Chapter 9: End of the Exam

There were only about three hundred and fifty mortal novarians and forty-three first-order novarians warrior apprentices left.

The novarian chief didn't let them rest and, under Liam's call, led them towards the spatial channel.

When they were still a few hundred meters from the battlefield, the novarian chief made a stop, turning to motivate the troops.

"We cannot retreat! We cannot flee! The world is not big enough for our two races! Today, for the glory of the Lord of the Azure Abyss, for our future, we will fight to the death. We will annihilate the heretics. Attack!"

"ROAAAR!"

The novarian chief roared and rushed towards the sperm whales, followed closely by hundreds of novarians ready for action.

On the other side, the sperm whale chief spotted the insects that were undoubtedly responsible for its kin's death and became even more enraged.

It emitted a sound so deep that it shook the sea floor, releasing dust into the water, and charged towards the novarians, followed by the rest of the sperm whales.

The passage of their massive bodies produced large waves several meters high, making the initially calm sea increasingly turbulent.

Seen from above, a large number of small black dots moved in the sea at great speed, rushing towards a few immense dark spots.

The two camps quickly closed in and collided.

A first-order sperm whale made a sharp turn, swinging its enormous tail towards the novarians. Several were caught off guard, and their bodies were shattered into bloody pieces, staining the sea red.

In another area of the battlefield, a mortal sperm whale opened its mouth and directly swallowed several novarians.

However, it didn't get far before it started thrashing around. Soon, it spat blood, and its eyes rolled back, dead.

Even so, the novarian warrior apprentice struggling in its stomach couldn't escape and ended up decomposed in the gastric juices.

Each sperm whale had to face more than a dozen novarians.

They relay each other, supporting the true believers as they used the Spurt of the Fish, and then retreat, covered by the novarian warrior apprentices. Soon, the sperm whales were marked with dozens of long crimson cuts.

Trails of blood, dust, and whirlpools had long turned the calm sea into a desolate battlefield.

Liam had regained control of the novarian chief. With about ten warrior apprentices, they surrounded the sperm whale chief.

Compared to its huge body, the novarian chief, who was nearly 1.7 meter tall, looked like an ant.

However, the aura he emitted forced the sperm whale to take him seriously.

It wasn't one of the deepest places in the divine realm. So, the sperm whale was highly restricted and could only move horizontally.

A novarian raised his bone knife and used the Spurt of the Fish. He suddenly accelerated, passed under the sperm whale's belly, and tore a huge wound nearly ten meters long.

He turned around, eyes widened. He was attacking with all his might, but had only cut about twenty centimeters deep. When he fought sharks earlier, he could easily plunge his knife to the hilt.

That was the advantage of giant beasts. Before becoming an intermediate existence, melee fighters would always be at a disadvantage in a frontal battle.

Mortals would probably not even be able to pierce its skin.

The sperm whale got even more enraged and, with a fin stroke, turned the novarian into a bloody mist.

Liam felt a twinge in his heart seeing the remains of the novarian. They weren't mortals but warrior apprentices. Each one of them is rare and hard to promote.

"Don't use the technique; it doesn't make enough damage. Rather we'll wear it out to death!"

Liam warned the novarians and took out his knife, rushing towards the sperm whale.

In one stroke, he slashed a massive wound into the beast's body. He didn't stop, and with the knife still embedded in its body, he moved, enlarging the wound.

This time, the wound measured more than a meter deep and stretched fifteen meters.

Immediately, he stepped back and narrowly dodged the enormous fin.

Even so, he was thrown tens of meters by the currents. As soon as he stabilized, he tightened his grip on his weapon and charged back to the battle.

The fight continued this way for a long time.

The novarians never stayed at the same place, and as soon as they landed a blow, they immediately retreated.

The whale's skin soon became unrecognizable. Strips of flesh hung from the beast's body, and although it was starting to weaken, it could still protect its vital areas.

The sea around was completely blood-red, and it became difficult to see beyond ten meters. Fortunately, the novarians didn't rely solely on sight to navigate in the water.

The area for several hundred meters was completely devastated. The sea floor was filled with deep cracks several tens of meters long, and most of the rocky protrusions had collapsed.

Gradually, the surrounding battles stopped.

The novarians paid a heavy price, but they managed to kill all the sperm whales.

The remaining first-order novarians joined the final battle, while mortals withdrew from the battlefield, carrying their injured brothers and dragging the beasts' corpses.

In such a fight, they couldn't do anything and would only hinder their comrades.

There were fewer than thirty warrior apprentices left. Fortunately, none were injured, but all were exhausted.

Why aren't they injured? you might ask. It's simple: if they get hit, they're dead.

Only the novarian chief is strong enough to withstand such damage, and he wouldn't emerge unscathed.

Both sides were gradually approaching their limits, and Liam, as well as the sperm whale leader, was well aware of it.

However neither fled. They knew that the first one to retreat would undoubtedly die.

Liam took a deep breath, and his gaze sharpened.

"HA"

He used the Spurt of the Fish and lunged at the sperm whale. The creature no longer had the quick reaction speed it had at the beginning of the fight. Excessive blood loss had seriously weakened it.

Before the creature could react, he was in front of one of its eyes and stabbed with all his might.

Eventhough, the beast's head was about eight meters wide. He was far from hitting a vital part.

He struck again, cutting the eye in half. He clung to the edge of the skull and entered the sperm whale's head directly.

Weakness assailed his body, but he didn't stop. He continued to slash and cut, turning the animal's brain into mush from the inside.

The beast writhed in pain, slapping two novarians into pieces with its fin.

However, it was too late.

A few moments later, Liam emerged from the whale's eye, soaked in blood and brain fragments.

