The intense battle against the Red-Foot demons lasted for a solid 90 minutes until the overwhelming enemy numbers ensured that Max was constantly pressured to be on the move and deal with immediate attack threats.
In those 90 minutes the combined army of the undead and Anna slaughtered thousands of enemy troops while Max more than doubled that number on his own.
The combined death toll climbed to over 120k dead demons wiping nearly 50% off the enemy forces.
All their tier 5 commanders were dead, Max had made short work of them, while their tier4 leaders were struggling to maintain proper defensive lines against the relentless assault.
A breaking point was reached and the lack of stronger troops finally caught up to the demons as they were being pushed further and further back by the tide of the undead and Max was gaining more and more time to manoeuvre and dish out bigger attacks.
From that point onward, the fight was pretty much straight forward with little to no resistance.
With every shot of Anna's bow half a dozen men fell dead with her kill per minute nearing 60 men.
The calls of retreat could be heard as the demons lost more and more ground and their leaders could no longer force them to fight against the plummeting morale.
However even in retreat their horrified faces told a story of its own.
Giant tornadoes and the sharpest water needles pelted them through their retreat path, the strong winds forcing them to run sideways instead of in a straight line, while they defenselessly prayed for survival.
Nobody stopped for even a second as the men running beside them staggered and fell, some died and some were claimed by the winds.
Those that survived only wanted to run to safety, away from the madman who single handedly decimated their entire forces.
" Anna, Sebastian, smash every last orb " Max said as the last of the enemy troops could be seen fleeing away from the fields that they were supposed to protect as Sebastian and Anna did not waste a second more and began destroying every orb in sight.
Sebastian had thought that the orbs were fragile when he looked at them from a distance, but he could have never imagined just how fragile they were until he swung his axe at one of them.
The orb duplicate shattered with the slightest touch from his axe as if it were made of thin glass and only then did Sebastian realise that the orb field was not illusionary at all, but rather some demon had carefully crafted a duplicate orb and engraved a levitation rune on them to create this field.
For a nerve wrecking 15 minutes Max was on the lookout for any powerful entities zooming in towards him to protect the orb, but then he heard a distinct *CRACKLE* as Sebastian smashed through an orb that was a little harder than the others.
[ System Notification - Your party has destroyed a dark faction orb!
Congratulations you have performed a meritorious deed for your faction ]
Max only glanced at the notification and instantly jumped towards Anna and Sebastian wrapping them in a wind blanket before taking off.
He did not wish to stay inside the enemy territory even a second more than he absolutely needed to and now that their purpose for the mission was complete he retreated instantly.
Max trusted his instincts and his instincts told him that someone would come chasing him and it would turn ugly.
He did not wish for such a conflict today.
Only when they landed back on the Bloodfall fortress did Max sigh in releif as he scanned the sky using [ Way Of The Wind ] and found that nobody had breached their airspace.
He had successfully completed the first raid and was probably one of the first ones to get a score for the light faction.
Although it was just one orb out of a thousand, it sure felt good to have played a part in the victory for the light faction.
*********
( Meanwhile Lucifer )
Lucifer was still in the process of discovering the true powers of the seed of darkness.
The seed of darkness was a treasure that was best kept away from oneself if they did not wish to go mad.
Unlike some other tier10 treasures that were safe to keep on one's body, the seed of darkness was not.
If one was in contact with it for long periods of time even if they were a monarch the seed would influence their conscience and make them have darker thoughts.
Never in his entire existence had the devil ever thought about committing suicide, yet when he was contemplating about the true powers of the seed he had the thoughts about self harm for the first time in his lifetime.
It was for this reason he chose to embed the seed in his sword instead of carrying it directly and discover its secrets slowly.
Only now did he learn about how to manipulate the darkness to form a body armour around himself, not just one that would protect him, but something that could engulf all incoming attacks as if it were a spacial portal.
If he so willed it, he could engulf living beings within his armour which was incredible considering the fact that not even the system space could store living creatures and he had tested his armour to have the capability to completely negate attacks even uptil tier6 rank without a trace.
He was already an excellent offensive fighter who was wielding a sword embedded with a tier10 treasure, but with this newfound ability he had significantly improved his defence as well making him a more versatile and vastly improved warrior.
A sinister grin spread on Lucifer's face as he lovingly raced his fingers around his sword of darkness as he said " Oh big brother Micheal, I have finally surpassed you in strength.
You will fall to my sword in battle! "
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/// A/N - Bonus chapter for hitting the GT target, good job everyone.
We have slowed down a little in this area. Hopefully we pick it back up soon ///