Lord Shadow

BOOM!!

The sound broke the sky and the sight of a gigantic coffin heading to the Island make everyone, on every side to stop what they are doing.

The heaven and earth trembled following the deafening sound, storms were formed as a dark energy filled the world.

On the Northern part, the tens of thousands of crows merged as they morphed into many figures of terrifying beings that seem hellish and ugly.

They have horns, fangs, dark wings, and distorted face while some have chimeric combination of body parts each one is more hideous than the other.

Ten Thousand Demons were summoned as dark energy filled the island, demonic wind swept the island.

For each one thousand demons there is one leader that led them. There is ten Great Demon that rules one thousand demons.

Each one of them form a legion of Demonic Legion each one holding a red banner with the crest of a Red Spear

They stand on the air, one thousand demons standing behind one Great Demon each, creating an image of Demonic soldiers that escape Hell.

There is ten leaders.

And each of them looked different than the rest of the other Demons.

They seem to be self-aware and intelligent compared to the soldiers behind them that only seems to snarled or growl like mindless beast.

Loki recognize all of these Ten Great Demonic Beings as he smiles viciously

‘Let see whether the cages you summoned or the Demons I summoned are stronger!’

He look towards one of the leaders of the Demons. There is the Vicious Tiger Demon that leads beastly demonic beings.

With a face of a tiger and a humanlike body standing at nine feet, he is one of the Great Demonic Being of one of the Demonic Realms in the Universe

Then not too far away from him there is the Marshal Red Bear that guarded the Gate of Demonic Realms in the border between the Three Thousand World of the Jade Empire and the Demonic Realm of Asuras and Rakshasa

This Marshall Red Bear led beastlike demonic bear that wear red armor made of dragon scales. He is twelve feet tall with big belly that seems to be able to swallow the seas.

On his left there is the White Boned Skeleton Lady, the Duchess of the Realms of Bones and Dust.

Her face has no flesh and she wear a white robe to cover her bony figures.

Behind her is demonic beings that have hideous faces and have no flesh, ready to follow her orders

Leading the fox demons is the Nine Tailed Vixen. Her face is beautiful and her smile are sly.

If not for the nine tails on her behind, no one would have thought such a beautiful being as a demons.

Her eyes could captivate weak willed beings and ensnare them into an illusion of pleasure not knowing their life force being drained at every second.

Standing not far away from the Vixen, is a hideous creature. It has a shape of a round ball with eyes all over it.

This is the Demonic being called the Thousand Eyes.

It is said it could see through everything. His army is parasitic beings that have tentacles or receptors that could do god knows what.

Squeaking and looking impatient to battle is the rats behind the Thousand Eyes army led by the ten feet rat donned in golden armor.

With a face of a rat and a humanlike muscly body it is strange for humans to see such creatures. But this kind of creature is commonplace in the Demonic realm.

And this is the famous General White Rat that governs one of the Paths toward the starry sky of the Demonic Realm.

His teeth is said to be able to chew through anything. Standing on their flanks floating with a host of beautiful woman is the Demonic Queen of the Womanly Demonic Nation.

It is a special existence and a place of rest around the border of the Three Thousand Worlds and the Demonic Realm.

They are a hedonistic nation ruled by female and only female species could enter. Those few male species that enter would be sucked dry leaving only bones

On the back, looking and surveying the world they are summoned into is the Blood Dripping Asura.

Like his name suggested, his body is dripping with blood

Behind him all of his soldiers looks like him. He fight with his Blood Clone. His blood is like acid. Whenever it drops, the thing it falls into melted.

And then there is the largest of them all. A fifty feet Black python that slithers around a floating mountain.

This is the Black Python of Yellow Blood Mountain.

It slithers around the mountain wrapping itself tight, its head on the peak of the mountain, its tail on the bottom of the floating mountain.

The fog of the mountains emitted poisonous fog but because of the dimension barrier the poisonous fog did not enter Earth. If not, all of Earth will be poisoned.

This Python has once swallowed one of the heavens of the Jade Palace and it is reputed that the Heavens still exist inside the Python stomach.

So, the python attack also possess some trace of heaven powers.

Floating above the mountains is the army of spiders demons lead by the Queen Mother of Demonic Spider that roams the Demonic realms with her children.