He looked at the nearly 150 remaining novarians and raised his weapon high in the air.

"The enemy is defeated; we've won!"

The novarians raised their weapons and roared, celebrating their victory.

At the same time, the portal began to ripple again.

Under the novarians' bewilderment, several long serpentine bodies emerged from the channel one after another.

The fifth wave had arrived.

The battlefield had shifted, and the novarians were now over five hundred meters from the channel.

However, with their exhausted body, they could never escape.

Nearly two hundred sea snakes emerged from the channel.

They were quite thick, with black and smooth scales. Their sharp-eyed red eyes seemed able to directly freeze your soul.

There were one hundred fifty mortal snakes, with bodies about six meters long, thirty first-order snakes, with bodies reaching ten meters, and three second-order snakes, with bodies around fifteen meters long.

If sperm whales faced those snakes, sperm whales would certainly win, but for the novarians, those snakes were much more dangerous.

Despite being less strong and less resilient, they were amphibious and pretty much faster.

Some novarians dropped their weapons and began to despair.

The novarian chief, still under Liam's control, suddenly smiled and raised his arms to the sky.

"Don't worry; the Lord of the Azure Abyss sees everything. He will not let us down. Let's pray; he will answer our call and come to save us!"

Immediately, he joined his hands and sang the novarian grating prayer song. Damn it, other novarians could only join him, hoping in their hearts that their prayers would be heard.

In the palace, the professors had already understood what Liam intended to do and watched the video with appreciative eyes.

Meanwhile, the snaked seemed to smell the blood on the battlefield and rushed towards the novarians, the three huge second-order ones taking the lead.

It would take them less than twenty seconds to travel the half-kilometer and start a slaughter among novarians.

Above the divine realm, Liam smiled as he felt faith links strengthen.

He condensed around 50 000 faith points and sent them to the divine realm.

In the demi-plane, the sea began to churn.

Where the snakes were, the sea began to rise, and the water level quickly reached fifty meters high.

The water seemed to solidify and the snakes were soon trapped in the sea, unable to move.

Even after spending so much divine points, that was all Liam could do.

He couldn't use his true power in the demi-plane. As it didn't yet have spiritual energy, it couldn't resist the power of a higher existence.

He could only use faith energy. Not only it was produced inside the plane, but it was also a relatively gentle energy.

Actually, it was the only known supernatural energy that can be used in a demi-plane without engender its destruction.

Above the snakes, Liam's ghost condensed even more perfectly than usual.

The upper half of his body was almost fully visible, reaching about fifty meters high, while below the waist, everything was still blurry.

He looked at the snakes with a terrifying gaze and spoke with a deep and powerful voice.

"Invaders, you entered my kingdom and tried to kill my peoples. For that, there is only one possible end: death!"

At the same time, his main body pressed a holographic button on his watch.

Immediately, the heads of the snakes exploded. The sea was dyed red once again, and flesh fragments flew everywhere.

Liam's ghost didn't stay long and dissipated into the air short after. The sea gradually regained its calm, and the sea currents slowly diluted the blood in the water.

Dust settled on the sea floor. Under novarians' cheers, the channel finally closed.

Slowly, the cracks in the spatial barrier disappeared, and everything returned to normal.

The war was over.

…

In the void, Liam's watch displayed a new message.

"The nano-bombs have been activated; the test is over. Test report:

1st wave - invaders eliminated: 9/9 || 3/3: 39 points obtained2nd wave - invaders eliminated: 22/22 || 8/8: 102 points obtained3rd wave - invaders eliminated: 65/65 || 15/15: 215 points obtained4th wave - invaders eliminated: 100/100 || 20/20 || 1/1: 400 points obtained5th wave - invaders eliminated: 0/150 || 0/30 || 0/3: 0 points obtained

Total: 756 points

Your ranking will be published upon return to school."

Liam smiled looking at his points. Now he was almost sure to enter the elite class.

In facts, he could have scored a little more if he intervened a bit later, but it wasn't cost-effective. The novarians had already done their best and were exhausted. He would lose many believers just to kill a few enemies.

For him, it wasn't worth it.

He then looked at the novarian tribe. Out of over six hundred novarians who went into battle, barely one hundred and fifty remained.

Such an enormous loss rate would have long made any army collapse, but once again, the novarians were probably too immersed in the war to think about. Moreover, they had nowhere to flee.

Among the novarians still alive, there were the chief, 24 first-order warrior apprentices, and 131 mortals.

A smile suddenly spread across his face as he took a second look at the novarians.

Apparently, the final battle was so intense that many broke through the chains of their bloodline and were now evolving.

Seventy-one mortals broke through warrior apprentice realm, and even two warrior apprentices were evolving into real warriors; one of them was a female.

For Liam, it was excellent news. One could say that despite many losses, the tribe had still strengthened.

It went even further: strength was hereditary.

For example, if two rank 1 beings mated, their descendants would have about a fifty-fifty chance of reaching first order just by aging.

Since novarians generally have six or seven children in a lifetime, the number of novarian apprentice warriors will soon experience a huge increase.

This also applied to second-order warriors. The only difference was that the probability hovered more around 40%, and it became more difficult to have children.

Even so, as life expectancy increased (50 years), they could still have 5 or 6 children, and almost all would reach the first order.

Eventhough, becoming warrior was the highest achievement for novarians.

Their genes were so poor that, despite special circumstances, novarians would never become high-level lower existences (rank 3).

It was still more than enough for Liam to be ecstatic. As long as a few decades went by, there would be dozens of warriors and hundreds of apprentice warrior in the divine realm.

Liam quickly sent a prophecy to the novarian chief, asking him to organize the largest ceremony ever.