Catherine, Tanya, Alissa, Larissa and Monet stepped out of Castle Rothskull a week later, together with Angelica, Jessica, Charlotta, Serena and Valerie. They were clothed in leathers and fortunately there were a few storage rings they could use to carry some supplies with them. 

Although they hadn't fully mastered their new abilities yet, but they knew how to use them at will, and could use their vampire, werewolf and zombie attributes quite naturally by now. 

Besides,  they were all battle hardened veterans anyway, and were much stronger, faster and had alot more mana than before. 

"Aah bright!" Tanya used her arm to hide her face from the bright sun on her face, after being holed up in the castle for a week. 

"At least you're not disintegrating to ash" Monet replied, thankful that as a vampire hybrid, they didn't have the vulnerability to sunlight.

As they wondered out of the hidden valley, and found that the exit to the valley was blocked by a rockslide.

"Lionel must have collapsed it to hide the castle" Catherine said. 

They levitated over the high walls of the valley, and landed on the other side. Looking back, the hidden castle was fully hidden now and the cliff and valley surrounding it now looked just like a mountain. 

As the exited the valley, the girls from the castle bade their goodbyes and headed towards the End of Days. It was no longer safe to stay in the castle, and they were only Level 1 anyway. 

"Do you think those girls will be ok?" Tanya asked

"They're super hybrids like us. But their battle abilities are at least Level 3. They should do fine" Larissa said. 

They took to the air again, and flew towards what was Fort Larimar. 

On the way, they saw several strange sights, among them, hundred of the black blades turned to stone. There were also several hundred of them in another area, all collapsed to the ground and lifeless. 

There were other piles of black blades ripped to pieces and those that just collapsed dead. But these were more scattered. 

"I wonder what happened here?" Alissa asked

Tanya had an idea, but she kept quiet. The others saw the petrified bodies in Castle Rothskull too, so they knew that Lionel had this ability.  

Her guesses were correct. They were all Lionel as he tested his petrification gaze and his death scream on them. He also used his claws, his poison and his death touch, but they weren't as effective. 

As they arrived Fort Larimar, they were shocked at what they saw.

"Oh my God!" Monet exclaimed

"Not a single building...." Catherine muttered. 

"How... this is madness. Who or what were those creatures?" Alissa asked

"Look! Over there in the distance!" Larissa suddenly said.

They looked where they were pointing and they saw a woman walking over from afar. 

She was completely naked, and carrying a sword. She saw them from afar and flew towards them at high speeds.

As she approached, Tanya recognized her. 

"Lady Sophia?" Tanya gasped

"Tanya! Thank God! You are the first people I've seen" Sophia said, out of breath.

"What happened?" Catherine asked as she gave Sophia some clothes 

Sophia explained that the black blades attacked her father, Duke Roland's territory and slaughtered everyone and destroyed everything. 

She fought with all her might with her claws and fangs after her sword broke on the first black blade, and she was over run by the creatures after a short futile battle. She was torn to shreds and that was all she remembered of that battle. 

Several hours later, she awoke, naked and saw everything destroyed. Only her hereditary sword Durandal was recovered and she immediately went to Tir na rog but was shocked to see it in the same condition. 

As the only other place with a population big enough to hopefully have survivors in the Badlands were Fort Larimar, that was where she headed and after 2 days, here she is. 

She recounted the same things the other saw, namely large groups of petrified or dead black blades. 

"I think there is no place in the Badlands for us anymore. We should head back towards the End of Days" Catherine said. 

The rest agreed. Now that there was no longer any safe place in the Badlands which were the lawless border area between the Gods controlled End of Days and the Demonic lands, it was probably a good idea to get out of there. 

Since they still had a tremendous amount of energy due to their enhanced stamina, they started flying towards the boundaries of the End of Days at the highest speed they could muster. 

--

In the outer depths of the Badlands, Lionel stood half naked. His clothes had already been torn and there were hundreds of creatures around him. 

They weren't the black blades. Instead they looked like wraiths, floating in the air in black rags. They looked like dementors in the Harry Potter movies and they similarly had some sort of lifedrain ability.

However, Lionel had such abilities himself, so he was largely immune to their touch. On the other hand, they were ethereal and seemed to be immune to most of his attacks too, except one. 

He could still petrify them with his petrification gaze. He turned them into stone and as they were flying, they crumbled to pieces as their bodies crashed to the ground. 

Besides the bodies of these wraiths, there were hundreds of dead bodies, their lives completely sucked out of them, and their corpses were littered everywhere. 

Suddenly, something caught Lionel's eye. It was an arm. It was HIS charred arm and the dirty ring on the finger looked familiar.

Lionel picked up the arm, and retrieved the ring. 

As he put it on and frowned as he checked the contents. It was his armor and Brick, his warhammer.

He took out his warhammer and looked at it. It was different now as it glowed a strange black fire that was flickering a dark purple color. It looked like Ra's flame!

His once beautiful armor, made of basilisk and medusa skin had completely blackened too. But it still looked durable so he put in on again as his current clothes were already rags.

It was only now that he saw his warhammer, that he realized that Vulcan had altered his warhammer a bit. Not only did he add even more weight after hearing that Lionel defeated Typhon and Echidna, he changed the design as well.  

At one end of the weapon was the head, where one side of the head was blunt like a regular warhammer, but the other side of the head was a sharp axe. This was still the same as originally, except the whole head of the weapon was glowing with the strange fire. 

However, the other change was at the other end. It now had a spear head, so the other end of the weapon could be used as a spear and it was glowing with black flame as well. 

Lionel looked at more wraiths that were approaching and instead of throwing his weapon head first, he threw it the spear end forwards.

It flew in a beautifully balanced manner, somehow impaling through several ethereal wraiths and burning them into ashes. 

"Excellent" Lionel smiled.