Chapter 607 Incarnation of War
The monster army was slowly being pushed back further and further toward their town, their central camp. It seemed like there was little they could do in order to change the tide of the battle now, especially considering that at this point, the numbers of the monsters' and the originals' army had practically reversed, with the latter vastly outnumbering the former, all thanks to the advanced necromancy that Jyuuk and the other necromancers made use of.
Eisen, his elemental spirit, Askr, and the Light-Minotaur were all doing their best to properly defend against any sort of incoming aerial attack that they could catch or stop, all with the help of Bree, who was actively analyzing the enemies' attack patterns to warn the four of them and tell them what exactly they had to do in order to defend against them.
By evening of the day that the fight started, the monsters were properly pushed back to the point that Eisen soon received a message from Brody.
[Brody] Clear a path to the entrance of town, and do it as flashily as you can
"You got it." The old man whispered to himself, and quickly grabbed Bree from his shoulder to safely place her into the chest-pocket of his leather-apron, to make sure that she wouldn't fall off all of a sudden, and then turned over toward Askr.
Eisen snapped his finger and shouted his command, sending the actual specifics through his mind. Immediately, the wooden giant pulled the enormous sword from his side and stepped up in front of the rest of the army, with the gate of the large camp right in his sight. And something else that he could see was Brody basically clearing out the direct path between Askr and the gate, single-handedly fighting against the monsters that dared try and fight him, before he suddenly stopped and turned around toward the wood-giant. It seemed like both Eisen and Brody were thinking the exact same thing.
Askr's body became covered in a layer of air as he was infused with the air element, and the moment he swung the blade down right into the direction of the gate, an incredible gust of wind pushed back every single monster that was standing in the way and even created a small incave in the ground. Basically, a path leading between Askr and the gate was created. And right in front of the tip of the blade, being the only one that was able to resist the gust of wind, was Brody.
He reached his hand out and placed it onto the tip of the blade, quickly holding onto it while Eisen and his elemental both got started. And since Eisen's elemental spirit basically looked like an exact copy of the old man in his Draconic Demon King form, Eisen figured that it would be a good idea to try and do the exact same movements, simply mirroring each other.
And so, they both used a magic spell that Eisen had been practicing for a while, simply because it was a convenient one. They created a stone-brick path in the place where the ground had been pushed down, turning it into a road that was easy to walk on. And that road didn't only extend through that path created by Askr, but it also lead through inbetween his legs and right to the front of the originals' army, where Jyuuk, Xenia and Evalia were waiting. They soon started walking on the stone-brick road toward the monsters' camp.
The Light-Minotaur and Eisen's elemental spirit stood on either side of the end of the path where Brody was waiting, while Eisen ended his Draconic Demon King transformation and shrunk down as quickly as he could, even shrinking himself down beyond his regular size. Because he wanted to quickly change into another form. Of course, he had set Bree down on Askr' shoulders before this happened.
Eisen opened his Item Storage underground and only made himself a small opening that he dropped in through, letting the space be unseen for basically everyone else, and inside, he had already prepared another item set. He got rid of his leather apron for now and then increased his size while standing inside of the set of golden armor.
And he increased his size even beyond that of his 'normal' height, and returned to the maximum size that he could be without any other transformation. He was just in his basic 'Eisen' form, albeit while being roughly 16 meters in height.
The old man stood at the front of the stone-brick road while Brody, Jyuuk, Xenia, and Evalia were standing by his side. And the old man was wearing the special 'King's Armor Set' that he had created for himself to increase his royal authority, including the cape, while he was even holding the scepter and the crown was sitting on the top of his head.
He usually thought that this all together was complete overkill, but in this situation, it might be different. It wouldn't do to try and treat this as something that didn't require this sort of dedication. This was the 'Island of the God of War', and war couldn't be ended half-assedly.
Once everyone was gathered behind the old man, and the monsters were all just staring at the figure of this giant man in golden armor, Eisen slammed the scepter into the ground. It was basically like a staff, and immediately spread out the old man's Royal Authority in a way that anyone had to pay attention to Eisen, even if they actively tried not to.
