Although the enemies saw it coming and tried to evade, Elizabeth's Sky Piercer reached them in an instant. Zing! There was no time to defend, much less process what happened. All they saw was a bright flash and then… nothing. The afterlife greeted them. The white beam-like projectile instantly shot through the entire enemy army like a knife through paper, accompanied by devastating tempestuous winds that wrecked even more havoc. It then slammed into the far hillside before dissipating completely. The attack was not particularly wide, being about as wide as ten people standing shoulder-to-shoulder, but almost everything between Elizabeth and that far hillside was deleted from existence. All that remained was a scorching trench in the dirt! It was a brutal display of absolute destructive power. Had anyone been present in the final battle with Emperor Lianghu, then they would have seen the similarities in Elizabeth's killing blow. The fact she was steadily progressing to where she could replicate that attack was a frightening realization! This was her current strongest long-range method!
Freon's spell arrived an instant later, filling the sky with a hundred fiery black lances. They were so thin and narrow that head-on, they were almost invisible. Only the Perception Realms could sense their presence and react, but everyone else was clueless. It was a stark contrast to Elizabeth's Sky Piercer. Whoosh! They effortlessly pierced through both armor and flesh and left gaping holes wherever they passed. There was not even blood because the lances seared the wounds instantly, preventing any blood from escaping. There was an absence of pain too, though no one needed to feel the pain to understand the horrors of what happened. Soldiers screamed at the top of their lungs. Some had their ears shaved off or parts of their arms missing. They begged for help from the physicians. They were the lucky ones. The unluckier ones had holes in their chest, where the lance had destroyed vital organs. Their deaths were a slow certainty. However, the truly unlucky ones were those with holes through their heads, leaving them unrecognizable. They died before their bodies touched the ground! A single lance might have only impaled a few people, a far cry to Elizabeth's spell, but they more than matched up with quantity. Their two spells combined had actually injured or killed more than five hundred people at once! That was a tenth of the enemy forces removed by them alone! It was a stunning feat!
The Ten Dawns had their moment in the spotlight too as their spells saturated the battlefield. Explosions rocked the land as multi-colored lights flashed in every direction. It was unclear what was happening under all the smoke and dust. The only thing Elizabeth, Freon, and others could tell was that enemies were dying in droves. Undefendable, unavoidable, and unrelenting… This must be a nightmare for their enemies. Such a one-sided slaughter was hard for some Arcanists to watch. They backed off and recoiled in horror. No one faulted them for it though because that might have been the correct response. Elizabeth felt the same inside. She knew how inhumane and heartless she was being right now. She could try to rationalize it by saying these were necessary sacrifices or close off her heart by saying these soldiers had prepared to die, but she knew those were only comforting lies. Therefore, she resolved to let these deaths be the last deaths in this war. This war would end with this battle! Pulling her bowstring back, she prepared another Sky Piercer.
This one-sided assault persisted until the Arcanists ran out of energy and the interference strength grew too strong. Elizabeth slumped into the grass in a pool of her own sweat. Her breathing was chaotic, and her clothes were ruined, bearing none of the grace of royalty, yet she did not care. She was completely exhausted! Double-casting spells was a lot harder than it looked, especially when she had to carefully balance the two spells' interference. Any miscalculation could have resulted in a massive backlash! It took everything she had just to eek out a mere three Sky Piercers, and her Core was almost empty. She looked to Freon with a hint of jealousy. His Bloodline Ability, Thousand Core Resonance, improved his spell's performance in almost every way. That was how he could elevate a simple spell like Fire Needles into a potent slaying weapon! In addition, it increased the Magic Energy efficiency of the spell, allowing him to cast it more than Elizabeth could. Of course, it came with its own fair number of drawbacks, but it was a powerful tool nonetheless. She yearned for the day she would awaken her own Bloodline Ability.
In the end, although everyone used up all their Magic Energy, their ambush inflicted close to two thousand casualties on the enemy army. Elizabeth watched as the kingdom's vanguard troops swooped in. It should be a near-certain victory from what she saw and the side with the Featherwind Sect should be the same. The last flank with Benedict and Shirley was her only concern, except… she had a bad feeling about this. It was almost too easy. She hoped she was wrong.
Meanwhile, on the other side, Benedict, Shirley, and fifty soldiers under their command were waiting quietly in ambush. They were one of the hundreds of squadrons scattered throughout the forest to cover the entire flank. Here, the foliage was too thick for any archers and there was too little time for any traps. They had to rely on their own two hands to succeed. Thankfully, Commander Christina assigned more soldiers to this flank for that very reason. Seven thousand soldiers to the enemy's five thousand, such a difference would have been decisive normally, except an unknown number of enemy Perception Realms could sway that decision. It was hard to tell who would win. If Benedict or Shirley had a powerful long-ranged method like Elizabeth and Freon, then things might have been easier, but sadly, they did not. They were not Perception Realms first off, so they lacked the ability to project their Martial Energy out, and secondly, martial techniques were generally shorter ranged than magic spells. None of their current techniques had the potential to affect an entire battlefield.
The two took turns using Mock Perception to scout the area ahead. Although they made great strides in advancing towards Perception Realm, Mock Perception remained a very taxing technique to use. Just then, a shrub rustled in the distance, alerting Shirley by the faint noise and vibrations in the ground. She gestured to Benedict and the soldiers as they readied their weapons. They prepared to attack on a moment's notice. With tense nerves, they waited until… a rabbit harmlessly popped out from the bush. The sight of this fluffy and adorable creature brought relief to everyone, except Benedict and Shirley. They shouted simultaneously and ducked! Whoosh! The next second, their cover was instantly bisected by flying strikes, narrowly missing them by a hair. Had they been a beat slower, then they would have been sent to the afterlife. However, some of their allies were not as fortunate as their bodies splattered. They died gruesome deaths.
As the trees fell and boulders crashed, Benedict and Shirley jumped, their Martial Energy bursting to the surface. They knew where their enemies were from the earlier exchange, and they quickly delivered five flying strikes deep into the forest. Although the strikes disappeared into the dense foliage, their Mock Perceptions told them the outcome. Three had died and two more were injured… All five attacks had hit their mark! The speed and accuracy of which was truly astounding. In less than three seconds, they had already killed three Perception Realms! What more was the sheer ease at which they alternated martial techniques and used Martial Energy. Their proficiency had grown by leaps and bounds since the Battle of Liguang, showing how close they were to Perception Realm now. One more step was all they needed!
However, they were not done yet. Benedict landed on the ground, adjusted his stance, and executed Cloud Sea Style: Crashing Waves! Benedict slashed out horizontally and sent a humongous crescent-like flying strike out. What was supposed to be a downward cleave was modified to a horizontal strike. This was easier said than done. A martial technique, much like a magic spell, followed a fixed process. The flow of Martial Energy, the body's orientation, and the precise timing… Everything culminated in the technique known as 'Crashing Waves'. That did not mean techniques were inflexible, only that smaller adjustments were all that someone could reasonably do in the heat of the moment. Anything more complicated risked weakening or backlashing. Elder Argo could do it with his Demon Wind Requiem because of his deep Attainment and Half-Rank 3 King experience. It was not something someone with low Attainment could hope to achieve.