"Well, shit." Gyuho braced himself as his shadow warped and twisted beneath him, covering him in a grainy, flickering black shade. Lulac flapped to the sky, as well as Wanxi, who both held the Bridge of Icarus. Casmere and Bie simply jumped, the latter reducing his weight with Mountain's Step and the former stepping on his revolving wheel.
But the evasive tactics were utterly meaningless, as the first wave the voice sent was not focused on them, but rather, the animals around. A sharp pang of blood flooded their nostrils as the mist dispersed into every corner of the Violet House, trees bending backwards as even the stalks of grass threateningly shone several sharp, condensed purple lights.
"This is gonna be a real problem..." Uttered Wanxi, who couldn't maneuver as well in the sky as Lulac could. From her long white robes, she withdrew Perdi, who had been slumbering the entire time, before breathing a cloudy wisp onto her.
"Wake up, okay?" Wanxi's original Bridge, the Doll Maker, got to work in her Inner World as Perdi's buttoned eyes were filled with a sense of vitality. Flapping the wings the wisp formed, she beckoned for another stream of clouds, to which Wanxi obliged. The cloud formed a shield, which the small doll used to fly around and deflect the grass lights, while Wanxi fixed her boat shape hat on her head and began gesturing while chanting.
Meanwhile, Bie formed a crater on the ground as he landed beside Gyuho. Rotating his arm as he pulled on his shoulder with the other, he pulled at the red thread's crisscrossed pattern on his right wrist and stretched his joints.
'I need to make sure to practice my body as well. It's what I have to rely on.' With an eerily cheerful smile, the shadow of the sharklike grinning maw appeared behind his lower back, his duffel bag dispersing and reappearing inside his Inner World as he shuffled his feet.
"Come on, Gyu. I'll go with you." Bie cracked his knuckles as the beasts rapidly approached, all chimeric amalgamations of mixed animal traits, all traits unproperly utilized. Gyuho nodded as his head transformed into a jackal's his muscles swelling before contracting to the normal shape of his physique.
The two guides then unleashed a wild series of punches as they beat back the tide of sieging creatures, madness threatening to swallow their senses as the heavy smell of slaughter sought to incite the rage hidden deep within the soul. Lulac and Casmere were not lazing either, the Guide of the two drawing his beam saber and flying low to the ground, the demon hunter pushing his lacquered cap down on his head as his waves of pure white hair fluttered along.
With pointed feet firmly locked on the spinning wheel as he squatted down, both he and the bone pick in his hand gleamed with translucent auric energy, phantasmic figures clutching similarly composed bone picks appearing on the ground as they parried, pierced, and swiped away at the monsters.
The grasses emitting sharp lights intensified over time, Bie annoyed as his clothes ripped and his skin parted. The blood flowing through his veins squirmed with vigor as his breath settled into a steady rhythm, his eyes glinting as an idea struck him.
"Hoo~!" Bie gripped the neck of a monster opposite him, the strength in his body bursting forth in an attempt to crush his opponent's windpipe. Teeth glistering as the violet rays reflected on both them and his blue violet lips, he flung the creature into the quickly approaching light.
"Shhhh!" Energy dissolved as a neck was slit, and Bie gained a mischievous look upon his countenance. Diverting a section of his mind to fight the burgeoning insanity within, he scanned the battlefield as the last available section of his consciousness calculated.
"Gyu, save your energy. Push these bastards into the attacks!" Bie confirmed this after kicking a wolfish snout in front of a deer with crocodile teeth, the madness in their eyes unabating as they ruthlessly tore through their allies. As the deer's teeth sank into the throat of its target, Bie slid forward and bashed down on the deer's head, the heavy impact rupturing it before the creature quickly died.
"Okay." Gyuho's shadow transformed into an aura as he swung the bat with tenacious might, waves of darkness beating down into the monster before dissolving into nothingness. An ajar maw wrapped around a metal bat as the Vendetta Jackie shoved it forward, before he swept the struggling creature into other opponents.
"Hmph." Casmere snorted derisively as an attacking beast's brains spilled out on the floor, followed shortly by four punctures suddenly opening up on adjacent creatures. His auric light, carried by his bone pick that was enshrouded within it, drew fine lines in the sky as half of his arm blurred due to the sheer speed he was attacking with. It was like he was unloading a full clip as he flew around the battleground upon his wheel, stabs puncturing opponents he hurtled past as translucent particles fluttered upwards.
Perdi's frenzied blocking intensified, the miniature doll...gaining an aura!? Wanxi felt great disbelief as the simplistic pattern of the canna lily materialized on her glabella, the doll releasing light tinged with canna lilies and their red hues fluttering petals around her. A singular petal emerged on both her head and her shield, and her speed was amplified as a glowing red was introduced to the struggle.
"Twisted Mansion: Sparrow's Scorn!" A fan of saber attacks emerged from a lilac window, the low hum of Lulac's beam saber flashing multiple times as his hand slid from left to right. Heat sizzled into the unexpecting creature's flesh, three of them successfully dispatched and another four missing a limb.
Bie's foot smashed up into a jaw as the beast was carried upwards, several grass lights eviscerating the soon to be corpse before it was swept off. As he fought, the effects of Smile harvested the great resentment of the enemies, and a mix of a white and yellow aura leaked from beneath his feet as it slowly floated upwards, the alternating colors swirling and transparent as it veiled his frame, expanding only a few centimeters with Bie as the center.
'I feel powerful. My feet feel firmer, and my legs feel even more flexible. Don't tell me...I'm learning a technique? Really??'
As if making sure the illusions didn't succeed in deluding him, he closed his eyes. Unknown to him, his wing ears expanded and covered the top half of his face as they folded over each other, and auric feathers surrounded his feet. White spiritual energy wreathed and surged, resembling fire and yet lacking its heat as he was carried forth with a golden sheen of light!
His speed was multiplied twice over as he disappeared and reappeared in the fray, several meters away from his allies. An unmoving face with startling, enrapturing beauty formed out of golden and white kaleidoscopes formed in the sky, before looking down with cold eyes on the beasts that began to shrink in fear.
This was Bie's first use of Demon Expedition's movement along with the Cruel Thesis, his aura shifting and wrapping around his fists as he struck out with a devilish grin. Multiple beasts were pushed away by his palms as the gaze settled on them, before turning into particles that embedded themselves within his body. The smile behind his lower back grew even wider as it greedily sucked in the fresh resentment littering the collision, occasional empty angelic smiles unsettling the beasts as Bie began his first "expedition" in earnest.
"Second wave incoming! Wanxi, can you release that spell yet?" Lulac shouted, and Wanxi's lips pursed momentarily as she shook her head. It was obvious that she was sending her energy to the sky, clouds slowly forming as the smallest peal of lightning began to rumble...