Chapter 229: So It Begins
"Master Umbra has been working on the sigil rune all this time...we have been resting..." Aether suddenly said.
As soon as he said these words, he turned to the arcana mages who were busy resting around him and said in a loud voice:
"GET READY, WE HAVE A LOT OF WORK TO DO!!!"
However, James had somehow managed to get to his camp tent. The fact that Aether had alerted Nyx and the altar he had set up made everything much easier. At least the outer floors were neither chaotic nor worried.
All they could do was wait. Perhaps they could place other climbers and army pieces that had almost become demigods on different floors as protection, just in case.
At the moment, not only Olympus and Asgard but many gods and goddesses were doing their best. After all, each person wanted to protect what they had, just in case.
When James finally fell asleep and woke up, he came out of his tent and realised that the sun was high in the sky. It looked like he had slept for almost three or four hours.
This was not enough to completely replenish his arcana energy, but since he had not tried to increase it much, his arcana energy was small compared to his mana, and he had managed to replenish 70% of it.
This was a great advantage. Eventually, the seal rune around the centre was finished and it occurred to him that he just needed to help draw it.
The skin under his eyes was purple with fatigue. He had a body that didn't seek sleep, but when he slept and felt that he hadn't had enough of it, a terrible feeling came over him.
Nevertheless, the work that had to be done had to be completed, even if it was forced.
After a short while, having successfully made it to the area where Aether and the other arcana mages were working, James looked around at the runes and saw that the runes to restrict black magic spells had been drawn in great depth.
It was obvious that every single piece of runes they had made was beyond James. James hadn't realised he was this bad at anything for a long time, not since he'd entered the tower he hadn't even had a chance to see that he was bad at something, as luck had been smiling on him despite his lack of luck.
"Sir, you're awake...you should have rested a little longer." one of the arcana mages said, and with that voice, more than two hundred arcana mages working together looked in James' direction.
"My arcana energy is already close to full, keep working, if we manage to finish this today we can build some attack runes, I have a couple of good attack runes," said James.
With James' words, everyone went back to their work and he began to help the arcana mages who were working in the space he had found.
Strangely enough, the arcana mages managed to do more work in just four hours than they had done in 19 hours.
I guess the fact that James had pushed himself so hard had inspired them.
That was a good thing. Almost 80 per cent of the rune array was already finished.
James was frankly surprised by what had happened. Starting from the furthest town, they had managed to bring it to the town that James had cleared.
The shiny runes that could be seen on the left and right of the first towns showed James how much work he had to do.
After almost 2 hours, the arcana mages and James somehow managed to finish the rune circle.
After that, James stood where he was, sweating again. After a short while, he reached into his inventory and pulled out a few chests.
"Let's not consume the army's food, it makes more sense to eat this and go back," James said, and with that, after a short meal time, the group entered the camp area.
James went straight back to the camp tent and put his head on the bed without doing anything and fell asleep.
This time a bigger sleep was waiting for him.
No one could wake him up and he managed to sleep for almost two days without a sound sleep. This was not a good thing because when he opened his eyes again, he realised that even the tent he was in was covered with black magic.
Suddenly he stepped out of the tent and looked around.
He realised that the huge army was stationed around the town.
One soldier seemed to have stayed in the tent only to inform James. Thanks to that soldier, James had managed to get to Eve and the other nobles quickly.
When he looked up, he saw that the sky, which should have been bright at this hour, was dark.
Eve herself and the others seemed happy that James had arrived. After all, no matter what they did, they could not wake him up.
James had instantly removed the holy sword Clarent, his little girl Miracle and Ruby, who now seemed to be awake, from his inventory and then spoke:
"Miracle, you won't leave my side. Grandma Ruby, please focus on protecting me, this army is not something you can destroy with your current energy. The fact that you are already on the 35th floor suppresses your power tremendously. Just focus on protecting me."
After his words, the little girl Miracle turned into a dragon form and landed on James' head as usual.
Ruby sat on Miracle's head.
It would be quite logical to say that it was quite a funny image.
Thanks to the restriction spells drawn around the towns and the circle spell drawn around the town on top of it, the infiltration rate of black magic seemed to be incredibly reduced. This was a much better thing than thought.
The seal runes James had drawn in the centre seemed to have already begun to work.
Seal runes and restriction runes were the most used types, as they only required arcana energy to draw. They were nothing like the buff runes James had used in Blessed's dungeon.
It was respectable that black magic could offer such a huge amount of energy despite being restricted. He didn't know who had cast these spells, but James was secretly afraid, the threat of seven of them appearing here at once was the most terrible thing.
After almost three hours of waiting, the black magic itself had stopped. Not only was there no trace of any magic left, but even the images of the spells seemed to have been erased.
James seemed to have been mistaken, at least that was what everyone thought, including himself, that the runes that had been set up had prevented any danger.
These thoughts put everyone at ease until everything went wrong.
Suddenly the earth began to tremble, like a gigantic earthquake. The runes that had been drawn on the earth began to crumble, and with it, the huge main shield that had been created was broken.
At the same time, the restriction runes in the six towns disappeared, and the black magic coming out of the area where the artefacts were located moved completely to the central area.
Then a passage, perhaps a hundred metres long and almost seventy metres in size, was formed inside the heptagon.
The plan had failed. Three days' work had gone down the drain.
"EVERYONE GET READY!!!" shouted James suddenly, as if he alone felt the enormity of the danger that had suddenly approached them. With his orders flags moved for communication between the army that has more than 200.000 people inside of it.
And with him saying these words, everyone was able to keep their guard serious again.
All of them suddenly realised how dangerous what was happening was.
Even though the thousands of monsters that had started to come out of the passage had left everyone in fear, there was no going back from there.
Either they had to fight and die or hide and wait for the monsters to find them.
In the depths of all this fear and danger, the entire empire and even more than twenty thousand warriors of Asgard had only one thing in mind:
[No monster would overtake this army, no monster would harm the people of the empire].
With these thoughts, the faith that had begun to burn in their hearts seemed to give them all hope.
An army of more than 200,000 people attacked against an army of hundreds of thousands of monsters that had suddenly come upon them.
Spells began to explode over an area of almost 400 kilometres.
The screams of death, elemental reactions, and the sounds of earthquakes were ringing in the ears.
It was too early for James to attack, he wanted to make everyone's job easier by attacking the monsters he considered strong in between.
Just then something strange happened:
"RUMBLE!!!"
An incredibly loud thunderclap echoed across the battlefield, and then it started to rain.
The puddles of blood that had already begun to fall to the ground began to flow with the water that had officially begun to accumulate.
It was as if the 35th floor itself was crying.
It was a terrible but also a majestic sight.