The charge of the giant black army was slowing down. In Lucian's rough estimation, some 80,000 emperor-rank black ones had fallen into their trap and were dead or dying. Still, a few hundred were falling each second, but it had come to a stop. Slowly, the eyes of the black army were becoming lifeless as Bloodedge forced them to stay still and not move ahead.
Bloodedge himself did not cross the valley either. Seated atop the biggest and most ugly-looking flying black monster, he just stared at them all. The army of another 20,000 flying emperor-rank black ones were moving their wings behind him, staying stable above the lifeless black ones.
Rurik and Lyska had already called for all soldiers to form rank and take their positions near the 400 rolling laser cannons they had placed right behind the valley entrance, spreading back into their camp even. It was to defend against big numbers of flying emperors—just like the situation at hand. But cannons alone would not be able to handle so many emperor-rank monsters; they would get continuously attacked and destroyed.
"We need to stop.. We have to join them!" Einar yelled from the side.
Lucian already knew it. Lyska and Rurik could not fly. Only Sam, Einar, and she, with their sacrium swords, could teleport to any location. Sam could fly, but only in his most powerful lightning form. She also did best on the land. Her ice needed a base to spread around.
"You two hold on, I will change mine's shape.." Lucian shouted back. Sam and Einar just nodded.
Lucian stopped her wormhole spell and immediately started activating another one to replace the three—this time it didn't need to be so wide—just enough so the land-based black army could not cross as they fought against the flying ones. Lucian looked at her two mana containers. One of them was already two-thirds used up, the other was full. How long could she hold on with that? Assuming no flying monster already killed her off by then.
The spell activated as she continued pouring mana into her sword to keep it stable. Instead of the earlier long rectangle, now it was shaped just as 3,600 meters wide and barely 400 meters long—blocking the whole valley. Still, it was not perfect. The monsters could scale the valley's side frozen mountain walls to cross over—not like Bloodedge cared much for the numbers of his forces—even if one in every ten succeeded, it would make the fight increasingly hard for them. Hopefully the guy hesitates..
"Cancel it!" Lucian shouted after her spell was stable.
Sam and Einar stopped their spell and immediately covered Lucian from both sides. Bloodedge in the distance, after seeing what they were doing, had already sent his flying army in their direction, and without a doubt, all were targeting Lucian.
By the time the black flying monsters made it to mid-valley, however, hundreds of laser cannons shot their lasers one after another—aiming into the dense air formation. Successfully injuring many of the front-line ones. The lasers did not stop as groups of pigmen warriors continuously rotated when they were out of mana, and the replacements kept attacking the incoming army in the air.
Hundreds of black ones fell on the ground, some dead, some injured. The pigmen warriors quickly charged and started finishing them before the injured ones became a problem for Lucian. Sam and Einar refilled their mana-pool and opened wormholes to deliver their devastating attacks directly at the nearest flying monsters targeting Lucian; sometimes even jumping inside the wormhole to deal with a few at once.
They were protecting her from the attacks from the sky while Lyska and Rurik charged ahead from the entrance of the valley and fought any flying monster that landed in the valley, which were unharmed by the attacks or just slightly injured.
Countless fiery birds of Einar, transformed from her sword's aura slashes, were flying around, burning anything that came closer. The whole sky had turned darker like night even though it was bright midday seconds ago, hundreds of lightning bolts were crackling, leaving white flashes in between like branches of enormous trees in the dark sky ready to descend. Some indeed descended and burned the black monsters alive.
No matter how many times Lucian looked at Sam's ability.. It revealed one new terrifying aspect each time to her. A massive lightning bolt, sent and guided from his lightning-aura-covered sword, not just destroyed the target but, when there were other flying monsters nearby, it even added them into the destruction. The close formation against him only led to early deaths of many black flying monsters. The land itself felt like it was shaking with fear.
Still, even though the battle was going in full swing, hundreds dying by the minute—Bloodedge just sat atop his ride, looking down with not a single change in his expression.
Mana was not a problem.. But Lucian's head felt like it was splitting apart. She had high stats in INT, and yet the scale of the spell was just too much. She could not keep holding it for a long time. In barely ten minutes, her nose had started bleeding, and her hands felt lifeless.
Unlike Damian and the transcendent mages, not everyone could use their full body to extend numerous mana threads. Lucian, like most of the people, could only do it from her palms. Maybe she could exchange places with one of the other two once she reached her limit.. She would have to take a minute before joining the battle though, and a minute in such a packed battle could cost heavily—both to the one holding the spell and the many pigmen trying their best to help.
Thankfully, Bloodedge had not controlled his land-based army to climb the side snow walls to cross the open wormhole. That would be hard to deal with. It was to their very limit and a hard-to-fight battle, but everyone was doing their best and slowly but surely they were killing the flying monsters, reducing their numbers enough to have some breathing room. Biggest contributors in doing so were, of course, Sam and Einar.
Lyska and Rurik were also doing as good as they could, even using their ranged spells and skills to attack the monsters that flew too close. Evrin, Maelor, and Alex were also using their ranged spells to the max, using their mana containers to fill in when others faltered and had to back away.