Heir of Synthesis: The World Mage

”What are you all staring at? Shouldn’t you be preparing your formations before they get here?” Priam stared at the twins and the others, speaking in a firm, serious tone.

The two instantly snapped out of their stupor and barked out orders, positioning the soldiers into combat formations within seconds.

Priam nodded in approval. Although they weren’t as battle-hardened as the elite soldiers of his faction, these people were extremely well-trained. Moreover, the twins were proving to be exceptional leaders, intimately familiar with every single one of their subordinates. Over the years they had devoted to that mission in another world, they had built an unshakable bond of trust and discipline.

Even so, this was the first time they had faced such a massive horde of enemies all at once—with every single target being at a higher level of power than themselves.

Even the slightest mistake would result in disaster, and even if they executed everything perfectly, they could still be brutally slaughtered.

If their enemies were Sages or Sorcerers, their chances of victory would be an absolute zero.

But since these were Corrupted Beasts with little intelligence, everyone knew victory was possible, even against enemies that vastly outnumbered and overpowered them.

The suffocating, viscous bloodlust emanating from the Corrupted Beasts stirred an instinctive sense of dread in the recruits’ chests.

Even the twins could feel the overwhelming tension, but they clenched their fists and forced themselves to focus entirely on the battle ahead.

”Suien, take the front since territorial defense is your specialty. Meien, stay in the rear, flanking the beasts and splitting up their advance!” Priam’s voice rang clearly through the air as he issued his instructions.

”Fighters and Physical Sages, take the center! Arcanists and Catalyst Sages, raise the elevated ice platform and take your positions on it! If anyone gets injured, fall back to the core of the formation for support. Attack the areas under the most pressure and eliminate threats quickly. Don’t let them surround you or slow you down!”

Everyone responded immediately, taking up their positions.

Since the twins had never commanded troops under such brutal and chaotic conditions, Priam made things easier by teaching them the most straightforward and effective tactic he had learned from Dandara.

Priam felt satisfied as he watched the group organize itself so quickly. Perhaps under the influence of the imminent danger, no one hesitated or wasted a single second.

A massive platform of solid ice, dozens of meters tall, was quickly raised atop eight pillars. The group of Arcanist Sages specializing in the Water element shaped the structure in the blink of an eye, and Priam was the first to leap onto its top.

”Who has the best bow?” Priam asked the archers who climbed up beside him.

These were Catalyst Sages, personally trained by the twins to provide ranged offensive support. Thanks to the power of the Catalyst class, compressing energy at the tip of an arrow to unleash devastating shots came naturally to them.

Of course, ordinary Catalyst Sages would never be capable of anything similar. They could only do it thanks to the class knowledge Priam had given them in the past.

”My Six-String Bow is the best in the 11th branch!” One disciple stepped forward and handed his weapon to Priam without hesitation.

Priam accepted the weapon and took hold of it. It was considerably heavy and radiated a dense power. As he drew the string all the way back, the bow curved like a crescent moon, activating its engraved runes, which began condensing energy automatically.

”Not bad.” Priam fixed his gaze on the horizon and fired.

*PENG!*

His movement was fluid and graceful. The arrow sliced through the air like a gleaming bolt of lightning, embedding itself with surgical precision right in the head of the first giant in the horde.

The tremendous kinetic force of the impact caused the Corrupted Beast’s head to explode into pieces on the spot.

”What an incredible display of archery!”

The archers around him shouted in unison. Priam’s stance and execution carried an elegance and mastery that only archers who had spent decades fully immersed in their weapon could display.

He hadn’t used any bloodline, any Essence of Creation, much less some flashy Magic Art. It was just a little Ether and a simple, clean, straightforward shot.

”That arrow didn’t just miss the ideal spot; it also lost power along the way,” Priam remarked as he fired the next one.

The projectile embedded itself in the head of another Corrupted Beast, killing it instantly.

*PENG! PENG! PENG!*

He fired more than ten arrows in succession. Every single one shattered an enemy’s head from a great distance.

The archers around him wanted to celebrate the feat, but when they saw Priam frowning the entire time, they realized he was deeply dissatisfied with his own performance. All they could do was swallow their cheers and watch in silence.

*PENG!!!*

At that very moment, Priam fired an arrow with a subtly different motion.

A tiny, perfectly round hole appeared in the Corrupted Beast’s forehead. The arrow had pierced straight through its skull from one side to the other without making its head explode. The monster simply collapsed dead onto the ground.

”I’ve finally found the correct flow,” Priam said with a slight sigh of relief.

When he raised the bow again, a peculiar light flashed in his pupils. He slowly drew the string back as a formless, refined energy spread through the air.

”Pay close attention to the fluctuations of the shot and how Ether should behave in space,” Priam instructed calmly before releasing the string.

An explosive snap rang out from the taut bowstring. The arrow simply vanished from everyone’s sight.

*PIERCE!*

They heard the visceral sound of flesh and bone being pierced in the distance. When they looked along its trajectory, they saw a line of more than ten Corrupted Beasts collapsing simultaneously.

Everyone was left speechless. They had never witnessed such a terrifyingly precise archery technique.

The newcomers’ eyes nearly popped out of their sockets. As dedicated archers, what they had just witnessed challenged everything they knew. When the arrow was released, it seemed to possess a life of its own, effortlessly slicing through the air and space. All its energy was concentrated at the tip, granting it a terrifying penetrating power.

”If you paid close attention, try replicating it now. It’s not difficult; you just need to concentrate the Ether in your body and the arrow in the right way. This isn’t a Magic Art or anything exceptional. All you need is disciplined practice.”

Priam spoke slowly as he took in everyone’s astonished expressions. He had merely demonstrated a practical concept he’d grasped while studying Transcendental knowledge.

This level of wisdom was something none of the members of his faction had studied—and wouldn’t be studying anytime soon. He had even handed the material over to his generals in the past, but they had immediately deemed it impossible to even understand the basics.

The Divine level was their theoretical limit. Later, Priam discovered that the Transcendental level could only be assimilated with a Transcendental Anima—which was why Dandara had been the only one capable of understanding even the tiniest fraction of it.

Seeing the other archers staring at him as though they were gazing upon a deity, Priam smiled faintly and called them back to reality.

”Focus. The enemies are here. Hold back the first wave! Ready your weapons and kill every last one of them!”

The disciples’ blood boiled instantly. Even the slightest trace of fear was swallowed up by an overwhelming desire to fight.

”Kill them!” the Arcanist and Catalyst Sages roared, unleashing a rain of furious attacks against the horde.

”Hey, hey! Keep your order and formation! Stop attacking randomly!” Priam shouted, adjusting the group’s formation amid the chaos of battle.

He quickly began to miss Dandara. She could command everyone with incredible ease, whereas he was learning firsthand just how chaotic and unpredictable people could be.