Hope At The End Of The Line

Back on the surface, a little ways from the dark valley housing the raven, the party of nobles that had been chasing down Adrian could be seen riding back to their Castles, a gloomy atmosphere had taken over the mood

'Fucking lunatic had to end his own life, couldn't just lay down and be killed by us after all the trouble he caused'

The laminating man was one of the two low nobles that had been screaming at Adrian during the chase, they had been revelling in the thought of taking revenge but his actions caused a cold bucket of water to fall on their head

'When I find his Castle I'm going to play with that aunt of his to death before I take the Castle Core'

While it wasn't known who would be chosen to be brought along into the Battlefield everyone knew that Adrian only had his aunt and the maid that he was given by the Shenai family to accompany him

'Tsk tsk, what a cruel family, to give your sons enemy help while putting shackles on your own. That bastard Yu deserves it though'

He then turned to the holier than thou riding a bit away from him, as if he would be contaminated if he rode any closer

'Speaking of high nobles, this guy will definitely end us in a proper war once we all get back to our castles, if we had killed Adrian then it would be possible to let us live if we don't get in his path when he starts dominating the North'

Sadly, there were no ifs in this world, he and a few others were the only ones remaining in the North as they had been further from Arvarth's Castle, if he wasn't the sole person to enter the Dimension from his family then they would have already been swatted

Rumble~

"Waa! What's this"

"An earthquake!"

The earth suddenly started to heavily shake throwing the party into disarray, but the next second the Rumbling suddenly stopped, and the earth resumed peace like nothing had happened

"How could there be an earthquake in the Dimensional Battlefield?" The women asked as she turned around to look at the young Arvarth beside her, noting that he had a subtle frown marring his usual unperturbed face

CRACK-

Suddenly a shattering sound could be heard from the distant valley, the sound was deafening as it caused the eardrums of the party to rattle in recoil, but that was merely the beginning of the coming disaster, as smoke and miasma bellowed out form the raven colouring the sky pitch black, the earth then started to crack open as the raven expanded, seemingly devouring the land into its terrifying darkness

"Holy Paradise above…"

That's all the women could say in the face of this apocalyptic scene, as only the heavens could help them now

The sound of galloping woke her from her stupor, she turned to see Arvarth speeding across the land to escape this calamity

This seemed to knock some sense onto her as she also urged her mount to travel at its fastest speed, following the white trail of the Holy Stallion

The two nobles behind her didn't seem as fortunate since their mounts refused to budge from fright, one of them even fainted while its ears bled from its eardrums bursting

"Fuck Fuck, what did that imbecile do!"

They could only blame Adrian for the disaster as he was the only one he went into the raven, their thoughts were indeed justifiable too, as the raven had spent the last centuries as still as a corpse

The darkness quickly approached them and soon swallowed them whole, but, just before it wiped them from existence, a white light suddenly shone on their bodies flashing them out of disaster, its job was to transfer them out of the Dimension when they faced death, and heal up most of their wounds, this miracle of the Dimensional Battlefield still seemed to hold up, but could it withstand the emerging darkness that threatens to devour the world?

********************

"We need more reinforcements here"

"The Beasts have breached the east side; we cannotintercept them from here!"

"Young master Zuku we won't be able to hold on much longer"

The shouts of men and the roars of beast sounded out in the mansion belonging to the fifth young master of the Shenai family, the men and women defending the Core room started falling down like dominos, they were only ten to begin with, but as they used Contracted Beasts instead of Grimoires then they could use two instead of just one, at the cost of the depletion of their mental strength

"Retire to the last line and shore up defense, I will join you as soon as I'm out of here"

Zuku yelled his orders with confidence but he couldn't help but laminate inwardly at the despicableness of the Elar family

While the Shenai's were defending against the Beast horde the nobles of the West side suddenly showed up and started pouring in their beasts into the fray, initially the young masters and mistresses thought they were trying to exert more pressure, but as soon as the beasts got closer they exploded into dark blood, which covered Zuku and his siblings, it did not end there though as the young masters of the Elar showed up next and used some Dark Runes to congeal and shape the blood into a prison for them, while their Soul Beasts were free to roam the actual strength of the Shenai family came from their own physical prowess, so this action caused them to lose more than half their combat power

