The troupe led by Raon's side and Zwigo's side were both directly opposite each other, closing the distance before their first head-on collision, excluding small skirmishes and the use of traps, finally began.
Raon's first general led the cultivators as he used a wide-range attack that reached multiple people on the other side even before their distance was close enough.
Surprisingly, the attack broke their prenominations as it formed an arc of energy that ended up injuring their front lines, but it didn't cause any immediate damage.
The opposing general didn't want to lose the psychological warfare of morale, so he raised his mace and jumped to land in the enemy lines, smashing the first cultivator to pieces.
"Attack!!!!" Shouted the general.
"Follow Senior Kurt" said the cultivators, charging in without any formation or tactics.
The sole reason they were following Kurt was his seniority and strength. They weren't his subordinates or followers, since they were all from different regions.
On the other side, all the cultivators were using battle tactics, and despite the first kill, they didn't seem fazed in the slightest, awaiting their orders.
"We follow the plan" the general shouted.
"Yes, Senior" answered all the others as they formed groups of 100 and started marching in order.
Kurt was immediately surrounded due to his preemptive strike from all directions, while the enemy general was free and was going on a rampage alongside his elites.
Both Kurt and the enemy general went on a rampage, killing mercilessly left and right, yet Kurt was on the losing end due to his lower cultivation base than the enemy general.
Obviously, the general who was fighting was one of the first subordinates of Raon and was taught various fighting techniques to bridge the gaps.
He was also heavily invested in being able to fight above his cultivation realm, and the reason he was having an easy time despite being inside enemy lines was proof of his extraordinary strength.
Well, the other difference was that Kurt was alone and kept getting surrounded before he got an uneventful death by getting swarmed again and again by cultivators not much weaker than him.
On the other side, the First General was in formation with four other elites to break the enemy lines through the central region into sidelines that would easily be taken over.
The tactic was even better due to the environmental factors of being at a height of nearly 4.500 meters and the slope of the mountain where they were used to practicing and fighting.
The invaders, despite their advantage in numbers, couldn't push through fast enough because the defending army was hellbent on sending them to the afterlife.
As the battle progressed, it was natural for the invaders to lose morale, yet due to their numbers, they slowly progressed upward while killing their enemies.
The invaders were aware that the defenders had nowhere else to go, so they couldn't just push them to retreat like they did during the previous skirmishes.
Yes, Altair called for retreat orders and used hit-and-run tactics to cause disarray, unrest, and chaos on their enemies' side that would prevent them from being able to be at their peak performance.
This was the reason their current tactic was manifoldly effective, due to the fact they couldn't surround them completely, even with the invaders outnumbering the defenders.
The line of attacks and fighting was a mere hundreds of meters in circumference at such height, and scaling the mountain wasn't viable from the other sides for their army.
Fenlie Zwigo tried interfering, but he was repelled and pushed down every time by Raon, who was watching the entire battlefield to prevent someone stronger from interfering.
That wasn't all, though, as he was also killing the evil cultivators who were necrophilic or sacrificed souls for strength; he couldn't bear their sight and killed them.
At the current moment, he was preparing for his last stand when the battle would finally reach the castle as he opened his mouth.
"Kill him if he tries" Raon said as if to thin air since no one was present in the throne room.
"Are you sure?" A masculine voice sounded, seemingly doubting Raon's decision.
"He will do it" Raon answered the man without any anger despite getting questioned, unlike other rulers.
"... Alright" The answer came after a pause as the shadowy man vanished to the battlefield.
"Good work..." muttered Raon while sighing in resignation at the fate awaiting his loyal subjects.
The shadowy figure went into the battlefield as another unit of troops went into defensive mode immediately following his orders, just like the troops led by the first general.
The shadowy figure was the second general, who was commanding the troops while the first general fought at the frontlines, and now he asked the rest of the troops to join in too.
One might consider where Altair was, but Raon had strictly ordered her to hide alongside her private group that included everyone as strong as Raon's general, with Altair being even stronger than them.
Unfortunately, things don't always go according to plan, and despite her resistance, she did go into hiding. Yet, the world's spirit was aware of everything and was under Zwigo's control, making him aware of Altair's location.
Of course, he patiently waited for the last battle with Rio to use his daughter as leverage to defeat the man and get the treasure as well as all the knowledge he had amassed.
The battle on the slope continued for a long time before they reached the empty town, which was the last place the first general fought valiantly for the next few hours.
There were few short respites in between the long, continuous battle, yet his troops didn't back down and started doing suicide attacks to bring more enemies down.
All the defending cultivators went insane, as they used everything to boost their cultivation strength for a short time before self-exploding themselves.
"Now!! Go all out!!"
With this one shout, the flow of the battle changed entirely, as without holding back, all the cultivators used everything available to them, killing countless enemies in their unexpected burst of strength.
Zwigo's few females themselves had to step in to prevent the aftershocks from affecting others as they entered battle personally.
Yet they experienced only one emotion in fighting the crazed first general, who could push back three of them in the same realm as him: despair.
Unfortunately, it didn't last long, as he did end up killing countless enemies. His battle had literally caused the valley's lakes to turn red with excess blood that slid off the slope.
All the cultivators from Raon's side lost their cultivation and died, and some committed suicide attacks, killing even more. The first general was the only survivor of them.
He faced Zwigo directly, as everyone had backed down due to his immense bloodthirst and the fear he induced in his current state, bloodied from head to toe with severe injuries yet reddened eyes like a demon bathed in blood.
"Hahaha hahaha
I'll kill you myself.
There's no need..."
Just as he said the last words, he spurted blood before looking back, and upon realizing the one who stabbed his chest, he simply smiled.
"You violated the orders, Agis" said the shadowy figure, who was the second general, as his spear poked from the back through Agis's heart and hung him at a height.
Agis didn't respond but just smiled as he felt death approach him and embrace it, yet his memories of his mother and how they suddenly became Empresses came rocking down to his first meeting with Raon and the most recent ones before they vanished and he died.
Zwigo was currently feeling amused yet astounded at the current state of events as the first general was backstabbed by someone from the same side.
"Don't think too much. As long as he is alive, so are we. You can't defeat him" said the shadowy figure before he vanished.
Just to reappear near Zwigo's seven wives and explode himself right there, injuring them quite heavily since they couldn't detect him, but due to Zwigo's help, they were able to shrug off the major impact.
The invaders didn't rest for more than a few hours as they resumed their journey and ended up ravaging the already empty town completely, only to find nothing except losing a few lives.
At the same time, in the throne room, Raon was waiting for the ones that would be his end, only for his journey to begin again.
He didn't know what he would do regarding Zwigo, as he decided to let the past, present, or future version of himself deal with all that.
Still, he was lamenting about one fact that seemed to hurt his feelings, as no one besides him knew who the second general or the shadowy figure was.
That was Lia's younger brother, born after Altair but certainly much older than her due to the time difference, yet he too died today as Raon remembered the time he met him.
Lia's brother, Kennedy, or Ken for short, was aware that Raon and Lia were engaged and that Lia died before it was processed, so he wanted to confront Raon.
Since Ken had failed to see through Raon's strength, he ended up attacking Raon and getting beaten to a pulp.
Afterward, he questioned Raon regarding his thoughts on Lia, where Raon indirectly gave a hint about Altair, and Ken decided to follow Raon to be able to see his sister's last proof of existence.
"Sigh, he died too..." Raon muttered in deep lament after he was done reminiscing.