Flying straight towards the giant pitch-black demon Marcus began activating all of his buff spells planning to end this fight as quickly as he could.
'Spirit blaze, legs of light, arms of darkness, lightning strider, iron skin, radiance scales.'
Appearing before the demon in a burst of light Marcus slashed out with his scythe empowered by its enchantments and his supreme skill, aiming to kill the demon in one blow.
Nevertheless, even though the demon was engaged with a powerful opponent already, it could not ignore Marcus and brought up one of its blade arms to block his scythe.
With a resounding clang, Marcus' scythe and the demon's blade arm created an explosion bushing each of them back from the force.
However, the demon's other opponent, the leader of the intelligent beasts took this opportunity to charge forward its horn glowing with gleaming energy.
The winged unicorn then jammed its horn into the side of the demon sending a blast of light out that tore a hole through the demon.
In retaliation the demon slashed towards the neck of the winged unicorn but found that its foe retreated just as quickly as it had attacked.
The demon boiling with anger over having been injured brought its two blade arms together before throwing out a massive burst of dark energy that encompassed a diameter of two hundred feet.
The winged unicorn sensing the attack backed off out of range, but Marcus decided to dive right in and try to catch the demon off guard.
Flying through the dark burst that the demon had just unleashed, Marcus saw his radiance scale spell go to work completely shielding him from the attack, as he closed in on the unsuspecting demon.
Appearing before the demon Marcus began sending powerful slash after powerful slash towards the demon forcing it on the defensive.
The demon then began firing of darkness bullets at Marcus to try and force him back, but his radiance scales protected him, and the demon soon found himself being blasted from afar by the winged unicorn that had been its main adversary up until this point.
"What are you? I know you are no human or level thirty-five. How do you wield the power of darkness and light in such harmony?"
The demon seemingly baffled by Marcus' appearance and abilities could not help but ask its questions even while being pressured by Marcus and the winged unicorn.
The demon was slowly being pushed back and while focusing on its injured side Marcus was able to parry one of the demon's blade arms away and create and opening.
Firing a heighten laser spell which was further empowered by his supreme skill, Marcus sent out a powerful blast of light right for the demon, but before it hit a dark void opened up in front of it and began sucking in the laser spell.
However, the winged unicorn unleashed its own blast of light from its horn at the same time causing the demon to have to bring up both of its sword arms to block.
With the demon now practically defenseless Marcus pushed through and slashed out with his scythe taking off the demon's right leg in a flash of light.
The demon howled in pain before yelling out, "ENOUGH!"
The void like darkness that had been protecting it then suddenly shrunk before expanding in a massive explosion of darkness energy far stronger than the demon's earlier one.
This time Marcus' radiance scales could not hold up as they began shattering one by one before Marcus was blown back.
Luckily even though his spell had been destroyed it still took the entirety of the attack for him and Marcus remained uninjured and ready to get back into the fight.
'Time to finish this, Eclipse Meteor!'
Using his strongest attack, the swirling aura of light and darkness condensed around Marcus before he went plummeting back towards the demon in a shining ball of death.
The demon seeing Marcus coming right for him went wide eyed, before clicking its tongue and cutting off its own arm.
A black ichor like mist then began blasting out of the demon covering his whole body right before Marcus made impact.
With a massive explosion that lit up the whole area Marcus crashed into the ground where the demon had been before.
Everything in the vicinity began running away as the explosion expanded and those that were too slow ended up consumed and destroyed by the aftermath of Marcus' attack.
Standing in the middle of a new crater he had just made Marcus felt extremely frustrated since he knew that the demon had escaped him somehow.
'FUCK! I am not going to get a chance like this again.'
With anger taking him over after not being able to take down the demon in his first encounter, Marcus flew up out of the crater he was in and looked down at the battlefield.
Now floating above the battlefield Marcus saw that about half of the demon's army was retreating while the other half suicidally attacked the intelligent beasts to buy time.
However, without the demon to hold back the beasts' leader, the winged unicorn went around sending out blasts of light that were quickly wiping out the remaining forces of the demon.
'Your not getting away as well.'
With nothing else to express his anger on, Marcus began charging up the iron feathers that made up his wings with the energy coming off of his supreme skill.
Then when every feather was powered up, he fired them like a barrage of missiles towards the demon's retreating forces.
Marcus watched as hundreds of the dark aura beasts and monsters that made up the demon's army died under his assault, some having their heads pieced, others losing all of their limbs, and the really unlucky ones were blown into bits and pieces.
Unfortunately, Marcus' attack while incredibly wide in range was lacking devastating power and the strongest beasts and monsters survived his attack and made it to the exit tunnel escaping into a different area.
The fury in him subsiding, Marcus felt his body beginning to crumble under the stress of his supreme skill and deactivated it.
With all of the strength in his body now fading, Macus began plummeting back towards the ground but before he impacted, reverted to his ghost form and just floated there to recover.
'Great, now the demon knows about me, and my element of surprise is gone. Well, at least its army was whittled down, but that will only slow its advance.'
As the defenders finished off the remains of the demon's forces, Marcus floated right above the crater he created and watched while recovering.
He wanted to get out there and help finish the fight, but he had truly used all of his strength to try and kill the demon and then subsequently attack its retreating forces.
Luckily, the remaining intelligent beasts soon finished off the fodder that had been left behind to secure the other forces retreat winning the day.
Marcus heard cheers coming from the beast as they had managed to win the battle and he could not help but be astonished by the different number of beasts he could now see.
'All of them are intelligent beasts, most of them being at the rare grade, and even a couple being epic grade.'
As Marcus scanned the battlefield looking at and appraising the beasts, the winged unicorn that was their leader appeared in front of him even though he was still in his ghost form.
"I would like to thank you for your assistance, though I know not who or what you are, you have the gratitude of my people."
The leader of the intelligent beasts then bowed its head towards Marcus, though to most of the onlookers it looked as if the winged unicorn was bowing towards nothing.
Seeing as how he could not converse in his ghost form, Marcus reappeared and said towards the winged unicorn, "No need to thank me, Findlyier promised I would be paid for my help so if you want to thank someone thank him."
The beast's leader then raised its head and said, "So you are the reinforcements that Findlyier brought to aid us. Your help has been invaluable, bringing us our first victory against the demon and its forces in quite some time. For this will are more than willing to reward you with whatever we have to offer."
After talking to Marcus, the winged unicorn cast its gaze out over the battlefield looking sadly at those that had fallen.
It then told Marcus that it must aid the wounded and he was free to do as he wished for now.
'Guess I will help out as well.'
Taking out a mana recovery potion Marcus chugged it down and felt his spent mana recovering.
He certainly was still not in any condition to fight but walking around and administering the occasional healing spell was still something he could accomplish.
Meeting back up with Roxene, Marcus went around using his healing magic on the wounded beast that lay throughout the battlefield, many of them giving him heartfelt thanks for his help.
'It really does seem weird; all of these beasts are more like people. I normally look at beasts as walking experience points or a resource to reap, but these guys really care for each other.'
As the last of the injured beasts were being taken care of, a familiar pixie dragon flew up to Marcus and said, "Thank you so very much for your help. It has felt like an eternity since we have driven back the demon before day. And you even went so far as to help our injured, thanks to you the casualties of this battle were kept to a minimum."
"Just doing my job, I expect to be rewarded for my help. Now would you lead me to where you guys are staying, I need to rest after having fought so hard."
Findlyier nodded his head and said, "Follow me, I will take you to our home, oh and if you want, I can lead you to the other adventures as well.. They should be recuperating in the temporary dwelling they set up."