The devil's horde.

A small puddle of water splashed as a foot stepped on it and moved hastily.

Sunny and his cohort had reached their original destination, the beheaded knight's statue, hours ago.

But they hadn't stopped to rest there, no they had kept running.

Sunny had informed them of a cliff further away. He had said that his shadows had scouted the area ahead, which they had— just not in this life.

Anyhow, the reason they had kept running was simple, they were being chased.

There were groups of scavengers from all around them gathering together to become a single horde.

That horde was in turn chasing them at the same time it was forming.

The good thing was that most of these new groups were coming from behind them, for some strange reason, the carapace army wasn't as prominent in the eastern direction.

As sunny dashed, he noticed three scouting groups closing in on his cohort.

They had not joined the vicinity of the main horde and chose to try and hunt the humans alone instead.

Were these scavengers simply too hungry, or were they trying to slow down the humans? Whatever the case was, sunny could not afford to slow down now.

The gap between him and the main horde was already growing smaller and smaller, if they stopped they would have to engage in an all out clash.

And that would either end them directly, or buy enough time to drown them in the dark sea at the very least.

"Not good, not good." Sunny let out a stifled cry as he sent a shadow near the closest scouting group, on his right.

Then, he summoned his bow and quiver and sent another shadow at the group right ahead of them.

Serpent manifested from the first shadow and engaged the twelve scavengers at his right.

At the same time, scavvy— a centurion aided with the same shadow that had summoned it, attacked the twelve scavenger in front of the cohort.

Scavvy had been unsummoned before, and as the twins riding it fell down— Caster moved and caught them mid air.

Both these Shadows would have won their individual challenges given enough time— but that was the catch, Sunny didn't have enough time.

So he simply spun and shot three arrows at the third group to his left, that group was the furthest and thus could actually be escaped without a fight if they didn't stop.

As the arrows dug into the scavengers behind him, sunny turned to his front and helped scavvy pick off the scavengers.

One by one, his arrows cleanly thrust into the beasts while his monster savagely sliced them open.

A few moments later, the cohort was at the place of the scavengers.

But all they met were corpses, Sunny had been successful and they had narrowly avoided certain death for now.

Quickly putting the twins on scavvy again, Caster turned to Sunless mid sprint.

"You could have warned us that you would unsummon your echo!"

Sunny looked at him and simply shrugged.

"That would have made both the girls and you panic, you are more than capable of catching a couple of falling damsels. So there wasn't a point in warning you in advance."

Before Caster could come up with a reply, Nephis spoke loudly.

"We will talk later, focus on your survival for now!"

Another couple hours passed, now they were just a few hundred meters from the cliff where the trio had fought a centurion for the first time originally.

It was done, now they could climb the cliff and slowly fight against the horde.

Truth be told, the situation was still insanely dire.

There was no guarantee that they would be able to survive against the horde this time, nor that there wouldn't be another horde coming their way soon.

That only reason Sunny hadn't chosen to stay and fight at the statue was because it didn't have enough room for actual movement. Especially for an entire cohort of people.

There was also the fact that Sunny was slowly charging up Heartbroken with essence.

However, like all good things, Sunny's plan came crashing down in front of his fated attribute.

Just as the cliff came in sight of the humans, two carapace demons accompanied by twenty or so scavengers appeared right in front of them.

From the cohort's back, the galloping of the horde could be heard, they were a few minutes away from arriving too.

Sunny didn't have much time to think, he couldn't deal with the demons and climb the cliff with everyone in time.

He could do it alone, even take Nephis with him. The two of them could manage to get Cassie up too, together.

Caster would definitely make it too, annoying as he was— his strength was useful too.

But ultimately Sunny would have to sacrifice innocent people for his cause. And that he could not longer afford to watch happen.

He had regressed back in time only to stop this needless genocide afterall.

So he did what he had done all this time and sent serpent at the demons. Empowering him with a shadow.

