**Chapter 56: Full Firepower**
*Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!*
Twelve fireballs screamed down, trailing long fiery tails, crashing into the dense native formations below.
In an instant, Jie Ming’s mind shifted to the next set of runic tools.
Another twelve fireballs!
A moment later, the third set activated.
Yet another twelve fireballs!
He divided the nine attack runes into three groups, cycling them.
This meant, theoretically, he could bombard below at a horrifying rate of thirty-six fireballs per second!
Such millisecond-precision switching was a massive test of his mental and computational capacity.
But with mental strength far surpassing other apprentices, he sustained this hellish output rhythm.
This was a level of firepower unimaginable to ordinary apprentices—an endless, unrelenting torrent of witchcraft!
Below, the native coalition’s full assault had just begun, their momentum poised to crush the apprentices’ final defenses.
But instead of feeble resistance, they met death from above.
Explosions roared incessantly, the ground trembling under countless fireballs.
Flames soared, painting the valley blood-red. The intense heat vaporized soil and vegetation, leaving scorched pits.
The natives’ prized dense formations collapsed instantly under this indiscriminate barrage.
Their metal armor twisted and melted, their bodies reduced to ash in the terrifying heat.
The arrow rain ceased, knight charges halted, shaman chants faltered.
Fear spread like a virus among the natives.
They’d faced apprentice witchcraft with numbers and coordination, but this endless, skyborne destruction shattered their courage.
“Run! It’s a calamity!”
Panic, despair, hysteria…
Natives fell in droves, their defenses crumbling like sandcastles.
The commander’s roars drowned in the explosions, any attempt to rally crushed by the next wave of fireballs.
The runic tools, under intense use, began to strain.
The fireball runes behind Jie Ming glowed red-hot, their surfaces’ runes faintly warping.
The high-intensity output risked overload at any moment.
But his rapid cycling gave them brief cooling periods, barely sustaining the loop.
Simultaneously, the high-altitude elemental energy was quickly depleted.
The air above Jie Ming visibly distorted, forming a near-vacuum of thin elemental energy, reducing his spells’ power.
He activated his mobility rune, shifting his array to a new element-rich area, resuming the bombardment.
He danced across the sky, a reaper whose every step brought wails and death below.
The native coalition had never faced such relentless, high-density firepower.
Some might have witnessed high-ranking wizards annihilate armies or kingdoms, but those felt like distant nightmares, unreal.
Jie Ming’s power, though less than a high-ranking wizard’s, was far more tangible, making its terror visceral.
Their tactics, courage, and numbers meant nothing against this unending barrage.
Some tried to counterattack, but gathering too many drew his focus.
Most attacks were dodged effortlessly, the rest blocked by his quadruple defenses.
Moreover, the trapped valley apprentices weren’t idle.
Unable to mount effective counterattacks and caught between sky and ground assaults, the natives broke.
Soldiers threw down weapons, screaming as they fled.
Officers and shamans trying to restore order were soon swallowed by merciless fireballs.
The valley became a fiery hell, a graveyard for the natives.
Jie Ming watched coldly from above, his witchcraft torrent unrelenting until no living, moving natives remained.
Single-handedly, with the transcendent power of his runic tools, he crushed the entire native coalition!
The trapped apprentices didn’t pursue excessively. Confirming their safety, they stared dumbfounded at the figure above and the scorched battlefield below, speechless.
Their despair vanished, replaced by overwhelming awe and reverence.
In truth, thousands of apprentices, under unified command, could unleash destruction surpassing Jie Ming’s.
But these “clever” apprentices wouldn’t easily follow another’s lead.
Without coordination, their single-round bursts might outshine Jie Ming’s, but they couldn’t sustain it, often wasting firepower.
Sensing the anti-flight restriction fade, Jie Ming descended slowly.
Upon landing, he felt countless gazes upon him.
“What are you staring at?!”
Jie Ming, exasperated, looked at the apprentices gawking instead of chasing the fleeing enemy.
“They’re getting away—go after them!”
Though technically peers, every apprentice who heard him instinctively flinched, hurriedly pursuing the scattered natives.
Among them, two groups stood out, their emotions distinct, centered around the trial’s former brightest stars: Augusta and Horn.
Jie Ming noticed their odd gazes, instinctively glancing their way.