Erwin also joined in on the action without any hesitation as bright light began to radiate from his Shaved Purple Gem staff. Immediately thereafter, countless purple swords lit up the night sky like a mesmerizing purple storm of light. Having rested for half a day, he had already recovered most of his magic power. With a wave of his staff, all of the countless purple swords came flying down from the heavens, swooping toward the point on the mountain where the commotion was at its loudest. The armor-piercing property of his spell wasn't as potent as that of Onean's spell, but the advantage that he held over her was that his spell had been unleashed using an incantation in the ancient magic language, so it was far more destructive than normal.

Chaos had already spread through the Skycourt Kingdom's ranks from the countless arcs of lightning, and their woes were compounded even further by the ferocious storm of purple swords. Amid the chaos, the Skycourt Kingdom mercenaries were beginning to trample one another, thereby leading to an even higher tally of casualties. In the face of such devastating spells, a sense of irrepressible fear had welled up in the hearts of all of the Skycourt Kingdom mercenaries, and it was clear that the battle from earlier in the day had already severely traumatized them.

Just as Erwin was feeling quite pleased with himself, a delicate cry suddenly rang out beside him, and he turned around to discover that Onean's staff had clashed with some type of weapon.

He took a closer look through narrowed eyes, but he was only able to vaguely make out Onean's figure in the darkness of the night. Judging from her stance, it was clear that she was locked in battle against someone. He wanted to go and help her, but a sense of severe peril suddenly welled up in his heart, and he reflexively unleashed his space split technique to retreat from his original spot, immediately following which a faint cry of surprise and confusion rang out from the spot where he had just been standing a split-second ago.

Right as he was wondering what was happening, he detected a burst of killing intent coming from down below, and he immediately took evasive action, but he reacted a little too late, and a gash was sliced into his calf.

He was quite furious to have been inexplicably wounded by an invisible enemy like this, and he immediately released around a dozen illumination blasts in quick succession. The bright, white radiance of the illumination blasts immediately lit up the entire night sky, but after just a brief moment, the light was dragged into the darkness strand by strand like cotton candy.

However, that split second was enough for Erwin to identify the situation around them. As it turned out, he and Onean had been surrounded by around a dozen Skycourt Kingdom martial artists. To put it more accurately, these were all Skycourt Kingdom assassins. Thankfully, his reflexes and speed of movement had been sharpened through his sparring matches against Georgina, so he already had a considerable understanding of the common attacks employed by assassins. These assassins had most likely all used the nightwalker potion, making it impossible to spot them in the night. The only way to determine their approximate location was by using sound cues and sensing the disturbances in the surrounding space.

These assassins tracked the light that was emitted from when we unleashed our spells to attack us in the air! Could it be that they're specifically targeting Onean? Erwin thought to himself with tightly furrowed brows. Looks like they've done their homework. They knew that her spells require large amounts of elemental matter to unleash, and there's no way that quota could be fulfilled from the airship. Hence, she has to rise up into the air to prepare her spells, and the Skycourt Kingdom's mercenaries are using that against her, preparing all of these assassins to attack her.

At the same time, Erwin had also noticed something else through his keen observation. Just now, when the powerful spells unleashed by him and Onean had struck the mountain, they had continued to give off light until they naturally fizzled out. However, the light from the dozen or so illumination blasts that he had just released had been absorbed very quickly.

Thus, he had formed an assumption about the properties of the nightwalker potion.

With that in mind, he turned to Onean and yelled, "The nightwalker potion seems to only be able to absorb the light from normal spells. If a spell contains sufficiently powerful magic energy, then the potion won't be able to absorb it!"

Onean also quickly realized this after hearing what Erwin had to say, and she suddenly brought her own staff down in one swift motion. The runes on the surface of the staff began to glow brightly, and a halo of radiance proliferated outward in all directions. The light was so bright that Erwin could barely keep his own eyes open, and he was forced to cover his eyes with his hands. He couldn't even fathom just how much magic energy had to be expended in order to create such a spectacular display of light on such a dark night.

This looks like the spell that Master Piro used back when he first returned to Sarus, Erwin thought to himself as he recalled back to the scene during which Master Piro had tamed that Zam highland horse in front of the city gate of Sarus.

A burst of powerful magic energy was spreading through the air with Onean at the very center, and the assassins around her were immediately knocked back by over 10 meters. In fact, the two least powerful ones among them had already been sent tumbling down the mountain, and their agonized howls were heard for a long while until they finally fell to the foot of the mountain with a sickening crunch.

