?Everyone was dead-tired at this point, but it was impossible to stop now. A dense silver cloud shrouded the northern border to the Zentika Empire, and it was getting closer.
Chaos erupted from the silver inferno and spread in all directions. The majority pushed deeper into the Zentika Empire, but the remaining Chaos was more than enough to bother Michael and the rest.
They survived against the Heart of the Blazing Lion army. They couldn’t give up now that they were so close to overcoming the final hurdle from today’s battle!
“Frederik!” Michael called his friend, who arrived next to him within seconds.
Frederik didn’t enter close combat until the end of the battle. He merely sustained minor injuries. However, his mental power was drained, and his energy storage was empty. There was no way that Frederik could use his Soultraits again today.
“You have to use Aeroan to push the Chaos away,” Michael pointed at the humongous silver cloud that was about to swallow the Untamed Jungle’s outer rings.
Frederik stared at his friend, his eyes widened in shock as he realized that Michael wasn’t joking.
“I–…”
“You have to. The Elemental Empress and Lesser Elementals will help you, but nobody has as much control of the winds as you. You have three Soultraits related to the wind attribute and your body has been attuned to Aeroan near-perfectly as well. Please!”
Michael was pretty sure that he could solve the problem as well. However, not only would he have to unleash the three Cursed Seals, but Michael could tell that he would have to give in to the insanity exposed by activating the Cursed Seals to swallow the silver cloud in its entirety.
But that wasn’t even the worst. To swallow the silver cloud as a whole, Michael would probably end up killing hundreds of wounded soldiers…his soldiers. He wouldn’t be able to control True Extraction once he lost the battle against the Cursed Seals’ power.
He stared intently at Frederik who swallowed hard.
“I…will give it a try.”
“You can do it!”
Opars appeared next to Frederik and used Energy Imprint. The Forest Elf was exhausted and burned heavily in various spots but he was still alive and able to use his Soultrait.
Michael stared at the silver cloud and grit his teeth firmly. He forced his Body, Mind, and Soul to go beyond their limits as well.
Michael accessed his War Rune and retrieved 1,000 Energy Crystals. They were spread out around him to provide easy access. Exactly 1,000 Extraction tendrils burst out of Michael in the next moment. He attached the Extraction tendrils to the Energy Crystals and began to extract the compressed energy within.
Michael forwarded the extracted energy to Frederik right away with Insert.
Frederik’s eyes bulged in surprise at the burst of energies that entered him through Opars and Michael. However, instead of saying anything, Frederik turned around and used Aeroan.
First, he commanded the winds in the surroundings to submit to him. Then, he used the massive amount of energy that flooded him to manifest more winds. .𝘤𝘰𝑚
Raging gales swept through the outer rings of the Untamed Jungle.
The Lesser Wind Elementals and the Elemental Empress aided Frederik in controlling the raging gales. It was difficult, seemingly impossible to do so, but they gave their utmost either way.
They didn’t have to do a lot, in the first place. Their mission was not to disintegrate the silver cloud. All they had to do was push it back and change its movements.
The bushes at the border to the middle area were uprooted and the towering trees creaked loudly as the raging gales smashed against them. Frederik groaned in pain, blood spurted from his nose and eyes, and he felt like collapsing on the spot. However, a wide smile blossomed on his face.
Frederik never felt this much power. It was the first time he felt truly powerful.
He could instinctively tell that his power was nothing like it used to be and that the raging gales that swept through the surroundings were strong enough to knock out Awakened at the 3rd Tier. Frederik felt true power.
A mighty roar escaped his lips as he summoned the last bits of mental power from every inch of his body. He combined his power with the hundreds of Lesser Wind Elementals that had appeared to aid Frederik and hurled the raging winds against the silver cloud.
The raging winds collided with the silver cloud.
At first, Michael didn’t see much. He could only tell that the raging winds forced the silver cloud into stagnation. It didn’t move further ahead, but it was not pushed back either.
That was not great, but it wasn’t too bad either.
Michael apologized inwardly to Frederik as he pressed his palm against his friend’s back. He closed his eyes and tried to sense Frederik’s Soultraits and used Enhancement with Insert on his Soultraits. Frederik’s pained groan worsened as he recognized that his strength surged even higher.
Frederik was overflowing with energy, but both his Mind and Soul couldn’t take it anymore. His bleeding nose and eyes worsened, and blood squirted from his ears as well. He unleashed Aeroan in its strongest form once more before he collapsed to the ground.
Frederik was writhing on the ground even as he lost consciousness, but it was great that Opars was there. He used Soothing Wave to tend to Frederik’s condition.
