Sovereign of the Ashes

This was indeed the most critical and intense battle Sein had ever faced in his experience of interplanar war thus far.

Even without the Rank Three Wild Gorillas’ targeting him, Sein had nearly depleted his elemental power after unleashing more than twenty powerful offensive spells and exhausting the magic stored in his magic equipment.

Mages were not “invincible”.

After all, this was a world of balance.

The mana in his body had been exhausted multiple times, and the strain on his mental focus gave him a throbbing headache.

It was becoming increasingly difficult for Sein to rely on potions to maintain the frequency of magic spells he had been casting.

Had he opted for weaker or single-target spells, he might have lasted longer in this battle.

However, Sein had not chosen that route; instead, he had unleashed his most powerful spells upon the Wild Gorillas relentlessly.

A sensible mage would never leave themselves without a means of retreat in a fight.

Of course, Sein was not foolish either.

Beyond his intention to alleviate the pressure on Leena and the others, his primary reason for his reckless display was that, before entering this battlefield, he had spotted the Magus World Army steadily advancing to support him from the rear.

For a mage whose mental focus and mana had dwindled, fighting on the frontline was indeed tantamount to suicide.

However, Sein possessed a strong constitution that most mages of his rank did not.

Despite the intense pain in his head and the debilitating effects of overexertion, he stood tall, his eyes fixed firmly ahead.

Even without the hard armor of knights, he had the Dim Star magic robe, which provided ample protection.

He had no sharp weapons like Natalya and the others but he carried a powerful magic rod capable of shattering the skulls of Rank Two Wild Gorillas.

While Natalya as well as the surrounding knights, and enslaved creatures defended him as best they could, Sein continued to fight.

After a relentless onslaught from Sein and the others, the two groups of Magus World legions, positioned not far apart, finally converged.

“Hold on a little longer; support will be here soon!” Sein told Leena, battling through the discomfort in his head.

At that moment, the ground rumbled ominously, as if some colossal beast were approaching.

It was not the trump card of the Wild Gorillas, but rather a support force from the other divine towers and orders of the knights in the Magus World.

Sein was not sure exactly which group was coming though.

Due to the chaotic battlefield, where Rank Three and demigod-level creatures were fighting nearby, Sein could not reach the Divine Tower of Verdant Spring’s command center through both his crystal ball and the divine tower badge.

There was a gaping hole in Sein’s elemental body, created by a long-range javelin thrown by a Rank Three Wild Gorilla.

Uncertain of the kind of power his opponent wielded, his elemental body could not recover for the time being.

Since his mana was nearly depleted, he could barely maintain the most basic form of his elemental body.

Fortunately, his Dim Star magic robe provided solid defense; otherwise, that last hit might have been fatal.

Leena’s situation was marginally better than Sein’s, but not by much.

Her umbra and pyro elemental shields had been breached and dissipated.

Her umbra elemental body flickered unsteadily.

Without undergoing body tempering experiments like Sein, it was far too risky for fragile mages like her to remain on the frontlines.

With little mana left, Leena made her way to Sein’s side, where she was flanked by enslaved creatures and knights, protected from the onslaught of Wild Gorillas attacking from all directions.

In terms of strength, the opposing force led by several Rank Three Wild Gorillas was indeed significantly more powerful than Sein and his allies.

Despite adopting a passive stance, Sein and the others were not so fragile that they could be easily defeated.

A large number of enslaved creatures sacrificed their lives to withstand the Wild Gorillas Army’s retaliation to protect Sein and Leena.

It was at this moment that Sein finally understood where the thick layer of blood and the countless corpses littering the ground had come from.

He had been killing with reckless abandon just moments before but now, with his mana running low, the retaliation from the Wild Gorillas was inflicting damage on the Magus World Army with each passing moment.

As the number of fallen enslaved creatures increased, Reina, who was maintaining her Bloodline Transformation, spat out a mouthful of blood.

She had been struck in the back by two Rank Three Wild Gorillas when they saw an opening.

It was then that the long-awaited support finally arrived.

A group of brave riders charged in, mounted on the backs of black Terrabound Drakes.

