War Reignited

Aura sneaked through the unknown human city deep in the fallen world's artificial river of souls alone. The Fifth Step existences from Heaven and The Void had split up to venture with their own forces in the underground world, leaving Aura and Everest as Styx's only Fifth Step allies to work on his goals.

Everest's threads were conduits of mana though, making the mana absorption enemies and devices here her nemesis.

Styx had allowed them free passage, along with anybody else whose clearance level in the dungeon was high enough, through the portal leading to the world abandoned by mana.

The guardians of the city, which Styx had named Terrarium, had deployed high grade mana detecting devices inside the core region, preventing Aura from being able to sneak inside. The only way would be to break through the defensive forces – a task currently proving to be impossible.

The moment Aura got too close to the city, alarms resounded in the air and the city's defenders swarmed the wolf girl's location.

Aura bore her teeth and growled as she rent space apart with phantasmal claws and teeth. The defenders sucked up the mana in the attack whilst also blocking the attack seemingly effortlessly.

Their gazes were that of indifference, looking down at Aura like a fish on a chopping block. No words were spoken, they simply attacked.

From all his experience and knowledge gained from this fallen world, Styx commanded Aura with his voice in her head.

"Aura, avoid using mana and instead avoid their attacks, instead use your ability to devour. Not devour them, but their mana. In this world, what is most valuable is mana. Once that is gone, they will be powerless."

The Fifth Step guards and the even more powerful giant science fiction mecha were powered by mana. They were much better at managing and using mana than Aura and even Styx, leaving both of them at a disadvantage.

Aura followed Styx's words and shifted to avoiding their attacks. She blinked in and out of the phantasmal realm with Phantasmagoria as the was chased across the city.

The wolf girl activated Sin of Gluttony and other devouring skills, focusing on swallowing mana. The air was void of it, making her feel like she was sucking air out of an empty balloon, but their attacks and bodies themselves were like small candle lights in the dark.

As they felt their mana getting absorbed, the guards were like a stirred up swarm of wasps.

"Outsider, you dare!"

The guards finally broke their silence as they scattered in all directions to avoid being targeted all at once.

Aura snorted and focused on robbing their mana, whilst they tried to absorb hers. It was like a giant tug of war, but one side could also attack the other.

~~~~~

⠀

Beaten and battered, Aura returned to Styx with her ears flat against her head in depression. She had wanted to win, and fared better against them this time compared to other times, but had still failed in the end.

No matter how strong the guards were, they were incapable of entering the phantasmal realm, allowing Aura to escape whenever she wanted.

"Don't worry too much. Today we lost the battle, but they had a net loss on mana, so it was our victory in the end."

"Styx…"

"What is it?"

"Those husks, who don't have mana."

"What of them?"

"How are they still alive? Their lifeforce is too weak to support life."

"This…" Styx had pondered over this issue many times, but always ended up with the answer, "I don't know."

~~~~~

⠀

Duke and Duchess Ephemeral stood atop their city walls alongside their army. They looked out over the battalions of monsters and various elves, beastmen and even humans that were poised to attack their city.

"Dear, it looks like it is our turn. The capital's reinforcements are here too, but I don't know how long we can hold out for, let alone win."

"I had thought we would have more time."

"We were supposed to, but not all things go our way."

Leading the reinforcements from the capital was Princess Zoerina alongside a star general and elite personal guard.

The princess had the most powerful royal bloodline of dragons since the founder himself and as such was drawn to the battlefield. She had been fighting against the demons before Styx's forces begun to move, and she was the first one to thrust herself in the position of defending against the dungeon's encroachment on kingdom territory.

She led a force of almost 100,000 soldiers, mostly a mix of First and Second Step rankers.

The Maple Dragon Kingdom may be lacking in top tier battle strength, but numbers was something humans never fell short of.

Styx's force was currently only a small fraction of his total forces, but it was still a gathering of almost 50,000 monsters, warriors and mages alike. They were much higher in quality than the kingdom's side as well, with far more Third Step monsters and exotic races, alongside an elite group of Fourth Step dungeon residents and monsters mixed in.

It was unknown who threw the first attack, but fire and lightning flashed through the sky while arrows guided by skills and other energy wave based attacks flew between the two sides.

Styx's air force attacked, granting a distraction for the ground forces to charge the city and climb the walls.

At the same time, Styx also launched a dungeon war from underneath the city, but was met with an already prepared resistance. He smiled wryly at the defenders who had long been prepared and sent hoards of monsters at them.

"Yeahhhhhhh!!!"

Princess Zoerina slew monsters with a vengeance whilst shouting at the top of her lungs. Her armored fists showed no mercy to the dungeon's forces.

Her body had matured just as much as her strength, her hips curvaceous and breasts bountiful. She held her body with poise and moved with highly trained skills. No matter what kind of monster stood before her, she showed no fear towards them.

Styx saw her as an opportunity and wanted to capture her, so he had Beatrice confront her.

Beatrice was a dark phenelf, and highly skilled with a bow, but her greatest virtue was her vitality. She didn't have a lot of battle experience and was lacking in that department, but her fighting style was so unique it couldn't be taught by anyone else.

With the Fourth Step guards nearby, this was a low risk expedition for her, so she decided to take command of this attack and give victory to her husband.

As soon as Zoerina saw Beatrice, her expression turned extremely dark as she cursed, "Whore…"

"Princess, I suggest you surrender. It would be for your own good."

Beatrice had originally been treated poorly among the other stone elves, but she was now thankful for that. If she hadn't been unfairly exiled from the community to save on food, she would never have become one of the first dungeon wives and secure her position beside Styx.

"I won't be tricked by the words of a Whore of the Abyss. You have long since fallen, so you can now die."

Zoerina was already at the late Second Step, but moved as fast as someone at the Third Step.

As her class was not a direct combatant type, Beatrice wouldn't have been able to fully defend against the enraged princess' assault even if she tried.

The dark phenelf merely smiled and opened her arms wide, exposing her unarmored chest.

Zoerina's fist encountered little resistance as flesh and bone were crushed, her gauntlet piercing directly through the dungeon wife's chest and emerging from her back covered in blood and bone shards.

The princess realized something was wrong as Beatrice continued smiling unabated and tried to retrieve her arm, but it was completely trapped.

Beatrice swung a dagger down to stab the princess' arm, but was deflected by a kingdom mage's stone whip saving the princess at the last moment before he was swarmed by Styx's forces and torn into pieces.

Zoerina fought back with her other fist, hitting Beatrice in the face and shattering flesh and bone, but no matter the damage, she healed almost instantaneously. Beatrice's vitality was so great it wouldn't be unfair to call her immortal.

"Just surrender, princess."

"I refuse!"

Princess Zoerina retrieved her arm and fought tooth and nail with Beatrice, but the latter healed no matter the damage caused, whilst Zoerina was unable to heal.

"Why!? Why can all you whores heal so fast!?"

The two fought across the walls, but the princess was inevitably rescued as her and her elite guards retreated into the city. Beatrice sent stronger forces after them, but they were unable to breach the defense forces and capture her in time, leading to her successful retreat.

Styx won the battle within the day, but Beatrice was upset that she failed to capture the imperial princess at the time.