Fwish! Ding!
Alex's body materialized just outside the towering gates of [Angel City] for the third ti, light fading from his form as his feet touched the ground.
Though it had been over two weeks since he last visited, to him, the passage of ti felt shallow, just a few days at most.
The flow of events had been so constant, so heavy, that he barely noticed the ti slipping by.
But he wasn't here for nostalgia.
His wings flared out with practiced sharpness, and in the blink of an eye, he shot forward like a bolt of force, landing right at the entrance without wasting a single breath.
Standing guard as always, dressed in armor that glead faintly under the sun, the [Angel Commander] stood watch.
"Hey," Alex's voice cut sharp and direct, "How's everything going? Skip the small talk, I want answers, fast."
He didn't have the luxury of patience anymore, not with the countdown in motion.
[Ti before the Chosen Gas: 29 Minutes 38 Seconds…]
The [Angel Commander] blinked in montary surprise, taken aback by Alex's sudden arrival.
But after a brief second of recollection, he straightened up, recognizing the weight of urgency in Alex's voice.
"We've handled the ogres, goblins, elves, giants, and beastn," the commander reported swiftly.
"They've all agreed to a ceasefire under our terms, but we're still locked in combat with the final three, the demons, the dark elves, and the minotaurs."
Alex frowned slightly at the news.
That wasn't ideal.
He'd hoped they'd made more progress in his absence.
The final three races were by far the hardest to deal with, both in terms of brute strength and strategy.
Demons and minotaurs lived under survival-of-the-strongest ideologies, that ant diplomacy was aningless.
Only overwhelming power could shift their course.
The dark elves, on the other hand, were cunning, too smart to be threatened so easily.
"What about Volks?" Alex asked, eyes narrowing slightly.
"Is he still…?"
"He's on the frontlines," the commander confird, his expression tightening with a mixture of pride and concern.
"He's leading the angels against the minotaurs as we speak."
"We've managed to keep casualties to a minimum, but this war won't be ending anyti soon."
"Could take weeks, maybe even months."
The commander's tone betrayed excitent beneath his words.
War seed to give the angel that strange glimr in his eye, the kind only a battle-hardened fanatic could have.
But Alex didn't have weeks.
He didn't even have a day.
And so...
"Hey," Alex said again, slower this ti.
His voice was calm, but behind his eyes, sothing was shifting.
There was a burn in them, a steady rhythm of shifting color, gold, crimson, black, flashing like a signal of what was to co.
"You said you're going to the battlefield."
"That ans you have a fast way of getting there, right? Portals?"
A sudden chill swept through the air.
The [Angel Commander] stiffened, his instincts awakening as he sensed sothing dense and dangerous behind Alex's eyes.
"Y-Yes," the commander replied with a nod, "We've placed fixed golden portals to each of the enemy strongholds."
"High-ranking mbers of the angel race can summon them at will."
"Good," Alex smiled faintly, a flicker of sothing darker forming in the corner of his lips, "Then we're speeding things up. Where are they?"
Without hesitation, the [Angel Commander] snapped his fingers.
Three golden portals appeared, glowing in front of them.
"The one on the left leads to the main minotaur stronghold," the commander said, "The center goes to the demons, and the right portal leads to the dark elves."
"Stay right here," Alex muttered, already walking toward the first portal.
He stepped through the glowing arch, vanished for only a mont, then reappeared.
Without pause, he entered the second portal and did the sa.
Finally, he stepped through the third.
It all took less than ten seconds.
Now, each location had been saved to his [World Map].
That had been his goal.
Once added, he could teleport to any of them without needing a portal or an angel to assist.
That step alone cut down hours of travel into re seconds.
He glanced again at the invisible tir in his vision.
[Ti before the Chosen Gas: 27 Minutes 54 Seconds…]
'Alright,' he thought, tapping into his willpower, 'Ti to speedrun a war.'
Opening his [World Map], Alex selected the [Main Minotaur Village], the na now imprinted thanks to the portal's link.
A brief shimr surrounded his form.
Fwish! Ding!
[You have teleported to the "Main Minotaur Village."]
In an instant, he appeared in the center of the massive settlent, and was imdiately surrounded by chaos.
Smoke drifted upward from burning buildings, minotaur war drums echoed in the distance, and the ground trembled with the force of battle.
Bodies were scattered across the village, both angelic and beastly.
Fires raged. Screams echoed. Magic and blood colored the skies.
Despite being called a "village," it was enormous, hundreds of towering structures carved from stone and wood, large enough to house the colossal minotaurs.
The population had to number in the hundreds of thousands, maybe more.
Alex's eyes scanned the area, but a voice quickly broke through the noise.
"DIE, PATHETIC INTRUDER!"
A minotaur, nearly three ters tall, charged from behind and swung a massive, fur-covered fist toward Alex.
He didn't even blink.
With a calm movent, he sidestepped the blow and in the sa motion, summoned the [Bleeding Dragon Claws] on his left hand.
A clean arc sliced through the air, then through flesh and bone.
The minotaur's head dropped from its shoulders before it even realized what had happened.
"I don't have ti to waste," Alex muttered as the body collapsed.
His goal was simple, eliminate the [Chief of Minotaurs].
Do that, and the power structure of their race would crumble.
The angels would win this front instantly.
He launched upward with his wings, soaring into the air above the village.
From this vantage, he could see everything.
Explosions littered the battlefield, both magical and physical.
Minotaurs clashed against armored angels, neither side giving an inch.
BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.
The sound of war raged on, but none of it mattered to Alex.
His eyes burned with sothing deeper than fla, calculated focus.
And then it happened.
His world went silent.
Colors drained from his surroundings as everything darkened.
The world didn't vanish, it simply shifted.
Everything turned black, save for the glowing white outlines of every moving entity.
Tens of thousands of glowing outlines, flickering in his vision.
It wasn't his usual detection pulse.
No, this was different.
A new layer of focus, unlocked through his [Eyes of Cursed Void] and their affinity with the "Void."
His pupils narrowed, and within a fraction of a second, he locked onto one presence. There.
Toward the eastern edge of the village.
A thunderous boom echoed as the [Chief of Minotaurs] roared, standing in the center of the chaos.
It towered over all others, nearly six ters tall, covered in iron-tough hide and spiked armor.
Every movent it made crushed angels beneath it.
It had already slain hundreds on its own.
Then its blood-red eyes turned, straight toward Alex.
"GRAAAAAAWHHHHHHHHH!"
Its roar echoed across the battlefield, the sheer pressure shaking buildings and causing even so angels to stagger.
But Alex didn't even flinch.
The pressure rolled over him, but he didn't budge, not even a hair.
He took a breath. Slow. Controlled.
And without another word, he readied himself.
This would be over in seconds. He wasn't here to fight a war for long. He was here to end it fast.
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