Lucien ran through the bloody battlefield with a wide grin on his face, even as he stood at the spearhead of the massive three-thousand-strong third-phase seeker’s army; the trembling of the ground reached his core with each step.

When only 100 meters were left between the two forces, the Golden Prince stomped his feet onto the ground, jumping into the sky. A silver rune sword appeared in his hand with a mental command to Prime Nexus.

Letting out a powerful, mighty battle cry, which created a shockwave of mana through the sword he wielded, he arched the sword to the farthest right. As he was in his Aurauser aspect, he covered the silver rune sword with his gold-attribute Aura.

SLASHH!!!

He made a horizontal slash with all of his might, and the crescent arc of golden aura shot out, cutting into the frontmost death knights leading the charge of the enemy army. His golden aura, which was passively strengthened by his Draconic aspect, was almost like an innate counter to the Death energy wielded by the Ghost race members.

It was like the most vile of poisons once this energy got into the energy pathways of undead-type creatures.

Because Dragons are without a shadow of a doubt the most favored beings of the World Will, while on the other hand, species that wielded dark and chaotic powers like the Ghost and Demon race are inherently despised by the World Will.

So, when Lucien attacked the vanguard of the enemy army to poison the inner systems of the strong undead creatures, the world itself almost helped him in this endeavor, ever so slightly.

As the two armies finally clashed through the skies and ground, deafening explosions that could flatten miles and miles one after another resounded like the world was about to end. The very space of the battlefield trembled under the incredible strain of so many powerful entities clashing with one another.

The soldiers of the two large armies, separated into smaller teams to face the enemy in smaller groups, many even went solo, preferring that sort of battle to go all out on their own without having to worry about coordinating with a team.

In fact, most of the third-phase seekers from mid-third phase and beyond preferred to fight solo, but the ghost race members strangely did not seem to have such a problem.

Perhaps it was a racial specialty or just the Death Energy’s special trait; they were willing to work in teams if the situation demanded it.

Not to mention, the average strength of the affiliated armies’ undead and human seekers’ phases and stages was higher overall than that of the soldiers of the Unified army.

But in there lay the problem: one of the leading figures of the monstrous Death armada, Lich Belthrax, who had mostly been observing the countless ongoing clashes without engaging himself personally, realized that something was... off.

As one of the smartest undead of his generation, he knew that by all accounts and calculations, they should be the ones on the winning side, but the reality in front of him proved otherwise; the affiliated army was being pushed backward.

At the tip of the spear were certain special individuals who were single-handedly demonstrating monstrous prowess that 10 seekers combined could not match. Belthrax was no fool; he obviously knew in advance about those few special individuals.

But those few, no matter how strong, would not be able to shift the tides of a war of this scale just through their effort alone. None of them was as terrifying as that Warlord aspect holder of the previous clash, the man who single-handedly boosted the power of an entire army to such a degree that victory was all but inevitable.

So, it was a surprise that the Warlord aspect holder was not here; it seems the cost of such a power gain was just as brutal, which was why Belthrax himself had yet to take action. Only observing.

For quite a while, he could not find an explanation for this. No matter how much he looked and observed, the human soldiers should not be able to push them back; it had already been proven in the previous two clashes that humans at the same phase and stage were weaker than a proper ghost race member of the same status.

The very reason why Humans were the weakest sentient race within Eldarion was due to a lack of racial aspect or bloodline.

Belthrax did not hesitate, switching to his ’Dreadborn’ aspect. He started chanting as the death energy all around grew denser, spreading a rippling spiritual wave none could discern. The lich’s chant sounded like the combined scream of a hundred dying spirits, wailing in their worst agony.

After almost a minute of chanting, a special ability of his aspect activated, as the creature declared, "Gaze of the Dead, 4th form..."

The sight of the undead Lich changed completely; it was only then that he could see the profound web spread throughout the entire battlefield.

