From the burning, jagged portal emerged monsters who were ten feet in heights. Their bodies were hulking masses of knotted muscle and jagged, obsidian-like armor. Horns curled from their massive skulls like crown of thorns, and molten eyes glowed a malevolent crimson beneath heavy, shelf-like brows. These were not mere soldiers; they were Vorakhans—beast-demon giants driven by a purely aggressive nature.
"Alright, guys... prepared for this one?" I asked, my knuckles popping as I clenched my fists.
"What are those things?" Sinata asked, her voice tight as she gripped her blade.
"Those are Vorakhans," I replied, my eyes scanning them.
The God-Sage System flickered in my peripheral vision, but for the first time, the data was blurred. They were unpredictable; their strength fluctuated so wildly that the system couldn't pin down a static Rank.
The ground trembled under their weight. With roars that echoed like claps of thunder, the giants charged. Each demon swung claws large enough to rend steel shields, their momentum turning the earth into a spray of dirt and rock.
"Ready?" I shouted.
"Ready!" the team answered in unison.
We sprinted forward. The collision was like two tectonic plates meeting. The giants' footsteps left deep craters, the vibration rattling the stones beneath us.
Kageno was a blur of shadow, his dual black blades dancing through the narrow gaps in the Vorakhans' armor with surgical precision. Beside him, Ria and Kael fought in a seamless metal-weave. They utilized their Auto-attack blades which were floating shards of metal that struck independently, allowing them to focus their main swords on the giants swarming their flanks. Sinata was a phantom, blurring across the battlefield and slashing through the giants' hamstrings and joints.
I moved with the Zero-Point Martial Arts, delivering strikes that bypassed their thick hides entirely. Despite their reinforced skin, my resonance-loaded punches one-shotted any demon I touched, turning their internal organs to slurry. We held the upper hand through sheer speed, but the Vorakhans were relentless. They didn't retreat. They didn't feel pain. Even with limbs hanging by threads, they surged forward like a pack of frenzied hornets.
"Watch it!" I yelled as the swarm tightened.
Kael and Ria side-stepped a crushing overhead smash, hopping back to escape the debris. As they landed, a Vorakhan lunged from the dust, its massive hand closing in on Kael's head. Before it could crush him, a silver flash erupted. Sinata's blade sliced the monster's hand clean off at the wrist, followed by a gravity-boosted kick to its chest that sent the giant flying back into the pack.
"Like I said, be careful," I reminded them, sliding into a defensive stance.
"Phew. That was close," Ria panted, glancing at Sinata. "Thanks."
"Save the gratitude for later! Concentrate!" Sinata barked, already piercing another monster's throat without looking back.
The giants suddenly shifted. One let out a deafening, rhythmic roar, and the others answered in a chorus of static-filled screams. Together, they crashed forward like a living avalanche. A clawed hand caught Kageno mid-dash; he blocked, but the sheer mass sent him skidding fifty feet backward. Before he could recover, a giant charged ferociously. Kageno crossed his dual swords to parry, but a low, sweeping kick caught him, sending him airborne as the giant smashed the ground, spraying lethal shrapnel across the line.
Ria and Kael were holding the right flank, creating a massive, curved metal shield to bottleneck the swarm. It allowed them to focus on the demons directly in front of them, but the dummies on the other side didn't care. They smashed their heads and fists against the metal barrier with suicidal intent.
I kept moving, my fists vibrating at high frequencies, but even I was being suppressed by the sheer volume of meat and bone.
"There's no blood!" Sinata's voice rose above the din. She had driven her blade deep into a giant's heart chamber, but the wound remained dry and hollow.
As she spoke, a swinging fist grazed her cheek, leaving three thin lines of blood. She retreated, but a follow-up strike caught her in the ribs, sending her crashing into a pile of rubble. The Vorakhans were moving in unintentional waves, coordinated only by the momentum of the horde. The metal shield Ria and Kael had built finally groaned and shattered under the pressure. The giants poured through, delivering long-range swipes with instinctive, lethal precision.
I dodged a series of slashes, my movements a blur of redirection. I struck back, vibrating the molecules of their internal tissues until they exploded from the inside out. But I was growing tired of bare-knuckle fighting.
"Oliver! Take this!" Sinata shouted, sliding her short sword across the dirt toward me.
I snatched it up, the steel humming as I infused it with Zero-Point energy. I sliced through the next three giants in a single circular motion, clearing a path to Kageno. He was fighting like a master assassin, throwing kunai patched with explosive tags whenever he was swarmed. As three demon giants tried to attack him at once, he blurred out of sight and reappeared above them to rain down destructive shuriken bombs.
We were all wearing down. I still have enough energy not even a single drop had depleted, but my physical stamina was starting to flag.
"Kageno!" I called out over the roars.
"What is it, Veyron?" he spat, decapitating two monsters in one fluid motion.
"Can you perform a Shidan Technique?"
I knew low-tiers usually lacked the mana-output for high-level Shidan moves, but I noticed that Kageno wasn't an ordinary low-tier.
"What do you take me for?" Kageno glanced at me from behind his high collar, his eyes narrow. "I can. But it'll drain my energy dry."
"We have no choice," I replied, looking at the endless horizon of monsters. "We have to take them out at once, or we'll be buried under them."
He sighed, his dark mana beginning to swirl aggressively. "Just this once."
We retreated from the front line, signaling the others to fall back. Standing side-by-side, we began the incantation. A sapphire-blue beam began to charge in my palm, swirling with the cold light of the vacuum. In Kageno's hand, a thick, bloody-red sphere of energy manifested, crackling with a terrifying heat.
"Phido'lemado..." Kageno whispered.
"Risho Blue!" I roared.
We fired simultaneously. The two beams intertwined, forming a spiraling drill of blue and red destruction. It slammed into the center of the Vorakhan swarm, a blinding flash of light consuming the horizon. When the light faded, there was nothing left but a massive, scorched wasteland. Every giant had been annihilated.
Sinata, Ria, and Kael collapsed to their knees, gasping for air in the sudden silence.
"Thank goodness," Sinata whispered. "They're... they're finally gone."
"Strange," Kageno said, standing tall despite his exhaustion. "The demons are gone, but the mission hasn't cleared."
As the words left his mouth, a second portal, darker and more refined tore open in the center of the scorched earth. A tall figure, encased in obsidian armor with jagged dark horns, stepped out. He carried a black sword that seemed to drink the light around it.
He looked at us, his voice a cold, resonant echo that vibrated in our very bones.
"You humans... have trespassed in my domain."