Her spell had quite a large scope of destruction, and even Erwin was caught up in it. He immediately conjured up a magic shield, and only then was he just barely able to stabilize himself, while the assassins around him were also sent flying.

Just as Erwin had predicted, the nightwalker potion was completely unable to absorb the radiance coming from such a powerful spell.

"Larwood, send some assassins to help us!" Erwin hurriedly yelled toward the airship.

The reason why he was calling for assassins was because only assassins understood the techniques of other assassins. In the face of the phenomenal speed and lethal attacks employed by assassins, normal martial artists would have no chance of surviving.

With the light provided by Onean's spell, everyone on the airship finally realized that Onean and Erwin had been surrounded by assassins from the Skycourt Kingdom. They were wondering why the two of them had suddenly disappeared after unleashing just a single spell each, and they realized what was the case now.

"So they were surrounded by assassins using the nightwalker potion. I was wondering why both of them suddenly disappeared." After making sense of the situation, Larwood immediately turned to Georgina and ordered, "Georgina, pick out our best assassins. We're going to throw these sly Skycourt Kingdom vermin down the mountain!"

Georgina immediately did as he was told, picking out a group of powerful assassins from the Four Winds mercenary legion before following Larwood into battle. In their absence, Sherry and Lanyon temporarily took over the reins as commanders.

Even though Onean's spell had revealed the Skycourt Kingdom's assassins, they certainly weren't just going to give up. After taking a moment to regain their bearings, they immediately charged toward Onean once again.

Prior to this, some of the assassins had chosen to go after Erwin, but under the illumination of Onean's spell, all of the Skycourt Kingdom's assassins could see that Onean was the female magician who had unleashed that devastating meteor shower upon them earlier during the day. Thus, the assassins around Erwin immediately abandoned him to attack Onean as well.

Despite this, Onean remained completely unfazed. After injecting another burst of magic power into her staff, she spread open her arms, and her silver hair began to dance around her as four ice phoenixes flew out of her body. Even though she had let go of her staff, it was still able to produce brilliant radiance using the burst of magic power that had been injected into it.

Erwin recalled back to the first day of the Pillow Sword Tournament, where Onean had employed the same ice phoenix spell against Georgina in her match.

The four ice phoenixes immediately swooped toward the oncoming assassins, letting loose shrill cries that sent chills running down the listener's spine in the darkness of the night.

The four ice phoenixes were very effective in obstructing the Skycourt Kingdom assassins. Some of the assassins suffered severe injuries from the frost tornadoes released from the ice phoenixes' beaks, while others were struck by the frosty pellets released by the ice phoenixes' flapping wings, thereby slowing them down significantly.

Meanwhile, Larwood and the others had also made it onto the scene. This was an open battle between assassins, so it was a competition of which side's assassins were more skilled in their craft. Overall, the assassins from the Four Winds mercenary legion were at a slight disadvantage when it came to power, but with the ice phoenixes assisting them, they quickly gained the upper hand.

Erwin was still unable to use one of his arms, and he had also sustained a gash on his leg, so he didn't dare to employ his normal proactive style in battle. Thus, he could only stay off to the side, releasing spells to unleash sneak attacks on the Skycourt Kingdom assassins from behind.

All of a sudden, the Skycourt Kingdom's mercenaries were placed in a very passive position. The ones on the mountain were unable to advance any further due to the bombardment of attacks from the Four Winds mercenary legion on the airship, while the assassins tasked with killing Onean were also struggling in battle.

However, the Skycourt Kingdom's mercenaries seemed to have anticipated this, and they already had a backup plan prepared. Upon seeing the difficult situation that their assassins were in, they immediately deployed several dozen more martial artists, who leaped up into the air from the mountain. It seemed that they were determined to take Onean's life at all costs.

With the light radiating from Onean's staff, Erwin could see that the leaders of these martial artists were the same people as the ones that he had faced in battle on the airship's deck earlier in the day.

Thus, the battle taking place in the sky began to tilt in the Skycourt Kingdom's favor again as they were able to overwhelm Erwin and his group with their absolute numbers advantage.

"Sherry, send some more people to help us," Larwood yelled toward the airship.

On this occasion, it was Kaiba and Chase who led the reinforcements. Both of them were still yet to recover from their injuries, so it was quite a tall task for them to be fighting in two battles in a single day.

...

Meanwhile, on the city wall of Xeto, Francis could see that a battle had ensued between the two sides, and he hurriedly led his troops out of the city to provide reinforcements. He couldn't see how the battle in the sky was progressing, but this was a matter that concerned the safety of the princess, so he didn't dare to take any chances.