Jianmen coursed through the sky swinging his weapons around, while paying attention to the status of the dark orb as well as Josephine Wong and her team. He was specifically targeting the more powerful Defilers that came out of the orb, because as of right now, slaying them or even just damaging them would release the most energy that could be absorbed by the tear in the world, while the weaker lower tier ones were being swarmed by the creatures of the gaps, leaving the tired and wounded human fighters time to breathe.

Though grossly lacking in power when battling actual Defilers, the creatures of the gaps were able to achieve quite some results with their sheer numbers, as well as their emotionless nature - they had no fear, and they could continue fighting even when the majority of their bodies were destroyed, and what was more was that their bodies were apparently changed somehow by some kind of process, as when they eventually died and faded, their cores would explode, releasing energy shards at all Defilers around them.

Xyn joined the fight flying around in this realm and striking, slicing and cutting every mid tier Defiler it came into contact with, which alleviated a lot of Jianmen and Tze Cha’s pressure. But Tze Cha was not as reserved as Jianmen, and he decided he would let Xyn know his resentment, despise and disdain  for this god of the void and of all elementals the first time they came face to face.

“As a god, this was such a cowardly thing to do.” Tze Cha sneered: “Letting the feeble fight and die first, then getting into it only when it is convenient for you? That’s far from godly if you asked me, or anyone.”

“You have no idea what the presence of Defilers means to a fallen god like me.” Xyn responded as he crushed the skull of a mantis-shaped mid tier Defiler with the pummel of his scythe: “They are far more resistant towards the power of gods than to any other form of energy and attacks, which means if I was at the same power level of the humans below, I couldn’t even do half the damage they could do to the Defilers. And what’s worse was that they were able to track the traces of godly power and hunt us down even when we’ve escaped to realms far, far beyond the original positions of contact.”

“Yeah, arrogance, conceit, some more examples of the vices one would imagine only the lowly mortals possess.” Tze Cha flipped his tail and crashed a small group of Defilers coming his way: “Believe me when I tell you, as an Omen Dragon, and a being that was once there to take over a godhood if I wanted to, that I know more than you can ever imagine. ”

“Then you would understand why I need to make preparations, when the demand to arm and go to war comes at such a short notice.” Xyn answered with a calm tone: “I need to isolate my kingdom, my realm and my children from the potential harms that could befall them if this situation could not be contained.”

“And yet, these people are here, willing to sacrifice their names, their lives and their existence to mend the world.” Jianmen budged in from the side: “We have a war to fight, your arguments and quarrels need to wait. ” The next moment, Jianmen threw an orange and golden energy sword down, which impaled a humongous Defiler taking the form of a hydra and was trying to launch an attack on the positions of Josephine Wong’s team.

“Crack!” An abrupt change in the stability of the energy fields and even space and time occurred, Jianmen looked back at the dark orb, and found that it expanded in size and changed in shape - now it was like a long, dark rip in the thin air, through which a humanoid creature with burning golden eyes was trying to squeeze into this world.

“Phase Two.” Jianmen sighed and delivered a message to everyone present.

The next moment, Jianmen’s whole figure turned into a stream of orange and golden energy and launched itself right at the dark long rip

“Ting!” A loud crash like that of two pieces of extremely metal exploded from the rip, where Jianmen’s meat cleaver clashed with the palm of the dark humanoid creature.

“Long time no see, fucker.” Jianmen laughed, and orange and golden light exploded from his left chest; it was so bright that all the Defilers on the battlefield were frozen and turned into ashes in an instant.

When the light died down, there were no Defilers in the battle field, Jianmen was nowhere to be seen, and the tear in the world became the dark orb again.

“Phase Two! Phase Two!” Josephine Wong wiped the corners of her eyes clean, then said to all the human forces present: “Everyone on guard! They will start to come again, unleash everything!”

“What happened?” Professor Barnes looked at Josephine Wong, slightly confused: “I - did I forget something? I feel like something was on my mind - but I can’t seem to grasp it.”

“You will find out when we survive. But it’s time to face the worst part of this fight.”

“That fucking crazy, stupid, lunatic.” Xyn cursed: “He bet his name on this.”

“That’s, well, surely one way to isolate.” Tze Cha narrowed his eyes and slowly descended in the air: “Come now you old rut, he’s gone now, and the fight’s gonna be a lot harder.”

Some more Defilers started coming out from the dark orb, this time they were more ferocious, faster and stronger - there was a calm, warm and gentle aura in this realm that would have suppressed their power when they came out, but now it was no longer there.

600! Due to my reasons, only one chapter today, hope you enjoy!

Shoutouts to my patrons:

mant06,

Jonathan

Thank you very much!

-Egao Chan