Back to Kairos’ side.

The march south was utterly brutal. The Vanguard Generals and the Colosseum Champions did not ride wind horses. The air was too thin, and the mana in the atmosphere was too weak to support the magical beasts for a long journey. They marched on foot. They moved, pushing their enhanced bodies to cross the distance on a grueling day. As they crossed the southern border, the world instantly changed.

In the east, the Black Mist was freezing cold. It was silent, and devoid of life. But the south was the exact opposite. The south was boiling.

The sky above the jagged wastelands was a burning red, like an open wound in the heavens. Thick clouds of dark gray ash fell from the sky like dirty snow, covering the cracked earth. The air smelled of raw sulfur, burning wood, and the copper scent of old blood. It felt like walking into a massive, lit oven.

Kairos walked at the front of the group, right beside Seyana and his father, Karl.

He didn’t sweat. The divine holy light fused into his blood regulated his body temperature. He didn’t need a blue digital screen to warn him about the rising heat. He could feel the chaotic energy reverberating in the dry ground beneath his boots.

"We are close," Kairos said, his silver eyes focused on the dark horizon.

Karl grunted, the old Zephyros general changed the heavy iron broadsword resting on his right shoulder. He dragged his bad left boot slightly across the ash.

"I can smell them," Karl stated, his rough voice lacking fear. "Demons do not hide like shadows. They want you to know they are here. They want you to smell the slaughter."

They climbed a steep, jagged hill of black volcanic rock. When they reached the top of the ridge, the group looked down into the valley below.

Seyana gasped softly, her grip tightening on her silver rapier. Ignis and Terravarous stopped dead in their tracks. Even the battle hardened Arena Champions went silent. The valley was flooded with monsters.

It was a massive horde. There were easily ten thousand demons swarming across the ruined plains. They did not wear rusted armor or stand in perfect formations like the Black Mist Knights. They were a violent sea of pure nightmare.

The demons came in all dangerous shapes and sizes. Some were hulking brutes with crimson skin, jagged ram horns, and stone clubs. Others were lean, crawling on all fours like mutated wolves, their jaws dripping with boiling, acidic saliva. Many of them had leathery, bat-like wings folded against their scarred backs.

They breathed literal hellfire. Random bursts of dark red and black flames burst out from the horde as the demons fought among themselves, fueled by endless rage and gluttony, and they were eating.

The valley had once been a prosperous Solaris trading post. Now, it was just burning rubble. The demons were tearing into the corpses of the fallen border guards and dead livestock, devouring flesh and bone with crunching noises. They were not here to conquer the land. They were here to eat the world.

"Disgusting," Marin Valcoran spat. The scarred woman gripped her trident tightly. The water magic wavering around the metal prongs hissed loudly against the boiling air. "They are feral."

"They are not feral," a smooth, arrogant voice corrected her.

Daemon Sylphyros stepped forward. The blades of him instantly ignited with a roaring orange flame. He looked down at the horde with a cold gaze.

"Look at the center of the horde," Daemon pointed with his burning sword. "They are eating the dead, yes. But they are leaving a clear path through the middle of the valley. They are feral, but they are following orders. They are an army."

Kairos narrowed his shimmering silver eyes, darting through the burning red smoke.

Daemon was right. The massive horde of ten thousand demons was chaotic on the edges, but the center of the swarm was parted, creating a wide, empty road leading toward the north. Toward Solaris.

"They are waiting for the command to march," Veldra Dracortis noted, resting his halberd on his dragon scale armor. "Once they move, that horde will trample the capital walls in an hour. The regular guards will burn alive."

"Then we don’t let them reach the walls," Seyana declared.

The Crown Princess of Solaris stepped to the edge of the rocky cliff. She didn’t hide behind the champions. She raised her head high.

Suddenly, a warm golden light erupted from her body. It was her awakened divine power. The light shot outward like a beacon, cutting through the thick red smoke and the falling ash. It washed over the colosseum winners, instantly purging the suffocating heat and the smell of sulfur from their lungs.

Down in the valley, the demon horde stopped eating. Ten thousand grotesque, horned heads snapped upward. They looked at the top of the rocky ridge. They saw the golden light emitting from the human girl.

SCREECHH!!

The demons let out a deafening screech. It was a sound of agonizing hatred and overwhelming, starving hunger. They recognized the divine light. It was the prize their dark king had promised them. It was the ultimate meal.

"They see us," Ignis grinned, cracking his knuckles. He couldn’t draw mana from the dead air, but standing this close to so much chaotic fire magic stimulated his internal core. A spark of compressed blue fire flickered to life on his thumb. "Finally. A fight where I don’t have to freeze to death."

"Do not get arrogant, Ignis," Terravarous warned, his voice rumbling like an earthquake. He stomped his boots into the stone. He didn’t coat his whole body in diamond armor. Instead, he concentrated his earth magic into his two fists, turning his hands into unbreakable diamond hammers. "These beasts heal rapidly. You have to crush them."

