"No, you don't!" I use an [Air Spear] to skewer a quake unicorn that was about to skewer a catkin swordsman from behind.

"Thanks!" The swordsman calls out without taking her attention off the monsters before her as I soar up a little bit higher to avoid having a spell strike me.

Even with my [Air Armor] active, I want to minimize how often it actually takes a hit.

There are far too many monsters for me to just incinerate or kill. Millions of monsters total as far as I can tell. At the very least, there's a minimum of one million monsters. No matter how many arcane [Fireball]s I cast, no matter how many arcane [Flame Vortex]es I cast out, the horde of monsters doesn't shrink very much.

Even with [Fireball]s that burst into a torrent of flames a thousand feet across. More monsters just form, and the blob things that they come from are unaffected by my magics. Some of these monsters are tough enough to resist them – or have enough water magics in them to reduce their effects.

Some of the monsters here are just blobs of water that shift and change shape, shooting out spells of water and ice. They're extremely resilient to my arcane flames, but that seems to be the only thing I can use to actually kill them. To make things worse, they're powerful enough that they could kill the town's defenders without much issue.

Fortunately, only one of them seems to be around at a time, so I don't have to split my attention between them. Unfortunately, it's not the only tough monster out there.

Damn trolls. I create more [Flame Vortex]es to deal with the trolls that drew a little too close to the town for comfort. At least all of the monsters are focused on attacking the town rather than leaving, or we'd have a bigger problem on our hands.

This horde is way too big. I can see why my gut was telling me it could destroy all of the kingdoms. Plenty of beasts exist within this horde which could wipe out a city on their own, unstoppable by even Tier IVs at Level 200.

Speaking of them, Silvia, Terrence, and Lucas are all facing down a monster together, some sort of bear monster that keeps erupting into flames and doing its best to incinerate everything around it – friend and foe alike.

Those are some nasty enemies, I've already killed a few dozen of them and they're very resistant to fire magics. They're also pretty strong, which is why all three Tier IVs here are currently focusing on that one. Water and ice magics are the way to go, but its hide is resilient enough to make it a frustrating fight. That one must have slipped past me. While they can harm it, only one of them fighting it would be a lethal event.

After dispatching another one of those annoying water elementals, I make a sweeping gesture with my left hand, bringing it up on my right side and gesturing all the way out to the left.

A [Stone Wall] rises up from the ground, more than three hundred feet in length and ten feet in thickness. The wall is over fifteen feet in height, meaning the beasts will need to go through it. At least, most of them. Some can climb and others fly, but at least the wall is there. Until this one is destroyed, anyway.

It's bought the defenders a little bit of time, though. My wall has temporarily cut off the flow of monsters from attacking the town's barrier from at least this part, and the last two I conjured up took the horde about two and a half minutes to break through. Now, the defenders can focus on just the monsters in front of them.

I send my [Flame Vortex]es further out, incinerating a fair amount of the weaker monsters as I launch [Lightning Bomb]s, [Air Razor Bomb]s, [Air Bomb]s, and [Stone Bomb]s at the horde on the other side of the [Stone Wall]. To ensure it takes longer for my wall to break, I also make sure to send the spells further out.

Alongside those, I use [Air Bolt]s and [Fire Bolt]s against the flying monsters, and [Stone Spear]s and [Air Spear]s against anything that tries to climb the walls.

The first breach in the wall feels all too son, but it's still almost two minutes after I conjured it. At least the defenders were given some respite, as they managed to take care of most of the monsters on this side.

Another water elemental forms, and I have to divert my attention to dealing with it. The wall will fall faster now, but I can't afford to put the same effort into maintaining it.

Bolts of water and ice shoot at me, and I use the hottest flames I can muster to vaporize them while cloaking the water elemental in fire. The beast begins shooting out water as much as it can in an effort to douse the flames, and I continue to pour Mana into them to ensure the flames recover immediately, shrinking down on the beast with every passing moment.

It takes thirty seconds for me to finish killing the water elemental, and the wall is now in pieces. Half a dozen trolls are charging toward the defenders, so I use my spear spells to deal with them as I send more bomb spells out into the larger horde.

If only the corpses stuck around after the beasts were slain. Instead of doing that, however, they turn into a black mist that fades away after a few seconds. With the corpses everywhere, it would be more difficult for the horde to press so hard.

Though I suppose that's actually a good thing. There's no blood soaking into the battlefield, turning it muddy. That makes it easier for the defenders to fight, as they don't have to worry about their footing being too slick.

Lightning erupts toward my left, and I look over to see Lucas emitting just pure static/lightning in a wave in front of him, taking out an entire group of monsters. I hadn't seen him do that before, but I guess he didn't feel it was a good idea. Either the monsters he was facing until now wouldn't have been affected by it too much, or that spell costs him too much Mana.

Speaking of Mana, the potion's almost run out. I pull a Mana potion from my waist and down it, dropping the vial as I keep up my assault. His Majesty has supplied everyone with twenty Mana potions of the same quality Terrence had a few of back when I first arrived.

This is one of the main reasons everyone has managed to fight so long, but exhaustion is definitely starting to wear the melee fighters out. Silvia and Sera are both slowing down, and even Terrence isn't flipping and jumping around as much.

