Chapter 208: Brace Yourselves (2)
Priam was watching the enemies draw closer and closer when a shimmering green window suddenly appeared before his eyes.
[Special Mission Acquired]
[Objective: Eliminate the Branch’s Traitors.]
[NOTE: Every traitor you eliminate will grant you immediate rewards.]
A cold glint flashed across Priam’s eyes.
He had already suspected that the Elders of Law would make their move behind the scenes to get rid of him. He had prepared for every possible scenario, but seeing that they truly didn’t hesitate to betray their own branch to achieve their petty goals only confirmed his suspicions.
"ATTACK!"
Dandara’s command rang out, and the soldiers charged forward in perfect sync.
During their training simulations, everything had gone flawlessly. But in the heat of a real battle against hordes of Corrupted Beasts, it only took a few violent exchanges before their lack of experience caught up with them.
The instability quickly spread through the ranks.
One soldier’s panic infected the next, and the once-perfect formation teetered on the edge of collapsing into chaos.
Flaris’ expression immediately darkened. She was about to give her subordinates a harsh scolding, but Priam stopped her.
"Don’t reprimand them. This is the baptism by fire everyone has to go through. They need to temper their minds if they’re going to develop the mentality of true battlefield veterans," Priam murmured, repeating something he had read in a book back on Earth that seemed to fit the situation perfectly.
He pointed toward Dandara.
"Look. She’s keeping a close eye on every group. Trust her. If anyone is about to get seriously hurt, she’ll shift the formation to rescue them long before the worst can happen."
Flaris sighed and nodded. Indeed, when it came to critical moments, Dandara was the most reliable person in the world—a shame that in everyday life, she was the complete opposite.
"Shione, lower the difficulty a bit for them," Priam said calmly.
Shione nodded and swiftly moved to the vanguard.
She let out a restrained roar, burning through a considerable amount of energy.
Within seconds, a dense, freezing mist blanketed the entrance to the channel. Any Corrupted Beast that entered the fog immediately became disoriented and sluggish, drastically slowing the enemy’s advance and allowing the soldiers to deal with the horde in smaller waves.
"Relax a little, everyone. If you’re thirsty, now’s a good time to grab a drink," Priam’s calm, playful voice reached the soldiers in the rear ranks.
Hearing the Boss speak so casually, those who had panicked felt their cheeks burn with embarrassment. At the same time, their leader’s lighthearted attitude worked like a soothing balm, washing away the tension that had built up.
Once they got over that initial jolt of fear, the troops quickly found their rhythm, planting their feet firmly and fighting with far greater efficiency.
Meanwhile, fierce battles were also raging across the other four channels.
In the neighboring channel, Daraen fought surrounded by pure Yin and Yang runes.
Every arrow she fired unleashed blasts of energy that blew Corrupted Beasts to pieces. Fighting from the rear, the leader picked off the strongest monsters with surgical precision while her soldiers maintained a steady and disciplined defensive line.
In the channel to her right, Inigo commanded his faction with astonishing composure. Everything remained completely under his control, with not a trace of panic among his men.
The growth of that faction over the past few months was astonishing. They no longer looked like a bunch of individuals fighting on their own, but a disciplined army. Although Inigo wasn’t particularly gifted at social interactions, his intelligence and ability to learn proved exactly why he was the son of the Branch’s Elder Leader.
Farther to the right lay Sallya’s channel, and the scene there was a downright bizarre nightmare.
No one knew exactly how or when Sallya had cultivated such an absurd number of insects. She had ordered all of her soldiers to fall back and simply watch.
Alone, she had created a deadly trap using her grotesque army of thick-shelled beetles that blanketed the ground and spewed streams of corrosive venom. Any Corrupted Beast that stepped into the area melted away amid agonized howls.
Above them, swarms of giant wasp-like insects fired stingers that pierced the creatures’ flesh. The combined venom caused the beasts’ bodies to explode into showers of rotten flesh.
It was an entire ecosystem built for war: decoy insects, shield insects, stealth assassins. An endless plague that completely sealed off the channel, leaving Sallya’s soldiers with nothing to do but watch the massacre unfold.
Finally, in the channel on the far right, Walhart led from the front lines.
His spear roared with violent flames, making the ground explode with every thrust. The waves of fire he unleashed were utterly devastating. He slaughtered the Corrupted Beasts in explosive bursts of attacks, fell back to issue orders to his soldiers, and then charged forward once again.
