Infinite Classes in the Apocalypse

Chapter 180: Land of the Phoenix

The change of environment was a little less sudden this time.

The stone underfoot turned a little paler and a little more brittle. The air remained just as dry as it had been in the Dragon Clan territory.

Sparse golden grass replaced the volcanic terrain behind them, the kind that grew in places where fire had passed through more than once and the ground had learned to work around it.

Yoru walked slightly ahead, her previously erratic behaviour was long gone, replaced by the calculated calmness of the fierceful leader she was said to be.

The quiet of their journey broke only when they entered the inner territory of the Phoenix Clan.

They heard it long before they saw it. The dense sound of large scale ability and the shift in atmosphere that only happened when high volume of mana was being used.

They crested the ridge and stopped.

Below, three factions occupied three points of a rough triangle in the valley.

Phoenix clan held the near end. Their leader radiated heat visible to the naked eye, gold and red, her feathers catching the pale sky like something permanently mid-burn.

No champion stood beside her. The space where one should have been was simply empty.

The

Oni clan held the left flank. The demoness was immediately recognisable, black folded wings, curved horns and an expression that was cold with the focus of someone who had been in this standoff long enough to stop finding it interesting.

Her champion stood slightly ahead, dark armoured, carrying a weapon too large to be practical.

The Tengu clan held the right.

Their leader stood at the head of his fighters, lean and feathered, wings half open in the restless way of something never fully comfortable on the ground.

His champion stood ahead of him, a blade across his back, his attention sweeping the other factions in rapid, continuous arcs.

Yoru studied the arrangement with her usual amusement. "Well, isn’t that an interesting sight?"

Damon studied the situation a little longer before turning to her. "Works better for us. No need to run around and search for each of them."

Yoru lingered for a second before replying. "It won’t be so simple. With that Tengu creature there I won’t be able to transform."

Damon nodded. He already figured as much, the sole reason why the war of the six divine beast lasted as long as it did was because of Tengu Clan’s natural ability to counter dragons in the sky.

Damon studied the valley for a moment longer.

"Stay here," he finally said.

She raised a brow, not quite sure where he was going with that.

"I’m going to kill the Tengu champion. When he dies the leader dies. Once Tengu is gone you can transform."

She studied him for a moment.

"He’ll be faster than anyone you ever faced," she said.

"Yeah, yeah," Damon said and stepped off the ridge.

He heard those types of comments too many times to care. Every new challenge was faster, stronger or smarter than anyone he ever faced.

And yet, despite all that, he was the one left standing.

A single shadow step brought him to the valley floor.

Every head in the standoff turned simultaneously.

The three factions froze, their standoff suspended by the arrival of something none of them had accounted for.

Damon looked at the Tengu champion across the valley floor.

The champion looked back.

Then Damon vanished.

His next shadow step brought him directly toward him, closing the distance in an instant.

The champion reacted.

He was fast. His hand was already on his blade and his body already turning before the shadow step completed, the speed of it coming from somewhere beyond technique, bred into him by a clan that had made speed its only identity for centuries.

Tengu champion was truly lightning fast, but Damon had a lightning of his own.

The lightning activated the same instant the step was completed. It wasn’t aimed at the champion, but outward in every direction at once, a sphere of purple current expanding from Damon’s body before the champion’s blade cleared its scabbard.

The enemy champion quickly realised what was happening. His body dropped the counter attack thought in an instant, shifting to turn and run but at that point, there was nowhere left to go.

The lightning hit from every angle simultaneously.

The champion’s scorched body dropped to the ground with a notification Damon ignored, his attention snapping to the three divine beasts surroundings him.

Above the valley the Tengu leader’s wings snapped open, the involuntary motion of something whose champion bond had just been severed.

He lasted for a total of three seconds.

Then the bond completed its work and he followed.

The Tengu fighters looked at each other.

Then at their fallen leader.

Then they broke and ran.

Above the ridge, Yoru’s wings opened.

The transformation was immediate.

There was no gradual change. The human shape simply vanished, and something vastly larger took its place, her scales swallowing the pale sky light, her wingspan throwing shadow across half the valley before she fully descended.

The ground registered her landing with a terrifying tremble.

Several fighters on both remaining sides lost their footing from the impact alone.

She was considerably larger than the architecture of the Dragon estate had even suggested.

The Oni demoness and Yoru collided at the valley’s centre a second later.

The exchange between them operated on a scale Damon stayed clear of. The displaced air rolled outward from each impact in waves that knocked lesser fighters flat, the force of two divine beasts settling something they had been waiting decades to settle.

The Oni champion was Damon’s problem.

He was large in the way that hadn’t sacrificed mobility for mass.

His weapon was a club that had outgrown its original description, its surface covered in dark protrusions that caught the light the same way the demoness’s horns did.

Damon moved without hesitation.

The champion fought without pattern, every exchange different, nothing repeated, the combat style of someone trained specifically to deny adaptation.

Damon absorbed three exchanges worth of data and spent the next four creating fracture points with black ice while the club rearranged portions of the valley floor around them.

The gap came on the fifth exchange.

The champion overextended on a downward strike, momentum carrying him a half step further than intended.

Damon was already inside his guard.

The blade drove through the opening, and the lightning followed immediately through the contact point, tearing through the champion from the inside before he could recover his balance.

He went down hard.

The Oni demoness lasted thirty seconds after that.

Yoru stepped back from what remained, her scales dark with the evidence of the exchange, one wing held at a slightly different angle than the other. Not uninjured, but standing as straight as she usually did.

She looked at Damon across the valley. He met her gaze, though neither of them spoke.

The Phoenix leader hadn’t moved through any of it.

She stood at the near end of the valley where she’d been since they arrived, watching the deaths of two divine beasts with an expression that held no fear and very little surprise.

"One little death and they simply perish..." she suddenly spoke. "How disappointing..."

Beside Damon, Yoru shifted to her human-like form, watching the Phoenix Clan Leader with visible disdain. "Don’t worry, you will soon join them."

Phoenix Clan Leader turned, shifting to her own human-like form. "Oh? Is that your champion?" Her brow raised, as if only now noticing his presence despite him being the sole reason the Tengu Clan Leader was dead. "He seems to be lacking wings? Don’t tell me... did Tengu destroy the mighty dragons this badly?"

A faint frown settled on Yoru’s face. "Let’s kill this damn wench," she murmured toward Damon.

He nodded, though killing her wouldn’t be as simple as everyone made it seem to be.

The heat coming off her kept everything at a distance.

Yoru couldn’t close without taking damage she wasn’t currently in a position to absorb, and Damon’s lightning dispersed in the thermal radiation before it reached her.

The fire that left her wasn’t an ability deployed with intent, it was ambient and constant, the air around her simply a different temperature than air had any right to be.

Still, with the Aegis Veil activated, he moved forward, the 30% reduction doing enough to keep him functional as the heat climbed.

His blade found her without resistance, her eyes only slightly raised at the fact that he withstood the heat rather than the blade that found her chest.

She collapsed.

The heat subsided the second she hit the ground.

Damon frowned slightly. "That was surprisingly easy—"

His words died as a sudden burst of heat stronger than before erupted from her fallen body.

He dashed backwards, his skin sizzling at the sudden increase of temperature.

She gracefully rose to her feet.

"He’s not half bad," she stated as though she hadn’t just died.