Everyone besides Ercale and Arkanis turned toward the new arrivals. Shock, surprise, and confusion spread across their faces as they took in the sight of Calvinel, the Guard Commander, and Prince Mark standing at the edge of the battlefield.
"How are you all here? You had the biggest battle to fight out of all of us," Annabel asked.
Calvinel glanced toward her briefly, residual frost still curling faintly around his fingers from the attack he had just sent. "We'll explain after this is over," he replied. Then his attention shifted back toward the crater where Arkanis stood. His eyes narrowed slightly as he studied the Demon Lord more closely. "Let's take care of this… being first."
Now that he was actually looking at Arkanis, truly seeing him instead of simply reacting to the fight, a faint shiver ran down his spine.
Clara's focus, however, had moved to someone else entirely.
"Wha-what happened to you Prince Mark!?" she asked in a concerned tone as she saw his state.
Mark exhaled slowly, clearly tired. "A battle against a brute in an enclosed space," he answered with a sigh. Then he reached behind his back and detached two long red blades that had been secured there. The weapons had no handles, only elongated lengths of crimson metal. He held one in each hand as he adjusted his grip. "At least I have these now I suppose…" Given how badly he had been damaged, these were the most reliable weapons he had available.
"The guards are all back defending the coliseum," the Guard Commander added. He stepped forward and raised his chainsaw sword, pointing the jagged weapon directly toward Arkanis. "We will help you kill this being."
His eyes moved across the battlefield as he took in the scene, noticing two immediate oddities. "Where is the Lord Mathers? And who is he?" he asked, glancing up toward Ercale standing on the rooftop and realizing Samwell was nowhere to be seen.
"That old goat got blasted away to somewhere else in the city," Amara answered first, gesturing vaguely toward the surrounding ruins. Then she glanced up at Ercale on the roof. "As for the other one… he's an ally."
Inside the crater, Arkanis let out a slow, frustrated sigh.
"If you're all done catching up," he began, his voice calm but edged with irritation. Every person present tensed immediately at the sound of it. "I think I would like to call my own reinforcements now."
He raised his staff. The cracked weapon glowed faintly at the top.
Far above the battlefield, shapes began descending through the sky.
Nilus appeared first, floating downward under the control of his telekinesis. Around him drifted the veinblood cherubs, their small forms floating silently through the air before settling into position above the battlefield.
"Can we finally assist you my lord?"
Arkanis lowered his staff slightly and glared at the group standing against him. "You shall."
The battle began again instantly.
Arkanis swung his staff forward and unleashed a crushing wave of gravity directly toward the three who had just arrived. The ground beneath it tore apart as the pressure rolled forward, ripping up slabs of stone and cracked pavement.
Calvinel moved immediately. He stepped in front of Prince Mark and the Guard Commander and thrust both hands forward. Ice surged outward from his palms, rapidly forming a thick barrier of frozen plates between them and the incoming force.
The gravity wave struck it moments later. The impact shattered the ice instantly and tore up the street around it, the pressure strong enough to send Calvinel tumbling backward across the ground. Even so, the barrier had done its job—the worst of the attack had been absorbed.
Prince Mark and the Guard Commander were already moving before the shattered ice even finished scattering.
They rushed forward toward Arkanis.
Above the battlefield, Nilus raised his hand and the ruins responded. Large chunks of rubble ripped free from nearby buildings under the force of his telekinesis. Massive fragments of stone rose into the air before being hurled downward toward the mages below.
The cherubs joined in, wrenching smaller pieces of debris free and raining them down from above.
Amara reacted first. She launched bursts of fire upward, the fireballs exploding against the larger pieces of falling rubble Nilus had thrown. Each detonation shattered the incoming stone before it could reach the ground.
Clara handled the rest. She spun her halberd in controlled arcs around her body, smashing aside the smaller rubble the cherubs had thrown as it came down toward her.
Annabel, still drained from her mana exhaustion, simply took cover behind a broken piece of stonework.
Up on the fractured rooftop, Ercale pushed himself fully upright. Smaller fragments of debris struck the rooftop around him, but he simply slapped a few of them aside with irritated flicks of his hand.
"That gravity wave looked much weaker Arkanis!" he shouted down toward the crater, still huffing from exhaustion. "You trying not to exhaust yourself!?"
Arkanis did not respond.
His attention was already fixed on the two figures charging straight toward him.
The Guard Commander and Prince Mark were coming.