Luckily, the angels appear to have never been trained in how to fight together. They keep getting in each other's way and that prevents me from being overwhelmed. I may have bitten off a little more than I can chew, I wasn't expecting to fight all of them at once.

  Still, they are having a very hard time wounding me and the wounds heal quickly. So, while it is a little painful, my life is not actually in all that much danger. As long as I don't let them pin me down, they shouldn't be able to kill me.

  Right now, I am back to my beastman form since that is the one I have the most practice with weapons in. If all else fails, I will return to my normal form and tear them apart with my claws. So far that hasn't been necessary, but the battle is taking a long time just because of how many angels there are.

  Around the time where I have killed about half of the angels, more show up. They come flying in from somewhere else and are being led by a six-winged angel. I had been hoping that Holos only had two lieutenants, but it looks like I am out of luck.

  The other two I managed to kill using surprise attacks, but I won't get that chance this time. When the new group of angels comes flying down towards me, I drop shapeshift. I have to take this fight a bit more seriously now, or I might just end up dead.

  Using my claws and tail, I clear out the two-winged angels that are close to me. That gives the new angels room to aim for, but that is a trap that I set up. As soon as they are close enough to me, I envelope the entire group with my breath weapon.

  The six-wing and a couple of four-wings survive the blast, but they don't look good. Before they can recover, I charge into them and use my claws to cut them down. I take a few injuries doing so, but they heal up within a couple of minutes.

  With the main threat dealt with, I turn my attention back to the two-winged angels. Now that I am in my normal form, it doesn't take me too long to clean the rest of them up. This time, no more reinforcements show up, so I am able to finish the fight.

  114 Rank 3 Angels defeated! 342,000 Exp gained!

  72 Rank 4 Angels defeated! 288,000 Exp gained!

  16 Rank 5 Angels defeated! 80,000 Exp gained!

  4 Rank 6 Angels defeated! 24,000 Exp gained!

  Archangel Merran defeated! 110,000 Exp gained!

  Now comes the hard part, there are a ton of cores for me to gather, starting with the archangel. There shouldn't be anything to make me run away, but if there is I am not leaving his core behind. Sadly, gathering all of the cores ends up taking longer than the battle did.

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  However, considering how much this will help Seronia and Krenocia, it is definitely worth it. Now all that's left is to kill as many of the human souls as I can catch in the city. I really am tempted to burn the entire city to the ground before I leave, as a present for Holos.

  In fact, I can't think of any good reason to leave it standing, so that is what I am going to do. I've never seen an entire city burning, I am looking forward to it. Although, I don't think I will tell anyone about it, I don't need to be called a pyro.

  There were groups of souls gathered around the palace plaza, but they all ran away when I was gathering cores. Most of them will be hiding in the buildings, but the smart ones will flee to the forest. So, once I am done gathering cores, I shapeshift back into beastman form.

  That will make it much easier to enter the buildings and hunt down the souls. Although, the idea of using my normal form and smashing through the buildings does have a certain appeal. Even better, I could shapeshift into something like Godzilla and really have fun!

  After all, it is not every day that I get a chance to stomp through a city playing monster. The more I think about it, the more fun it sounds, so I decide to give it a try. However, instead of trying to make a new form, I just enlarge my normal form.

  After a little experimenting, I find that currently the biggest I can go is about thirty feet tall. Since the city is made mostly from wood and nothing is taller than three stories, it should be fine. When I shapeshift to that size, the city suddenly looks like it is made with models.

  However, there is still one thing missing before I can start destroying everything. For this kind of epic setting, I absolutely need to have boss music playing! The problem is that the stereo system is in the castle and I can't go fetch it right now.

  In the end, the best I can figure out is to use wind magic to make similar sounds. It can only make simple sounds, but that is enough to do the Godzilla theme. Once I have that going, I happily start smashing my way through the buildings.

  I have done something similar in the soulscape before, but the real thing is much more fun. I stomp my way through the city, flattening all the buildings and any souls I see. I don't intentionally start any fires, but they end up starting on their own.

  With the buildings flattened, there is no space between them so the fire spreads quickly. I ignore the flames and keep stomping around until the only building left standing is the palace. Once I am sure that there is nothing left, I drop shapeshift and walk towards the palace.

  681 Human Souls defeated! 68,100 Soul Exp gained!

  'Hm, that's less souls than I was expecting. Either I didn't get credit for those killed by debris and the fire, or a lot more ran into the forest than I expected.'

  Still, this trip has already been more than worth it and it didn't really cost me anything. I shapeshift to beastman form so that I can fit into the palace and walk inside. I walk into the bedroom, open a gate back to the southern empire, and then stab the avatar in the head.

  I throw the avatar's body over my shoulder and walk through the gate. As soon as I am through, I close the gate and then say a prayer to offer the avatar's corpse to Krenocia. Although, I kind of wish that I could see her face when she receives it.

  Krenocia says "Ash! What did you do?!"

  "I went and raided Holos' domain again. Just like we discussed."

  Krenocia says "Holos sent an avatar after you, but you defeated it?"

  "Nope. It was just sitting in his palace asleep, so I killed it. You can steal his power from it, right?"