(Written while listening to: "Darkness Before The Dawn" by Caleb Hyles, Lacey Sturm & Jury on YouTube)
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[You have slain an Awakened Demon, Mature Splitterling].
[You have slain an Awakened Demon, Mature Spitterling].
[You have slain…] x6.
[You have slain a Fallen Beast, Umbral Willthief].
[You have slain an Awakened…]
"Go go, Apollyon! Go go, Apollyon!"
Laito was cheerleading for his loyal Echo that was currently busy draining and slaughtering large groups of Nightmare Creatures which emerged from Darkness that recently started to invade the opening Gate and its protectors.
It all began the moment the first rune on The Gate fully lit up after an unspecified amount of time(It was impossible to measure the passing of time in the vicinity of The Gate… it behaved strangely).
Initially Laito was weary of the darkness surrounding him from all sides and above.
It changed swiftly when something happened in one specific direction.
Apparently all the darkness surrounding The Gate up until that moment was a mundane one.
Just absence of light. A normal physical phenomena.
But then…- the first powering rune let out a pulse of white light, spreading in shape of the wave in all directions above the transparent floor.
And then… the True Darkness started to approach as if answering a call.
A towering avalanche of black mist-like element.
It stopped at a certain distance… just on the edge of where light could reach from the stone platform.
For a moment it looked like it simply couldn't advance forward…-
Then creatures of Darkness emerged from it.
Bunch of monsters made of misaligned, skewedly grafted flesh, covered in squirming tentacles and sharp spikes and teeth.
Surprisingly, Laito was capable of hastily assembling an "army" in response, that consisted of three main forces.
The strongest was Apollyon's one.
By himself the Vampiric Wolf-bat Shade was the strongest creature present(for the moment).
His nearly immortal, inexhaustible body and ability to fly allowed him to move through the battlefield ensuing carnage wherever he went.
With animalistic ferocity he slashed with claws, ripped with his massive fangs and siphoned the black blood of their opponents, by occasionally opening his monstrous jaw and inhaling…- every creature that stood within a few meters parameter had their blood extracted.
Their veins(or whatever they had) opened and black liquid left in small streams towards Apollyon's maw.
As long as the enemy had a physical body they were as good as dead.
The problem was: not every attacking creature had physical body.
Sometimes among fleshy abominations sneaked an incorporeal patch of black mist that tried to latch onto Apollyon and do… something bad… whatever it was.
The thing is: they never had a chance to actually do that.
Because on top of Apollyon's back, firmly secured, sat Bona.
The skeleton was a perfect fit as a rider of the Vampiric Wolf-bat.
She had no blood(so no friendly fire) and unlike Laito, her presence wasn't detrimental to Apollyon's strength.
She could also strike ethereal beings.
The undead pair acted as a spearhead of The Gate's defensive "forces".
Then, there was also a "shield" force.
"...Answer to my call! I summon you, the spirits wandering the unfounded! The wielders of lightning blades! The astral manifestations of phantasmal warriors!"
Laito finished casting another Spell for the third time in a row.
Each time when he completed a chant, a cohort of semitransparent armor-clad warrior projections that wielded single handed swords and medium-sized shields manifested into the reality in response to [Summon Phantasm Warriors] Spell.
Unfortunately there were problems with that:
Now that Laito had no overflow of Mana, each Spell he casted was increasingly strenuous.
On top of that, the effects were quite abysmal.
Which meant: Phantasmal Warriors were weak as heck. But they could serve as meat shields(or lightning shields in their case) well enough to stop Nightmare creatures from bypassing Apollyon and reaching Laito and The Gate.
Speaking of…
Laito himself acted as the last line of defense of their impromptu formation.
He stood proudly in the centre of the platform, right below the Gate's arch.
Cladded in Disciple's Robe with Boner attached and wielding S-WORD in his right hand while using the other one to hold the Tomes he was using at the moment.
Behind the shieldwall of his summons, he had a relative peace of mind to cast his Spells.
After summoning three units of phantom warriors, he turned toward Tome of Radiance to figure out if there was anything useful against attacking Darkness Creatures.
Oh boy. There definitely was.
It almost looked like Spells from Laito's second magic book were streamlined to annihilate beings that carried the corruption.
The most valuable thing in that situation has turned out to not even be a Spell exactly.
A chapter titled: [Ashen Pilgrim] described not one specific Spell, but a set of smaller(and far less taxing) sunlight related cantrips that Laito could repeatedly throw at his enemies from distance.
It wasn't much, but the burns from concentrated sunlight bolts that the reincarnator was shooting looked quite nasty.
But whenever Laito felt that he recovered enough, it was [Radiant Smite] that was his Spell of choice.
Careful to not hit Apollyon accidentally, Laito finished the chant for [Radiant Smite] not expecting much.
And then the Mature Splitterling he was targeting bursted in radiant flames, turning into ashes after a short while.
[You have slain…]
'Damn, not bad at all! Auch. That's enough of magicking for now.' With that Laito has reached his limits. He had to recover before he used any more Spells(except minor sunbolts from [Ashen Pilgrim]).
'Now… let's test if all that training was worth anything.' Laito took a stance, dismissing the Tome of Radiance, manifesting Misericorde in its place and brandishing the S-WORD.'
He steeled himself for a moment.
—
—
—
And lunged himself right into the chaos of battle.
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[??? years left until MHA plot beginning]
[Chapter End] The story is not over yet
My tipping jar: [email protected]/marasis (change "@" into "a")
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Author notes:
4 Chapters ago I said that this Nightmare will end in max 3! chapters.
It wasn't a lie as: 3! = 6
Prepare for impact.
That is all.
See ya soon!