1082: 1082. Separate battlefields

1082. Separate battlefields

'Must… destroy… light!' Night conveyed in a tired attempt to launch another battle cry, but Noah quickly moved to seize that broken body.1

Night had managed to destroy everything except for its head, which was in a poor state too. Noah knew that the creature could surpass its body's structural limits, but he didn't think it would be so selfless in its anger.

Noah carefully crushed the head and took the dark matter released inside his mind. His half-transparent figure then took Night's consciousness and immersed it in the sea before pushing out the higher energy.

Night's mind rested under the nurturing properties of Noah's mental energy. More thoughts fused with its consciousness to stabilize its growth and add more restrictions.

The Pterodactyl's mind didn't suffer any injury. Its tiredness came from the body that it had destroyed with its reckless offensive.

'It's pointless to leave it without a body,' Noah thought as he came out of the corrosive cloud. 'And it will only hurt it to use such weak puppets.'

He had deactivated the Demonic Form before the last attacks, but he still felt drained. There was so much to do, but the war wouldn't stop raging for a while.

There was one problem with that. Noah didn't believe that the alliance could take anything valuable away from the Royals.

King Elbas was a monster, and most of his descendants were talented inscription masters. It didn't matter that they were weak. All they had to do was relying on defenses that they had set beforehand to survive.

Out of the territories in its domain, the Elbas family only had a few valuable ones remaining.

The region with Spiked Roots hid the Royal Academy, but the Dark Gorge had fallen, and Noah had already taken the rank 7 magical beast. All the defenses would gather in the Academy now, so it was pointless to even dream about conquering it.

The buildings in Divine Market city belonging to the Elbas family had tight defenses, and it could take a century of continuous siege to deplete the energy accumulated there.

The alliance could endure the costs, but the lack of certainty made it doubtful. Both the Hive and the Council were more willing to invest time and resources in nurturing more cultivators.

The Utra nation had the dimensional portal, but only King Elbas knew how to use it. Conquering that region was virtually useless since his return would restore everything to the previous state.

The Elbas family used every other region in its domain as a livable land. It built obelisks and trained talents, but it didn't have anything worthy of the attention of a powerhouse.

The alliance was willing to invest resources for something lasting, but the defensive formations made even the valuable resources unappealing. The gains wouldn't make up for the resources wasted to seize them.

It was better to invest in the growth of assets rather than sending them into countless wars.

The report at the end of the battle confirmed Noah's guess. Even with the three of them in one of the less protected regions, they didn't manage to pierce the golden shields.

The alliance had invested a lot in that region already, so it will continue the assault until it fell. Taking away a habitable land would still hurt the Elbas family in the long-run in the end.

However, both leaders didn't want to push any more than that. The Elbas family had already lost a lot, and the alliance could remain above its enemies for years with those gains.

With the Empire relegated to the peripheral territories of the Papral nation and the Elbas family stuck in four regions, the rule of the alliance would be undisputed. The Hive and the Council could keep growing stronger than the other organizations for millennia.

Noah agreed with the leaders' vision and joined the next battles too. It had become evident that they couldn't destroy the golden shields in a few assaults, but they could pressure them until they depleted all the energy stashed in the region.

Third Prince and First Princess had a hard time dealing with the three powerhouses. Still, their greatest pain was the invisible puppet that felt through the darkness and destroyed everything that it could.

Luckily for the alliance, those formations didn't have self-fixing properties, so its assets could continue to create small damages through the years of battle.

Noah learnt a lot about Night in that period, but the most surprising event happened two years after the beginning of the invasion.

Great Elder Diana, Chasing Demon, and Noah hammered the defensive formations while dealing with the Royals' assault as per usual. The Elbas family didn't dare to deploy more troops there for fear of losing essential territories, so all the battles were similar to each other.

Night and Noah destroyed cores, and the two powerhouses took care of the incoming attacks while expanding the tremors spreading through the shields.

The cloud of corrosive smoke surrounded that battlefield, so some weaker cultivators had decided to fight on the regions' sides instead. There were fewer protections there, so the battles mostly had fame as their main gains. The weaker cultivators couldn't let the powerhouses decide everything. They wanted their share of the glory.

Those battles happened in an orderly manner, and cultivators even bet resources from time to time. A few of them had to stop fighting because their power put them in a different league from other rank 5 experts.

Flying Demon and Dreaming Demon were like that. Their prowess surpassed the limits of the fifth rank. The same went for Elder Julia, who had steadily improved over the years.

The Hive wasn't the only organization to have experts of that type. The Elbas family had Andrew Elbas, who was on a similar level to Elder Julia, and a few solid stage cultivators who didn't rely on the Pool to advance.

The Council had Elder Regina, who appeared on the same level as Dreaming Demon. Many believed that the two of them would be the next existences to step into the powerhouses' realm.

Those existences couldn't kill each other when surrounded by allies. It was simply impossible to deliver a fatal injury when their levels were so close. So, it was mostly weaker cultivators fighting.

During one of those battles, a flash of black lightning fell on the battlefield, revealing June's figure surrounded by waves of black sparks. An orange halo came out of her figure, and the Elbas family's side cheered when it saw her solid stage cultivation level.

Nevertheless, June rose in the sky until she reached the Hive's army. A wave of surprised gasps and incredulous shouts echoed through that side of the battlefield, but that was only the beginning.

"I'm willing to bet Eccentric Thunder's inheritance to leave the Elbas family together with my family," June announced once all eyes went on her.

Many experts knew about Eccentric Thunder, and some had even investigated the matter of his inheritance. Yet, the expert's will had detonated everything to cover June's traces, so everyone thought that every resource was gone.

The offer was appealing, especially since June gave the Royals a chance to punish a traitor before her actual betrayal. They eventually sent one of the solid stage cultivators nearing the peak of the rank against her after agreeing to her conditions.

June had been a liquid stage cultivator only a few years before, so no one expected much from her. Still, Andrew Elbas had sent one of the strongest assets among those that had relied on the Royal Pool to advance.

Many believed that such a decision was overkill, but they had to rethink their evaluation when they saw June match her opponent's blows after four exchanges.

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