"Check up on him, now!"
One yelled at the rest of the squad while he madly swung his weapon, sending wave after wave of orange Aura at the forcefield. However, they were all blocked by a comparable force. Through blurry eyesight, Liam saw the figure of a tall soldier in green armor standing on top of the wall. Of course. Since the Empire had Elite Squads, why wouldn't Cinzolia? The other members of his Squad tried to approach him, but they were all intercepted by the attacks thrown by other green-armored figures on the wall. Two, Three, and Six managed to get closer to Liam, throwing off the attacks of their enemy counterparts. Two glanced at him, her erratic movements revealing the state of her shock. Liam didn't know what would happen to them if they let the one highest in the priority order die like this, but it should be something pretty bad for her to be this nervous.
He thought of signaling to her that he was still alive, but in the end, he didn't need to. She realized his upper body was in the middle of regenerating. In a flash, she burst out with violet Aura, covering his figure and upturning the sand and earth around him, burying him deeper underground. Was it an attempt to hide him from the enemies' Aura Sight? Covered by her energy, Liam circulated his Aura as fast as he could, speeding up his recovery. His energy was rapidly spent, but his regeneration was equally quick. In a few minutes, Liam looked as if he'd never been injured, though his Aura reserves had been drained a fair bit. He watched his armor growing over his skin, repairing itself from the damage it had suffered. His Aura had been too weak to strengthen it effectively and he had been hit with an attack by the enemy Squad's Captain, so it wasn't surprising for it to have failed to protect him. After letting it be repaired a bit, he burst out of the ground, spreading his Aura Sight and taking in how the surrounding battlefield had changed.
His Squad found themselves at a stalemate. The twelve green-armored defenders, presumably one of Cinzolia's own Elite Squads, matched them one to one. Every other Squad member except for him fought against one of the others, tirelessly executing Skills consecutively. He realized Cinzolia's Squad members had noticed his presence, but were locked in battle with his own teammates. At a battle of their level, they couldn't afford to attack Liam and their opponent at once. The result was that nobody attacked him, even in the midst of the battlefield.
'I might be able to take advantage of this.'
Except for the enemy Elite Squad, the opponents now considered him dead and stopped paying attention to him, meaning that he had a chance to get a free blow in before he was noticed. He began to run in the direction of the green forcefield. His apparent stealth was broken as the youth fired three consecutive condensed Crescent Moon Waves. That wasn't a problem, however. His goal was to attract the attention of the soldiers on the other side, not to avoid them. Only by killing them could he become stronger.
Long-ranged Aura attacks came in his direction, but he managed to ward them off at no small expenditure of his Aura. One had been truthful; every soldier on the other side was likely strong enough to take Liam on one-on-one, especially since their abilities were being increased by the Commander's Kingdom. After managing to barely handle the attacks thrown his way, Liam noticed that the closer he got to the forcefield, the more the enemies seemed to focus on him. It was a systematic approach to battle that forced long-range warfare. He could feel the enemy Squad's Aura Sights roam over him once more, but there was virtually nothing they could do. They were forced to leave Liam to the basic soldiers.
The sound of splashing water rang out in the desert. Liam's speed suddenly increased, making the beams and blades coming his way miss.
'Drought.'
A beam of light hit the forcefield, expanding and screeching. Finally, the moment he had been waiting for happened. Two soldiers at the top of the wall jumped down while the rest of the forces around them supported their Elite Squad, targeting members of Liam's team. By now, Liam had entered the hectic battlefield in full. Hundreds of thousands of Drakkhan walked on the ground and flew through the skies, while an even greater number of enemies stood on the walls. Aura flashed everywhere, creating a magical storm that dragged the atmosphere into itself, turning it turbulent and chaotic. Aura Sight provided Liam with so much information that he thought his brain would be fried. The teamwork and coordination on both sides were impeccable; both armies grouped up and separated at the right times like well-oiled machines, working tirelessly.
Most blows were met in the air, with only a few passing through the wide net of attacks cast by the defenders. It was the reason why Liam attracted attention after succeeding in hitting the forcefield with Drought, and why the Elite Squad members were targeted en masse.
'Focus on what's happening in front of me.'
