Charlie's speculation was correct. The mastermind behind the scenes, the Abyssal Devourer, indeed planned to wage a war of attrition aimed at completely draining his stamina.
The proof was that an hour had already passed. By his mental calculations, Charlie had already slain nearly two million monsters!
Their corpses piled up, forming small hills, and the deep purple blood flowing on the ground formed lakes emitting a pungent, bloody odor. Despite this, the monsters kept coming from all directions like endless tidal waves.
Clearly, the Abyssal Devourer had mobilized all the monster forces scattered across the Japanese archipelago.
Charlie himself remained in his position but was forced to increase his flight altitude by about a thousand meters, while the water mirrors forming Megiddo were now at an altitude of five thousand meters.
He had no other choice.
With monster corpses piling up every second, he had to change his position to avoid being buried alive under the mountains of carcasses.
Because he served as the control center for Megiddo, which burdened his brain with computational demands—though not as advanced as an artificial intelligence like Raphael—Charlie couldn't move recklessly. Every movement risked breaking his concentration.
"I hope Wang Jian or Elena has found the Abyssal Devourer's hidden lair. It seems that species possesses a formidable Anti-Tracking ability."
Wiping the cold sweat from his forehead, Charlie began to feel mental fatigue slowly impairing his focus.
"Tsk. This is truly endless. Although Japan is just a small East Asian country, there must be tens of millions of monsters deployed. I'm afraid this won't end until nightfall, and Megiddo heavily relies on sunlight!"
He started worrying about the fatal weakness of the Megiddo technique he was using.
"Let's speed up this extermination."
Not wanting the battle to drag on until night, Charlie made the decision to call for reinforcements.
"Come forth—Azure Dragon! Vermillion Bird! Black Tortoise! White Tiger! Qilin!"
*BOOM!*
Five beams of multicolored light shot out from Charlie's body, followed by a thunderous roar. The five Divine Beast Spirits appeared, filling the sky and momentarily obscuring the sun with their mighty true forms.
Stretching twenty meters long, the Azure Dragon slithered through the air. Its body had bluish-green scales that shimmered like the ocean under the sun, accompanied by the sound of roaring wind with every movement.
"GWRROOOO!" Its dragon roar echoed, full of vigor.
The Vermillion Bird spread its wide wings, feathers blazing red like flickering flames. Each flap brought gusts of hot wind.
"CAW-CAW!!" It cried joyfully, its voice shrill and full of energy.
The giant Black Tortoise had an incredibly thick, stone-layered shell covered in ancient moss and lichen. From behind its shell, a large serpent with jet-black scales coiled around the tortoise's neck.
"GWRROOOO..." It hissed deeply, calm yet powerful.
The White Tiger landed on the building ruins, its white fur with black patterns gleaming under the sunlight. Its massive claws gripped the concrete, while its tail swished agilely.
"RRAAWWR!" Its roar echoed, brimming with fighting spirit.
The Qilin stood gracefully, its body twenty meters tall, with golden horns and shimmering silver-scaled skin. Its feet emitted small sparks with every step it took on the air.
"HHHUUUMMM!" Its neigh was clear, filled with joy.
Although they were initially threatened and forced into a contract with Charlie, they thought they would soon be deployed as combat forces. However, until now, they had been lazing around without clear tasks. Their pride as Divine Beast Spirits was offended, being treated like pets!
So, although they still felt some reluctance to help the scoundrel who broke the contract with their Maidens, the long-suppressed battle energy could finally be unleashed.
"..."
The joy of the five Divine Beast Spirits was short-lived. Thanks to their massive size—each about twenty meters tall—the monsters shifted their attention and attacked them frenziedly. Like a living black tide, the monsters swarmed the five mighty beings.
*WHOOSH!* *WHOOSH!* *WHOOSH!*
In mere seconds, the monsters, thrown by their own kind as living ammunition, began to cover the bodies of the Azure Dragon, Vermillion Bird, Black Tortoise, White Tiger, and Qilin. They clung on like giant fleas, clawing and biting viciously.
*ZZZZZZZZZ!*
The Azure Dragon snorted in annoyance. Its bluish-green body crackled with small lightning bolts, electrocuting dozens of monsters clinging to its scales into ash. It twisted in the air while continuously releasing lightning strikes.
