The Runic Alchemist

[The Barren Land, Current time, Damian's POV.]

It had been barely a week since Damian had left the pigmen city. He did occasionally check on their situation through waygates, though. A week was barely enough to prepare for a fight against an entity that could wipe out a whole planet's civilization. He did what he could, though, and that would have to be enough.

The last time he checked, the furthest fort was about to be overwhelmed by the black army. They had arrived. Damian did not sense Shadecaster or the Demon Lord anywhere, but the massive mana signatures were not lacking. So many Legendary-class black ones.

This won't do. The time was up. If he waited a moment longer, the loss would be immeasurable.

Damian got up, stopping his meditation. It helped him manage his own boundless mana and aura better.

Damian opened a waygate and arrived right in the middle of the northern army camp, holding an enormous invisible box full of his golden liquid mana. The pigmen warriors and civilians alike saw him appear in mid-air and started chanting his name. Still, the work they were doing did not stop. The ice wall was constantly shooting cannons, and fresh troops were needed to replace the exhausted ones.

The pigmen did not have any aura, and his aura-enhancing spell didn't work on them either; otherwise, he would have made a liquid mana generator for mass usage to serve in this war.

Damian did not stop to greet Amy and Sariel who were opening the waygate to the ice wall and sending fresh troops. He had to be done here quickly.

Damian flew outside the range of the city and took out a massive condensed steel pillar—some 100 meters tall and 60 meters wide—from his Sacrium spatial storage. He held it stable in mid-air without much effort at all. Over 400 in STR was an inhuman level of strength. Damian pushed from above and buried it halfway through the snow and land beneath. Then he opened the hatch in the side of the rune-inscribed condensed steel pillar and filled it full with his liquid mana.

Damian had to do this three more times, burying four giant steel pillars in four directions of the massive stone shrine and the city spread around it.

Damian then flew down and landed inside the army camp. He had no time to use translators, so he simply told Sariel to pull the big lever he had added to each of the four steel pillars to activate barriers. He advised the king through Sariel to only do it when necessary and not waste mana for no reason.

Damian could sense the high-ranking pigmen coming towards him from the inner city, but he had no time to chat. Once Sariel nodded in understanding, Damian quickly passed through the open waygate Sariel had activated and immediately reached the giant ice wall.

The other side of the wall was being bombarded by the powerful spells of thousands of King and Emperor-rank black monsters. Sam and others had worked hard to make a massive, strong, and thick ice wall using his tools and their mana cubes. For now, thousands of laser cannons were relentlessly shooting down all flying beasts that even came near.

Hundreds and hundreds were dying each second, but the sky and land were filled with endless darkness that had no plans of slowing down. Two of the enormous Legendary-class black ones were really cracking the outer layer of the condensed ice wall with their giant punches.

Sam, with his lightning, was engaged with one in battle, along with all the laser cannons from the high wall backing him up. Rurik was with him too, as were Alex and Grace. Another Legendary-class one was being frozen by Lucian; Heather and Maelor were backing her up. Even Dreamlight was shooting down laser after laser on the giant monster's face and single eye.

Thankfully, both Legendary monsters were ice-elemental evolved ones and not those psychic ones. All their powerful fighters were busy fighting just two—and more were coming behind those two.

Damian observed it all in less than a second with his powerful vision and mana sense. In the next second, he shot through the air, breaking sound barriers and weaving spell after spell while activating all three of his Sacrium mana cubes. The invisible box also had over 30% liquid mana remaining after he filled the four steel barrier pillars.

The dark sky under Sam's runic sword spell effect became even darker as pitch-black lightning shot through the sky and burned thousands and thousands of flying and on-land black monsters in a never-ending light show.

Reaching the middle of the two Legendary monsters, Damian stopped and activated over twenty giant light laser beams behind his back, obliterating the Legendary monster facing Sam and the others. As Damian activated his hellfire from the front, a massive beam of flames—powerful enough to destroy cities and containing pieces of his soul-enhanced aura—tore through the Legendary-class monster facing Lucian and the others.

He had started both his attacks from their giant legs so his companions had enough time to get back from them. The two Legendary-class black pigmen fell on their backs, crushing thousands of black army monsters after losing their limbs. Damian just had to adjust the aim a bit, and both his lasers and beam of hellfire split the monsters in two, obliterating their heads beyond recognition.

The river of pitch-black blood colored the whole battlefield with abyssal darkness. Damian did not stop using his two powerful attacks and continued to cleave through the millions-strong army single-handedly.

Millions of black monsters charged in his direction as he landed down and stood on the fallen bodies of the two giant black pigmen—but not a single one could cross the distance without getting obliterated to hell and back.

A giant empty patch of snow was revealed—devoid of any monster—in an enormous, black-monster-filled army. In the middle of which were severed and burned bodies of two enormous monsters atop which was the youngest transcendent ever born.