Translator: AnubisTL
The Greyrock Realm, once a primeval and mysterious wilderness, had transformed into a brutal hunting ground.
The Indigenous Allied Forces displayed a level of organization and intelligence far exceeding the Noren Academy apprentices' expectations.
They were not merely scattered natives but highly trained hunters, each trap and ambush precisely targeting the apprentices' weaknesses.
"Damn it! It's those indigenous!"
"Any more recovery potions? My mental power is almost depleted!"
"Hell! Why isn't the escape ring working?!"
"There's... there's no way out of here!"
Similar cries of despair echoed across the Greyrock Realm.
As the traps continued to take effect, the apprentices quickly realized they were trapped in a deadly game of cat and mouse.
The indigenous hunters, concealed in the undergrowth, wore camouflaged animal hides and wielded poison-tipped bone spears and bows, moving as silently as venomous snakes.
With their intimate knowledge of the terrain, they often used merit tokens or rare materials as bait, launching surprise attacks when the apprentices lowered their guard.
A single volley of poisoned arrows was often enough to paralyze or slow down the inexperienced apprentices instantly.
The Indigenous Warriors who charged forth possessed an enhanced strength that made them incredibly swift. Their metal spears easily pierced through the apprentices' bodies before they could even conjure protective shields.
Many scattered apprentice teams were caught completely off guard by the initial assault.
Their trusted flight spells and escape rings malfunctioned under the strange spatial fluctuations. Stripped of their means of escape, the apprentices were like caged beasts, slowly being whittled down by the indigenous hunters.
The communication witchcraft devices crackled with intermittent distress signals before falling silent.
"Shield energy critical! Only ten percent remaining!"
"My staff is out of charges! Damn it! Why are these natives so relentless?!"
In a narrow canyon, a team of eight apprentices stood back-to-back against the rock walls, desperately fending off the onslaught of indigenous knights.
Their spell artifacts were rapidly draining of energy. The devices sustaining their shields groaned under the strain, emitting cracking sounds like tearing cloth before shattering completely.
The magic potion reserves visibly dwindled, and the mental exhaustion from the intense combat surged like a tidal wave, slowing their spells and drastically reducing the power of their witchcraft.
These apprentices were from the older cohort, and upon hearing the emergency broadcast, they scoffed at the new apprentices and the indigenous people alike.
After five additional years of training, these veteran Combat Department apprentices had long recognized their own shortcomings. They had each deeply studied several offensive or defensive spells.
Though they couldn't independently construct the corresponding Witchcraft Models, they were undoubtedly far superior to the newcomers.
Therefore, they were supremely confident in their ability to handle any attacks.
And indeed, in the initial skirmishes, the easily defeated indigenous squads seemed to validate their assumptions.
These consecutive victories gradually lulled them into complacency, causing them to overlook the underlying dangers and unknowingly venture deeper into the enemy's trap.
Now, the veteran apprentices stood pale-faced, cold sweat dripping from their foreheads.
Though they had undergone practical combat simulations, they had never truly faced a life-or-death, no-retreat war of attrition like this.
Compared to the dire straits they now faced, the academy's practical combat tests felt like child's play!
Each spell they cast could effortlessly extinguish an enemy's life. The corpses of their foes lay piled high like mountains, yet wave after wave of enemies continued to surge forward relentlessly.
Why aren't they afraid?!
Why won't they retreat?!
Their former confidence had been worn away by the relentless pressure, replaced by visible exhaustion and anxiety.
"Captain, how much longer can we hold out?" a young female apprentice asked, her voice trembling with tears.
Her mental power had been completely drained, forcing her to rely solely on physical weapons for a desperate defense. But against the fiercely aggressive knights clad in crude armor, her swordsmanship seemed utterly pale and powerless.
Several other apprentice squads had been drawn to this area by the dazzling piles of merit tokens in the valley.
Now, under the relentless enemy assault, the apprentices had been forced to abandon their individual strategies and spontaneously gather in defensible terrain, such as towering cliffs or narrow caves.
Forming makeshift alliances, they cobbled together defensive lines and jointly resisted the relentless waves of attacks from the Indigenous Allied Forces.
Even so, with each clash, apprentices fell.
The wounded grew in number, while potions dwindled, and a suffocating despair settled over their hearts like a dark cloud.
As expected, when the last apprentice's mental power was exhausted, the battle cries in the valley finally ceased, leaving behind only a hellish landscape stained crimson with blood.
Though the losses were heavy, the indigenous people considered it a bearable price for their vengeance.
As time passed, more and more apprentices stumbled into the traps.
In an instant, the entire wasteland transformed into a bloody purgatory of despair.
Yet even in this "war," there were exceptions. Geniuses emerged, shattering the indigenous traps and forging their names on the battlefield.
Among them, two figures shone like brilliant stars, piercing the gloomy sky.
Miss Augusta, the academy darling with ninth-tier thunder element innate talent, now led her small team, dominating every corner of the plane as if it were her personal playground.
Her power resembled that of a thunder god descended to earth, each strike accompanied by devastating lightning.
"These insects think they can win through sheer numbers? Foolish."
Augusta's slender fingers tapped lightly, and a torrent of searing white lightning roared forth like an enraged dragon.
Hundreds of meters away, the indigenous ambushers, along with their concealed runes and mental interference totems, were instantly vaporized beneath the furious lightning, leaving trails of charred residue snaking across the ground.
Clad in lightweight Thunderlight Armor, Augusta's figure flickered across the battlefield, each strike precisely targeting the indigenous warriors' vital points.
Knights who attempted to surround her rarely managed to close the distance before being pierced by the leaping lightning serpents from her hands, reduced to charred husks.
As Miss Augusta's reputation grew, the Indigenous Allied Forces took notice, repeatedly setting up elaborate, seemingly inescapable traps specifically for her.
On one occasion, they transformed a canyon into a massive magnetic interference zone, burying runes beneath the ground to trigger chain reactions of explosions, suspending cursed totems in the air to weaken wizards' powers, and deploying hundreds of heavily armored elite knights and shamans in full battle array. They hoped to exhaust her through sheer numbers and terrain advantage.
"Hah, child's play," Augusta scoffed, and with a contemptuous laugh, unleashed a storm of thunder that tore through everything.
She summoned a colossal pillar of lightning that pierced the heavens, shattering the ground runes and obliterating the aerial totems in a single strike.
Then, her entire body crackling with thunderlight, she transformed into an uncatchable bolt of lightning, tearing through the ambush force with unstoppable force. Where the lightning struck, only scorched earth and trembling indigenous warriors remained.
She barely spared a glance for the routed indigenous warriors, her eyes fixed solely on her target—the next high-scoring merit token.
To her, these natives were nothing more than insignificant obstacles in her path to glory.
(End of the Chapter)
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