From now on, he could attack freely. Before, only Drought was able to reach his enemies from so far away, but now, his blows would certainly reach the wall and damage it, alongside nearby troops. Nevertheless, Liam did not make a move. He didn’t wish to reveal any more of his prowess until he absolutely needed to. The more they underestimated him, the better; at least until they realized who he truly was.

In response, more than two thousand troops on the other side started to create the same Aura spheres, separating themselves into groups of a few hundred each. As several Aura spheres started being created, the pressure on Liam’s shoulders intensified severalfold.

‘If one of those hit me, my body is done for.’

He did not underestimate his enemy for even a second. Hundreds of troops attacking him at once were enough to destroy his body completely, forcing him to regenerate it from nothingness and spend a large amount of energy doing so. As to what would happen once he ran out of energy, he wasn’t completely sure, but the likelihood of it meaning his death was high.

While thoughts crossed his mind at the speed of lightning, he didn’t get distracted from the battle in front of him, firing a Drought from his spear from time to time in order to disturb the troops’ Aura coordination. He also mixed up his Skills, shooting a few Crescent Moon Waves and Drizzles to rouse the enemy’s fear and disturb them further. The more he approached, the higher the number of attacks that poured in his direction. It got to the point where he could no longer avoid them with his speed or keep them from being created. By now, over ten Elite Captains had also joined in, increasing the pressure on him many times over.

Liam watched as a gigantic Aura blade shot towards him. Gritting his teeth, it only took him a split second to know that it wasn’t the kind of attack he could dodge. His only option was to face it head-on. He swung his spear several times in fluid, connected movements, firing multiple Crescent Moon Waves at the attack. The blade was only slowed down briefly before shattering the Waves and engulfing Liam’s figure.

He immediately felt as if a nuke had detonated on top of his head. His armor cracked and pieces of it fell as his organs turned to mush. His skin melted and his muscles were burned black. Every hair in his body was completely burned off. The sand below him turned into glass as an enormous crater came into being, a dust cloud rising towards the purple and green sky. Liam’s figure fell from the air, falling into the crater like a cannonball. His eyes, however, never lost their focus. Once he made sure he was completely inside the crater and hidden from his enemies’ view, he immediately flew to the side as his body regenerated in instants, spending part of his energy once more. His organs reshaped themselves, his dead skin and muscles fell off as new ones came into place, and his hair grew again. His armor was in the midst of repairing itself. All it took was mere moments for him to return to seemingly peak condition, but he knew things weren’t so simple.

‘I’m gonna die if this keeps up.’

He couldn’t regenerate forever. With this thought burned into his brain, Liam’s flying figure slammed on the edge of the crater, cutting through the sand and stone like a hot knife through butter and burrowing underground, still heading in the direction of Cinzolia’s wall. A few seconds later, his pupils dilated before he abruptly soared upwards.

The ground around his previous position was completely upturned as an attack belonging to an Elite Captain hit it. Liam’s rising figure curved forwards and moved in a straight line, as if he were trying to reach the wall as fast as possible. He hurriedly attacked the sand in front of him, hiding his figure from the enemies’ line of sight and burrowing underground once more. Before he traveled much further, he was forced to go back to the surface to avoid an attack. This pattern continued as he approached. More than once, he was too slow to dodge the enemy attacks, losing limbs and being forced to regenerate recklessly until finally…

…He reached it. The wall. From here, he could even hear the enemies barking out orders at one another, screaming and wondering out loud how and why they hadn’t managed to take care of a single enemy, and even allowed him to reach the wall. He soared, going further and further upwards until he leaped over the wall in a single, swift movement.

Time seemed to move in slow motion as Liam watched the troops on top of the wall turn around and face him. Just at a glance, there were tens of thousands of them. Below, he could feel the Aura of countless more. He needed to finish this, and fast. As his eyes zeroed in on his first target and he steeled his heart, his spear disappeared before a hole appeared where the enemy’s upper body used to be. Behind them, over five others were torn apart by Liam’s spear thrust.

He landed softly on top of the wall. Unwilling to give the soldiers any time to surround him or react, he immediately started swinging and thrusting his spear, killing an enemy or more every time he moved. Yet, his movements weren’t wild and disorganized. They grew sharper and better with every passing moment. For the first time in a long while, Liam focused on his weapon and the feelings it transmitted to him.

He could feel the change almost immediately. It was as if the weapon were speaking to him, deciding the best course of action alongside him. It emitted a sharp cry that cut through the atmosphere, but neither Liam nor the spear could revel in that feeling for much longer.

Five of the soldiers in front of him dashed backwards, crossing hundreds of meters in an instant and swinging their weapons virtually at the same time. Liam’s eyes grew focused once more as he chose to smash through the attack head-on instead of avoiding it. If he jumped to the side, he would fall off the wall. Even though he could fly with Aerial Movement, the mere act of flying would allow attacks from below as well. By staying on the wall, nothing would come at him from below. As such, Liam’s range of movement was actually rather restricted. The wall was thick enough to be considered veritably gigantic, but the attack range of his enemies wasn’t so small. Even the most ordinary of the enemy soldiers could level entire kilometers.

Liam’s spear pierced straight through the weakest point of the wave of Aura rushing at him. Immediately behind it, he managed to see the five soldiers still trying to retreat. It was obvious that none of the enemies were willing to engage him in a melee. It was the correct plan, but that didn’t mean that he would simply allow it. His attack range wasn’t so small, to begin with.

Instead of moving forward and closing the distance, he simply rotated his body, noticing attacks coming from behind him as well. The spear cried out as it emitted a ring-shaped sharp wave of Aura, cutting the five soldiers in half at their waist, incinerating their bodies, and defending against the other incoming blows. Even though he had just eliminated five enemies, Liam had no time to rest. From every direction except below, long-range attacks poured towards him. There were so many as to be countless. He closed his eyes, feeling the entirety of his weapon, and spoke the name of his technique out loud.

“Riptide.”

The black Aura moved like water, wrapping itself around as many attacks as possible and gently pushing them to the side, making them narrowly miss Liam’s figure by mere centimeters.

The waves and blades of Aura crashed upon the solid wall around Liam, creating a deafening sound. Of course, not all of them could be parried. He still wasn’t so powerful as to repel the attacks of thousands of enemies, especially if they were separate from one another, coming at him from every angle. His armor shook as the titanic weight of the enemies’ Auras hit it. Liam felt his internal organs be destroyed once more as he withstood hundreds of attacks at once, covered from head to toe in Auras with different colors. A heartbeat later, his damaged organs and muscles regenerated.

Aura Sight encompassed the space around him. An immense amount of information flooded his mind, being digested and processed in moments. As if the world were moving in slow motion, Liam watched the enemies’ swinging motions. Some retreated while others were advancing. Almost all of them were in the middle of executing an attack. If he continued to endure all of them and regenerate the damage done, he would run out of energy in no time. He had to make the correct decision and deal with this in the most efficient way possible. His right foot shifted.

He made his choice. First, he pierced at a certain enemy. The flow of Aura around them was the strongest and most dangerous amongst all the ordinary soldiers in his surroundings. The enemy’s body was torn apart as they could not interrupt their attack and switch to a defensive stance. The next second, the second wave of attacks fell upon Liam, but this time he was ready. Jumping forward while activating Riptide once more, he merely bothered to deflect the blows in the way of his movement, letting the others either miss him or hit him as needed. He had sacrificed his own body to get closer to the enemies and have all of those surrounding him enter his attack range.