Awake again. After such a long time. And just as the Harpy opened his eyes, he saw bountiful prey coming toward him from above.

At least 300 darkans. Led by one who felt especially strong.

Obur had never fought darkans before this present clash and so the Harpy hadn’t, either. He had only been able to observe from behind the eyes of their body’s temporary master as he had been beaten by that same darkan – the one named Mastrot – until now.

And during all that – during the entirety of the Dreadblade Fortress Battle so far, actually – the Headless Demon had been yearning for the Literature teacher to either get so close to death or so mentally unstable that he would yield control over to him.

Finally, his time had come. And in this particular instance it had felt like Obur had given him more leeway than any other time when they had traded places. So the Harpy planned to make the most of the presented opportunity.

First, though, he needed to check his body’s current condition just in case. After all, the more he destroyed of it, the closer he would get to being forced to switch with Mr. Segune.

The body’s extremely muscular upper half, that had dark blue skin with the exception of a lighter blue bolt-shaped scar covering most of the left pectoral and each hand’s four fingers that were beige in color and had dark purple claws, had sustained some damage, but nothing too bad – the right arm and most of the right pectoral and rib under it were missing. Those missing parts had already been replaced by instinctively made magenta lightning replicas, however, so it was fine.

After going to pick up Obur’s cut-off head that had fallen behind him and absorbing it in his belly, the Harpy continued with a check of what had appeared from his neck up in place of that head. It was a mass of magenta lightning partially shaped like a harpy eagle’s head with two especially big bundles of feathers sticking out of it a bit like horns, but having no beak or other structure on the front part with the exception of two empty black orbs serving as eyes.

Presently it was undamaged, which was also valid for the pair of massive eagle wings on the Headless Demon’s back that had very dark purple feathers with black streaks and magenta tips.

As for the lower half with feathers covering the area around the waste and a little under it and otherwise dark purple skin sprayed with beige spots and big hoofs instead of normal human feet, it seemed no injuries had been suffered by it, either. In short, around 70% of the Headless Demon’s body was still intact, meaning he could unleash his full power with no worry about the consequences.

Just as he came to that realization, the darkan bone mass reached him, out if it erupting multiple long necks made of darkness and Karaid and having the skulls of different animals at the end, Mastrot himself having landed on the biggest one in the center of the mass – the dragon one – and roaring with all his mad fury.

(Mastrot) ‘So you transformed to protect those brats who tried to slow me down with their annoying tricks?!! To slow down my men?!! Are you so naïve as to believe something like that could keep the darkans at bay, Obur?!!

If you truly are, allow us to show you nothing in this world can stop us!!! WE ARE THE DARKAN LORDS OF RAXUL!!! HEIRS TO THE DARK TITANS WHO ONCE RULED THE WHOLE UNIVERSE!!!!’

Mastrot paused his roaring for a moment in order to make all the skulls blow out tremendously huge Karaid roars with darkness cores, at the same time as that barrages upon barrages of fangs, claw- and spike-type bones made of those two devas being fired by the bone mass. Then the darkans all roared together.

(Mastrot, the darkans) ‘SKELETAL DARKNESS GENESIS: ROARING TORRENTS OF THE VOID!!!!!!!!’

The Harpy blew out a single magenta lightning roar from his own mouth, suddenly the size of that roar growing exponentially until it completely dwarfed not only the darkans’ attacks, but the whole mass they were moving in as well.

Obur’s replacement didn’t need to shout out any technique names. He couldn’t care less about that.

All he cared about was enjoying the carnage to the max.

And he went after precisely that in the wake of the darkness bone mass falling apart after being consumed by his roar, quickly selecting the targets closest to him to exterminate with extreme prejudice first. Mastrot and co. managed to soon recover from being hit by that amount of electricity, of course, retaliating by sending multiple Karaid darkan-based skeletons equipped with darkness bone swords, spears, axes, hammers, maces, bows and the like, as well as darkness skeletal bat wings, at him.

The Headless Demon spread his wings wide, firing thousands of continuously multiplying feathers from them that were quickly clad in much bigger versions of themselves made of magenta lightning, hitting all the winged skeletons before they could reach him, but not before they could throw their spears or fire their arrows at him. Out of those emerged the darkans themselves, now creating a tightening ring of their devas around their opponent to crush him and then drain his life with darkness, gigantic skeleton arms holding scythes coming out of the ring’s interior to swing and cut Obur’s replacement many times over and not allow him to counter in any way.