Kairos didn’t listen to the demons screeching. His base stats and his fused Primordial Law allowed him to sense something much worse. He looked past the demon horde. He looked at the far, opposite side of the burning valley.

Standing on a jagged ridge overlooking the demon camp, were the true leaders of the southern invasion. There were eight of them. They did not march with the foot soldiers. They stood still, looking down at the battlefield like it was a trivial chessboard.

"Dad," Kairos whispered, his silver eyes locking onto the distant ridge.

Karl Wade Vedaryan followed his son’s gaze. The old man’s single dark eye narrowed. The dark red fire burning inside his internal core spiked in response to the threat.

"I see them, boy," Karl grunted, his grip tightening on the canvas wrapped hilt of his broadsword.

They were the Eight Nightmares, demon lord’s personal generals. Because they were standing miles away, obscured by the thick dark smoke and the burning red sky, Kairos could not see their faces. He could only see their terrifying silhouettes. But their sheer mass was undeniable. They oozed out an aura that was equal to the three Kings of the Black Mist in the east.

One of the silhouettes was a hulking mountain of pure muscle that looked wider than Terravarous. This brute held a colossal, jagged greatsword resting on its broad shoulder, and the earth trembled just from it standing still.

Another silhouette was slender and tall, with strange, thin strings of dark magic extending from its long fingers, disappearing into the smoke like a puppeteer. A third silhouette didn’t even have legs. It was a coiled serpent like shape, poison dripping from its fangs and melting the rock beneath it.

The other five silhouettes were just as terrifying. One seemed to be made of roaring fire. Another looked bloated and mutated by endless gluttony. They were all different, representing the chaotic horrors of the demon realm. But none of the eight silhouettes moved. They simply watched the tiny, shining golden light of Seyana on the opposite cliff. They watched the human champions drawing their weapons. They were treating this demonic war as a simple game. They wanted to see how long the fragile mortal toys could survive against their starving dogs.

"They are mocking us," Darth Clover, one of the legendary wind mages, stated coldly. He hovered a few inches above the ground, the wind swirling around his green robes. "They think we are just an appetizer."

"Let them watch," Kairos said, his voice carrying the authority of the shattered blue screen. The silver light in his eyes shimmered brightly. "We will break their toys first. Then we will cut them down."

Kairos drew Asteria from his back. The ancient sword did not glow with holy light anymore. It was just a blackened piece of dull iron. But as Kairos gripped the leather hilt, his own shiny silver veins thumped, sending his divine blood flowing straight into his muscles. His base 88 Strength and 95 Agility were unhindered by any system drain.

"Listen to me!" Karl Wade suddenly roared.

The legendary Zephyros General stepped to the front of the cliff. He raised his iron broadsword into the air. Suddenly, a roaring inferno of dark red fire erupted from the thick blade. It was not the clean blue fire of Ignis, or the elegant orange fire of Daemon. It was a brutal, veteran fire. It looked like the blood of a dying star. The intense heat pushed back the demon smoke.

"You do not fight them one by one!" Karl commanded the Arena Champions, his voice dominating the noise of the horde. "These are demons! They fight dirty, they bite, and they heal! You break their legs, you crush their heads, and you burn the pieces! You fight like butchers today!"

Colosseum winners did not hesitate. They were the strongest mortals in the world. They fed off the old General’s ferocious energy.

Veldra Dracortis spun his halberd, creating a shield of swirling, freezing water. Pyrix Dracortis ignited both of his fists with popping sparks. Lucy Smith and Marin Valcoran merged their water magic, creating a hovering river of razor sharp water blades above their heads. Idris and Darth Clover summoned a hurricane that tore the falling ash out of the air.

Seyana stood in the center, her golden light illuminating their armor. She raised her silver rapier and pointed it into the valley.

"For Solaris!" Seyana shouted, her voice echoing across the jagged wastelands.

The ten thousand demons in the valley lost their minds. The sheer scent of divine light and human magic was too much for their starving gluttony. With a deafening roar that shook the foundation of the world, the massive horde of monsters charged up the rocky hill. They scrambled over the black boulders, breathing wild bursts of dark red hellfire into the sky, their jagged teeth snapping.

Kairos didn’t wait for them to reach the top.

"Go!" Kairos commanded.

He completely blurred. Utilizing his raw, base 95 Agility, Kairos shot off the high cliff like a fired cannonball. He descended toward the front line of the demon horde.

Right beside him, his father, Karl Wade, leaped off the ridge with a brutal roar, his dark red fire trailing behind him like a meteor. Ignis and Terravarous jumped immediately after them, followed closely by the elemental strikes of the generals.

They crashed into the demon horde. The battle for the southern hell had begun, and high up on the dark ridge, the Eight Nightmares quietly watched the blood hit the ash.