The Wood Guardian is like a massive giant made from old trees and logs. It’s super tall, standing at about 18 meters, which is taller than most trees in the forest. Its body looks like big tree trunks all joined together. It has eyes that are like hollowed-out knots in wood, and they glow a soft yellow. The arms of the guardian are like big branches, and its hands have long wooden fingers. Its legs are thick like the base of big trees, and when it walks, it sounds like heavy wood thumping on the ground. The guardian’s face has features carved from the wood, with a simple mouth and nose. It gives off a feeling of being old and wise, just like the ancient trees in deep forests. It’s like a walking, protective forest giant.

Boooom!!!!!

The whole tide of the battle had changed with the arrival of the three Guardians. Each three Guardian was built like a tank. In front of them, none of the Soul Devouring Spiders were able to stand. The spiders were crushed to death. 

Even though the situation was under control for now, Riya knew that the number of soul-devouring Spiders was massive. More reinforcements were needed. 

Fortunately, around 20 minutes later, 100,000 troops reinforcements arrived on the battlefield. Seeing them, the troops that had been fighting till now felt really relieved. With an Additional 100,000 troops, the battle was going to become even easier and the burden from their shoulders would be reduced. 

“Look at that! We’ve got backup!” a young infantryman shouted.

“Haha, those spiders won’t know what hit ’em!” another soldier chuckled, the tension visibly easing from his shoulders.

“I knew they’d come! We aren’t alone in this!” a sergeant declared, her eyes glistening with unshed tears of relief.

An archer, pulling back his bowstring, commented, “With this many extra hands, we might just push them back faster than we thought!”

A nearby mage, who’d been constantly casting spells to fend off the spiders, sighed deeply. “I was about to reach my limit. Thank the gods they’re here.” Although physically they did not feel any exhaustion, after fighting this long, they were mentally starting to feel exhausted. 

A group of cavalry, seeing the reinforcements, whooped in joy, their horses neighing in what seemed like approval. “This is it! The turning point!” one of them cried.

Soldiers began clapping each other on the back, the weight of hopelessness now replaced by newfound vigor. The morale of the troops skyrocketed. The heavy burden they’d felt, the responsibility of holding the line, was now shared, lightened.

“Let’s give those spiders a taste of the Istarin might!” a commander bellowed, rallying his troops with the sight of reinforcements in the backdrop. The soldiers, with reignited spirit and backed by the sheer number of new comrades, prepared to push forward with newfound determination.

Riya silently watched them while keeping herself hidden from everyone’s view with a smile. She too felt relieved now that an additional 100,000 troops had arrived. 

And so with the additional troops of 100,000 and with the goddess of Nature by their side, the momentum of the whole battle changed. It took around 3 hours to end the battle. By the end of it, 5 million Soul-Devouring Spiders had been killed by 150,000 troops which was nothing but a miracle. 

If not for the Goddess of Nature, they would have long lost this battle, and the people of Icetail Fortress would have become the food of the Soul-Devouring Spiders. The battle was the toughest battle that the troops had ever fought but fortunately, they had won and Icetail Fortress still stands as an impenetrable fortress. 

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Scene change____

However, there were 5 other cities including the Icetail Fortress, and the Aurora Frostreach (the former capital), that were attacked by the Soul Devouring Spiders. Aditya alone defended the Aurora Frostreach and fought against a whooping 25 million Soul Devouring Spiders. Riya greatly assisted 150,000 troops in withstanding attacks from 5 million Soul Devouring Spiders. 

Compared to the millions of Soul Devouring Spiders that attacked the former capital and the Icetail Fortress, the number of Soul Devouring Spiders that attacked the other five cities was rather small not more than 2.5 million in total but more than enough to break the defense of those cities. Fortunately, the generals of the Istarin Empire were deployed to each of these cities in time along with a large number of troops. 

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Scene change______

Silvermist Harbor is a city that is located on the coast. Around a few centuries back, the city was nothing but a small village where the people of the village lived by fishing and farming. But as the Northern Frost Dragon Empire grew, this village also grew. In less than a century the population of this city grew from less than 10,000 to 1,200,000 in number. The reason for such fast growth was because of the Gold mine that was found just a few kilometers away from the city. The White Dragon King heavily invested in this city. 

“General Henry, the Soul Devouring Spiders are here.” One of the soldiers informed General Henry about the arrival of the Soul Devouring Spiders. The whole city has been shut down. The defensive dome of the Silvermist Harbor has been activated. Magic cannons have been loaded. Archers were ready with their arrows. Mages were ready to launch their powerful spells. Everything was ready. Everyone was just waiting for General Henry’s command. 

“Don’t do anything for now….” Everyone thought that as soon as the horde of Soul Devouring Spiders arrived in their way, General Henry would order them to attack but rather he told them to stop, this made most of the troops confused. Especially the archers and the mages looked confused hearing this. 

Meanwhile, the infantry were grinning like devils. The smiles on their faces said a lot of things. 

