[Under countless expectant gazes, you order the entire army to attack!]

[The soldiers raise their arms and shout, fanatical to the extreme, all roaring that they will die in service for the Legate!]

[The Deputy Legate commands the soldiers to form up into a battle formation, shielding the five combat-powerless Military Dragonflies behind them.]

[Nearly thirty aberrated warriors step out, swing themselves onto the backs of enormous flying mounts shaped like manta rays, the bats, and rise into the air, preparing to meet the enemy.]

[Among them, three particularly burly elite soldiers leap high, climb onto the back of a colossal trilobite-like monster, and seize control of the war behemoth known as the Undying Bird.]

[The Undying Bird soars up, its massive body like three patches of dark cloud covering the battlefield, and while it gathers strength, its killing intent surges…]

Lin Xun immediately summoned the Valkyrie, the Nine-Tailed Fox, and Nurarihyon to assist in battle, and applied buff effects to them.

He ordered the Valkyrie and the Nine-Tailed Fox to take to the sky and aid the flying troops.

As for him and Nurarihyon, they remained on the ground, coordinating with the ground forces to defend.

After using the phantom illusion, Nurarihyon was hidden within his own army formation for protection. Once the ground forces could no longer hold out, it would seize the opportunity on its own to transform into its Celestial Demon form and block the numerous enemies.

[As the sky-filling cloud of dust, like a world-drowning wave, approaches, the trembling of the earth roars like thunder. The boundless Ascended army rapidly closes in.]

[Faced with such might enough to topple the heavens, if the soldiers behind you were not elites among elites, they would already have gone weak in the knees, unable to muster the slightest will to resist.]

[Yet the stronger the enemy’s might, the more excited and battle-hungry they become. Fanatical fighting spirit fills their minds. The moment the two armies clash is the most glorious instant in which they will burn their lives.]

[Before the Ascended ground army arrives, the flying troops reach you first!]

[More than four hundred griffins and nearly one hundred Flying Dragons swarm in like an enraged hive of bees.]

[The moment the enemy enters range, your own twenty-six bats, long since prepared, simultaneously spew forth streams of black flame.]

[The pitch-black flames crisscross like waterfalls. Roars and screams ring out endlessly. The air instantly fills with a pungent charred stench as more than ten griffins, along with the Ascended knights on their backs, plummet together.]

[The Divine Thunder Tribulation Cloud blankets the firmament. Every time a bolt of Purple Firmament Divine Thunder falls, it kills an enemy.]

[Arrows carrying golden lightning streak across the sky and burrow into the enemy ranks, weaving a net of lightning chains that inflicts massive damage on the enemy.]

[Three enormous shadows plunge into the flying troops composed of griffins and Flying Dragons. Just the collision of their pitch-black, rock-hard carapaced heads causes several Flying Dragons to explode into bloody mist with miserable shrieks.]

[The Undying Bird swings its two rows of segmented limbs. The huge, razor-sharp limbs are like the scythe of death itself, ceaselessly reaping the lives of enemies. From time to time, the blood of enemy troops splashes across the ground…]

[On the ground, the aberrated troops and the Scorpion Legion number little more than one hundred, yet each and every one of them grips a long spear tipped with a barbed stinger. The sharp spearheads point forward as they roar, facing the enemy army that is about to charge in!]

[Through the billowing cloud of dust, countless ferocious, cruel faces are already right before your eyes. Your field of vision is filled with enemies beyond counting, and every sound in your ears is drowned out by thunderous shouts and the pounding of charging footsteps.]

[You stand quietly, waiting. Behind you are more than one hundred elite soldiers willing to follow you to the death.]

[At last, you clench your fist and raise it high. Your hoarse voice drowns out all other sounds and echoes clearly across the blood-soaked battlefield…]

[All troops, attack!]

[You spread the bone wings on your back. Facing the incoming enemy charge, you drive your sharp bone wings into the ground…]

[Legendary+ grade skill Cruel Thorn Bone Spikes activates!]

[The bone spikes grow and spread madly beneath the earth, weaving into layer upon layer of dense veins that then suddenly burst out of the ground!]

[A thorn forest formed from bone spikes appears out of thin air. Countless enemies scream miserably as their bodies are pierced through by the sharp bone spikes and pinned within the blood-soaked forest, becoming tattered corpses riddled with holes.]

[With your full-strength strike, the very front ranks of the enemy charge are blasted into a huge empty gap, precisely where the two sides are about to clash.]

