The colossal impact sounded as though a massive cache of hidden explosives had detonated underground, causing the earth itself to heave and roll in violent waves.
Dozens of charging enemy soldiers were hurled off their feet, their forward momentum instantly fractured into utter chaos.
The next instant, the Xuanwu Guards surged forward in lockstep, planting their massive tower shields back into the bedrock with bone-jarring force!
Boom!
This time, the assembled legions of the Holy Spirit Alliance could no longer maintain any semblance of coordinated formation, shattering outward into a dozen isolated groups.
Yet the Xuanwu Guards had merely disrupted the enemy’s momentum; the sheer numerical tide of the alliance remained overwhelming. Even scattered, they threatened to drown this compact vanguard by sheer weight of numbers.
A sneer crept across Ai Lan’s face as she watched from the rear.
"Faced with absolute numerical superiority, every strategy and futile resistance becomes entirely meaningless."
Under prevailing circumstances, unless Toji Hisami conjured a legendary dragon on the spot, she refused to entertain the possibility of a successful counter-offensive.
To ensure no such summoning rituals materialized, Ai Lan ordered her assembled battle mages to weave a massive, enclosing spatial isolation barrier.
Yet Toji Hisami had no intention of summoning a dragon.
Dragon Summoning constituted an ultra-tier arcane rite demanding a formal, blood-sworn pact with an ancient draconian entity.
He had never even clapped eyes on a living giant dragon, let alone mastered the operational requirements of such a spell.
From start to finish, he intended to rely purely on his own mastery.
He had already drawn the strange codex into his grip, the star-embroidered vestments across his shoulders glowing with a steady, pulsing luminescence.
Rather than invoking destructive mysticism immediately, he channeled the anomalous artifact resonance of the Strange Book to anchor ambient mana directly into his physical field, exponentially compounding the potency of his upcoming doctrinal arts.
Within this realm, the vast majority of support-class vocations derived their active miracles directly from divine conduits—manifesting as conventional priests, shamans, and holy clerics.
The hallmark capability of any support discipline centered on a singular operational loop: applying formidable positive buffs to allied units while projecting debilitating negative debuffs upon opposing forces.
Among the vast ocean of esoteric data Toji Hisami had absorbed within the Palace of Knowledge rested the high-tier discipline of Spiritual Epistemology.
From the moment that doctrinal corpus had integrated into his consciousness, not a single day had passed without him driving its systematic analysis to the absolute limit.
Bolstered by the passive blessing of Heaven Rewards Diligence, his analytical efficiency compounded upward like a gathering snowball.
Had regional territory-level restrictions not capped his operational capacity, he would have long since permanently imprinted all nine grand knowledge seals across the architecture of the Lord’s Palace.
At that exact moment, within the theater of his internal consciousness, the conceptual celestial body representing theology—Uranus—quietly accelerated its rotational axis.
"The Sovereign decrees: Those who walk within my light shall be rendered unbreakable, resolute, radiant, and pure!"
"The Sovereign decrees: Those who cleave to my banner shall shatter all opposition, achieving total victory in every engagement. I shall scatter their foes like driven chaff and sweep them away like rolling thunder!"
"The Sovereign decrees: Those who stand in defiance shall find their hearts gripped by panic, their spiritual consciousness plunged into chaos, and their physical forms withered by absolute failure!"
A rhythmic, resonant chant echoed softly from Toji Hisami’s lips.
The strange codex in his palm radiated an ancient, brilliant corona, weaving invisible threads of administrative authority through the surrounding atmosphere.
The allied lords who had moments earlier hovered on the precipice of utter despair suddenly felt an unshakeable surge of fortitude flood their chests.
A burning ember of hope sprouted within the depths of their souls, instantly manifesting as comprehensive physical and psychological exaltation!
Even Elara stood frozen in astonishment, while her retainers stared toward Toji Hisami as though beholding a living deity.
In that heartbeat, every single allied combatant received an astronomical, multi-dimensional augmentation!
Translated into quantifiable metrics, their holistic attributes surged by 150% to 300%, while their mental status locked into a state of absolute immunity against all external magical interference or morale debuffs.
More crucially, the invincible psychological conviction planted within their minds proved to be the ultimate turning point.
Anchored by that unwavering psychological anchor, every soldier unlocked the absolute 100% threshold of their combat potential.
By contrast, across the opposing lines, Ai Lan’s massive army suddenly bogged down as though sinking into a quagmire of spiritual lethargy, every soldier inexplicably overcome by crushing physical weakness.
The meticulously orchestrated momentum of their charge dissolved into the frantic panic of headless flies.
The true initiators of the charge instantly inverted—transforming Toji Hisami’s vanguard into the offensive wave!
Observing the sudden tactical reversal from his distant knoll, Musa’s eyes narrowed into dangerous slits.
In a panic, Ai Lan screamed orders to her reserve priests, frantically attempting to deploy maritime cleansing rites to purge the psychological debuffs afflicting her troops.
It was already far too late.
The Xuanwu Guards drove directly into the fragmented enemy formations with relentless, heavy strides.
Deprived of cohesive unit cohesion, the unorganized alliance soldiers offered zero structural resistance, getting systematically knocked into the air and crushed beneath iron-shod boots.
