Arcs of black lightning and blue fire streaked through the air, combining with various other elemental forces to create massive explosions. The sound of roars filled with killing intent and agony filled the surroundings.
Damien raced through the battlefield surrounded by an amethyst aura dyed with red. His nails had long since elongated into claws, and his teeth into fangs.
A hazy field surrounded him like the air during a heat wave, repelling any sort of elemental attack that shot towards him. Each of these attacks was returned directly to their casters, causing a larger influx of anguished howls.
There were no teams on the battlefield and no distinguishing between enemies and allies. Even while Damien and Ruyue fought valiantly among the beasts, the beasts fought each other as well.
After all, there wasn’t even one among them that would be willing to share their spoils with the rest. Only one would survive and consume the beast within the cave.
Damien’s figure was illusory, flashing between existence and nonexistence. He would appear in one spot, pummeling the beasts around him before disappearing and reappearing in a completely different area.
It had been a long time since he abused his teleportation, but in a chaotic battlefield like this, it was almost a cheat code. His awareness was spread within a 1-kilometer radius around him. Even though it was reigned in, he could see the proceedings much more clearly.
Every time he saw a beast being overpowered, he would teleport over and crush it. The air was filled with spatial fluctuations and distortions, painting a canvas of bloody swirls.
The beasts were frenzied in their fighting as well, perhaps even more so than Damien. None of them were weak, with even the weakest being at the peak of 2nd class. Any that didn’t reach this level had long since fled after seeing the number of powerful beings that had congregated.
The only reason Damien was able to crush his enemies like they were ants was because he was aiming for the weakest among them, as well as those who were being weakened. He had no time to be held up by those stronger opponents.
Suddenly, he jumped into the air and spread his arms, calling forth his mana. In the next instant, rumbling storm clouds gathered around him.
The clouds thundered and boomed, the natural yellow lightning within them being dyed black with Damien’s signature style. Their aura was elevated immensely in this process, bearing down on those beneath like heavenly punishment.
The crackling black lightning was especially vicious today, carrying an unbridled killing intent. But no beast present would be intimidated by the bloody aura.
Unlike the pack leader Damien had met previously, these beasts lived in an environment similar to the dungeon. Killing intent was engraved in their bones and battle was their life.
Once the formation of the storm clouds was complete, Damien once again dropped to the ground, using his vector control to increase the surrounding gravity and speed up his fall.
His landing caused the earth to shatter and tens of beasts to be momentarily flattened, giving an opening to those who survived to quickly kill them off.
But even they wouldn’t survive long. The brewing storm clouds finally began to move, dropping bolts of lightning thicker than a man’s arm onto the battlefield and causing widespread destruction.
It didn’t matter whether a beast was present in the strike zone or not, the lightning would still strike true. Craters upon crátera began littering the packed dirt of the ground and many beasts were struck, becoming paralyzed by the destructive electricity that entered their bodies.
But the storm clouds were completely under Damien’s control. If this was all they could do, they would be much more worthless than his other traits.
In Damien’s hands, this trait could show off much more of its capabilities than a measly sea dragon could ever hope for.
The lightning within the clouds began to coalesce, gathering their combined heat to become something new, something deadlier.
Soon enough, pillars of plasma also began to shoot down from the sky. No matter how one saw it, it was a scene of judgement.
As beasts continuously fell from the combined onslaught of his trait and their fellow beasts, Damien continued to flash around the battlefields, distorting and collapsing space to reap as many lives as possible.
The feeling was exhilarating. He had almost forgotten what it felt like within the dungeon when he was no better than a mindless beast himself. He had almost forgotten the thrill of such heaven-shaking battles.
This was his environment. This was where he thrived. This was what he needed. He had priorities, sure, but he knew that this was the kind of place where he would grow the fastest.
If it wasn’t for the fact that there was plenty to do in the outside world, as well as people he cared about, he would probably move back and forth between the danger zones of the world as he continuously fought such battles.
But no matter. Such thoughts were nothing more than fleeting desire.
Since he wasn’t being actively targeted by any large groups of beasts, and with the general chaos of the battle itself, Damien felt like he had everything under control. And so, he took a second to glance over at Ruyue.
‘Wow, she might be a natural at this.’
It was a surprising sight indeed. He thought he was in total control over his side of the battlefield, but she wasn’t doing any worse.
The sun was still high in the sky, but two massive moons were hanging over the battlefield, each being many kilometers in diameter.
While one was relatively normal, the other was like a massive ball of blue fire. He didn’t know why his mind automatically classified it as a moon when it looked more like a star, but he didn’t pay much attention to that.
Ruyue’s fight was much more graceful than his. Instead of getting into the thick of the battle like he did, she oversaw it from the sky like an immovable mountain, a battle-hardened general.
The two moons flanking her on each side were continuously pouring out their own unique energies, and a deep grey fog was spreading through the atmosphere.
While Damien used his storm trait to rain down projectiles on the masses, Ruyue’s two moons did the same. Blue beams that radiated both heat and cold shot down rapidly and burned through the beasts and waves of gentle essence followed suit, turning their bodies into ash.
It was a smart strategy. Any beast that got its claws on the corpses would inevitably grow stronger in the midst of battle, so destroying them was the best move. Damien didn’t do it because, well, he wanted to devour them himself.
While the two moons complemented each other, Ruyue stood between them, waving her hands like a conductor. Evidently, the eerie fog had originated from her.
The elemental attacks that were being used by the beasts miraculously never aimed at her. Or rather, the beasts that aimed at her inadvertently shot their attacks in unintended directions.
‘Mental attacks?’
If there was one thing that could be considered as the main weakness of beasts, it was their minds. Until they reached 4th class, they would never prioritize mental defense, with their power system being focused on physical improvement.
Until that point, any mental growth they had went towards sprouting consciousness and maturing.
The system was fair. It maintained balance in its own way. Beasts could grow and strengthen at speeds that humans could never even fathom as long as they were surrounded by their own kind.
Kill, eat, evolve. Such a system would be far too broken if it was allowed to be just that. Perhaps that was why beasts were born mindless and grew into their wits.
As for Ruyue’s attack, even Damien didn’t understand the exact nature of it.
But Ruyue wasn’t paying attention to him right now. The yin element in her body was more active than it had ever been, fusing into her mana and being guided by her graceful movements.
With each swing of her hand, she released another wave of essence into the crowd of unsuspecting beasts. The essence melded into the fog and infected the minds of those it surrounded, causing utter mayhem within the ranks.
As mentioned before, the yin element was structured on all things negative. Negative emotions were not excluded from such classification. When she was a child, Ruyue had many times run into problems where she was unable to control her yin element, causing strife and conflict in her wake.
She would unconsciously affect their emotions simply with her presence, amplifying the ugliness they hid behind conscientious exteriors and causing them to burst. When she started studying under Tian Yang, this was the first ability she had mastered.
But she rarely ended up using it. It was a tool for incitement and a tool that could reveal a person’s true colors, but she was never a fan of manipulation. But against a crowd of beasts, or when her life was truly on the line, she would never hesitate to pull out all her cards.
Sure, Damien’s side had the most unbridled chaos with the myriad of flashing abilities and bloody head-on battles painting its surface, but Ruyue’s was much more gruesome in its own way.
Suddenly, she felt a gaze on her. Gazing back fearlessly, she once again grinned at the man who was both her closest friend and opponent.
Since they were in control of their own battlefields, all that was left was a race to the center.