Author's Note: Not much to say right now. Haven't been able to write for crud lately. Read, Review, Favorite and Enjoy!

Chapter 36: Now the Real Fight Begins

Kieran certainly didn't expect to wind up in the middle of a space cut off that morning, mostly on account of the fact that he wasn't planning on making one. So obviously this lady was capable of using super tier attacks. But this worked out to his advantage.

"So, no magic, no martial arts." Kieran commented as he looked around at the scenery that was like shattered glass as he summed up his situation. "What gives?"

"They were just getting in the way." Zesshi stated as she smirked sadistically. "I've always wanted a worthy opponent, now I have one."

"Never had a worthy opponent eh?" Kieran had that benefit, Cocytus and he brawled in their free time. Kieran actually knew how to swing a weapon around outside of dumping skills on the enemy, but could the same be said for his opponent whose never had a worthy opponent? "Well step right up, I feel obliging today!"

Kieran rushed at Zesshi swords ablaze, swinging one she ducked under and instead swiped at Kieran with her scythe. Kieran stabbed the blade behind Zesshi's swinging weapon and used that to vault over her swing and brought his other sword down on her back. Zesshi rolled out of the way of the chop and followed up with a slash from her scythe. Kieran blocked with his blade and thrust with the other one directly at Zesshi's head. Zesshi bumped the sword away from her head with the butt of her scythe and followed up with a scythe slash from below. Kieran kicked the blade away from him and followed up with a sword slash at Zesshi's head.

The army of the Baharuth empire were marching across the Katze plains, now that they no longer had to fear the long range bombardment of the Re-Estize kingdom they were doing their best to make up for the time they lost. However it seems that they had mistaken a lack of resistance for a easy victory. From the tree lines of the Great Forest of Tob lizard men were lining up their long range implements of violence: Arrows, spears, the occasional sling. But they were better prepared, long range weapons by definition loose their effectiveness at a closer ranges, they lacked the advantage of shooting them miles into the air to build up terminal velocity for instance, and the armies of the Baharuth empire had the benefit of knowing where their enemies projectiles would come from and blocking the slower moving projectiles with their shields. The Empire soldiers at best considered the Demi-humans a distraction compared to their mission of invading the Kingdom. That said, the lizards weren't being completely ignored either, as they came to realize.

"The Forest of Tob has been set on fire!" One of the Lizard men scouts ran over shouting about that, looking over the treeline a raging forest fire had appeared on the horizon.

"So they mean to smoke us out eh?" The leader of the Lizardmen's archery squad commented looking up at the sky, where a tower of smoke had appeared above glowing red embers. "Cut down the trees two clicks from here and have the druids dig a trench. Take away as much of it's fuel as you possibly can." The lizardmen nodded before the resumed to their rain of sharp pointy things on the enemy.

Obviously they knew that the arrows weren't working on them, but the lizards had by now learned the arts of deception and trap setting. One of the mages used a fire ball to light a trail of oil that started at their feet and went down the hill into the Katze Plains setting the oil coated grass lands on fire. The soldiers began stomping their feet trying to put out the fire, and was for the most part successful. Of course then the mages simply just reignited the flame once again.

"Does anyone have a read on the Hippogriffs!?" One of the Scouts shouted.

"Over there!" One of the horned flying horses in question glided over the lizardmen dumping payloads of gold colored gas along the way.

"Light the fires and fall back now!"

The fires in question referred to the fireworks that they intended to use as anti air projectiles. The lizard men paused just long enough to light the match and shoot the colorful projectiles into the clouds of golden gas, and let them off with a explosive blast that caught up the Hippogriffs. But alas that too was within the enemies range of expectations. Protected by barrier type magic, the mages made use of fire ball spells to light the area surrounding the Lizardmen on fire boxing them in, thanks to the smoke screen created by the detonated gas they could work unimpeded. And now that the the Lizard men were boxed in the area the time had come to shoot the metaphorical fish in the barrel. Thus the Baharuth mages rained down their attack spells on the hapless lizard men.

Mean time the lizardmen's struggle was being looked at from a distance by Balloma through the use of binoculars.

"And that is the reason we make use of the disposable pawns first." Balloma stated as she put her binoculars away.

"What do we do now?" Zanac asked as he realized the uselessness of fire magic in this situation.

"Perhaps if fire doesn't work, something colder will." Balloma stated as she saw reinforcements arriving from the other side of the dimensional barrier.

"You asked for us?" Crusch asked as she landed in front of Balloma.

"You and Cryos are to deploy anti-air magic to knock down some pests for us." Balloma gestured to the battle that was happening between the forces of the Shining Justice and a group of lizard men.

"What are you getting at?" Zanac asked cocking a brow suspiciously.

