Odyssey of the Guardian Emperor

Finn sailed high through the air, pain flaring through his side. He internally cursed how he came to be in this situation before landing in a roll. He pushed off the ground mid-roll and crouched low with his head down, gritting his teeth. He was breathing badly and his body was on fire, especially the side of his stomach, but even then, there was no time for him to just linger.

The situation at the gates of Melbourne had turned from a feverish, manageable dream to an all-out hell. The battlefield had turned into a meat grinder. Demons meshed with the fighting force of humans. Magic whizzed through the air while profane abilities activated, shredding adventurers and demons alike into paste. The fallen demons rose, and a new wave of demons poured in from the woods. At that point, it was no longer enough for them to fight in shifts. Everyone was deployed to fight off the wave of demons.

Swords clanged and guardians brawled, each side taking damage in the battle that seemed to have no end.

'When did it come to this?' Finn cried, picking another rune stone from his storage bracelet, a device that was courtesy of the Tower of Seekers.

He threw the rune stone into a group of fighting adventurers, each of them already approaching their limit. Their foe, unfortunately, wouldn't tire. A massive stone golem, made entirely out of flying black rocks, barrelled down on their tank, a man of heavy build wielding a shield with the power to repel attacks that landed squarely on its surface.

Normally, the shield was enough to stagger a demon, but this golem wasn't like other demons. The creature's hands shattered against the shield, only to reassemble as each piece flew back into place.

A woman with green hair, a mage, sent a volley of large fireballs straight at the creature's chest while a thin man with a pair of blades attempted to break through the beast's armour, using his agility to attack the golem's blind spots.

This teamwork, however, was only enough to bring the fight to a painstaking stalemate, with the adventurers growing tired with each passing minute.

Finn had been a part of that group before getting tossed aside like a ragdoll. From his position on the ground, attacks sailed right above him, keeping him relatively safe enough to re-evaluate the situation. Alas, it was also the right place for him to catch sight of a two-headed black lizard creeping up on the party, facing the black golem.

Aether flowed through his system, and he shot forward. Half a second later, the lizard collapsed on the ground, cut to ribbons by Finn's blade. The lizard was nothing compared to the golem, but now that it was subdued, Finn had to return to the real challenge.

"You okay, kid?" the quick knife-wielder asked, dodging a swing of the creature's fragmented arm. His knives flashed through the air, cutting stray rocks that threatened to graze him.

Finn responded by dashing right under the beast and placing his hand on its leg. With a loud battle cry, he activated his Inborn Ability, Transmutation, and flooded his system with aether.

For a long half-second during which his life was in danger, nothing happened. The demon growled, turning to attack Finn, then completely staggered to one side as its leg burst into a flood of blackened water, the reaction spreading from Finn's hand until the whole leg was severed.

The sandy-haired boy leapt back in time to avoid the falling demon, only for the small party to get overtaken by a massive spider with arms for legs. Too many legs.

The rocky demon had just started gathering more rocks to replace its missing limb when Finn evaded the 'arm-sy' spider with a clean cartwheel that placed him above the moving pile of black rocks, this time with his hand on its head, "Stay down!"

The creature's rocky body shuddered violently before crumbling to the ground, its head split in the middle by a watery palm print. Finn landed on his feet and took cover behind the rocks, breathing badly. The battle was far from over, and he hated to think of what other abominations were crawling out of the woods.

The other adventurers noticed his situation and dashed forward, "Rest up a bit, kid. You're doing well for a Glass."

Finn pulled another rune stone from his storage bracelet. The rune was red.

'Out of healing stones,' he groaned, clutching his searing side with a grimace. He reckoned he had a few broken ribs, but that was better than several other fighters he'd seen getting ripped to pieces in this battle.

Far to his side, he spied a large octopus-like demon striking the ground with blows so powerful they shook the ground. Purple mist blew out of its mouth, tainting the air around it and sending all the adventurers who breathed it in into throes of pain.

This beast towered over all the other demons; It was the largest they'd seen so far and the Guildmaster's main focus at the moment. Speaking of the Guildmaster, Finn had been watching the man fight through the corner of his eye, was stunned more than once.

His armour looked heavy, yet he moved through it just fine. His blade was larger than it was sharp, appearing more like a barbaric meat cleaver meant for chopping up elephants, and yet he wielded it with relative ease, cleaving through the largest of the demons without breaking a sweat. His shield… his shield should have been at least Three-Star armament, for it bore no dent even as the octopus struck its surface with the sound of a bullet striking a gong.

