Elemental Cats

The Blood Fiend's superior regeneration wasn't the only thing that made it better than the Flesh Golem. Unlike the Flesh Golem, who could only use its physical body to attack and defend, the Blood Fiend could use magic. It was a rudimentary usage where it just extended its arm with swords and blades of hardened blood. Those attacks weren't as easy to defend against or block, and it happened on several occasions that the Flesh Golem lost its arms or legs.

The Blood Fiend also started using shields of blood to block Toz's Fireballs, even if it didn't look like they did much damage to the Blood Fiend.

But the most annoying piece of magic that the Blood Fiend started using was the blood pool it spread out beneath itself. The Blood Fiend naturally didn't have any trouble moving around, but the sticky blood held onto Kahlia's and the other's legs. If they had been any weaker, they wouldn't have even been able to resist getting pulled down into the swamp of blood.

Kahglia and the other two retreated outside of the pool since it was impossible to defend against the Blood Fiend's attacks while their feet were stuck. Instead, they made sure to let Toz focus on attack while they tried to impede the Blood Fiend's advance.

The Flesh Golem and the Death Knight might have agreed to cooperate with Kahglia and Toz to save themselves and whatever troops remained of the Tribe of Death. However, they weren't very keen on stopping the Blood Fiend as it headed toward the Alliance of Kingdoms' troops.

But as a Blood Fiend, it was obvious that the creature would thrive and gain even more power if it could revel in the blood of all the human and beast troops as well as combatants from transcendent factions. And if the Blood Fiend became stronger, it would get even more impossible to try and defeat it. So, the Flesh Golem and Death Knight did their best to stop the Blood Fiend in its tracks.

Thankfully, the Blood Fiend moved faster than it could move the blood pool, so it was within reach of their attacks as it stood in the forefront of the pool. But since their attacks barely did any damage to it, their attempts at impeding the Blood Fiend weren't very successful. It just continued taking bloody strides across the battlefield.

The only thing that seemed to be some kind of annoyance to it was the fire laid down by Toz. Although he wasn't confident in casting fire as powerful as his Fireballs, he still cast a wall of fire around the Blood Fiend.

The Blood Fiend did its best to extinguish the flames with its torrent of blood. But Toz had turned all of his focus from casting Fireballs to maintaining and strengthening the wall of fire. So, when the Blood Fiend realized that it couldn't put out the fire and began attacking Toz by shooting cannonballs of blood, Toz couldn't defend himself. But he didn't need to do it himself. Kahglia, the Flesh Golem, and the Death Knight cooperated to make sure that the blood didn't even come close enough to splatter on Toz.

It stung their prideful souls a little, but all three had realized that Toz was the only one with any effective means of attacking the Blood Fiend. And it was in all of their best interests to try and support Toz as much as possible, even if the only thing they could do was make sure the Blood Fiend's attacks didn't reach him.

"How are you holding up on mana?"

"Well enough."

"Here."

Kahglia took out a mana potion that was, surprisingly enough, made for people of ordinary size and handed it to Toz.

"It's quite concentrated since my father custom ordered it for me, so only take a few sips at a time."

Toz didn't even bother saying thanks. He just grabbed the bottle and showed in his mouth, downing it all in one go. With his mana vision, he saw how densely filled the bottle was with mana. And if he had been an ordinary mage, he would have exploded from overconsumption of mana.

"Hey!"

But Toz was far from ordinary. And he was more used than anyone to consuming too much mana at once. Besides, there wasn't even enough mana in it to fill up his mana pool, so Toz didn't have anything to worry about, and he spat out the empty bottle.

Toz used the mana he got from the mana potion to up the power of his flames even further. He wasn't yet strong enough where he could awaken the true nature of the flames at will. But the flames around the Blood Fiend were already hotter and stronger than the ones he used to melt his cell.

"Got any more?"

"Only a couple. I don't use that much mana. They're only in case of emergencies."

"Then, what would you call this if not an emergency?"

"Fine."

Kahglia handed over three mana potions without further protest and got back to defending Toz against the blood bombs that the Blood Fiend launched over the wall of flame.

Toz's ring of fire might be hotter than the flames he created during his prison break. But it was also much larger since it had to contain the Blood Fiend, which meant that they drained incredible amounts of mana. Even with his blanket method, Toz couldn't keep up with how quickly he burned through his mana, so it was quite fortuitous that Kahglia had those mana potions.

But the mana potions weren't unlimited. And at the moment, all Toz was doing was restraining the Blood Fiend and keeping it from going after the Alliance of Kingdoms' troops. He was doing more than anyone else on the battlefield. But it wasn't enough. The Blood Fiend wasn't going to die just from getting a little hot.

If Toz could awaken the true nature of the fire, he might be able to do some real damage to the Blood Fiend. But those flames had only singed Anaster a little. Toz didn't think they would be enough to kill the Blood Fiend, even if it stood in the middle of them.

Besides, Toz could feel how tired his mind and the miniature clone were. He would have to go beyond his limits for the umpteenth time today if he really wanted to awaken the true nature of his fire.