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I should have guessed that their Eight-stars were disguising themselves as ordinary Hellhounds. From the very beginning, I said that the main fighting would be done by me, and both of their clans were more than happy to oblige. After all, their job here was just to prevent the Warhorses from escaping. Unless the need truly arose, they would have likely stayed hidden.

Warsight bringing a herd of Warhorses to invade their camp was basically the equivalent of prodding a hornet’s nest, except that instead of hornets, she stirred up several dozens of Eight-star Cerberuses. While none of them could fly like the Warhorses, they were adequate in dealing with Warsight, else she wouldn’t have appeared so apprehensive about her prospects.

“This wasn’t your business to begin with…” Shadowfall was about to continue but was promptly cut off by Zhandalar. “Talk is pointless now. If it’s a fight you want, it’s a fight you’ll get.”

“Like we’re afraid of you?!” Ever the temperamental one, Warsight immediately opened up with a Dream the moment Zhandalar showed his resolve to fight.

“ROAARRR!”

All three of Zhandalar’s jaws opened in unison and roared. Every pair of his eyes bored right into the oncoming Warsight with a ferocity to match. A second later, his middle head closed its eyes and dropped downwards as if it was asleep. Barely ten meters away from him in the air was Warsight. Clearly, her Dream had successfully pulled one of Zhandalar’s heads into a dreamlike state.

Once one fell into the dream realm, they were prey for the Nightmare Steed, no exceptions. However, things didn’t proceed as smoothly as Warsight hoped. Even from my Devil King Idol, I could see that Zhandalar had been affected by her. Honestly, I thought that would be the end of him then, but reality proved otherwise.

His sleeping body suddenly jerked and launched into a sudden attack in the brief window of a second. In just the blink of an eye, his massive body came face to face with Warsight. His left and right head opened their massive jaws and bit down hard on her neck, fresh blood raining down from the air.

With the momentum from his bodyweight and attack, he forcefully dragged her down to the ground!

BANG!

Having cast a Dream, the caster would immediately enter a dreamlike state as well. That was why Warsight wasn’t prepared at all for the sudden attack. With no means to retaliate, her own mass became fuel for her deafening crash.

Now that she was back on the ground, she promptly awakened from her trance. Her first reaction was to gather the mana around her body and wrap it in black flames. The heat of these flames alone were enough to deter her attacker, even a Cerberus possessed innate flame resistance. Such was its ferocity that Zhandalar had to reluctantly release his double bite on her. Even so, he still caught a few motes of fire and was burned in the process. Fortunately, his burns weren’t too bad as he was, after all, a creature of Purgatory as well.

Definitely not one to take a setback lying down, his middle head which had now awakened from its trance took the opportunity to spit out a rotating pillar of flames back at Warsight, promptly swallowing her up in a fiery display.

“Blast it… that was even faster than before…”

A Nightmare Steed’s flame resistance was comparable to a Hellhound’s. However, flames such as the ones they spat out weren’t just ordinary flames, they had mana mixed in as well. Unless one was completely immune to fire, they would still take some damage from the attack. This short exchange of flames had left both sides with moderate burns.

But that wasn’t enough to deter Warsight as she immediately launched herself into another reckless charge with a forceful kick of her hooves. Yet just when it looked like Warsight was about to emerge from his pillar of flames, Zhandalar smartly chose to dodge aside, avoiding a direct confrontation with her while also allowing himself an opportunity to swipe at her back.

Unfortunately, Warsight’s black flames hadn’t been extinguished yet. This simple attack not only did not help him, it instead caused his claws to catch on fire. It wasn’t a serious injury, but it still hurts nonetheless.

“It has almost been fifty years since we last fought. Now, you’re even able to break my Dream easily. I admit. You’ve become strong.” Warsight’s eyes lit up with fire. “But you still can’t beat me!”

“ROOARRR!”

Zhandalar bellowed before charging at Warsight once more. Words weren’t his weapon of choice in this fight, action was.

Based on that short exchange just now, it could be surmised that each of his heads had their own consciousness, or perhaps he could control each head separately. Either way, their Dream was fully countered by this, halving Warsight’s combat strength by at least half.

The rest of the Eight-star Cerberuses were basically the same as well. There were some small variance between each of their fights, but the situation was largely similar as long as one was able to counter or break free from the Nightmare Steed’s Dream.

