Odyssey of the Guardian Emperor

Garin and his comrades worked efficiently. The boisterous slayer’s sword sang through the air with lethal accuracy, mirroring that of his comrade as he danced around the grotesque monsters.

An archer in the air rode on a two-horned unicorn every once in a while releasing a single black arrow that arced through the air so fast that the path it took sizzled with power.

The force of the arrow’s impact was equally devastating. With the help of the talented archer, the demons had already been blinded multiple times.

Their regenerative abilities made the blindness only temporary. It was those narrow moments when the demons were blinded that had allowed Garin to dismember the creatures methodically as well.

It didn’t matter that the creatures towered meters above the small hunter. He zipped around them with frightening speed, cutting large holes into their leathery wings and aiming for their vital organs.

Chilling shrieks send shivers down his body as he pushed forward and several times he avoided the creature’s maws and claws by a hair’s breadth.

Unfortunately for the beasts, their adversary wasn’t just nimble and hard to catch but he also had frightening control over the air.

More than once, Garin could be seen kicking off space or skidding to a stop in mid-air and launching forward with no regard for the laws of physics.

There were limitations to the ability but with how efficiently he dissected the demons, it could be said that those limitations did little to slow him down.

Still, Garin’s abilities only increased his chances of survival. After all, it was impossible to kill a demon without holy magic and subduing them was a lot harder.

The battle wasn’t an easy one at all. Despite all his fancy tricks, deep down Garin knew that he stood no chance of winning in a battle against even one of these monsters if he was facing those monsters alone.

And that was the point. He wasn’t alone.

Where he lacked strength, his comrades backed him up. Where he lacked aether, his comrades launched spell after spell at his enemies. Where he lacked speed, his comrades covered for him with a barrage of arrows and spells.

Where he stumbled, they took his place and kept the demons at bay as he, their vanguard recovered and stepped back into the fray.

In the end, the Slayers managed to slay the demons albeit with a lot of effort on their part. Garin especially felt his legs begin to give in when he was battling the last creature.

LionHeart, the fire-wielder helping him had depleted his reserves of aether and was only using that power to enchant his dark-blade and together with the archer, they had fought the creature to what almost looked like a draw.

Its leathery skin was hard to cut through and even when cut, it healed faster than any normal demon Garin was used to hunting.

Dark arrows sizzling with black lightning shot into the creature’s hard body, stunning it and slowing it down… and yet, the creature had roared on and barreled towards them with crazed murderous intent plenty of times.

At the end of the battle, Garin’s sword rested in the demon’s chest and with one final twitch the creature finally stopped moving.

Garin’s body visibly relaxed. He was panting hard after the constant exertion. Reluctantly, he pulled his sword out from the creature’s chest and lumbered away from the gigantic monstrosity.

His body was covered in sweat and he’d lost the lower half of his armour during the battle after nearly getting his feet mangled in the bat-like demon’s maw.

Subconsciously, he checked himself for injuries, making sure there were no fractures or torn ligaments.

In the end, his armour had taken most of the force of the attacks that had landed on him, just like the enchantments were meant to work.

To have armour simply wasn’t enough when fighting demons. That armour itself needed enchantments to make it a shield worthy of standing up against terrifying demons.

The stingray rider surveyed the battlefield as his comrades cleaned up their weapons and surveyed the demon’s bodies for anything of worth.

They might have had no equipment or magic to purify the aether crystals that could be salvaged from the monster’s carcasses… but they could at least keep them till they found somewhere to sell them.

The three of them got to work, “What do you think, Gar?” Gunther asked.

“About what?”

“Come on. You know what I’m talking about. These bastards gave an A-rank slayer trouble. I haven’t seen you use your Inborn Ability that much in a long time.

Don’t you think they were a bit too powerful Let’s not forget the fact that SwiftWind’s Rare Factor was the only reason we only got to fight the three most powerful demons in top shape.

If we’d fought the swarm, we would’ve been goners…”

“Guys!” Lionheart cut them off, “Come look at this.”

While the others had also been in the process of cutting into the demons for their impure cores, they hadn’t gotten as far as LionHeart.

The dark-skinned man gestured for his friends to join him… and they did so with haste.

A large gash opened up to the very heart of the beast which had also been dismantled for the object that should have been inside.

The only problem was…

The object of their interest was at least the size of an average human’s head, pulsing with dark purple energy.

To put this into context, it was at least a third the size of the Aether Crystal nestled in the skies above the Tower of Seekers.

The mass of crystal they were looking at didn’t stop at simply looking massive. It also pulsed rhythmically with ominous waves of dark aether. “That… Is that really…”

“The core…”

“Damn… you old men work fast,” a voice interrupted the slayers.

Garin turned to look up just in time to witness a gathering of guardians. At least twenty beasts dotted the sky, their riders chuckling at the utterance of a joke made by one of them.

“Those are no Elite Guards,” LionHeart whispered beside Garin.

Garin nodded knowingly.

Unlike the discipline and order Elite Guards normally displayed, these ruffians varied in how they dressed and bore no semblance of order.

Instead, the group was completely disorderly and their haggard appearances set the Tower Slayers nerves on fire with caution.

“And you are?” Garin responded.

“Oh?! We’re merely the concerned members of the village watch from a few miles south.

We noticed the commotion and gathered all able men and guardians. We might not look it but we’re pretty strong… as you can see,” a man dressed in black clothes with cut sleeves quipped.

His face was pierced and decorated with rings and pins in at least three places. The grin on his face seemed permanent, just like his overbearing ego.

“Well, sir, we’ve dealt with the demons. So you can set your worries aside and return to your village with calm minds,” Garin replied.

“I can see that. You must be experienced slayers. Just out of curiosity, I was wondering if you happened to see a party of six children upon a great stingray pass by here.

The poor lasses looked to be in bad shape and we just want to make sure they make it home safely.

We heard they were headed to Jack’s Fall which is quite a few leagues away,” the man grinned.

Garin’s grip on his sword got tighter. The information rolling off the man’s tongue was becoming more and more detailed for a simple village guard.

“You certainly have many flying guardians for a group of village slayers. Which village did you say you were from?” Garin asked.