Sam broke out of his stupor—the gigantic fist of the Demon Lord near him made him feel like he was a nameless ant standing against a dark mountain. Still, no matter the size of the enemy, he had to do something. This war was all kinds of unfair from the very beginning—there was no such thing as an enemy out of his league when people were depending on him to save them. Sam did not let his mind even think about the ones whom the Demon Lord had just punched through the stone wall.
Sam raised his sacrium sword up and charged forward—lightning bolts wildly crackling all around his blue-radiating body. The Demon Lord had noticed Sam—but the guy simply used his other hand in an effort to grab him. As if Sam was some common fly buzzing around in the air around him. Sam gritted his teeth and once again charged his skill Overload Pulse to the limit through his sacrium sword—using the tip as the endpoint to aim the condensed white ball of fury toward the giant dark figure’s head. Sam had seen earlier Damian attack the guy’s head—it should work for him too.
The Demon Lord reacted—pulling back the outstretched hand that was aiming for Sam to cover his face now. But when the small white energy touched it and exploded with unbelievable power—creating a giant hole in the middle of the Demon Lord’s hand and even deforming the darkness making up half of its ugly face—it left even the Demon Lord in a daze for a second, along with anyone who saw the exchange take place.
Sam did not waste a second waiting and created dozens of lightning bolts, sending them ahead of him as he charged again toward the gigantic body of the Demon Lord, channeling aura through his sword to make it big with cyan aura structure. The dark sword of the Demon Lord flew back into his hand, and in the next second, descended on Sam’s head. The size difference between the dark sword and Sam was abysmal to look upon.
Where the hell was that bastard Damian at a time like this? That shithead made it look so easy.
Sam tried to defend himself, but the force was tremendous—unlike before when he had stopped it, this time the Demon Lord’s gigantic body was power behind the enormous sword. Sam was thrown back with destructive speed—his back about to hit the stone shrine and make another giant hole through it.
But.. The sword suddenly slowed a little. Sam looked to the side and saw a giant axe enveloped in boiling magma-like dark red flames. Heather—he had come attacking.
A second later, the sword slowed down once again—the King of Pigmen with his giant steel sword covered in bone-chilling ice, constantly releasing the white cold breeze of death had arrived too.
Sam smiled. He too pushed back the dark giant sword with all the strength he had with renewed vigor. It wasn’t enough.
But.. then it stopped. Rurik too had come—jumping high from the stone shrine like others with a flame-covered axe in hand.
They blocked it.
However, then suddenly, a blinding light illuminated the sky above them; a giant golden eagle soared through the sky, the back of which Mindseer jumped down from, screaming in primal fury—her sword made gigantic with solid golden aura. She landed directly on the Demon Lord’s head—splitting the darkness in two till its neck and even going below a little before the force stopped. This gave them a chance to push back—and push back they did.
The combined loud roar of all of them as they power their attacks even more could have frightened the gods themselves in their ivory halls. The dark sword, along with the dark muscled hand, shattered into dark smoke as their attacks reached deeper and deeper. Before all their combined attacks could reach the elbow and chest of the Demon Lord—the giant dark form suddenly shattered into a massive dark cloud—edging closer to all of them.
Sam had received a warning from Damian not to get stuck in the Demon Lord’s darkness—he quickly grabbed the others’ attention and used a wormhole spell from his sword to get everyone away from the thing. Mindseer could see the future herself, and she too had grabbed her imaginary beast—made by her weird esper power—and soared out of the black cloud’s reach.
The dark wave assimilated into the dark army beneath them—which was charging through the broken ice wall to attack the stone shrine cannons. The Demon Lord disappeared and then appeared back behind the ice wall—away from them—to reform its giant dark body again.
They successfully pushed him back.
Sam smiled, but before he could enjoy this brief moment of small victory—suddenly, Mindseer shouted his name from above. A warning? Something was wrong..
Sam hurriedly created another wormhole for all of them to escape, but the attack came too fast. There was no time for wormholes—stupid mistake. It was a blur of darkness in Sam’s eyes as he turned halfway back; it came from the direction of the giant gap the Demon Lord’s hand had made earlier—it crashed into Sam’s back with annoyingly strong force—a giant cloud of darkness rose out, enveloping him and the attacker, who seemed to have some human skin to him—Shadecaster.
The open wormhole in front of Sam absorbed half the dark energy and suddenly crackled with dark purple and bright pink energy—that did not look good!
Both of them, Sam and Shadecaster, enveloped in the darkness, were inching closer to the wormhole when Sam lost sight of it, fully covered in the dark cloud.
Did they fall in?
It certainly felt weird—the usual feeling he always experienced whenever he went through these wormholes. It was slightly more weirder this time though. Sam ignored all the unnecessary thoughts and expelled a large, powerful wave of pure lightning from his body—the dark sphere broke like delicate glass all around him, uncovering the full figure of his assailant—Shadecaster, who was flung back by the push, stumbling back in a place full of light?
Sam could not see clearly after just getting out of pitch-black darkness. It took a few seconds for him to finally realize he was.. really in a place full of blinding white light all around.
The floor was spotless, glowing white. In all directions his eyes could see was just full of light—the sky? Was it even a sky or not? It too was eerily spotless, glowing white.
What in the hell? Where was he?
Sam looked back at the Shadecaster and saw the guy sucking in all the dark cloud that he had shattered before—Sam raised an eyebrow. Whatever it was, he had to stop the guy. Sam called for the lightning through his sword but.. no lightning came. Right, Damian had told him the lightning spell needed open sky to work. Sam used his own lightning summoning skill and even that did not work—the description had said it was not dependent on atmosphere. Something was seriously wrong here.
Still, Sam sent several lightning bolts from the energy stored inside his body—Sam deactivated his energy form. It was clear he was not going to get more lightning in this place; it was better to save it. The Shadecaster’s trick or whatever it was had been completed though—it wasn’t an attack. Shadecaster had made a strange cocoon of slimy darkness—it was big, some 100 meters long. Was the guy hiding? Sam was definitely not going to enter inside whatever that thing was. Wasting time here was not worth it. Sam used his leftover liquid mana and activated the Waygate spell etched in his sacrium bracelet. But.. the small runic circle on the bracelet started glowing white—the usual sign of Waygate activating, but there was no Waygate. His liquid mana was not used up, it was just slightly less—the Waygate spell usually took a little mana to activate first to get the target’s location and then used the rest to open the blue shimmering Waygate. Meaning the spell was working, but for some reason, the actual Waygate was not opening.
Sam was confused and all alone in a place with nothing but only irritating whiteness—and one slouch of goo in which Shadecaster was hiding. Was this some skill of Shadecaster? Or the Demon Lord himself? Should he enter the dark slimy cocoon?
Sam flew up to get a better look, but no matter how high he flew, the limit of the ceiling never came. However, once he crossed some 10 km, suddenly a blinding light enveloped him and once again spat him out where he originally took flight from—near Shadecaster’s goo.
‘Guess going left or right will do the same..’ he assumed.
What kind of weird-ass trap was this? Is Shadecaster wasting his time on purpose? Something like—you have to come inside the darkness or stay here for hours till the war is over and everyone is dead and buried?
‘Wait a second! The Demon Lord came back but Damian never did.. Was he also trapped in something like this? It can’t be right? Without him we are all done for..’