The elite swordsmen concealed within the formation bared their lethal fangs at last, with Li Xu stepping to the vanguard as he unholstered his longsword!
Countless arcs of cold steel erupted simultaneously, resembling a sudden blizzard of silver petals carpeting the turf.
Fine-forged steel blades shattered into useless slag after a mere flurry of aggressive strikes.
This structural failure stemmed not from any deficiency in the Jiuzhou Territory’s smithing craftsmanship, but from the terrifying frequency and volume of the elite warriors’ attacks; they were simply eliminating targets faster than physical steel could endure!
The sword edges struck enemy armor and shields at an impossibly high velocity during those fleeting seconds.
Even though the elite blades incorporated innate sharpness and defense-breaking traits, standard longsword frames possessed finite durability thresholds against that level of friction.
Anticipating this constraint, however, every swordsman had shouldered multiple backup blades prior to deployment; the instant a weapon fractured, a replacement was drawn in the same motion.
This ruthless, methodical extermination blossomed brilliantly beneath the night sky under sheets of silver luminescence.
Lords witnessing the elite swordsmen’s horrific combat efficiency for the first time were paralyzed by shock.
Whether they belonged to the compromised factions of the Holy Spirit Alliance or stood among Elara’s newly rescued allies, every observer viewed the blood-drenched elite warriors as terrifying specters dragged straight from the abyss.
The sheer psychological impact caused onlookers to temporarily miss their offensive timings, leaving the Xuanwu Guards anchoring the front line to shoulder the brunt of the remaining pressure.
"Elf vanguard—execute!"
Lyra’s sharp command pierced the din!
The directive snapped Elara and her retainers back to active awareness. Recalling their pre-arranged operational roles, they unleashed every ounce of accumulated offensive power without reservation.
The suppressed counter-attack erupted with cataclysmic fury.
A dense curtain of lethal projectiles, layered elemental spells, and plunging melee strikes poured continuously through the designated firing gaps of the Xuanwu Guards’ square formation, shearing across the field like a concentrated galeswept storm.
Ai Lan’s grand army sustained catastrophic casualties within that compressed window, triggering an irrecoverable systemic collapse across their entire frontline!
A thunderous shockwave resonated outward as the enemy legions fractured definitively before the eyes of every assembled lord.
"Xuanwu Guards, halt! Adjust formation—two ranks rear, eight ranks front to intercept the incoming Elephant shock units!"
"Elven marksmen, maintain your positions and sustain high-volume area harvesting!"
Lyra’s voice rang out clearly once more.
The Xuanwu Guards, who had just driven their counter-charge deep into the enemy lines, checked their forward momentum instantly, executing a tight, synchronized pivot back toward their defensive perimeter.
Over yonder, the massive Elephant Man shock infantry had abruptly accelerated.
Their colossal physical frames, reinforced by thick steel barding, leveraged full sprinting momentum to generate an unstoppable wave of kinetic mass.
They slammed headlong into the Xuanwu Guards’ defensive grid like a squadron of runaway armored freight trucks.
The Elephant Man lord Roku spearheaded the heaviest sector of the impact, holding three heavy cleaving sabers crossed behind his back.
His massive torso leaned forward at a sharp angle, utilizing the heavy shoulder plates and projecting structural barbs to gore his targets.
Catching sight of the impending collision, Chen Wei’s features broke into a wide, ferocious grin.
"Well met!"
For heavy infantry units, this brutal, unyielding style of head-on collisions represented their absolute preferred form of warfare!
Let the battlefield determine whose heavy plating reigned supreme!
Let history record whose standard remained standing at the very end!
[Black Turtle Bastion]
Defensive Bond Active!
Integrating seamlessly with the Xuanwu Guards who had just pivoted back into alignment, the heavy infantry slammed the bases of their towering shields into the earth, interlocking their edges to form an architectural shell resembling a gigantic, unyielding tortoise carapace.
A shimmering, translucent energy dome projected outward over the locked shields, enveloping the formation like an inverted bowl.
Ten paces!
Five paces!
Step!
Boom!
The supreme collision of raw kinetic mass against unyielding structural defense! The ultimate trial of raw muscle and engineered steel!
Lord Roku and his elite elephant shock troops slammed squarely into the energy-reinforced shield wall of the Xuanwu Guards!
The resulting concussive shockwave instantly flattened every surrounding tree and blasted nearby friendly combatants off their feet.
Even independent lords stationed within distant allied territories caught the ear-splitting detonation echoing across the night air.
Musa’s eyes bulged until the capillaries threatened to rupture.
Ai Lan instinctively raised both hands to cover her mouth in horrified disbelief.
The Elephant Man lord Roku’s mouth, nostrils, eyes, and ears simultaneously ruptured, venting gushes of bright arterial blood.
Directly before him, more than half of the defensive perimeter anchored by dozens of Xuanwu Guards was violently caved inward.
Over a dozen heavy infantrymen were bodily blasted backward through the air, their interlocking tower shields twisted into grotesque heaps of scrap metal, their reinforced plate armor shredded into ribbons.
This marked the very first time such structural damage had ever been inflicted upon the Xuanwu Guards since their initial formation.
Yet not a single trace of triumphant elation crossed the Elephant Man lord’s bleeding face.
Because their catastrophic, full-force momentum terminated dead against that single defensive line...