Chapter 100: All Forces Assembled

"Ahhh! It hurts! Water, does anyone have water?"

"How can these things use magic? Damn it, find some cover, you idiot!"

"Run! We can't hold them back!"

The winged demons' fireballs rained down like a storm. While the spells these creatures cast lacked the power of a trained magician, their sheer numbers more than made up for it.

Fireballs fell like raindrops, igniting what was flammable and shattering or splintering what was not. City guards caught in the open were struck directly, their armor useless against the blazing flames.

The hellfire ignited the clothing underneath the armor and couldn't be snuffed out by ordinary means. The flames consumed oxygen, suffocating some guards as they struggled to remove their burning armor.

Others, overcome by the intense pain, lost control. They screamed and ran wildly, colliding with their comrades and spreading further chaos and terror.

"Calm down! Stay calm!" an old veteran, sheltering behind the remains of an inn, shouted at the panic-stricken soldiers. The walls shook under the relentless bombardment of fireballs, and the building seemed on the verge of collapse. He looked at the crumbling morale of the soldiers and bellowed, "This is useless! Running around will only get you killed faster! Take cover and prepare for close combat!"

The guards were only exposing themselves to aerial attacks as they continued to run amok.

Only by hiding could they lure the winged demons onward. In complicated terrain like the interior of buildings or shadowy alleyways, the winged demons, which were physically weak and relied on numbers and mobility, would be far easier to deal with.

But no one listened. The chaos had spread too far, and fear now ruled their actions. The veteran's cries fell on deaf ears.

The veteran suddenly ducked and dropped into a roll. An explosion rang out behind him. Something struck his back hard, causing an old wound to flare up. He groaned in pain, losing much of his strength.

The wall of the inn, behind which he had been hiding, was crumbling due to the repeated explosions. If the veteran hadn't reacted in time, the wall would have crushed him.

Even so, he had been grievously injured. The force of the falling bricks had caused significant internal injuries and dislocated his bones. He struggled mightily, but didn't have the strength to get back up.

More explosions rang out around him. The winged demons were launching another flurry of fireballs, filling the air right above where the veteran was.

Amidst the chaos and despair, as the cries and footsteps of his panicked comrades filled his ears, the veteran closed his eyes. A faint sense of relief filled him. If he were to die, he thought, at least it would be on the battlefield—a fitting end for an old soldier.

Explosions rang out, but something was different this time.

The sounds were farther away and lacked the impact and shockwaves he had felt before.

"What's that?"

"It came from the interior of the city! Are those reinforcements?"

"Please... I don't want to die!"

The explosions faded into the distance, replaced by a cacophony of voices. Amid the chaotic shouts, some guards' confused voices could be heard—a few were puzzled, but most were filled with excitement and the relief of having survived.

Opening his eyes in a daze, the veteran saw a translucent barrier stretching across the sky, etched with visible, shimmering arcane runes that shifted ceaselessly. The barrier emanated from the interior of the city and delineated the frontlines of the battle against the winged demons.

The massive barrier filled the sky. Fireballs collided with the barrier only to break apart and dissipate swiftly. Remarkably, some of the dispersed fire mana was absorbed into the barrier, dyeing it a fiery crimson.

The crimson tint made the barrier even more effective against spells of that element. The fireballs struck it with little impact, as if they were more than blobs of soft clay.

They burst into harmless flames upon impact, like ice melting rapidly on a red-hot iron plate, and dissipated into the barrier.

"Adaptive Barrier! The magic academy is intervening!" the veteran exclaimed, looking toward the city with surprise. With his experience on the frontlines, he quickly recognized the shield. Many of the army's field magicians and battle magic scholars hailed from the kingdom's premier magic institution: the Stevenson Academy of Magic.

Though admission to this academy was ostensibly open to anyone with wealth, magic was unlike academic degrees in the mundane world. Here, strength was clear-cut—either you were powerful or you weren't. As one of the foremost breeding grounds for exceptional magicians, Stevenson Academy boasted unparalleled resources.

The adaptive barrier, an invention of Stevenson Academy, excelled in countering single-element spells on the battlefield.

This spell required a magical formation and the cooperation of several mages to deploy. It wasn't very effective against physical attacks, but shone against magical ones.

Once cast, the barrier collected the dispersed mana from spells and infused them with runes corresponding to their element, enhancing its defensive structure with additional countermeasures.

With sufficient ambient mana, the adaptive barrier could even nullify single-element spells. The veteran had once witnessed such a barrier render Selwyn's Mass Fireball entirely ineffective during a heated battle.

The massive adaptive barrier projected from Stevenson Academy's main campus had completely neutralized the winged demons' barrage of fireballs.

Their signature offensive would surely follow shortly.

Just as the veteran had predicted, a colossal, crystalline structure radiating vivid blue light rose up from within the city. It trembled as it grew, shedding layers of crystalline fragments that glowed brightly.

