By the next morning, after breakfast and final checks, they aimed to strike like thunder from a clear sky; Yumigawa Senki’s team skipped the road and blinked through space.
In a blink, they went from a gilded room to the shadow of an ancient building, like stepping from lantern-light into a cave’s mouth.
They snuffed two Dark Demon doorkeepers without a sound, like pinching out moth-flames, then let their eyes sweep the grounds like hawks skimming a dead marsh.
The morning was bright as new silk, yet the place felt tomb-cold; withered trees clawed skyward, odd plants kinked like snakes, and crows rasped like rusted hinges.
This was the Forest of Death, the Eastern Moon Continent’s hive of undead; dark element pooled like ink in a basin, no wonder Dark Demon nested deepest here.
“What an unpleasant place,” Senki said, disgust rippling first like a chill draft, as she flicked aside swarming low-tier undead with wind like broomed dust.
“Same here, Qianji Sister—let’s wrap this fast, I don’t want to linger,” Littlesky said, her voice tight like a string drawn too long.
“I am of the same mind,” Elyar added, dislike settling on her like damp ash.
Senki nodded, then drew the blade she’d taken from Elyar’s armory—Windchant—its name humming like a reed in a river breeze.
Windchant was a wind-aspected sword, all elegance like a museum piece; as a high-grade divine artifact, it sharpened wind attack, speed, and edge like a storm honing knives.
On those three fronts it even outpaced the Sacred Life Sword, whose true miracle was healing like spring water, its combat boost only top-tier but balanced as a scale.
Sacred Life Sword amplified every attribute evenly, like sunlight over a field; for a blitz, though, Windchant fit better—and Senki wanted to feel its bite like a new bowstring.
“Wind Blade: Gale.” Her voice cut, and her swing dragged a hurricane into being, a ripping dragon of air that rolled to shred the ancient building.
But black walls trimmed in violet sprang up around the structure, layer on layer like lacquered shields, catching the gale like nets catching a wave.
Then a vast magic array bloomed from the building, black with violet edges like night stitched in lightning, spreading out to ring them tight.
Inside its lines, Senki felt her mana snag like sand in gears; Littlesky and Elyar felt it too, a grit in every current like silted water.
From within surged a dozen, then two dozen black-robed mages with staves and wands, their auras at Sacred Realm and one at Divine Realm, plus a tide of undead, demons, and beasts.
They didn’t speak; spells flew at once like a monsoon of blades, a skyful of fire and ice driving at them like a hailstorm.
“Littlesky, Elyar—the fight’s on. Stay sharp,” Senki called, excitement sparking like flint in dry grass; it had been too long since her last full storm.
“Got it, Xiaoya—let’s go all in,” Littlesky said, summoning the Aerucia Bird like a white comet and springing onto its back, her small fist clenched like a pebble.
“Mm. I shall protect thee well, Littlesky,” Elyar said, a wind-wreathed longsword blooming in her hand like a maple caught in a gale, battle intent rising like heat.
With only a few quick words, Senki slipped through spellfire like a kite in crosswinds, rushing the strongest black robes while ignoring the array’s pesky drag like buzzing gnats.
Littlesky and Elyar traded a look like sparks catching the same tinder, then broke to hunt their own prey like wolves fanning from a ridge.
No speeches, no posturing—steel and sorcery kissed in an instant, like thunder following lightning.
…
Elsewhere, the great empires’ armies marched like rivers of steel, and mercenaries, adventurers—mostly in teams—and free mages flowed after them like gulls after a trawler.
They sacked Dark Demon outposts with both fury and ledgers open, hands out like market stalls, making a killing while doing the killing like vultures over a battlefield.
One outpost was small change, but raiding several in a row paid like harvest after rain; generals and soldiers frowned, but they swallowed it like bitter tea.
Dark Demon was everyone’s enemy on the Eastern Moon Continent, and this crusade bore Yumigawa Senki’s banner; with that wind at their backs, protest died like smoke.
If not for strict orders, many of them would’ve joined the feast like guests climbing onto the banquet table, greed as bright as oil lamps.
The empires had long chafed at Dark Demon’s overreach, but the first to stick out gets shot like a lone crane; no one dared move first and show their flank.
So they watched each other like foxes in a narrow lane and used shadowy tricks with little bite, needling Dark Demon like needles through thick hide.
Dark Demon had festered on the Eastern Moon Continent for centuries, stoking wars like bellows and sowing chaos like weeds, hoarding wealth deeper than some empires’ treasuries.
They answered Senki’s call so fast not just for the Mizumi Clan’s pull; they wanted the threat gone—and to “reclaim” Dark Demon’s hoard like nets reclaiming a river’s driftwood.
They believed Yumigawa Senki’s group wouldn’t care for that tainted gold, like tigers ignoring sheep feed; with that decided, the Emperors—Eastern Moon Aotian among them—made their move.
They left elite troops to hold their homelands like pegs in a tent, and sent nearly everything else to scour Dark Demon like fire through dry grass.
Their eyes were on the five branch halls’ treasure, meat thick as roast boar; the scattered outposts were morsels best left to the crowd like crumbs to sparrows.
Besides, the people came from all across the Eastern Moon Continent, a multitude like a tide; after carving the roast, you still had to leave soup, or anger would boil over.
For the crowds, tailing imperial armies meant easy pickings like gleaning after harvest; help now and then, and the pay beat normal days by several folds like swollen grain.
Why not, when it was “sanctioned plunder” under Yumigawa Senki’s banner, clean on paper like snow covering muddy tracks?
Some mercenaries and adventurers, pressure long pent up like steam in a sealed pot, used Dark Demon as a punching bag, venting with cruelties as common as crows on a gallows.
Magic academies even called it training, urging teachers and students to join like drums urging a parade; at Egisia Academy, excitement soared when they learned Senki had given the call.
The campaign had barely begun when Dark Demon’s hold on the Eastern Moon Continent bled like a slashed artery; the crowds, tasting blood, went mad like sharks.
Eyes reddened at the sight of a Dark Demon outpost, and they butchered without leaving a blade of grass, a frenzy like wildfire in high wind.
The beast in people slipped its leash, instincts bared like fangs under the moon.
