LONE: The Journey Beyond

While Geena explained her plans to the team.

BOOOOOM!!!

[Lighting Shot]!

Crackle! Crackle! Crackle!...

[Blood Retribution]!

SPLAT! Twachak!!!

[Wind Cutter]!

WHOOOSH! WHOOOSH! WHOOOSH!...

[Tyrant Wave]!

Tut! Tut! Tut! Tut! Tut!...

[Scythe of Darkness]!

HOWL! HOWL!! HOWL!!!

...

The roars of dying werewolves filled the battlefield!

The Conjureres fired hundreds of ability based attacks on the hoard of werewolves coming towards them, constantly killing them in the process and slowing down their advance.

Meanwhile, the Cyborgs took care of the last batch of chimeras that were in the forefront of the battlefield.

On the other side, Geena also completed explaining her proposed plan.

Suddenly…

"ALL CONJURERS, FALL BACK, NOW!"

General White ordered loudly, as he wielded his huge warhammer and released his ability, [Aura of Death], covering his whole body with a layer of shinning black Ardor.

He raised the warhammer with hands and used another ability, [Magma Shower], which caused the warhammer to burn fiery red as he slammed it to the ground with as much force as possible.

"AUGMENTORS! NOW OR NEVER, ENGAGE!!"

Luke roared as he ran towards the werewolf hoard with full force and utilised his ability, [Muddy Waters], on the ground which made it swampy, making it difficult for the werewovels to move.

He concentrated Ardor around his arms and punched the nearest werewolf with everything he had which ended up blowing apart the head of the werewolf to smithereens.

HUUAAAHHHHH!!!

"Kill!"

All the Augmentors ran towards the hoard with full force and started slaughtering them unceremoniously!

Talos used his ability to provide cover for the Conjurers to retreat. Jun helped him in the process with his ability, [Dragon's Prestige], which allowed him to bore down immense Ardoric pressure on the werewolves.

Felix entered the shadow of the werewolves by utilising [Shadow Walk] and swiftly assassinated hundreds of them.

Parth, on the other hand, rained down flame boulders upon the werewolves using his ability, [Meteor Shower]!

Reven and Ken went ahead of everyone else, and sliced down the werewolves coming towards them at an extremely fast pace.

Ken used [Radiant Sword], which caused his whole body started glowing. He then, raised his sword and…

'[Radiant Sword Art: First Form]'

"[Glowing Sun]!"

Slashed down his sword vertically, cutting the incoming werewolves to half!

He created this sword technique to suit his fighting style perfectly.

At the same time, Reven was ceaselessly butchering apart the werewolves and stopped them from getting past him.

The lengthy battle continued for 2 hours straight!

[Everyone is ready, Reven.] Empress spoke inside Reven's mind.

He silently looked at Ken, who also glanced back at him and nodded in understanding.

Then…

He yelled "EVERYONE, GET BACK, NOW!"

As soon as he did this, all the Augmentors started running back.

At the same time, some Conjurers appeared about 200m behind the werewolves, and fired their abilities at them, sending them to their deaths.

Still, nobody in the HAF was relieved! They all knew that this was just the beginning.

"!!!"

Suddenly, another hoard, consisting of trolls, orcs and purple goblins appeared out of nowhere and attacked the Conjurers!

The horrifying thing about this particular hoard was that they also have long ranged Ardor users.

[Alert!]

[First stage is complete.]

[Everyone is at their positions.]

[Beginning second stage.]

A prompt from the Empress came to everyone's minds.

"Cyborgs, use laser beams towards the upcoming hoard!"

Ivanski ordered as about 400 Cyborgs moved forward and activated their lasers at the same time.

Their goal was not to kill the monsters but to simply delay them!

"Augmentors, move forward and ENGAGE!" Luke commanded.

Hearing that, Reven increased his speed and moved ahead of the others with a sword in his hand, spewing out a tremendous amount of dreadful Ardor.

'[Mysteries of Ardor: First Mystery- Vector Expansion]!'

Reven used a special technique that he created using his understanding of Ardor.

He increased his speed by more than five times and at the same time, his sword moved, seemingly breaking the vectors of the world and severed the monsters at weird angles.

What baffled the monsters was that they couldn't grasp the positions of the attacks landing on them, even with their hightened senses!

It was as if the Ardor itself was hiding the murderous intent behind the sword attacks.

Reven cut the monsters in front of him but at the same time, some monsters on his right and left were also being chopped.

By this time, everyone else also arrived near Reven and supported him.

It was at this moment, the long ranged monsters started chanting in weird language and attacked them with loads of flame and thunder spells.

'[Heavenly Battle Art: Third Stance]'

"[Ardoric Dome]!"

Seeing the barrage of spells coming, General White used his technique and created a dome-like barrier to protect the group.

The battle continued as all the remaining Conjureres retreated to safer positions.