What emerged from beneath the crystalline shell was a perfectly rounded, luminous, and translucent water droplet. It hovered in the sky, rippling and quivering, its jelly-like form almost endearingly soft and elastic.

The veteran smiled knowingly. He wasn't captivated by its beauty—he had witnessed its devastating power before and was anticipating the destruction it would unleash on the winged demons.

With its outer shell shed, the droplet hovered momentarily before accelerating rapidly. As it sped up, its spherical shape elongated into a prism-like form, accompanied by intense magical energy fluctuations. Then, it detonated.

This liquid mass of highly concentrated mana, which would normally dissipate once exposed outside the crystal, had been imbued with an intricate magical matrix. Its purpose was to unleash an overwhelming attack by pressurizing the mana and forcing it to explode.

As the spell burst apart, the once-coherent mana body fragmented into tens of thousands of glowing orbs. Moments later, these orbs split again and again, until millions of mana clusters rained down upon the winged demons.

At the moment, these were mere aggregates of mana without any intrinsic power—until the hidden arcane core embedded within the fragments activated. A peculiar ripple swept through the masses of mana, transforming them into the simplest of spells—arcane missiles.

Among all spells, arcane missiles were the most basic. Their mana circuits consisted of a single loop, whereas even an elementary spell like Flash required three loops.

An arcane missile was simply the manifestation of mana, the magical equivalent of a brute-force punch or a thrown brick—a rudimentary but solid attack.

While simple and underwhelming on its own, the overwhelming number of arcane missiles now descending toward the winged demons caused a terrifying transformation: quantity became quality.

A tidal wave of missiles surged toward the winged demons, turning their once-imposing numbers into a laughable liability. The sheer density of the missiles made them appear like a solid wave, akin to an unstoppable tsunami sweeping toward the sky-bound demons.

"Ah... Aleisterre's Meteor Swarm," the veteran murmured, naming the signature spell of Stevenson Academy. Like a meteor shower falling from the heavens, it was powerful and terrifying. Executed through collective casting, it had the potency of an incredible eighth-tier spell.

The relentless barrage of arcane missiles pummeled the winged demons. While a single missile might not kill or seriously injure these creatures, ten strikes might, and a hundred strikes certainly would.

The simplest spell in magic, when backed by an absurd amount of mana, delivered stunning results. The overwhelming barrage of missiles engulfed the swarm of winged demons, delivering hundreds, even thousands of hits to each creature.

Wings snapped, bones shattered, and bodies broke apart. Demons plummeted from the sky, their lifeless forms joining the rain of arcane missiles. The scene was both surreal and awe-inspiring—an apocalyptic rainstorm of destruction.

Many missiles missed their targets, striking nearby structures instead. The impact reduced those buildings to nothing more than rubble and dust.

By the time the wave of , the landscape beyond the adaptive shield had become a desolate ruin. Only the mangled corpses of the winged demons remained, scattered amidst the wreckage.

This was the power of Stevenson Academy of Magic, and the confidence that allowed Aleisterre to commit most of its forces to the war.

"As expected of the best magic academy in the kingdom. No matter how many times I see it, the academy's magic is always spectacular," the veteran remarked, slumping to the ground. His body ached terribly, but his heart surged with the fervor he'd felt as a greenhorn setting foot on the battlefield for the first time.

"Amazing... Was that the royal family's intervention?"

"We're saved... Thank goodness..."

The voices of nearby city guards broke through his reverie. Indeed, the strategic magical support from Stevenson Academy had saved them from the winged demons' devastating fireballs.

The survivors slowly regained their composure and began extinguishing the fires still spreading through the streets.

"Now, we just need to hold out until the Nightblades and the royal guards arrive," the veteran muttered. "There aren't other demons just yet, and order is gradually being restored to the streets. If we maintain our ground, the Hellgate shouldn't be too hard to seal..."

The veteran was still slumped on the ground, rendered powerless by his injuries. Even so, he was starting to feel a sense of relief.

A faint tremor began, accompanied by the sound of breaking rock. The veteran frowned, puzzled, as he looked toward the ground where the vibrations originated. Something seemed to be moving underground.

He glanced back at the Hellgate, where no new demons emerged—only more winged demons, which were now manageable.

"Just one more battle... and maybe... I can finally rest," he muttered, rubbing his sore lower back—only for the tremors he'd heard to suddenly intensify and erupt.

Without warning, a massive, serrated maw, three meters in diameter, burst out from beneath the cobblestone street. It swallowed the veteran whole in one swift motion.

The monstrous creature—a giant, crimson worm with hardened, lava-veined chitin—slammed back into the ground, leaving behind a gaping pit before it disappeared once more.

The surrounding streets began to crack and collapse. Screams of terror rose anew.

The next wave of demons had appeared: infernal worms. The battle was far from over. It had only just begun.