Life Hunter

The planet Night had transformed into a giant man holding a boulder finally finished the last the Pillar by crushing him with its hand. When that happened, 'Atlas' came to a stop and stood straight with an empty look.

Night's eyes glowed and Ragnarök was dispelled. The planet returned to its original state. Ganesha sighed in relief and reverted to a human from his elephant one. Raylein was also relieved as he started letting his body drift in space.

"I'm tired…" They both muttered.

The amount of mana they had used because of the 1000x burden had completely drained them. Even still, in the end, Night ended everything with a single technique.

"Come on. We don't have time. We still need to take care of the Pillars," Night spoke as Karma appeared on his shoulder.

Raylein's expression darkened. "We need to rest, seriously. I don't think I can participate in another fight. You may have recovered your powers, for only Arimane knows the reason, but we didn't."

Night shrugged. "Then can you teleport me to the location Jorga gave us. I think you can do it more effectively than me. I'll take care of them by myself."

Raylein sighed strongly. "Yeah, sure. I should have enough mana for that." He was about to snap his fingers and send Night to another Plane when a wave of a dark and very heavy aura suddenly befell. He shivered and he wasn't alone. Ganesha paled and even Night looked rattled.

"There's no need for you to do that," an eerie voice resounded in the void and Karma gasped when she spotted the source of the voice. She was the first to see him and Night was next. "I have already taken care of that for you."

Night frowned as he observed the man. Gray skin, black hair, eyes, and clothes… If he had to compare him to someone, it would be Karaskan. He was full of darkness… But there was a huge difference. The man in front of them seemed to be pure evil, in contrast to Karaskan who was more wicked than anything else.

One strange thing too was that this man did not have the size of the other beings in this world. He was a normal human being like you would find anywhere in their home Reality.

"Who are you? And what did you take care of?" Night contracted his muscles and his scales glowed. Karma was ready to shapeshift as well. They were prepared to fight if necessary.

"My name is Erebus, God of Darkness. I'm originally from your Reality," Erebus answered and smiled. "As for your other question; I took care of them for you," he uttered and waved his hand.

Nine vortexes of darkness opened and spat out the same number of heads. All of them were extremely large and obviously belonged to this Reality's natives.

Night's eyes widened. There was no doubt that those were the heads of the Pillars of Elysium. The remnant life force around them, as well as the divine energy of the Creators, could not be faked. The scariest fact was that it appeared that the nine of them had died at the same time without even being able to retaliate.

But what shocked Night the most wasn't actually that this man had killed the Pillars. What alarmed him was the fact that Erebus could travel through Realities. It meant that his power may very well approach Arima's and Ahura's level.

"…Where is the tenth?" Night inquired after a moment of silence.

Erebus smiled broadly. "There's no point in worrying about that. I was the First Pillar in this Reality. Initially, I came here to train my mana pool. I guessed that it would be a great way to temper it if I'm in an environment that consumes a thousand times more mana. Then many things happened and I was assigned as the First Pillar."

"What do you want?"

"Nothing, really," Erebus shrugged. "At first, I was going to eliminate you. But when I noticed that one of the Divine Beasts was helping you and that you were unexpectedly a soul-beast, I figured it would be a bad idea to not get on your group's side. I wouldn't want to confront the man who gave birth to a terrifying soul-beast such as you."

Night sharpened his look and breathed in. He gradually became a human again and stared at the God of Darkness. "I do not wish to fight you either if I don't need to. Honestly, I don't think I can defeat you without sacrifices," he said and turned around.

"But if you want to help us, you only have one thing to do. Spread the name of the 'Kind Demon', Arimane Reigen Blade, throughout this reality. Carve in the mind of everyone that he's the new ruler."

Erebus tilted his head and mused. "Interesting. A conquest, huh? But it doesn't seem like it's authority and power that you seek. Is there an advantage for that Kind Demon to be recognized by everyone?" He assumed and Night snorted.

"You don't need to know. And you better not try to find out. You're lucky that you met my group. If it was either one of the three others, they would have killed you. If I had to say, my group is the weakest. Malum, Layla, and Arima would have decided to kill you without hesitation."

Erebus laughed. "I'll welcome this luck happily then. But I'm quite curious now. I might pay you a visit in the future," he stated and bowed politely before disappearing.

Night clicked his tongue when he left. "Shit," he cursed and his group turned toward him with strange looks. He glanced at the severed heads moving around and squinted. "Let's go."

He led his group back to the silver gate and ended up in the middle of the battlefield against the Téra. They were as disoriented as Jorga and Layla's team but quickly recovered.

Another gate glowed at the same time. Malum and Shakti arrived as well. With this, everyone had returned except Arima, Flavio, and Chulainn.

Shakti froze when she saw the fierce battle in front of her. But in contrast, Malum smirked.

