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C1387
On the desert plains 800 miles south of the compound, a bloody battle had just reached its end.
Multiple large craters of varying depths filled the area almost completely, leaving almost no flat land on the plains. Only rubble remained of what used to be stone hills, and bloodied, dismembered bodies lied unmoving all over the area.
The smell of blood dominated the area, overpowering the faint earthy smell of the moonlit desert.
A thick trail of blood stopped at the feet of a furry figure as the figure's claws were gripping a certain famous grand magus's severed head, looking coldly into the dead man's eyes.
"You are indeed strong, it's unfortunate that your intelligence cannot compare" he lightly whispered.
The figure then hovered in the air before he rushed away from the battlefield. 300 miles were covered in mere minutes, and a gate protected by a barrier quickly entered his sight.
Above the walls of the gate, five magus-level individuals--two dark elves and three half-bloods--could be seen waiting for him, causing his lips to form a faint smile. As his figure approached from the darkness of the night, Nimeria, the only woman among the five, swiftly looked in his direction with bright eyes.
The Tiger half-blood smelled blood, as well as the powerful scent of someone familiar.
"Brother Shan, you have returned!" she happily greeted with a bright smile, prompting the other four to look in his direction as well.
However, her smile quickly turned into shock when she caught a clearer glimpse of the other party.
The strong smell indeed came from her brother, but it came from his severed head.
Grand Magus Shan of the Tiger bloodline died, and she knew very well who the figure holding it was. The patriarch of the Wolf clan, Grand Magus Lucius.
"You bastard!! You killed my brother!!!" the female magus roared furiously with bloodshot eyes, venting her rage.
Witnessing the female half-blood's reaction, the Wolf patriarch's faint smile subtly became deeper.
He raised the severed head, and he said in a provoking tone: "If you want to avenge him, come out and fight me."
"You!!"
The emotional magus immediately rushed to answer the taunt, but just before she could do so, the other magus restrained her and stopped her just in time.
"What are you doing!? Let go of me!!" the Tiger half-blood angrily struggled.
"Are you out of your mind!? If you open the gate, all of us are going to die!" one of the magus restraining her also became angry.
A small fight broke out among the five, as another tiger magus supported her, similarly enraged by the death of their leader. However, the dark elves' magus would be more than willing to fight in order to stop the half-blood from opening the gate.
Seeing this the wolf patriarch Lucius shouted
"Is this what the tiger bloodline has become? Your idiot leader here has turned you all into a bunch of scaredy-cat traitors!!"
The taunt created another emotional outburst among the tiger half-bloods as they realized their situation was indeed hopeless. Fighting amongst the gatekeepers was exactly what Lucius wanted.
Nimeria could only look at the Wolf patriarch outside the barrier one more time with hatred, wishing that she could tear him apart right this instant. In the end however, she held back and only cried out on her own.
"Huh! At least you are all smarter than your leader... If only I could get ahold of his soul, they would have definitely opened the gate," he muttered to himself.
Lucius was disappointed that his taunt had failed. He nonchalantly threw the useless head on the ground as if it was garbage.
However, this didn't mean that he was willing to give up. With all the strength he could muster, the patriarch combined his two profound proficiencies in the laws of fire and metal, and used the power to envelop his golden claws.
Without warning, he swiftly leapt and struck the gate barrier.
KABOOMM!!!
Glowing golden strokes resembling cracks appeared on the barrier, but after only a few seconds, it gradually returned to normal.
'A powerful barrier, indeed' the Wolf patriarch thought with a frown. He leapt back and once again observed, trying to find a way to enter the barrier.
At that moment, Lucius suddenly coughed up blood.
He had been enduring the injuries he received from the previous battle. It was, after all, a battle against a grand magus and three half-moon magus. Although he managed to emerge victorious, he also suffered a kickback to his own strength.
The Wolf patriarch then casually sat on a rock below to recover. Upon looking toward the gate and meeting the five magus' gazes, he gave them a provoking smile once again.
"Look. I'm this badly wounded, this is your chance to attack me!"
Contrary to his taunts, however, still none of them dared to come out.
In the end, he could only sit still to recover his health and, in the meantime, prepare for another plan. 'Fortunately, I have another way..' the patriarch thought, silently sighing in his mind.
*******
On the opposite side of the compound, the northern gate, another decisive battle was currently in progress.
On one side were 20 human magus from the Academy led by Headmaster Delbrand, while on the other side were 20 dark elf magus led by the grand magus of the Bat bloodline: Zenonia.
Even though dark elves had an innate superiority in terms of overall power, the battle was not heavily tilted to either side. After all, each of the magus Headmaster Delbrand brought was a master in their respective arts.
Magus Darius of the Earth Institutes, Magus Carla of the Water Institutes, Magus Erica of the Plant Institutes, Magus Miriel of the Light Institutes, Minerva, and many more were present, and none of them were inferior to the other.
But that wasn't all. Several of them had reached the half-moon stage, and although not all of them had a lot of experience in battle, their strengths still could not be underestimated.
However the enemies had also utilized the hordes of nightwalkers to join the fight, and this forced the human side to retreat to a more defensible position.
"Join me! Take a stand here!!"
Shouted Magus Erica as she turned one of the broken-down buildings into her plant fortress for them to both defend themselves and attack. Among the fighters who quickly entered the plant fortress, there were also two acolytes whose strengths were on par with a magus: Olivier Akralnd and Anzi the Inhuman.
The battle's level of intensity caused destruction to spread dozens of miles around the Northern gate, and after more than half an hour of such a battle, both sides had suffered innumerable casualties.
A few magus has died, several were heavily wounded, and many were exhausted. Nevertheless, the overall battle had begun to tilt to the humans' side. The casualties on that side were much worse, and the dark elves were slowly but surely becoming outnumbered.
Magus Darius of the Earth institutes summoned his huge stone golem and started to rampage the nightwalkers as he shouted "Kill them all"
Moreover, their morales increased even further when they noticed two ships flying out high into the atmosphere, escaping this godforsaken planet.
"They managed to get out!! They're saved!"
Although they could tell that those ships were too small to carry all the thousands of acolytes, they still considered this a win.
This situation also got the attention of the two grand magus powerhouses who had been fighting each other in the sky.
Seeing the whole situation getting out of her control, Grand Magus Zenonia became extremely irritated. She had tried her best, but not only was her opponent one cosmos higher than her, but she also couldn't use her space power.
To defeat the famous Ghost of Lymhurst, she gathered all her power into one tier 8 spell.
[Gravity Maelstrom]
At her command, an extreme gravity formed and forcefully pulled all the surrounding objects into it. It was a Tier 8 spell worthy of displaying a grand magus's strength, but once again, Headmaster Delbrand cast his own tier 8 wind spell. [Tornado Vortex]
Both powerful spells clashed, shook the grounds, and leveled all surrounding buildings. There were thousands of nightwalkers thrown into the air and crushed before the spells finally neutralized each other.
Upon witnessing one of her highest-tier spells being stopped yet again, Zenonia suppressed her growing irritation and looked straight at the headmaster with a sudden epiphany.
"I was wondering why you still haven't shown your real strength to beat me" she wickedly smiled. "You can't actually do it, can't you!"
The truth was because Headmaster Delbrand had given his four powerful summons to Eeshoo, and had been fighting with his power restricted.
To make things even more concerning, Delbrand found out that two out of his four summons had been destroyed and even worse, he just received information from his scout ship in space, apparently, the Dark elves' reinforcement has been sighted much earlier than expected.
They were running out of time.
To be continued