As long as he continued attacking Cinzolia, he would be able to accumulate unprecedented amounts of XP. In the long run, it would be better to put off helping Arimiar for as long as possible in order to grow his strength. He also had the time to train and get experience in real battles. The issue with this was obvious. He was running out of time. His lifespan wasn’t so long as to allow him to train and store XP without a care in the world. It was vital for him to stabilize humanity’s position in the Convergence before he died, at the very least. The best-case scenario would be winning the Convergence and defeating the Creator before death, but that sounded unlikely.

He needed to strike a balance between developing his power and advancing his plans. There was also the problem of whether Arimiar would hold on for longer. He had no idea if the Drakkhan was losing or winning the battle, but if the Commander were losing, Liam was forced to consider that maybe stalling for time would lead to Arimiar’s defeat. The two commanders had been fighting for months on end. There was no telling how exhausted they were or the condition of their conflict.

‘One more month. After one more month, I will go to Arimiar and bring this siege to a close.’

Liam stood up from the mat, grabbing his spear from beside him. His newly-acquired Elite Captain Armor slithered over his skin and covered him from head to toe.

‘I’ll train for ten days and fight for twenty. After that, this will all be over.’

He began immediately.

The atmosphere inside the room grew turbulent as he moved at blinding speed, executing his usual routine. This time, however, he added even more moves to it. They were moves he had created with the knowledge he had developed over the last month of fighting and training. His Perception stat and talent allowed him to grow faster than anyone else he knew. In only a short month, the moves he envisioned were already close to becoming a proper Skill series. It could be considered that he had almost created a new spearmanship art in a month.

Liam continuously increased the intensity and rhythm of his training, making sure he was pushing himself. Since he could now use the full power of his stats, it was only natural that the training got even more insane. Thankfully, the training room still managed to hold on, as it was designed to do. He condensed millions of repetitions in a short period, effectively training more in the same amount of time. Every movement was perfectly calculated and executed. There was no wasted time.

In such a fashion, the ten days went by in a flash.

Liam left the room and the ship, flying through the deserts of Zancorix in the direction of Cinzolia Fortress.

The twenty days of fighting had begun.

Just like before, he hid his presence and went underground after getting a bit closer. The Aura cloak surroundings his body easily dug through the sand and stone surrounding him, allowing him to move just like he would above ground. He didn’t activate Aura Sight, so that the enemies wouldn’t sense the disturbance in the Aura around them, and relied only on his memory to reach the fortress.

As the sand above him gave way to an otherworldly material, Liam knew he had arrived. Shifting upwards, he lay his hand on the floor above him. The mysterious metallic stone that made up Cinzolia Fortress could resist the attack of Elite Captains with ease, but it hadn’t been designed to withstand blows coming from Commander-class beings. Liam wasn’t quite there yet, but he was more than capable of destroying the material, as he had many times before.

Of course, since the Drakkhan Empire’s siege’s objective was to conquer the fortress and not destroy it, it would be better not to damage the structure much. Liam didn’t care about that. Doing something that would benefit the Empire was among the least of his concerns. He would’ve already razed Cinzolia to the ground if he could, but the fortress was still too large and resistant for him to do so.

He then used the best Skill he had to pierce through the floor and burst inside the enemy territory.

‘Singularity.’

It all happened in an instant. A section of the ground in the southeastern part of Cinzolia exploded, giving way to the sand underneath. An extremely small, almost invisible black and golden dot of light flew out of the opening, expanding into a black-armored human male. A mere moment after he showed up, the man swung his spear. An enormous wave of Aura engulfed his surroundings as several buildings were swept away, wounding or killing hundreds of enemies.

In an instant, the attention of the entire fortress was turned to him. However, there was surprisingly no killing intent. Few projectiles were shot his way, clearly without the intention of harming him. It was the consequence of Liam’s past few outings.