"Can you cause a lull in the fighting?" Alexander's voice reaches my ears, probably through [Words of Wind]. "I only need about four seconds without having to fight to prepare the spell. Not a wall spell, though, as that will interfere."

What does he want to do that a wall spell will interfere with it?

"I can try," I send back down to him with [Words of Wind] while I keep up my attacks. "But it's a struggle maintaining my assault with all of the more powerful monsters I have to deal with. If something like a water elemental shows up, though, I'll have to divert my attention to dealing with it aga-dammit."

Lost one of my vortexes due to some water-based monsters.

"One showed up?"

"No, one of my vortexes died," I tell him. "I'll see what I can do. It might be a few minutes."

"Alright," Alexander responds.

As I keep up my attacks, I try to figure out a way that I can cause some form of stun for the monsters.

"Also," Alexander says after about a minute. "If you can, try to wet as many of them as you can. I don't need that, but it will help immensely."

"Wet them?" I ask. "I can do that. Actually, I have an idea."

I send out instructions to several of the defenders down below, and receive a few confirmations that they can do it, just give them the signal of when to prepare. A water elemental shows up, so I deal with that before dismissing all of my fire spells. They'll interfere with this.

In fact, I cease sending out any new spells as well for the next few moments.

Thrusting my hands out to the sides, I conjure up dozens of [Air Bomb]s and launch them downward. As soon as those spells drop, I bring my hands up above my head. Palms facing upward, I have my left palm pressed against the back of my right hand.

A [Water Bomb] to sire all others forms above my head, more than fifty feet in diameter, and I send it forward a few dozen yards. I'm about five hundred feet above the horde at the moment, and I think this is perfect. As soon as my [Air Bomb]s trigger upon hitting monsters down there, I detonate my [Water Bomb].

Water blasts out, spraying more than a thousand feet in all directions. Fortunately, I placed it far enough away from the defenders that none of them get soaked. It might not be a good idea for them to get wet with whatever Alexander has planned.

"Now!" I command, using [Amplify Voice] to ensure everyone hears me.

A dozen earth mages slam their hands into the ground, and the battlefield ahead of them shakes, a deep rumble filling the air. Knocked off-balanced, the monsters are unable to defend against the water that sprays over the field.

Thousands of monsters are soaked by the [Water Bomb], and at least fifty of them had fires on their bodies, fires that are now extinguished.

Barely a second after the spell soaks the monsters, lightning sparks out, jumping from monster to monster, killing many and stunning the rest. Even if magical water is ultrapure, it became contaminated when it impacted the monsters – and probably from dust and stuff in the air. Whatever the reason for it, the water conducts the lightning magic quite well.

That's not Alexander's full plan, however, which becomes clear as the lightning runs out of juice toward the back end of the [Water Bomb]s affected area.

Starting at where Alexander is, the water that remains freezes. That water is used a channel to freeze the fluid in the monsters' bodies. Thousands of monsters rapidly turn frozen solid, then shatter as other monsters charge through them. Since their 'comrades' were out of commission, they saw no reason to continue staying back.

Damn, that was a good plan. Wish I had thought of doing something like that, but I don't even have a spell to freeze water yet. No playing with magic during this fight, not unless it's needed. I must focus on what's before me, like the dam water elemental that just showed up.

I take care of the water elemental, then conjure up another [Stone Wall]. This one is bigger, longer, and thicker than the last one, at almost one thousand feet in length, two layers of twenty-five feet in thickness, and fifty feet in height. Well, I suppose it's actually two [Stone Wall]s.

That should take the monsters longer to breach, and I reduce my attacks some so that I can take a breather. This is wearing on me pretty hard, and I have to use another Mana potion to ensure the effect doesn't stop for even a moment.

A breather doesn't mean I stop fighting entirely. It just means I'm not attacking as much. I continue to take care of fliers and any particularly dangerous monsters on the other side of the wall, to ensure the wall has more time before it's broken through.

"Conjure a third and fourth on this side," King Windfang's voice reaches me. "As soon as we've cleared enough monsters here for you to have the space for it."

"These aren't as strong as the ones we made around town," I send down to him. "I don't have the time to reinforce them that much."

"That's fine," he says. "See if you can't extend them out further to stem the tide flowing from the sides as well. You're starting to lag in your spells. We'll have some respite thanks to these walls, so you can rest for a minute."

"Alright," I say. "But if I see any particularly strong monsters, I will handle them."

I create more [Stone Wall]s as instructed, extending this one out another two hundred and fifty feet on both ends. Rather than going straight for the town, the monsters are charging for the defenders first. Because of that, the ones going around the walls will have to make a longer trip to reach the defenders. That gives everyone more time to send out spells or rest a few moments.

After the third and fourth layers of the walls are created, a water elemental shows up. This one takes me almost forty-five seconds to take care of, and I'm pretty sure it wasn't any tougher than the others. King Windfang was right, I'm lagging.

This really is exhausting. How long have we been fighting now? Was that my seventh Mana potion I just downed, or my tenth? I check my belt. Thirteenth.

