The battles resumed once the experts of the Elbas family managed to find a solution to the catastrophic explosions that the buildings of the Empire could cause.
However, they didn't aim to protect the armies from the multicolored light. Something like that was simply impossible to create in such a short period, and a protective item in the fifth rank would have the same efficiency.
Instead, the Royals developed a scanner that would warn the troops whenever the energy in certain formations accumulated to trigger an explosion.
The warning would come far sooner than the actual detonation. After all, it was in the invaders' interest to give enough time to escape even to their human troops. They couldn't just keep only losing hundreds of promising human cultivators as collateral damage.
The three factions didn't divide themselves at that time. The Empire only had a few large regions left in its domain, and they were the territories that it had occupied right after the fall of the continent.
Those areas would be protected in the same way as the mountain chain, which meant that the invaders had some harsh battles waiting for them. Yet, that didn't discourage them. It would be strange if they managed to kick the Empire out of the new continent without struggles.
The rank 5 assets deployed in the next fight remained almost the same, but the three organizations added more troops in the fourth rank to make up for their previous losses and increase the overall power of the army. A new wave of human cultivators appeared too, but their leaders had ordered them to be careful when advancing in the enemy territory.
Faith had joined the army after the discovery of the stele, and her new cultivation level made her stand with the rank 5 Elders of the Council. Noah's guess had been on point. She had been busy breaking through the fifth rank and adapting to her new power in those years.
Yet, she didn't have time to visit Noah when they were still in the encampment, even if she often waved at him with a radiant smile whenever she saw him.
Noah had initially thought that she had become even more childish after the breakthrough, but seeing her calm expression when she stood with the other Elders made him rethink that evaluation.
Faith's calmness had evolved in those years. Her aura didn't block the external influences anymore, but it forced them to adapt to her rhythm. The wind that blew in the sky became a soft breeze whenever it neared her, and even the sunlight acted strangely when it illuminated her figure.
It slowed down and accumulated around her, making her figure shine and enhancing her already breathtaking beauty.
The army of the invaders stood at the borders of a poisonous swamp that had a tall palace standing in the middle of the toxic gases radiated by the environment. Stern-faced cultivators waited in front of the castle, and the hatred that they felt seeped through their auras and reached the opposing side.
Nevertheless, most cultivators still had the time to glance at Faith's figure. They acted as if they weren't about to engage in a deadly battle.
The atmosphere suddenly changed when the order to charge spread through the invading army and forced the distracted assets to focus.
The two armies clashed again, and the same series of defensive methods appeared to help the defending side. However, the three forces were more than used to those strategies and quickly deployed their countermeasures.
There wasn't another Elemental formation. That kind of inscription originated from specific cores that had been destroyed during the detonation of the castles. Still, the Empire had found a way to make use of the poisonous properties of the swamp.
There would be sudden green torrents rising from the ground and aiming for the heroic assets fighting in the sky. They would divide themselves into a series of precise bullets that targeted the foreign cultivators, and the poison that they carried would weaken anyone that they touched.
As a defensive method, those toxic bullets were far weaker than the Elemental formation. Yet, when the Empire used them together with the shadows, the invading troops began to feel some pressure.
Nevertheless, the troops of the Empire were trying to save their strength. It was as if they weren't interested in defending that territory since they only pursued safe battles, and they rarely engaged in one versus one fights.
It was as if they had already given up on the new continent and were only trying to inflict as many losses as possible before the invasion inevitably moved in the old continent.
Of course, there were exceptions to that approach.
Noah exchanged blows with a rank 5 cultivator at the peak of the gaseous stage. She was a middle-aged woman with long blonde hair called Icy Stare, and her title was a perfect description of her facial features.
Icy Stare had a cold expression as she froze the air around her to turn it into part of her spells. Various shapes made of ice took form from that ice and shot toward Noah, who was already using most of his abilities.
He wouldn't dare to underestimate an expert at the peak of the gaseous stage, especially after Elder Julia's warning. So, he had activated his usual spells while he was trying to create a window where he could use the second form of his martial art.
The only issue was that Icy Stare's aura was able to affect even the corrosive smoke radiated by the Demonic Form, which slowed down its advance under its influence. The various weapons and beasts made of ice that shot toward him also seemed partially resistant to the gravitational pull of the Black Hole spell.
That forced Noah to use the black lines to defend against the constant barrage of spells and his physical endurance to advance toward his enemy slowly.
Yet, Icy Stare simply increased the number of attacks whenever she saw him taking a step forward to push him back again. There didn't seem to be a limit to how many figures she could create, and she could even use the shards of ice that still floated in the sky to create more spells.
'This won't do,' Noah thought as four copies of his Demonic Swords appeared next to him, and four fuming arms wielded them.
The instants lost to perform that preparation exposed him to her opponent's attacks, which landed directly on the scaled armor. The Black Hole spell managed to take away some of their power, but they managed to pierce the gaseous protection nonetheless.
It was at that point though that Icy Stare's expression flickered, and she quickly shattered all the shapes around her to create a thick layer of ice to protect her.
A vertical piece of the layer vanished as soon as it formed, and the rest of the wall of ice crumbled quickly. Icy Stare's figure appeared again, but there was a long wound on her torso now.