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He flicked the droplets of blood off his sword as he turned around, once again taking in the whole scene. No matter which way you looked at it, his side was winning. There were countless corpses littered throughout but the numbers favoured his side; the Zelaro's invasion had been a failure on all accounts.

Smiling at the thought, Stanis rubbed dirt away from his visor before charging back into the heat of battle. The dark puddle the mage had created before dying had already dried up as another powerhouse had dealt with it quickly. But not quickly enough as the sight proved, several dead and sickly bent bodies floating across it.

Throwing that thought to the underbelly of his mind, Stanis re-engaged the Zelaro and restarted his massacre. The more he fought, the better he fought, and the faster he cut down his enemies. His arms swung harder and he knew when to dodge and when to expect a feint as it turned out all the enemies had trained under the same style.

Blood tainted and watered the ground into crimson marshlands. It stunk of sweat and iron, and the ground squelched and sucked whenever a step was made. While others bit their tongue and grit their teeth as they fought, Stanis fought at a melodic pace, his slashes akin to musical notes he layered up into a piece of music. At this point, there was only one thing he knew how to do, and that was how to kill.

He hadn't been good at fighting at the start. In fact, he remembered himself shedding a few tears but nothing too pathetic. But he had tried and tried, eventually building himself up to the powerhouse he had become. Now people feared crossing him on the street, let alone standing across him in a fight. It was through power and fear he lived, and a good life it was. It was as he was fighting that it became obvious that the Aliens were smarter than he had given credit to as the ones around him began to actively avoid his sword.

He stabbed and he cut. He sliced and he chopped. But it was as he slashed he felt resistance, quickly stumbling back under the pressure. By stabbing his sword into the mushy ground, he stopped himself, and then looked up. The Alien he had just slashed had stopped the strike with the bones in its forearms, even though it had also cracked them in the process. And yet, despite the pain it should have been in, despite the curses it should have been screaming, it had instead stepped forward with an insatiable bloodlust clear in its eyes.

Stanis similarly stepped forward and used his shield to throw the Alien onto its arse. It was as he looked closer that he realised that the Alien actually looked to be in… pleasure. Intense pleasure at that, drool dripping down and eyes dreary.

Slightly sick in the stomach, he looked up towards the sky and saw the cause of the change. Coming down were 10 mages similar to the one he had killed with a singular, different Zelaro in the centre of them. Considering the effect one mage had caused on the Aliens, it made sense that 10 mages' spells could cause the change he saw in front of his eyes.

He quickly lent down to chop the head off the Alien in front of him. When one chop didn't work, Stanis tried again with more force before standing back up straight. He looked around and sucked in a deep breath.

"ALL POWERHOUSES TO THE TOP!" he shouted.

In response to his call, the whole battlefield began to change. People who had been blending in with their weaker counterparts all this time began to ferociously charge forward, lines of corpse-filled paths opening up behind them.

After surveying the ball he had set in motion, Stanis began to head towards the transparent cylinder himself. He ran across the top of the Aliens as he did last time, shocking anyone who tried to stop him in both senses. As he reached the top, he noticed that a few people were already there.

There was Serb and a few other Jaguars, as well as Moonshine, whose red hair seemed to blend in with all the blood, Caleb, who watched the descending Zelaros with a soulless calmness, and Orena, who had her face covered with bright war-paints. There were also other people rushing towards the spot, all of them more than happy at arriving later as it meant they wouldn't be at the front.

Stanis looked up and felt his heart beat back to life. The 10 mages were just like the ones he had fought, in fact, they also did the same thing as the last one as they shot dark shots towards the waiting humans. The shots were, however, useless as they all clashed with Moonshine's set-up shield. But it wasn't the ten that excited Stanis, instead the single one that the ten surrounded.

It had a similar figure to the ones that surrounded it, apart from the fact that it was slimmer and leaner. This also meant that the thick layer that covered its skin was thinner. It had its expressions hidden behind a white, curved mask. Not that Stanis underestimated it though for its smaller figure, after all, its mana fluctuations told a whole another story. It wasn't of Mosyte rank, instead a Laeon …

Momentarily calming his burning blood, Stanis looked around at the men, women, and Jaguars who had heeded his call. "You guys deal with the 10 mages. I think they can teleport once, but just one hit through the heart should end them," he said, raising his sword once again as he saw the Aliens get in range.

It was straight after he said this that he felt his body plummeting, eventually coming to a harsh stop on top of another human. He looked up in fear, before the ecstatic excitement kicked in.

"You, stop me?" the masked Zelaro asked. It stood where he had stood. It had somehow teleported without any signs, coming to his spot and casting an intense repelling force within milliseconds. It cackled out laughter as it looked down at his rising body.

Before any of the people who surrounded it could respond, it was gone again, standing in front of Stanis's face. But this time he was prepared; this time he was ready to kill. He created a link between it and himself but before he could finalise it, he found the ground he stood on no longer there. Instead, he fell into a deep hole that apparently never-ended, his fear growing as he plummeted deeper and faster. All of a sudden, he came out of the hallucination and back to his senses as a vicious Ice shot sent him flying through the air, his hip-armour cracked and pierced through.

He once again crashed to the ground and instantly cast Layman's rush and began to run. His excitement had faded away in one second, the only thing remaining being a cold and deep desire to survive. But as he ran through the air, he suddenly saw the masked Zelaro appear in front of him. Uncaring of the carnage he was about to cause, Stanis grit his teeth in anger and released Lightning. Indiscriminately…

The men and Aliens below him screamed and died under the wild force that tore through their minds. The masked Zelaro, however, merely deflected the attack with its mana shield before once again creating several chilling Icicles. Stanis finally created the link between himself and the Zelaro, who seemingly gasped in surprise. The blood-curdling laughter it let out in the next second didn't soothe Stanis. Instead, he grew into his terror as he sensed the massive output of mana it sent at him through its link; it had dropped its icicles and was now attacking him with greater ferocity than before.

Forced into the corner with all his cards useless, Stanis resigned into the one thing he had hoped not to devolve himself into. He began to send all his mana through the link, his flow of mana destroying the Zelaro's and then heading towards its body. Unsurprisingly, before he even caused any damage, the masked Zelaro released another massive discharge of mana, seemingly uncaring of its mana-pool.

Giving up all other methods of attack, Stanis began to Destructively mana recharge with half his mind while the other half kept up the attack. It was to his dismay that he realised that the masked Zelaro had the exact same skill, its chilling laughter only getting louder as the arms race continued.

It was at this time that Stanis felt the first strike, a swift chop to his neck. Luckily, his helmet deflected the strike but he found himself unable to move due to the virtual combat he was in. Around him, several of the Alien warriors closed in and began attacking with fervour, fully aware of his immobilized state.

Stanis felt his breathing speed up and could see death on the horizon as he struggled to keep his mind sane. The fear he was going through was something he hadn't felt in a long time, in fact, something he had fondly forgotten. He hadn't just shed a few tears in the past, he had fully dug a pathetic little hole for himself and thrown himself into it in those times. He remembered the helpless feeling he had lived through, the knowledge that he had as little sway over his destiny as the careless winds.

It was as he was mere inches away from death, his armour cracked and chipped throughout, that he finally felt the Zelaro's output of mana shrivel up. Uncaring of the cause, he viciously attacked at full force. In the next second, their high-level fight was over. He could feel through his link that he was no longer linked to a living being, instead just a vegetable.

His anger and pride rose back to their thrones the next moment. He roared like a beast and attacked like a savage as he used his injured arms to bludgeon the surrounding Aliens to death. He had been on the brink of sanity before, pushed all the way there by the Zelaro. But now he was past it…