Noah's flames landed on the incoming spells and depleted part of their power. His focus was on the dangerous ice shards, but his attack was wide enough to hit the other abilities too.
The slashes of the Demonic Sword landed on the water sharks and spread a cloud of corrosive black smoke in their spot. The gas reached for the other spells too, but there was little that it could do.
The Ghostly Snakes then appeared in the trajectory of the spells and used their vast bodies to block most of them.
As beings with a body in the upper tier, the Snakes could face the spells in the gaseous stage without any problem. Yet, the shards pierced their skin, and some of them created injuries that reached for their muscles.
A few shards and the whip managed to cross the blockage, but the various defensive measures deployed by Noah's companions held their ground against that offensive and blocked the spells.
The first clash ended with the Snakes suffering a series of wounds, but they were mostly superficial injuries and didn't affect their battle prowess.
'Still nothing,' Noah thought since his consciousness failed to sense the attackers. It was as if the spells had appeared out of thin air, without anyone fueling them.
That was impossible unless there was an existence powerful enough to cover their presence. Still, Noah felt quite sure that the leader of that operation was the rank 5 cultivator in the liquid stage hidden somewhere in the sea. It wouldn't make sense for someone more potent than that to remain hidden during an ambush.
'There are inscriptions involved,' Noah concluded in his mind when he couldn't find another explanation for that event. Only formations and other similar methods could hide cultivators on that level while also allowing them to attack.
That discovery surprised him. It hadn't even been a day since June and Faith had warned their organizations about their arrival.
However, Noah was almost sure that the Elbas family was involved, which made his knowledge in the inscription field unsuitable to judge what was possible.
The Royals were unbeatable in that field, and the situation would be even worse if they had obtained the help of the Council. Breaking that siege had suddenly become incredibly hard in Noah's mind.
"Formations that deal with illusions and space have limited width and a command center nearby," June said as she prepared more defensive spells. "We can try to sprint, but I don't think that they didn't do anything to prevent that."
June specialized in certain types of formations, but she had a general understanding of that inscription method. Her words helped Noah decide what to do next to escape from that situation.
The same spells reappeared in the distance and shot once again toward the group. However, their defenses were already in place at that time. The cultivators only had to put some power in them to restore their structure after the previous clash, but they had enough time to attack before the spells arrived.
Noah roared and slashed with his living weapon. A series of flames and black lines shot from his figure and aimed for the incoming attacks.
Also, his cry contained specific orders for the Ghostly Snakes, who became ethereal and disappeared from the battlefield.
Daniel spread his white halo even more, and the water that his spell touched began to boil due to the properties of his individuality. June launched a series of lightning bolts while creating more orange spheres.
As for Faith, she limited herself to help the River Beaver in the deployment of defensive measures.
With two members of their team holding back, they couldn't express their full power. Noah wasn't using his Demonic Form because it would affect his companions, and June was sticking to the "Breath" of the lightning element since they didn't know the identity of the assailers.
They were still able to hold on, but they would be forced to use their full power if they didn't find a way out of that situation.
Raphaelle materialized once again in the trajectory of the spells after they had clashed with the group's attacks. Joel, instead, was nowhere to be seen.
The second clash left Raphaelle in an even worse state, and her body alone wasn't able to block all the attacks. Some of them landed on the defensive measures deployed by Noah's companions and destroyed a large part of them.
The might of a rank 5 cultivator in the liquid stage wasn't something that experts in the gaseous stage could block easily. Yet, the joint efforts of the group managed to prevent anything too bad from happening. The Ghostly Snakes were the only ones suffering injuries.
The third series of spells appeared in the same spot and shot toward the group. However, a hissing sound started to spread through the environment at that point.
Noah's eyes lit up when he heard that cry, and black smoke began to come out of his figure. One of the advantages of being with other hybrids was that they could communicate in a language that humans couldn't even begin to understand.
With his previous cry, Noah had ordered Joel to use its innate ability to swim part the boundaries of the formation and find the command center mentioned by June. The hissing that he was spreading in the environment was his sign that he had found something.
Four additional arms went to wield four copies of the Demonic Sword that had appeared as soon as the black smoke completed the scaled armor. Noah performed a quick slash, but his target wasn't the incoming spells.
He had launched his most potent attack on a seemingly random spot.
June and the others felt forced to put some distance between them and Noah. The corrosive smoke was deadly even for them, and Noah's sea of consciousness was the most advanced of the group.
Also, his darkness fueled all of his attacks. Their power was far above the average of those launched by cultivators on his level.
The very fabric of the environment around them began to shake as a fissure appeared in the sea. The tremors revealed shining lines placed in the water all around them.
Noah could see a small cave built at the bottom of the sea through the fissure created by his attack.
Now that his mental energy could inspect it, he understood that the water on that side felt different compared to that around him. Also, all the inscriptions that had appeared after Noah's attack had confirmed that they were inside a formation.
The spells eventually reached the group and clashed with the defensive measures and the Ghostly Snakes once again. The defenses held even without Noah's flames, but the Snakes were about to suffer serious injuries.
The group had to finish the battle quickly before they started to suffer real losses. Yet, only one of them had the strength to affect the control center.
It wasn't a matter of distance. The control center was too sturdy for ordinary cultivators in the gaseous stage to handle.