"Devour"
The ripple generated from this word spread out at a frightening speed and roused up the mist.
The battlefield dyed in the colors of monsters' blood roiled and tumbled in black waves.
"Ahh….!"
"Ahhh….!"
...
The injured monsters and angels on the ground surrounded by the black mist roared out in what could have been screams of horror and anguish. They then turned into dry corpses like husks before turning into ashes.
As for the silver angels in the skies, the scene before them was worthy of sending cold shivers down their spines. Too bad for them, the Emperor's powers didn't stop there.
"Woo…!"
The Emperor bellowed heavily towards the skies. That powerful roar didn't attack the eardrums of the listeners but directly shook their hearts, instead. Hearts, legs, and even the ground shook from his roar. The land began crying in its response.
Kael didn't need a lot of time to figure out what that roar was meant for. Because… the black mist rose up high and surrounded the angels.
Just that single roar alone and the black mist transformed this battlefield completely. From this corner of the land, all the way to the other side – the dead angel husks instantly starting to fall from the sky.
Kael had been quietly observing the process while holding his breath. A powerful shudder ran through his entire body from the combined roars of the angels.
If this scene was supposed to demonstrate the true pinnacle of the Chaos Demons, then it certainly succeeded in letting him know just how much power they held in their grasps.
Eventually, the angels in the other parts of the sky stopped hesitating and began moving again. They gathered into one large mass, and, like a gigantic swarm of bees, descended on the black mist surrounding Alexander.
However, it was all in vain. The angel army and the black mist got tangled up on top of this expansive land. Explosions rang out constantly, and the ground quaked over and over again. The battle that should have ended as a one-sided massacre reverted to full-on warfare.
Just the entrance of a single individual had changed everything. Now, this was a display of truly shocking power.
Kael didn't know why this scene was being shown to him, but he found himself unable to tear his eyes away from it.
The violent, fierce and suicidal clash continued. A desperate and bloody engagement, incomparably fiercer and more violent than the first battle that took place, unfolded before his eyes but the angels were unable to cross the black mist.
"Oh, well, the truly terrifying thing about this black mist is the fact that it helps us Chaos Demons to devour anything in this world and convert it into power that strengthens us, that's why no matter how many angels do kamikaze attacks, it's all strengthening their opponent, Alexander" Adone explained.
Kael tore his eyes away from these angels and took an overview of the entire battlefield and its situation. The battle taking place between the angels in the sky endlessly pouring out from the curtains to light in the air, and the black mist expanding under the orders of the Alexander, was incredibly even.
As the black mist expanded and more angels poured out of the curtains to light to match the number of the dead.
'So is this what a war in hell looks like?'
Horrifying warfare that a human's intuition couldn't even properly tell what would happen next breathlessly continued in this vast land. However, the balance between these two opposing sides broke in a single instant. The flow of the war shifted very quickly when Alexander stopped using black mist from far back and personally stepped forward to enter the fray with his demonic army clad in black armor.
The black horse carrying the Emperor dashed into the battlefield. Whenever he swung his sword, thousands of enemy troops fell to create a pathway. And the dead enemies, without exception, became his nutrients, as they were devoured by the mist.
Just one flick of the Emperor's sword and all those enemy angels flying away to safety had their wings broken and they all crashed back down to earth.
The area the Emperor and his army dashed through got utterly swept away as if a storm rampaged past there. For the first time since the two opposing camps started clashing their weapons – the angels in the sky were being forced back.
Hundreds of thousands, no, millions of silver-clad angels couldn't deal with him and were constantly pushed back.
Kale could only gasp out in admiration at this marvelous spectacle. He thought that the war would come to an end like this.
However...
Just as the Emperor began pushing back the tides of the silver angels in the sky, an ominous, eerie wind that was hard to describe in words blew in from somewhere behind him.
Auras powerful enough to send a shudder down his spine rushed in. Emperor Alexander temporarily disregarded the enemies to his front and looked behind him. Two ginormous curtains of light had been generated in someplace far behind the mist.
Their sizes didn't lose out to the ones floating up in the air. And from these two curtains of light, two disparate groups of monsters poured out in droves.
On one side, beast-type creatures are being led by a Lion the size of a mountain. And from the other one, knights and soldiers rushed out with countless banners proudly announcing their clans being waved about in their midst.
Kael's eyes grew wider and wider.
"Huh...?"
"These are the armies of demonic clans of Carreau's, Carnivale's, Oeillet's, Rosier's, and even Rosier's. Those crests belonged to the aristocratic clans of demons that were part of the Empire of Chaos but they betrayed us and joined the war against Chaos Demons partnering up with the Demonic beasts and Archangels of Heaven," Adone explained again.
The beasts and the demons began attacking the Black-armored soldiers together as if they had a prior agreement. The backline of the Black-armored Soldiers was immediately torn to shreds from the combined assault of the two monster armies.
That wasn't the end, however. Their front was occupied by the angels in the sky, still alive and ready to battle. These silver-clad beings changed their strategy and began striking back once more. The soldiers of the sky to the front and armies of beasts in the back surrounded the Black-armored Soldiers in a pincer attack and closed in on them. The flow of the battle had changed once more.
Kael's gaze slowly shifted towards the Emperor, Alexander changed the direction of his mount away from the army in the sky and towards his rear.
His black horse kicked to the ground and rushed forward. The ensuing battle was truly intense.
Corpses formed mountains.
Blood formed oceans.
This conflagration called 'war' created by countless soldiers swallowed up every single life form still standing on this land and continued on its horrific path of destruction. But, even then – this stubbornly persistent battle that didn't seem to end was slowly marching towards its inevitable conclusion. Not too many remain standing on the battlefield now.
The Emperor, Alexander, lost his mount during the battle. He wasn't hindered in the least, however. He cut down two demon knights blocking his path and stood before the demon in command of the armies of aristocratic clans of demons previously under him, breathlessly panting away as it leaned against a bizarre rock formation.
The demon's face was hidden behind its helm, but Emperor Alexander seemed to know its identity as he glared down at his feeble prey.
"We could have ended the war with angels today but, why did you betray me?" Emperor Alexander asked.
The demon weakly faltered its head, but it forced himself to look up. It had already suffered grievous wounds and it seemed unlikely it'd be able to survive its injuries. "So.... regrettable. We could have ended you for good today, but...."
The voice coming out from beneath the helm sounded precariously close to being cut off.
Emperor Alexander's voice became even icier as he asked again "I said, why did you betray me?"
The demon's shoulders trembled as it painfully cackled before it raised its head again. And then, it tried to say something.
"I...."
But before the demon could say something he was killed by a silvery-white light that came out of the curtain of light and stabbed him in the back.
Only after the demon's body collapsed lifelessly on the floor was Kael able to see that the silvery light was an angel and it had six pair of silver wings on his back, unlike others who only had a pair of them.
"It's an Archangel" Adone introduced.
Soon, the battle between the twelve winged Archangel and Emperor Alexander started.
It was easy for even a normal human, like Kael to understand that Emperor Alexander had an upper hand in the fight but just as Alexander was beginning to force the twelve winged Archangel back three more silver lights rushed towards him from his right, left and back.
Before he could see what the result was, he felt the same feeling of crossing an endless tunnel at a speed very close to that of infinity.