However, not all the Cerberuses were able to perfectly counter Dream. There were times when I saw a Cerberus stand completely still for a long period of time in the middle of battle. Had it not been for their companions helping to attack the Nightmare Steed who cast that Dream, those Cerberuses would have most likely met their maker by now.

In contrast to the battles with the Nightmare Steeds, fights with a Purgatory Warhorse were a lot simpler. It boiled down to a physical brawl. A competition of pure strength, flames and speed.

In a competition on land, the Cerberuses had never feared any opponent. That was what Sidarth said to me once -though that honestly felt like bragging to me.

The fights involving a Purgatory Warhorse were a lot more violent when compared to that with a Nightmare Steed. A few Seven-stars tried to join in the fight against one such Eight-star Purgatory Warhorse, but they were swiftly sent flying with a kick of their hooves. And that was why you should just leave the fighting to the Eight-stars.

As the battle raged on in the Hellhounds’ camp, the same situation roughly played out in the camp of the Purgatory Shadowcats as well.

Shade and Warheaven led their own herd to the camp of the Purgatory Shadowcats, only to find several dozens of Eight-stars lying in wait for them.

Just like before, neither could come to an agreement and a fight soon broke out.

“Dream.”

Shade opened with their signature move. Without three heads to counter Dream, this move ordinarily would have had a high rate of success. Unfortunately, he was soon proven wrong…

Shade tried to pull one of the Purgatory Shadowcats into the dream realm with him, but it merely took a quick shake of his furry head before the ability was completely countered. A flash of black fur later, that Purgatory Shadowcat had already leapt into the air and was face to face with Shade, both claws bared in a flurry of furious swipes.

“MEOOOWW!”

With the failure of his Dream, he was stunned for a brief second. That mere moment was enough for the Purgatory Shadowcat to land a solid swipe on his horse face, sending bits of flesh and blood flying about.

Having been attacked, Shade immediately awakened. Biting down on his teeth, he endured the tearing pain in his psyche from the backlash and headbutted his opponent with his still bleeding face. Yet this attack ended in failure as well. That cat had no intention at all of fighting him after getting a swipe in, instead he promptly retreated having gained an advantage.

“How…” Because their two clans rarely met, plus the Purgatory Shadowcats acted like shut-ins most of the time, their clans had very little experience fighting with each other. Shade wasn’t too informed about his opponent’s abilities, but he was still surprised about how his Dream was so easily broken. “How were you able to break free from my Dream so easily…”

“Meow!” The big cat proudly meowed, then burst forth in another attack. “Don’t look down on us Purgatory Shadowcats! Also, did you think I played all those years of cards for nothing?!”

What did I just hear him say…something about not playing all those years of cards for nothing…

Madness. Exactly what did being immune to Dream have to do with playing cards?

After giving it some thought later on, that cat actually made sense. After all, they had to control those heavy floating cards with their minds. In other words, while they were playing cards, they were also training themselves. And Dream was clearly a psychic attack.

In that case, it only made sense that the Purgatory Shadowcats were immune to Dream. Right?

Nope… definitely not. Nothing in this world made sense! They were clearly just bored, that’s why they played cards. That decision had nothing to do with being immune to psychic attacks.

In reality, the Purgatory Shadowcats fared significantly better than the Hellhounds. In barely any time at all, their members were able to break out of the Dream ability and launch a counterattack.

Cats were natural-born predators. Their cute but lazy demeanour was nothing but a front for their hunting instincts. The moment they saw that slim window of opportunity to attack, their instincts kicked in. Furthermore, all of them weren’t over eager to attack either. Upon landing a solid hit, they would promptly retreat and wait for the next opportunity to attack. In fact, some even jumped onto the back of another Nightmare Steed to have a little fun ride…

I had to admit, other than the fact that most of them were mental, they performed admirably in this fight. In fact, not only did they perform well against the Nightmare Steeds, their advantage was slowly being shown against the Purgatory Warhorses as well.

These cats were all gifted with exceptional reflexes; that allowed them to easily jump onto small surfaces when scaling their castle walls. To them, a Warhorse’s charge was nothing. If they couldn’t dodge it, they could simply leap onto the Warhorse’s back and start scratching. To them, these horses were even worse than those dogs.

If those Hellhounds were only good for digging tunnels, then these horses weren’t even fit to crawl through tunnels.

Shameless Self-promotion

If you liked my work translating Devil’s Evolution Catalog, feel free to check out Song of Adolescence. Also, every comment is appreciated even though I might not reply. I do read them.