The stench of blood permeated the battlefield as the battle between beasts and humans rapidly escalated. The large conflict involved the whole plain between Mint and the forest.
"There are too many! We are being outnumbered!" The deep voice of Braum roared as he shot down three Wargs with his magical bow. "Uh,uh." Darren agreed, smashing with his war hammer a Chimmon which was jumping at the hunter's exposed back.
"Guys! Step back a little!" The two men immediately followed lead with blind trust, turning their back to the enormous amount of monsters they were fighting. A blinding light covered a quarter of the battlefield forcing everyone, beasts and humans alike, to turn away.
"You are late Jane!" Braum yelled in annoyance.
"Eh, eh. Sorry, I slightly overslept." The lady answered while scratching her head.
"Anyway she is as scary as ever, isn't she Darren? Casting a light spell of such a magnitude in a dozen seconds!" Braum whispered. "Hum,hum." Darren said with a intimidated expression on his face.
'What's going on with this amount of masters!? Shouldn't this be a small village in the corner of the kingdom?!' Lord thought. "How dare you get in my way, pathetic insects!!" A rough voice resembling a growl roared, freezing the battlefield.
In a split second the Raiju disappeared, leaving behind a loud thunder. It reappeared right in front of Jane, wearing a creepy smile as it anticipated with joy the fearful expression of the woman. He was immediately disappointed by her totally fearless reaction. Irritated by that sight his wide jaw instantly fell open aiming at her defenseless neck.
"It works every time, doesn't it old man?" Jane said.
Slice. The central horn of the raiju fell to the ground accompanied by the heads of four Onikuma just behind it.
"What is the meaning of all this?" Kayden asked in a low but rageful tone.
"Whoever you are, I advise you to go back from where you came."
"Do you really believe that I, Garus, the god of war and slaughter, will shiver away from you?" The god said in a trembling voice. Even if he was a god, the body his soul was currently dwelling in was that of a mortal being. Therefore,if the body he resided in died, he would receive deep soul wounds which would make him unconscious for a couple of decades.
"Oh, so what is a god doing in the land of the mortals?" Kayden asked with curiosity.
In answer to the man's question a loud thunder broke the flaw of the battle.
"Oof, I never liked to play tag when I was young." Kayden said in annoyance.
Without a sound he disappeared, following suit behind the Raiju.
"Kyaa! He is so cool!" Jane said, blushing hard.
"Too bad he will never betray his wife even when she leaves him widowed."
'Luckily I just need to play for time until 'the thing' is done, this human is a monster!' Garus thought.
"Come on man, you don't need to behave like that. I just want to talk." Kayden said in a playful tone.
In the meantime most of the remaining magical beasts were either dead or had fled back into the forest after watching how their boss seemed to fear the enemy.
"That was the last one! Good job guys!" Braum exclaimed, dropping to the ground exhausted. They had brought down at least five hundred magical beasts while the tag game was going on.
"Anyway, what an unlucky time for this to happen! If everyone had been here, we would have ended this skirmish without even breaking into a sweat. Don't you think Dor?"
"Hum, hum!" Dorran answered, annoyed by the situation.
"Anyway, our Boss is really something else. No wonder they call him the soundless demon."
Braum said with a glint of admiration.
"Hum,Hum." Dorran agreed.
"Yeah, even Shen had to get involved to ensure the safety of Mint this time around." Jane said, sitting beside Braum.
"Ok, I'm tired of this." Kayden said in a tone brimming with annoyance.
At that moment Garus felt a deep pain at his hind legs, causing his body to fall limp to the ground.
"Now tell me, what are you aiming at?" Kayden said angrily.
"Kayden?! What's going on? Why did you attack me?" Garus had left the body as soon as it felt a blow coming his way.
"Lord? Are you back to your senses?" Kayden asked his old friend.
Meanwhile Marduk was standing guard outside the shelter in defense of the children.
Suddenly three presences at the beginning stage of the high rank, entered the range of action of his Deity's eyes. He promptly got ready to fight.
Three huge bears came out from behind a house. 'Onikumas, uh. In the past months I managed to reach the middle stage of the Medium rank, and I fought one of those and managed to kill it, but three at a time, eh! This could really be fun!' Marduk brought out his axes and charged right at the Onikuma in the middle.
The beast reacted to the attack clawing back at the neck of the child.