Meanwhile, Frederik’s last burst of power showed effect. The silver cloud was pushed back by the raging gales and changed trajectory. It was pushed deeper into the Zentika Empire where the remaining Chaos was headed to as well.
‘He used Soul Energy.’ Michael noted as he looked at Frederik.
He didn’t teach Frederik a lot about Soul Energy, but he’d given him a copy of the Soul Energy Fusion technique. Frederik studied it, but he never managed to produce Soul Energy.
That was until today.
Frederik used Soul Energy for the first time, and he suffered the aftermath of being deprived of Soul Power while being eerily low on mental power.
“It looks like I underestimated your willpower,” Michael commented to Frederik, who’d stopped writhing on the ground.
Frederik was still unconscious, but his life was not in danger. A few days of rest was all he needed to get better.
Michael trembled and experienced like he was about to collapse as well when his body was about to ease up. The adrenaline that had been surging through him dispersed and he could feel every inch of his body. It was almost as if his entire being was in unbearable pain.
He lifted his gaze and stared at the disappearing silver cloud. Of course, not everything had been solved with this, but Michael could easily extract the Chaos that infested the land near the Untamed Jungle later. That was no problem.
Opars left Frederik’s side after reinsuring that the young Awakened was fine. He offered to use Soothing Wave on Michael, who could only decline.
Even Opars’ Healing Soultrait wouldn’t change anything about Michael’s condition. There was a limit to how much one could heal at a time. Michael went already beyond that limit today…
by a lot, at that.
‘I didn’t even do that much, yet I’m feeling like I’m about to die.’ He cursed himself.
Opars and the others were also dead tired, but they could move, nonetheless. Michael couldn’t even do that. He was able to tell that his body would collapse the moment he tried to move. He had to rest for a bit.
‘I ended up like that just to kill some Higher Lifeforms. Most of them weren’t even Awakened.’
Michael ended up ridiculing himself. Most enemies in today’s battle had been natives. They wouldn’t provide any Soultrait Symbols or SoulStar Fragments. That was a shame.
But it was good that they were dead. The energy influxes and energy shares he had obtained today were also quite huge. His War Rune was bound to progress a little bit after today’s battle.
That was great, but Michael couldn’t be happy about it.
Once he experienced that he could move again, Michael dragged his weary body through the outer rings.
The northern outer rings of the Untamed Jungle were nothing like they used to be. All life had been destroyed. The ground was charred, and the only thing Michael could see was death and destruction.
The Chaos had been restrained but Michael knew that he would have to tend to the land at some point, otherwise, the infested land bordering the burned-down outer rings would affect the surroundings, including the Untamed Jungle.
Fortunately, he didn’t have to solve that issue right at this instant.
Michael and his people tried to ignore the exhaustion that swept through every bone in their bodies. They tended to the living and collected the dead. They collected the corpses of their enemies, the monsters from the High Beast Horde, and the bodies of their fallen comrades-in-arms.
The monsters that had survived the battle against the Heart of the Blazing Lion army had already left. They distributed and disappeared.
It was unsure how the situation in the Untamed Jungle would change after today’s battle, but Michael was certain that something was about to change. The same applied to the Zentika Empire.
The silver cloud that had threatened to devour the Untamed Jungle caught up to the remaining Chaos and formed a much larger cloud. It moved deeper into the Zentika Empire.
‘Will the Zentika Empire’s council charge into the Untamed Jungle to obliterate us, or will they…leave us alone?’
Too many people died today. 10 Awakened had been killed, and more than 15 Awakened had been wounded seriously. 3,500 members of the Untamed Army had been slaughtered mercilessly…and the number would have been much higher if the mysterious winged serpent hadn’t arrived after the first Commander was slaughtered.
‘Without Hiraku…or the addition of dozens of Soultraits that enhanced the Untamed Awakened…’
Michael sighed heavily. He knew that today’s battle could have ended differently really fast. Almost everything could have ended much worse than it did.
Nonetheless, Michael never lost that many people before.
He didn’t feel good about that.
But that was war.
War was not supposed to make you feel good, and the Zentika Empire was not to be taken lightly, either.
It had never been.
**
[A/N: I’m feeling a little bit better today. But that might just be temporary. I cannot promise to upload two chapters a day for the next few days until I’m fully recuperated.
I hope everyone is enjoying the story and that you like where I’m going with Michael’s journey. They repelled the Heart of the Blazing Lion army, but what will happen now?
Give me your best guess about the future plot. I’m curious what you guys are thinking.
And leave a review if you haven’t done that yet. More reviews = Happy Author.
𝑖.𝘤ℴ𝘮