FAMILY ABOVE ALL: BATTLING AGAINST GODS

Under the colorful light cascading down from the magical sky, a group of young teens ran across the jungle populated by several huge trees in silence.

This group comprised the two third-year vampires who were able to accompany Landon due to their adequate cultivation and their prowess, and the three male elves who entered the secret realm with Eleanor. Brandon who was the only werewolf able to move by himself, and wasn't carried by the vampires and elves like the others finally broke the silence:

"Why!?" his face was colored with confusion. After several minutes of leaving the battlefield, his rage finally calmed down. His boiling anger cooled after the sight of the five terrifying storms made from five different elements merging, and the massive figure of an Elvish elemental that soon followed entered his vision. He soon realized that it wasn't by carelessness that his team lost without any way of retaliating in the least. The figures clashing several kilometers away from them were far above their league. Then, another question hit him.

'Why did the Elves and vampires save us? Especially the vampires...' After several seconds of wracking his brain, Brandon couldn't help but voice his confusion.

"There is no meaning behind it." one of the male elves suddenly spoke with a grave look on his face. He and the other elves thought that they would be able to dominate the secret realm, but after clashing with Landon and meeting the Asuras, they realized that their visions were short-sighted, and compared to the true geniuses across the universe, they were nothing noteworthy.

"We just felt it would be better to have your help in facing the Asuras. Only then would we stand a chance," he added after a few moments of silence.

Brandon looked towards the two vampires in their group and even after two minutes, he didn't receive any words. Smiling wryly, the rising goodwill he started feeling after the vampires helped his team quickly came to a crawl. He was reminded that the vampires and the werewolves couldn't share any form of relation aside from enmity. Their current status quo was simply temporary.

"We will drop your team beside the lake. You should be safe there. We will return to support our princess, and you guys can join us when you have healed and regained sufficient strength." The same male elf voiced out again. It seemed that he was greater in status among the elves, Eleanor not considered.

Three minutes later, the group finally reached the misty lake separating the second and third zones.

Brandon and the elves were wondering why the vampires were acting suspiciously in the past minute. But it wasn't until they neared the lake that they finally understood.

Their expressions changed when they followed the direction the familiar metallic scent of blood drifting into the nose was coming from.

*Whoosh!*

*Whoosh!*

Two shadows moved ahead of the group as they closed the distance to the corpses littering the ground.

"NO!" The flying swarm of red-eyed bats joined together to form an enchanting dark-haired girl with white streaks, and if it wasn't for the shrill scream that escaped her lips, anyone who gazed at her pale face would have been charmed.

The wounded werewolves were dropped carelessly on the ground as the girl ran towards a corpse. The other male vampire also followed after her.

Brandon whose senses had been tingling since they reached the lake felt something was wrong.

He could feel several stares at him but even after looking around, he couldn't find anything suspicious.

By the time he put two and two together and realized that this might be a trap, he was already too late.

"Wait!"

The female Vampire turned the corpse before her around, and soon after her eyes widened, not from the pain and anger she felt a short second ago, but from surprise.

A split second later and at the same time Brandon's anxious cry drifted into her ears, that surprise changed into alarm.

*Booooom!*

The corpse she touched exploded into a cloud of green mist that swallowed her whole, and before Brandon and the others could react, the remaining corpses also exploded.

However, the sounds of the explosion were soon swallowed by the booming sounds created by the clash between an Asura girl and a fierce monster deep within the third zone.

*Swish!*

*Swish!*

*Swish,!*

Several gusts of winds created by the male elves pushed the green mist away.

The revealed group coughed in pain as their veins, now colored green protruded visibly out of their revealed skin.

It was clear that they were poisoned, and the poison itself was too potent and nothing ordinary.

The three males, the two vampires, and Brandon and his team tried to use their mana to force out the poison wreaking havoc within them.

However, they subconsciously forgot something very important and failed to realize that the more pressing matter.

At the same time the cloud of poison mist was cleared, several shadows jumped out from within the greenery around them before commencing a slaughter.

