Northern had never doubted how strong Night Terror was. But there were certain limitations he had built up in his mind for the monster—barriers that the devilish creature just kept shattering like glass.
Northern had never imagined Night Terror wielding swords. He was a grotesque monster with sixteen vicious claws, and that was all there was to him. A savage beast to his very core.
Not cutesy, not elegant, not demure.
He was an outright, unpolished, ruthless predator.
However, at some point he began to move with grace and intention, which didn't diminish his ruthlessness but somehow unsettled Northern to his core.
'He used to be so... man, he's grown.'
Northern watched as Night Terror sliced through the sky with impossible speed and swung his hands in a meticulous, hypnotic pattern. His first upper two hands crossed each other in deadly arcs, while the lower two hands mirrored the same motion but in reverse—pulling away from each other—finishing the remaining Behemoth's wing with a ruthless slice and carving another wound across its chest, though that one was shallow.
Before Night Terror could tear himself away from the creature, six powerful limbs latched onto him. The behemoth's long neck curved backward like a tensed bowstring, its ugly broken maws snapping wide open with a bone-chilling cry as it lunged forward, desperate to tear a chunk from Night Terror.
Before its head could connect, another black flash streaked across the sky. The same rolling move that Night Terror had performed—the creature unfurled mid-fall, its four hands each clutching curved black swords, its narrowed white eyes gleamed wickedly as it studied the winged creature with cold savagery.
"Wow..."
Northern's eyes widened, sparkling with awe.
'These bastards! They really have grown tremendously.'
Black Mamba landed on the rooftop of another building, his cold eyes still wickedly gleaming.
Northern sensed something in the creature's gaze. A silent focus, something desperate, longing, yearning. Like a hunter finding an essential puzzle piece, wanting to complete what was started.
Black Mamba crouched and catapulted himself into the air again. Although his takeoff wasn't as destructive as Night Terror's, it still sent tremors through the entire building.
He latched onto another creature while Night Terror soared past Northern and collided with another winged Behemoth that was hurtling toward him.
Invisible cuts separated the creature instantly, causing different parts of its body to fall in a macabre rain of black blood.
Night Terror descended upon the next creature, gripping it with two hands while using his other two to shred the creature's skin apart, his black sword dissolving into mist.
Although it took more effort than expected, and by the time Northern glanced away, the tough hide hadn't yet yielded to the assault.
The next summon that seized Northern's awe was Light of Featherstone. Siegfreid moved as a streak of radiance flowing through the air with celestial grace. The regal knight darted too swiftly to track, gliding seamlessly like pristine water through the night wind.
His elegant flow, however, harbored destruction. His sword couldn't split the abominations' skin with a single strike, but something about each blow drove the creatures to insidious madness, fixating their gazes upon him as they relentlessly pursued the luminous streak.
Because of this distraction, a large portion of the winged behemoths broke from their uniform formation, desperately chasing after the Light of Featherstone but never catching him.
This strategic diversion made combat easier for the others.
First came Shard Creeper. The Void Goat simply landed on an abomination and instantly immobilized it, then leapt to another and froze it in place.
All victims remained trapped in horrifying illusions spawned from their own memories.
As Shard Creeper jumped to another Behemoth, Lynus followed through, silver wings like crystalline glass fluttering in the wind, effortlessly carrying him from target to target.
His strikes pulsed with ruthless ferocity, working in tandem with his talent to render things brittle before shattering them like glass.
This talent carried various strengths and limitations, though it had grown exceptionally potent after Lynus recently ascended to Savant status during the battle with the floor boss in the dungeon.
The remaining creatures were contained by Jeci, Bairan, and Revant.
Jeci couldn't accomplish much alone, so she worked in harmony with Bairan, essentially riding the slipstream of the sword king. She followed him with sleek precision, either darting from his side to thrust her spear in supporting strikes or crashing into another abomination before letting the sword king follow with the finishing blow.
The Sword King himself lacked nothing. Each movement flowed with Terror's essence, his blade defying distance with deceptive reach.
He advanced with that characteristic drowsy gaze, occasionally opting to drive his elbow into the maws of an abomination, seize its neck, pivot, and hurl it at Revant.
Revant would glower wickedly before catching the abomination and drenching it in an ocean of palpable despair. The creature would literally shrink before his eyes, its blood drying out with a sickening hiss as Revant exhaled.
Several creatures actively avoided him. An invisible shroud of despair cloaked Revant, making him unapproachable—not that he seemed to care. He appeared and vanished through the air at will, materializing wherever he pleased.
Toward any location where he might emerge, Bairan would invariably hurl abominations. Sometimes, moments before Revant reappeared, three behemoths were already sailing through the air toward his position.
For the Tyranny of Despair, dispatching enemies required minimal effort. No matter how incomplete a Tyrant he might be, he existed on a level apart from the others, isolated in his terrible power.
All he needed to kill a creature was to remove his white gloves and hold it in his grasp. Any creature that lingered in his presence was doomed to suffer terribly from a harrowing wound that drained their soul. When he clutched them directly, that intangible assault became viciously tangible, drying out not just their soul but their physical form as well.
Being the Tyranny of Despair, Revant's ability transcended the morphological composition of monsters. It cared nothing for how tough or resilient their skin might be. Despair bypassed such nonsense and feasted directly on the soul itself.
Northern surveyed the choreography of chaos his void summons wove around him.
He hadn't even made his entrance yet, and already the battle seemed to be drawing to a close.
He grinned with satisfaction.
'This is good, really good.'