POV: Ivory Marlkes

The ground shook beneath my feet as I watched countless dark green thorn tendrils sprout out of the gravel hill we were standing upon. From down below I heard screams. The enemy was immediately overwhelmed by the barrage Altair had brought upon them. When I looked over the edge of the hill I saw a bloodbath. Some had simply been cut open by, passing dark red thorns while others were hit with the tip of the thorn tendril and now hung in the air, pierced through the stomach or shoulder and I could even see one that had been pierced through the throat. Those that had survived were kneeling on the ground, pressing their hands against the wounds and the few that had managed to stay unharmed were running away in fear. Only one person was still approaching. A muscular man wearing only pants, shoes, gauntlets and a helmet that seemed to be made out of a bull's head.

"Crow!" the man yelled as he stormed towards Altair.

I wanted to help but by the time I had begun moving Altair was already gone and I saw his first buried in the man's stomach, making him fly backwards into a group of injured people. Altair's gauntlet was covered in dark blood, but that only seemed to make Altair stronger. It was almost like he seemed to grow with every drop of blood he saw. I had heard of it, they called it the blood high, a special technique that the wood elves possessed. But I had something similar on my side... something my people called blood lust, in the literal sense.

I rushed across the battlefield, trying to stay close to Altair, which was nigh impossible. His ability to swap magic marks was truly impressive. He teleported from enemy to enemy using his warp magic, swapped his magic mark and buried them in the gravel, leaving behind nothing but a puddle of blood and a blob of flesh and bones.

"Leave none alive!" Commander Lestul yelled loudly as he charged into battle, his sword raised high.

Blue energy surrounded him and his sword, which cut through armour like a knife would cut through butter. Each of his steps seemed to almost shake the ground. But I had no time to be too impressed by the fighting of others. I ducked beneath the sword of an enemy, leaned to the side, grabbed their shoulder, pulled them down and hit their head with my protected knee. An audible crack told me I had broken part of their skull.

My eyes studied the battlefield. We outnumbered them greatly, especially in terms of how many mages and sorcerers we had. In the back, still standing atop the gravel hill behind which our camp was I could see Elsa Rigarium, standing tall and firing off different attacks.

"Gier!" I yelled.

As if forming from the ground itself a small, slightly translucent fox appeared at my feet. In the past four years, we had formed an equals contract and I could now use full power.

"Integrate!"

Gier, my little spirit fox, jumped towards my chest. When she entered my chest I felt a warmth that completely overcame me, then I felt something pulling on my back, on my head, my hands and my feet. A tail sprouted from my back like a flower would from the ground, my hair turned orange and from it formed fox ears, my gauntlets seemed to fuse with my hands, forming claws and the same happened to my feet. Once my transformation was done I felt a lot lighter.

In my new form, it only took me a second to close in on the next enemy and rip his face apart with my claws before jumping to the next. I balanced on his shoulders and brought my feet down, ramming my claws into his face and leaving behind holes. With a flip I landed on the ground and ran towards the next enemy, running on all fours like a fox. I swept their legs, making the tall armoured person fall to the ground with a metallic thud. A loud groan emerged from inside the helmet. I clenched my right fist and brought it down onto the helmet after jumping into the air. The metal gave in under my fist and I punched straight through, but there was nothing inside.

I ripped the helmet from the armour, throwing it somewhere into the chaos that had formed around me.

"Where?" I began but I was interrupted by a painful feeling on my right shoulder and tumbled over.

I looked and saw a mace quickly approaching my face. I swallowed as I raised my arm and braced for the second impact. Then, in the corner of my, I saw a flash of black and dark green, shortly after I heard a thud. When I looked up the sun blinded me for a few seconds, but then I saw him. Tall as ever with long white hair tied back into a ponytail. His smooth light brown skin glistened with the tiniest bit of sweat and I could see him look down at me with his scarlet eyes. They looked as bored and indifferent as ever.

"Alt," I said.

"Pay attention," he said, with his calming voice.

Others had said that they found it nerve-racking when he talked but I had always thought his voice was calming and warm, in a way. I could feel my heart pounding faster and faster inside my chest as I got up from the ground.

"Thanks," I said.

"Yeah, yeah," he responded.

Before I could say anything else he had already been consumed by the black and dark green energy and was gone. I sighed.

"Someday..." I said.

Then I shook my head and slapped myself.

"No! I need to focus!" I said to myself as I got back into battle position.

As I looked around the battlefield I saw more allies than Is saw foes. I charged towards the closest enemy, slicing his throat with one claw. But while I did this I thought that something was wrong, the reports stated that they would easily outnumber us, but there were barely two thousand enemies on this battlefield, alive and dead, while we had nearly three thousand on our side with minimal casualties.

Then I felt the ground shake. As I looked up I saw why there weren't that many enemies here. These were mere fodder compared to what came next. A massive snake had appeared, on its head two large horns that were longer than its head. It let out a high pitched hiss that nearly had my knees go weak.

"Men, Prepare yourself! This is the real fight!" Lestul yelled loudly as he charged headfirst towards the snake.