Onean was reluctant to relinquish her spell, but she knew that it was the only way to proceed. Thus, she ceased her magic power output, and the fiery red clouds in the sky finally gradually dissipated. The wyverns immediately let loose roars of elation, as if they had just been liberated.

Turning her gaze toward the countless oncoming flying swords, Onean's brows furrowed slightly as she brought down her staff, and a ring of light began to spread from the top of her staff. In the blink of an eye, the ring of light had formed a dazzling wall of radiance that protected her from all sides.

The magic flying swords that struck the wall of light instantly pierced into it, following which the magic energy imbued within them was instantly absorbed by the ring-shaped wall. As for the flying swords that had taken on a substantial form, they were also kept at bay by the constantly revolving wall of light, and no matter which direction the flying swords tried to attack from, they were unable to pierce into the wall.

Despite this, Lana remained completely unfazed as she looked on with a calm expression, displaying no frustration or urgency. The reason for this was because she had identified the special nature of the ring-shaped wall of light that Onean had summoned.

Judging from her teacher's style in battle, it seems that Piro likes to take his opponent's magic energy and use it for himself. Seeing as she's his disciple, her spells most likely possess the same properties as Piro's spells. That was the educated guess that Lana was making, and because of this, she didn't want to release any more spells, only for them to be absorbed by the wall of light.

In her mind, Onean had to have already expended a significant amount of magic power from unleashing that sea of fire earlier. In order to withstand this Shadowgleam Sword Array, she would have to expend yet another sizable portion of her magic power to maintain this wall of light, and there was no way that she could keep this up for very long. Thus, Lana decided to take the calm and patient approach, only striking again once all of Onean's magic power had been exhausted by her sword array.

In the meantime, neither of the two clashing phoenixes in the sky had managed to emerge victorious over the other, and they were completely spent. Both of them plummeted from the sky onto the southern battlefield, crushing many Effer Kingdom soldiers beneath them. For Count Friar, this was only compounding his woes.

However, what he failed to anticipate was that the wyverns  had already reached the sky above the battlefield.

After failing to strike Aiden with his Magic Explosion, Erwin was left completely bewildered, and he frantically looked around, but was still unable to see where Aiden had gone. However, what he spotted instead was the battle taking place between Onean and Lana.

Looking at the tears that were still yet to dry on Onean's face, he knew that the demise of Master Piro had to have had a brutal impact on her. However, this was the cruel nature of war. It was an unstoppable juggernaut that didn't wait for anyone, and it didn't even grant one the time to grieve for their loved ones. The same applied to the unconscious Gwen on Kaiba's back, who still hadn't had a chance to grieve for her deceased father.

As Erwin prepared to step in to assist Onean, he involuntarily cast a glance toward Lana, and coincidentally, she just so happened to be looking at him as well. Thus, their eyes met in a very awkward interaction, and the two of them hurriedly averted their eyes again.

While Erwin and Lana were exchanging furtive glances with one another across the battlefield, Aiden's halberd was already sweeping toward him from behind. When it came to his spatial and situational awareness, Erwin was still quite lackluster. In other words, he was handicapped by his lack of experience on the battlefield. On a battlefield where lives could be lost in an instant, one would truly be tempting fate by allowing themselves to get distracted looking at girls.

"I wouldn't be looking at girls in a situation like this, but to each their own, I suppose. What do you think of my sister? Isn't she a beauty?" Erwin was greatly startled to hear Aiden's voice ringing out so close behind him, and his instincts told him that he wouldn't be able to get away in time with his space split technique because the tip of Aiden's halberd was already too close to him. In fact, he didn't even have enough time to turn around, and he could only reach out with one hand behind himself to try and block the oncoming attack.

Thus, the tip of Aiden's halberd struck Erwin's palm, and Lana immediately let loose a cry of alarm at the sight of such a harrowing scene. She was terrified that her brother would chop Erwin's arm off, or worse yet, slice him cleanly in half. She knew just how powerful Aiden was better than anyone else. Given how close Aiden was to Erwin, she wouldn't even be able to save Erwin in time with her instant-release spells.

However, what was astonishing to her was that even though Erwin was sent flying by the attack and somersaulted through the air like a ragdoll a few times, throwing up several mouthfuls of blood in the process, his hand remained completely unscathed.

This wasn't because Aiden had held back in his attack. Ever since the invasion of the Skycourt Kingdom, he had been busy with military duties in Burmen, so he wasn't aware of Lana's recently developed romantic interest. Following Lana's return to Burmen, he had been sent to the military base in Leeku to prepare the flying dragons, thereby isolating himself from the outside world, so he naturally remained completely oblivious to the relationship between his sister and Erwin. Only after hearing Lana's cry of alarm did he realize that there was perhaps something going on between them.

At this moment, both Aiden and Lana were staring at Erwin with stunned expressions. In particular, they were staring at his hand, wondering how he had managed to withstand that attack completely unscathed.

As it turned out, Erwin had compressed his own light shield into a palm-sized disk that sat over his hand, a skill that he had already displayed to Onean once back in Xeto.

Thus, Aiden's attack had actually struck the miniature light shield rather than Erwin's hand. Given how tiny the miniature light shield was, it was naturally far simpler to trigger a space-time rift with it than it was to do the same with a full-sized light shield. Of course, on the flip side, the space-time rift generated by the miniature light shield was only able to absorb a fraction of the matter energy that a space-time rift created by a full-sized light shield would be capable of. Thus, most of the power behind Aiden's attack had surged into the space-time rift, but Erwin had still been struck by some of the residual power of the attack.

