The Guardians' Throne - The First Magic Swordsman

Milliendra smiled when she realized how many people cared about her… while so many people were risking their lives to help her and protect the world as well. Only a single person can't decide if the world is worthless or not. If all those people wanted to fight the demon god to protect the world, then it was because they felt like the world was something worth protecting.

"Milliendra, you were chosen by a foolish man who calls himself demon god to become the vessel of his powers and to revive him," the gentle female voice said. "You were unable to touch people because of his power to drain mana from others… It was because of that that your mother died. Zaos Sielders wanted to protect you from that fact, just like your mother. That was why she asked him to kill her… even though that hurt her heart and her dear friend's heart more than anything. Can you deny that, self-proclaimed, demon god?"

"... It doesn't matter, I will have my revenge against you and your stupid world!"

"... Who are you, and why are you telling me this now?" Milliendra asked.

"I am the one who summoned this person who caused you great suffering… I don't usually interfere with this world a lot, but I decided to interfere since my actions caused this situation. I couldn't let you suffer alone, full of doubts. You were told some lies, and because of that, you suffered… but those who lied to you only wanted your well-being, and they are coming to save you. Are you going to trust them just like they trust you?"

"... Yes, I will," Milliendra said with a large smile on her face. "Mister demon god… do you really want to be revived only to be defeated again? I don't know what you did, but I don't think you will succeed... "

"Stupid child… I will never give up; I won't be defeated again because I am already reaching the level of that stupid woman. You are the one who should give up… unless you want to see your mommy dying again and again. Once they appear, it will be the turn of those stupid humans that you care so much…"

"Okay… I will revive you," Milliendra said. "... As soon as my two daddies arrive to defeat you."

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Zaos didn't hesitate in charging toward the demons, but he was surprised when he saw that those around were a bit different from the others he faced. Until now, he fought three types of demons, they were speed, strength, and magic type each, but those around seemed different… while they weren't as big as Darkaun, some of them were pretty big and even had four arms. While others were thinner, but they also had tails made of bones that looked as sharp as possible. Zaos didn't think that they could look more demonic than before, but he was wrong… perhaps the place where the demon god was killed affected them more than a little bit.

  The demons that had four arms tried to surround Zaos, and the others ran toward Aleni. It looked like they wanted to compensate for the difference in speed and strength with numbers. One of the demons tried to smash Zaos from above and from the sides while his allies approached with the four arms, but he wasn't naive enough to wait for that. Zaos jumped to the side and swung his sword at the same time, making his Blade cut off the left arms of the demon. In the next moment, he thrust his sword toward the heart of the beast and killed it.

  Although Zaos did that instantly, the other demons didn't get fazed by it. Much like the wolves, the soldiers had to deal with before. The demons were completely enraged and wanted Zaos' head no matter what. Since he could feel the presence of a lot more demons approaching, Zaos enhanced his sword and then swung Thunder Blade toward the demons nearby. In a single moment, they were pierced in two.

Zaos looked around and saw Aleni facing the other demons that had tails made of bones. While she had killed two of them with her short swords, she was having a hard time finding the right moment to attack the other three that were keeping her away with their sharptails.

"I will deal with them," Aleni said. "Kill other big ones because they can destroy our formation!"

Zaos nodded since he already could see more of those demons than four arms running toward him. While he wasn't looking at them, Zaos could hear the soldiers muttering behind them, and most of them looked uneasy since the number of demons was high, and they were much different from everything else they had faced until now. Still, they began to change their minds when Cohnal, Melisse, and Nyana joined the fray. With some powerful Fire Arrows, Nyana made the arms of the demons that were dashing toward Zaos explode and fall in pieces on the ground. As for the others, Cohnal knocked them down with a single swing of his sword. While they didn't die, one could hear the sound of bones cracking upon impact.

As for Melisse… She went to cover Aleni. When the tails passed too close to Aleni, Melisse swung her sword and made the tails fly toward the other direction, and that made the demons lose their balance. Aleni used that chance to make some heads roll…

Once all the soldiers assumed their positions, Cohnal, Melisse, and Nyana retreated a bit to lead them. Fortunately, Zaos and Aleni didn't have to fight for long and tire themselves out.

"Don't destroy the formation while you March, the visibility ahead will be pretty bad, so we can't afford to move away from each other," Cohnal said.

