I looked up and saw the Nightcrawler Lord and the four ancient Nightrotters like a council of kings watching over their army. They were gauging our strength and the worst of the battle has not yet even started.
The group of Nightcrawlers that rushed at the grandmasters were immediately annihilated by Grandmaster Leeben Hestra, he conjured up a spell called Astral Inferno. Blue flames engulfed each of the Nightcrawlers that rushed at them out of nowhere and burnt them to crisp in mere seconds leaving nothing but residual ashes.
" The Nightcrawler Lord is underestimating us, " said Leeben Hestra. " Should I attack him?, "
" No, there are four ancient Nightrotters, use your magic sensor and see their aura. You people may not be aware but ancient Nighrotters are very different from normal Nightrotters, they fall under higher ranks of classified division, " replied Lady Tashrani.
" How strong in terms of Classified division strength?, " asked grandmaster Jenny.
" Similar to Frost Gongaer, " replied Lady Tashrani.
" Those snow monkeys?, "exclaimed Leeben Hestra.
" Yes, " said Lady Tashrani.
" Then, they can't be underestimated, " said grandmaster Arilyne.
" It's not just about their strength that makes them a classified division, they are highly resistant to Magic, even Astral Inferno won't be enough to kill them, "said Lady Tashrani.
" Seriously?!" Leeben Hestra turned around his head in the most absurd manner to Lady Tashrani. " Even Astral inferno won't be enough?, "
" No, I know night varaes are supposed to be weak against fire based magic spells but ancient Nightrotters aren't, precisely why that makes them very dangerous. Anyone who isn't aware of this would fall prey to it. I know because I happened to fight one back in the day and I made the mistake of attacking it with fire spells, " said Lady Tashrani.
" Oh god!They are quite dangerous then, even though Astral Inferno is one of the strongest spells in the intermediate tier. " sighed Leeben Hestra.
" How about poison spells?, " asked Grim Doctor.
" It's even worse, ancient Nightrotters are highly resistant to abnormalities and poison after all they live in the caves full of venomous varaes, against normal Nightcrawler it would work, but ancient Nightrotters, I highly doubt it. " replied Lady Tashrani.
" So how do we fight them efficiently without wasting our strength and magic?, " asked grandmaster Jenny.
" Defeat them with physical strength, use only strength boost spells and Light spells.Though their leader may have acquired resistance to daylight, ancient Nightrotters aren't, that's why they don't leave the caves. Fighting ancient Nightrotters with magic is a waste of time, even though you may win, you'll unnecessarily waste a lot of magic and time. After all, we never know how strong is that grim looking Nightcrawler Lord. So we need to conserve as much strength as we can. " explained Lady Tashrani.
" Well, I was hoping we could take it down with magic alone.. Hohoho- " said Grim Doctor.
" Too bad, Should I help the masters? Looks like they are having a tough time, " said Leeben Hestra.
" No, Let them deal with it " said Lady Tashrani.
I saw Dual fangs, Leon and Knight Rhendy being surrounded by the swarm and a bunch of Nightdevourers. Nightdevourers were bigger than normal Nightcrawlers, slow but powerful. Trying to fend off Nightdevourers while the small ones are attacking them from all the directions, it looked like they were unable to catch a breath to use their full strength properly.
" Feibei!! Cast some Quickflash!, " shouted Leon.
" Alright!, " she replied.
Quickly she multicasted a few Quickflash spells above them blinding the swarm, using the window of opportunity, they regained their breath and got the upper hand, almost half of the swarm were annihilated. Nightdevourers quickly recovered than the normal Nightcrawlers but Leon and Knight Rhendy pushed them in the corners with unrelenting barrage of strikes, the blade finally reached their necks and two of the Nightdevourers heads toppled down the ground. Two more remaining, Dual fangs using a combo of Lightning blade spell pierced through the remaining Nightdevourers, their twin blades sliced through the Nightdevourer's hard flesh like water, the lightning paralysed them and the Nightdevourers fell onto their knees, Dual Fangs not letting the opportunity go to waste, both the brothers quickly thrusted their blade deep into their chest, right at their hearts, and the tide of the battle was turned around in an instant, less than half of the swarm remaining but all the Nightdevourers were dead. Seeing their main force being taken down, the swarm was hesitant to attack.
" FInish them!" shouted grandmaster Jenny.
" Hold on tight, I will cause some disturbance on the ground!, " warned Knight Rhendy.
He then stabbed his sword halfway through into the ground and his hands still clenched on the hilt tightly, he said, " Activate Wrath of Jogen, "..
And a great tremor shook the earth in a fiery wave, like a pebble dropped into a still lake, the tremors emanated from the sword in circular waves, the soil partially rose up like tides in the oceans and fell upon the swarm, burying some of the Nightcrawlers alive, the swarm losing their foot control were unable to scatter properly, instead the tremors somehow made them converged at one spot, just below the foot of the tower.
" Oho- that kid is talented-, " Lady Tashrani commented.
" It's my turn, " said White Claws and leaped in the air in great power.
Halfway in the air when he reached the peak of the jump and was about to descend at a great velocity down at the swarm, he uttered. " Activate Explosion art, " and he descend down at the swarm in a terrifying speed and slammed on the ground with his blade and the impact along with explosion art spell produced a huge explosion of flames, intact to the user, in every direction and the force of the impact blasted away the swarm away from the converged point, each of the Nightcrawlers burst into flames, twitching and screaming, the flames devoured the rest of the swarm. Finally the battle was approaching halfway, the swarm was no longer but we still yet had to face the ancient Nightrotters and the Nightcrawler Lord.
Leon stood up slowly and looked up at the Nightcrawler Lord and taunted him, " Come down you bastard and fight like a man, " Leon was carried away in the heat of the battle but he never expected the Nightcrawler Lord to speak back.
" Pu-ny hu-man,You are We-ak. " It spoke in a disjointed syllable. When I heard it's voice, it sent down chills to my spine and fear engulfed my body.
" Hahaha, he really can speak!, " exclaimed Leon.
" Now, this is quite creepy, a varae capable of speaking human tongue, " said Leeben Hestra.
" Hohoho- quite a scary evolution indeed," commented grandmaster Hensord.
" It has become more fluent than the last time it spoke. " commented Cyril.
" You think so?, " said grandmaster Arilyne.
" Yeah, he is now speaking a full sentence, " replied Cyril.
" So it's learning and at a very frightening speed, " said Lady Tashrani.
" Do you think it gains abilities by consuming humans and other creatures? Is that the secret behind his abilities?, " asked Leeben Hestra.
" That might be very possible, " replied Lady Tashrani.
The Nightcrawler Lord turned towards one of his Lieutenants and made a gesture with his hand and uttered some sounds, then one of the ancient Nightrotters jumped down from the tower and landed in front of Leon, What a frightening aura!, I could even feel the intense magical aura it was releasing even from my position, it was as big as the Nightdevourers, similar size but it was more crouched and it's jaws were much longer and eyes more squeezed inside, it had much darker greyish toned skin and most distinctively it had hairs on its head like an old forest witch.
" Don't use Magic on them! They are quite resistant to magic!, " shouted Lady Tashrani.
Leon and others turned around and nodded. Sending only one ancient Nightrotter down meant the Lord was quite confident of the ancient Nightrotter's strength or was he just playing with us?
" You better be ready! Cause I'm not going to go easy on you!, " declared Leon and rushed at him at full speed.
He ducked down and attempted a vertical upper slash for his first attack but Leon did really underestimated the ancient Nightrotter, he would have never expected that the ancient Nightrotter could react that fast, it was just before his blade was about to reach the flesh of the ancient Nightrotter when it delivered a powerful punch back, in that fraction of second, Leon saw the upcoming attack but he was too late so he pulled back his blade and barely managed to blocked the punch with the face of his blade. " Boooooooooommmmm" Leon whizzed past Knight Rhendy in great speed and his body slammed hard on a tree!The tree broke in half and the branches flew out in pieces by the impact of the collison.
Leon was struggling to stand up, blood dripped from his forehead, a minor wound. Feibei quickly rushed to him and casted a healing spell.
" Bastard! He is quite strong, " muttered Leon with great difficulty.
" They fall under classified division for a reason, " said Grim Doctor. " Hohoho-"
" Should I step in?" suggested Grim Doctor in a compassionate voice.
" Grandmaster, Please save your strength for the Nightcrawler Lord. Let me handle him, " said Knight Rhendy.
" Hohoho- lively youth, " replied Grandmaster Hensord, " as you say, I'll let you handle it "
Knight Rhendy bowed in respect to the grandmasters and approached the ancient Nightrotter who was curiously watching them for a while.
" Do you need a hand?, " asked Dheno.
" No, please stay on guard for the other nightrotters, let me handle this one. " declared Knight Rhendy confidently
" You sure? you just saw what happened to master Leon." said Dheno.
" I'm sure, " he replied sharply, I could not tell whether he was just overestimating himself or he was absolutely confident about his strength but his eyes didn't lie, he was serious.
" Activate Lancer Aura, " Knight Rhendy said and a greenish aura began to manifest around his body. Even without any magical ability, I could sense it was going to be something extraordinary, the magical aura didn't feel like it was very intense or chaotic but rather it was very calm and very stable.
" Activate Enhanced Magic Sensor, " casted Lady Tashrani.
" Hohoho- What do you see?, " asked Grim Doctor.
After scanning him for a while, Lady Tashrani said, " That aura...it is as if he has entered the realm of grandmaster forcefully through a magic spell, "
" What?! That's impossible, a magic spell can't raise one's magic integration to the level of grandmasters, " commented grandmaster Jenny.
" That's what I thought too but his realm of magic integration has crossed past the void stage. " said Lady Tashrani.
" That's ridiculous, I have never heard of any magic spell that can do that.." said grandmaster Jenny.
" Since the Order is bound to the church, it must be the church's work, Knights aren't known to develop magic spells, " remarked Grandmaster Leeben Hestra.
" It must be.." agreed grandmaster Jenny.
Knight Rhendy stood there in a back stance concentrating intensely on his foe, ready to leap at the Nightrotter any moment. His aura slowly diminished to a certain level and stabilized there and it formed like an outer layer of magical armour around his body.
Like a thunder, he vanished from his position in the interval of my eyes blinking and he was already at the neck of the ancient Nightrotter, his blade just an inch away from decapitating that head...