The burning wind of the South of Tenebris lifted clouds of ashes that clung to the furs and leather armors of the Alliance warriors. Here, the landscape was nothing but a succession of crevasses spitting sulfurous vapors and rocks of blackened basalt. At the head of the Demi-Beasts faction, Loran Of Kitsune advanced with a confident step, his slender silhouette contrasting with the massive build of the Lycans and Centaurs who marched behind him.

Loran was the very image of predatory elegance.

His white hair, identical to that of his cousin Kara, was tied in a ponytail that beat against his shoulder blades. His fox ears, erect at the top of his skull, pivoted at the slightest crack of the rock, while his tail, thick and silky, betrayed his concentration with slight twitches.

Unlike the other faction leaders who favored brute force, Loran radiated an aura of cold calm and martial discipline.

"Maintain the spacing between the ranks!" ordered Loran, his voice clear despite the distant rumble of the volcanoes. "The Avian scouts have reported movements... Human support mages, prepare the wind barriers, the demonic emanations are densifying."

A Lycan officer, whose chest was crossed with scars, approached him at a run. "Lord Loran, the third division reports that the ground is vibrating abnormally on our right flank. It looks like a charge."

Loran did not turn his head, his ruby eyes fixed on a rocky ridge a few hundred meters away. "These are not ordinary charge vibrations... It is too heavy and very slow. Form a defensive semicircle immediately. Lancers in the front line, archers in the rear."

No sooner had the orders been transmitted than the earth literally tore open on their right. In a crash of broken stone, a pack of Abyss Ogres burst from the depths. These creatures were nightmares of gray flesh and hypertrophied muscles, each measuring nearly four meters tall. Their eyes, devoid of eyelids, shone with a fetid yellow glow, and they wielded maces forged from wyvern bone.

There were about thirty of them, a force capable of pulverizing a human battalion in a few minutes.

"They are immense!" shouted a young warrior from the Neko tribe, his voice rising into high pitches under the effect of panic.

"Stay in position!" thundered Loran, his aura beginning to saturate the air around him. "They are slow. Aim for the joints. Rim, lead the left flank. I will take care of the center."

Loran took a step forward, detaching himself from his close guard. He drew no sword. His hands remained bare with his nails becoming longer to form claws.

< Martial Art: Lightning Coating >

In an instant, the atmosphere around the Kitsune leader changed. A network of purplish-blue electrical discharges sprang from his pores, enveloping his body in a film of crackling energy. The air began to smell of ozone, and the hiss of lightning covered the buzzing of Tenebris insects. Unlike Kara’s Lightning Coating which manifested through red and disordered sparks, Loran’s Mantle was a structure of pure Aura, stable and terrifying in its density.

He disappeared.

He had not merely run; he had literally dissipated into the air, leaving behind only a trail of bluish light.

The first Ogre, the closest, did not even have time to lower its mace. Loran reappeared instantly at the level of its neck. With a fluid and precise movement, his electricity-charged claws sliced through the beast’s throat. The gray flesh parted like hot butter under an incandescent blade. The black and viscous blood spurted in a scarlet jet, but not a drop touched Loran’s clothing.

The Ogre collapsed in a muffled rattle, its vocal cords vaporized by the discharge. Loran was already gone.

He moved among these four-meter colossi like a lightning specter. Each movement was calculated, each attack targeted a vital point with an efficiency bordering on obsession. He passed under the crotch of a second monster, severing the Achilles tendons before climbing along its spine to tear out the base of its skull.

"Look at Lord Loran..." murmured Fenris, who was coordinating the defense of the left flank. "It looks like he’s dancing."

It was indeed a macabre dance. Loran never stopped. He used the natural agility of his race, amplified by his Martial Art, to transform the battlefield into a slaughterhouse. An Ogre tried to grab him, but Loran used the creature’s arm as a fulcrum to perform a pirouette in the air, his claws tearing the monster’s face in passing, enucleating its yellow eyes in an explosion of ocular fluid and burned flesh.

The Ogres’ cries of pain echoed in the ravine, but Loran remained silent. His face was a marble mask, his ruby eyes showing no emotion, only a constant analysis of the situation.

A group of three Ogres tried to encircle him, hoping to crush him under their simultaneous maces. Loran flexed his legs, the lightning of his mantle intensifying until it became blinding.

< Lightning Mantle: Circular Discharge >

An electric shockwave propagated from his position, striking the three monsters head-on. Their hard skin carapaces burst under the tension, revealing carbonized muscles. Loran took advantage of their paralysis to leap. In three seconds, three heads rolled on the basalt ground, severed with such speed that the bodies remained standing for a short moment before collapsing heavily in the dust.

About ten remained. The survivors, despite their primitive intelligence, began to retreat.

Loran stopped for a moment, his breathing calm, almost imperceptible. His white hair was not even disheveled.

"You retreat? What is this?" murmured Loran, his voice carrying to the monsters’ ears. "You do not have the speed necessary to leave this sector alive. Come charge, guys!" he chuckled...

He relaunched his assault. It was a systematic execution. He sought the total elimination of the threat to protect his troops. He plunged into the heart of the last group, his claws sinking into chests, tearing out still-beating hearts, emptying entrails in a deluge of gore that soon covered the black ground.

The last Ogre, a particularly massive specimen, roared in despair and brought down its mace with all its strength. Loran did not move. He simply raised his left hand. On contact with the mantle’s lightning, the dragon bone of the mace fragmented into a thousand pieces. Loran then seized the monster’s lower jaw and, with a brutal twist of his entire body, broke its neck, causing the spinal cord to spurt out from the base of the nape.

Silence fell abruptly over the plains of scoria. The thirty Ogres lay on the ground, transformed into debris of flesh and bone.

Loran deactivated his < Lightning Mantle >. The ozone dissipated slowly, replaced by the smell of burned meat. He took a silk handkerchief from his pocket and calmly wiped his claws, although they had remained clean thanks to the electric arc that had vaporized the blood during the fight.

Fenris approached, his face pale. "Lord Loran... We suffered no losses. Your distraction strategy worked perfectly."

Loran nodded, his ruby eyes already scanning the horizon to the North. "This was only a vanguard. Spectrum uses these creatures to test us. Resume the march. We must reach the Bastion before the demonic mist becomes denser."

As he set off again, Loran briefly thought of his cousin, Kara. He remembered the rebellious little girl he had tried to eliminate years earlier to ensure the unity of the tribe under his father’s orders. He knew she had survived...

’Kara...’ he thought, a cold rictus stretching his lips. ’You may have survived my claw strike that night, but if you ever hope to claim your throne by force, know that the lightning flowing in my veins is far denser than yours. In a fight to the death, you would be nothing but a spark against a storm.’

Loran felt no remorse for what he had done to his family. For him, the mentality of a leader required sacrificing blood ties on the altar of power. He was the legitimate leader because he was the strongest, the most precise, and the most ruthless.

"March!" he ordered once again.

The Demi-Beasts faction moved out, a perfectly oiled war machine under the command of the lightning fox.