"Focus on the path ahead and watch each other's backs," Melisse added. "With the Captain on our side, there is no way we are going to lose to those freaks."

  Nyana signaled for Zaos and Aleni to step back a little bit. The soldiers needed to fight by themselves to gain some combat experience against demons truly. So, they couldn't interfere. While that went against Aleni's previous idea, she decided not to voice her concerns in order not to decrease the morale of the army. Thanks to that, the soldiers began to March fearlessly toward the demons. While the bigger ones had quite a bit of endurance, they could only last for so long when four to five spears began to pierce them. They used their arms to stop the weapons as well, but they didn't have enough arms… the few demons that survived the first line of soldiers were killed by mages and archers that used spells and magic crossbows. In a single instant… forty demons were killed.

"At this pace, this might work…" Zaos thought.

  While the average soldier couldn't win against a demon by himself, formations, strategies, discipline, and larger numbers helped them more than a little bit. However, soon Zaos changed his mind when the flying demons finally appeared… they began to fire their dark projectiles, and even though the armies were armed with that type of enemy in mind, Zaos knew that things wouldn't last for long. Not to mention, Drannor and his army were yet to appear.

The backline used magic crossbows and magic to hit the flying enemies, but the strong winds of the snowstorm were affecting their Aim. Zaos considered the possibility of charging forward and ignoring those enemies, but that wasn't the best Of ideas since they were bound to find more of those demons ahead.

Without any other choice, Zaos used Earth arrows while aiming at the wings of the demons. At first, he had to adjust his Aim, but soon he found out that hitting their wings was easier than hitting their bodies, and when the creatures got wounded enough and fell, Zaos recovered his mana by finishing them off with his sword. That problem was solved, but soon another one showed up… Zaos began to hear the sound of heavy footsteps in the distance approaching, and after a while, he saw dozens of snow bears dashing toward the army.

"What the hell… how can they… ah, they are zombies," Zaos muttered when he saw the white eyes of the animals.

"This is bad, I can feel their presences thanks to the noise, but fighting will be difficult…" Aleni said.

"Focus on fighting the demons. I will deal with those," Zaos said and then enhanced Aleni's legs with wind magic.

  Normal attacks wouldn't work against zombies. Zaos had to either crush their heads or make them burn. With that in mind, he enhanced his sword with fire magic to a point where not even the snowstorm could affect, and so Zaos dashed toward the zombies.

As if they knew that Zaos was the biggest threat, they tried to attack him at the same time. However, when they entered his range, Zaos swung Guardian's Heart around himself and easily cut off the head of the zombies, turning them into ashes a few moments after they rolled on the ground. The corpses almost crushed Zaos with the momentum, though. He jumped to dodge those and then swung his sword in a circle again because another group was already ready to attack him with their putrid claws.

Those two attacks killed several zombie bears, but Zaos could feel more zombies approaching in the distance. Given how far away they were at the border, he always imagined that they had found too few animals. It looked like the demons decided to use the animals as weapons as well…

"Not good…" Zaos said upon realizing that he couldn't drain mana from zombies.

Things were getting troublesome… while Zaos could see some flying demons falling here and there, the number was too small… the magic crossbows had a fixed power, and that power decreased over long distances, even more so considering the powerful winds of the snowstorm… Nyana's squad was trying to do their best, but given that they were in the backline, their attacks had to fly for longer distances…

Even without looking behind, Zaos could feel the presence of the soldiers quickly disappearing, it seemed that only those who had the magic rings would last for a while, but only for as long as the magic stones let them… Zaos decided to use his mana to decrease the number of flying demons quickly, he could always recover more later, but he wouldn't be able to do that if the army got wiped out. Fortunately, Zaos didn't have to do that, a weird sound started to echo through the area, and then Zaos began to feel the ground trembling.

The noise became even louder, and then Zaos finally noticed what was going on when screams began to fill the area. The golden spears led by Zaos finally showed and dashed toward the demons like they had been possessed themselves. Drannor apparently gave them the order just to charge because they weren't using any formation. Despite that, the ones who had crossbows still used them and began to hit and knock down the flying demons. 

Zaos looked toward the golden spears and sighed since they stopped to fight individual battles. Still, with their bloodthirstiness alone, they were able to face the demons. Probably because Drannor was cutting the monsters left and right without a shred of hesitation or even tactical thinking.