The nightmare creatures within the hall tensed in visible panic as they watched the strongest of their forces burnt to nothing but wilting ashes.
None of the nightmare creatures dared take a step forward, as every one of them, from the most powerlessly feeble to the so called most mighty in strength.
All shivered in the unfettered fear placed within their hearts by Astarvan's terrifying presence.
Trick's eyes then brightened in fervent elation from watching his master's illustrious technique completely obliterate the formerly terrifying monster with unbelievable ease.
"That was amazing Master!"
With an enthusiastic leap into the air, Trick yelled in praise at his master.
"You're too cool master, you really are!"
Hearing the clamorous laudatory screams of Trick, Astarvan turned to where they stood, meeting flattering shouts from Trick and a look of hidden amusement in the eyes of Athan.
"It's a God given gift kid!" Astravan smirked boisterously under Trick's ever flowing praise. Stepping out of the large crater that laid deep into the castle floor.
"Just comes naturally!" He then erupted into a mirthful laugh as he watched Trick's eyes glimmer in excitement.
But their joyous conversation was soon cut short…
By the annoying voice of a constantly reoccurring figure.
"As expected of the Machiavellian Trickster himself." Oneiros commended Astravan's strength, a loud clap echoing across the hall as he finished his statement.
Trick immediately turned in search of where the voice resounded from before fixing his gaze towards the direction he heard Oneiros's voice echo loudest.
"But if you thought that was all there was to my army." Oneiros warned, releasing a slight chuckle into the air.
"THINK AGAIN!"
WHOOSH
Oneiros' sinister wave of void essence washed over the hall once more, his fiendish energy causing the trembling nightmare creatures to lose their fear as their eyes brightened with an even greater scarlet glow.
Trick watched under the protection of Athan's defensive barrier, new nightmare creatures emerge from the ground beneath where the other monsters stood, their eyes also bathed in the same melancholic red color adopted by their peers.
'He's creating new ones?' Trick asked himself in a rhetorical confirmatory manner as he tried to validate what it was that he currently saw when a dreadful sight then hit him.
'They're everywhere.' Trick stared at a myriad of nightmare creatures, far surpassing the plethora of the seemingly uncountable number of beasts that formerly dwelt within the castle.
The almost infinite number of monsters comprised of; atrocious wolf men, weaponized walking skeletons, some of which held firmly onto bloody machetes which dripped of red necrosing blood from an unknown source.
Husks of rotting flesh that walked in Trick's direction, seeming to possess some form of life that still dragged their befouling carcasses forward.
And the shadowy nightmare like beings that crawled horrifically on the floor, letting out depressing screeches as they came towards Trick, Athan and Astarvan.
However these were not all the monsters that now stood in the hall.
There was one more which flooded Trick's heart with a considerable amount of concern.
As right then and there, within the halls where Trick stood were a multitude of…
Humongous 3 Headed Ogres, each wielding their threateningly massive clubs in both hands.
But instead of appearing green right from the start. Like the multifarious grains of sand which fills the desert ground, a multitude of scarlet Ogres swarmed the hall, their resentful stares all directed towards one man.
ASTARVAN.
Like an ominous herald of doom, the derisive voice of Oneiros filled the room once more, inducing an ardent feeling of dreadful melovalence in the hearts of his nightmare creatures.
"Did you think you could plant in their hearts, a seed of fear?"
"How laughable."
Oneiros let out a scuff, before continuing his words in a boisterous fashion.
"I govern the very concept of that borne by fear."
The monsters suddenly began a chaotic stampede, each one racing with a red fervor for doom, gleaming through their eyes. As their minds seemed lost, being exiled away from everything, but destruction.
"That emotion is estranged from me, having no hold onto my soul."
The hall was overturned with loud bellowing war cries and nightmarish screeches plagued the hearing of everyone in the hall, overturning it into a mad house of unfettered chaos.
"But as for the souls of humans—" Oneiros let out a breath, resuming his calm demeanor once more.
"I simply cannot say the same."
The monsters all raced wildly towards a collective focal point, displaying an ardent fervor for destruction as they marched forwards in their uncountable numbers.
Each boosted their speed, drawing out the very limit of how fast their bodies could carry them.
While the Scarlet Ogres raged on with breathtaking speed, the shadowy beasts of darkness crawled onto the ground, forcefully dragging their shapeless bodies over the floor in a horrendous manner.
Even leaving the red stains of their blood to bathe the ground, under their ripping flesh which only got worse with each drag they took.
Like an accursed tune of dread, the loud bellows and depressing screeches voiced out by the melancholic monsters intertwined in a nightmarish fashion, birthing a wretched song that veiled the hall in a cloud of gloom.
Trick's mind was currently racing under the sheer magnitude of the plethora of nightmarish beasts that now filled the hall.
His mind was currently racing as the grounds trembled with a prominent shudder, his mind was currently racing at the cacophony of clashing roars and screeches that bore a fiendish melody.
And his mind was currently racing…
As he thought of a plan on how they would beat the monsters which in just a few seconds would clutter against Athan's barrier, doing their best to break it to pieces.
Under the unbearable weight of his thoughts, Trick took a look at his surroundings, the beasts, the nightmarish monsters and all that plunged the castle halls into doom. Before something reassuring caught his eye.
His master who now stretched his arms and legs in mocking levity for the calamitous situation that currently befell him.
Even as the otherworldly beasts inched closer to Trick, even as only but a little while was left till they would try to rip Trick into nothing but mangled pieces of flesh. In the midst of his master.
Trick felt a mollifying sense of relief.
As he now watched his master throw a wink at the cynical bunny that floated beside him, the latter responding with a nod of affirmation before…
TAP!
The loud, resounding sound of Astravan tapping his foot onto the ground echoed vividly across the air, everyone's hearing being passed over by the single but prominent sound made by his footwear landing with a heavy tap..
Yet…
What happened next was a sight so surreal, a sight so otherworldly and a sight so indoctrinating, that Trick's eyes glistened with unbridled exhilaration.