Finally...

Geena's voice was heard in everyone's mind through their Seven-Links.

"Everything is set. The moment you start to retreat, shout fiercely so that everyone can hear you."

Hearing this, their eyes lit up. They started running towards the direction of the forest and cried together with everything they had.

"RETREAT!!!"

ROOAAARRRRR! SHRIEEEK!!

At the same time, all the monsters who were hiding till now came out and ran towards the group to stop them from getting away.

Thousands of spells and arrows were rained down upon the group of retreating Augmentors.

The group ignored all of it and ran. Some of their comrades were hit and were blasted to death, but they steeled their hearts and continued to run.

Soon, the group reached the outer layers of the forest and slowed down their speed. The monsters were also near to catch up to them.

The group finally entered the forest.

HOWL!

GRRR… GRRR… HOWL!

SHRIEK!! SHRIEEEK!!!

The angry monsters continued their chase and entered the forest.

They numbered in 200,000s!

This was all of the monsters the HAF had to face if they even hoped to reach De Aar, at the same time, this was the strongest of the bunch.

The monsters literally flooded the forest. If not for the enhanced abilities of the HAF forces, they would have been caught by now.

"Keep running everyone! Just 200m more..." Aleena's voice rang in their heads.

150m… 120m…

100m…

80m…

50m… 30m… 20…

10… 5…

2m... 1m.

HUFF! HUFFF!! HUFFF!!!

The Augmentors were gasping for breaths as they finally met up with the Conjurers!

The monsters who followed them here suddenly stopped! Their beastly senses tingled them that something was terribly wrong here.

All the Augmentors and the Conjurers had crazy ominous smiles on their faces, proving their instincts right.

"You all enjoyed the show, didn't ya! But I am afraid, you got overconfident in yourselves.

I mean... THANK YOU!

After all, it is only because of your amusements we finally found a way to deal with all of you." Aleena said with a villainous smirk on her face.

Grr... Roar!

The leader of the monsters roared in anxiety as he ordered his minions to get the fu*k out of here. His beastly instincts were going haywire right now, screaming at him that something was terribly wrong here!

"Oh no, you don't!" Aleena said as she watched them running away and continued-

"LET'S DISINTEGRATE THE HEAVENS THEMSELVES TODAY!"

As soon as she said this, Reven touched the ground and…

[Transmutation]!

He used his ability to change the entire forest's vitality-like properties i.e carbon in glucose and other energy sources, into fuel-like properties.

Of course, this consumed too much Ardor even for Reven, so he had Ardor injected into himself by others who had energy regulation-type abilities.

Soon, the entire vegetation turned grim and deathly, giving an ominous foreboding to everyone who looked at it.

Reven started to bleed from his eyes, nose, ears and mouth due to the backlash of emptying and refilling his reserves at an extremely fast rate.

"ALL MAGES, HEAR MY COMMAND!

And INCINARATEEEEE!!!!!!" Aleena shouted as every single fire, lightning, light, wind used all their abilities. Even the cyborgs used their lasers at full forces.

[Amber Storm], [Heaven Burning Ode], [Thunder Shower], [Daylight Destruction], [Golden Sun Anger], [Meteor Shower], [Wind Apocalypse], [Thunder-Fire Lotus], [Windy Flames]...

Hundreds of flame types abilities were fired at the same time. Nobody bothered to hide anything. They knew it was now or never so every used everything they had. Cyborgs also maxed their laser outputs.

Howl! Howl! Howl!

HOOWWLLL!!!

All the monsters started to cry fiercely and twitch uncontrollably in pain. About 90,000 turned crisp in a mere instant and the rest were simply sitting on a board ready to be butchered apart.

But their way to heaven was not gonna be that easy as the hell for them was just starting.

"Poison types, Destruction types, Corrosion types, Darkness types. Attack NOW!

At the same time, Water type, Earth types, Control types, Manipulator types." Reinforce the shields to protect ourselves."

Next hundreds of poisonous, destructive and lethal attacks struck the already burning monsters.

GROWLLLL!

ROAR!!! SHRIEK!!!!

Painful shrieks rang out of the apocalyptic battlefield. The forests, the lands, the living, the monsters around the radius of 20km turned ash.

Like this around an hour passed.

The shrieks of the monsters died down. All the 200,000 monsters were sent to oblivion for good.

Deathly silence encroached the whole battlefield. As long as they could see, it was utter destruction with no signs of life of the monsters.

SIGH!

Heavy and exhausted sighs of relief and sadness rang by everyone as they all fell on their butt. Though they were victorious in the battle but they lost about 13,000 soldiers in their fight.

"Everyone let's take some rest. We will continue our journey tomorrow." Luke ordered.

Everyone agreed and decided to take ample rest and calm down their nerves.

The Next Day,

They finally arrived to the Grand Canyon of De Aar but…

…..