It wasn't just their Trial Region; the Tournaments happening all over the Trial World were facing a similar situation.
As a matter of fact, it wasn't just the Milky Way Galaxy Trial World, but the other 999 Galaxy Trial Worlds of the Zephyr Cluster Trial Program also dealt with the same issue.
In all the Trial Worlds collectively combined, a million Tournaments took place simultaneously, a thousand in each Trial World.
Each Tournament Island was invaded by an army of monsters led by a monster with Fiend Subsidiary Bloodline.
Among the million monsters that were granted the Fiend Subsidiary Bloodline by the Fiend overlord, around 99% had the power to match a Tier-4 Low-Phase lifeform, while 1% of those monsters, which amounted to around 10,000 had the power to match a Tier-4 Mid-Phase lifeform.
Only a rare few of less than 100 monsters awakened the strongest bunch of Fiend Subsidiary Bloodlines that let them bring a damage output of Tier-4 High-Phase lifeforms.
The Plasma Predator was one of those few monsters. The ones as strong as it had already taken over the respective Tournament Islands and eliminated the thousands of residing Alpha Chosen and the Tournament Managers overlooking them.
Among the 100 or so strongest bunch of monsters, the Plasma Predator was the one that faced the most resistance.
If it were to be placed in any other Trial Region, it would have easily accomplished the task assignment by the Fiend Overlord.
While chaos spread around in every Tournament Island across the 1000 Galactic Trial Worlds, an even more intense battle took place in outer space at a scale far beyond the likes of the budding Alpha Chosen.
Outside the gravitational clutches of the massive Planetary Cluster, which boasted 1000 planets orbiting around a single massive star, tens of thousands of lifeforms fought against each other.
Even the weakest of them were at Tier-7. While they constituted most of the army, Tier-8 individuals could be seen every now and then, whereas those at Tier-9 could be seen less often, but their presence was considerable.
One side consisted of Fiends with their discernable blood-red eyes, skin, horns and enormous bodies.
The other side had a mix of individuals from numerous races, but they all had one thing in common, a halo above their heads.
It was none other than the System Halo that everyone in the Sentinel Order carried around, something that represents protection from the System itself.
The battlefield extended around the confines of the massive Planetary Cluster, with the Sentinels protecting the thousand Trial Worlds that were revolving around the massive star with fifty planets each in one of the 20 orbits.
With a Planetary Cluster that spans as long as 10 Light Years, the outer space was vast enough to accommodate the ongoing battle without individual fights clashing with one another.
However, the most powerful fight among them wasn't taking place around there but within the Space Vacuum between Planetary Clusters.
Within the nothingness, a ginormous Fiend Sovereign that stood around a kilometer (0.62 miles) tall swung a heavy War Hammer at his opponent, splitting apart the fabric of space itself in the process.
The one facing the bulky-framed Fiend, General Ghora, was just one-tenth his opponent's size, but that didn't put him at any disadvantage despite a blindfold wrapped over his eyes.
Watching his opponent once again dodge his attack as if it was a walk in the park annoyed General Ghora even more.
"Blind Sovereign, Dutan, face me head-on if you have guts! Shameless Sentinels!!" Ghora yelled out.
His voice echoed within the empty space using his own Spirit Energy as the medium. The next moment, Ghora received a reply along with a large gash on his back.
The Emerald-robed Sentinel, Dutan, warped through space and appeared behind his opponent before attacking with his sword.
"Shameless?! I never expected to hear such blatant words from a Fiend. Each of you hide your Essence Crystals like cowards, and yet you have the gall to call us shameless?" The Blind Sovereign sneered with disdain apparent on his lips.
He once again vanished from where he was a moment ago and reappeared further away before shooting several slices of Emerald Energy at Ghora.
The Fiend Sovereign streaked through the space vacuum and moved out of the path of those attacks, but they soon vanished and reappeared right beside him, landing all over his body.
Ghora's ginormous body, which was already riddled with injuries, had taken another series of strikes, worsening his condition.
The signature ability of the Fiends, the regeneration that has no peers in the entire Universe, was barely showing its effect, and two factors stood at the root cause of that.
An Essence Crystal was something every Fiend Bloodline lifeform possessed. It is both the boon and curse of the entire Fiend Race.
The lingering curse being the fragility of the Essence Crystal and how it encompasses the soul and vitality of a Fiend. Destroying it was the same as ending the Fiend for good.
The glorifying boon being the ability to survive almost anything as long as the Essence Crystal remains intact.
Thanks to that, the Fiend Race was able to dominate all other races that rivalled them in the past.
Once a Fiend crosses the 2nd Universe Limit and reaches Tier-7, it then would be able to separate the Essence Crystal from its body, irrespective of the former's distance from the latter.
As long as it was kept hidden somewhere safe, even if the body is destroyed, the Fiend's Essence Crystal could recreate a new body for the Fiend.
Although that made the Fiends practically immortal, the redundancy of the Essence Crystal had led to temporarily diminishing the Fiends' defensive and regenerative prowess by a long haul.
If that wasn't enough, the System Halo not only acts as an extra life for the Sentinels but also grants them the ability to deal damage that was harder to regenerate from, becoming an even bigger pain in the ass for the Fiends, especially to those that didn't have their Essence Crystals with them.
All those factors combined had led to the Fiend General being seriously injured as his regenerative prowess lagged behind.
Comments