She has ten arms and her face possess a humanlike woman feature but when she snarled her skin turns back to her spider form.

She has once clashed with the Jade Emperor, when she weaved a web trapping the Jade Imperial Palace and ten worlds before the Heavenly Soldiers with Erlang chase her away back to the Demonic Realm.

Vicious Tiger Demon, Marshall Red Bear, White Boned Skeleton lady, Nine tailed Vixen, Thousand Eyes, General White Rat, Demonic Queen of the Womanly Demonic Nation, Blood Dripping Asura, Black Python of Yellow Blood Mountain and Queen Mother of Demonic Spider are all the subordinates of the God of Death in the future.

By that time he no longer uses the Melody of Ten Thousand Demons to control them.

By the time Azief become God of Death, his power alone had been able to subdue these ten great demonic beings.

These Ten Great Demonic Beings will one day serve the God of Death but for now, they have to serve him for a while as their contract dictated and as the Melody plays on.

All of these ten great demonic beings all swore an oath to a temple to possess the power they have now.

In the original timeline Azief found a way to control them using the Melody.

The Melody of Ten Thousand Demons was not something Loki possess.

Azief was the one that found it in some ruins of an abandoned Temple in another planet. Loki sneak a peek of the Melody when he was invited into the Underworld.

By that time, his relationship with the God of Death was not as tense as it is in the beginning.

In the beginning Azief uses it when he was in Divine Comprehension stage and when he became a Sovereign he went to the Demonic realm and battle and wreak havoc there subduing these ten great demonic being with his prowess and magic.

When he return to this timeline he still remembers the incantation and the melody but he discover he could not play the melody without some magical instrument.

At that time, the world was different.

The Sovereigns granted the world with magical powers and spells making them able to craft celestial weapons and demonic instrument.

It wasn’t until he met the Immortal Couple he realizes that Lihua flute could be considered a substitute.

But even now, it is not enough to summon them completely. But Loki never intended to summon them completely. After all their power level is too high compared to the people on Earth right now.

If he really summon them completely here, Loki fears he would only invite more trouble.

Meanwhile on the ground, those that are only on Orb Condensing Stages all fainted in fear.

The pressure coming out of this demonic beings create a powerful hallucination images that affect the mind, in recreating a person deepest fear.

On the other side of the Island, Azief look toward the sky and frown looking at the demonic creatures leading them army.

If not for the fact they seems translucent, Azief would truly felt alarm.

He look toward the Quorum building in the distance. And he look toward the sky once again as he could felt it.

This magic is not the World Government magic. He also notices the coffin descending down from the sky

The coffin is steadily descending as it breaks through the clouds. He frowns harder, this time he truly could not understand what is happening right now.

Azief was about to uses his Eternal Rings when he notices something that he could not understand.

Azief notices on the Northern part of the island the ten demonic beings that lead one thousand demons each suddenly charged the coffin on the sky instead of attacking the Island.

Meanwhile the Red Coffin was surrounded by ancient symbols as it binds the elements around it, sealing it and absorbing it.

By now Azief could even hear the Melody is being played.

The Melody seems to try to incite something inside him but Azief remains steadfast but his hand clenched into a fist.

He would not his mind falls into the Melody as his eyes shines bright, burning the illusion that is about to sprout inside his mind.

‘What kind of Melody is this?’

While, Azief on the surface, Oreki on the other hand finally come out of the tunnel on the underground secret tunnels.

What he saw was something he truly did not expect.

When he first went out of the tunnels there is a large clearing line with black trees that seems to be able to grow without the sun.

Then he passes a stream of lava river.

When he passes the river he saw a golden round steel cage that is suspended on top of a flowing burning lava.

Lying weak inside the cage is a man with blonde hair and muscly physique. Immediately Orkei recognize who that is.

‘Raymond!’ He shouted

There is no answer so she shouts again

‘Raymond!!’

This time it seems his shout has been heard as the person inside the cage stirred. He got up and look outside his cage and when he saw Oreki a smile forms on his face

‘Oreki!’ The man answer joyously forgetting his current pain for a while

He walked forwards as the clanging of the chains around his necks, feet and wrist move along with him.

