Summoning the Legions (Part 2)

The Sura Plane had no limits. From Astral Masters to Hierarchs, all could freely walk it. In primordial times, when fehls and thrones led their legions and choirs into nightmarish wars for the domination of the multiverse, the Sura Plane became the battlefield of their last confrontation. Within a day, three-fourth of the Sura Plane lay in ruins, and realizing that their ancestral war would ultimately obliterate everything besides the Fehl and Throne Planes, for different reasons, Ashera, leader of the Fehls, and Hel, leader of the Thrones—signed a covenant forbidding additional wars between the two species.

They strengthened the dimensional barriers, and each left the Sura Plane one gift. Since then, top-ranking fehls, thrones and other hegemonic forces no longer bothered with the Sura Plane—at least not until the rise of the Arcadian Empire, millions of years afterward.

As the staunchest advocate of "make love not war," Urag never expected that he'd be one of the first to bring Fehl Legions back to the Sura Plane. Still, the foe left him no other choice.

Behind his glowing red vizor, the Blood King watched thousands of red, horned demonic heads poke out of the 6,666 vortices, and his face twisted into a frown. Fehl military employed a unique Legion System with the Fehl Lords each controlling one to three legions of 6,666 Fehl Nobles, and the Nobles each leading the same number of Daemons. Fehl Lords thus directly commanded millions of troops. And at the head of this system, the Fehl Princes each ruled between 30 and 150 Lords.

Although he received a Fehl Legion from Ashera, the Blood King was no Lord and couldn't summon them as he pleased. Urag, however, had no such constraints. If this move passed, dire consequences awaited. The Blood King's figure blurred, and faster than any Archon could follow, he reappeared before the vortices.

"Fourth Circle Spell: Lust Haze!" Urag uttered, covering the thousands of vortices with a colossal veil of pink fog. Undeterred, the Blood King rushed past the veil, swallowing it all to hurl it back at Urag with a casual hand wave.

Dra cannons sprouted from the Blood King's shoulder pads' forehead, knees and palms, while missile doors surged from all remaining parts of the armor.

"Stasis," the Blood King said, and the time around the 6,666 vortices came to a halt. However, though unlike the others he maintained his consciousness, the Blood King too couldn't move an inch.

But as soon as the Stasis wore off, the booming sound of explosive beams and missile volleys followed, with the Blood King outpacing his foes to unleash the full might of his arsenal. Alas, little did the Blood King expect that Urag had already predicted the move, and with a finger snap, uttered: "Fifth Circle Spell: Greater Teleportation."

Though halfway through their vortices, the 6,666 Fehl Nobles faded, and re-materialized behind the Blood King.

"Nuke me this slut!" Ignoring the ear-splitting laughter of his 6,666 Fehl Nobles, Urag ordered an assault. Without delay, the 6,666 aimed their clawed hands at the Blood King.

"Fourth Circle Spell: Fehl Barrage!" Tens of thousands of purple light jets hurtled at the Blood King in succession, leaving him no room to evade. Clenching his fists, the Blood King swung his greatsword at the Fehl Barrage, receiving the brunt of the succeeding explosions with his Mark of Pride instead of his anti-magic.

Seeing this, Urag sneered.

"Magic is just shapeshifted dra. Dra is the fundamental energy present in all Arcane Worlds, the driving force behind all our lives. Just like humans can't live without blood, none of us can exist without dra. A body with total immunity to dra is...a retard's dream," Urag said, and soared into the air, standing above his legion of horned daemons. Shaped like diminutive imps or breathtaking incubi with long, protruding goat or ram horns, they each wore wolfish grins, and stared at the blood king with ravenous red eyes.

Listening to Urag's words, the Blood King realized that he'd underestimated his foe. Indeed, mahanas were not truly immune to magic. Rather, they absorbed spellpower and used a portion of their Dra Reserves to nullify the effects. Some needed 30% of the spell's Dra Cost, others 20%, 15, 10, and so on. Prime mahanas like the Blood King only needed 1%, and could also return the spell to the caster.

With his 100,000 dra, the Blood King dared play this game with human Exarchs. However, Urag was a Fehl Lord, with Dra Reserves in the millions. Worse, he now had an army of Fehl Nobles to support his offensive.

"Yo boss! When did you jailbreak?"

"I heard that you became some human boy's lapdog. Please tell us this ain't real."

"Bah, shortsighted dotards! Boss, you should have stayed hidden in the Mortal Plane. If Mazdan learns that you're in the Sura Plane…your ass won't survive."

The crass words of Urag's loyal generals boomed from all corners. Unlike most legions, Urag's 256th legion only pledged allegiance to him. All were either past humans or like-minded fehls handpicked by Urag eons ago to form his Warband of Excess and Debauchery. Together, they brought "salvation" to many worlds, and made an untold number of enemies.

"Hum, hum! Those are matters for another time. For now, we gotta chain up this bratty twat, and teach him a dishonorable lesson. Blood King, ready your rectum, for the Fehl Plane's number one mobster band has assembled to smash you into oblivion! Rockstars, gangbang me this slut!"

