“The seventh…!”

Seraphina voiced out what all bystanders were thinking at that moment. All eyes were transfixed to every movement of hers. Even to those in the sky who only saw a miniscule speck from their point of view where Ariel was, were left awed by her aura that was anything but, her incomplete mastery of aura reaching out and leaking a significant portion of it in the form of a flame into the golden twilight skies.

She took another step.

The monsters roared defiantly, as if to shake off the fear that had grasped a hold on them, and began a mad dash forward with an increased fervor. The ocean of monsters once again began its frenzy, the accumulated roars of over a hundred thousand monsters overlapping into a discordant symphony of unadulterated madness that shook the ground for kilometers. Every human that heard this felt a chill down their spine. They could not imagine how Ariel could advance.

Yet, she did. Another step.

The fiery-red aura, which appeared like a rampaging torrent as it flowed and condensed as a substitute arm and spear for Ariel, solidified into a smoothly flowing solid red color. The blood loss had not abated in the slightest. It was clear that Ariel had not mastered the use of aura for healing. After all, she had just unlocked such free control over her aura and had had no time to practice. Many were able to infer that she would be unable to go on for much longer. Ariel must have known it as well.

Ariel’s movement came to a stop. At this, the heads up in the sky craned their heads to get a better view. The confusion amidst the palpable tension sent their hearts into a frenzy.

Evan, who had a Lord-ranked body, was the only one in the sky with eyes that could only barely see Ariel’s subsequent movements. He watched as she dropped her stance and her dominant foot took a large step backwards. She then looked upwards, at roughly a sixty-degree angle upwards, while her arm raised and wrist cocked her spear.

“What is she…”

The monsters were rapidly advancing towards her. Evan could not understand how she could be so nonchalant.

‘If she’s so calm, why isn’t she going to the rendezvous point instead? Unless she plans to wipe them all out with this one attack. No, that would be impossible even for the new and improved me or Noah, and Ariel is currently severely injured. She’s angling her spear upwards, so she’s planning an aerial strike of sorts, but how does attacking the center of the monsters be any different from attacking the fro-I see!’

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Evan’s eyes suddenly widened in understanding.

‘So she’s attacking the back! Reaching the first rendezvous point was so the monsters that were split into five streams to ensure that the ‘aggro’ of all monsters were focused on the cavalry could be re-converged into one large group of monsters. The goal of reaching the second was to ensure that all monsters were inside Zone Nu. The second rendezvous point was calculated such that if the cavalry were to reach it, the slowest monsters at the back of the wave would be within Zone Nu.'

'However, by aiming for the rear of the pursuing monsters with a parabolic spear trajectory, she can annihilate the monsters outside Zone Nu, thus ensuring all the pursuing monsters were within Zone Nu anyway! If this parabolic strike were attempted as a Lord rank, since the power of her spear was within its momentum and aura surrounding it, a parabolic strike would be no different to a metal stick falling from the sky, carrying only the acceleration due to gravity. However, now, the spear itself is made of pure destruction, and even without the momentum of her throw, would result in annihilation rivaling that of her previous linear throw!’

Evan’s guess was on the mark. With a throw that seemed almost gentle, Ariel launched the solitary spear into the skies.

Ariel, who threw the spear, watched the spear approach its peak roughly less than five kilometers in the air over the course of half a minute, her eyes slowly losing its luster and her eyelids growing heavy.

She watched until the spear reached its apex, after which Ariel’s legs lost their strength, and the aura that made up her arm dissipated into the air. A teleporter caught her right before she hit the ground and took her to safety. What followed was another thirty seconds of peace, with the monsters leading the pursuit realizing that their target had vanished and began to scatter in different directions, bumping into each other as they sought different directions, staying mostly localized for those thirty seconds as a result.

As the spear descended, time seemed to stretch, the thirty seconds becoming an eternity witnessed by the silent stars above. The army of monsters below, a horde of shadows and malice, now paused unwittingly in their advance, their senses attuned more to immediate bloodlust than the celestial omen unfolding above. The spear, with the gentleness of a petal drifting upon a breeze, commenced its slow, inexorable descent towards the heart of the massed darkness.

A transformation began to weave its way through the ranks of the rear of the monstrous horde. A light, faint but growing, emanated from the spear, bathing most of the battlefield in a glow that seemed too pure, too serene for such a place of death and despair. This light, while visually soft and calming, carried with it the essence of disintegration.

As the spear finally came to rest upon the earth, its journey completed, over twenty percent of the army that once stood ready to engulf the land in shadow was erased away following a blazing light.

In the aftermath, the landscape was transformed into a desolate tableau, a stark, smoldering void where the monsters had once stood—a silent witness to the devastating potency of her will when faced with the unimaginable. She had cast her judgment in a blaze that would be inscribed inthe annals of time.