A person lying on the bed on a cell about three kilometers from the golden cage also stirred awake.

Raymond look toward that direction and Oreki also look toward the direction. He was shocked again to discover someone else.

Oreki should not have been shocked since Loki has told him. But he did not entirely believe it. After all Loki is never truly honest.

He is sometimes truthful….but only up to a point.

‘Sofia!’ Oreki shouted.

This time the person was jolted awake as she run to the windows of her cell and when she saw who it was her eyes brightened

‘Oreki! Why are you here?’

Oreki shakes his head.

‘There is time for question. I need to release both of you first.’

Raymond shakes his head.

‘The cells are locked by a Keymaster. And there is Energy Absorbing Tiles.’ Raymond pointed at the floor of his cell

Oreki nodded but he doesn’t seems to be discouraged.

He heard about this tiles before. It absorb energy thus making people jailed in it unable to replenish their energy.

This would even be more fatal for Raymond since his energy is external.

Not to mention he is far from his elements. He needs to be touching the ground to call upon the power of the Earth to boost his strength.

If Azief were here he would be shocked to see the tiles. It looks exactly like the Source Fragment on Earth 39 that is used to repress the Evolver race of that Earth.

‘Don’t worry. I had help’ Oreki said as he brings out a platinum key.

He fly up to the cage, trials of crackling electricity charged the wind around him, making his body seem to be shrouded with arcs of lightning snakes.

He put the key onto the cage keyhole and with one twist of his hand, he open the door

The runes that powered the jail dimmed and the chains around Raymond cracked.

Raymond inhale a deep breath and like a starving man in front of a feast of food, he absorb the energy of the world greedily.

His pale face regains its color and his eyes brightened.

Without saying anything he jump down from his cell and the moment his feet touched the ground, it was like the entire underground tunnel path trembles.

Raymond smiles in satisfaction as he call upon the power of the Earth.

He closes his eyes and from the tree on the surface he sees the havoc on the surface. He is the Earth, he dig deeps and he saw everything.

In a way this type of assimilation with the force of the Earth is akin to Azief merging with the world.

Raymond saw through the trees, through the grass, the demons flying on the air, pushing a humongous red coffin that seems to seal everything it touches.

He saw ten demonic beings that seems nonchalant about seeing the coffins and he saw The Prince looking toward the sky, floating slowly toward the Quorum council.

Then he opens his eyes and he is back at the underground secret tunnels.

He look toward a room with dark gold security door.

He pushes his palm forward and with the force of the Earth that dark gold security door ten feet away from him bent and exploded.

Inside it is Raymond armor

Then he spoke

‘Sharur, Smasher of Thousand come to me!’ Sharur is Raymond talking mace. Inside a dusty blacksmith shop on the Island, a mace awaken.

‘Raymond, you have finally returned’ the mace seems to be talking to itself. It then fly out from the blacksmith shop and drill itself into the ground.

Nobody seems to notice this since the Island is in a state of chaos.

When the mace finished drilling the ground and arrives at the entrance of the underground tunnel, it take the form of a winged lion and flew toward sit owner and not long after it arrived in front of Raymond.

It turns back into a mace and fly towards Raymond hand

Raymond smiles and the mace said

‘Welcome back’

It only takes a few moments from the moment Raymond call for him and the time for him to arrive.

‘Sofia, wait for a while’ Raymond said as he jumped and arrive in front of the Wind Cell of Sofia in a single leap.

Now, that he is out and his mace is on his hand he smash the wind cell door but nothing seems to happen

But it did cracked. And Sofia security was not as advanced as the security the World Government put on Raymond.

A bolt of lightning flashed and Oreki was standing beside Raymond holding Raymond hand before he manages another strike

‘Like I said Raymond, I have some help’ as he brought out another key. This time the key is black.

He put it in the keyhole of the wind cell and just like that he opens the door

Wind gales shoots out the moment the door was open. Raymond just deflected it with his mace while Oreki just dodges it with his superior speed.

Oreki has many question to ask.

Like where is the security? And many other question. But he knows that from the trembling he felt since he started the journey, he doesn’t have that much time.

The Death Monarch is probably already here and duking it out with Hikigaya.