Serpent was an Awakened demon himself now, and compared to other demons, serpent was on a different level— it was among the companions of Shadow slaves. It's species was born to be heralds of death.

On top of all that, it was now empowered by a shadow, growing twice as strong.

As serpent went to face the adversaries.

Sunny backed him up with his archery, and commanded scavvy to help.

As it took off, Sunny took a small moment to whisper in its ear.

"Aim to kill a carapace demon once serpent injures one enough."

Not being at all stingy, he enhanced scavvy with two of his shadows too.

"Everyone! Turn around and prepare to face the incoming horde! Nephis and Caster will stand and fight with me right here. Everyone else, help until the blockage is cleared and then run to the hill!"

Liam nodded grimly and knocked an arrow on his bow, but before he launched it— a hand gripped his shoulder.

"Don't waste your arrows on the small horde, I'll deal with it. You make sure there's enough ranged attacks on the bigger horde once it arrives."

Sunny spoke with haste, but his voice didn't waver at all.

As the scavengers were slowly weeded out by Sunny and scavvy, serpent danced around the two demons. Soon, it bit into one's neck and twisted, then let go and struck its hideous carapace with its tail.

The demon was sent flying away a few meters, right in front of scavvy.

It had lost all its arms while fighting serpent. And its broken neck was a perfect weak spot.

The demon had also fallen on its back, so before it could get back up—

Splurttt!

Scavvy struck it's scythe into the demon's neck and picked up its head.

[You have slain an Awakened demon: Carapace tribune.]

It then ate the head in one big gulp and was immediately unsummoned into Sunny's soul sea.

[Your shadow is evolving...]

Soon, serpent was done with the other demon too, and now...

...the scavenger army had arrived.

***

Sunny took a deep breathe in, and handed over the iron quiver to Liam— physically ofcourse, he wasn't ready to part with the memory yet.

Then, he summoned defiance and made it invisible.

He then thought for a moment, and summoned another memory.

The last word.

The ascendant memory he had gained by killing Zoroark the liar. The memory had a bitter description to it, talking about a man betrayed by a treacherous shadow for power.

Ofcourse the spell had not ignored the opportunity to rub salt on Sunny's wounds.

But it wasn't enough for Sunny to not use the memory, the only reason he hadn't used it yet — was because as he learnt from his experiments, the memory grew in defence as the user took damage but it also grew heavier.

With the insane amount of enemies in front of him now, he wasn't going to dodge all of them no matter how hard he tried, so his best bet was to strengthen his defences instead.

Sunny stood with defiance pointing downwards, at his sides were Nephis and Caster. Serpent had slithered back and was here too, while scavvy was going to sit this fight out, simply because it was evolving.

Liam knocked on an arrow, ready to shoot.

The rest of the sleepers made a run for it, protected by the scavenger echo.

Their job was to climb up the hill before any scavengers descended upon them.

To initiate combat, taking a step Nephis raised her hands in front of her and summoned a ball of incandescent fire.

Then she pulled her hands back— getting ready to throw the sphere.

"Im going to take some of your kills." She spoke without turning, a slight smile on her face.

"By all means go ahead, we need everything we can get."

Sunny would have replied back with something amusing of he wasn't preoccupied with seeing a four hundred strong horde descend upon them.

Smiling, Nephis threw her ball of flame at the incoming horde,

The fireball flew through the sky and landed on a tribune, exploding.

The explosion consumed several dozens of scavengers.

But Nephis was just getting started, without the painful flaw holding her down, she could go all out with her flames.

And being a dormant ability, the flames consumed incredibly small amounts of essence too.

Raising her hands into the air, she gathered an incredibly huge amount of fire into a coalescing sphere of devastation.

The heat grew so intense that even the approaching scavengers could feel it.

Then, she did not throw it.

Instead she pushed it upwards, and commanded small firebolts to fire from the sphere.

Hundreds of firebolts landed on the incoming army, killing multitudes of them. If one wasn't enough, two more hit the target. If that didn't work, three more gathered.