Damn. We've been fighting for about an hour now. When will this horde end?

Thankfully, the [Stone Wall]s this time are effective enough to give me six minutes of rest, with another Mana potion needing to be consumed at the end of it. The monsters haven't even breached the last wall yet, either.

But I want to do something before they manage it. At least most of the monsters are too stupid to try to use the rubble to build ramps. The few that do use the rubble to scale the wall find themselves picked off by the defenders as they come down.

Taking a deep breath, I conjure another big daddy of all [Water Bomb]s and send it forward, then detonate it. After the water passes by me, I conjure up the big daddy of all [Lightning Bomb]s and send it forward, then drop it a little before detonating it. I don't give the lightning a chance to finish stunning the thousands of monsters before I make my next spell: the big daddy of all [Air Razor Bomb]s.

As it slices through the monsters, I realize something. Something very crucial to this fight.

"No more monsters are spawning!" I call out, using [Amplify Voice] to ensure everyone can hear me. "We have just what's left!"

Though admittedly, that's not a small amount. We've killed at least six hundred thousand monsters in the last hour or so, but we probably have that much more left.

Is there even a chance of us winning? Many of the defenders are resting now, unable to continue fighting until they recover their Mana and catch their breaths. The strongest of them went down first, pressed harder than the others. It's taking more effort from me just to make up for that, too.

Irritatingly, a bear with lightning magic shows up, twenty feet tall and very angry. It slams into my [Stone Wall] with all the force it can, augmented by lightning, and breaks right through it. The beast continues forward, and Lucas throws up a hand in an attempt to counter the beast's lightning. His movement is too slow, however. He won't be able to counter it before the beast kills some of the others.

Pushing my left hand downward, I send an [Air Spear] at the beast, the [Air Spear] one of the strongest, most dense ones I've ever made. I shoot it down as fast as I can, aimed at where I think the bear will be, and my spell punches through its head.

Unexpectedly, the beast explodes into a wave of lightning as soon as it dies. Half a dozen defenders throw up barriers in an effort to stop the attack, and most of those barriers are destroyed. Quite a few people are struck, sent flying, but I don't think anyone's dead.

I can spot another of those beasts a few hundred yards away, so I aim an [Air Bolt] at it, only for a water elemental to make itself known.

Dammit! Where was this one hiding?

As I begin to conjure flames around it, all of the monsters on the battlefield freeze.

"What the…"

Then they all burst into black mist, which begins to swirl around, drawing toward a spot about five hundred yards away. The black clouds above us begin to swirl as well, more quickly the closer to the center of the vortex they are. A funnel of the black mist forms, stretching down and touching the ground.

"Please tell me that looks better from up there than it does from down here," King Windfang's voice reaches me.

"It probably looks worse," I send back. "I can see something forming in it. Something massive."

There's no response to me, but when I look back, I can see King Windfang issuing orders. He's spooked by that and everyone is preparing to face what's coming.

As the immense funnel of black mist fades away, the sky now clear and sunny, the beast which formed within the black vortex is revealed. A naked, male humanoid figure over five hundred feet in height and built of lean muscle. It has short black hair, slightly-pointed ears, and bright green eyes.

When it takes its first step, the ground shakes heavily, knocking most of the people down below off their feats.

I begin sending spells at it as the titan takes another step, and I really can't tell if my spells are doing anything to it. Not from here. I don't give up, though, and I try to find signs of damage as it draws close.

There are none. My spells, at over 4,000 Magic, are doing nothing to this beast.

Shit.

This is why my gut was telling me the threat could destroy all of the kingdoms. Everyone probably could have dealt with the monsters, even if they suffered heavy losses. This thing, however? It's going to destroy everything.

And I'm powerless to stop it.

The titan brings up its right fist and swings at me, and the swing is far faster than I thought this thing could be.

Before I can teleport away, a violet barrier forms around me. A full bubble of pure arcane magic, not of condensed air. Though we're sent flying away by the titan's attack, the bubble keeps me in its center rather than slamming into me.

I'm shot past the southeastern edge of the barrier around the town, the bubble bouncing a little on the fields. As we come to a sudden and illogical stop, flames form all over the titan. Violet arcane flames, covering it entirely in an instant. They quickly burn through the beast, reducing it to nothing.

The barrier around me fades away as I'm left wondering what the hell just happened.

"Found him!" A familiar voice says with the same tone of voice one might say they found a missing shoe. "He's on Yggril!"

I turn and find only a few feet away from me a man who looks like he couldn't be older than twenty standing there, with slightly-styled platinum blond hair and bright, lavender eyes. He's dressed in khakis, black sneakers, and a lilac button-up. On his left wrist is a black metal band with three violet magic crystals set into it, a golden line linking the three of them together. He wears a black watch on his right wrist, and is holding a smartphone up to his ear with his left hand.

Someone could mistake him for being my brother, though I know better. I also have a lot of questions.

Things like "weren't his eyes blue before?" and "what is he doing here?" and "is that the tower of the previous [Archon]s I see over there?" and even "what is someone doing on a cellphone in a world without them?"

That's not what comes out of my mouth when I manage to actually say something, however.

"Dad?"