First, Mize decided to test the waters.

So far, no signs of a tier 8 presence from the enemy side.

That alone was a relief. It meant her true kings were still invisible, unstoppable.

Without wasting a moment, she gave the command.

Ten broken blade lords shot forward in streaks of light, their figures slicing through the sky like divine harbingers.

Each one floated high above, robes and armaments flaring under the pressure of the rising wind.

Then, in unison, they raised their palms.

And slammed them downward.

Boom! For original chapters go to Nove1Fire.net

Boom!

BOOM!

A storm of warp energy erupted.

Ten massive palms of condensed warp energy materialized in the clouds above, each one the size of a small mountain, their forms rippling under the howling wind.

As they fell, the air tore apart around them in chaotic spirals.

Even from miles away, the howling shriek of displaced wind screamed like a divine trumpet across the horizon.

BOOM!

BOOM!

BOOM!

Each colossal palm crashed into the horde like falling heavens.

Explosions bloomed like black sunbursts, mushroom clouds punching into the sky.

The ground cracked and cratered violently, imprinting giant palm-shaped devastation across the battlefield.

Underneath those prints, broken bodies and grotesque chunks of flesh lay scattered, piled in heaps several meters deep.

The terrain was torn as if titans had fought there eons ago.

In just one wave of coordinated attacks, a massive chunk of the horde had been obliterated.

But Mize's eyes narrowed. The real problem was just about to show itself.

ROARRR!

ROARRR!

ROARRRR!!

The air trembled.

Dozens of monstrous howls erupted from the deeper depth of the horde line.

And then, through the smoke and fire, enormous figures began to rise.

Soaring into the sky like demonic gods, one after another took flight.

Each of them towered over a hundred meters, and their appearances...

Unforgivable.

One of them was nothing but a flying maw, no body, no eyes, no limbs, just a gaping, tooth-filled chasm with jagged fangs swirling endlessly down its throat, stretching into the abyss.

The others weren’t any better, distorted abominations stitched together by madness itself.

Some had too many limbs, others had none at all, and their flesh twisted unnaturally with every twitch.

Within seconds, over fifty of these abominations rose above the battlefield, their auras suffocating, their presence alone enough to make the ten broken blades hesitate.

Even they, powerful as they were, visibly flinched.

After all, there were simply too many!

"Do not be intimidated!"

One of them roared against the enemy line, he turned his head around, glancing towards his brothers and sisters that were created together, "We are the lord's creations, weapons, tools!"

"To hesitate in the face of impossibility is nothing but rebellion against our nature!"

Hearing his words, the rest of the ten true lords broken blade immediately nodded back, "Even in the face of death, we will embrace it"

But then

As they were about to charge ahead into the enemy line of true lord monsters.

Swoosh!

Swoosh!

Swoosh!

Sharp bursts of air rang out across the sky. It was like space itself had been slashed apart.

Dozens, no, hundreds, of figures shot into view, trailing explosive shockwaves behind them.

Each one arrived with a sonic boom, standing high in the air like divine soldiers.

The broken blades snapped their heads around. And their eyes widened.

Surrounding them now were hundreds of human-like figures, suspended in the sky in perfect formation.

Each one radiated a true lord’s energy. And they nodded back to them with smiles on their faces, "We have come to support"

"The timely appearance", Mize heaved a sigh of relief.

A bit fearful at that, given the number of true lords on the opposite side.

They’d come.

Reinforcements, in numbers beyond anything the enemy could match.

With this, she could crush the enemy wave without much trouble. Especially in the absence of their own tier 8s.

The once-ten, who stood defiant against overwhelming odds, suddenly felt an unshakable surge of confidence ignited in their chests.

They weren’t alone.

Among them, Saka floated with his arms crossed, watching the gathering forces unfold with narrowed eyes.

He turned slightly, his gaze drifting toward Mize in the distance.

A smirk curled across his lips.

“It seems…” he muttered under his breath, “…I made the right choice joining this territory.”

'And it seems, I will need to have a talk with the great old one after this'

The battle raged on, and it quickly became one-sided.

The fifty true lords on the enemy’s side were slaughtered ruthlessly under the combined might of the hundreds of true lords on Mize’s side.