Liam's gaze zeroed in on the two soldiers that had crashed down on the ground. Coated in grey armor and shining brightly with Aura, they looked like tigers with humanoid bodies, with a few differences. Their faces were more clearly defined and delicate than a beast's, the snout relatively smaller. Their muscles were like a human's, with strong limbs ending in claws.
'Beastmen?'
The two soldiers ran to the very edge of the forcefield, now only a few hundred meters away from Liam. One of them held a simple rod made of otherworldly metal he could not recognize, while the other wielded what seemed to be an elaborate metal structure with a trigger. Liam didn't even need to analyze it to know it was a type of gun. As the first beastman swung his weapon and the other pointed the gun at him, he used Event Horizon.
The wave of Aura and the Aura bullet both ground to a halt within his technique, which now encompassed everything in a diameter of fifty meters around him. Even so, the projectile had stopped only a few centimeters in front of his face. It was a large, bullet-shaped congregation of grey Aura. The gun shot bullets made of the Aura of the gunner, its power directly dependent on its wielder. The grey bullet was quickly worn down by his Aura. The soldiers recovered from their surprise and confusion, sending more attacks his way. The gunner grabbed at something inside his armor, taking out a bullet-shaped metal object, while the fighter poured more of his power into every blow. Liam's Danger Sense screamed at him as he looked at the object the gunner had brought out, but he wouldn't have needed that to guess it was threatening.
At that moment, a wild idea started to form in his mind. Was he becoming addicted to gambling with his life on the line? But, maybe it would require something like this to make the soldiers come out of the forcefield.
He deactivated Event Horizon the moment the metal object was fired towards his chest and used Riptide. Moving at Mach 15, the bullet pierced through his Aura with its own and disintegrated his heart with the impact at the same time that his Aura surged, containing the damage. This time, the armor hadn't been destroyed, but his innards had been turned to mush. He stumbled, purposefully staggering.
Now, he would either win the gamble or lose. If the enemies continued to attack from range, there would be nothing for him to do; he would be forced to either retreat or die. Suddenly, the rod-wielding soldier stepped outside of the forcefield, swinging the rod. The gunner extended his arm to pull the soldier back, also stepping outside of the forcefield. Could it be considered an accident? Or had it been a simple mistake? Either way, Liam had won the gamble from the moment they decided to move.
'Singularity.'
His body collapsed into a dot and pierced through the fighter, slamming into the forcefield. The infinitesimal dot accelerated to the right, piercing through the gunner as Liam expanded back into himself. The second his feet touched the ground, he used Waterstep to retreat, moving back to the area where he had been standing, further away from the forcefield. He had succeeded.
All along, his goal had been to trick the soldiers into trying to finish him off outside the barrier, only to use Singularity and catch them by surprise. His plan had resulted in the slaying of two of the enemy soldiers. He was momentarily overcome by a gloomy emotion. These soldiers were fighting for their survival, while the Empire was the invader in this case. Was it morally right to kill them in such a fashion? Liam didn't think so.
'I'm gonna have to get used to it. This is war.'
There was nothing more he could do. He was meant to fight and kill, for that was the Convergence was about by design. It was why he swore to destroy it.
'They haven't really noticed what I did, given how chaotic this shit is. I might be able to pull it off again.'
At this point in the time, the Squad members were drastically more eye-catching than Liam's small, three-person battle. Almost all of the enemy forces on this wall were entirely focusing on them and the Drakkhan teams. This meant that he had some leeway to repeat this strategy, at least until he was noticed by a larger group of the defenders. Pushing down the gloominess pooling in his chest, Liam strengthened his resolve. The nature of battle was bloody, to begin with. There were only allies and enemies.
'Four days.'
It was how long he and his Squad would have to fight before the next rotation. During those four days, he needed to kill as many soldiers as possible, using the same suicidal strategy and battle style he had used to take down the first two. His thoughts raced within his mind. Ever since his Personal Attribute's third petal bloomed, he stopped knowing what exactly could kill him. Having most of his vital organs destroyed only made him regenerate for longer, while cutting off his head merely put him out of commission for some time. At this point, Liam didn't even know how an enemy might manage to kill him. Maybe destroying his entire body? It was as good a guess as any other. Maybe he would manage to survive this insane tactic he'd come up with, after all.
And so, the hellish four days began.