While he handled the true horrors, Finn and the rest of the slayers were assigned the smaller ones, even when the "smaller" meant something twice his height and packing enough power to turn him to a bloody paste with one blow.

Just then, a large azure crab landed above Finn's head, its metallic carapace stopping an inch above its head. In the next moment, its eight legs sank into the ground as a loud thud shook the earth, "Get the hell out of there, Finn." Brett's voice made its way to his ears.

Not waiting to be told twice, Finn crawled out from under the crab and looked up, only to turn pale. The octopus had just been demoted to 'smaller' as something even larger and more harrowing rolled in. This abomination was easily twice the height of the city wall. Its lower half was a reptilian lizard with four muscular legs, a long tail whipping with a blade at the end of it, absentmindedly snapping the trees behind it like twigs—or perhaps for the fun of it. Its upper half was vaguely humanoid with four clawed arms bulging with muscles.

Scattered around it, smaller demons the size of three-metre tall gorillas stood with fangs sticking out of their mouths and eyes as red as blood.

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Finn went pale, 'We're all going to die.'

Brett chuckled from his spot on top of the metallic blue crab, the same guardian that had saved Finn from a flying tree, courtesy of the new arrival. The Guildmaster was locked in a battle against the Octopus, enduring the poisonous gas without showing signs of being affected. He'd managed to sever five of its tentacles, leaving five others and stumps bubbling with dark aether, most likely trying to grow back.

Their battle would soon be done, but Finn doubted he'd be able to stand up to the new titan watching the battle unfold with a deformed grin on its face.

"Why is it just standing there?" Finn's voice came out hoarse and shaky. Demons weren't supposed to assess situations. They weren't supposed to stand by when hundreds of humans were right there in front of them, ripe for the taking.

The beast opened its mouth, a maw that split down its lower jaw and opened in three parts, letting out a loud bestial roar. All at once, the demons stopped fighting and ran back to the trees, rallying beside the titan.

A guttural gurgle escaped the creature's maw, sending chills down Finn's spine.

"Shit!" Brett gasped, "That thing's intelligent." The metal crab backed up as though sensing the danger they were in, "Stay back, Finn."

"What do you think you're doing, boy?" a random adventurer yelled at Brett.

"Oh, don't worry about me. A-class guardians aren't just all talk. Isn't that right, TideSpinner?" Brett grinned, his guardian releasing a shrill cry in response to his words.

Water shot out from random spots on the ground and gathered around the guardian like a typhoon, curving through the air before collapsing in on itself so much it looked like a single line in space, sharper than any blade.

"Everybody get behind me," Finn yelled. Slayers rushed back, creating a line with Brett's guardian at the front. The injured ones were taken further back while the others who could fight looked on with pale, bleak expressions.

The blade of compressed water fanned out before shooting forward in a low arc, staying low to the ground as more water rose from the ground around the crab in preparation for another volley. That was a flash of movement right before the water blade hit the line of demons. Dust rose as the ground trembled. When the dust cleared, a gasp rippled through the hunters.

A long column of reptilian flesh lay in front of the demons with a blade at the very end of it. A line was cut into it, bleeding black, before rising and closing up right before their eyes. The titan's tail had protected all the demons and was now as good as new. It let out yet another guttural gurgle before slowly spitting out, "NEAT… TRICK…"

Silence swept through the group, several adventurers losing the energy they had to carry their weapons. The demon could talk, stood taller than anything either of them had ever fought before, and none of them was in any state to fight. Another bone-chilling gurgle filled the air before the demon opened its maw, "ATT…ACK."

The ground shook and terror reigned supreme as the remaining demons surged forward, a malevolent wave of black death in an all-out attack on the small, worn-out force of slayers. Brett's guardian, which was the only guardian still standing at this point, growled and sent two more arcs of sharp water blades forward.

Demons with armoured skins brushed off the attack while those without fell, cut clean in half by the water blades. A few agile ones weaved under the attacks. It was an attack powerful enough to send chills through Finn's body, an attack powerful enough to earn Brett a hundred credits at the Academy easily, but not nearly enough to tip the scales of this battle.

The demons were still coming.

