Arash was fast, his spear stabbed at the fox with incredible speed as afterimages were left in its wake. The fox didn't fall behind either, even though it was slightly suppressed and Arash had his stats increased thanks to the array, it was still a bit faster compared to him.
It sidestepped the stabs perfectly while slowly moving forward and getting closer to Arash who was forced to do a sweep with his spear in order to knock it back. The sweep failed as the fox jumped over the attack before slashing with its claw.
Arash quickly responded, he was quick to bring his spear back and use it to defend his body before turning sideways and using the back of the spear to hit the fox and sent it back.
The attack did little to no damage, but it was enough for Arash whose main concern was to keep the fox at a distance.
He had the reach advantage thanks to his spear while the fox was deadlier up close. The two had completely different fighting styles and the one that made the first mistake would pay dearly for it.
While that battle was underway, Reign and the others sneaked into the base.
The demons were all hiding and spectating the fight, which made it easy to pick them off one by one.
Nobody would think that somebody was crazy enough to actually come inside their base and pick a fight right now when there were two powerful creatures fighting against each other, not to mention the fact that the demons were at the very top of the food chain on the mountain and that nobody dared mess around with them.
Their territory was considered a death zone as most monsters that entered it would die, only those that were near the top of the first tier dared come close to the base, and even then, they would never attack the demons while there were others nearby.
Shadow was the one that showed his strength this time.
He moved silently and made no sound whilst coming behind demons and killing them.
Wolf did a similar thing, he switched his sword to a rank A dagger and joined in the killing.
The whole plan was his idea and he would of course not dilly daily. The more demons they killed before their presence was noticed, the better it would be for later.
The others stayed a bit further away, with Reign being the exception.
He was incredibly fast and had better control over his mana than the others, which allowed him to hide his mana very well and not let anyone sense him.
Beast would occasionally launch an arrow or two and pick off some weaker demons that would show themselves. The weaker demons would die instantly from one mana-enhanced arrow, while the stronger ones required a hit on the head to die instantly.
He made sure that there were no demons close to the ones he killed as he used his snake to scout them out.
The powerful poison the little one had was able to kill a demon very fast and Beast would work together with it to kill two demons at once.
The battle intensified over at Arash's side.
He and the fox were about even when it came to strength, he had more defense compared to the little monster while the latter was faster.
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Cuts and cracks appeared on his body and armor while the fox also had two wounds from which blood was flowing.
Neither one was going all out, however, as they were still analyzing their opponent and trying to figure out what weakness the other one had.
For the fox, it was definitely the reach, it didn't use any skills till now and only used its incredible speed and sharp claws + teeth to deal damage to Arash. Its small body was made for a small target and it was very agile and could twist its body to evade most attacks.
As for Arash, his weakness was close-range combat as a spear was simply not designed for something like that, but he was quite good with his fists which made the weakness a relatively small one.
His armor made him slower but provided great defense that had already saved him a couple of times against the swift fox that had landed more hits compared to him. The heavy armor that looked like it was made out of steel was holding up great against the fox, even though some cracks had formed on it from the relentless attacks of the monster.
Suddenly the two distanced themselves from each other.
No sound could be heard around the two as they stared at each other before their auras flared up.
Arash suddenly shouted and his shout shook the base. The armor he wore suddenly fell off his body as his muscles grew larger and he grew to be about 3 meters tall. Suddenly another surprise took place as the opposite started happening to him.
The muscles that had appeared on his body started condensing and in a matter of moments, Arash was back to how he looked before and was still shrinking a bit.
In the end, the 1.9-meter-tall demon turned into a 3-meter-tall one before suddenly becoming 1.8 meters tall.
Even though he had shortened, one could still feel the incredible power that was hidden inside the muscles that had all condensed to their limits. Small spikes had grown out from his shoulder blades and his elbows grew out blades while his knees had some sort of a black guards covering them.
The fox did some kind of transformation as well.
Its small body started shining with an eerie blue light before it grew. From being a small, 1-meter-long monster, it was now about 2 meters long and 1 meter tall.
Blue flames could be seen around its feet and mouth while its eyes turned sky blue.
The two were no longer holding back.
Each one of the two powerful monsters was finally going all out and had used all the power they had to transform. The base was fully covered by their auras as the other ash demons all gulped in fear as to what was about to happen.
Even though they had full confidence in their leader, the battle had been taking place for quite some time and none of them had gotten the lead.
They knew that if Arash was to die, they would follow.
As for Reign and the others.
They had killed about half of the demons in the base.
The battle that was taking place had not only garnered the full focus of the demons, but the auras that appeared after the two went all out were a perfect cover for what they were doing.
Nobody could notice them, not even when they used some weaker skills since their mana would be completely unnoticeable by the others thanks to the two Tier II monsters who were fighting.
After killing a bunch of demons, Reign and the others decided to stop.
They had already killed a lot, and they barely got any exp since only the demons that were level 90 and above would give them exp.
They needed to let some demons live so that Elijah and the others from the territory could gain some experience by fighting them.
The other mountains were much more dangerous, and even though higher-leveled Tier I players could go and hunt there, it would be too much for the low-leveled ones.
The battle between Arash and the fox intensified over time. The blue flames from the fox were not hot, on the contrary, they were incredibly cold and would actually freeze any organic matter while burning non-organic ones.
The spear of Arash was now much faster and deadlier compared to before, while the close-range combat had stopped being a weakness of his since he was able to use the spikes and blades that had come out of his shoulders and elbows in order to deliver some serious damage.
The fox was able to send its flames forward and now possessed long-range capabilities as well, from time to time it would also shoot out a fire breath from its mouth while Arash had used his third eye multiple times as well.
Buildings had crumbled, killing the demons inside of them, and the walls of the base now had holes in them as the battle between the two was on a completely different scale.
Even Reign and the others who were watching the battle from afar and were getting ready to jump in and kill both enemies once they were exhausted were nervous.
Had they fought against one of the two monsters by themselves, the costs would have been unimaginable as the monsters far eclipsed the other three Tier II monsters they had fought before.
They would need to go all out and use every single boost they had in order to fight against them, and even then they weren't a hundred percent certain of victory.
Still, they had smiles on their faces as they knew the time to strike would come soon.