Otis' situation stabilized and so Gerald and Tabbris ran towards the group of Mages.
As they came to about one hundred meter distance Gerald almost collapsed from the sudden change. His Magic Eyes detected the massive Aura towering above the Mages, and the sheer volume of Mana nearly choked him.
It was so much!
Twenty or so people, each carrying multiple Crystal with hundreds of MP each, and all of it was concentrated into a single spell. What insanity!
He had to stop and simultaneously pulled Tabbris back. "Hey! Is this… Is this one of those Elite spells?"
"Ding, ding, ding! Yes indeed! That's exactly what it is, and I'm pretty sure the Grandmaster improved it over the decades." Tabbris confirmed without holding anything back.
"Holy shit," Gerald gasped under his breath. The energy of this spell was five, no, ten times greater than even he could hold.
'How the fuck can they do this?! They should burn up ages ago!' he was in absolute shock. But the time for thinking was over, as that's when the spell was finally completed.
RUMBLE!
There was a sound like distant thunder, as a pillar of flames, ten meters thick, shot into the sky. Like branches of a tree, the flames then spread across the sky below the clouds, hundreds of meters into the air.
Those branches then started pulsating and seemingly fiery flowers began to bloom. As the petals opened, streaks of fire started to fall. The Rain of Fire officially began.
And it looked so beautiful. Like shooting stars, the flames slowly descended and illuminated the sky. The sounds of war died down and almost everybody looked up at the light show.
Those long, thin threads of fire quietly fell on the earth among the gathered beasts. They appeared small and gentle, but in reality, they were giant balls of burning death! Each of them was the size of a watermelon and extremely dense, even more than Gerald's own Greater Fireballs.
BROMBOMBOOM!
The ground exploded into a sea of flames, and the Orcs were torn to pieces in an instant. Goblins and Hobgoblins were straight-up evaporated as a Drop of Fire detonated upon impacting the ground. Almost simultaneously the entirety of the northern battlefield was set ablaze and the ground turned into a hellish wasteland in a moment.
Decades ago, when the Kingdom of Myrtana fought back the invasion of the Empire, it was this spell that brought them to victory. At that time around fifty thousand people lost their lives in an instant, but here more than a hundred thousand monsters were annihilated at once.
Their strategy was to fight with superior numbers and overpower the human defenders, and they almost managed to do that too. Too bad this strategy was the exact wrong thing they could do against the Rain of Fire.
The rain continued for a bit, with explosions shaking the ground and filling the air with dust and smoke.
At the sight of such an amazing display of power, Gerald couldn't help but get goosebumps. If he closed his eyes he could almost imagine the shouts and explosions being a result of rockets and holiday festivities on new year's eve.
He became slightly emotional. He came to this world just as the winter holidays began and missed the most joyous time of the year. All those Xmas updates and winter quests in the video games and the free items… He missed them all, what a tragedy!
"Hey, hey, Gerald! Snap out of it!" Tabbris was shouting and shaking him as Gerald seemingly fell asleep while standing.
"Huh, what? Oh sorry, I just... thought of my home," the latter answered as he came back to reality.
The Rain of Fire already ended, but the fields outside the city were still burning and was probably going to continue doing so for some time.
"Let's go say hello to the Mages!" Tabbris urged.
"Oh, okay…"
They reached the watchtower soon after. The Mages seemed exhausted after that one spell and were supporting each other. The Paladins of Innos protected them from afar and killed any beasts that somehow managed to avoid slaughter.
Gerald was shocked after seeing all those mages. Some might think that it was because he adored them and their magic, but that couldn't be further from the truth.
'They are so weak!' he shouted in his mind as his eyes went wide. The group of middle-aged men with strong physical bodies before him were at death's door.
Their Auras were so incredibly weak! A sickly hobo would be more vigorous than they were at the moment. That was especially so for Grandmaster Spark. You would think he was already dead by looking at his Aura.
The man was barely breathing, and despite his old age his body didn't seem to have suffered any injuries. And yet, two others had to help him just to keep him upright. It almost looked like the group of Master burned their life to be able to cast the Rain of Fire.
'Wait! Can you even do that?!' Gerald intensely scratched his head. He had no answer.
"Seems like the backlash was quite severe this time," Tabbris quietly commented with a furrowed brow.
"This time?" Gerald lifted an eyebrow.
"Well, of course! It wasn't the first time they did this… I remember my father telling me that the last time they did it, Grandmaster Spark had to recover for over a year. And he was much younger back then."
He turned to Gerald and said seriously, "Don't try to copy them. A spell of this magnitude cannot be sustained by one person alone. Even for the twenty of them, it was barely feasible."
"Dude, I'm not crazy!" Gerald protested, "They burned through at least 10.000MP in less than a minute and broke so many Crystals, there is no way I can do the same! I'm not made of money! ... At least not yet."
"That's not what I- Sigh, never mind…"
The Paladins of Innos helped the Master Mages and brought them to safety where they could recover. Meanwhile, the two guys returned back to the group.
"It should take some time for the monsters to gather again and lunch an attack. Try to get some rest until then," Tabbris shouted to the warriors gathered. A few of them immediately groaned and collapsed on the floor by the fire. Quite a number of them were already at their limit.
"I'll be going now," he said to the Black Onyx group and punched Gerald in the chest in a friendly manner, "See ya."
"Yeah, yeah, buzz of!" Gerald barked and then burst into laughter. Everybody could now finally relax. Too bad the sun just rose, so sleeping was a problem. He didn't mind though. He felt quite refreshed after the long night.
'So much to do, and so little time...'
He sat down by the campfire and closed his eyes for a bit. He deserved it.