Internally, Daniel wasn't as confident about his side as he appeared to be.
He was more than aware of the level of power the king possessed.
What he was hoping to achieve by showing the dead monsters to the leaders of the tribes, was for them to come to admire Daniel enough to subconsciously accept him as their leader, and obtain the bonus in battle prowess that the rest of Daniel's group received.
The King of Monsters was currently looking back at Daniel with intrigued eyes. He could not understand who this twenty years old man was. How he was able to grow in power so quickly, or how everything he did was easily countered.
But aside from some interest, he felt no other emotion towards him. Just like Daniel, he was absolutely aware of the power he had, and the distance wasn't something that a group of four or five late or peak chief warriors that cooperated to kill him could compensate.
If that wasn't enough, the ten commanders of his army weren't pushovers either, as each of them had been at the peak chief level of power for thousands of years, just a step away from the early king rank.
Finally, his army was by far the most fearless and brutal of the two, granting them a psychological advantage.
Unfortunately for Daniel, his plan hadn't worked out as he hoped.
Provided that the tribe leaders were shocked by Daniel's revelation, an his quick increase in power.. They still did not blindly trust him with the lives of the millions of people in their tribes.
This could be attributed to the fact that their culture celebrated power. That was the reason why the tribe leaders were usually the strongest amongst each tribes.
The advantages that Daniel had, were the feeble support that the spiritual cultivators could give from above the platform, his own immortal essence, which restored way faster than it was absorbed, and finally, his own group of martial cultivator, whose life had been spent practicing a kind of war which the leaders of the wasteland world had long forgotten.
For the following few minutes, they two groups stared at each other intently. Each and every warrior or monster entered in their combat mentality, giving up each and every bit of mercy for their enemies.. Feeding their hate, or the desperation brought by the desire to survive the incoming battle..
The moment that started the war, was when two small platforms appeared right under the feet of the King of Monsters.. Which slowly stepped in the air, and walked towards the large platform.
As the king himself advanced, Daniel turned to look at his side, and said "This is your only chance to get your world back.. To stop hiding in holes in the ground while waiting for the corruption to take you.. DO NOT MESS THIS UP!"
Daniel disappeared from where he was standing right after two swords appeared in his hands, and when he reappeared, he was standing in the middle of the group of chief-level monsters.
His plan, was to thin the numbers of the enemy army before leaving the rest to the leaders, warriors, and cultivators. He would then join the thirty strongest warriors in attacking the king.
What his army had to do, was to keep the ten commanders and the king occupied for a few minutes..
With this plan in mind, he started to cut down one monster after another with his sharp swords.
A show of apocalyptic lights brightened the sky, as seas of fire engulfed the monsters' army, lightning bolts struck from random points in the air, and chippings of ice tried to make their way into their eyes, noses and mouths.
The moisture on the air was pushed away by the shock waves caused by the exchanges of blows between the two powers.
Despite the fact that Daniel was able to use his immortal essence and mastery of weapons to easily kill these monsters, he wasn't exceptionally stronger than them by any capacity.
On the other hand, the power of the King of Monsters was mind boggling.
He was a humanoid being, and from his style of fighting, one could infer that, when he was in his world of origin, he had learned some sort of fighting technique.
Each attack was precise, and hit swiftly.
In the time Daniel had spent to kill twenty monsters, the king had already taken down at least fifty warriors.. All powerful warriors of the various tribes.
On another side of the battlefield, the three members of the triumvirate were fighting against a single one of the of the ten commanders, which were being outnumbered three to one each.
One of these ten commanders had it easy, as he managed to quickly kill two of the three warriors he was fighting against, but had to immediately jerk back the moment before his attack could connect on the body of the third warrior, in order to avoid a sword slash.
The owner of this sword was a twenty-four years old man, with two single-bladed swords which he kept straight down his sides. His eyes cold as night, and his body covered in monster's blood.
This man, was Jerigh.
Edmund and Emelnie supported the members of the triumvirate in finishing off another of the ten commanders, and move on to to support the next.
After only five minutes since the beginning of the fight, the spiritual cultivators had decided to focus on getting in the way of the King of Monster, whose sight they obstructed with veils of water, whose hearing the blocked with sound essence, and whose surrounding awareness they confused by creating spatial illusion around his body.
Unfortunately, his power went beyond simple physical prowess.
Despite his senses being obstructed, he was still able to feel his surrounding thanks to the presence of essence of corruption, so, evading and striking wasn't difficult for him.
Twenty minutes later, Daniel had killed more than enough monsters to focus on another kind of prey. Specifically, the remaining seven commanders, two of which were putting Jerigh on a bad spot.
Regarding the other three, the first one had been killed by the coalition of the triumvirate, Emelnie and her husband Edmund, the second one had been killed right after by Jerigh and Emelnie, and finally, the third one had perished from the joint attack of Edmund and three other warriors.
The total death counts for the two armies, were three hundred chief-level monsters and warriors, and three commanders for the monster's army, and four hundred and thirty-eight warriors and for Daniel's side. Fifty of which, members of Daniel's group, or tribe leaders.