"General! We would like to have a word with you!" Eisen exclaimed loudly, his voice echoing through the camp. The old man was soon able to see a figure step out of the central tent that Jyuuk mentioned before.
It was a humanoid figure completely wearing a set of armor from bottom to toe. There didn't seem to be a single speck of skin, fur, scales, or whatever this monster had, to be seen from outside the armor.
And not only that, but the figure was towering over everyone else, being roughly five meters tall. It had a large spear in its hands. Slowly, it stepped toward the entrance of the camp and stared up at the face of the figure standing there in front of it.
"What brings us the honor of defending against such an incredible army?" It asked as it pushed the top of its spear down into the ground, while the old man let his truth-seeing eyes flash for just a second to appraise the figure.
To Eisen's surprise, this was actually the island-boss, and a quite special one as well. It was an 'Incarnation of War'. It was a new sort of monster that they had never seen before, but it definitely was a sort of monster, considering that it had a rank.
Eisen looked down at it and slowly formed a smile on his lips, "It's simple. Recently, we have formed the Kingdom of Asgard, and we wish to make this island part of that Kingdom. And considering the nature of this place, there was no other way but to show you how incredible we could be." The old man said bluntly.
"I see. It seems like we have underrestimated you after judging your numbers."
"It seems so, yes." Eisen replied, and the 'Incarnation of War' slowly faced toward the ground, and knelt onto its left knee, "It is our complete loss. We surre-"
"There is no need for that." The old man interrupted, "We did not come here to dominate you, or take your land away from you. We came here so that we could live alongside each other, and have you join our Kingdom. But I doubt that it would have been easy to convince you without showing you our prowess."
The armored figure slowly looked up and started to laugh before nodding its head, "It would not have been easy, indeed. But if your wish is to have us join you, then so be it. Although for that, I would have one more condition. I am the 'Boss' of this island, and while others are restricted to a single space, I am not. I am a different sort of 'Boss', allowing me to surrender instead of having to die. As you just declined my surrendering, I must ask to turn this into a personal manner. Please, allow me to fight against the strongest of your army. If I lose, then we will join you, but if I win, it will become a bit more complicated."
Eisen slowly looked to the side at Brody, who was grinning broadly, seemingly pretty excited to fight against this enemy, so the old man didn't see a reason to not let this happen if both parties were interested. And Eisen was positive that Brody would never lose a fight against anyone other than Eisen himself right now. And that was only because the old man had literal tens of thousands of years of experience of fighting against Brody, while Brody had none of that against Eisen. He was at a complete advantage, and could read Brody like an open book.
This 'Incarnation of War', no matter how impressive it may look, would surely not be a match against Brody.
Rank and level-wise, it didn't seem to have an overwhelming base-strength advantage either, so Brody should be able to make that bit of difference up pretty well.
The Demon-Orc stepped forward toward the Incarnation of War and crossed his arms, "You wanna fight the strongest? Well, that'd be me."
Seemingly a bit surprised, the Incarnation of War looked away from Eisen and toward Brody, and then back to Eisen, "I rather expected me to have to fight against him, rather than you, small one."
"Oi…" Brody groaned, "He's big, but he ain't the strongest here. He's the King, but I'm the General of the Army, and the best fighter in this world, you know?"
"The King of that Kingdom himself visited us? That is quite an honor indeed. Then, your Majesty, is this man telling the truth? Is he the strongest man in your army?"
With a slight laugh, Eisen nodded his head, "Yes, he is. You can trust me with that. Just a few months ago, he was the strongest man, or rather the strongest being, in the world. Including the gods, actually." Eisen explained.
"…I see. Then it was you, after all. It is an honor to be allowed to fight against you, oh great Brody, the peak of combat." The Incarnation said, "You have grown much weaker than you were before, so I apologize for not recognizing you right away.��
Brody raised his brows and looked at the armored figure in front of him while he crossed his arms, "Oh, so you knew about me?"
The Incarnation of War slowly stood up and pulled its spear out of the ground, before pointing it at Brody with one arm, "I think that may be an understatement. After all, I once was your very own set of armor."