However, during the brief breaks in the fighting, Walhart’s eyes drifted across the transparent runic barriers separating the channels, settling on Priam’s forces.
A barely restrained sinister gleam shone in his eyes.
Priam noticed the look, and a cold, mocking smile spread across his lips.
’I hope that idiot does something truly big... and soon,’ Priam thought, a spark of excitement flashing in his eyes.
After all, he had been the one to start the rivalry with Walhart in the beginning—not the other way around. But he didn’t regret it in the slightest.
During the selection trial, that bastard had treated every Mage who trusted him as nothing more than disposable pieces. He had sacrificed people without the slightest hesitation, so he deserved no respect whatsoever.
Priam had never imagined the conflict would escalate this far. Discovering that the guy was the son of the Leader of the Elders of Law had come as a surprise, but those idiots had ended up serving as the perfect whetstone.
It was thanks to their relentless persecution that Priam had been exiled and gone on to obtain fortunes incomparably greater than he ever would have if he had stayed comfortably within the sect.
Still, dragging this rivalry on forever would be an unnecessary risk.
’This time, I promise I’ll cut the problem off at the root. I hope you don’t disappoint me.’
...
The first two hours of battle flew by.
Priam’s battalion slaughtered the beasts without pause. Foul, corrupted blood soaked the walls of every channel, while the Death Yin made the air grow heavier and more suffocating with every passing minute.
"You idiots! If you’re going to fight like that, what’s the point of the formation?!" Dandara shouted, her voice as sharp as a blade. "Did you forget how to absorb the impact of incoming attacks?! Is that how you plan to conserve Ether and last through the battle?!"
By this point, while the Generals and Priam silently observed, Dandara had taken complete control, firing off corrections without stopping.
"Units 622, 454, 101, and 889, you’re out of formation! If you keep charging around blindly, you’re going to slam straight into the rock wall like a bunch of fools!"
"Units 937, 555, 806, and 21, pay attention to your teammates before attacking! Stop competing for the same target! There are more than enough monsters for everyone!"
"Units 3, 101, 310, 690, and 17, adjust your spacing! Maintain your coverage and keep the line balanced!"
Dandara barked commands in a stern, merciless tone. Since it was impossible to memorize the names of nine hundred soldiers in just a few months, each of them wore numerical identifiers on their uniforms, making it much easier to relay orders.
The ever-changing battlefield demanded flexibility. A single formation could never account for every nuance of real combat.
Near the end of the first rotation, when most of the troops had already exhausted two-thirds of their Ether, Dandara ordered everyone to transition into the second formation.
Even though they had practiced it relentlessly, the chaos of battle caused their hesitation to resurface for a brief moment.
Fortunately, this time they only made a few dozen mistakes. Thanks to the Generals’ swift intervention, the errors were corrected within seconds. Before long, the formation had evolved from a rigid, fragile structure into a living, fluid organism capable of switching between offense and defense in the blink of an eye.
Priam didn’t need to throw a single attack. He simply watched his army continue to improve—while keeping one eye fixed on Walhart’s movements in the distance.
Suddenly, a deep hum echoed through the air, accompanied by a faint spatial distortion that rippled in every direction.
The horde of Corrupted Beasts stopped arriving instantly. The signal for the break had finally come.
On the verge of exhaustion, nearly every soldier almost collapsed where they stood, but they forced their trembling legs to carry them back toward the vast open area behind them.
The moment they stepped inside the perimeter, the pale-white ground lit up with a warm white glow. Most of the Mages simply dropped onto the glowing earth, closed their eyes, and fell into a deep sleep almost immediately under the influence of the restorative energy.
"You can come out and play for a bit," Priam murmured, making a gentle gesture.
With an excited sparkle in her eyes, Mirra emerged from the Inner Space.
Since Priam, Dandara, and the Generals had barely spent any energy, they didn’t need to sleep. The little girl immediately started skipping around and playing near them, helping ease the lingering tension left by the battle.
A few minutes passed before a subtle, enigmatic smile appeared on Priam’s lips.
Off in the distance, Walhart was moving discreetly. He had taken a mysterious artifact out of his spatial ring and was holding it tightly in his hand. Judging by the focused look in his eyes... Priam was certain he was secretly sending a message to someone.
The calm wouldn’t last much longer.