Eventually, Nephis was exhausted from her overexertion, she took a step back for a moment and was replaced by Sunny.

He and Liam shot arrows at the scavengers, hoping to cull their numbers even more.

Then, after a few seconds Liam retreated a dozen steps and Nephis stepped back up right next to Sunny.

The next moment, two hundred and fifty or so creatures descended upon them.

There were four demons and three dozen centurions among them, and also...

...a strange creature was at the centre of this charge.

It's size only a little bigger than a centurion, but it had four hands. Two lance like and two human hands.

It's power seemed beyond any carapace demon too. Sunny gulped inwards.

'A devil...they have those now?'

***

Nephis was surrounded by several scavengers and some centurions.

In front of her was a demon that she was dueling, around her even more corpses of scavengers were present. It seemed that they had been cleaved in half by a cauterizing blade.

Nephis was weilding her flames in the shape of a whip over a dozen feet long and using it masterfully to cut down the scavengers with ease, if any managed to crawl close enough to her then her ascended sword cut them up like butter.

Her monster core was allowing her to dance around the nightmare creatures without being overwhelmed. The augmentation of her flames allowing her room to breathe and— if injured, heal.

Serpent was elsewhere empowered by a shadow, it was currently on top of the demon it had fought and was striking away any beasts and monsters that came it's way.

Another demon was making its towards it.

Caster was zooming around the battlefield, precisely slashing the weak points of the scavengers and escaping the wrathful consequences with his super speed.

He was being backed up by Liam who launched arrow after arrow with such precision that only Sunny could rival.

His arrows landed right at the eyes and back of the necks of the scavengers, killing them or atleast injuring them enough for Caster.

Truly, the archer class was overpowered against armies.

Sooner or later though, all of them would be overwhelmed and to deal with that, Sunny was currently advancing into the horde itself.

'Must kill the devil...must kill the devil...'

Muttering to himself, he slashed at an incoming scavenger. He was cutting through them like butter now, enhanced by his three cores and two shadows.

As Sunny moved, the last carapace demon came face to face with him.

Sunny grabbed a scavenger that he had just beheaded...

...and spun in around with sheer strength, the scavengers in his vicinity were all pushed away. He then proceeded to throw the dead carcass at the demon as a distraction.

As the demon swatted away the annoying corpse, sunny dashed at him with full speed and then jumped at it.

Bringing Defiance down near it's heart, Sunny used the now stuck sword as leverage and climbed on the back of the demon.

Then he made a zornhau slash at the demon's neck, instantly killing it.

Sensing imminent danger, Sunny backflipped and spun mid air, landing on the ground behind the demon— now facing the devil that was leading the horde.

At the same time, a massive rock hurled at the place Sunny was standing a few moments ago and smashed into the demon's back, fading into dust.

The devil let out a low growl.

The leaders of the two forces were now face to face and about to brawl.

The Dux lunged, its blade like forelimb sweeping out in a scything arc meant to bisect him in one motion. Sunny reacted on instinct, twisting to the side as the air shrieked past his ear.

The force of the strike split apart the ground.

Sunny took a breathe in and then tried to counter, aiming his blade for the creature's exposed joint in its legs.

However, The Dux was faster.

With a fluid pivot, it brought its other limbs around, forcing Sunny to abandon his attack and throw himself into a roll.

Sharp claws extending beyond human hands scraped against his ascended armor, the impact sent him skidding backward.

He barely had time to reset his stance before the Dux charged again, this time lowering its massive horned head like a battering ram.

Sunny's mind worked in overdrive. He had to break its rhythm.

As the beast lunged, he took a firm stance and brought his sword down with all his strength. Steel met chitin, sparks flying as his blade bit deep into the creature's carapace.

A deafening screech echoed as the Dux recoiled and howled in pain, black ichor spilling from the fresh wound.

But it was nowhere close to dying.

The Dux loosened up, its mandibles spreading wide—and then came a horrible, disgusting screech, one that sent tremors through the ground.

