To the people of the city, the constant pelting brought about such a pressure that they felt as if the sky itself was falling on them.
The sudden change in tactics by the storm was incredibly frightening, and everyone was uncertain of what would happen next, especially considering the extreme power it displayed. If the dome wasn't there to protect the city, it would've already been reduced to rubble, considered mere dirt by outsiders.
Fortunately, despite taking a beating, the dome held on albeit with not as much splendor it had shown prior. The energy needed to maintain the dome also increased to the point that all the guards and servants feeding the runic formation were pale, feeling their hearts bleed for the cores being "wasted".
To the group however, some of the feelings they felt were… estranged. Or maybe unfamiliar would be a better term.
Don't get me wrong, they felt as if they could die at any time, but they also felt a certain presence. While majestic in nature, there was a very distinct disdain, feeling as if they were poked at their sides by a sharp object.
At that moment, they remembered the scene in the lower-layer. Just as they were leaving the lower-layer, they encountered a secret army of Dire wolves. It seemed that after losing in the horde, they had decided to take revenge, only to be swallowed whole by the planet.
At the time, the group had also felt a sort of aura, an air of pity as the army was swallowed. They wondered whether this spirit storm was similar to that day. They wondered even more if the culprit was the same—namely, the Will of the world.
However, before they could wonder even more, a change was occurring!
The storm, which had been constantly pelting them with razor-sharp snowflakes the size of buildings, had now all but stopped! Funnily enough, it had dropped so much snow that all the snow that had fallen off the dome had now accumulated into a wall surrounding the city. The wall itself was dozens of feet high and blocked off the city's exits. But all that was accessory.
Merely moments later, after the storm had stopped, a sound shockwave reverberated from within the storm, sounding like an explosion.
Immediately, a more supreme aura pressured down on the city, suffocating all the residents, including our group of protagonists.
In fact, with just the aura, the dome visibly gave in, as if it was holding the weight of the world on its shoulders.
This time, no one was able to remain calm.
Even the Lord was unable to stay collected; in fact, he was the least calm one here!
As he felt the aura in the storm build itself up, he quickly turned pale. He had realized that the storm, from within, had grown from rank-4 to rank-3!
Before he had even realized this, he had already made a move. He told the group and any other servant that was still completing various tasks to quickly get inside the palace. He then went on to summon multiple tendrils of dark red soul juice, using them to quickly climb the palace walls, all the way to the tippy top.
The group was stunned initially by his sudden actions, but feeling the aura within the storm grow stronger and stronger with each passing second, they tried their best to get into the palace. The pressure exuded by the aura was like having weights on their bodies, but they still managed to return indoors.
At that moment, the Lord had already scaled the entire height of the palace, standing at its peak. He, being so much closer to the storm, could feel even more the danger the storm was now presenting.
Luckily, though, both the center of the storm as well as the palace were parallel to each other, making it easier to take action.
As such, with little time left, the Lord quickly decided what to do. Unfortunately, none of his defensive rune formations would be able to cover the totality of the storm's attack, so using his sigil was no go. And because of the storm's nature, not only was this equivalent to a rank-3 attack, but it was equivalent to multiple rank-3 attacks!
Fortunately, the Lord himself was rank-3, but he could only take so many rank-3 attacks at once. Thus, the only choice left was to take advantage of his city's dome to tank the damage for him.
His rationale was quick, coming to this conclusion in less than an arbitrarily low number of seconds.
Taking action, his summoned tendrils quickly grew and attached themselves to the dome, where they quickly reinforced the dome with his own soul juice.
Very quickly, the blue dome grew a red spot in the center, where it then spread for another two miles in each direction.
However, the Lord realized that this would not be enough to hold off the attack from the storm. I mean, at this point, the storm itself was seemingly at a boiling point, bubbling as extra large snakes of black electricity gathered in the center. It seemed to form a ball-like structure, which even seemed to outshine the clouded morning stars.
With no time left, he did the only thing he knew that could help. Despite already spending the vast majority of his soul juice, to the point of fainting, he decided to gift the dome his consciousness.
Oh sorry, that sounded too dramatic. More like, he spent his focus, or concentration.
As a result, the previous ductile (one of my more fancy words) and sturdy dome, now had its gigantic red spot crystallized. Of course, the Lord was left barely functioning, with one eye rolled all the way to the back of his head, and the other blank and soulless.
The crystalline structure easily reflected the light given off from the lightning orb, which then attracted everyone's attention.
And at that very moment, the lightning orb finally separated from the storm, which actually ripped a hole in the storm, leaving it to grow back.
The fall of the orb was gradual, which left a short period of silence that was dripping with intrusive thoughts. The silence only lasted for so long though as the aura of the orb continued its pressure on the city and the dome.
Reverberating across the city was the creaking of the crystalline dome, setting everyone in another panic. Clearly that was a sign of its structural integrity not being enough?
As everyone stared intently, the orb slowly dropped onto the dome after what felt like a lifetime.
At that moment, the orb suddenly shrunk before rapidly expanding in a black explosion that shook the entire city!
Instantly, the shockwave shook the walls of the city into crumbs. But most importantly, the dome was instantly shattered.