The world was awash with the thunderous clang of metals as thousands of powerful wielders battled.

  Up in the sky, explosions rang out as blurs of light flew after each other, flinging techniques so terrible that they turned the literal air into a furnace, shattered the skies and left its blood to rain down in a myriad of multiple colors.

  The battle on the ground wasn't that much different. Spirit lords might not have been able to match the Spirit Kings in sheer individual powers, but their quantity alone made up the difference where individuality could not.

  Techniques arced over each side to crash into the opposite sides, burning the air with their passage as they laid waste to a wide range of locations. The air was sucked away as collapsed rocks turned to molten slags and then to glass as a sea of fire swallowed the ground.

  The last time he'd witnessed a battle of such magnitude, it had majorly been between Spirit lords, with scant Spirit King participation. But here, Spirit Kings were in abundance.

  Their domains blotted out the skies, each as large and wide as islands, with thousands of techniques flying out of them every second as their summoners clashed in long blurs of light.

  A few meters from the ground Sareina Duveyar, scion of the High house, rained fire down on the ocean of approaching creatures. Golden orange flower petals materialized behind like a halo, each circles and layers swirling and spinning behind her in a counterclockwise formation. Hundreds of them. And wherever they landed, the mind possessed creatures screamed in agony, their eerie voices sending a dreadful ripple down his spine.

  Surprisingly, the fire didn't burn them in the conventional sense. It left their physical bodies intact, but their eyes, mouths, and every other orifice on their bodies glowed a deep golden orange just before they collapsed like puppets with strings cut.

  Around the lady fought her warders, warrior maidens who blurred from one position to another, staffs swinging as they crushed brains and creatures alike with fury as they drowned everything in fire and death.

  Keilan stood behind it all, a good distance from the front lines and a little bit ahead of the position where the healers had set up camp.

  With his intent, he directed a heavy gust of winds that deflected dozens of arrows aimed at the scion, turning them around to crash back on their senders.

  Some of the techniques were snuffed out just before they could do any damage, but those already melded into weapons like arrows or javelins found themselves striking against their dead eyed summoners.

  His mind swept over the battlefield, spreading as far and wide as he could make it, enough that the influx of information became too much to handle. Luckily, due to his element, he'd had painful lessons on how to handle the influx he got whenever his mind was spread afar... At least for a while.

  Filtering out all the gibberish and useless information—at least to him—he got from the battle going on in the front, Keilan narrowed down on the location of his brother, trying to piece out where exactly he was. The fact that he'd promised not to jump straight into the battle didn't mean he was going to take his eyes away, Vanis present or not.

  Finding his brother would have been extremely difficult if not for how different his version of destruction was to those of the Verrilles. Damien's essence, which was just as thick as the well known destruction essence, had a sort of strange feeling to it that no other destruction essence had. He didn't know how to describe it and lacked the word for how it felt like, but Keilan recognized it nonetheless.

  He breathed out a sigh of relief when he locked in on the aura of his brother, still brimming with that same strange feeling. His relief was cut short immediately when he registered the stationary form of his brother, including those of five other figures.

  This wouldn't have been unusual if it had been any other day. But here on the battlefield, where being stationary was tantamount to suicide, Damien's stationary position rang dangerous alarms bells in his mind.

  With barely any thoughts, Keilan sped off in the direction of his brother.

  He blurred into the battlefield, weaving into multiple battles between powerful Spirit lords while he dodged stray techniques.

  He hopped above huge mounds of rubbles, punched through burning buildings, and slapped aside an approaching weapon from a glassy eyed Spirit lord.

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  His run hadn't been entirely quiet, and as he reached the location of his brother, he found himself barricaded as multiple glassy eyed people interposed themselves between him and Damien.

  "Get out of my way," Keilan growled and then released the full might of his will onto the world.

  He saw a couple of the demons stagger backwards as his will slammed into them like a gust of wind. Eventually, they stabilized themselves and a single demon stepped out, strolling out with a casual look of indifference wrapped around its face.

  The fox was clothed in black metallic armor with veins of throbbing purple running all over its surface in Indescribable patterns. It's white fur drifted softly as it moved its hands from the staff behind its back to fold them over its chest.

  Its glassy eyes, devoid of any sense of life, studied Keilan as it came to a stop a few feet away from him.

  "To find one with such mental power in a place like this," it shook its head slowly. "A devout being would be convinced that the great ones have favoured us."

  "Get out of my way," Keilan repeated.

