The Shandal Empire wasn't in a rush to end the war. It was the opposite.
Being against three of the most powerful organizations in those Mortal Lands made the outcome of the war obvious. The Empire couldn't aim for victory without the help of their Patriarch. So, it did its best to appear difficult to conquest and defeat.
There were only two possible outcomes to that war: A complete defeat or a surrender with conditions. Being difficult to conquest would improve the terms of its submission.
The more the invading forces suffered to advance, the more generous their offer to the Empire's surrender would be.
Of course, the invading forces wished for the exact opposite to happen. They knew that destroying the Empire was almost impossible since they were fighting it in its home. Still, showing their superiority on the battlefield could force it to accept harsh conditions.
However, there were many secrets that the Empire had kept hidden from the world during its rule, and facing them in battle turned out to be more troublesome than expected.
The invading army retreated after the appearance of the Tyrannosaurus. Many human troops died due to the sudden withdrawal, but the higher-ups of the organizations didn't mind that.
Their minds could only think of ways to deal with the powerful battle formation and prepare plans in case the Empire had more troublesome assets at hand.
"As long as we disrupt it from the inside," Regina said to the other rank 5 cultivators gathered around her, "We can defeat that thing."
Noah and the others had gathered in one of the encampments built in the newly conquered territories in the old continent. They were having a meeting to discuss how to deal with the battle formation.
They didn't have a problem finding out the main weaknesses of the Tyrannosaurus. After all, the Royals' knowledge of inscription methods was almost boundless, and the Papral nation was the home of those techniques.
The main issue was the power of the Tyrannosaurus.
Battle formations required synchrony for them to work. All those involved in the technique had to execute precise forms together with their companions.
A single misstep could make the formation lose power of directly crumble. That weakness was the main reason why those techniques weren't widespread in the world.
That made the battle formations' field ignored and researched only by experts that had devoted themselves to their organizations. Ordinary cultivators would focus more on their power instead of using their time for something that didn't benefit them directly.
It was needless to say that the Hive didn't know much about that field. Only the Demons knew more about it since they came from the Papral nation.
Generally speaking, battle formations were useful and powerful. They were capable of great might and could turn a group of weak cultivators into a terrifying monster.
Their effects varied too. Cultivators could use them both for offensive and defensive purposes, other than for more specific tasks.
It took time to learn them though. A group of experts needed to train together for extended periods to achieve the synchronization required to activate those techniques.
"Its skin didn't seem too tough," Andrew Elbas said. "But we didn't see all its abilities. Those wings might not be the only troublesome feature of that creature."
The lack of evident weaknesses and insufficient knowledge about the Tyrannosaurus' abilities made those experts decide to take the only approach that could work.
"We need more cultivators," Elder Julia said, giving voice to the conclusion that everyone at the meeting had reached by that time.
A strategy soon formed, and each force contacted reinforcements that would join them in the next attack. Since there was nothing that they could exploit to defeat the Tyrannosaurus, the invaders would overwhelm it with sheer power.
Everyone would launch attacks on the battle formation to keep it busy, while the three leaders of the army would focus on disrupting its interior composition. It was a simple strategy, but the only one available for the invaders.
The Hive decided to deploy Daniel, Danielle, and Elder Justin, other than some more rank 4 cultivators, and it took four months for all of them to arrive since they had to settle matters on the new continent.
The other forces called for reinforcements too, and Noah saw June joining the army of the Elbas family in that period.
Then, once everything was ready, the invading forces decided to attack again, set on defeating that fearsome Tyrannosaurus with their improved firepower.
The human troops started to fight as soon as the battle began. Still, the higher-ups of each organization remained in the air, focused on the other side of the battlefield. The Wardens arrived in a matter of minutes, and they waited in the sky with stern expressions.
Everything was unfolding precisely like the previous battle, but the invaders knew what to expect at that time, and they faced it willingly.
Noah and the others flew toward the Wardens at high speed. There were more than twenty rank 5 cultivators crossing the sky above the battlefield to reach for the Wardens, who had begun to execute the battle formation at that sight.
Blue lines shot in the air and took the form of the familiar winged Tyrannosaurus that radiated the aura of a quasi-rank 6 being. That didn't scare the invaders, who continued to press forward until they were in its range.
Fighting from far away couldn't work if they hoped to defeat the battle formation. Most cultivators specialized in long-distance spells since they usually abandoned martial arts in the heroic ranks, but being closer to their target would produce better effects.
The Elders of the Council created a series of golden shields with their battle formations, and Noah and the others started to prepare spells and launch them at the enormous blue figure.
Noah let his aura go wild while a series of sabers gathered around him. Saber-shaped runes and Ghostly Sabers accumulated around his figure and created rivers of blades that flowed freely in the air.
The Ghostly Sabers didn't change in that period. Yet, the saber-shaped runes had seen an improvement to their structure after his success with the higher energy.
Noah had mixed part of the dark matter with his ambition and greed when he created that new version of his first Will-consuming rune. Now the black sabers came out directly with power near the peak of the liquid stage and continued to grow as they absorbed primary energy.
They still needed his darkness to come out in the open, but the fact that his higher energy was involved in the rune in his mind made every copy far stronger than Noah's current power.
'I can't use the Demonic Form with everyone so close to each other,' Noah thought as he controlled the sea of sabers. "But this should make up for that."
After that, he controlled the sabers to fly toward the massive beast that had already unfolded its wings.