No matter how Brandon and the others tried to resist, they soon fell to their demise from the onslaught of Rook's party.

From the moment they got poisoned, their fates had been sealed.

.....

At the same time Brandon's party fell prey to Rook's trap, the battle between Zara and Tron was reaching the climax.

The surroundings five kilometers had been turned into a huge clearing.

Craters of varying sizes littered the ground.

Two bodies collided continuously with each other as several bubbles of air spread out into the surroundings together with the clanging sound generated from the collision between their axe and hammer.

*Boom!* After a fierce collision, Tron and Zara finally separated.

Tron fell back to the ground, while Zara flew in the air, with her hair swaying within the deep red aura surrounding her and making her look like a miniature sun.

Zara narrowed her eyes at Tron below, and as she took in his bloodied arms and his trembling hand that was struggling to hold onto his axe, she thought to herself:

'For me to use the secret technique, I need to make him submit to me.' Zara's eyes narrowed further, as she grasped the rebellious and unrelenting look on Tron's face, 'He is very prideful. The only way to make him submit is to show him that there is an unbridgeable gap in strength between us.'

As her thoughts arrived at this point, Zara didn't hesitate any longer and unleashed the main ability she received from her summon.

"Mountain Lava domain!"

Her sweet and pleasant voice rang out for several kilometers.

And in response to her decree, and the massive burst of Ki that exploded from her, one of the very laws supporting the fabric of reality became forcefully bent to her will, and soon after the surroundings started changing.

Even though Zara was in the air, the ground of the surrounding one kilometer started changing and what took its place was a scorching pool of lava.

Once in a while, a bubble of lava would burst up from the pool.

The eyes of Eleanor and the others who were watching this scene shone with marvel.

They couldn't help but feel like the miniature-sun-like figure of Zara resembled a god descended into the earth in the flesh.

As the others marveled at Zara's unmatched power, the person at the receiving end gazed at her with a calm look on his face.

Standing on the only rock remaining within the pool of lava, Tron's tensed nerves slowly relaxed.

He could tell the only reason why he was able to stand on the floating piece of rock was because of Zara's will as it wasn't her intention to kill him. He could already grasp that from their previous clashes. As the aura around Zara grew, the more he became pushed back, yet Zara never landed a killing blow. He had a clue of what she was trying to achieve, especially after she unleashed her domain.

Tron shut his eyes for a moment during which Zara merely flew and didn't make any move to interrupt him.

After making his decision, Tron sighed for a moment before his deep voice boomed across the area:

"I know what you want. If you can defend against this move of mine, then I will willingly follow you."

Eleanor and the other's eyes widened when they heard Tron's words, but Zara ignored their existence altogether, and with a happy expression she spoke hurriedly:

"You can throw anything at me!"

Tron moved his axe to his left hand, before raising his right hand to the sky.

"I hope I don't disappoint you."

Before Zara could react to his words, Tron clenched his raised palm at the same time his voice echoed around the silent battlefield only broken by the bursting bubbles of lava:

"Meteor shadow!"

Seeing the tens of massive shadows covering the scorching pool of lava she unleashed, Zara raised her head stiffly to the sky and when she saw the rain of meteors that even covered the region outside the range of her domain, her heart beat fiercely against her rib cage.

Immediately, a thought sprouted within her mind:

'I can't tame him.' she finally realized that a lion couldn't tame another lion.

At the same time...

Rook and his party who just finished extracting the unique bloodline of their just fallen prey couldn't help but raise their heads, as they gazed dumbly at the falling rain of meteors filling the entire sky some distance from them.

The attention of one of Rook's party members was soon stolen away by the churning mist of the lake behind them and when he turned back to see what was going on, he couldn't stop his eyes from widening as he shouted in surprise:

"HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE?"

Rook and the others turned upon hearing their mate's cry and when they finally realized the reason for his scream, they couldn't help but question if their own eyes were seeing wrong.

Rook was the first to break out of his stupor.

With the rain of falling meteor behind him, Rook flashed an evil smile to his new guests comprising of little kids:

"Well, well...what do we have here?"