Watching the monsters rampaging across the ground, Major General Scalies, commander of the Airborne Division, screamed with all his might in the recesses of his mind.
(Th-There's no way in hell we can beat things like that!)
The Heavenly Army? Those creatures were nowhere near that soft. Every single one of them possessed more raw strength than His Excellency Lieutenant General Ose. If the Heavenly Army truly commanded monsters of that caliber, there wouldn't have even been a war between good and evil in the first place.
This place was the very abyss of worldly despair. The only ones who stood a chance at putting up a proper fight were the two Generals who had manifested in this land and their directly affiliated forces. If Scalies and his men just stood by and twiddled their thumbs, they would all be wiped out together.
(Why did it turn out like this?!)
He demanded of himself, but naturally, no answer came.
Hearing that they could toy with the worms of this world to their hearts' content, he had joined the fray in high spirits, only for his luck to run out completely. Never in his wildest dreams had he imagined this land would be such an absolute living hell.
(In the first place, why were three Generals suddenly able to manifest?)
That was it. That was what bothered him most. The Six Great Generals were the symbols of all strength in this world, masses of pure, unbridled power. Materializing the Six Great Generals and an Evil Army of this magnitude should have required a staggering amount of energy. When he stopped to think about it, the entire situation was impossible.
—What if all of this had been orchestrated by the very monsters currently tearing through the ground below?
(N-No way!)
Reaching that worst-case conclusion, he felt a sickening revulsion, as if countless insects were crawling across his skin.
If they were capable of achieving such a feat, it meant the enemy possessed the power to summon the Six Great Generals to this realm. No, that wasn't the core issue—their objective was.
To begin with, summoning three of the Six Great Generals would never benefit the enemy. If they had summoned them, they had to be confident of victory. Even so, it defied logic that they would go out of their way to risk aiding their manifestation.
—What if there was no grand reason to begin with?
(No, no, that's absurd...)
He shook his head frantically, trying to dismiss the impossible thought that had crossed his mind.
(There's no way anyone would summon the Six Great Generals just for fun.)
Surely that couldn't be true. The Six Great Generals were the world's absolute absurdity, symbols of supreme power on par with the Six Heavenly Gods. Materializing them on a whim? Anyone with a shred of sanity would never harbor such a death wish. Then for what possible reason had they brought them into this world?
(Right now, rather than worrying about the motives of those deranged monsters, I have to figure out how to survive this predicament!)
Should he inform His Excellency General Asura?
(As if I could!)
Even Scalies, who was witnessing it with his own eyes, could barely believe the horrors unfolding below. There was no way the General would simply believe that his manifestation had been a trap. Scalies would merely be branded a coward spreading lies and face swift execution.
(I have to get out of here!)
This was far beyond anything Scalies could handle. The enemy might very well be on par with the Generals themselves. If he got caught in a clash between such genuine monsters, he wouldn't survive in one piece.
To begin with, Scalies's true strength lay in his intellect. He held the rank of Major General solely because of his past tactical achievements in command. His pure individual combat capability was merely at the level of a Colonel.
These enemies were not the sort one could defeat with clever schemes. Even if he led his army against them, nothing awaited him but certain death.
For now, he needed to leave this area, lay low, and wait out the battle.
If the General claimed victory, Scalies could quietly resurface and claim he had been sealed away by an enemy ability—that way, he might at least escape total annihilation. Regardless, staying here meant nothing but doom.
"I shall report this situation to His Excellency the General. The rest of you shall rendezvous with His Excellency Lieutenant General Ose and place yourselves under his command."
Rattling off his orders in a breathless rush, he glided into the sky to abandon the front lines without waiting for his adjutant's response.
If all went well, he could use Lieutenant General Ose as a decoy and slip away from this hell.
That hope was shattered to pieces by a crimson figure that suddenly cut him off.
"Fleeing before the enemy and abandoning your own men? As expected, the Evil Army is as utterly repulsive as ever."
The voice, dripping with pure contempt, belonged to a red-haired youth with vermilion wings sprouting from his back. Arms crossed, the young man looked down on Scalies as though glaring at a worthless insect.
"Wh-Who are you?"
Under normal circumstances, Scalies would have flown into a rage at such insolence, but after witnessing the sheer madness unfolding below, his mind was entirely consumed with finding a way to escape this living nightmare.
"I am the president of the Sky Lovers Club, the immortal Divine Bird Phoenix! The wish of our Great One is the complete annihilation of every last one of you vermin! Nothing more, nothing less!"
The winged, red-haired youth raised both arms, and countless spears enveloped in blazing fire materialized above Scalies's head, their tips all locking onto him.
A single glance was enough to understand the gravity of the threat. Thousands of fiery spears blotted out the sky. Every single one possessed enough destructive power to obliterate him without leaving a trace of ash behind.
"Aaaahhh..."
A high-pitched shriek tore from his throat. In the depths of that absolute despair, just as the fiery spears were about to rain down—
"—?!"
A blond man with a sun-and-crow tattoo etched into his right cheek materialized right before Scalies's eyes, clamping his right hand violently over Scalies's face.
"It's over."
As panic boiled within Scalies's chest, the tattooed man delivered the cold, flat declaration, his eyes frozen with apathy.
"Gwah?!"
An instant later, an agonizing pain ripped through Scalies, as though a red-hot iron had been driven into his flesh. His vision drowned in crimson, and the skin across his entire body began to blister and bubble as if boiling alive.
"I'm... swelling?"
The moment he realized his body was expanding, the tattooed man thrust a bizarrely shaped blade held in his other hand straight into Scalies's neck. In that split second, Scalies's body popped and burst apart, scattering flames from the inside out.