Finn readied his blade, getting ready to fight, then paused as the air turned colder. He barely had the time to get his bearings when a loud explosion shook Melbourne and drowned the world in a brilliant light.

Everyone got down, and the demons scrambled away from the light. Finn covered his ears and gritted his teeth as aether washed over him in thick waves.

'Alaric?' he thought as the aether shot outwards, 'No, he can't be here.'

A minute passed before he opened his eyes to a sight that would have stunned everyone if not for the demons regaining their bearings for another attack. A large floating ring of aether hung suspended high in the air, its circumference only partially visible from this side of the gate.

That was not all, though. Finn detected something else. Faint in the heat of battle, but unmistakable for a person who'd been in plenty of battles. A presence Finn couldn't shake. It was like a pressure constantly growing in his ears. The demons, realising the explosion wasn't going to affect them, staggered back into their bloodthirsty charge, pushing forward towards the stunned adventurers.

Weapons went up, magic sizzled, and everyone fidgeted in preparation for the attack, only for two objects to strike the battlefield with a force powerful enough to send the ground quaking. Dust rose, aether whistled, and the power of the new arrivals went shooting in one direction, throwing the demons back like they were made of paper.

The wind shifted and blew outward with purpose, clearing the dust instantly.

Standing between the humans and the demons was a couple dressed in exotic white clothes. Aside from their blinding white clothes, their hair stood out, dyed with fierce gold and white colours. Their forms commanded attention, seeming to carve the very space around them.

'Steel ranks,' Finn gasped. He'd been around a few of those to know exactly how they influenced the world.

The couple didn't waste time on introductions. Their fists moved in sync, trailing a violent choreography that enslaved the air around them and folded it into several blades of wind. The wind blades shot forward in an endless stream that wiped out all the weaker demons, including the poisonous octopus.

By the time the initial volley was done, only the gorilla-like demons still stood beside the towering titan, watching the couple with a silence that made Finn worry. He didn't want to admit it, but he could tell, from an instinct in his bones, that these demons were calculating.

A pair of red-haired women emerged from the crowd of battered adventurers. While the shades of red in their hair were different(one being copper-red while the other was a rich strawberry), the two ladies, in that moment, could have passed for twins.

A large serpent trailed behind one(strawberry-haired) while a flaming phoenix flew out of a fissure in the air and landed on the shoulder of the other(copper-haired). Heat radiated off the phoenix, getting hotter with each passing second.

Guildmaster Schiller's armour clanked as he made his way to the two women, "Sariah. Is he here? You brought him back?"

One of the women nodded, "He stopped Cataclysts."

"What?" Schiller's face paled.

"While he's dealing with the situation inside, we came to help you end this one."

A loud growl stopped everyone in their tracks. A second later, a tree came sailing through the air, the titan of a demon behind it roaring with rage. The copper-haired girl put her hand up and uttered a short string of inscrutable words in the Old Tongue, and with them, the tree burst into flames and exploded.

Sariah put a couple of glowing vials in the Guildmaster's hand, "Have our Holy Mages drink these. It'll restore their aether while we subdue the demons."

The rest of the adventurers didn't have to be told twice before launching a counterattack. The weaker demons that were still alive were barely so, and the gorilla-like beasts were finally moving as well, fire burning in their eyes.

Enraged as the demons might have been, a breeze of hope had blown through the small army of humans.

"GIVE THEM HELL!!!" Guildmaster Schiller yelled at the top of his voice, commencing what would come to be the final stretch of this long, unending nightmare.

Brett yelled at the top of his voice along with the others and pointed his spear forward, sending his guardian forward, only for his body to lurch backwards and fall off the barrelling azure crab, "Finn, what the hell are you doing?"

"Follow me into the city. I need your help," Finn called.

"But…"

"You can leave your guardian here as backup, but remind him to be careful and not get ahead of himself. You only get one of those," Finn explained before dragging Brett back through the city gates, not waiting for an answer.

Brett looked back for a second and saw one of the gold and white-haired slayers strike the titan's eye with a golden blade, drawing blood with a single strike as though it meant nothing.

"Steel ranks," Finn explained, "I don't know which tier, but they can help put an end to that battle."

"Then where are we going?" Brett asked, curious once more to know what was going on in the sandy-haired boy's head.

"We're going to find the root of all this," Finn replied, "We're going to find Alaric."

Shivers ran through Brett's body at the sound of the name. "You should have led with that."