One scene, a true lord swung his fist directly against the hard shell of the enemy body.

In a clash.

Boom!

They were equally matched as the monster's arm swung towards him like a flicker of lightning, the true lord evaded quickly.

In a way, the true lord couldn't do anything against the enemy.

But then...

Boom!

Boom!

Boom!

Several more attacks came from the surrounding, then the tide shifted. The same scene kept on repeating themselves all over the sky.

If anyone from the inner regions had witnessed this spectacle, their jaws would surely have dropped.

Their worldview would shatter, reshaped by the unimaginable scene unfolding before them.

True lords, those mythical beings, were nearly nonexistent across the continent.

The existences that stood at the peak of the region, now seemed so... easy to be found in this territory.

Yet here, in this territory, there were hundreds of them, origins unknown, but clearly indicated to be under this territory.

Back on the battlefield, Mize stood in the air, her forces annihilating wave after wave of the horde with ease.

The tide then never once threatened to turn against them.

The true kings rarely had to intervene.

Simply dispatching her true lords, was more than enough to cleave through the enemy’s ranks through these waves.

It was almost too easy.

But even victories of this magnitude couldn't last forever.

As the day wore on and the final ten waves approached, the sky began to darken.

The creeping fingers of night slipped across the land, casting everything in a shadow of gloom.

And then, it came.

Mize leaned closer to Liam, her voice barely a whisper in the air as she spoke softly, her words carrying the weight of realization as she scanned the incoming wave.

"Tier 8. There’s actually two. Finally showing themselves now, huh?"

Her tone wasn’t one of fear. There was no trembling in her breath.

Liam, still holding her close, glanced down at her with a wry smile, his voice cool and casual. "How many true kings do you have?"

Mize’s eyes gleamed, a quiet pride radiating from her. "In total, seven," she replied confidently, including the 4 true kings from the dungeon.

The atmosphere shifted slightly, but it wasn’t the dread of defeat, it was the calm before a final, fierce storm.

The battle continued, the rhythm of war carrying them forward.

Liam’s shadow summons retreated deeper into the safety of the territory, while Mize unleashed all of her true lords to the front lines.

Despite the enemy’s considerable force of roughly 130 true lords by the current wave, the numbers were still in their favor, three to one.

Boom!

Boom!

Boom!

The air shook as Mize’s forces surged forward.

Most of the enemy’s true lords were already locked in combat, leaving the horde defenseless.

With her true lords free to act, they dove into the fray with ruthless blows, attacking without hesitation.

The explosions rang out like a deadly symphony.

Waves of fiery devastation cascaded across the battlefield, mushroom clouds rose into the sky, the earth beneath quaked violently, and the sound of catastrophic explosions shook the very air.

Mize’s legion wasn’t idle either, even as they were pulled back into the safety of the territory.

Their purpose remained.

Rather than engaging in close combat, Mize’s forces launched their attack from a distance, assembling massive artillery lines, their bolter guns reconfigured into devastating siege weapons.

It was a line of huge machine with wide muzzles. Likewise how the bolter gun worked under Mize's design, these huge artillery gun the size of a house also operated on the warp's energy as the bullet.

But in this case, they required several broken blade warrior to fuel it.

And then, the command came.

"Fire!"

Boom!

Boom!

Boom!

The barrage of artillery fire was unrelenting, the thunderous sounds echoing across the plains.

The horde, already crippled by the earlier assaults, was dealt a final blow.

In the blink of an eye, most of their lower-tier monsters were wiped from existence.

Nuclear like attacks from the true lords.

Dense dark fireballs from the shadow army.

And even an artillery barrage from the broken blade legion.

Everything seemed to be set on point.

But just when it seemed the end was in sight, a dark and powerful aura erupted from the center of the battlefield.

Zoom!

The dust parted aside.

From the billowing clouds of dust and destruction emerged two enormous forms.

One was a colossal whale, its massive, grotesque body covered in bulging eyes, its smiling maw gaping wide.

It moved through the sky like a terrifying floating fortress, its size stretching over a kilometer long.

