An earth-shattering tremor occurred, the ground rumbled and roared loudly as if an apocalypse had descended in that very instant. This catastrophic event was then quickly overtaken by a sea of Abyss creatures. There seemed to be more Abyss creatures than all they had seen in total to date.
"Incoming! Raise the barrier!" Magus Kenneth quickly shouted.
Upon receiving the orders, the saint-level fighters swiftly took out a metal rod about three meters long from their spatial ring and plunged them deep into the ground. Each of them was on the six sides. Immediately a transparent energy barrier appeared forming into a hexagon-shaped wall behind them.
"Do not be careless! We all still need to protect the Rod or the barrier will collapse," said one of the saint-level fighters, when he noticed that some of the privileged acolytes were lowering their guard.
With the existence of the barrier wall, they only needed to heed a simple strategy of containing the Abyss creatures, while also protecting the Rods. All acolytes gladly followed orders, except for Emery, who still had his gaze fixed on the dead-looking tree.
The raging whispers still went on and eventually crashed into his brain in the form of deafening shrieks. Emery felt extremely anxious, as if there was some great peril lurking somewhere near. When he saw what Commander Raynor was doing, his instincts screamed at him, as the latter stabbed and drove his hand into the tree.
"Heeeii! Emery! What are you doing?! They are coming!"
Emery was kicked out of his reverie by a voice calling his name. He shifted his gaze to beyond the protective wall and saw the Abyss creatures were only a dozen meters away. Even Annara was already screaming in a slight hoarse voice, her hand left a blur, as her burning whip lashed around, decapitating and slashing all the Abyss creatures nearby.
Arcana, on the other hand, ran behind the six saint fighters, saying an excuse that he was, apparently, not 'specialized' in such battle situations.
To temporarily fill in the gap that appeared because of Arcana's abrupt escape, Emery first cast his powerful offensive spell [Ash Blast] to thin up the incoming horde of Abyss creatures.
After that, he cast [Jade Root] to create some degree of obstruction to make it harder for the hordes of Abyss creatures to get close, making it easier for the saint fighters and the other acolytes to finish them off.
Since he absolutely had no idea how long this siege situation they were in would last, Emery decided to take out his Savage Blade and join the battlefield where the saint fighters were busy fighting. This way, he would be able to conserve his Spirit Pool for any emergency that might came up unexpectedly.
Splaattt! spllaattt!
Next to Emery's group, Sigurd and Atlas teamed up flawlessly against the waves of Abyss creatures, with the latter firing relentless destructive spells from high above the sky, providing much-needed protection to the former, who was fighting with his axe on the ground at risk of being overwhelmed by numbers.
All the fighters on the six sides of the protective barrier were fighting fiercely against the seemingly endless Abyss creatures. However, with every minute that passed, not only were more and more Abyss creatures arriving, but they were also increasing in quality. Stage 1 Abyss creatures were gradually being replaced by stage 2 and stage 3 Abyss creatures flowing out of the caves non-stop.
"It's raining with points! This is great!" Annara shouted as she activated her bloodline and transformed into her bat form, causing her skin to turn pale and her eyes bloody red.
Emery, however, took no notice of her words, his mind was still on what was happening in the center.
Zach had managed to kill the Chrysalis by cutting the stage 5 Abyss creature's body into pieces. Meanwhile, the female magus dashed towards the creature - a glowing butterfly. By now, there were only two Chrysalis left and, seeing how they fared against their opponents, neither of them would last long.
With Zach already freed from his opponent, he quickly helped the other two magus kill the stage 5 Abyss creatures.
Thanks to that, the two stage 5 Abyss creatures fell under the Dragon Blood Executioner's blade in a matter of minutes. Naturally, every glowing butterfly that came out of the Chrysalis' corpses went into the crystal ball in Magus Bellaine's hand.
With each death of the stage 5 Abyss creature, Emery could clearly hear the shrieks of pain coming from the grey tree. In fact, it grew to the point where he finally couldn't handle it any longer.
"What do you want me to do?" Emery screamed inwardly, in agony.
It seemed he could only hear these whispers, but whoever spoke to him was unable to hear him back or was too angry to listen. Emery rubbed his forehead in frustration as he really didn't know what to do.
The fierce battle continued for a few more minutes. As time went on, the tremors grew more intense. It was at this moment that Arcana suddenly shouted.
"In the air! More coming from the air, everyone!"
As if spellbound, everyone lifted their heads following Arcana's words. When Emery looked up, he realized the sky was already filled with dark clouds. The figures of many creatures could be vaguely seen among the clouds. Moments later, he saw thousands of stage 2 Abyss creature Flyers coming crashing down on them.
If that wasn't bad enough, hundreds of new kinds of Abyss creatures among the hordes of Flyers. Emery's eyes constricted as the scan results appeared before his eyes.
[Reavers]
[Battle power 80]
[Abyss Creature stage 3]
The arrival of thousands of Abyss creatures attacking from above became the last straw that broke the camel's back. The protective barrier had lost its use, forcing several acolytes to fly into the air in order to deal with the new arrivals.
In the meantime, Zach and the two magus swiftly surrounded the grey tree. Three of them were the last defense for the Magus Commander, who seemed to be in some sort of trance after stabbing his hand into the tree.
More and more Abyss creatures came charging and the group was gradually getting overwhelmed by the horde. Emery saw several saint fighters begin to fall at the hands of the Abyss creatures, seriously injured or worse, dead.
Lyndell began to move and do what she was most capable of, healing those who were injured. The same could also be said of Emery, as he cast one of his healing-type spells, [Rejuvenating Mushroom]. A ll N OVE L FU LL . c 0m
Unfortunately, their actions didn't seem to have much of an impact. There were simply too many Abyss creatures to deal with.
Out of the 6 sides, other than Emery's two groups, only the Nephilim side seemed unaffected by the hordes, even the half blood group Vida Themari and Rofos Tigerson were overwhelmed.
Cracckkkk!
"We lost one of the Rods!"
"They are spilling in!"
Zach took action toward the hordes marching to the center. This time he cast his devastating spell [Mega Flare]. Emery only felt a piercing light in his eyes for a moment, before hundreds if not thousands of Abyss creatures were killed, leaving only ashes behind.
It was at this moment that Emery finally felt a change of emotion in the whispers within the tree. Which was followed by the Magus Commander successfully pulling an object out of the tree.
It was a white wooden staff with a large golden pearl attached on top of it that shone bright and emitted a powerful light element spirit force.
"We have successfully retrieved it!" Shouted the commander raising the object high in the air
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