"Stella!" Noel widened his eyes in shock, thinking, 'Stella's element is perfect to stop the majority of her power. But there is something that she can't push with her wind… In other words, Stella is planning to sacrifice her sword and probably her body to buy me some time?'
Noel's body trembled. He never thought that his weakness might cause someone's death in this place.
"Kh." Noel gritted his teeth, trying to find a solution. He looked at his teammates to see if there was someone that had the power to change the situation.
But at that time, he saw the dust getting kicked up on the side.
A short middle-aged man jumped into the air while laughing, "Kikikiki. You won't be able to do anything against me even if our strength is the same. You should understand the strength of a Devil Bishop!"
"Impossible. Paul." Noel gasped as he checked the Vice Captain of the Demon Barrier Squad. He managed to hold on, but there were a lot of injuries on his body.
As for Damian… *Boom!* A loud noise shook the battlefield.
A powerful sword strike ran through the ground as Damian used his sword to block it, albeit getting pushed back all the way near their place.
"Kh." Damian also had a hard time fighting Laufey. Laufey might not have reached the Spirit Transcendence like the commander, but his real strength was not far from it. He might even be able to reach that stage within one or two years.
It seemed that he only became one of the Devil Saints just recently. But still, the situation turned for the worse.
He thought he managed to play some tricks on Laufey, stopping their advance. But it seemed that it took more than tricks to stop an absolute power.
They were simply not strong enough to contend with Laufey and the others. That was probably why Anna wanted them to get stronger as soon as possible.
'How do I turn the situation around? Should we retreat to the wall? But if we do it, there will be a lot of people dying. Am I ruthless enough to kill thousands of people just to save myself? Am I a fool for not doing it?'
Noel was in a dilemma. He didn't want to be taken away, but he also didn't want to take the option where a lot of lives were involved.
'What should I do?' Noel bit his lips, using the little time Stella bought to come up with a solution.
That was when one of his father's advice struck him.
"Noel. There is a time when we gamble as a merchant. However, this gamble needs a lot of things before it starts. You have to prepare everything first to give you a higher chance of winning the gamble. Remember this, doing your best and being reckless are two different things. Being reckless will result in your defeat.
Doing your best might give the same result, but you will also gain one more thing… It's the leisure of avoiding defeat. If you want to take a gamble, make sure that you don't lose even if you can't win."
Noel's eyebrows twitched when he remembered it.
"Ah, I'm a fool… that's right. There's no need for us to win this battle. All we have to do is not lose." Noel took a deep breath, thinking about something.
All they needed to do was not to stop them. It was to buy time.
'That's right. If we calculate the timing, we have to stop them for two to three hours… since the remaining time won't be enough for them to attack another city.
'In that case, all I have to do is to speed things up so that they won't have enough time.'
Noel gathered his Spiritual Energy on the tip of his fingers and shot it out to the sky, forming a black phoenix.
The phoenix cry shook the battlefield as some people's eyes were glued on it. The phoenix suddenly formed a ball before exploding as if it was trying to give a signal.
All of a sudden, Noel's voice startled everyone, including the soldiers on top of the wall. He used a lot of Spiritual Energy to amplify his voice.
"Listen up, soldiers from Hansville City. Hurry up and inform the headquarters to send reinforcement to the neighboring city. And tell all the people from Hansville City to evacuate immediately if they don't want to die."
"!!!" That shout utterly shocked the people. After all, Noel was a part of the Demon Relief Squad, but he wasn't one of their superiors. So, the soldiers didn't have any obligation to follow his order.
However, Noel's words weren't just a message to the soldiers. In fact, the real target was none other than the Vice Captain of the Demon Barrier Squad.
He took a deep breath and shouted at the top of his lungs. "Consider his words as mine!"
The soldiers were completely speechless, never thinking that someone from the Demon Relief Squad would be the one to lead them. However, the Vice Captain had given his instruction. All they could do was to obey him.
They could also tell that these people were struggling against the Supreme Devil Organization, so they hurriedly sent many birds into the sky to deliver the messages.
"!!!" Laufey was the first one to recognize his plan. "Bastard."
If they evacuated the city, even if they went there, it was impossible to massacre all those people. Noel and the others only needed to return to the wall to end this battle.
In other words, sending the message alone had shrunk their time limit from two hours to fifteen minutes.
"We have fifteen minutes. Turn yourself into a beast and kill the enemy before you!" Laufey ordered out loud.
This was a desperate fight, but this was the only option where they could stop themselves from losing, so everything would be decided within fifteen minutes.
Unfortunately, it seemed that not everything would go according to their way.
There were people who saw Noel's phoenix from a distance. And these people would be changing the fate of the battlefield.