"Well, well. There's still a bit of fun left apparently," he watched as a giant dark-blue wolf leaped and joined the three other beasts far away. "Well, they don't seem to lack people there. I'll just be content with the small fry."

Malum summoned two bloody scythes.

"I'll go all out for once. [Ars Berserker Scriptor, Liquescens Punctum] (Berserker's Art, Melting Point)," he chanted and his body expanded to become an ashen dragon. Afterward, dark flames were ignited all over his body.

You could hear his scales melting and his flesh heating up. Shakti gaped but shook her head urgently afterward. "Hey! Who told you to go all out?! You didn't need to do that, did you?!" She shouted for the first time in a while and did her best to stabilize Malum's body.

After a moment, Malum had turned into a dragon made of black and orange fire with his actual body as a sort of core. He was at least ten times bigger now. On the surface of that mass of fire, red scales had been strangely attached and gave him a demonic-looking outer shell. The fire dragon roared and hundreds of fire pillars abruptly erupted everywhere and burned countless Téra to ashes.

Malum flapped his wings and rushed into the middle of the swarm of monsters. He swung his scythes once and the flames produced then were enough to drown planets and make them melt in seconds. Shakti sighed helplessly and followed him.

"Look at him… He's reckless as usual," Night said while sitting down on the top of one of the silver gears leading to the other Realities.

"You won't join in?" Raylein asked while shamelessly lying down on the gate as well.

"There's no need for that. The weaker Téra can be dealt with easily by just Gilgamesh and Evangeline. If you add that hot-blooded guy, you don't even need to think about it anymore," Night retorted and looked up.

"The real problem is that harpy up there. But there's not only Ahura Mazda on it but also four beasts at the same level as Jorga. Additionally," he rolled his eyes toward Layla who was communicating with Deva. "We have a trump card over there."

Meanwhile, the harpy conjured a pressurized air bomb that exploded and pushed everyone around her away.

"Fortunately for us, that Téras can't use complex magic theory… Hey, Aergia Fenrir!" Jorga raised his voice and the ears of the blue wolf twitched. "Catch her. You're supposed to be the 'speed' of the Divine Beasts, aren't you?"

Aergia grinned and space warped around her. This was her innate ability as the 'One who Hunts'. She could keep open a constant and never-ending wormhole. In short, every time she wanted to go somewhere, space would help by decreasing the distance just for her.

With a single jump of her, Aergia managed to bite on the harpy and throw her away with great momentum. The harpy couldn't resist the force and was sent into a spatial trip until she crashed on a planet and stayed buried in the core.

"Now, Sebas! [By this Contract, I offer my fate to Destruction]," Ahura intoned and Sebasfiel howled. The elements between his horns raged. His special ability was the 'Devil's Contract'. He could contract with any living being and get a temporary buff by draining their lifespan. As a matter of fact, Ahura was aging at a speed visible with the naked eye. She went from a teen to a mature woman above her twenties in just a few seconds.

In return, Sebasfiel launched a terrifying beam of energy that vaporized the planet the harpy had crashed on as well as many other stars behind in a straight line.

When everyone relaxed after the harpy's death, a shadow emerged behind Sebasfiel. It was a black mantis with red eyes. It raised his scythes and was about to cut the red goat's neck. But before he could do it, a feathered serpent teleported right next to him.

A woman with an angelic appearance stood on Deva's back as she circulated her mana.

"[Resurrection, Maiden Ostara]," she chanted and the mantis was imprisoned inside a mysterious dimension. Layla sighed in relief. "I'm glad I made it in time. I could only wait for the moment it would show up to strike," she said and Sebasfiel's eyes widened.

"…Thank you. If you weren't here, I would have been eliminated right where I stand," he lowered his head and Layla smiled.

"No problem. You don't have to worry about that Téras anymore. My soul manifestation is the best counter-measure against Téra in the first place. The more someone uses their power in the realm of my soul manifestation, the more they will suffer. And since they're clueless, they will just go wild and hurt themselves in the process," Layla's smile widened and she snapped her fingers. "Just like this."

The mantis instantly reappeared but it was already dead and its body was in tatters, and parts were even missing.

Ahura solemnly observed Layla for a while. "How did you know that mantis would try to kill Sebas right at that moment?"

Layla pointed at her silver draconic eyes and chuckled. "Thanks to these."

Night snickered whilst watching. "That's our trump card indeed."

"Anyway, you better not lose concentration," Layla added and her silver scales and wings materialized. Her 'Unblinking Eyes' shined. "There's still more," she said in a serious tone and everyone looked in a certain direction.

Malum who had finished wiping out the Téra joined them along with Shakti, Gilgamesh, Evangeline, Trevy, and Anubis. Ultimately, Night's group had no choice but to follow as well.

All of them watched silently as a group of exactly ten Téra approached grandly. Layla covered her eyes for a few seconds and smiled.

"This is the last round. Don't die."