Urag ordered, and his 6,666 daemons surrounded the Blood King, ready to drown him in a typhoon of slinging spells. A flurry of Fehl Magic followed, and as Urag expected the Blood King dared not use his anti-magic to challenge them—relying on his Fallen Armor and Mark of Pride's resilience and regeneration abilities instead.

But even those had their limits, and from time to time, the Blood King couldn't avoid using his anti-magic to resist the more dreadful spells. Knowing that if things carried on this way, he was doomed to exhaust himself, the Blood King sent Zog'doroth a mental message, commanding the daemon to rally his distant troops and bring them to support him.

But Urag wouldn't give him that much time. At his immortal army's back, Urag crossed his arms, causing five pink, swirling pentagrams to appear beside him.

"Fifth Circle Spell: Lust Idol."

Pink lightning filled the icy-blue sky, and with the sound of roaring thunder, the golden statue of a faceless, naked beauty dropped from the heavens. Whoever glanced at that faceless woman saw a different figure. For some, a voluptuous female appeared. For others, a bonny lass took shape.

Surrounded by the 6,666 daemons, the Blood King had neither the time nor leisure to glance at this figure of divine perfection. But the two meters tall statue released an irresistible scent that stretched across 50 square kilometers and overwhelmed the senses of all in the vicinity.

Anke and Lena, who'd awoken and witnessed the fight from various spots, saw different versions of Kilian. Tamara saw her dead brother; the daemons saw Ashera, and Eleonora appeared before the Blood King.

Urag aside, all were drawn to and lost in the most perfect representation of who they craved most. The mightiest of Urag's Fifth Circle Spells, Lust Idol cost 800,000 dra, an unimaginable amount for a human Exarch. But as he summoned his anti-magic to nullify the spell, the Blood King made two mistakes.

First, he didn't realize that something greater than traditional magic was at play. Second, he hurled his overflowing lust for Eleonora at Urag. The imp lord stretched out his hands, siphoning the Lust Essence of his 6,666 daemons, and all living things across those 50 square kilometers.

"Woohoo! I can feel it I can feel it I can feeeeel iiiit!" Urag broke into a frenzied laughter, and at his back, the mark of a scarlet apple pierced by a pink arrow appeared, glittering with Sin Magic.

"Lust Overload!" The words had just left Urag's lips that a hurricane of pink light and swirling winds formed around him, rotating like a maelstrom fit for the end of times. In the vortex, Urag went from his human dwarf to his imp daemon form. But the transformation didn't end here. The fehl's sizable muscles bulged further, while his height increased to a full two meters.

The pair of horns on his forehead arched up and rose to one meter, while his hands and feet's claws reached an adult arm's length. Stepping out of the vortex, Urag emerged not as a grotesque imp, but as a breathtaking incubus whose presence filled the dauntless Blood King with a surge of apprehension.

Moving at hypersonic speed, Urag hurtled at the Blood King and raked his claws at his neck. By the time Urag reappeared behind the Blood King, his armored head no longer stood on his shoulders—now soaring into the sky.

No blood followed. Upper and lower body parts demolecularized, reforming several meters away.

Behind his vizor, the Blood King broke into a cold sweat.

"Is Zog'doroth trying to scam me out of my life? If this is a low-ranking Fehl Lord, what is the top?" He inwardly cursed, and while reason told him that he should turn and run, the hubris animating him prevented all retreat.

"I initially didn't want to reveal this before meeting the Failed Model, but now, I don't have a choice."

The Blood King stretched out his hands, red lightning cracked around his armored form, and two Philosopher's Stones appeared in his palms. Channeling them, the Blood King vanished in a column of red lightning, and turned into a scarlet aircraft shaped like a winged, wheel-less veyron.

Each Philosopher's Stone contained over one million dra, fueling the Blood King's cannons with enough destructive power to challenge Arcadia's top Exarchs. However, Urag could see that unlike Kilian, the Blood King had very little control over the Philosopher's Stones, and had just turned into a glass cannon.

Knowing that he couldn't protect the girls from the incoming clash's residual explosions, Urag snapped his fingers, sending Lena and Tamara out of harm's way.

The Blood King turned into a red meteor, racing into Urag with eight Dra Cannons bared and ready to erupt. But as he neared his foe, an eerie scene occurred—and the Blood King stopped mid-air—neither advancing nor retreating.

Within the aircraft, the Blood King screamed in grief.

"Slut! Slut! Opportunistic slut! I should have killed you first!" He roared while a banshee-shaped Anke fused with his aircraft form, and interrupted all motions.

"You did," Anke coolly replied.

Just the split of a second, but Urag didn't let the Anke-given opportunity pass and rammed into the Blood King.

The aircraft burst into smithereens, but by sacrificing one Philosopher's Stone, the Blood King avoided fatality.

At that time, Zog'doroth returned with his fellow legionaries. All charged into battle, forcing their way through Urag's lust-weakened forces to snatch the Blood King and escape the battlefield.