"Corvus who?" I repeated incredulously. Morten shrugged, while Myria, Sylvie and Silvia gave me blank expressions. "Never heard of you."
"It doesn't matter." Sigmund was as serious as ever. "He's just another enemy that I must cut down."
"At least let me conduct some psychological warfare," I muttered. "Or get a sense of humor."
"It's only natural," Corvus said, completely missing the joke. "I strike from the shadows and hide in the darkness. Before my targets even realize it, they are dead, and few live to witness my assassinations. You wouldn't survive this either, and once again, my name shall fade into obscurity."
Yeah, psychological warfare wouldn't work on this guy either.
Sigmund pressed his attack, deflecting Corvus's lightning claws, but the latter retaliated with a riposte with his second set of glowing claws, forcing the black swordsman to twist his body to avoid a fatal stab. He deflected the next slash, and then twirled his sword about for a strike, only for Corvus to catch the blade with his pair of lightning claws and force the deadly tip away. Blue mana clashed against lethal disruptive energies, and the two of them closed in for another exchange that sent sparks raining across the clearing.
While they dueled, the Kobold King strode forward with a guttural laugh.
"Don't forget about me!"
"Oh, we have no intention of forgetting about you." Myria's water blade whipped at him, and he blocked it with a furry claw, wincing as a thin line of blood dripped from the resulting cut. The Atlantean princess didn't hesitate, launching herself and unleashing a series of strikes from her flexible sword that penetrated shallowly across the Kobold King's fangs.
"Do you really think Mystic ranked warriors such as yourselves are a match for me?" He sneered. "My subordinates are more than enough to take you down!"
Howling Lycanthrope Lords bounded into the clearing, slashing and biting, but they crashed into a wall of Guardian Golems and Tree Revenants. The pack of Kobold Warriors weaved through the legs and roots of the clashing titans, only to encounter a swarm of Colossal Crabs, led by my King Crab, as well as Xiao Huo, Da Hai, Xiao Ke and my Aquatic Armada.
A flanking army of Shrieking Banshees were kept at bay by my struggling Phantom Stumps, Ghost Pumpkins and Pumpkin Wraiths, all of whom were embroiled in a spectral struggle of eerie energies and ghostly shadows. My Little Anglers and Lantern Fishes gathered and gathered themselves in a formation, charging up enough electricity to strike the Kobolds and Lycanthrope Lords, but they were forced to redirect their lightning bolts skyward when a fresh flock of Ravenous Ravens swooped down on us.
Corvus was truly the Raven Lord. His presence appeared to buoy the Ravens' morale and they attacked with more ferocity than ever, their beaks and talons tearing and ripping at my spirit beasts while they agilely dodged the lightning bolts that my Little Anglers and Lantern Fishes hurled upward. I quickly weaved a spirit array to boost my spirit beasts, arranging the arcane runes according to the system's instructions, and increased their combat abilities and power, but we were still evenly matched.
"Ugh…"
Even though I fired a volley of azure arrows at the incoming avian spirit beasts, I was dismayed to see a new batch of Vampire Bats and Goliath Bats descending upon our position. Once again, they were led by a couple of Crow Bats, but they suddenly banked to the side and veered off before I could order Xiao Huo Long to torch them. Not that he could incinerate the whole lot of them by himself, but at least stop them from overwhelming us.
Then I saw why. The Owls had returned. Round Owls, Arrow Owls and the Grim Owl that led them, all of them flying in a flock of brown, green and white. They tore into the Bats with their talons and beak, or shot them down with deadly arrows and shadow spells. I nodded to Xiao Huo Long wordlessly, and he immediately understood, taking off to join the airborne fight. Torrents of flames erupted from his jaws, scorching the air and illuminating the night, while Ravenous Ravens, Vampire Bats and Goliath Bats alike fell.
He met his match against one of the Crow Bats, the second one facing off the commanding Grim Owl, and I left them to him. Myria was in need of help, and I was rushing forward to support her, raining arrows down on the Kobold King. I was dismayed to see that none of them had an effect, the azure projectiles simply bouncing off his fur or sticking harmlessly out of his arms and shoulders like toothpicks.
Well, he was Earth ranked, so it was only natural. Either I used my Azure Frost once Myria was out of the way, or I summoned one of my own Earth ranked spirit beasts. I was about to do the latter when a roaring boom from above seized my attention,
"What the?!"