The Silvermist Harbor was attacking from the South direction. The scouts that General Henry sent out had collected valuable information on the enemy. The size of the enemy was somewhere around 500,000. Fortunately, there weren’t any 5th-order Soul Devouring Spiders in the horde. This fact already increased their chances of winning a lot higher than before. Because if they were forced to face a 5th-order cultivator, they would have a hard time. 

Henry folded his hands on his arms as he coldly stared at the incoming horde of the Soul Devouring Spiders from the south. From the walls, he and other troops could see white small things running toward them. 

The areas around the Silvermist Harbor were grassland fields. As the Soul Devouring Spiders stepped within 1500 meters range of the city, a loud explosion took place. 

Boom!!!!

Following the first explosion, many other explosions began to take place. It wasn’t just one or two or even 10 explosions happening at the same time. More than hundreds if not thousands of explosions were taking place at the same time. Each explosion was releasing a small mushroom cloud of smoke. 

Booom!!!

Booom!!!

Booom!!!

Booom!!!

Around an entire minute later the explosion stopped. All of the troops looked at the scene in a mix of shock and disbelief. The view in front of them had been blocked by the heavy black cloud of smoke. 

“What just happened?” Asked one of the mages while staring at the scene in front of him in a daze. 

“General Henry had ordered us to set up traps a few hours ago. These traps are not just ordinary traps. These were 3-star and 4-star explosion tags. We had put more than 20,000 of these explosion tags on the ground. Each explosion tag is powerful enough to kill several 3rd-order cultivators. 

Hearing this everyone was shocked. These explosion tags were ordered to be created by Aditya. All of the 4-star explosion tags were created by him and the rest were mostly created by other runemasters or bought for emergency situations such as the current situation. 

From this unexpected invasion, the Istarin Empire already suffered a lot of casualties. Henry wasn’t willing to let more troops of the Empire die. So he asked Spencer if he could use the explosion tags. And Spencer gave him the green light and handed him the entire stock supple of the explosion tags to Henry. 

“Dragonians, and Dragon warriors, take care of the rest.” The next second, thousands of Dragonians flew up in the air and went hunting the remaining Soul Devouring Spiders. Dragon Warriors transformed into Dragons and joined the Dragonians in the battle. 

The Dragon Warriors were wild Dragons that evolved into Dragon Warriors after Aditya gave them a drop of his Divine Blood. 

“The battle here is over. Inform the people of this city about the news.” And soon announcement was made. Hearing the announcement the whole city celebrated. The soldiers began to see General Henry in a new light. To them, General Henry was badass and really cool. 

He was cold and always calm-minded. He wasn’t good at talking or at giving motivational speeches before the battle. He spoke through his actions not by his words.

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Scene change______

Emberhold was the city that Amber was in charge of defending from the Soul Devouring Spiders. She had brought her entire 5th-division members to the Emberhold city. Right now she was watching as the Soul Devouring Spiders marched towards the city. 

She had cleverly used the earth mages to build a trench surrounding the whole city of Emberhold. The trench that the earth mages created wasn’t just a simple trench. The trench was 100 meters deep and 50 meters wide. 

And what’s more, the trench was filled with corrosive acid. This wasn’t just simple acid. Thanks to her best friend Julia helping her out, she was about to execute her plan. Julia created this corrosive acid. The acid is so strong that it can instantly corrode the body of a 3rd-order Soul Devouring Spider. 

On the other side of the trench, Amber had put hundreds of magic cannons, infantry, cavalry, mages, and knights. Not to mention that she had 5000 Dragonians and 1000 Dragon warriors under her command. The strength of 5000 Dragonians isn’t something that should be underestimated. 

The Number of Soul Devouring Spiders that attacked Emberhold was somewhere around 600,000. With the preparations that she made, her troops should have no problem winning this battle with very few casualties. 

An hour into the battle, everything was going according to Amber’s plans. The trench that she made was working really well. And the cherry on top, she received an additional reinforcement of 500,000 troops.

Not to mention the fact that after evolving and reaching beginner 5th-order, Amber had become the strongest Istarin General. In the end, She was able to end the battle in less than two hours. 

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The other three cities large number of reinforcements. A total of 5,000,000 additional troops were sent to win the battles in the other three cities. One of the cities was being guarded by General Scott. The second city was being protected by General Josh and General Nathan. The third City was being protected by General Eleanor and General Tyler. 

The other three cities were also able to defend themselves from the Soul Devouring Spiders and achieve victories. However, the threat from the Soul Devouring Spiders wasn’t over yet. The immediate danger of these spiders was gone but as long as these spiders were left alone, very soon their number was going to start growing rapidly once again. 

And this is exactly what worried Aditya. Even though he alone was able to defend Aurora Frostreach from 25 million Spiders, he had no time to be happy or to relax as he had to work on preparing for the next wave of spiders. He had now two choices. Either, slaughter every single one of the Spiders or face them in the next wave. With their fast reproduction, a week should be more than enough for them to recover their numbers. 

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