Cinzolia’s troops no longer fought him directly. Every time he arrived, they were far more preoccupied with escaping and saving themselves than fighting him head-on. It was the right choice, as far as Liam was concerned. They couldn’t harm him in any way without soul attacks, which none of the troops seemed to be proficient in. Of course, as long as millions teamed up, they would be able to continuously destroy his body, but it would be pointless. They would spend their entire energy pool without being able to truly damage his existence, only for him to regenerate in less than a second after all of it.

Liam already expected this behavior from them. Nevertheless, he didn’t let his guard down. He had no room to do so, mostly because the increase in his Perception forced his Will to be strained at all times, not allowing him to let his guard down, but also because he was fully aware that the troops were not helpless against him. They couldn’t damage him, yes, but capture wasn’t impossible. Despite the increase in his stats and the difference every stat point made, the combined effort of tens of millions of enemies to capture him wouldn’t be something Liam was capable of overcoming. He needed to kill as many soldiers as possible, as quickly as possible, and then leave before the troops decided to try capturing him.

This would be the last time he fought against the troops before going to help Arimiar. It was imperative for him to give his all. Liam’s eyes were melancholic as he realized the weight of his actions. Butchering thousands of beings who were forced to fight against him by the Kingdom of Luweth wasn’t morally correct. He knew this. He simply had no room to try a different path. His lifespan didn’t allow it.

Burying the hesitation deep within his heart, Liam expanded his Aura Perception to its furthest limits, encompassing the location of as many soldiers as possible. He spotted their figures desperately running away and sighed before swinging his spear tens of times. He flew through the air as he bombarded everything around him with unceasing Crescent Moon Waves. Due to the increase in his Aura stat and his personal mastery over spearmanship, the technique had grown more powerful and was now more than enough to kill Cinzolia’s soldiers.

It was a complete massacre. Liam felt no tension in spite of being massively outnumbered. Worst-case scenario, his superior speed allowed him to run away without issue. He reaped lives as if he were harvesting grass, the burden on his heart growing with every passing second.

Gradually, more and more troops turned to him. There was only so much running veteran soldiers could bear to do before resolving themselves to die fighting. The attacks coming Liam’s way became hundreds and then thousands. They were all dodged or blocked as the youth’s vastly superior stats let him compensate for his lacking experience. As the number of blows became tens and then hundreds of thousands, however, Liam felt the strain for the first time since his arrival.

He flew, weaving between waves and blades of Aura that were several kilometers long and wide, breaking apart the attacks when he couldn’t find an opening. Wherever he looked, the space was completely dominated by the sheer number of attacks coming his way. It was only due to his small size that he managed to find the openings to dodge.

Liam looked up. An Aura beam shot towards him as he flew upwards. He bent his legs and kicked the air. A sonic boom echoed as the air acted as a solid surface, imploding and forcing Liam to fly sideways. An Aura blade came from below, but Liam flew to the side using Aerial Movement. From behind, the sides, and ahead, various other attacks pierced at him. He rotated his body, shooting a Crescent Moon Wave at a 360-degree angle at the same time he activated Event Horizon. The flying attacks slowed down before being crushed by the Wave, their users being torn apart by it. Yet, every attack was replaced by ten more, and when Liam overcame those, each was replaced by a hundred more.

Cinzolia’s soldiers were taking advantage of the only superior factor they had. Their numbers. Like moths throwing themselves into a flame, they unceasingly poured the entirety of their energy into their attacks, as if trying to wound Liam one more time before their death. The man thought to himself.

‘Most of them have decided to die fighting, here and now.’

It meant that the number of enemies he would be fighting had increased to hundreds of millions. Of course, just like before, due to spatial limitations, only a few thousand could face him at a time, but the ones defeated would be immediately replaced.

Cinzolia’s machine had started to grind Liam down. Slowly, Liam felt his energy reserves start to deplete. He did not panic. He kept fighting, killing the endless waves of soldiers and destroying or avoiding every blow that came his way. Cinzolia’s walls and floor shook every time he swung his spear as buildings were crushed and entire sections were leveled.