All that did was bring a smile to the Harpy’s face, raising his right arm and clenching its fist to give the command for the feathers he had used to destroy the skeletons to each burst in a thousand-feather-barrage, creating an omni-directional attack with that. Not all the undead humanoids could counter that or couldn’t counter it fully, the cuts and burns they suffered distracting them enough to create the opening the Headless Demon was looking for to start the slaughter face-to-face.

Many darkans tried creating clones to deceive him, but that couldn’t possibly work against the Headless Demon now. He could sense the fear of the real ones, simply using the lightning claws he had clad his hands in and wings also fully clad in electricity to cut through the copies and hit their makers.

Obur’s replacement deliberately tore off the helmets of those who still had them on so he could look at their shocked, terrified and pain-ridden faces during their last moments, making sure to spare a couple of moments for each one before moving on to the next. Some had their head cut clean off. Others lost their intestines, other internal organs, the entirety of their ribcages and so on, others yet had their limbs severed and then there were those simply burned with so much lightning, they melted into oblivion.

The Harpy was laughing for all of it, even when Mastrot and those still capable to fight put him in a cloud of complete darkness to strike at him from all sides without him being able to see where they were coming from. First up they trapped him in a colossal ribcage, impaling him on many bone stakes inside and then wrapping spinal columns around his wrists, ankles, neck, waist and wings in order to tear them off his body.

And they did. Amid sprays of blood and magenta lightning the Headless Demon lost all his limbs, his head-like replacement, his wings and had his torso torn up. But his echoing laughter did not disappear even with that.

For his deva created replicas of all he had lost in mere moments, now most of his body being made of magenta lightning. The positive result of that resurrection, however, was the total despair of his enemies, proof of which was their cloud of infinite blackness weakening enough for the crushing of a lightning-infused fist in its surface to bring all of it down.

Amid its shattered pieces and on a wide deva platform of his own making, Obur’s replacement stepped forward to look at how astounded and even discouraged the darkans, including Mastrot, had become.

(Mastrot) ‘HOW?!?!! What are you?!!! This is not regeneration!!! What is it?!!?!! How can you still be alive, monster?!!’

(The Harpy) ‘Oh? What is this? The darkan lords of Raxul trembling in fear? You said earlier you were disappointed in the Headless Harpy Demon, didn’t you? But you hadn’t met him back then.

You’ve met him now and he’s the one who’s disappointed, Mastrot. So like you said to Obur, no more time should be wasted on trash like you.’

As the Demon launched himself forward, a last desperate attempt was made to keep him away, multiple circles full of different skulls, but mostly darkan-based ones, being formed around him so that the roars of their mouths/jaws and beams from their eyes/horns could annihilate him before being able to reach his prey. At the same time typhoons of Karaid were sent above and below him and then from every direction conceivable, thousands of clones and weapons being hidden in those. Then as a final precaution Mastrot and co. clad themselves in multilayered cloaks of their two devas that made their whole bodies look as if they were made of blackness with the exception of their eyes that had turned dark purple.

Even their own uniforms and armor were decayed away by how intense their cloaks were, but in their desperation they were clearly willing to risk it all to ensure their survival. So they roared and fought on while the Harpy destroyed their insignificant attacks one after the other.

First, he created a miniature storm inside each one of the skulls gathered in the circles around him, with the skulls’ destruction those miniature storms merging into bigger and bigger ones, their next target being the typhoons full of clones and weapons. To reinforce the destruction they could bring, typhoons of feathers were run through the storms as well, shattering all the darkans had created in a flash, finally all storms coming together into one majestic cloud to illuminate half of Deckstoru in magenta.

And as rains of dark purple feathers well upon them, the Reaper of those who had long been known as the Reapers of Saiten came to finish off the remaining garbage now that their will had been completely broken.

With all other options exhausted, they threw themselves at him for deva-empowered hand-to-hand combat, one darkan trying to crush a double fist in his head from behind, which was blocked by his wings. After the wings pushed that target back, an elbow pierced through his ribcage and a beam of magenta lightning shot his heart out from his back and through several others of his kind.

Meanwhile the Headless Demon’s other hand was used to punch the jaw out of the head on a darkan woman, that jaw also being clad in electricity and turned into a projectile which took out Mastrot’s left eye. The woman’s body was torn in half, each piece being enveloped in bolts and launched through the torsos of a dozen targets in opposite directions, amidst the smoke risen from that the Harpy kicking his next male opponent in the throat to make him choke.