'Should we retreat? Even if I can get out most of the servants would be killed by then, and I won't be able to defend against all of the enemies alone, furthermore who knows what dirty tricks the Elar's kept hidden'

These few servants were loyal to the Shenai family to the point they were willing to give up their life if it meant giving their young masters the chance to a brighter future, thus they defended the Core with all their might, but Zuku didn't want such faithful servants to die for a lost cause

Zuku was never one to back down, but that didn't mean he didn't know how to way his options, he was brave, not foolish, a good commander knew when it was time to take a step back, and saving his people was definitely one of those times

Rumble~ Rumble~

The earth suddenly shook while the sounds of battle suddenly halted as everyone, beast and human, turned to look at the North, they didn't need to ask where this shaking was coming from as the approaching energy was a big enough indicator, as expected merely seconds later an encroaching darkness shrouded the horizon threatening to devour all that is in its way

Colour seeped from the faces of the human's attackers and defenders alike, while the beasts regained sanity in their crazed eyes, they finally snapped from the Elar families control with the help of fear, but as the saying goes, out of the pot and into the fire, they woke up finding themselves facing an inescapable danger

The congealed blood surrounding Zuku suddenly fell apart, maintaining it required a constant energy being fed into the Rune, while the user maintained focus, so naturally the prison evaporated as the Elar's ran for their dear life

Zuku turned to look at their fleeting posture, and the nobles that followed them, they had sacrificed a page from their Grimoire for god knows how many benefits, but it seems their efforts bore no fruit. But Zuku had no time to enjoy his victory as he only thought of ways to take his servants away with him, they couldn't move from the Core's field so the only thing that awaited them if they stayed would be death

'Will the Core also be damaged when the darkness approaches? Should we just eject ourselves by letting someone take the Core?'

Wennn-

His thought process was once again interrupted as he sensed power surge into his body, his Grimoire suddenly came out with its shining silver lines, the restrictions they had been facing were lifted as they started to regain all their power

"Young master I feel the restrictions wearing off, we can get out of here"

The servant nearest to him excitedly reported, but his happiness was short-lived as he saw the serious frown on Zuku's face

"Fifth Brother!"

He turned hearing his second sisters voice, seeing as only she and his third sister were there he hastily asked

"Rozis?"

"He was sent out with his servants a short while after he was imprisoned"

"Sigh, so he's safe, good"

"?"

"Il explain on the way, let's get going"

Zuku turned toward the South and summoned his mount, recognizing the urgency within his voice the others also summon their fastest mount and rushed behind him

"Big brother Zuku why did you say Big Brother Rozis is safe now?"

It was Ayanna who asked as she held onto the back of her big sister. Ayanna was a Bronze Rank Grimoire holder so the power boost had no effect on her, thus she rode on her sister's Half Moon Wolf

"Just now did you see the darkness swallow up part of the ominous black cloud the Elar family brought with them? It seemed that cloud had some dangerous Runes within, so dangerous that when combined with the darkness they managed to destroy the restriction system"

"But isn't that a good thing? Now we can fight in full strength"

"The Life Lock is part of the restrictions" Arisu suddenly pitched in

Zuku nodded and followed up by saying " Which means if we die now the system won't boot us out, instead we will truly die"

Ayanna's face paled at the revelation, only did she understand why her fourth brother was safe, he had been transferred out before the Life Lock was destroyed

"Hah, if we hadn't been so stubborn in staying for the Castle Core we could have avoided this danger"

Zuku laughed wryly at his own stubbornness, had he been less headstrong he wouldn't have been in such a dire situation

But quickly he shook his head of these stray thoughts and looked toward the South, they could only run until they came up with a solution, the furthest part of the South would be their best bet at buying time

'Big Brother it seems we will have to inconvenient you'

The furthest mansion in the south just happened to be the one the third young master Yu was staying at

Thus, whether they realized it or not, everyone was rushing toward the very place they deemed worthless as their last hope of survival