"When the gasses produced by those unicorns are lit on fire, it results in a explosion, a explosion that the enemy will be prepared for because that is the most logical counter to a gas based weapon. However, if a gas becomes super cooled it will instead condense into a solid, thus containing the substance before it can do any harm. Additionally we also established that those bird brains can't fly under blizzard like conditions." Balloma explained while she had her chin in her hand.

"Lovely, I'll just go get a blizzard that we can dump on the enemy." Zanac stated letting out a sigh.

"Good, then you understand why they're here." Cryos and Crusch made their way across the forest and closed in on their targets, once their enemies were within their range the two of them made use of staffs to stir up a little bit of frosty fun. While they were flying above the battle field, spewing their shiny golden gasses, the Hippogriff's were treated to a rather unfortunate sight of their wings freezing over with icicles and their gasses that served as their signature move being crushed into tiny little balls that fell harmlessly at their side, before they harmfully crashed into the ground dealing huge damage to the beasts and their riders. The deeply confused mages were treated to the sight of a foreign woman holding a automated cross bow to their heads.

"Good day to you." Balloma finished her work and then it was the minions turn, using tongs they collected the frozen chunks of Golden gas and placed them into containers, the bodies of the Hippogriffs, still living or otherwise, were bound and loaded on stretchers before being taken away.

"Mistress, if I might be so blunt to ask, but were we really the most suitable individuals to use for this exercise?" Crusch asked as looked at Balloma puzzled. "Surely master Cocytus is much better suited to this then we are."

"Oh he's much better. For starters he's several times stronger than either of you, for another he doesn't ask me stupid questions at inconvenient times, perhaps most conveniently because the Shining Justice flunkies are stock raving terrified of him." Balloma explained as she walked over to a hill to get a better look at the raging fires going on. "But alas that is as much a flaw as it is a benefit. Because if they figure out we're here then two things will happen: firstly, all of our established fortresses on our home continent will be left vulnerable when they realize that everyone they're scared of is over here instead of over there, and the second they will take their power houses and bring them over here where we are more vulnerable do to a lack of established fortresses." Coming here was a gamble, Crusch understood that much but still.

"If not for you and your siblings then why are the Shining Justice here?" Crusch asked something that had been bothering her for a while.

"War, the messy business that it is, consumes large amounts of resources. If I was a guessing type I would say that they learned about what is for the most part a giant untapped mass of troops and resources around the same time as we did, and same as us came here in order to claim them." Balloma explained as she signaled Cryos to go and exterminate the forest fires and the arsonists responsible for it. "Make no mistake. We came here because we want to take over: this continent and it's people of all shapes and forms will be conquered and they will be made better for it, and following that you will help us to liberate our lands from the likes of these blasted sows! Am I understood?"

"I understand but... how can we help against a enemy that even all of you fear?" Crusch asked somewhat scared of the implications of the situation at hand.

"Simple: We will train you."

While Balloma was wiping out the magic caster squadron a group consisting of a certain group of trouble makers were focusing on the main force of the army.

"Wow there sure is a lot of them!" A Werewolf in humanoid form commented looking through a set of binoculars. "What do you think Yuri?"

"Now that the plague spreaders have been eliminated we can all do our jobs properly." The Dullahan known as Yuri replied as she smiled warmly to her comrades. "Now do every one know their jobs? Shizu?"

"I will position myself as a sniper in that tree. I will eliminate as many of the enemy as possible from a distance using my rifle." The Automaton stated without a trace of emotion.

"Naberal?"

"I will hang back to the mid-guard position in my monk form and use healing and resurrection magic to support all of you." A doll like being with three holes in her face explained before her features quickly shifted to Nabe's.

"Lupisperga?"

"Use my superior speed to run down the fleeing enemy." The werewolf replied a toothy grin having formed on her face.

"Entoma?"

"I will focus on buffing type spells to support you Yuri." The Spider Hawk Arachne stated in a hoarse voice.

"And Solution?"

"I will attack from below to eliminate soldiers and their equipment." A beautiful blonde explained as a inhuman smile warped her features and melted along with her into a indiscriminate pile of goo.

"Then I will focus on the close quarters combat." As Yuri finished explaining the enemy had come into striking range.