It was almost like the descent of angels. Plumes of fire trailed the air as massive humanoids crashed down upon us, flaming contrails jetting out of the wing-like contraptions on their backs. Like Corvus, they were clad in full body night-black armor, wielding whirring swords with jagged metallic teeth in one hand and a thundering pistol that spat out explosive shells in the other. Well, some of them anyway. A few of them emulated Corvus, both their hands equipped with lightning claws that crackled with disruptive energies.
To my surprise, they didn't plunge into the fray to annihilate my summoned spirit beasts. Instead, they landed around Corvus, surrounding him protectively, almost like bodyguards. Each of them was at least Mystic ranked, and they were clad in thick armor plates that wouldn't look out of place on a tank. Sigmund reflexively cleaved one of them, but his sword barely gouged out a chunk out of the newcomer's armor. Instead, the black armored knight retaliated with his chainsaw like sword, the jagged blade whirring and screaming with a metallic whine, and pushed back against Sigmund's blow.
To his credit, Sigmund didn't panic. He deftly evaded the next blow and parried the next strike, the destructive blue energies around his blade flaring to counter the biting teeth of the growling chainsaw sword. He then dodged under a decapitating strike from a second black armored knight and kicked a third that swept both pairs of claws at his legs in an attempt to hack them out from under him. Stomping on the guy and leaving him writhing on the ground, Sigmund propelled himself forward. Gathering all of his strength, he finally cleaved one of them in half, but his follow-up blow that was meant to eviscerate the flailing victim's comrade only glanced off the armor and left a deep crack in the metallic plates.
His second target ignored the swell of blood that spilled through the gap and swung his shrieking sword with both hands. Already, the blood was clotting, turning into a hardened scab that stopped the bleeding.
"What the hell are they?" I murmured.
"My Raven Guard," Corvus said proudly as he deflected a beheading blow meant for one of his subordinates. The Raven Guard bowed his head to thank his liege before he returned to the fight, and Sigmund now found himself on the backfoot, surrounded and slowly overwhelmed. He was matched evenly against Corvus, but with the new additions, he was at a huge disadvantage. "As you can see, they are my elite warriors."
"They kind of remind me of futuristic Tengu," I muttered as I shot down a Ravenous Raven and brought down another swarm of Bats with my arrows. Jumping over a Kobold's scimitar and leaving him to get smacked by my Tree Revenant, I hopped over another sweeping blade and ran toward Myria was still keeping an eye on the new developments. The sword-wielding Kobold snarled at my dismissive attitude toward it, only to get its head burned off by Xiao Huo's fireball. My six-tailed fire fox was accompanying me, ensuring my survival by picking off those spirit beasts and demonic monsters that were trying to attack me, and I left my back to her.
"I don't think now's the time for commentary?!" Morten yelped as he jumped away from a club that a Kobold Warrior swung at him. Landing on the bulky weapon, he ran along its length before kicking the wielder, the spikes of his boots punching through its jaw and stabbing into its cranium. Morten then spun around and kicked a second Kobold Warrior that was thrusting a spear at him, just avoiding the deadly tip by twisting his body in midair before lashing out with his foot. "We need to do something! If Sigmund falls, then we'll be wiped out!"
"I'm working on it!" I assured him, sliding on the ground and underneath the feet of an astounded Lycanthrope Lord. It turned around to pursue me, but the flaming fist of my Guardian Golem obliterated its head when it was distracted. Now that I closed the distance, I summoned one of my trump cards.
Hei Ba bellowed viciously as he manifested in the clearing, his nine heads snaking about to strike at the stunned Raven Guard. He clamped his jaws over one of them, sinking his teeth deeply into his armor. To his shock, he wasn't able to instantly crush the struggling Raven Guard in a single bite, his enchanted armor resisting the fangs he was so proud of. With silent defiance, the Raven Guard fired his thunderous pistol at pointblank range, nearly cracking the onyx armored scales that covered Hei Ba's heads.
Even though the armor began to squeal and rivets popped out as Hei Ba's powerful jaws began crushing it like a can, causing blood to spill out from fractures and breaches, the Raven Guard took a long time to finally die. In the meantime, the rest of his squad filed out, avoiding the other eight heads that darted in to strike or ensnare them, parrying fangs with their roaring chainsaw like swords or crackling lightning claws.
"That ought to keep them busy and allow Sigmund to focus on Corvus alone," I said, watching in satisfaction when the entire force of Raven Guard disengaged to confront the new Earth ranked threat in their midst. Sigmund nodded gratefully to me before hurling himself at a grim Corvus, who simply raised his lightning claws in response. The two of them collided violently in the middle of the clearing, sending shockwaves rippling throughout the vicinity and bowling some of the weaker spirit beasts over.