The weakest of these drakes were as powerful as quasi-ranked magic beasts, though there were also many Rank One and Rank Two among them.

Sein even spotted a number of Terrabound Drakes, as immense as Sanchez the skeletal dragon, whizzing past.

Those riding these mighty drakes were undoubtedly Rank Three Sky Knights at the very least!

No wonder the ground had been quaking just moments ago.

Thousands of Terrabound Drakes, each bearing elite riders on their backs, were not a mere black torrent of ordinary creatures that could be easily disregarded.

Sein could not help but wonder from which order these knights hailed.

Such a meticulously organized lineup was something no ordinary knightly order could afford.

Sein knew the Order of the Steel Fist and the Order of the Thunder Knights certainly lacked the resources to support an army of Drake Knights.

Riding at the forefront of this legion of Terrabound Drake Knights was the strongest among them.

This unfamiliar legion did not even bother using enslaved creatures as cannon fodder in their advance.

The strongest Terrabound Drake led a portion of the legion directly toward Sein and his allies.

It was clearly a demigod-level drake serving as a mount to an equally formidable rider.

However, this unfamiliar demigod-level knight did not speak with Sein on the battlefield.

Instead, he directed his mount to charge at the demigod-level Wild Gorilla that was battling the Kingfisher and plant giant.

Two other immense Rank Three Terrabound Drakes followed suit, joining the fray around Sein and the others.

As one of the riders drove his Darkcloud Golden Dragon Lance through the shoulder of a Rank Three Wild Gorilla, he ignored the creature’s pained roars and turned his attention to Sein’s group with interest.

“Oh? A Rank Two mage charging to the frontlines? You have quite an impressive constitution. Which divine tower are you from?” the Rank Three Knight asked with a smile.

“Sein, from Divine Tower of Verdant Spring,” the elemental giant replied nonchalantly, covering the wound on his body with his hand.

The Rank Three Sky Knight, clad in pitch-black metal armor, nodded. The Terrabound Drake beneath him also wore heavy armor covered in black barbs.

Due to the drakes’ naturally dark scales, such details had been difficult to discern as they arrived like a black torrent.

This was an army of drakes, armed to the teeth.

No creature could possibly withstand the force of their assault.

“Hawthorn, Order of the Blackrock,” the black-armored knight announced, shaking his lance as he urged his mount to pounce at their opponent once more.

The group of Terrabound Drake Knights in front of them did not just support the open battlefield where Sein fought; their presence filled the shared combat zone between the Divine Tower of Verdant Spring and the Order of the Fiery Molten Mountain.

Following this group of Terrabound Drake Knights was a vast array of enslaved creatures and additional knights to bolster their numbers.

The already exhausted mages of the Divine Tower of Verdant Spring and the frontline troops of the Order of the Fiery Molten Mountain finally had a moment to rest with the support of their new allies.

The flapping of massive wings echoed from above.

Sein looked up and spotted a giant black dragon with a wingspan of several hundred meters, carrying a figure whose appearance he could not discern as it soared into the depths of the sky.

That was the high-altitude battlefield where Feylis and other Rank Four powerhouses clashed.

The black dragon seemed different from the conventional dragons of the Magus World that Sein recognized from the magic atlas.

It resembled the surrounding Terrabound Drakes but was significantly larger and possessed a pair of fleshy wings that the others lacked.

“It appears to be a species of underground dragon. I’ve read some basic introductions of underground creatures in the Black Tower of Cinderbones’s library before,” Leena remarked.

“The strongest underground dragon species is known as the Abyssal Dragon. It’s a type of dragon in the Magus World that seems even more powerful than the ones kept by the Byrne Empire. Maybe these Terrabound Drakes possess a trace of Abyssal Dragon’s blood within them.”

Leena’s eyes gleamed with a hint of red light as she watched the black Terrabound Drakes fly past her, radiating the spirit of research and exploration.

She was eager to dissect these Terrabound Drakes alive and study them.

At that moment, the look in Sein’s eyes mirrored Leena’s intensity.

They were truly a pair of lunatics.