Only after somersaulting uncontrollably through the air like a ragdoll for a few cycles did Erwin just barely manage to steady himself, and he was panting heavily while wiping away the blood flowing down from the corners of his lips. At the same time, he was watching Aiden with a wary expression. Even though the space-time rift had absorbed most of the power of Aiden's attack, the injuries that Erwin had sustained were still not insignificant.

Erwin looked at Aiden's imposing figure with tightly furrowed brows, unable to understand how someone like him could be able to move so quickly that he couldn't even be tracked with the naked eye, At this point, he had already discovered the secret behind the disappearing act that Aiden had just pulled off. The secret was that there was no secret, he was simply just that fast, so fast that his speed was comparable to that of a normal martial artist who had applied dozens of advanced agility techniques onto themselves. Of course, this was still fundamentally different from Erwin's space split technique. He had thought that the speed that Jeff had displayed during the Pillow Sword Tournament was already the limit for a martial artist, never did he think that Jeff's elder brother would be even more fearsome in this department. The most perplexing thing to Erwin was how someone could have such an imposing frame, but still possess such incredible speed. This was challenging the boundaries of what Erwin thought to be possible.

Aiden wasn't in a hurry to attack Erwin again. Instead, he snuck a glance toward Lana. As her elder brother, he had watched her grow up her entire life, and never had he seen her display such an expression. His impression of Lana was that she wasn't someone to be caught up in emotions and romance like this. Even though Lana reacted very quickly and immediately turned away upon sensing her brother's gaze, putting on an indifferent facade as she did so, but Aiden could already tell what was going on between her and Erwin based on her forced display of nonchalance.

Just as the three of them were looking back and forth between one another, unsure of how to proceed, the flying dragons suddenly arrived above the battlefield.

...

Even though the court magicians of the Effer Kingdom were all extremely capable, at this point in the battle, they had already expended most of their magic power. Even the grand magic mentors among them, such as Professor Hawk, were beginning to struggle to cast advanced spells that encompassed large areas.

These wyverns took advantage of this to band together and make a unified charge, tearing through the court magicians' ranks with brute force. Just as Erwin had observed, the magic beasts of the Terarody Mountain Ranges possessed considerably high levels of intelligence, to the extent that they were able to completely understand the actions of humans. It could even be said that none of the details on this battlefield could escape the notice of these fearsome dragons.

The magicians of the True Light Church had been kept away from the flight of dragons this entire time, but an opportunity finally arose for them, and they grabbed it with both hands, immediately leaping onto the dragons' backs. After landing on the dragons, the white-robed magicians immediately began to rain down spells upon the soldiers of the Effer Kingdom, with the spells primarily consisting of ones that affected large areas and carried added negative status conditions that impaired the target's speed, such as extreme snowstorms and walls of ice. On a battlefield, magicians could be utilized to do more than just unleash spells of mass destruction. In addition to that, they could also alter the weather, the air temperature, and many other facets of the battlefield. Just a moment ago, the north had been a sea of fire, yet in what seemed like no more than the blink of an eye, the south had been transformed into a glacial realm. Such a terrifying yet romantic scene could only be observed at the cost of one's life.

Professor Hawk and the other grand magic mentors were still trying to do everything they could. At the very least, they wanted to kill the dozens of church magicians on the backs of the flying dragons. However, the church magicians were using the scales of the dragons as cover while gliding through the air in an agile manner using levitation and flight spells, allowing them to effectively stave off the oncoming attacks.

These wyverns and the church magicians were working together seamlessly, and it was clear that they had trained together extensively in the past. Thus, the efforts of Professor Hawk and the others were completely futile.

A short while later, the dragons spotted an opportunity to pounce, and they immediately swooped down with fire gushing out of their mouths.

"All troops, disperse! Hurry!" Count Friar yelled in a loud voice. The reserve troops of the Effer Kingdom were already contending with the negative status conditions inflicted upon them by the True Light Church's magicians, and the dozens of church magicians on the dragons' backs were the cream of the crop. In the wake of the barrage of spells unleashed by them, the entire reserve army had already been plunged into a glacial environment that completely robbed them of the ability to move. Thus, they were essentially sitting ducks beneath the plumes of dragon flames. Essentially, they were frozen pieces of meat that were waiting to be roasted over an open flame.

The fate that had befallen so many of the soldiers on the battlefield at the center of the Marrod Plain was being replicated in those on the southern battleground. As a string of earth-shattering dragon roars rang out, pillars of fire and plumes of smoke began to ravage the battlefield. Horses neighed in distress, while soldiers screamed in agony and horror, and even a brilliant commander like Count Friar was powerless to turn the tide of the battle. Only now did Friar finally understand why Lazaar had sent out these defensively adept church cavaliers to stall for time. As it turned out, there really had been a sinister plan brewing beneath the surface.

On a battlefield as chaotic as this one, the dozens of flying dragons were naturally unable to distinguish between friend and foe. Thus, their dragon flames were scorching the entire battlefield in an indiscriminate attack. However, even after being engulfed by the scorching flames, the white-armored church soldiers were completely unaffected and could still continue fighting as normal.