“No! Help argh! Help me! *cough*” the guy shouted with a panicked face.

“Alright,” the boy nodded his head and created a large rock above the guy’s head. As it fell down, it crushed his head into a bloody pulp, spraying his blood on the dirty ground.

Right after he left, a strange creature sneaked up to the corpse and bit out a large chunk from the dead guy’s chest. “Keke, hearts are the most delicious, filled with Mana! Uhm~ I should share this with Dred later.” Standing up tall, it turned around and walked away, his footsteps making the ground tremble.

“What should I do now?” the black haired boy held his head, feeling more lost than ever.

“Hey! Hey! Where are you? Let’s group up again- ARGH!” one of the five, now four people, shouted like an idiot, but his voice turned into a cry of pain. What if I’m the next?! an idea formed in the boy’s mind and he quickly ran towards the voice. He saw his head rolling on the ground, visibly separated from the man’s body with a clean cut. On the body was a long claw mark. Squatting down, he saw that it was at least ten centimeters deep into the body and it broke every single bone it touched.

“Shit, they are probably built on strength too. Fuck it! This is why our teachers always told us not to focus purely on Magic! Damn it!” he cursed out, feeling death lurking around him. “Wait, why is everything silent? Where are the battle cries, the shouts, the screams of pain?” he mumbled to himself.

“Cancel!” he shouted, and an invisible wave left his arm, cutting through empty space. This stops people from casting the same spell again for one minute so… why can I still not hear?! He thought with despair. He didn’t know that more people were using the same spell and he destroyed only one Wind Barrier.

“ARGH!” he heard another scream and soon another one. The sound of a body being dragged could be heard behind him. Turning around, he saw a black haired beauty, holding the head of a dead guy, whose lower half down the waist was missing.

“You can have your friend,” she said with a smile and threw the corpse his way. He saw a large hole in the corpse’s chest, exactly at where his heart was supposed to be. Soon a corpse stopped beside the girl, chewing on a heart.

“You people have really good taste, you know?” he asked with a grin, biting on the last part of the heart, his mouth covered in blood.

The black-haired boy’s legs started trembling in fear as he realized the situation he found himself in.

“Hahaha, these guys are idiots. This isn’t even an army. Just a bunch of kids who are somewhat organized, just like Bethor said,” a brown-haired man with yellow eyes lined up beside Elena and Cor, who was none other than Jake.

“Yeah, they are rather easy prey. The real problems are the warriors, but we will take care of them somehow. You full magicians must be the clown in the academy. I mean, even if you can beat anyone in one versus one, once a team attacked you, you’d be the first to die. Well, it’s pointless to give you pointers,” Elena said with a grin on her face. Appearing behind him with her Shadow Step, she tapped her finger on his back and then left in the same manner.

When the boy turned forward again, he didn’t see anyone. Tears welled up in his eyes as he realized the cruelty of a real battle. He thought that he was powerful and had a great future, even alone. But now he realized that everything he found right was wrong and stupid. And it wasn’t somebody else telling it to him, which he could refuse to believe. It was his own experience, which hurt him much more since it was by all means… real.

“Why? Why is this happening to me?! I just wanted to have a nice future!”

“Yeah? And how?” a deep voice came from behind him. “By betraying anyone to save yourself? You do know that you could have saved that guy before, right? I know that you specialize in Versatile Magic, meaning healing and spell canceling,” the same voice continued. “But you left him to die since it was more convenient to you, wasn’t it? What you are lacking is called courage and the most important- commitment!”

Kneeling on the ground and trembling in fear, the boy turned around, his face covered in snot, his pants soiled. He saw a huge panther towering behind him, his jaws opened wide. His lips started trembling as he saw them near his face and the same voice say, “Rest in peace, you trash.” He felt the monster’s teeth sink into his skin, separating his head from his body in one fell swoop. In the next moment, his head turned into mincemeat in Dred’s mouth. Gulping loudly, he said, “You can have his heart.”

Cor rushed out from the dust cloud and quickly tore out his favorite part.

“The ancient and mighty Hector is kneeling on the ground, eating a heart. An interesting tale you’ve got…” Elena shook her head, seeing his blissful, blood-covered face.

“Wanna have some? It’s great!” he held out his hand, showing the last bit of the boy’s heart.

“No thanks… you are disgusting, but really.”

“Hahaha, oh for the love of god, you are the one to say this… you gutted all of them and even waited for their blood to spray on you. If you aren’t a sicko, then neither of us are,” Cor laughed at her fake behavior.

Smiling back, she replied, “I can’t deny that. Let’s go and try to clean these magicians up. The soldiers are already here from the Drung Kingdom.”

“Righto!” Cor shouted as he stood up. Nodding their heads, all of them left the scene.

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