Sunny's muscles locked up for a fraction of a second, his mind tensing up.

That was all it needed.

A barbed lance shot forward, too fast to be dodged completely. Pain exploded in Sunny's side as the tip grazed his ribs, not actually cutting through armor, but the sheer force was still enough.

He gritted his teeth, forcing himself to move even as his body ached in agonising pain.

He had no room for hesitation here, a moment's mistake meant death.

Sunny had to lock in now.

Raising his sword, Sunny attacked the dux with a perfect combination of saint's grounded style and the immortal flame's flowing style.

Sunny sidestepped and sliced at the devil's two lance like limbs in a swift flowing move. His sword traced a infinity like pattern in the air as it cut off the lances.

Then the devil grabbed Sunny with its human limbs— because Sunny had stayed stationary for too long.

It was an equivalent highly offensive exchange that rendered Sunny immobile and the devil unarmed.

The devil proceeded with the only natural move it could follow up with, biting Sunny with it's maw.

And for that, it had to bring Sunny close to it's mouth, as it did though...

...Sunny took out a giant pure white arrow attached to his waist and he struck the devil's neck with it.

Heartbroken which was already saturated with essence, fired off inside the devil at point blank range.

As hundreds of shrapnels shot out of the devil's body, turning it's once fearsome carapace into corpse skin, Sunny too was hit by the shrapnel.

Several deep gashing wounds appeared on his body and several even turned into holes.

Losing blood faster than he could ever lose essence as an Awakened, Sunny collapsed onto the ground.

[You have slain an Awakened devil: Carapace dux.]

Everywhere, the remaining horde grew disoriented...but not to the point it would have after losing a tyrant.

Soon, another shadow encompassed Serpent, and it went on a killing rampage.

Another shadow found its way to Nephis who had already killed the demon she had been fighting and now was engaged against mere beasts.

Nephis recognised the signals made by Sunny's shadow easily enough, and made a run for it towards him.

Soon, Sunny's dying body was rejuvenated as soul flames healed his very existence back to perfection.

"Are you crazy?" Nephis frowned, her voice was as steady as ever but there was a hint of emotion in it, it was anger...fear...and..care?

Anyhow she was pissed off, and that was never a good thing for the guy in such a situation.

Sunny rose from the ground and smirked.

"Well no? I'm Sunny." A sharp pain reverberated through him as a fist landed on his torso, wincing Sunny groaned.

"Okay okay, but I had you for healing me, and that was the best way to end the fight in my eyes. Im sorry."

Nephis looked at him silently then put her hand on forehead. An incandescent glow appeared on her hand and flew into Sunny, healing him again.

Sunny smiled slightly. "Thank you Neph."

Nephis didn't respond, instead she turned to look at the remaining horde, Caster was still dancing through the horde and Liam was still firing arrows from farther away.

Both of them had grown extremely tired now, and wouldn't be able to keep up much longer.

Sunny's serpent was still going strong though, stronger than ever infact.

Sighing slightly, she raised her sword.

"Thank me by taking better care of yourself, and let's end this quick enough before the dark sea rises again."

"Alright then, let's do that." Sunny and Nephis stood side by side as they took in the scenery of the remaining horde and the devastation it had left behind, then they moved again.

This time they wouldn't get to stop until it was all over.

Meanwhile, on the cliff itself. June was standing guard with her bone protrusion spear like object. Cassie and the twins were lying on the ground, exhausted from the climbing.

The scavenger echo was with them, then suddenly a rustling noise came from behind them.

Two scavengers had been separated from the horde and somehow found their way to the cliff.

Liam was tired, his bones ached and his feet yelled— threatening to give in.

Then suddenly, a centurion was right in front of him.

Liam tried to take out another arrow to shoot at the creature, but he only then realised something dire...

...he had run out of arrows.

Out there in the distance, the crimson spire rustled with movement as spire messengers flew out in unison.

Thirteen of them in total.

In their vile corrupted minds, the same thing rang again and again.

"Annihilate the evil intruders."