It was like a divine net of anti-death energy that collectively weakened the power of all the undead and, at the same time, continued to empower the human seekers in ways they did not understand.

Belthrax growled in fury, the blue flames nestling in his sunken eyes flaring like never before, "It’s those fucking Rune weapons... again. This damn runecaster, again and again, remains the most troublesome one without even stepping onto the battlefield himself. Damn parasite."

"I knew it, we should have assassinated Axel Nomrad before the start of the war just to be safe." The Lich gnashed his teeth, which sounded like the grinding of dry bones.

Just like what Axel did in the academy attack by the ghost race, each Rune tool, apart from being just a weapon for individual use, also acted like a node of a larger network. Once a certain number of his Rune weapons were all activated, within a certain proximity of each other.

It would activate a large web of runic network, or more accurately, a mobile rune formation, which took excess energy of any seekers, converting it all of that into the purest forms of mana, constantly refilling the energy reserves of all those who continued to wield the rune weapons.

Thus, they could fight on nonstop. This method was more suitable for a chaotic war like this; unlike most other battle rune formations, this invisible rune network would be maintained without the need for any structural rigidity.

Another benefit of it was that Runes were inherently positive in nature, regardless of their attributes, as one of the purest sources of worldly power; any energy drawn from the runes inherently opposed Death and Demonic energies.

It was one of the reasons why Axel could not yet create a perfect rune tool in sync with his chaosblood aspect, as he could not find a way to get rid of the innate opposition of the runes for the demonic energy, though this opposition was extremely subtle.

At higher levels of battle, the smallest advantage or disadvantage could lead to a life-or-death situation.

Belthrax made the gesture of squinting, blue flames dancing in his sockets, pouring more energy into his draining observation ability, which had only a few more seconds of usage left; he discerned a few more traits about this profound rune network.

No skill in his arsenal could disrupt this network through the use of his Death Magic.

But there was something else he could do; the runic network existing between all the rune tools was not providing and pulling the strings of energy in an equal sense. Rather, certain individuals were given more power and privileges than the rest.

This shine was, in fact, most prevalent on the Golden Prince himself. That golden aura radiating out of the prince seemed strange; it was even more effective against the Death Energy compared to even pure light-attribute attacks.

The undead mage had to begrudgingly admit that this was a true masterpiece, a runic marvel of unfathomable magnitude. As a genius mage himself, he could only imagine how much hard work, talent, and dedication would have been required to achieve something of this magnitude.

But at the same time, a silent resolution took place in the mind of the mighty Lich. Axel Nomrad was too dangerous; he had to be killed.

His thoughts returned to the ongoing war, and Belthrax grunted in displeasure.

Lucien Suncrest was causing too much damage; the others of the ghost army within this battle, who were just as strong as Belthrax himself, were all busy in the various corners of the battlefield.

It seems he would have to deal with this shiny-haired bastard personally, in order to halt the enemy army’s march, and perhaps try to break the synergy of the runic network made by Axel Nomrad.

Lucien, meanwhile, continued to fight almost a dozen Death Knights at the same time by himself. Though not head-on, but with tactics, jumping around the battlefield, while occasionally delivering one or two potent attacks.

No matter their defenses, once a death knight was struck with his Golden Aura, they would need a good amount of time to flush out that gold-attributed energy from their systems.

Thus, unable to fight for a good while, in this manner, Lucien had rendered countless Death Knights of the vanguard useless.

As a side effect, the rest of those who came to clash against Lucien would turn even more cautious. Through this tactic, he alone could hold off dozens of powerhouses of the enemy by himself.

Out of nowhere, Lucien’s senses screamed at him, his head flicked upwards immediately, and he saw a massive ray of dark death energy heading towards him at impossible speed. His eyes widened at the sheer power of that death ray.

There was no time to dodge. With all the power he could momentarily muster, he swung his blade downward in a vertical motion, intending to cut the ray in half with his golden aura.