Chapter 566
They didn’t cast a spell or anything, as doing that once, opens a gate no one wanted to see.
On the demon side of the battle, a palpable caution had descended upon the endless hordes. No low-tier demon or high tier fifth stage demons, no matter how feral, wished to be the first to get caught in the terrifying crossfire of a Sixth-Tier Mage’s attack. Their sheer power and destructive capabilities were a well-known, and deeply feared, deterrent.
However, the demons’ fears of collateral damage were, for now, somewhat misplaced. The Sixth-Tier Mages, formidable as they were, were currently grappling with their own escalating crisis.
Kaelen, the tireless commander, along with mages of all tiers from the lowest initiates to the most powerful Sixth-Tier adepts and even the hulking Fifth-Stage Ogre Knights, were feeling the immense pressure. These people, renowned for their mental fortitude, who once shrugged off the Abyss’s psychic assaults, were now visibly struggling. It was as if with every step, every inch of progress made towards the Abyss, its psychic attack grew exponentially stronger.
What was once an insidious, invisible mental assault now manifested with terrifying physicality. These were no longer mere whispers in the mind; they were tangible entities, tormenting and relentless. These spectral attackers ensured the soldiers had no respite, no peace, no sleep, knowing that such a horror was just an arm’s reach away, waiting to breach their defenses.
Tonight was a stark example of this nightly torment. Every eye in the fortress was turned towards the sky. The shimmering, translucent dome of the psychic shield, conjured by a Sixth-Tier Mage, covered the entire fortress and its walls.
But behind this shield, a chilling spectacle unfolded: smoke-like entities, swirling masses of dread and despair, continuously crashed against the psychic barrier. Sometimes they remained ethereal, formless wisps of terror, yet at other times, they would momentarily coalesce into compact, solid forms, slamming into the shield with a deafening, percussive Thum sound. Each resonant impact echoed through the fortress, a physical manifestation of the mental warfare, ensuring that sleep was a luxury no one could afford.
Inside one of the larger, reinforced tents within the fortress, a scene of immense concentration unfolded. Three figures floated effortlessly in the air, legs crossed in a meditative posture. One occupied the center, while the other two formed a protective, symmetrical arc around him. These were the very Sixth-Tier Mages who had joined the war, their vast power now dedicated to the grim reality of the front lines.
For the past month, they had been forced into a grueling rotation, taking turns maintaining the psychic shield. What was once a task for a single mage, even a powerful one, was now a shared burden, a stark indicator of the Abyss’s escalating assault. The sheer mental fortitude required to hold the shimmering barrier against the relentless, corporeal psychic attacks was immense. It wasn’t even a matter of mana drain – their enormous pools of arcane energy remained largely untouched. Instead, it was the unbearable mental strain, the constant push against the corrosive despair and chaotic malice of the attacking entities, that wore them down.
Compounding their plight was the utter lack of respite. There was no time to recover, no lull in the nightly onslaught. The attacks were relentlessly persistent, growing stronger with each inch of ground the Empire reclaimed, each step closer they drew to the Abyss itself. Their minds were being frayed, stretched to their limits, with no end in sight.
There was, however, one desperate solution, one method to cleanse the very source of this torment: Holy Spells. These divine incantations, infused with purity and light, held the power to wash away the insidious corruption seeded into the very ground that the Empire had already taken back, and the lands they still sought to reclaim. It was the only known way to truly push back the Abyss’s pervasive psychic influence and grant them a moment’s peace.
The grim reality for the Sixth-Tier Mages was that the Empire possessed only one individual truly versed in the intricacies of these vital Holy Spells: Vellok. And for those who understood the profound secret Vellok harbored, making such a request was an unthinkable act.