That finally allowed me to focus on helping Myria. Despite her best efforts, she was slowly being pushed back by the Kobold King, but it was only the unpredictable movements of her water whip sword that kept her in the fight. Blood dripped from a couple of cuts, but she managed to avoid a spinning kick from the gargantuan werewolf, and then ducked under a massive slash from one of his claws. Whirling around, she retaliated with a tangle of highly pressurized water whips, but the Kobold King cleaved them apart with a slash.
He suddenly looked up and intercepted my Azure Frost arrow, which detonated and froze his entire arm. He snarled furiously and shattered the ice with a single flick of his arm, turning to glare at me. I skidded to a stop beside Myria, swapping my bow for my sword just in time to parry his slash. Myria seized the opportunity to cut open his wrist, but the thick black fur that coated his limb prevented the gash from being too deep and severe.
Still, he withdrew his claws with a hiss of pain before glaring at us with his glowing red eyes. Howling, he pounced on us, forcing the both of us to split up and scatter. Myria countered with another spinning, flailing whip of her water blade, while I executed a series of strikes with both Azure Dragon and a newly conjured Azure Frost, leaving crisscrossing cuts on the Kobold King's opposite flank.
The injuries sealed up almost instantly, the Kobold King kicking off and knocking the both of us over with a sonic boom. He landed several meters away and gracefully turned about to face us with a leer, basking in the moonlight and allowing his injuries to heal.
"I know you," he said, pointing at me with a crimson nail. "Aren't you Luo Chen? The so-called Immortal Emperor with the Daoist name Luo Wu Ji? And that blue-haired lady next to you must be your wife, Lan Bei Er."
"…I'm sorry, what?" I gaped at him. Beside me, Myria stared at the Kobold King blankly.
"What are you talking about?"
"Huh? Aren't you Luo Chen and Lan Bei Er?" The Kobold King was gaping at us. Myria was still looking utterly bewildered, so I decided to explain.
"I think he read too much The Immortal Emperor Luo Wu Ji (Xian Zun Luo Wu Ji)." I shrugged. "I personally enjoyed the manhua, but the story doesn't really go anywhere. At least Luo Chen and Lan Bei Er make a great couple, so I ship them, but it doesn't really focus on romance."
"Another of your trashy cultivation manhuas?" Myria asked, facepalming. I winced.
"Hey, The Immortal Emperor Luo Wu Ji is one of the more enjoyable ones. I actually like it, even if the story isn't that good. The characters are plenty of fun to read about, though Luo Chen tends to be a bit of a murder hobo. Thankfully, most of the villains he kill deserve it, and he doesn't do the whole 'exterminate entire sects or family' nonsense like, say, Chen Fan – also known as Chen Bei Xuan – indulges in. You know, where he does this spell and wipes out all four generations of an enemy family, including innocent children. Just to prevent them from taking revenge in the future. Like, c'mon."
"…why are we even talking about cultivation manhuas and web novels right now?" The Kobold King asked, burying his elongated face into a paw. I scowled.
"Hey, you were the one who brought it up in the first place!"
"I mean, the both of you look very similar to Luo Chen and Lan Bei Er! I swear, a couple like you could easily pass off as them!"
"Should I be flattered?" Myria asked dryly. I shrugged again.
"Maybe. But he just confirmed his own funeral."
"What do you mean by that?!" The Kobold King snarled, taking a step forward. I tried not to burst out laughing.
"If you've read The Immortal Emperor Luo Wu Ji, you should know what I'm talking about." I raised a finger. "Wasn't there an arc where Luo Chen effortlessly slaughtered a Werewolf King? So are you sure you want to call me Luo Chen?"
The color drained from the Kobold King's black furred face.
"No…no way! Impossible!" He glowered at me and his silhouette erupted in a blaze of dark mana. "Don't be delusional! I'm an Earth ranked beast! You and your wife are both only Mystic ranked! You're no match for me!"
"Oh, sure…we may be Mystic ranked." I smirked as I pushed my glasses up my nose. "But he isn't."
The Kobold King only had a moment to gape in astonishment before he was forced to leap away when my Elder Tree Revenant pulverized the position where he was standing on. Craning his neck, he looked up to stare at my Earth ranked spirit beast.
"You've got to be kidding me…"
"Oh, no," I said with another smirk. "I'm dead serious."