Perched atop this beast was a strange figure, a male mermaid, seated on a throne, a trident held firmly in his hand.

His very presence sent ripples through the air, exuding an aura of terrifying power.

Mize’s eyes narrowed in disbelief as she whispered, "An otherworldly lord…" She had never expected that the two tier 8 auras she sensed would belong to a lord and his monstrous pet.

Liam’s voice cut through the air, calm and knowing. "And the whale?" he asked, already understanding the situation.

"It seems to be his beast pet," Mize replied, her gaze fixed on the looming terror in the sky.

Then, the male mermaid lord caught sight of the two figures seated high above the battlefield, Liam and Mize, lounging side by side.

His gaze swept across the scene.

Below, hundreds of tier 7 true kings were locked in brutal combat with the monstrous horde, their combined might shaking the plains.

As for the hidden ones, he roughly detected them.

He inhaled sharply.

“What rotten luck have I stumbled into…” he muttered, brows twitching in visible discomfort as tension coiled through his shoulders.

The whale beneath him slowed to a halt mid-air, hovering with quiet menace.

The lord said nothing, yet neither did the two humans across from him.

An eerie silence stretched between them.

The sea lord hesitated, unsure whether to charge forward or retreat.

Despite the vague, muted aura coming from the two seated figures, every fiber of his being screamed the same thing again and again:

Danger.

Danger.

Danger.

And beneath that... death.

He couldn’t ignore it.

He was no ordinary being, among his race, he was a god-like lord, unmatched in power.

And yet here he was, teetering on the edge of fear.

Especially unsettling were the faint, almost imperceptible gazes he felt crawling from the void, hidden presences watching from the dark.

There were other tier 8 entities here. More than he could reasonably handle.

With a sigh, he scratched the back of his head, casting one last glance at the calm figures watching him from their perch.

'I guess I will just need to forfeit, the rewards isn't worth it for me to die'

Then he sent his voice across the battlefield, thick with forced humility.

“Esteemed human lords, I come in peace. Please… do not let your people attack me.”

“I withdraw from this event willingly. But my departure will take some time. During that, I ask only for peace. I mean no harm.”

He blurted it all out in one breath, nervous, almost desperate.

Life and death hung in the air, and he wanted no misunderstandings.

Liam and Mize blinked, both caught off guard. They glanced at each other, then let out quiet sighs.

“Even other race lords fear death and complications, huh?” Liam murmured with a small smirk.

Mize nodded slightly, her voice calm. “If he doesn’t want a fight, we won’t give him one. There’s no need for pointless sacrifice. We’ll save our strength for the last five waves.”

They were currently on the 995th wave. If her predictions were right, the next lord-class enemy would appear at the very end.

Hopefully, and not something worse.

Sensing their mutual agreement, the sea people lord visibly relaxed.

His shoulders dropped, and his breath escaped like steam from a boiling pot.

“As a token of appreciation for your mercy… here,” he said.

With a flick of his wrist, he tossed a glowing crystal coral into the air.

It sparkled as it flew across the distance, light shimmering like sunlight on water.

Liam raised his hand, and the object zipped cleanly into his palm.

He examined it for a moment, then asked flatly, “What is this supposed to do?”

The sea lord bowed his head slightly from afar. “One of my clan’s sacred relics. Plant it in the ground, and a natural sacred spring will emerge. It heals any injury below tier 7 instantly. Its effectiveness scales with the land’s size. It also greatly enhances fertility of the surrounding soil.”

“Infinite use?” Liam asked, eyes narrowing.

“Yes. It never runs dry,” the sea lord confirmed. “Consider it a token of gratitude… for sparing me from any unpleasant outcome.”

Liam gave a short nod, then slipped the coral crystal into his storage ring. “I’ll accept it.”

Mize watched the exchange from the side but said nothing.

Her silence wasn’t disapproval, just indifference, and the sea lord noticed it immediately.

Taking the hint, he wisely floated his whale further away from the battlefield.

After all, the horde wasn't his to control. It was the warp's doing.

And once the current wave came to an end, the sea people lord offered one last courteous smile, then vanished without a sound, dissolving into mist.

The 995th wave had ended.