After Spyro informed him about the appearance of hundreds of beings from the river's direction, Jason didn't think much as he amplified his voice with a little bit of mana and announced.

"The Oceanfolk is attacking! Prepare yourself, and don't falter. Nobody but the oceanfolk shall die today!"

Jason knew that it was unlikely for them to achieve a perfect victory without sustaining casualties, but he was eagerly hoping that this would be the case.

As such, he would give his best to help as much as he could to make the unlikely scenario possible.

A moment later, Jason began to fly over the walls in the direction of the river.

He didn't want to face his opponents near the walls because this would only restrict him.

Even if there were many beings that were able to fly at the Prismar stage, it required a tremendous amount of focus, and also a certain degree of intelligence, which was not something every single being possessed from the beginning.

Because of that, most beasts would only learn to fly upon reaching the Ascendion stage, which was exactly why it had been so important for Jason to construct the two layers of walls!

In the end, not many of the Oceanfolk must be able to fly because their natural habitat required them to be proficient in swimming.

Not only was everything above the water surface relatively unknown to them, but they were surely unable to fly. That was something Jason was almost 100% certain about.

Furthermore, the Oceanfolk's strength should decrease with the time they spend on lands as most of them required water to survive, to begin with.

Even if that was something Jason couldn't be sure of, he calculated it into the possibilities of attaining an advantage.

In the end, the Mewi required mana to stay alive, and it was because of this that they couldn't afford to waste even a single trace of mana within them, which in turn marred their proficiency in fighting properly because of the mana scarcity.

However, Jason was different, and he wanted to make use of his mana.

Nevertheless, this didn't mean that he would simply waste the surrounding mana, and Jason had already decided that it would be best to simply use his mana to circulate it through the entire body while exerting the Floating sky movement technique.

There weren't any problems Jason could think of, and even if he were to allow Artemis to occupy his mana core, there shouldn't be much of an issue with that.

In the end, saving the Mewi village was more important than using up some of the already scarce mana.

Jason wanted to figure out the issue with the mana vein either way because the other two veins he was able to see deep underground were doing fine.

The Spiral and Pryr vein underground were much smaller than the mana vein, but that was exactly what caused Jason to feel as if it would be a waste to let the Mewi villagers die, or be heavily injured just because he was not supposed to use any mana.

'I'll just kill the oceanfolk and tend to the mana vein! After that, everything will be much better!!'

That was, at least, what Jason was planning to do, but the moment he saw the devastatingly huge crowd of beings rushing through the part of the forest he and his soulbonds had cut down, Jason couldn't help but smile dryly.

'Maybe, I underestimated the situation a little bit.' Jason simply thought as his Emperor Eyes could see the thousands of beings that were hidden behind the treetops.

Yet, just as he thought this, the seemingly countless beings that emerged on both riverbanks began splitting up as if they knew where they had to go to reach the respective villages.

In the end, the longer Jason looked at the river, the more unease crept up his spine because it seemed to him that the river was a bottomless pit, as more and more beasts were emerging from it.

However, even after more beasts had emerged from the river, the inside of it didn't seem to have changed at all.

Rather, there seemed to be even more beasts inside than before.

This made Jason uncomfortable because the number of beings emerging from the Oceanfolk exceeded his expectations by a large number and it wasn't a welcome scenario.

Thus, he could barely keep his calm and retreated a little bit to only face the beasts that would attack the village he came from.

Before protecting others, Jason knew that he had to protect himself and the small village he had been to first.

Neglecting the other villages was definitely not something he wanted to do, but his highest priority was to figure out how strong the Oceanfolk truly were and if it was possible for him to face a numerical disadvantage of several thousand against him, all alone.

Thus, he started by fighting several hundred opponents at once as he dived towards the location that was slightly behind the position at which the Oceanfolk separated.

With this, he could immediately advance the moment he was confident about defeating more beings of the Oceanfolk than the village behind him could face easily.

Even if it was impossible for him to take responsibility for all villages right now, he wanted to do his best to protect as many as possible.

This was not only because he wanted to fulfill the task given by the dungeon, but also because he followed his heart.

Jason knew that he acted foolishly sometimes, and was also naive, however, that was who he was, and his emotions were what made him the person he had become.

Even if it was not something a being of the Celestia race should feel, Jason was not only a descendant of the Celestia, but also humans that were known for their wide range of emotions and irrational way of acting.

Because of that, Jason was not worried about himself right now.

Instead, he felt obliged to risk his life to protect everyone, even if they might only be existences the dungeon had created to test him.

That was a possibility Jason had thought of during the last few days, but it didn't really matter.

Right now, his heart was telling him to go all-in and not hold himself back.

In that way, he wouldn't regret anything if he were to ever look back on this day.

With that in mind, he let Petri occupy his mana core, increasing his strength by a large margin compared to before.

Without fusing directly, Jason simply manifested Petri's scales upon his body, followed by a seven-meter-long tail that grew out of his coccyx.

The manifestation of body parts felt a lot different to the entire fusion, and the entire amplification Jason received was more like he was able to borrow power, instead of possessing it directly as it was the case with the fusion.

In the end, the fusion with his soulbonds was something miraculous, but even more powerful than one could think.

As such, Jason had to find ways in order to increase the time he could stay fused with his soulbonds because he felt restless not being able to fuse right from the start of the battle.

Going all-in was good and all, but doing so would wear him out faster, which would in return, force him to exceed his limitations. And, once a powerful opponent were to appear after the duration of his fusion with his soulbonds were to be over, he would be in huge trouble.

With that in mind, Jason first utilised the body part manifestation as he plunged into the center of action with hundreds of opponents.

__________________