*WHOOSH!*
The Vermillion Bird ignited its own feathers. Flames blazed, burning to a crisp the monsters daring to bite its wings.
"Kreeee!"
A flap of its wings created a wave of hot air that incinerated tens of thousands of nearby monsters.
*CLANG!* *CLANG!* *CLANG!*
The graceful Qilin was now furious. Its golden horns emitted beams of energy, slicing apart monsters trying to damage its silver scales. Its usually elegant legs now kicked and stomped with deadly force.
However, the White Tiger and Black Tortoise couldn't fly, so they instantly became prime targets. Their bodies were covered with clinging monsters attempting to breach their defenses. Nonetheless, they were Divine Beast Spirits; their defenses weren't easily penetrated by ordinary monsters. They fought back with their innate abilities.
"GRRRR!"
The White Tiger growled;every swing of its paw produced sharp wind blades that sliced monsters into pieces, while its mouth bit and tossed monsters like toys.
*BOOM!*
The Black Tortoise moved slower but was even more deadly. Its black shell was unshakable, and every heavy step of its feet crushed dozens of monsters at once. Its towering head spewed dark energy that obliterated everything in its path.
"All of you, exterminate the monsters outside the range of my technique!"
Thanks to the Crystallized Wisdom skill, which allowed him to communicate with animals, Charlie had no difficulty issuing commands to the five Divine Beast Spirits. His order was clear: eliminate the excess population in the areas not covered by Megiddo.
*SHWOOP!*
Hearing the command, the Five Divine Beasts immediately moved. In an instant, they split up—the Azure Dragon, Vermillion Bird, and Qilin flew higher, while the Black Tortoise and White Tiger leaped far to the sides, leaving the area covered by Charlie's Megiddo attack.
Once outside Charlie's danger zone, they began the real slaughter.
The Azure Dragon weaved above the ocean of monsters, breathing lightning breath that cleared areas the size of football fields.
The Vermillion Bird flew low, scattering divine flames that burned everything they touched.
The Qilin danced in the air, each step of its feet creating energy explosions.
On the ground, the White Tiger became a walking storm of death. Every leap crushed hundreds of monsters, and its roar alone was enough to burst the heads of nearby monsters.
The Black Tortoise moved slowly but surely, like a giant crushing machine—each step left a trail of total destruction.
"Phew... That lightens my load."
Charlie sighed in relief, now able to focus on controlling Megiddo without worry.
Although Charlie had deployed the Five Divine Beast Spirits onto the battlefield, he wasn't at all concerned about their safety from the possibility of being ambushed by a Villain.
The reason was simple and common knowledge among Saviors: the core ability of the Abyssal Devourer, a Summoner type, was to summon five powerful Villains to kill important figures of an era in the Planar World.
Wang Jian and Elena—the Saviors—had each successfully killed one Villain upon arriving at their respective locations.
This left two Villains yet to appear.
Unfortunately, reality wasn't quite like that.
There were no more Villains left.
According to information suddenly provided by Gaia to the three Saviors in this Planar World, the other two Villains had already been eliminated by a Savior in the cycle before Charlie arrived. In other words, they were Villains defeated by the Savior who failed to protect the heroine and protagonist of this Planar World.
That previous Savior wasn't completely useless. He managed to defeat the two Villains sent by the Abyssal Devourer to kill Shirogane Miyuki and Shinomiya Kaguya. However, he failed against the third Villain, All for One.
That battle couldn't even be called a battle.
With his disregard for the lives of uninvolved people, All for One gave no time or opportunity. With one move, perhaps a mass-destruction Quirk, he instantly obliterated the Shuchi'in Academy high school division building.
Inside that building, Shirogane Miyuki and Shinomiya Kaguya died instantly, buried along with the rubble and their dreams and love war, before that Savior could even react. Their deaths were the final blow that plunged this world into a hopeless point, triggering the apocalypse Charlie now witnessed.
That was the brief and tragic conclusion regarding the two supposedly remaining Villains. They were gone. Their souls had been sent on ahead by the failed predecessor Savior. Now, the only remaining primary target was the summoner, the source of the calamity: the Abyssal Devourer itself.