Some darkan women were protecting a group of children nearby, after noticing that, Obur’s replacement finding it so sweet, he couldn’t help but think of a lovely way to kill them all. Namely, a lightning bomb was planted down the choking darkan’s throat and he was then thrown at the women and children.

After they all blew up, Mastrot managed to stab the Headless Demon from behind, tearing apart his torso a second time with a bear skull manifest. And that wasn’t all he did, making the fangs in the skull’s jaws separate from the rest to become high-speed darkness bullets that pierced the monster’s body again and again, all the while the darkan captain roaring with tears in his eyes.

(Mastrot) ‘I will never let you!!! I will never let you bring upon our end!!! Not you, creature!! We darkans will …’

Having already created a torso entirely made of lightning in place of the one he had lost, the Harpy broke free of the Karaid and darkness his opponent was pointlessly trying to channel through him, grabbing the captain by the jaw from behind and in turn channeling lightning through the inside of his body. He simultaneously clad himself in his deva for protection from the attacks of the remaining darkans daring to oppose him, now getting Mastrot in front of him so he could look in his eyes and enjoy his full succumbing to despair while crushing his face little by little.

(The Harpy) ‘Now that I think about it, you’ve tried all the fighting styles against me, right? I haven’t tested mine on you, though. So how about it? First, I’ll finish the stronger ones with a few legions of clones.’ – on his command thousands of copies of him made of magenta lightning manifested in the sky, going through the survivors with the same speed, ferocity and twisted joy as their maker to tear them apart in multiple bloody whirlwinds – ‘And then I’ll mix some structure making with totem manifestation to end the rest.

See, Obur’s really good at using all the styles, but for me, making structures has always been impossible. The only structure I know how to make is that of my own body. But I’m so good at it that I can create fully functioning replacements for every single detail of my form via my deva.

That’s why your attacks won’t be able to kill me. And why this one will kill all of you.’ – the storm cloud above was torn up to reveal a colossus more gigantic than the one Deathaxe had made during his decimation of the Allied Forces of Deckstoru three weeks back, this one looking like the Harpy, but having an actual harpy eagle’s head and wings too radiant and majestic to put into words – ‘Since this will bring an end to the darkan race, I might as well make an exception and name it, right, Mastrot? How about ‘Headless Harpy’s Darkan-Ending Bolt-Feather Feast’, hm?’

Mastrot could no longer talk. Firstly, because he had lost all his teeth and most of his jaw already. And secondly, because every ounce of hope had left his eyes.

In truth, there wasn’t even despair in them anymore.

Only a madman’s awe remained.

So the Headless Demon guessed he was probably thinking something like ‘Oh! What a beautiful end! What a blessing! To be slaughtered by a god!!! I worship only you now!!! You are my true savior!!! May you annihilate the rest of the world as gloriously as you have done with my kind!!!’ while watching his people being reached by torrents of feathers and lightning bolts so dense, they no longer even remotely resembled rain. They were just heaven-splitting, ground-shaking waves, each of which was sprayed with darkan blood until no more of that species’ blood was left to spill.

Having made sure Mastrot was broken completely and had become the sole remaining darkan survivor without counting Deathaxe, the Harpy simply let him fall down then, so his bones could shatter to pieces along with the other remaining parts of his body when he hit the ground.

(The Harpy) ‘Hmmm … that was really good. I’ve still got a little bit time left, though, so might as well go and have some fun.

Killing Deathaxe isn’t an option, because I’ll switch with Obur before I can finish him off, but the Sunbird School Force … I could sure kill quite a few of them.’ – just before the Headless Demon descended, he saw a silhouette ascending closer and closer to him, when that silhouette got close enough, being revealed as the dead serious Gudard Beo who was carrying a barely alive darkan dressed just like Mastrot – ‘What is it, old man? You want to die first? If you’re that eager, I’ll oblige.’

(Gudard) ‘Actually, I came to use this one to negotiate with the darkans, because I knew Obur couldn’t take all of them down himself. But to decide to switch with you? I’ll be sure to scold that brat good when you give him back the body.’

(The Harpy) ‘It’s good you brought that piece of shit here, actually, cuz I’m on a darkan killing spree, but Gudard …you beat one of them and think you can take me on? Is that how senile you’ve become?’

Seeing as how his hostage had become useless, Gudard let the darkan drop and meet his death the way Mastrot had, focusing his full attention on Obur’s replacement when he answered.

(Gudard) ‘Unlike you, harpy brat, I’ve been saving my strength for when it counts. For example, when I have to teach a little shit like you how to respect your elders. And that you’re not the only Five Powers’ Champion around here.’