The situation quickly changed for the better after Daniel joined the effort to kill the ten commanders. He alone was able to kill one in a minute, and then move to the next.
With the support of the others, nine out of ten commanders were dead after an hour from the beginning of the fight.
Now covered in blood, he turned to look at the King of Monsters that was currently destroying people's skulls left and right.
He then pointed his sword at him, and injected large amounts of immortal essence into it.
The sword charged with electricity, which after a moment, was discharged in a thick lightning bolt that hit the king straight in his back.
That caught his attention.
The damage of the blow was felt, but it wasn't deadly. It only caused the King of Monsters to turn around in rage, and dash towards him. He was so fast, that Daniel wasn't even able to avoid him. He only managed to avoid the incoming King of Monsters by teleporting away.
The king crashed heavily against the ground, raising a storm of dust, and sand in the air.
Daniel reappeared a few meters to the side.
Immediately, he pushed out as much immortal essences as he could, and created numerous elemental golems, which once formed, attacked the king relentlessly.
With a single punch, the king was able to dissipate these golems of wind, ice, lightning, and rock. Unfortunately, they would reform right after.
These golems were nothing like those he had created during the gathering of experts. They were humanoid golems, similar to essence elementals, but that he himself controlled.
A few of the golems attacks reached their target, which only turned the king angrier after feeling the burnt of the blow.
Along with the constant absorption of spiritual essence, this feat left Daniel with almost no immortal essence left.
With just enough to teleport, Daniel dashed towards the king of monsters with his swords in hand.
He then slashed it downwards, trying to take one of its arms. But then, he saw something that sent a shiver down his spine.
The king had grabbed his sword mid-slash.
Without losing a beat, Daniel abandoned the sword and tried to thrust the second one in the king's face.
The tip of the blade managed to enter the hood, and reappeared on the back of it.
Unfortunately, Daniel hadn't felt any form of resistance on his blade. It went through as if there was nothing to penetrate to begin with.
With a sudden move of his arm, Daniel quickly cut the hood off of the king's black cloak, and what he uncovered, surprised him greatly.
The head of the king was made out of a black liquid.
This liquid was essence of corruption, and this ability was one of the repertoire of a cultivator of corruption.. It was called Liquefaction.
In a matter of seconds, the liquid moved, and took the shape of a head. The features of this head turned clearer and clearer, and in the end, what they showed was the face of a young man.
This young man had black hair, dark brown eyes, and what one would describe as a common face, which had been marked by a vicious scar that started from the middle of his forehead, split one of his eyes in two, and went all the way down to his jaw.
With a smile on his face, the king said "You really thought you could simply kill me with a sword?" right before dashing towards Daniel with enough speed to make 'evading' impossible for him.
He then threw a punch, which squarely hit Daniel in the stomach.
*Gaargh* Shouted Daniel before falling on his knees, with his internal organs in shambles. He wanted to teleport away, but the proximity to the token of corruption caused the absorption to be much faster, and prevented him from accumulating enough immortal essence.
"Use 'Karmic Retribution'! Are you stupid?" Sewah burst out from within Daniel's mind.
Daniel slowly stood up, and said "There are too many people around.. If the retribution is anywhere close to the last one, everybody here will die."
"So your alternative is that everyone dies by the monster's hands!??"
Daniel weakly stood up, but before he could stand straight, he was forced on the ground once again by a kick to his diaphragm.
*Bleargh* The impact was so strong, that he couldn't help but vomit.
Many ideas on how to get out of this problem came to his mind, and all were discarded.. But one.
Trying to fight his dizziness, Daniel said in his mind "Sewah.. You know how lucky would I be if none of my party was affected by karmic retribution?.."
"What are you talking about?.. Are you going crazy?" Responded Sewah in confusion.
Daniel weakly turned to look at the approaching king, then, after glancing at the red 6,538,711 that was floating above his head, he finally activated karmic retribution.
Unfortunately, nothing happened.
The King of Monsters arrived right in front of Daniel, and grabbed his neck. He then lifted him from the ground and squeezed tightly.
Daniel's face quickly became red, as the pressure on his neck would sooner break his spine than suffocate him.
Desperate, he used his last wisp of immortal essence to speed time around himself, and increase his production of essence by five times.
This was something that took little to no immortal essence, but an extreme amount of concentration. Way more than spatial, or any other type of essence did. Unfortunately, he had no other choice.
The moment the the time was sped up, and his immortal essence started to regenerate at fifty-five hundred times the normal speed, a small crack appeared on the surface of the purple sphere.
This crack became bigger and bigger.. Until finally, the small purple sphere broke into pieces, causing the entire spiritual essence it had absorbed since the beginning of the fight to engulf him.
*AAAAAAAARRRRGHH* *AAAAAAARGH!!* Shouted the king of monsters as the enormous amount of spiritual essence started to fight against his very existence as a being of corruption.
