Elemental Cats

The spies in the Redire Kingdom's ranks weren't from the Tribe of Death. But it seemed like the Redire Kingdom, or at least the people from it, had cooperated with Beltor to betray the human realm in the war with the Tribe of Death.

But the demon that Toz saw in Treblor Forest was neither from the Tribe of Death nor the Tribe of Blood. To Toz, it looked like there was a fourth party. One that Anaster was part of. And that acted like a middleman between the Tribe of Blood and Beltor and the Tribe of Death. But without the Tribe of Death knowing about the Tribe of Blood's intentions.

It was messy, unnecessarily so, in Toz's opinion. But at least it didn't look like Anaster's faction didn't have any intentions of joining the battle. They had done what they were supposed to or whatever. That was why Anaster had retreated through the portal after his fight with Toz. There was nothing left for him to do on the battlefield.

Toz looked at the cloth pouch attached to his waist. That was probably Anaster's goal. But whether Toz or Anaster took it didn't really matter. It was fine as long as the Tribe of Death couldn't use it anymore. Without the Fountain of Death, the Tribe of Death wouldn't be able to put up any resistance against the Blood of Death's intervention in the war.

Toz was sure he had missed a few details, and he still didn't know why the Tribe of Blood had decided to intervene in a proxy war between the Obsidian Empire and the Tribe of Death. But those questions sank in importance as the magic circle neared completion.

The pulsating waves of red light grew in frequency until they turned into a steady stream of light, growing denser and darker by the second. The light converged in the center of the battlefield and created a large pool of dark red glistening light so condensed it looked like a fluid. It looked like blood, which was very fitting since it seemed like the Tribe of Blood's ultimate magic.

But Toz couldn't understand why they would go to such lengths just to summon a pool of blood.

However, it looked like he would get his answer soon enough. But before he could, chaos broke out in the ranks of the Alliance of Kingdoms.

It took a few moments for General Scoll to figure out what was going on, but when he did, hundreds of people had already died. The slaves rampaged like enraged beasts and killed everyone around them before finally killing themselves with an explosion when they were finally caught.

"Derada."

Following General Scoll's order, Derada's hand twitched, and everyone with slave collars twitched before falling to the ground, unconscious.

"Full retreat!"

General Scoll's voice helped his troops endure the overwhelmingly ominous pressure of the blood magic and helped them slowly back away from the battlefield. But he couldn't help but worry since he had no idea what was going to come out of the blood pool conjured by the Tribe of Blood.

He knew there were spies among the Redire Kingdom and that the slaves were most likely compromised, but he had thought that it was just insurance or the like by the Tribe of Death. Or that another faction had subtly begun to take over the Redire Kingdom from within before the war even began and was going to pretend all was fine for the duration of the war. Maybe it was a faction that simply wanted to get some inside information on the war.

General Scoll had still prepared countermeasures in case it wasn't something as harmless as that. But he hadn't expected the Tribe of Blood to be behind it all.

"Derada, get rid of the spies with maximum efficiency."

"Mmm."

Since it was just a proxy war between the Obsidian Empire and the Tribe of Death, the Tribe of Blood shouldn't have had a reason for intervening in the war since they would catch the ire of both the Obsidian Empire and the Tribe of Death.

"Riella, contact miss Dyra."

Riella fished an obsidian toke out of one of her pockets and injected her mana into it. She waited a few precious moments before speaking.

"She's not answering."

General Scoll frowned.

"Try again."

"..."

Riella simply shook her head with a worried look on her face. General Scoll frowning so deeply was never a good sign.

"Fuck. They sold us."

General Scoll cursed and rammed his hand against the railing. He didn't know what was going on or what had changed since the beginning of the war. But it was obvious that the Obsidian Empire and the transcendent Tribe of Death knew about and accepted the Tribe of Blood's participation in battle.

The only solace they had was that Derada was successful, and all the spies wearing the bracelets made by Derada were killed.

The Obsidian Empire might have abandoned them, but General Scoll had no intentions of dying, and he was about to order Kahglia and Toz to retreat. Considering how much they had done for the war and the humans of the Mortal Realm, General Scoll refused to leave them behind.

If they could make it to the base, they might be able to use Merr's ability to get off the plane. And hopefully, there would still be a few ships left to take all the troops.

However, before General Scoll could issue his order to retreat to Kahglia and Toz, magic surged toward the center of the battlefield and the blood pool started bubbling. The ominous feeling across the plane grew in intensity as the bubbling spiraled out of control before abruptly calming down.

The bubbling and calming down were repeated several times before it became obvious that the amount of blood had decreased dramatically.

It looked like the pool of blood started bubbling again, but it was an illusion caused by how the blood moved and twisted to gather in the center of the pool. The blood rose up and condensed into a humanoid figure.

The Blood Fiend stood tall at over twenty meters tall and overwhelmed its surroundings with an overwhelming pressure that was beyond the ninth level.