  "To have one with such talent subservient to lesser beings such as...these," the fox waved its hands dismissively at the surroundings. "Such a waste."

  "Get out of my way," Keilan said for the third time, and this time he reinforced his words with his aura. "I won't ask again."

  The creature tilted its head. "And a strong soul, too." It glanced behind at Damien and the five dead eyed creatures surrounding him. "You're after the other anomaly, I take it? A child with a soul far greater than it should be. It would make for a great thrall to the High lord." And then it grinned. Atleast, Keilan thought that was what it was. "It might even be raised to the rank of Prime thrall. You should be honored."

  At those words, Keilan's face turned grim and he stretched forth his hands, mentally summoning his spear from his spatial space as he scanned the multiple enemies arrayed against him.

  Each of them, a blend of different races, from humans to elves to dwarves to beastkins, monsters, and even an Aveanii. They all unleashed their mental powers at the sight of his weapon, pushing like a massive tide against the island of mental power he'd set up.

  Somebody stepped up beside him; a young man with black hair and red eyes. He was putting on deep black armor with harsh jagged streaks of crimson, like the unpredictable patterns of a bolt of lightning.

  "I thought my brother told you to back Sareina," Vanis said, twirling his weapon as he unleashed his own will, reinforcing Keilan's as they both pushed against the tide of the Yxil.

  Keilan glanced at where the Duveyar scion hovered, still raining down flames that saw hundreds of demons screaming away in terror and agony.

  "Sareina doesn't seem to need my help," he said. "And I don't take orders from your brother."

  Vanis grunted. "Can you fight on your own, without your essence? It would be counterproductive if you ended up being the one needing rescue."

  Keilan's harsh expression didn't leave the demons in front of them. "Why would I need help when I am in my element?"

  His furious will settled down, becoming a vast calm lake instead of the sea of storm it once was. And when he spoke again, it wasn't entirely his voice that came forth.

  "Why would I need help when the world is my domain?"

  Deep within his soul, he felt a wall come crashing down just as something washed into his soul, replenishing it and instilling him with great feeling of strength.

  His will rose like a mountain just as power flooded out from him, swirling around them with the presence of something everlasting, something calm, something patient. Forever present, forever essential.

  ***

  The atmosphere boiled as Daimen stood against five peak tier Spirit lords. The skies had thickened into a deeper shade of grey and thunder rumbled just as forks of thick lightning rippled out in waves.

  The earth trembled, cracks appearing and running over its surface, and the air swirled just as a distant howl reached his ears.

  With grim expression, he stared at the mind-jackers moving to surround him, like predators about to clamp their jaws on prey.

  He didn't know whether it was they were here with their minds, and as such, did not need the stronger bodies of their captured servants, but the figures of the demons took on a different appearance.

  Their bodies were bone white with heights of up to seven feet—far taller than Damien. Instead of one single appendage on both sides of their bodies, they had long muscled tentacles that ended in long sharp fangs, like the teeths of a monster.

  They had one single eye that rested on the middle of the face, eerie without blinking as they took in Damien.

  Altogether, they resembled a squid with two legs and multiple hands, as well as a giant eye where the face should have been.

  Damien felt a line of dread trail down his spine as he looked at them.

  Their will buffeted against him, and he stood straight, like a city wall against the winds of an oncoming tornado.

  A brief check intuited him that he wasn't here with his actual body; this thing he was clothed in was very likely a mental conjuration, and in the presence of foreign minds with unhidden malicious intent, Damien knew he'd be in terrible trouble if he was killed here.

  "Following me here was a terrible idea," he said threateningly, and one of the dead eyes tsked in approval as they seemed to look around, taking in the surroundings like a buyer who liked the goods in front of them.

  "I knew I made the right call when I hearkened to the call of my spawn," the thing said, turning its cold dead eyes back at Damien. "A mind capable of creating such a vast landscape, even though basic at its nascent state... Truly, you are a wonderful find."

  "You speak as if you already have me," Damien raised his head in disdain. "Too presumptuous, I would say."

  "Oh?" The man cocked his head. "And what makes you think I do not already have you?"

  His mental pressure billowed out then, and Damien realized that the thing in front of him hadn't joined in at the initial clash of wills. He felt his bones creak as a great pressure fell on him, crushing the earth beneath his feet as Damien's bones refused to bend.

  "A prey who thinks itself a predator." It said," Amusing. I shall enjoy crushing you."