Shizu as the long distance combat specialist started things off with a literal bang. The combination of magics in her weapon flung a enchanted steel slug at break neck speeds, promptly bounced off of one of the shields of the men in the lead with a loud ring, and pierced the soft tissue of not only the shield bearer, but also the three people behind him as well. Like that, the first three lines of the enemy collapsed without even a fight. Lupis rushed passed the soldiers on the left most side, although they moved to intercept her they were were stopped by something holding their feet down, and was soon met with a strong acidic smell as they saw their boots sinking into the slime. Naturally the soldiers stabbed at the black goo that was holding them captive but stopped when they saw the tips of the blades disappear, then they were sent plummeting into the goo like the ground had given way beneath them. Met with that wall of goo, the rapid sniper fire that knocked down their forces by the dozen, and the approaching trio of a Dullahan who was already mass producing shadowy sharp pointy objects, a bug thing that was breaking out the talismans and a Monk who was cracking her knuckles at them. Naturally the Empire troops, lobotomized as they were, made the decision to retreat before they were completely slaughtered. And in the process they were greeted by a werewolf who had cut them off from behind. Met with the kill zone from in front, behind, below and above they were ruthlessly cut down to the very last man by that strike team consisting of a diverse array of monsters.

"My girls seem to be doing a good disposing of the Rabble." Koriander commented looking at her mirror and a over head view of the slaughter the six monsters were committing.

"Now than, what am I gonna do with you?" Koriander commented as she smirked knowingly at the creatures they had captured/killed, Hippogriff's with a dash of unicorn. For the ones who were killed, the course of action was obvious: reanimation as soul eaters, the combination of racking up a massive death count via wide spread instant death curses and reanimating any nearby corpses with deathly energy was a deadly combination: if even one such creature was turned loose on the battle field above where a massacre had just taken place it would mass raise an entire army in moments and generate enough negative energy to push the Golden back far. Yet for Koriander this was not enough, no, she was going to break these nags, as someone who has felt their plague burning in her veins she was going to break them into a million pieces, take each one of those pieces and reassemble them one by one into a form that she deemed suitable. "Let us begin shall we? You all should be familiar with how this works yes?"

Lightning flew from Koriander's finger tips into the bodies of the still living Hippogrifs, however this was not a transferal of energy from Koriander to the Hippogriff's as with a lightning attack, Koriander was draining them of their prized power, converting that to her own raw magical power, and feeding them only a bare minimum amount of her own power. The end result was a mutation, the single horn retreated into the head of the nags and in their place two more grew out of either side, pure white hair and feathers gave way to a shade that was dark as night. A single toe on the fore limbs of the beasts cracked as they rose into the air and grew to a absurd sickle like length while hooves in the back developed spikes running along the edge of the bottom. If the creature before was a unicorn, then this new version was known as a Bicorn, a embodiment of corruption as oppose the Unicorn's embodiment of purity. Once the beast was converted fully Koriander healed it of it's injuries and released it from it's hold as it was transported into the middle of the arena.

"That form suits you a lot better then some nasty Unicorn." The Bicorn looked over to see a young dark elf child stretching languidly as she circled around her quarry.

Obviously, the task ahead of them wasn't going to be so easy as simply corrupting the beast in question. After being made into a beast of darkness, that unicorn would be warped into a creature loyal only to it's greed and hatred, such a being would never submit to another willingly, thus was the role of beast tamer Aura, to beat this nag down and make it obey her.

Arwinter, Capital of the Baharuth Empire, inside of the throne room which had been turned into a office, information was being reviewed on their opposition the Re-Estize kingdom. Jircniv was not happy, not happy at all, years he's spent wearing down the opposition, ruined in a single engagement, and he blamed these 'Shining Justice' people for forcing him to send two thirds of his forces towards the enemy. A enemy who recently acquired a strategist of great and unknown ability along with a sizable number of of troops of unknown origins.

"So to what do you to plan to do to make up for this loss?" Jircniv asked as he stared hatefully at the commander of the Shining Justice, wearing immaculate white armor, a blue jewel mounted on a chest and red cape hanging off of one of his shoulders while his head rested against his fist.

"Loss? What loss?" The leader of the Shining Justice asked as he dropped a sketch book that their forces found in Carne Village. "The brave sacrifices of sixty thousand souls is easily worth the confirmation of the information collected in that village." The first picture, a Warrior dressed in black armor and the skins of wolves. "A warrior capable of pushing Zesshi to using Super Tier attacks." The second page, a spell caster with a mask with jewels for eyes. "A spell caster capable of manufacturing mid tier monsters." Finally a dark skinned woman in a white dress. "And a strategist both perfectly willing to use demi-humans, and use them to their full potential." Thus the Shining Justice's ace stood up and left. "Finish work on the transportation circle at once, we must deploy our real forces now that we have confirmation on our enemies presence."

Review Section:

Chronos0305: Because Fellowship of Evil is still crap, and I didn't have access to a in universe source of Dark Elves on the new world.

rmarcano321: Thanks but I got it covered. Close, the three elves from Tenmu were the most sympathetic, Foresight is a close second. True. That was my train of thought. To demonstrate the length's by which the Golden Strips free will. Truth teller is a combination of stunning the subject stupid through intimidate and expert interrogation and lie detection techniques.