- Desperation

When they heard Drago's shout, the heroes turned to look at the unconscious Edge falling from at least a height of 30 meters headfirst.

Using his hook blade to propel himself forward, Caylin was able to catch him despite incurring significant damage himself.

Not everyone was like Drago who could survive a fall like that.

Caylin did the right thing but he was down for the count as his leg was pierced by a sharp stone jutting from the ground. He endured the pain as he checked in on Edge who was pale and sweating all over.

Arissef moved to check in on the two and provided first-aid after removing the stone from Caylin's leg. However, when he looked at Edge and heightened his senses, he saw the death energy within Edge was being sucked dry into the air. Since the time he was able to control death energy, it began to assimilate with his Qi that his body had become accustomed to its presence. Now that it was being drained from him, his Qi was following suit. Whether it was mana, Qi, or blood, losing too much would harm the body greatly, and hinder some of its processes.

As he looked up, his eyes captured a frightening sight.

The death energy that permeated all over the battlefield was being sucked in by the dome as demonic energy was being pumped into all the demons within its scope.

He immediately created an isolation barrier to stop the death energy from leaving Edge's body but it was of no use.

The dome was bypassing his magic.

"Drago!!! We need to leave this area or Edge will die!"

Hearing this, Drago was silent for a while.

However, the heroes were surprised to hear what he said next.

"Focus on the mission! We need to kill this demon or else more people will die!"

They understood why he said those words... But deep inside their hearts, something about the way he said it was giving them warning signals.

Unfortunately, they did not have time to worry about these things as they had more pressing matters to attend to.

One of which was finding a way to slay a 50-meter tall demon, and that's how tall it was with its back hunched over.

Arissef glared at Drago with anger.

The only person who knew that Edge cannot die was Drago. Everyone else believed that their leader didn't care if he died.

After all, Edge married his ex and failed to protect her. Even though they were friends and what Drago did to prolong Edge's life, such thoughts still manifested in the deepest recesses of their minds.

Zex, however, was not buying it.

The dome was not only converting death energy into demonic energy to strengthen demons.

The demonic energy was also influencing the dark emotions within the hearts of every living being they touch.

He could feel the truest emotions that Drago felt. Emotions that he hid deep inside for years.

The darkness in a human's heart rarely stays hidden.

Drago despised Edge. He despised his power. He despised how he created a family with Amber. He despised his inability to die and that his power was tied with Amber's soul. He despised the fact that Edge reminded him of his failure and his weakness.

Masking it all with the 'obligation' to accomplish the mission, he could not see how much of himself was being devoured by the otherworldly magic he was breathing in.

Zex felt all of that and he understood him. He also understood that the same thing was happening to everyone else as he observed the other heroes through his eyes.

'This will never heal.' He saw the loss of respect towards their leader. It was every man for himself from that moment on. Whether they win this war or not, they could never go back.

However, at this point, Arissef discovered something.

"Keep him safe. He will not die here." Arissef said to Caylin as he looked at the unconscious Edge. "I'm sorry for this."

Faintly hearing Arissef's words, Drago turned his head. "What are you planning?"

"Come back and cover me!" Arissef shouted. The gigantic demon already destroyed the gate merely by walking through it and passed the moat seconds ago. Drago and the rest were trying to deal damage to it from behind but to no avail.

As he heard Arissef's words, Drago looked over and saw him sitting cross-legged.

"I hope you know what you are doing." Drago glanced once more at the gigantic demon that was about to reach the coalition formations before calling Falna, Hevan, and Brius over.

"Hevan, I need all your mana-absorbing gems. Place them on that circle." Arissef said as he conjured a simple magic circle in front of him.

"Okay." Hevan was able to take out 12 mana-absorbing gems. In a drawn-out war, it was easy for these gems to shatter so he had to stock up beforehand.

When the gems touched the circle, they glowed and split into the same number of circles as there were gems, arranging themselves around Arissef.

The heroes saw the gigantic demon reach the army and began its unstoppable rampage.

"What now?" Falna asked.

"Pray that this works!" Arissef gritted his teeth as he said those words. His eyes then glowed as an abundant amount of death energy and mana was swirling towards Arissef.

"What's the meaning of this???" Drago asked as the death energy around them was turning visible even to their naked eyes.

As the death energy around them turned thick, Edge's condition became better and he suddenly opened his eyes when he felt ominous energy converging near him.

"ARISSEF!!!! YOU CAN'T DO THIS!" Edge shouted as he tried to stand up with Caylin's support.

"Don't tell me... You--- you know necromancy?" Drago's face filled with horror and disbelief. With the thick death energy permeating all around them, the demonic energy could not penetrate and lost influence on their emotions.

However, Arissef did not respond and only chanted a long spell in an eerie language.

Midway through his chant, the gigantic demon turned its head as if it noticed something. It then turned around and began to make its way back towards Arissef.

"You've gotta be kidding me!" Brius remarked as he grit his teeth.

