While Kai's zombies became the fodder to start the war, he was eating all the poison he had left to gain the same poison effect on his body. Before he went out to join the battle, he also wanted to make sure to put Arthur in a safe place, but two senior forest spirits were already protecting him.
Moreover, Crow hadn't forgotten about giving him a talisman similar to Kai's that would let him alert the witches if he needed help. Even though the Skinwalkers agreed with Lloyd to vanquish the high-tier demon, their priority was still the gifted child.
*Concentrated Rock Poison integrated*
*For two hours, the user's body is akin to rock poison.*
"Here we go!"
Kai braced himself and shot out of the oasis, like a bullet made of bones. The battlefield under his gaze when he did come out, was something he could never bring himself to imagine.
There were bleeding corpses everywhere his eyes could see. Even though it had only been minutes since the battle started, there were dozens of casualties.
Senior forest spirits were able to deal lethal damage to the low-tier demons with a single swipe of their paws while the mid-tier demons easily dispatched the younger forest spirits who formed packs to take on their enemies.
Bear and Deer had also entered the fray right away, tearing through the enemy like paper. Incubus commanders had teamed with some mid-tier demons to keep them at bay. They weren't trying to decapitate or destroy the witches in any way, but instead, forcing a battle of attrition. As long as their army was defeated, so would they.
The battle was strenuous for both sides, but the demons wore warped smiles on their faces and looked to be having fun. Not because their nature was wicked, but because the demon race's dominance in the region had made it so that it had been long years since they last experienced a real battlefield.
Kai, on the other hand, had been feeling a certain kind of darkness inside of him ever since he arrived in this wretched land. Perhaps he was imagining it, but it felt real to him. Just as he contemplated before, perhaps his undead status was also steadily changing his mind to befit the vessel. Whenever he felt such an urge, he tried to repress it and tried not to think about it.
A low-tier demon, as soon as he saw Kai's hulking figure come out, came at him with a gruff battle cry of his own. He wielded an axe and the weapon almost whistled in the air as it curved at Kai. The weapon connected to Kai's body, but it only made a clunking sound.
The demon raised his axe and brought it down with stronger force, but the result was the same. He wasn't strong enough to actually harm Kai.
Kai slowly brought his hand forward as if to touch the demon, not attack him. The moment his hand touched the demon's chest, the demon started screaming in utter pain, attracting the attention of both forest spirits and other demons in the vicinity. He couldn't even run away due to the immense pain he felt.
"However," Kai whispered. "I'm not repressing anything today."
Kai's skeletal hand sunk into the demon's chest as he finally stopped moving. The huge skeleton stopped after whispering another word and smelled the air of the battlefield. He walked in-between the corpses of both the demons and forest spirits, uttering single-word phrases every time he did. He was like a ghost of immense size on the battlefield.
If he wasn't attacked, he didn't attack the demons unless they stood on his path. So the demons started avoiding Kai altogether. This giant skeleton on the battlefield solely chose to visit all kinds of corpses on the battlefield. Every time he did, the corpses quivered and then stopped moving altogether.
"So this is what it means to feel powerful?" Kai muttered in a disgruntled voice, gazing at his bloodied hands. Even blood rotted into nothing if it stayed on his hand long enough.
Not that he didn't enjoy his utter superiority against these low-tier demons, especially with the help of his poison body. It was hard to believe once he gave it his all, everything was easier.
"I need stronger ones," Kai mumbled to himself again. His voice differed greatly from his normal tone. It was harsh and unforgiving.
In the corner of his eye, there was a senior forest spirit ahead trying to return to the oasis. It was covered in wounds, but its claws were also heavily bloodied. It had done its job, and it was now returning to recuperate.
They approached one another and it looked into Kai's eyes. It thought it knew this skeleton, but he was far too different to the image he had on his mind from only half an hour ago.
"Are you friend, or enemy?" it uttered the words. Its mouth didn't coincide with the words it spoke, so there was clearly some magic at work here, as well. Kai didn't care, he had seen weirder things.
"Friend!" Kai yelled in a jolly voice as he kept on walking, not gazing at the beast.
The senior forest spirit had some questions, but they weren't a talkative bunch. Since Kai was a tolerated existence by the witches, it wouldn't attack him for no reason. The spirit limped back into the oasis when Kai's violet eyes glowed with utter hostility and he swung at the spirit's limping leg.
The senior forest spirit was a centuries-old creature with quite a bit of experience under its belt, or rather, hide. It was cautious still, but Kai's attack managed to land on the spirit's leg. As a wizened old spirit, it knew it had to open some distance between itself and its enemy.
Its already injured leg, at this moment, wasn't even good enough to stand on. A sharp pain coursed through its body and it was momentarily halted, being unable to respond as fast.
Not missing a beat, Kai brutally landed multiple blows on the creature's chest, and the poison worked wonders, felling the spirit in seconds.
Just as he had done with all other corpses, Kai muttered, "Summon Undead."
The forest spirit opened its eyes again, but in a fraction of a second, it received yet another order through Kai's mental commands and it closed its eyes, seemingly dead.
Even though he had been committing horrible acts one after another, Kai didn't think about what kind of person he was becoming. With each of his actions throughout this battle, the anxiety in his heart eased and he felt more confident.
This time, he wasn't going to be pushed around if it came down to it.