As if that wasn’t enough, suddenly a massive condensed dark pink and red mixed-colored beam of energy was released from the single eye of the biggest monster on the battlefield. Following behind Dreamlight with vengeance, Sam realized it was Bloodedge trying to use the monster’s attack as cover to make his way back to one of the flying monsters coming down to pick him up.
“No.. No.. No..” Sam muttered, finally having enough strength to get up. The psychic energy beam was still making it hard for him to even think straight. The pain in his head was blinding.
Still, Sam gritted his teeth and forced one hand down into the half-filled mana container, gripping his sacrium sword with the other. Ready to open a wormhole back to Lucian and the others. However, at the last second, his surroundings cleared of smoke—and Sam noticed Einar lying flat on the ground some meters behind him. Beside her was another lifeless figure of a giant red pigman—Lyska.
His mana sense was all fucked. He didn’t even sense them. Sam struggled and hurriedly rushed near Einar, barely holding himself from stumbling in the snow—blood dripping from wounds all over his body, leaving bloody footprints on the white snow.
He turned Einar over with a grunt. Thankfully, she was still breathing. Bleeding, but breathing.
Sam immediately reached into his spatial storage, grabbing high-grade healing potions for her—and even for himself. His body felt slightly better, but the headache didn’t ease. Seconds later, Einar coughed hard and opened her eyes slightly. Sam, finally having some strength in his legs, had already rushed to Lyska to give the guy a sip of potion too.
But.. There were four enormous cuts on his back, bone and muscle already visible. Even the blood, after being spilled, had started to freeze up.
“He.. ‘cough’ He saved me. Himself.. Sacrificed himself..” Einar muttered behind him, grunting and trying to pull herself up.
Sam just closed his eyes for a second and immediately turned around. They had no time to mourn. The black army was charging fast toward them, shaking the whole valley under their powerful steps. Sam quickly rushed back to Einar and opened the wormhole—pulling her with him to the other side. Putting Einar down beside Lucian, Sam went back through the wormhole and shouted for Rurik.
Then he waited. The charge of the black army was coming closer and closer by the second.
Surprisingly, Dreamlight was cleverly manipulating the Legendary-ranked mindless monster into attacking its own emperor-rank brethren; that kid was doing better than he had assumed. They were packed so closely in the valley that the psychic laser, when missing Dreamlight, always hit a few of them—killing them instantly. That attack was too fucked up to be real.
Soon, fortunately, the laser attack ended, and Dreamlight—after slaughtering all the flying and land monsters on the way—flew down near Sam.
Sam used another wormhole to get closer and saw Mindseer and Heather jumping out of the still-landing Dreamlight, killing the few emperor-ranked black ones who had already reached halfway through the valley. They were trying to protect someone, Sam realized, and used the wormhole again to reach close to them.
Heather was using his massive metal axe, covered in dark red flames, to cleave through any monster that came near the fallen body of Rurik, while Mindseer was holding a giant light-aura constructed sword, expertly killing the black monsters without missing a single strike. Her future sight in direct combat was a terrifying thing to witness.
Behind both of their backs, Dreamlight had landed, and the mechanical steps were slowly extending. Reize, Amy, and Sariel were about to come down to take Rurik when Sam appeared beside him through the wormhole. Without a word, Sam understood the task and, with great effort, lifted Rurik’s heavy body and opened another, bigger wormhole—getting right inside the open metal door of Dreamlight.
The others didn’t even have to climb down—they immediately started blasting small handheld laser cannons Damian had made, giving cover as Mindseer and Heather jumped inside Dreamlight. Elias quickly pulled it up, and they flew back toward the valley entrance, where whatever remained of the 30,000-strong pigman army was fighting with their last ounce of energy against the hordes of the black army pouring out of multiple tunnels—being led by Maelor, Evrin, and Alex. The laser cannons actively firing and unconscious Lucian were being protected by them.
Soon, Dreamlight backed them up from the air with its laser attacks, taking some of the burden off. But they couldn’t last like this long—it was a must to leave this place as soon as possible. All attempts to wake Lucian had failed. She was in severe mana deficit, and both her mana containers were empty. Without her aura, making more in this chaotic battle was out of the question.
Only her sword had the waygate spell that could be controlled by the user. Sam and the others also had sacrium bracelets that could open waygates to Damian or the London base—but they couldn’t open larger than normal wormhole size.
But they had no choice. The small ones would have to do. Only the others had enough mana to open their waygates back to Earth—Sam and Einar were out of it. Still, they quickly started using steel mana cubes to get enough liquid mana to open a few more portals.
Thousands of pigmen going through these small waygates would take time they didn’t have—the black army had already crossed three-fourths of the narrow valley. Even the giant Legendary-ranked black pigman seemed to be recharging his psychic attacks while taking giant steps in a run toward them.
Bloodedge had successfully mounted another flying monster and was far above them—high in the air, probably controlling the giant monster.
“We won’t make it..” Amy said, voicing what was already on everyone’s mind.
“We can’t send first-rankers to Earth either..” Mindseer said.
Then suddenly she raised her eyebrows and stared toward Lucian. Everyone noticed it, even while launching long-range attacks at the hordes of black army all around them.
“What?” Sam shouted.
“I just lost sight of all future possibilities. Everything is black..” she replied.
“Meaning we’re dead?” Sariel asked, sending his light constructs constantly in the black monsters’ direction, exploding them from all sides.
“No. It only happens when..”
Mindseer muttered, but before she could even finish, all of them sensed an uncomfortable mana near Lucian—a blue shimmering portal materializing—and out came big colorful spheres followed by a man covered in steel armor from head to toe.
Sam’s eyes widened—and finally, for the first time in the past hour, hope filled his heart.
He was back.