Chapter 830: Heavy Casualties
After twenty sandglasses of shallow meditation in the long corridor of the main fortress base, Sein opened his slightly bloodshot eyes.
While it was true that mages no longer needed to sleep every day after reaching Rank One, even Rank Two mages like Sein could not endure endless battles without rest.
Half a month of intense combat without sleep had left him physically drained with a horrible headache.
Unfortunately, the unrelenting battles outside the fortress left no room for proper rest.
Sein’s mind drifted back to the early days of the conflict, more than six months ago.
Back then, the command center had been able to grant Sein and the other mages a full day to recover and regroup.
But that was a luxury of the past.
For the last three months, no war mage had been afforded a proper break.
Everyone, like Sein, relied on brief moments of shallow meditation to restore their focus level.
The heavy casualties among the combat legions and participating mages had made combat shifts and staggered rest no longer impossible for the command center.
Now, Sein’s only remaining companion was Yuri, the engineer.
Natalya had been gravely injured two months ago.
At Sein’s insistence, she was sent to the deepest section of the fortress’ medical center to recuperate.
Reina had been separated from Sein about a month ago.
The formidable female knight with immense physical size was currently assisting in defending the southern side of the base.
Reina’s injuries were not as severe as Natalya’s, likely due to her thick skin—or, perhaps more accurately, her thick layer of body fat.
Despite sustaining countless wounds, her fighting spirit remained unshaken.
Reina’s stamina and endurance for prolonged battle far surpassed Natalya’s and were only slightly inferior to Sein’s. However, Sein was a Rank Two apothecary with access to numerous magic potions.
Sein had once dismissed Reina’s voracious appetite as nothing more than a bad habit, but now, her “wisdom” had become evident amidst the chaos of war.
Without her reserves of energy, she could not have lasted this long on the battlefield.
Sein also came to another realization—Reina was likely on the verge of breaking through to Rank Three.
All she needed was just the right opportunity to push her life level to the next rank.
Not only were Reina and Natalya temporarily separated from Sein, but Leena had also departed half a month ago, on the back of the skeletal dragon due to a reassignment by the command center.
At the time, the two large magic towers in the eastern part of the base had been destroyed in succession.
With no other demigod-level combatants available to respond, Leena’s mount, Sanchez, had been called in to stabilize the situation.
As for Leena, Sein had insisted that she go as well.
Deep down in his heart, Sein no longer believed in the concept of a “safe zone” around the main fortress base.
Leena would be far safer with a demigod-level skeletal dragon like Sanchez by her side than anywhere else.
Meanwhile, Sein remained behind, protected by Yuri and a battalion of plant creatures.
Many of these plant creatures were plant giants that Sein had catalyzed using the Viridescent Seeds gifted to him by his mentor.
Sein had pretty much used all of them in the Sandstorm World War.
Emerging from his shallow meditative state, Sein’s eyes snapped open just as another explosion rocked the main fortress base.
The tremor rippled through the sturdy ceilings and walls of the main base, causing fine fragments of stone to fall.
After more than half a year of war, the infrastructure of the Divine Tower of Verdant Spring’s main base was battered, and its energy reserves were dangerously low.
In the long corridor where Sein stood, the once-bright magic crystal lamps flickered before going dark in unison.
All remaining energy had been diverted to power the fortress’ large protective shield.
Without doing this, the elemental shield surrounding the base would have been deactivated long ago.
Even so, every mage who understood the situation clearly knew that this large elemental shield would not last much longer.
After all, the Divine Tower of Verdant Spring’s energy supplies were limited.
The tower’s leadership had not anticipated such a prolonged and intense conflict in Sandstorm World, and as a result, they had failed to stockpile sufficient energy crystals for a war of this scale.
Fortunately, at the start of the war, a significant number of combatants had been dispatched to protect the supplies stored in the western part of the fortress.
Had those resources been lost, the main base would have fallen long ago.
Beep! Beep!
Sein’s divine tower badge rang.
Retrieving his crystal ball, Sein glanced at it before turning to Yuri at his side.
“We’re heading to the east side of the fortress next,” he announced.
The situation was grim. Sein and the remaining forces of the Divine Tower of Verdant Spring were deployed wherever they were most needed.
With much of the outer fortress already lost, their operational area had shrunk significantly.
However, this also meant that the areas requiring defense were gradually reduced.
The war had shifted from the brutal, head-on clashes of its early days to a battle of attrition, relying heavily on magic towers, elemental wards, and hastily dug trenches.
Every magic tower, every elemental ward, and every rectangular trench crafted by Geomancers became a frontline, where offense and defense exchanged blows relentlessly.
Even the magic beasts, who had once fought by mindlessly charging into enemy ranks, had begun adapting after suffering devastating losses.
Some geo elemental magic beasts had even learned to burrow behind enemy lines for sneak attacks.
This was not a skill they had acquired in the peaceful magic beast forests
Only the brutal reality of an interplanar war could drive these once-inexperienced creatures, who had never ventured beyond their forests, to develop such ingenuity.
Yuri nodded obediently at Sein’s orders.
Her Burning Flame Unit, however, was in a dire state.
Once a sleek and powerful metal construct adorned with fiery patterns, it was now battered and dented, its surface marred by deep scratches that made it look like little more than scrap metal.
The cockpit’s semi-transparent, reinforced magic alloy plate had been shattered by brute force.
The circular hole left behind suggested it had been smashed open with a single punch.
Wild Gorilla soldiers were intelligent and battle-hardened. It had not taken long for them to identify the weak points of Yuri’s mecha.
Yuri was fortunate that Sein had installed a double-layered magic alloy shield for her. It had been the only thing standing between her and certain death.
Even with the Burning Flame Unit nearly reduced to scrap, Yuri refused to abandon the battlefield and insisted on staying by Sein’s side.
Under the relentless time constraints, Sein could only manage quick, basic repairs to her mecha.
Though it was still functional, its performance was a mere shadow of its former glory.
Beyond the Burning Flame Unit, Yuri now had only two other heavily damaged ordinary models under her command.
This war was fiercer than any Sein had ever experienced.
A week ago, he had received the devastating news of the death of a Rank Three Grand Mage—Empyrean.
Empyrean had been the dean of the Divine Tower of Verdant Spring Academy, a figure with whom Sein had shared a deep connection.
His death was but one among countless others from the Divine Tower of Verdant Spring during this period.
Many divine tower mages—faces Sein had never seen and names he would never know—had also fallen in the relentless tide of battle.
In war, there was no absolute winner.
The Divine Tower of Verdant Spring and magic beast kings like Black Oblivion had paid an extremely heavy price.