[Hundreds of enemies die at the same time. Not a single living creature remains in the thorn forest. The blood that sprays and gushes like a fountain flows into streams, staining the vast earth.]

[You have defeated Ascended Legion Soldier x376, experience value increases slightly!]

“Hm? Killing enemies on the front-line battlefield actually earns experience value!”

Lin Xun knew that in similar trial instances, in most cases you could not obtain rewards within them.

Let alone Spirit Essence and items, there would not even be experience value.

Only after completing the trial could one claim the corresponding reward from the Librarian.

The Cursed game had thrown him into a trial instance that was near-definite death. While this had greatly increased the difficulty, it had also increased the rewards.

Being able to gain a large amount of experience was the pity the Cursed game granted him.

It was as if the Cursed game believed he absolutely could not clear the trial, and the consolation prize it gave him was not just experience…

[Because of your earth-shaking, overwhelming strike, the enemies at the point of contact between the two armies are completely annihilated. The enemies swarming in afterward to fill the gap have their momentum slightly checked and are no longer as crazed and ferocious as before.]

[Seizing this opportunity, the Deputy Legate lets out a thunderous shout. The Scorpion Legion charges as one. The forest of spearheads thrusts into the enemy formation, beginning the bloodiest, cruelest melee battle!]

[You are the first to charge into the enemy ranks, ignoring the sword edges, spear tips, and blades attacking you from all directions. You swing your arms, tearing off head after head marked with expressions of terror, and raise your long legs, the scythe blades at your feet bisecting the bodies of unknown enemies at the waist…]

[Facing the five war behemoths, the Divine Kingdom Dragons, charging at you, you know you must stand your ground here. If you allow them to get close to the Scorpion Legion behind you, the consequences will be unimaginable!]

[You let out a shrill screech and drive the bone wings on your back into the ground once more…]

[The thorn forest appears again. The five giant dragons are instantly dismembered, shredded into chunks of flesh and plasma scattered across the ground…]

[…]

[Scarlet colors dye your vision red. Nothing but wave after wave of miserable screams reach your ears. Blades and weapons crash against your sturdy war armor, yet are unable to inflict any damage on you…]

[You fight covered in blood, harvesting countless lives. When you glance back, you see your Scorpion Legion already trapped within a boundless sea of enemies. They have formed a square formation, and at its very center stands the Deputy Legate, drenched in blood.]

[The Scorpion Legion was already an elite unit within the aberrated army, and the soldiers you brought with you to pursue the enemy were even more elite, each able to fight one against a hundred. But after several pursuit battles and deep strikes into enemy territory, each and every one of them is already wounded.]

[The Deputy Legate not only has to direct the soldiers to launch interlocking counterattacks to resist incoming assaults, but must also, whenever one of your soldiers dies, fill in the gap in the square formation as quickly as possible and then order the formation to shrink, thereby decreasing the number of enemies they face at any given time.]

[Even with its nearly flawless command, the Scorpion Legion’s numbers are still dropping fast. After only a short time facing the enemy, the number of survivors falls below one hundred…]

[In the skies above, after gaining the advantage in the first clash, your flying troops have also been dragged into bitter combat one after another.]

[There is no other reason. The enemy simply has too many, so many that they are enough to bite an elephant to death like swarms of ants!]

[Even with the Nine-Tailed Fox and the Valkyrie outputting damage without pause, your surviving flying troops are still decreasing uncontrollably.]

[The bats have fallen to fewer than twenty, and the three Undying Birds have taken on the brunt of the enemy’s attacks. The carapaces on various parts of their bodies are shattered, and blood flows in streams.]

[One of the Undying Birds is already grievously injured and will clearly not be able to hold on much longer…]

[How should you choose: continue to help the ground forces, or change fronts and go to the sky to support the flying troops?]

In an instant, countless thoughts flashed through Lin Xun’s mind.

The enemy’s numbers were too great to ever be completely slain. Even if he disregarded the Scorpion Legion and fought alone to hold out and kill enemies, once the fatigue value of several of his main Shells overflowed and their stamina was exhausted, he would still end up defeated and dead.

As for abandoning the Scorpion Legion and escaping alone… Lin Xun did indeed have confidence that he could flee by himself, but he could not forget what the conditions for clearing the trial were.

He had to achieve victory in this small-scale battle.

If the elite Scorpion Legion he led were wiped out to the last, it would be equivalent to losing the battle. Even if he survived and held out until the follow-up legions arrived, in all likelihood he would still be unable to obtain the rewards.

Right now, the only chance lay in the sky.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep