Far beyond Ragla, where no screams carried and no mana flares were visible to mortal eyes, the world still felt the clash.
It rippled outward like a stone dropped into a silent lake.
To the west, past the roaring waterfall and high above the clouds, something ancient stirred.
Golden fur rippled as a massive shape rose atop the mountain plateau. A great leonine body stretched lazily, bat-like wings unfurling as the wind combed through her immaculate fur. Her tail—long, powerful, ending in a scorpion's curved stinger—swung once, carving grooves into stone.
Her face, a regal blend of human intelligence and predatory grace, turned toward the distant horizon.
A ruby glinted from her ear. Obsidian ornaments hugged her claws.
The Queen exhaled softly, eyes narrowing.
"So…" she murmured, amused. "I suppose the humans still have some power left on their side." Her tone was confident yet cautious, the voice of a cunning predator that played her cards carefully.
To the north, among jagged cliffs where the wind screamed endlessly, the mountain itself seemed to breathe.
Stone cracked.
A massive reptilian head emerged from between broken peaks, scales the color of storm-dark steel catching the light. Deep blue eyes opened slowly—irritated, ancient, heavy with authority.
Great wings shifted behind him, dislodging snow and rock. A spiked tail scraped lazily against the cliffside, sending avalanches tumbling below.
Around him, smaller shapes stirred—his females—half-awake, restless.
The Emperor of the snowy peaks huffed, smoke curling from his nostrils.
"Damn humans," he growled, voice echoing across the range.
"Always interrupting my sleep."
Southward, where land drowned beneath black water and twisted reeds, the swamp churned.
Something enormous surfaced.
A bloated, titanic form rose from the murk—skin slick, mottled, and glistening with a venomous sheen. Toxic mist rolled endlessly from its body, a living fog that killed birds mid-flight and rotted trees where it lingered.
Its eyes opened—wide, bulging, yellow—and it continued chewing on something large and unrecognizable, bones crunching wetly.
The Gluttonous Poison King paused.
Its gaze drifted north.
"Hmmm," it croaked thoughtfully, tongue sliding back into its maw.
"I wonder how they would taste?"
The fog thickened, and it vanished back into the swamp.
And to the east—
A mountain split between seasons.
Above, life flourished. Warm winds. Bright skies. Singing birds circling flowering trees.
Below, eternal winter. Ice-coated stone. Howling cold. Snow that never melted.
At the peak, where warmth and life were abundant, fire suddenly ignited.
A great avian form lifted her head, flames cascading down vermilion feathers tipped in molten gold. Her eyes burned brighter still—twin suns filled with judgment.
She watched the distant horizon with clear disdain.
"Humans," she scoffed, embers drifting from her beak.
"Destroying nature again. How repulsive."
Her wings flexed once.
The sky shimmered.
None of them moved.
But all of them were watching.
And far below, unaware of the gazes now fixed upon him, Father Pella's axe met the banshee's scream—
and the world continued to tremble.
The banshee struck again.
She vanished.
Reappeared beneath Pella's feet.
Her claws erupted from the ground, death mana tearing upward in a spiraling gouge meant to rip him in half. Pella stepped through the attack instead of away from it—pivoting on his heel, twisting his hips, axe haft snapping downward to pin the claws into the earth before they could fully manifest.
He followed with a short, compact strike—no wasted motion—driving the axe's pommel toward her skull.
She flickered away an instant before impact.
Reappeared above him.
A shriek descended like a guillotine, sound compressed into a killing edge. Pella raised his axe diagonally, braced his stance, and let the scream crash against him. The force hurled him backward through the wall of a nearby building, stone and timber exploding outward.
He rolled once as he landed and rose back immediately.
Armor scratched and cloak torn. But not a scratch on his skin.
The banshee pressed harder.
She blinked in and out of space, attacking from impossible angles—below, behind, within the shadows of collapsing ruins. Death mana lashing out. Sound shockwaves tore through everything around them. Claws seeking Pellas throat.
Pella met it all with a calm confidence.
He fought with the experience of a war-hardened veteran paladin—precise footwork, perfect timing, controlled aggression. Each block was angled, never absorbing force directly. Each deflection redirected power into the ground, into walls, into empty air.
When she flung him into the sky with a concussive shriek, he twisted mid-flight, dug his axe into a bell tower, and used the momentum to swing back toward her—slamming into her with a shoulder charge reinforced by his life mana.
The impact cracked the street beneath them.
They separated in a violent clash—life and undeath colliding in a shockwave that flattened the remaining ruins within fifty meters.
For a moment, they stood still.
Then she lunged again.
Pella was driven through another building, stone collapsing atop him. Dust filled the air.
A heartbeat later, his axe burst through the rubble first—followed by him.
Calm.
Focused.
Practically unharmed.
Every few exchanges, their weapons met fully—life mana against death and sound. Those moments shook the village like thunder, pressure waves ripping outward and staggering even the distant hunters.
Behind him, the other side of the battlefield held the line.
Joe and the elder wraith unleashed spell after spell—bone lances, shrieking curses, waves of despair—but coordinated volleys from the hunters shattered them mid-cast. Arrows pierced their spectral forms. Earth and water spells disrupted summoning circles before they could stabilize.
The undead were being contained.
Bled dry.
Minute by minute.
Hour by hour.
The banshee noticed an abnornality.
She was winning.
And yet—
The human did not grow desperate.
He did not overextend. Did not burn his reserves. Did not change tactics.
He just endured the onslaught.
The realization crept into her mind like festering rot.
Her gaze swept the battlefield—minions falling, wraiths stalled, summoning failing. She could not spare the focus to reinforce them, not with this pest in front of her.
And then it dawned on her.
She wasn't hunting him.
She was being held here.
Her face twisted—skeletal features contorting in ugly fury. Teeth bared. Mana spiked violently around her form.
Pella chuckled.
"Oh," he said lightly, adjusting his grip on the axe.
"So you finally noticed, you filth."
He tilted his head.
"And here I thought you were more retarded than Talmir."
The banshee screamed.
Not a spell, just a pure sonic detonation.
The blast tore through the village like a hurricane, hurling Pella through the air and smashing him into the remains of the guildhall. Stone pulverized. The ground cratered beneath him.
For a moment, there was only silence.
Then—
Life mana flared.
Pella stepped out of the rubble, armor dented, cloak in tatters, but with his breathing still steady.
He raised his axe and blocked the follow-up shriek with a single, immovable stance.
Calm as ever.
Everything was still going according to plan.
—
Joe drifted above the edge of the forest, confidence slowly bleeding back into his movements as he saw his master holding the upper hand.
These hunters were better than the rabble at Ragla—he could feel it—but that realization only irritated him further. Preparation. Discipline. Formation. It didn't matter. Humans always broke in the end. Humans were lesser life forms now.
He gathered death mana carefully again, shaping it into barbed crescents of bone that hovered at his sides. They spun slowly, humming with restrained power.
With a sharp gesture, he sent them screaming toward the fort.
The hunters reacted instantly.
Wind surged upward from the barricade, twisting violently as it caught the incoming constructs and hurled them off course. Fire followed—controlled, precise bursts that detonated the bone crescents mid-air, scattering ash and fragments harmlessly across the hillside.
Joe's hollow eyes widened.
Before he could retreat, a second wave of fire struck, and compressed wind slammed into his side like a battering ram.
He hadn't gone ethereal in time, atleast not fully.
The impact hurled him backward. He smashed into a tree with a brutal crack, bark exploding outward as his body embedded itself halfway into the trunk. Joe shrieked, clawing free as pieces of bone and shadow flaked away from his form.
"Persistent little bugs…" he hissed, fury replacing his earlier amusement.
He withdrew immediately, drifting lower and farther back, reassessing the situation.
At the center of the village, the duel worsened.
The banshee fought on—but something was off.
Her attention was divided.
Part of her will pressed relentlessly against Pella, hammering him with shrieking blasts and spatial distortions. The other half flicked outward, monitoring the battlefield, tracking her servants, judging whether they were still holding.
That hesitation—minute, fleeting—did not go unnoticed.
Pella stepped forward this time, into it.
As the banshee reappeared above him, claws descending, Pella shifted his stance with battle-hardened experience. He let the strike glance off his armor, then surged forward instead of back.
The pommel of his axe smashed into her face.
The impact rang like a hammer striking stone.
The banshee reeled, shrieking as her form destabilized for a split second—just long enough.
Pella pivoted, life mana flaring, and brought the axe down in a brutal vertical arc.
Her arm was severed at the shoulder.
The limb dissolved into black vapor before it hit the ground, but the banshee screamed—not in panic or fear, but in raw, unrestrained rage.
Death mana surged violently.
The arm regrew in seconds—jagged at first, twitching and malformed—before stabilizing completely.
She lunged at him again.
Harder and faster this time.
Relentless.
The pressure on Pella intensified immediately, forcing him back step by step as her full focus returned to the duel.
Still, that was exactly what Pella wanted.
The elder wraith stiffened, sensing its master's injury and fury.
Joe felt it too—not triumph or hope—only dread.
She can be hurt.
And if the human survives long enough…
Pella blocked another strike, boots carving trenches into the ground as he slid backward.
Still calm.
Still composed.
The blow hadn't turned the tide.
But it had proven something vital.
She wasn't untouchable.
And the clock was still ticking for the undead.
Joe didn't laugh anymore.
He hovered farther back now, half-shrouded in shadow, watching the fort with narrowed eyes. He slung spell after spell, but the defense was coordinated, disciplined, and worst of all—adaptable. Every spell he cast was countered, twisted, or dismantled.
Fine.
If brute force alone failed, he would call in friends.
Joe raised his hands slowly, weaving death mana in layered, controlled patterns instead of raw blasts. The air grew heavy as skeletal hands clawed out of the earth—to stall, stop, or maim. To grab ankles. To drag shields down. To break formations.
To support the elder wraith and block the hunters.
At the same time, the elder wraith descended like a living calamity.
Its scream tore across the hill, a wave of distorted sound that slammed into the fortifications. Wood splintered. Men staggered. Several hunters dropped to one knee, blood trickling from ears and noses.
"Hold the line!" Ulmak roared.
"Wind teams, rotate! Earth, reinforce the left!"
They obeyed—but it was hard in the onslaught.
Joe followed up with precise strikes. Bone spikes targeted spellcasters. Death miasma flooded the low ground, forcing constant repositioning. He never overextended, never lingered in one place.
Every mistake he'd made earlier burned sharply in his mind.
Below, the duel escalated.
The banshee also pressed harder than before.
Her movements grew sharper, more feral, her shrieks cutting through space itself. She flickered around Pella in rapid succession—above, behind, beneath—forcing him to block, pivot, retreat.
One claw slipped through.
It raked across his side, tearing armor and flesh alike.
Blood spilled.
For the first time, the watching hunters felt their stomachs drop.
Pella didn't even flinch.
Life mana surged, sealing the wound almost instantly, but the message was clear.
She could hurt him as well.
The battlefield was ruined—collapsed buildings, scorched stone, cratered streets. Each clash sent shockwaves rolling outward, rattling the fort and shaking the forest's edge.
The humans were holding.
Barely.
Then—
The air split suddenly.
A massive golden-white portal tore open above the battlefield, radiating divine pressure so overwhelming that undead across the village froze mid-motion.
Silence fell.
From the light stepped a towering figure in radiant armor, etched with Dawn sigils and various runes. His presence scorched the ground beneath his boots.
Regulus.
Strongest Paladin of Lupos and High General of the army.
The banshee recoiled, her shriek warping into pure fury.
Her plan—layered,meticulous, perfect—had failed.
With a furious gesture, she released all control over the undead. Ghouls surged wildly, mindless now. They split their forces, colliding with hunters and paladins alike. She summoned a final cluster of them around herself and turned to flee.
Pella moved instantly, predicting her retreat.
Life mana erupted outward, forming a massive sphere that slammed shut around them both—cutting off escape, sound, and space itself.
The world outside blurred.
Inside the sphere, Pella met her gaze—calm, unyielding.
"No," he smiled at the banshee. "I insist you stay, the tea will be served shortly."