By then, Marduk had already boosted his agility using wind fusion magic, and even calculating the difference in rank, his agility was far superior compared to the strong but clumsy Onikuma. Marduk rotated his body counterclockwise dodging the blow at the same time taking advantage of the circular movement to exert his maximum strength, hitting the elbow of the beast and crippling his limb.
While the first Onikuma growled in pain, the other beasts jumped in front of Marduk, attacking simultaneously. Suddenly, the patterns on Marduk changed colour and became light grey.
He moved his arms in front of his body covering it for the most part.
Each of the bears attacked one of Marduk's arms, pushing him back in front of the shelter's door.
A creepy laugh slipped the beasts as they saw the boy take their full hit.
It happened then.
Thud.
One of them fell to the ground, dead.
Marduk used the moment of carelessness of the Onikumas to throw his axes at them, hitting the head of one of them, and splitting it in half, and then the shoulder of the other.
'Thanks to metal fusion magic, my trump card, and "One Million Beatings" I sustained only superficial damages from their attacks, but that was enough to miss the head of the survivor with my left hand…' Marduk thought.
Marduk then picked up the spear which he had left behind before his charge. This particular spear was made in such a way as to work better as a support for his body while using his martial arts than as a normal spear.
It then started.
Marduk leaped one more time to the first Onikuma, and leaning on the spear released the fourth form at point-blank distance, hitting his stomach and killing him on the spot. A trumpet blasted in Mint, as the wind moved by Marduk's technique formed an enormous elephant.
The land trembled with each step as the elephant charged at the remaining Onikuma.
In less than a second the Onikuma found himself swatted to the wall. Dead.
In the meantime an astonished Shen looked at the fight with newfound admiration for the small child.
'Perfect control of the fight, good proficiency with his techniques, good craftsmanship and imagination, exploit of the inferior intelligence of low ranked magical beasts, I wanted to humble him with this fight and then save him at the last second, but the one who was humbled was me, uh.' Shen thought while sitting on the roof of a house about fifty metres away.
Marduk checked if the three beasts were actually dead.
"It is safe to come out now, they are all dead, Telia." Marduk assured Telia who was guarding the shelter from inside.
Telia eagerly opened the door to ascertain Marduk's well-being.
Then, from the shadow of one of the beast's bodies, a black beast darted at Marduk's exposed back.
"COUGH, COUGH…" A large lump of blood came out of Marduk's mouth as a large black spike pierced his stomach from part to part.
"Kekekeke" The black creature laugh made Telia's skin crawl.
"KYAAAAAA" Telia screamed frightened.
"DAMN!" Shen said, rapidly closing the distance to the creepy creature.
'I should have sensed it from the beginning! NO I should have intervened before the fight with the Onikuma.' Shen continued to reprimand himself while running desperately towards the shelter.
"Eh eh eh." This time the creature's skin began to crawl.
"I was sure you would fall for such a stupid trick. Now it's time to die, you sneaky rat!" Marduk's voice was clear and void of pain.
It all happened in a few seconds.
Marduk sliced the beast's arm with the blast of wind of his first form.
"SCREEEECH!" the creature's cried in pain
"It's not your fault, Black Mantis. After all, how could a mere mantis fight the king of the forest?" Marduk mockingly said.
"ROOOOAR!" A lion's roar could be heard a mile away.
"Marduk! You brat! You have reached the top." Kayden's words were full of admiration for Marduk's incredible martial arts talent.
Marduk released his strongest move, forming a large head of a lion, which bit off the head of the Black Mantis.
THUD. The dead body of the beast fell to the ground.
"Marduk!!" Telia screamed, hugging Marduk from behind.
"Are you ok?!"
"Yes, I'm alright. I used dimensional magic to redirect the blow through my body. I'm really cool aren't I?" Marduk said, trying to liven up the atmosphere.
"YOU STUPID MORON! DO YOU EVEN IMAGINE HOW SCARED I WAS?!" Telia shouted while lightly punching Marduk's head.
"Alright, I reached my limit, I leave the rest to you Shen." Marduck said before collapsing as the rest of his strength left him.
"Marduk! Marduk!" Telia screamed in panic.
"He is just exhausted." Shen said leaving the roof he was sitting on.
'The young master is a real monster. Indeed, he is the grandson of that woman.' Shen thought.