Skyhold Lord Skye floated in the sky with a grim expression, watching the still-arguing mages below. In silence, he produced a miniature model of a city and began channeling mana into its markings, preparing to forcibly summon the main city of Skyhold Fortress here—though the cost would be devastating...
Suddenly, a terrifying surge of mana erupted from the sky behind them. A massive shadow fell across the land, and the powerful figures who had been arguing abruptly stopped.
A group of people stared at Skye, their faces filled with shock and fear.
"Lord Skye, are you insane? Are you trying to destroy your own Skyhold Fortress?"
On the ground, the resisting army began to look up at the sky. The terrifying mana fluctuations were clearly not those of a mage, but rather the power of some dreadful alchemical artifact.
The desperate crowd raised their heads, only to discover that the source of the mana surge seemed to be far away—a tiny black dot in the distance.
Skye also stopped channeling mana, looking both bewildered and alarmed.
"That’s not me—oh heavens, what is that thing?"
The human mages stared in horror as more tiny black dots appeared in the distant sky. These dots, radiating dreadful mana, sped closer—it was a fleet of enormous warships.
At the bow of the largest Arcane Battleship, Leon stood, his gaze deep and unfathomable as he surveyed the tide-like undead army in the distance.
The passage was not a regular shape—more like a funnel, wide at one end and narrow at the other. The closer to the Undead Plane, the broader it became; near the Leviathan Realm, it narrowed sharply.
At its narrowest, the passage was only two thousand kilometers across. Yet within this slender stretch, over twenty fortresses stood.
These fortresses were like twenty rocks rooted along a beach, futilely trying to hold back the incoming tide. Countless undead besieged the strongholds, surrounding more than a dozen, while even more had already broken through the defenses, surging from the passage and spilling into the Leviathan Realm...
Within that mere two thousand kilometers, hundreds of Sky Rank warriors fought desperately—yet even they could not halt the spread of the undead sea.
Everyone had reached their limit—their spellcasting intensity, speed, and power were but shadows of their former peak.
The last defensive line within the passage was about to be breached. At the walls of several fortresses, undead corpses piled up, one atop another, forming small mountains as they tried to storm the strongholds—hoping sheer numbers would drown the defenders within...
"Archmage Leon Merlin! It's Archmage Leon Merlin!"
Inside one fortress, Rafael—his face pale—seemed to regain his strength in an instant, color flooding back into his cheeks.
"Archmage Leon Merlin has returned! I knew it—he could never be a deserter. He would never run away. He must have been searching for a way to solve our crisis!"