The eastern battlefield came into view slowly.

At first, it was just a faint disturbance on the horizon, a smudge where the forest seemed to break apart, and where the canopy thinned and the air itself looked heavier, warped by distant surges of mana and heat.

Boom!

A distant explosion rippled through the air.

Elion felt it even from this height.

The bird beneath him shifted slightly, letting out a strained cry as the pressure rolled past them, its wings faltering for just a moment before it steadied itself again.

"Almost there," Yakuza called out over the wind.

Elion didn’t respond. His eyes were locked ahead. As they got closer, the full scale of the battlefield revealed itself.

The forest had been torn apart. Parts of it were not just scarred, but annihilated to oblivion.

Massive sections of land were flattened completely, trees ripped from the ground and scattered like broken sticks, while others burned endlessly, thick columns of smoke rising into the sky.

The ground itself was uneven, carved into trenches, craters, and jagged ridges from repeated clashes of overwhelming force.

And in the midst of it all, a great war.

Mages clashed in the air, streaks of light cutting across the sky as spells collided in bursts of fire, water, stone, lightning, and so on.

Roars and screams filled the air, a mix between wails and cries of terror, mixed in with the war cries.

The clash of steel and the detonation of magic overlapped into a chaotic symphony that filled the entire region.

From above, the multitude of people below looked like ants, scattered and clashing in chaotic waves, all of them embroiled in the throes of battle.

Spells lit up the battlefield in bursts of violent color, blades flashed, bodies moved and fell in rapid succession...

And every second, people and demons alike were dropping like flies.

Elion’s eyes narrowed as he took in the scene from his vantage point. This was on a completely different level from what he had seen before.

"Hold tight," Yakuza said as he began guiding his wyvern downward, circling toward a relatively stable section behind the main lines.

Elion followed, pulling on the reins as his mount descended, the wind growing harsher as they dropped altitude, the sounds of battle becoming louder, clearer, more intense with every passing second.

Boom!

A massive explosion erupted not too far from their landing point, sending a shockwave through the air that rattled Elion’s bones as his bird shrieked in panic.

"Easy..." he muttered, tightening his grip.

They landed roughly.

The moment his feet touched the ground, the heavy and suffocating atmosphere immediately hit him, but he easily brushed it off.

"Stay sharp," Yakuza said as he dismounted, his expression already hardened in concentration.

Elion nodded once as he swept his gaze across the battlefield.

He couldn’t see very far from this point, and when he tried to use discerning eye to sharpen his vision, the multiple waves of violent mana messed with it still.

Boom!

A sudden blast of fire erupted not too far from them, the heat washing over Elion’s face as he turned slightly, his eyes scanning the field in quick, sharp movements.

"Stay close," Yakuza said. He was already moving forward.

Elion followed without a word, and they slowly pushed into the battlefield with measured steps.

Yakuza swiftly raised his sword as a stray projectile streaked toward them.

Clang!

It shattered on impact, sparks scattering across the ground. 𝗳𝗿𝐞𝕖𝘄𝗲𝕓𝗻𝚘𝚟𝕖𝐥.𝚌𝕠𝕞

"Eyes up!" he barked.

"I know..." Elion didn’t need the warning.

His perception was already spread wide, filtering through the overwhelming noise, locking onto threats while ignoring the irrelevant. His mind naturally slipped into that cold, efficient state.

’Enhanced cognition.’

A demon lunged from the side...

Too slow.

Slash

Elion’s blade cut clean through its neck, the body dropping before it even understood what had happened.

He tried to form words, "How....?" But he was already dead.

They kept moving through the shifting lines and past wounded soldiers being dragged back for medical attention, and past mages who were chanting desperately as they hurled spells toward the advancing demons.

"Where would they be?" Elion muttered.

Yakuza didn’t answer immediately. His eyes swept across the battlefield, then toward the sky where several figures clashed in mid-air.

"The heroes don’t usually stay at the rear," he said finally.

"They’ll be where it’s worst."

Elion followed his gaze toward the east side of the field, where the booms and shockwaves were more intense.

Boom!

The ground trembled again, and a distant shockwave rolled through the area, stronger than the rest.

"...That should be them." He judged, and without another word, they both broke into a run.

To their surprise, the deeper they pushed in, the more the battlefield began to thin out. Not because the fighting had died down, but because the battlefield had shifted a bit.

The weaker mages and soldiers were nowhere to be found in these parts. They had all instinctively avoided this area or had likely been driven out of it.

The ground was worse here. It was more broken and more destroyed.

Massive craters overlapped one another. The earth was split and scorched, and the air was thick with residual mana that made every breath feel heavier and every movement just slightly more difficult.

And the sounds were less chaotic and more focused, synchronized, like each clash was specifically timed and calculated to serve a purpose.

Boom!

A shockwave tore through the area ahead, and Elion’s eyes sharpened in that direction.

’There.’

They broke past a final ridge of shattered ground, and the scene opened up before them. There was a total of six figures locked in combat.

Three on one side...

Maya, Aeron, and Zenovia.

And the other three were the summoned heroes on the demon side.

The difference in the level of power being thrown around was all too clear to see. This wasn’t something regular soldiers could even get close to, which explained why they weren’t here.

This part of the battlefield had been abandoned to them.

A battlefield for monsters.

However, right now, Elion could see that Maya, Aeron, and Zenovia were getting pushed back.

Though it was not bad enough to say that they were being completely overwhelmed, they were quickly losing ground.

Their movements were tighter and more strained than those of their opponents, and they looked more ragged.

Every exchange forced them back just a bit more, their formation slowly breaking under the pressure of the three opposing heroes.

Clang!

Boom!

Crack!

The fight raged on until Yakuza stepped forward swiftly, and Elion landed beside him with his calm gait.

Thud...

Thud...

The sound of their footsteps was oddly louder than it was meant to be, and for a brief moment, everything stopped as all six fighters turned, their gazes locking onto the new arrivals, to see whether it was allies or more foes for either of them.

Relief and recognition flashed on the obvious three as Maya exhaled, visibly tired, and Aeron straightened his back slightly from his fighting stance. Zenovia’s shoulders dropped just a fraction.

The sight of the two familiar faces was enough to put their minds at ease, if only a little. In fact, with Elion here, Aeron had already signed this fight off, with good reason.

The pressure of Elion’s presence from that first encounter still gave him nightmares, even after a month apart from the monster.

"...About damn time," Aeron muttered with a light smile.

The same could be said about Maya. Though she looked weary, she had bags under her eyes, and her brow was a bit sweaty, she smiled as she took the moment to catch her breath.

However, it did not seem like all three of them would be too happy about Elion’s unexpected return.

"...You!" Zenovia shouted immediately, her voice sharp with anger as she glared at him, "Where the fuck have you been!?"