Tier One, Deployment

Thousand Eyes withdrew his gaze from the 3D battlefield map and nodded.

He turned around and looked at a tall, thin, white-robed wizard behind him.

"How much longer until the Second-Tier Wizards are ready?"

The tall, thin wizard lowered his head to swipe twice on his light screen, then looked up.

"Another half hour."

Thousand Eyes returned his gaze to the battlefield map.

Blue and green blocks of color collided frantically across the Emerald Plain, the front lines jagged and interlocking.

He raised his hand and tapped the air, causing several areas on the map to light up with red borders simultaneously.

"All personnel, hear my command."

Dozens of white-robed wizards in the hall looked up at once.

"In ten minutes, all First-Tier lifeforms are to strike. Do not hold back; launch a full-scale offensive across all fronts."

"In twenty minutes, all First-Tier Wizards are to strike."

"In one hour, Second-Tier lifeforms are to strike."

"In two hours, Second-Tier Wizards are to strike."

He paused, his finger tapping the largest green marker in the center of the map.

"All Third-Tier lifeforms and Third-Tier Wizards are to remain stationary. We wait until the natives make their move."

"All personnel who have already entered the Amons World via teleportation arrays and are positioned in the rear must remain stealthy and await activation."

As his voice fell, a chorus of responses rang out in the hall.

"Yes, sir!"

All the white-robed messengers immediately lowered their heads, their fingers moving rapidly across their light screens. Command after command was transmitted through the fortress's command network to every corner of the battlefield.

Azhan finished organizing the deployment sequence and pushed his light screen upward, his gaze inadvertently sweeping over the small window in the corner that was still flickering.

Ethan was still on the front lines.

His clothes were mostly soaked in blood and filth, and the mud beneath his feet had become soft from being drenched in blood, making a squelching sound with every step.

The surrounding corpses had already piled up into small mountains.

Azhan raised an eyebrow and was about to say something when Geyang leaned over to take a look.

"He's still alive?"

"Alive. And his kill count has already surpassed eight thousand."

"How many?"

"Oh, it's nine thousand now."

"What a freak."

"Regardless of how he's doing it, this level of combat power has already surpassed the vast majority of veteran Third-Tier Apprentices."

"Should we report it?"

"Report what? That an apprentice is killing a lot of enemies on the battlefield? That's hardly an anomaly. It's not rare for a few freaks to appear among the Black Wizards. Back when Jade Blood of the Blood Bone Tower was still a Third-Tier Apprentice, she slaughtered an entire native legion by herself. Her kill count was even more exaggerated than this kid's."

"Heh, true. My daughter's innate mental power is 99; she's far more of a monster than this kid."

"Are you ever going to stop bragging about that?"

"Hmph, why don't you go have one then?"

"I—"

"Both of you shut up. We're in the middle of a war."

...

In the command hall, the light from the crystalline dome suddenly turned a piercing scarlet.

On the light screen hovering before Wizard Thousand Eyes, a line of runes was pulsing.

【All First-Tier Wizards have completed their adjustments.】

"Send the order," Thousand Eyes' voice echoed through the hall. "All First-Tier Wizards and First-Tier lifeforms, deploy immediately."

The command was transmitted through the command network to every corner of the War Fortress.

Teleportation arrays within the fortress lit up simultaneously.

A female wizard wearing deep purple robes was the first to step out of a teleportation array.

Her robes were embroidered with dense silver runes, each one glinting coldly under the sun.

Her face was thin, her cheekbones high and protruding, and her eyes were a strange pale purple with pupils that were narrow, vertical slits.

She looked up toward an Amons Sentinel phalanx that was charging three hundred meters away.

That phalanx consisted of three thousand men. At the very front were the Sentinels, their pale green skin covered in dark red war tattoos, wielding battle-axes larger than themselves.

The female wizard raised her right hand.

There were no incantations, no gestures, and no superfluous movements.

A pale purple ring of light expanded from her palm like a ripple on the water's surface, spreading in all directions.

Wherever the ring of light passed, the air began to warp.

Before the charging Amons warriors could react, their bodies were seized by an invisible force and began to collapse inward.

The sound of shattering bones formed a continuous cacophony.

The three-thousand-man phalanx, from the Sentinels in the front row to the Soldiers in the back, were all compressed into fist-sized lumps of flesh at the exact same moment.

Pale green blood and shredded meat squeezed out from the gaps in their armor, spreading across the muddy ground like a viscous blood carpet.

The female wizard withdrew her hand, her pale purple eyes turning toward another direction.

Behind her, more Official Wizards emerged from the teleportation arrays.

A burly male wizard wearing a heavy, dark red robe stepped forward. The hem of his robe trailed on the ground, leaving a charred footprint in the mud with every step.

His bald head was covered in dark red runic patterns that extended from the top of his head down to the back of his neck.

He stood still and raised both hands.

Then, the ground exploded.

A fissure ten meters wide and bottomless extended forward from his feet, the mud at the edges of the crack melting into dark red lava from the intense heat.

Ahead of the fissure, a phalanx of Amons warriors could not stop their charge in time, and the entire squad fell directly into the chasm.

Miserable screams echoed from the depths of the fissure before it snapped shut.

The ground returned to its level state, leaving only a charred trail behind.

The bald wizard lowered his hands, his scarlet eyes devoid of any emotional fluctuation.

The third wizard to emerge wore a dark green cloak, the hood covering most of his face and revealing only a sharp, thin chin.

His fingers were long and slender, and each finger wore a ring of a different color.

He raised his left hand, and the gray ring on his index finger lit up.

The surrounding air began to solidify.

Two hundred meters ahead of him, an Amons archer phalanx was drawing their bows.

A grayish-white light seeped out from the air, freezing over seven hundred archers along with their longbows within the solidified air.

Those archers remained in their drawing stances, their amber eyes frozen in their sockets, their chests no longer rising or falling.

The wizard in the dark green cloak walked through them, the edge of his robe brushing against one of the archers.

The archer's body disintegrated like a sand sculpture, turning into a pile of fine gray powder.

The fourth wizard was a small old woman wearing a dusty gray robe. Her back was slightly hunched, and she leaned on a bone-white staff that was taller than she was.

She walked very slowly, her every step trembling as if she might fall at any moment.

But wherever she passed, the Amons began to collapse.

There was no light, no sound, and no visible attack.

Those Amons warriors simply fell silently, their eyes losing their luster and their chests ceasing to move.

There were no wounds on their bodies, their armor was intact, and their weapons were still gripped in their hands, but they were already dead.

The small old woman walked across the front line, leaving a wake of silence behind her.

Every Amons within a three-hundred-meter radius lay dead on the ground, spread out as neatly as harvested wheat.