He doesn’t have much time and had to quickly fulfill his objective and explain the truth to the Death Monarch to prevent many more innocent lives swept in this internal war between Hirate and Pandikar.

Sofia and Raymond also have many question and the question they are most dying to know is

‘Who sent you?’ Sofia said almost immediately the moments she comes out of the door, her face pale and her feet seems to be trembling

‘Loki’ he said as he surveys the area. Raymond notices this and ask

‘What are you looking for?’

‘Where is Hirate?’

Raymond then look below him. Oreki understand it almost immediately.

‘He’s below and that is the entrance to where he is’ Raymond said as he pointed to a closed door

‘Tch’ Oreki complained under his breath then he look at both Raymond and Sofia and deciding they should go out first is more important for the greater picture.

Oreki look toward Sofia and said

‘Death Monarch is wreaking havoc on the Island looking for you. Go up and convince him that Hirate did not order you imprisonment and your capture. I don’t want more innocent lives to be sacrificed because of the power play between the Council and Hirate.’

‘Death Monarch?’ Sofia asked

‘That is what your man been calling himself these days.’ And Oreki look at Raymond.

‘Raymond…save whoever you can. Death Monarch would not just let it go that easily. Last time we were lucky he did not truly intending to finish us off. This time…..’ and he paused for a while before saying what he believes the worst case scenario

‘Heads will rolls and blood will spill.’

He then throws two things to Raymond.

It is the Lantern of Direction and the Steel of Direction.

‘You have to use it to pass the Maze.’

Raymond nodded as he hold Sofia hand and they run out from the tunnel. Raymond and Sofia is not like Sharur.

Sharur is a magical weapon and their magic is a bit different in that it could sometimes disregard magical formation and restriction.

Not to mention Sharur greatest and highest priority is its master orders.

When its master orders it to come, he could bypassed the formation and restriction put by formation master and Arrayist.

Magical items have their unique magic.

But Raymond and Sofia did not possess that unique magic. So they could only manually climb up the normal way. But that doesn’t means they were slow.

Now that they are released from their cages, they possess back their power and they runs as fast as the wind.

Meanwhile Oreki sighed.

Then he walk to the door where Raymond pointed and open the door.

He looked and saw a spiral staircase made of marble like stones that seems to mess with the energy of the world

Fortunately Oreki has been prepared for this. He brought out a pill from the sleeve of his cloth and gulp it down and then he walk down.

He stopped walking when he saw a metal-like minerals room etched with vibrational runes and formation

And he saw a man lying down inside the room with sagged body and faces full of tiredness and almost a glint of madness with bloodshot eyes.

And pulsating around that man is a force Oreki knows too well

‘Psionic force’ he said.

Oreki moved forward.

On the surface however Azief slowly floats toward the Quorum Building. He did not pay attention towards the sky.

No matter how vicious the coffin trying to descend, the army of Demons are making it impossible for the coffin to come down.

The Melody was playing louder and louder, that the entire island could hear it by now.

But no one knows who is playing it and what is the incantation that followed the melody means.

The weak fainted, while the few ones that are powerful enough to endure it look at the sky of a demonic battle.

The Melody seems to disturb space and even seems to be awakening certain monsters of the deep sea.

But Azief had understand certain things about these weird events that is happening right now. It had to do with Loki.

And he seems to be protecting him

‘Loki… you are making me confused’ Azief thought to himself.

‘Stop!’ A few Seed Formation master try to stop him as he approached near to the Quorum Building.

Azief did not even bother looking at them as he waves his hand, his energy of five Disk was unleashed.

The world turns dark and the energy around the island went chaotic.

A blast of energy shoot out from Azief simple casual waves. The blast stirred chaos in the Island and seemed to have sliced all the people trying to stop him into half.

Even though they are Seed Formation and only one realm below Azief they could not even put a decent fight.

The difference between them is like the vast distance of Heaven and Earth. Azief could instantly saw that those master were produced…maybe by some new technology or pills

How could they compare to the other heroes Azief has fought?

Raymond, Hikigaya and even Oreki are all heroes Azief acknowledges. Oreki might be a little sly but that does not means he did not possess a valiant heart.

Hikigaya seek his own path. And Raymond possess a heart of justice. And all of them did not rely on pills but forged their path ahead with hardship etched in their scars

A few others master come out, looking distressed. This time Azief punched out and the blast destroyed their body, turning them into misty fog of blood.