Drago readied his weapons as he calmed his own heart and removed his mind from Arissef's predicament.

Edge took a deep breath as he steadied himself.

Caylin followed after as he endured the pain from his leg wound.

"Don't let it get near Arissef!" Drago yelled as he charged to meet the demon.

...

All around the battlefield, the empowered demons were rampaging and killing soldiers on sight.

The soldiers were rapidly torn down as the commanders and generals were doing their best to even the playing field with their might.

However, there were no signs of the demon waves stopping, unlike the previous weeks.

There was no strategy involved, just plain carnage.

If it wasn't for the recent order to hold off the waves just to allow the Grimley heroes the chance to end the war soon, they would have retreated long ago.

Unfortunately, terrible news reached the Hekel commander who took over command of the coalition at Drago's request.

"So there is nowhere to run, huh?" The Hekel commander was told that the dome trapped them in and the fortresses have been overrun by demons.

Was this an act of desperation or was this planned since the beginning? No one had an answer.

All they knew was that the way things are going, no soldier would see the light of day.

It was at this moment that a change occurred on the battlefield.

The demons slowed down their advance while a disturbing sight across all fronts brought shock to the coalition soldiers.

Soldiers who have died before rose from the ground and charged at the demons.

Those that they have buried days before passed by them from behind and marched towards the demons and attacked.

Some of them without a limb or two, some of them riddled with holes, while some of them not even having a head.

Some of these zombies even began to charge towards the gigantic demon and latch onto its body like fleas, stabbing at its skin.

Throughout the battlefield, the commanders and generals began to pull themselves and their men back together.

Their hope for winning the war began to overcome the fear and the negative emotions that the dome once spurred within them.

Drago did not have any idea how Arissef did all this or what sacrifices he had to make to pull it off. However, he knew that this was their only chance to end it all.

The heroes worked together to stop the gigantic demon's movement. The zombies were able to help as well but they could not pin it down for too long.

Drago even tried to rile his blood to trigger the [Draconic Manifestation], however, for some reason, he could not. He threw himself at the demon time and time again, delivering the strongest blows he could while tanking the counterattacks.

Even Zex could not understand why Drago could not do it. He could neither bring up the status page nor check his skills to have the slightest idea. Throughout the years he was experiencing Drago's life, it didn't feel like he had a system, except for the very rare times he entered his Mind Space.

Edge was able to deal critical blows to the demon while the rest of the heroes could only deal substantial damage.

Eventually, the demon was able to arrive in front of Arissef, despite covered in demon blood.

Just as the demon was about to slam his fists at Arissef, a significant number of spells and cannon shells bombarded the demon, making it stumble sideways.

The coalition army has finally arrived.

With Arissef's command over the zombies, the soldiers were able to defeat the demon waves and proceeded to reinforce the heroes.

As the final lesser demon was killed, Arissef opened his eyes and stopped his reanimation spell.

"Thank you for your service! Time to end this."

As the zombies all around the battlefield crumbled to dust, fulfilling their duties for their kingdoms even after death, the death energy swirled once more towards Arissef.

The gigantic demon was roaring as it endured the continuous bombardment from different directions.

"Drago! I need its heart exposed!" Arissef shouted as he adjusted his position and began chanting a different spell. As he did so, the visible death energy took on shadowy forms that resembled revenants.

Drago nodded as he yelled: "Concentrate Chest! 15!"

The heroes heard the command code and prepared their skills and weapons.

Edge accumulated death energy in his daggers as a silhouette of death cloaked his form.

Caylin gave Drago and Falna some rope as he launched numerous hooks towards both of the gigantic demon's arms. Despite his limping, he ran all over the field as he called various soldiers to help in pulling them as some of the generals even chimed in.

Hevan changed the sigil on his crossbow and began supercharging it.

Brius removed the limiters of his cannon and started over-clocking.

"Go!" Drago shouted as the demon's arms were being pulled by the heroes and soldiers, exposing its chest.

The spells and cannon shells concentrated the bombardment towards the demon's chest as Brius and Hevan released their charged attacks.

Edge swiftly ran up to the demon and just as the bombardments were done, he arrived and spun with his daggers cloaked with a heavy amount of death energy, ferociously cutting down the remaining layer of skin that protected the demon's heart.

The demon roared in pain as Arissef's eyes turned bright.

At this moment, the revenants that were formed from death energy began lighting up as they turned into creatures of light.

Arissef bled from all of his orifices as the mana-absorbing gems shattered around him.

The revenants then swirled up and revealed feathered wings resembling angels.

"Divine Judgment!" Arissef roared as the angelic revenants flew rapidly through the air as they pierced the gigantic demon's heart one after the other before dissipating into specks of light.

The demon roared in pain once more as cracks of light began creeping all over its body. With an intense flash of light, the demon turned to stone and slowly crumbled to dust in front of everyone's eyes.

It was at this moment recorded in the history of the continent of Avignel, that the Archmage Arissef, Demon Slayer, and Bringer of Light, was born.