The battlefield ignited like a cursed symphony just a few hundred meters away from where Raiyo sat, cross-legged and shirtless, atop the corpse of Cerberion.
The war between the Blade Goblins and the Nightwings had begun.
With each bite of grilled wolf meat—still sizzling from his divine flames—dozens of lives were extinguished in a chaotic clash of poison, steel, blood, and feathers. The scent of roasted flesh mixed with the stench of war, and for Raiyo, it was oddly… pleasant.
"Krrr…"
"AARRGHH!!"
"——…"
The sounds of agony, steel slicing through bone, wings ripping through air, goblins shrieking, and the death-cries of fallen beasts became his music. Raiyo chewed slowly, savoring the contrast between the tender meat in his mouth and the carnage erupting before him.
"They had been too quiet since my arrival in this forgotten world…"
"I was the only one suffering."
"But now... they suffer with me."
The Blade Goblins struck first—emerging from the blackened woods, eyes glowing yellow, crawling like rats across the war-scarred earth. Agile and numerous, they moved with surgical precision. Shadows concealed their movements, their bodies blinking in and out of visibility.
Poisoned daggers lashed out from the dark.
Explosive traps of crimson vapor erupted in the underbrush.
Nightwings fell first—wings pierced, necks cut, blinded by shadow blades they couldn't echolocate.
But the Nightwings adapted quickly.
With a piercing cry, they unleashed their Sonic Veil—a cascade of sound that drowned out all natural noise. The battlefield fell into an eerie silence that wasn't truly silent. Everything became a haunting murmur, disorienting, nauseating. The goblins could no longer move silently. Their traps were triggered prematurely. Their cover—rendered useless.
Then came the airstrike.
Nightwings swooped in from the sky like falling comets. Their wings turned into razors, slicing through goblin ranks in coordinated spins, claws tearing flesh, eyes sewn shut yet targeting flawlessly through echolocation. Their speed made them nearly invisible—only the aftermath of gore marked their passage.
Within the first hour, 30% of both armies had perished. Neither Gobsai, king of the goblins, nor Vargyr, the Nightwing general, had yet appeared. Their soldiers slaughtered each other for territory, for pride, for survival. But none of them knew the real reason this war had begun.
They were pawns.
And the puppeteer… was still eating.
Raiyo stood.
The bones cracked beneath his bare feet as he stepped down from Cerberion's corpse. The glowing remnants of his barbecue faded into cinders. His long hair swayed in the breeze, stained slightly red from the smoke and blood.
His bare chest glistened with sweat, his muscles rippling beneath his skin. In his hand, he held his sword—a weapon of pure darkness, its blade glowing with a violet, fiery hue. He moved with an eerie calm, as though the chaos around him were nothing more than a distant memory.
He exhaled. A breath that felt ancient, like the world itself had waited for this moment.
"It's time…"
He walked.
Not ran.
Not dashed.
Walked.
With a lazy elegance, a half-sleepy expression on his face, Raiyo entered the battlefield—through smoke, through cries of death, through chaos.
Every creature stopped.
Even the wind held its breath.
From the shadows, the goblins hesitated, their minds rattled by the brutal onslaught. Raiyo's blade hummed with dark energy, the very air around it warping as it absorbed the essence of the battlefield. He raised his arm, and a ripple of violet energy surged from the ground beneath him.
Obsidian Stake!
His new technique, erupted from the earth like jagged spears, impaling any creature unlucky enough to be in their path. Goblins and Nightwings alike screamed in pain as they were skewered, their bodies twitching before collapsing like broken puppets.
The scream of silence returned.
Not a magical effect.
Just horror.
Hundreds died instantly. Not from wounds, but from the sudden, impossible realization: something far beyond them had entered the stage.
"He… he's not one of us…"
"W-we need to fall back!"
Some goblins tried to flee.
But Raiyo simply swung his sword once.
"Shadowfang:Eclipse!"
A violet arc, like the scythe of a fallen god, cleaved the air. Dozens of trees were cut clean. A hundred goblins—either decapitated or torn in half. The survivors trembled, crawling away, eyes wide.
But Raiyo wasn't done.
The "Obsidian Stake" twisted and surged once more, striking down the injured.
From the sky, the Nightwings launched a retaliatory strike.
Raiyo lifted his left hand, summoning chains of gold infused with light—evolved from his Chains of Judgment.
"Lightbind"
A net of golden chains extended toward the heavens, catching the diving Nightwings mid-flight. Like insects in a web, they thrashed—before being pierced by beams of condensed Yang from Raiyo's hand.
Some tried to escape at high velocity.
He whispered.
"Domination."
Their wings trembled. Their flight paths faltered.
They spiraled downward, and met his blade in silence.
One by one.
"A massacre."
"Mercy... had no place in this graveyard."
"A stage play of blood and ash, and I was both director and executioner."
The goblins who remained weren't fighters anymore.
They were children in front of a dragon.
Their knees buckled, weapons fell from their hands, and they cried—not in pain, but from something deeper.
Terror.
Some tried to run, but they couldn't move.
Something heavier than gravity weighed on them.
A bloodthirsty aura spread through the battlefield—thick like tar.
"Gobsai…"
He hadn't arrived yet.
But his presence did.
Before his body crossed the battlefield, his Aura of Intimidation swept through it like a storm—raw, oppressive, undeniable. Every goblin froze mid-motion. Then, without warning, they snapped.
The fear in their hearts turned to madness.
The instinct to flee became an urge to kill.
They screamed.
They charged.
They lost themselves.
But…
Raiyo was stronger.
Far stronger.
A goblin berserker lunged at him from behind, eyes white with frenzy.
Its poisoned dagger scraped against a barrier of radiant light.
Radiant Shell.
It didn't even flicker.
Raiyo didn't flinch.
He turned his head—slow, tired—let out a small yawn…
Then raised his blade.
Ten minutes.
A thousand more fell.
Then came the Nightwings.
They descended in formation—dozens together, moving like a single organism. A deadly waltz in the sky, talons out, wings slicing the wind.
Raiyo whispered, "Obsidian Stake"
The ground answered.
One stake split into hundred. Each one shot forward, precise, brutal—impaling the diving Nightwings mid-flight.
Their cries rang out like broken music.
No one else moved.
No one else dared.
Then—
"..."
Silence.
Twenty long minutes passed.
And—
Thunder.
It didn't come from the sky. It came from the earth.
A black throne of bones rose at the edge of the battlefield, dragging itself into existence like something summoned from the pit. Upon it sat Gobsai, warlord of the Blade Goblins—his body covered in bone armor, his massive bone sword trailing behind him like an omen.
Above, the clouds split.
Through a slash of crimson fog, Vargyr descended—wings outstretched like blades of dusk. His eyes, sewn shut with ancient thread, glowed faintly red.
The two warlords landed in unison.
And they saw it.
A mountain of corpses.
Nearly 9,000 bodies—torn,
Burned…
Impaled…
Annihilated…
At the peak of that graveyard stood one man.
Tired.
Bloodied.
Smiling.
Raiyo.
He turned toward them slowly.
Purple flames from his Shadowfangdanced across his blade, while golden light pulsed from his Radiant Shell. In one hand, he held his blade of shadows. The other still dripped with light.
Behind him, the sun began to rise.
And the monsters kings understood something they wished they never had.
Cerberion hadn't been careless. He hadn't died by chance.He had simply crossed paths with something older than fear, purer than hatred…
Something absolute.
To be continued…