The fight begins in an instant, like they expected this from the moment we approached King Albus. I begin to ddodge underneath the first initial attacks as I observe how they move.

Each guard is fighting completely different from one another, a different style of swordsmanship with each one.

CLANG!!!!

Velia clashes with one of the guards in front of me in that moment, giving me an opportunity to run past towards another one. I slam my fist across one of their faces and send them flying towards the wall.

He was about to attack Eliza, not that she can’t handle defending herself.

Ba-dum. Ba-dum.

I can feel the wing form from my back once again as the talons also form from my hands; my vision is starting to distort a bit like usual but I still feel as if I’m in complete control.

"Don’t hold back against them!" I shout.

In that moment I hear one of the guards cry out as blood spills onto the floor.

Sounds like the girls are making progress against the guards but I don’t know how long it’ll work in our favor. They are pretty strong from my understanding... Just haven’t seen why that is yet.

Slash!!!

A sword immediately cuts across my chest in that moment but I can feel myself healing from the wound already. My power isn’t necessarily weak either.

I start to dodge as the guard swings his sword towards me, trying to get faster with each swing.

"I’ll make sure to kill you quickly dragon!" He shouts while continuing to move towards me.

Without responding I quickly move past his attack and swing my right hand towards him.

WHAM!!!!

His helmet crushes a bit as I knock him down to the floor. Blood slowly drips from the holes in his helmet, yet he doesn’t seem to be done fighting in the slightest.

Drip. Drip.

Theres no reason for me to hold back against these guys in the slightest since they are fighting to kill us as well.

Exactly. No need to hesitate when they will spill our blood just as quickly as we are trying to spill theirs.

In that instant I begin to punch him back and forth repeatedly until he refuses to get up. The thud of my fist going across his helmet over and over again echoes around me.

"Gang up on the dragon!!!" Another guard shouts.

Are these even the strong ones? I don’t think it would be nearly as easy as it is currently to fight against them.

What if they are just decoys to drain some of our initial energy before bringing out the main force? That is also completely possible at this point with the way the king doesn’t seem to be phased.

I shift my eyes towards the group of guards rushing me but they forgot I’m not here by myself. With that I watch for a moment as Aria and Velia quickly take a few of them out while Eliza seems to cast some sort of shield.

Bodies continue to hit the ground and before long, the ten guards were all dead. All this blood that covers the floor is from his men alone.

"About what I expected from you all," King Albus speaks up.

All of us look towards the king, ready to take him out the moment we get close again.

"Calm down. That was merely a test to see how strong you really are. I knew you’d take out the initial guards since they aren’t the strongest ones I have," King Albus continues to speak.

"So you were playing games with us!?!" Aria shouts towards the King.

"Games, no. I just needed to test the strength of everyone to know what I’m dealing with," King Albus explains.

Albus is definitely a lot smarter than I originally anticipated. That also means Lust left out quite a bit of information when telling us all about this.

Whether that was intentional or not is a problem for later when I encounter her again.

Maybe it would be best to just wipe her off the face of the earth when we meet since she is a damn monarch anyway.

A few seconds later I can hear more footsteps approaching from behind us. The feeling from these guys are the one I felt earlier.

The powerful guys were hidden from the start while these ones fought us upfront. I turn around to see ten guards with different types of masks on instead of helmets.

Each one in the shape of an animal which is definitely an odd choice to go with.

Wolf, Tiger, Hawk, elephant, and a few others that I don’t care to list. The strongest aura is coming from the initial ones I looked at first.

"So these are the ones you have protecting you," Eliza speaks up with a bit of shock in her voice.

"Of course. But I won’t spoil every secret," King Albus responds.

He might be strong himself which makes sense but I don’t know why he’d hide it. It could be a save it for the last fight kind of deal if we don’t struggle against them.

Beating them will mean we can deal with the king before moving forward. I will definitely be the one to kill him after we get all the information we need. 𝘧𝓇ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝘣𝓃ℴ𝓋𝑒𝑙.𝑐𝘰𝑚

The King might just be saving his strength for the right moment, not until the last fight. Keep your guard up for anything that may happen Rokuro.

I definitely will Rika. This isn’t going to end the way he wants it to... Just need to plan this out quickly. We should all be strong enough to fight back against these guys.

You definitely can and so can Aria. Velia is a little more up in the air since I haven’t seen her in action much lately. This is also the demon realm, the first one to be exact.

She can handle herself either way. Eliza is able to back her up if needed anyway so it’ll be fine.