The river behind them overflowed, spilling its water all over it banks.

That punch devastated everything around twenty kilometers radius, wilting all the plants, and reap every lives that is hiding nearby to ambush him

Not once, he slow his pace of approaching the building. Then arriving in front of the building, Azief stood in the air valiantly, with his dark black robe fluttering in the wind.

Behind him were bones trails of blood and corpses and a scene of destruction and carnage.

The atmosphere emitted by Azief right now is chilling.

The chilling atmosphere was flowing between the heaven and earth, all the onlookers seeing this scene from their Palaces, hideout and offices gulped in awe…..and fear of the uncertainty of their status quo they established after the Death Monarch death two and a half years ago.

The imminent vibe of death radiating from Azief indicated that he was not going to let the World Government so easily.

Today…..someone will die. Everyone was certain of this.

‘Hirate come out!!’ His shout reverberated through the entire island that even the droning sound of the coffin over the Island was drowned out by his shout.

‘You know what you have done! Come in front of me and admit your wrong!’ By this time, the Battle has stopped.

The soldiers has also stopped fighting the forces of the Death Monarch.

All over the battlefield, lives have been sacrificed.

Countless of corpses littered the battlefield. And deep craters, large holes fills the beautiful heavenly island.

It is nothing like the peaceful and beautiful island the resident of the island remembers.

This is the first time a large scale war between humans faction happened since the Weronian War.

And it all happened because of a single woman.

Some people who were watching these battle in their offices and throne room could not help but likened Sofia the Divine Archer like Helen of Troy or great beauties that brought down a nation.

A face that launches seven Battlestar for her. A Battlestar is hard to make and could even perform interstellar travel.

But the Death Monarch uses it to attack the Island for a single woman.

Just the initial bombardment of the Battlestar when the battle first started tear apart tens of thousands of soldiers, killing them on the spot.

When the Starship fly down from their hanger and drop down bombs and napalm-like explosives that was a hundred times more powerful, all those below Orb Condensing Stage in the vicinity were all burned to death.

If one only looked at the battle between Azief and the Archmaster Illusionist one might think Azief did not even do much destruction.

But his orders has killed so many people in the timespan he fought with Hikigaya.

It wasn’t until Hikigaya lose the fight and his advice to the soldiers that many soldiers surrendered.

And the battle entirely stopped when they saw the ten thousand demons and the coffins.

But the Death Monarch seems to not care about the demons and the coffins. The other thing that makes the World Government soldiers surrendered is because their expert.

Where is Oreki? Where is Raymond? Where is the Iron Major? The White Witch? Where are all their experts?

As Azief floats outside the building, a person come out.

Azief did not know who this person is. But form his level, Azief could feel a trace of Disk Formation aura.

But this person skipped the Energy Disperse Stage level. Azief disdain seeing this person. To him, this kind of person could only be called a fake Disk Formation leveler

‘I am one of the Thirteen Council Member that administrate the World Government. You can talk to me’ The man is pudgy looking man, with bald head and large belly.

Azief looked toward the man, disdain to even ask the man his name.

‘You aren’t qualified to talk to me.’ He said coldly.

The person felt anger when he felt like he was being despised.

Here on the Islands, and the World government he controls millions of lives and could order anyone to do anything he wanted.

When has he ever been disrespected like this? If Azief knows what the man is thinking he would surely laugh out loud.

That kind of power is not true power. At least not after the Fall. The man bristled with anger.

‘You..’

Azief squinted his eyes at the pudgy man. Before the man could even finished speaking, he spat one mouthful of blood out of his mouth.

Cracking sound sounded from his bones, and his body slowly experience withering.

His vitality was decreasing as he aged almost instantly, wrinkles forming and his internal organs failing him and then before he managed to said another word he exploded.

His head flown to the stairs and rolled down, blood following its trails.

‘Hirate come out!’

On the other side of the Island, Morgana frowned looking at the situation at the sky.

‘I need to cast one other spell. Loki is here’ Morgana did not realize that behind her, Giselle was smiling a devilish smile.

And she also did not realize that the incantation has stopped and only the melody is playing right now.

***