Three years flashed by and the frontlines welcomed a barrage of new attacks coming right from the enemy.
New kind of weapons, specially tailored against various elements.
Contrary to the expected losses. The new mysterious organisation took a large portion of the blunt.
Their means completely countered the weaknesses humans used to have.
Except for a select few casualties. The survival rate of the mysterious organisation seemed very high as well.
A bit too high compared to the average standard.
The higher ups didn't know what to do with the new organisation. To purge it would require a lot of resources they didn't have, and would destroy a potential shield against the enemy.
At the same time. The organisation didn't belong to the church.
An uncomfortable truth for the world leading religion since the dawn of mankind, or maybe beyond.
Saints seemed to not care about the new potential threat and so the higher ups had to give up.
Families like the Lake family got hit hard. Various rumours stripped them from a lot of events due to the presence of Talia.
Some gossip floated around that her older brother belonged to the organisation as well and roped her into it.
The deep foundations of one of the ancient families revealed itself.
Business that no one thought belonged to them got found one by one and many thought of it as the end of the family.
On the contrary. They continued to operate as usual.
Their own events, nurturing the young and a lot of blood coming to become mana refiners.
Liam thought of those found shops as a piece of skin they had to shed in order to avoid scrutiny.
While they became a tad bit more covert. Their overall actions never changed.
The new blood and rise of the city meant many things.
One of them resulted in an unofficial change in the name of the city itself.
Terran, the hero, had direct ties to this place.
Although not very deep. The fact remained, like if an emperor watched a sunset and then became a legend.
It would then become a place of reverence.
Over the years, Terran's status as a Saint got cemented thanks to a new coming propaganda from the church.
Their wish to promote young gave rise to many hot-blooded youths.
Liam didn't approve of this, but he knew what kind of strategies had to be made in place.
He didn't doubt that the hidden organisation would snack on those talents if the church didn't make a move.
It also surprised him a bit. Unlike the expected slow response to the entire thing.
The church responded at a lightning like speed.
Propaganda became the first step in their initiative.
Various places with talents welcomed funding from the church itself, schools and other facilities got built in the name of those rising talents.
Even when they died in battle.
People would revere the place for months to come or years.
Safe to say, people at the bottom began to look at the church in a different light.
According to the reports. They broke records, with many more youths joining the battles.
Academies filled, and everything began to move.
Liam also began to research what those academies had to offer to the students.
After all, the main strength of the awakened elders got nurtured during the battles on the frontlines.
The results became pretty mundane. How to cook, differentiate various fauna and methods to filter sea water using mana.
Many of these courses took the majority of the students' time. Others took a combat class.
There, students that hit an unawakened elder could spar and others trained with teachers in order to not get hurt too much.
Aside the lack of anything too substantial. Liam progressed with his spirit sculpting.
He tried to create a second one. However, when he got to the last step.
It seemed like the very rules of reality warned him.
Almost like divine lightning punishment from heavens. Liam didn't know if he couldn't create another one or he didn't have the qualifications for it.
Nevertheless, from then on, he concentrated on solely raising his own spirit.
Terran experienced unprecedented peace during those three years, although he couldn't quite travel freely anymore, since everyone found out how he looked.
The annoyance didn't stop his enthusiasm.
With a tiny slouch, hat and some accessories. Seldom did people notice him from the vast crowds.
Terran also joined the once a yearly memorial for Blythe.
He admitted that thanks to Blythe he could shed his more quiet and rigid appearance.
...
A week later.
Their quiet days got shattered by a flurry of news.
Hundreds of people from the mysterious organisation appeared, confronting something that shook the foundations of the human race.
An awakened elder found out about a large scale battle by accident.
Not aliens against humans. Both human sides.
He would have joined those from the church if not for one small problem.
Neither side had a church on their side.
The mysterious organisation clashed against something entirely different.
They looked human and could communicate.
However, their bodies adorned weird battle suits filled with incomprehensible lines.
None had a crystal on their head, and they came with one message.
They told the mysterious organisation to surrender.
Submit and obtain supreme power.
That's what the awakened elder managed to catch before the enemy caught the sight of him, forcing him to leave.
Terran left the city a day later.
The higher ups grew anxious and a lot of people got dispatched to the frontlines.
It seemed that the weird enemy that clashed against the mysterious enemy no one noticed so far.
Mentions, hearsays or even sights of the new kind of human on the frontlines.
They broke that ignorance a week after Terran left.
A massive battle took place not far away from the frontlines.
An endless tide of awakened and unawakened elders participated in the battle.
The slaughter fest lasted three days, with humanity losing.
Every time they wanted to know the enemy's true identity, they'd laugh and tell them to surrender, as resistance would be futile.
Almost like machines of slaughter.
Whenever the new kind of human lost a limb or the capacity for battle.
They would retreat, just to be spotted once again a few hours later.
Injuries seemed to play no role for them. Either an instant death or they'd magically get their limbs back.
Such effortless healing couldn't be done.
Saints had to pay a price themselves to regenerate a crippled limb, not to mention regenerating it from scratch.
Skill belonging to a higher class of power. The so-called humans experienced dozens of times over the three days.
When the battle seemed lost. Humanity pulled out one of their hidden trump cards.
Massive light erupted from the headquarters, before a lot of enemies died inexplicably.
No one knew if an elder interfered or not.
Terran also arrived before the battle ended and got to see the ending for himself.
In a letter, he described it as a power that couldn't be touched by time alone and held inexplicable power over light around it.
Like light belonged to a subcategory of it. Whatever the attack hid.
Later, the surviving enemies retreated without fear.
Month later, another new massive battle broke out with hundreds of casualties in the first few hours.
Leading them a woman with some weird digital mask on.
Her body encased by the skintight suit filled with a power exceeding that of others around her.
She led them as her massive whirlwinds, tornadoes and other attacks tore straight through the human defensive lines.
Terran fought with her, but lost in a few dozen bouts.
He teamed up with many of the top 25 of awakened elders just to stop her advance.
Not to mention the others.
The humanity trump card appeared much earlier this time, ending it just a day later.
To the astonishment of many.
The woman blocked most of the blow. The only impact the blow resulted in her breathing slightly harder.
She looked at the headquarters.
"Humanity, prepare for baptism. Welcome the coming of higher dimension. Shed the weak mortal coil and ascend!" She said and then left.
Terran and others tried to stop her, but she shrugged them off with ease even when exhausted.
Since then, she has appeared many times.
Through the months of constant battle, the appearance of other enemy humans lessened, but hers never did.
She appeared and swept the battlefield so many times that one of the hidden saints appeared.
No one could discern the figure of the saint.
Surrounded by light at all times. Whenever reinforcements with her, sightings appeared on the board.
He'd appear there in seconds.
First few clashes resulted in his victories. However, when she appeared with a new spear in hands.
That fact almost got flipped. First few exchanges, she suppressed the light saint to the ground.
That saint had to go all out in order to fight her off.
Her spear somehow managed to suppress the powerful light and bent it, rendering the saint's light shield useless.
Blood spilt and the saint almost died that day.
After that brief clash, she left her final words before disappearing for months.
"Even gods bleed, because they do not deserve it. Ascend, match gods and destroy their arrogance! We, high humans, will baptise the ignorant populace. That is our creed..."
She said those words before launching a powerful blow.
It left the saint bleeding and injured whilst breaking the spear into pieces.
No one could sleep well after that day...