CHAPTER 340: JADEN’S PLAN

After about 10-15 minutes, Sophia took charge, leading all the students in the battle and playing defensively, using all of her thousands of years of experience and understanding of human psychology to make the most of the fight.

Jaden, meanwhile, had been wracking his brain from the very beginning of the battle, from the moment Axel Nomrad had left the place. Revealing that hateful piece of information, which he had not yet shared with anyone. Nor did it seem like Nomrad had shared that info with anyone else. Likely not even the valkyrie herself.

Jaden had communicated with Heinz, Enrick, Thorian, and Sophia, learning of their most potent methods for countering death energies or taking down bone golems with efficiency and piecing those together, trying to form a plan, and considering all the possibilities of a massive counterattack using all the resources they had together.

He understood that the army of the dead needed to be wiped out at least once. To weaken the Death Knight and eventually deal with him. It was part of the necessary procedure. Not to mention that damn murderous bi*** had given him only 20 minutes, which was approaching its end. He had already thought of multiple probabilities and methods.

Finally deciding on one particular plan, though it was merely a suicidal move, couldn’t be called a proper plan. However, it could definitely work, although many more students would have to die. But that hardly mattered to him; no matter how many of them died, he couldn’t care less.

Jaden activated the mental communication artifact in his ears, sent a message to the valkyrie, then explained his plan to her. As expected, she didn’t like it one bit,

[You call this a plan? It’s nothing but a suicidal move at best, and I think you missed the part when Axel requested me to keep as many of these cannon fodders alive as possible.]

Her voice was sharp, with no tone of mercy in it. He grimaced in frustration. No matter how beautiful the valkyrie was, how did that bastard Nomrad deal with this obnoxious woman? He could only sigh in pity for the future that the Nomrad bastard had ahead of him. This woman will, without a doubt, cook him alive in the future.

He shrugged in response to the comment of the valkyrie,

[Well, I have nothing better to offer; this is the best of what I have come up with after talking with everyone. If you think anyone else can offer any better ideas, I’m open to the suggestions.]

There was a long stretch of silence as he made his own statement clear; he knew very well that no one else could offer anything better at the moment. Eventually, a sigh of acceptance came from the other side, and with that, she relayed,

[Okay, let’s go with it.]

She commanded through the communication artifact,

[Everyone who is eligible to ascend to the 2nd phase. Start your breakthrough.]

As her words echoed in the minds of the four squadron leaders, they also relayed the same order to those under their command. Because, just like the four, most of the remaining students had already met the requirement to ascend as a 2nd-phase being.

As the light of the breakthrough enveloped the enormous number of Seekers. Their powers started to skyrocket. A profound change directed by Prime Nexus. All of them felt that their strength had almost doubled, and they had new abilities and access to a higher form of mana. Better control and reserves of energy, incomparable to what they had before. Their senses now enveloped a far greater area, the clarity of their minds much sharper and crisper.

During the breakthrough, which lasted only one minute at most for most of them, those who had not reached the necessary threshold for breakthrough were protecting the ones going through the advancement. As for the four squadron leaders, they needed no protection; they broke through while fighting. Only the best of the best were capable of such a feat.

Because the slightest hampering in the process of mana flow within their system during a breakthrough could cause the advancement to fail. Pretty much making a Seeker crippled for their whole life. Maybe only some miracle medicines are capable of healing that sort of damage.

However, no such accidents occurred, as Jaden, Enrick, Thorian, and Heinz all advanced to the next major stage in power while continuing to decimate an increasing number of the Bone Golems. Then, as most of the students had advanced, they helped those who had not yet advanced. The newly advanced 2nd-phase seekers helped the peak 1st-phase ones kill enough of the bone golems that they also met the requirements to advance.

In this manner, in just 10-15 minutes. More than 900 students had all advanced to become initial 2nd phase seekers, all of their powers almost doubling from before, all except for the very majestic commander of this whole battle. The valkyrie, despite killing the most significant number of enemies single-handedly from the very beginning, she had not yet met the requirements to ascend to the 2nd phase.

Even though the four squadron leaders had all advanced, their strength and power remained quite behind Valkyrie. It was truly a testament to how terrifyingly strong the valkyrie was. One could only imagine the insane requirements she would have to meet to become a 2nd-phase Seeker.

Now that all the students have almost doubled their strength compared to before. They began to push back the invincible and inexhaustible army of the dead for the first time. But that short hope of victory was again crushed. As 5000 more of the peak 1st phase skeleton undeads spawned from the ground right beneath them, they were flooded with a thick layer of Death Energy. The gray colored soil had turned completely pitch black all over the area in which the grand battle was taking place.

However, this time, the human seekers did not succumb to despair. Because there was no time for such emotions, the only thing that mattered was action, led by the divine valkyrie and four more of the strongest individuals among all the students of the academy. They could only keep fighting nonstop and defending themselves from the endless barrage of the bone golems and the newly spawned undead.

Now, as 2nd phase seekers, the belief they had in themselves had increased significantly. The outside circumstances could not affect them as much as before. However, it remained a truth that even with all of them advancing to the 2nd phase as Seekers. The army of the dead seemed endless, because not only did 5000 or more undead skeletons appear again, but more bone golems emerged. Somehow, it created the previous equilibrium all over again.

Putting the human army again on a pedestal.

Of course, that was quite fine as well. Since Jaden had started working on his plan with the help of the others, from the very moment of everyone’s breakthrough, if one looked closely, they would see that everyone was fighting with the rune weapons made by Axel Nomrad.

But numerous such weapons had been skewered inside the large and dumb bone golems. The main reason they were fighting defensively was because of this. The human army of Seekers had constantly been moving backwards, while more and more of the rune weapons were being skewered inside of those bone golems, leaving those powerful tools for their final act.