Chapter 387: Battle State

Seven days passed in the blink of an eye, and Dandara’s name finally reached tenth place in the ranking.

Most likely, some competitors had spent too much energy at the beginning and lost momentum, eventually being overtaken by the seven beasts that fought with relentless consistency.

However, Dandara’s creatures were also nearing their limit. Thanks to the Goddess’s Inheritance technique, their power was only equivalent to that of mid-level Enlightened Sages. In the future, when all the mutants broke through into the Primordial Chaos Beast stage, they would become infinitely stronger; but for now, this was a very clear limit.

On the seventh day, grotesque roars and screams echoed in the distance, drawing startled exclamations from the disciples.

The number of Specters increased exponentially, and giant beetles suddenly appeared among the horde. They were covered in golden armored shells marked with crimson grooves. They were visibly different from everything that had emerged until then.

Each one was about three meters tall and advanced, mixed among the giant lizards from before.

While the lizards possessed devastating offensive power, those golden beetles were the exact opposite: they possessed formidable defenses. Now that both types were attacking together, the disciples became visibly disoriented.

"Should we intervene?" Flaris asked Priam, her expression grim.

As a highly trained close-combat warrior, she immediately noticed that the fatal defensive flaw of those golden beetles lay in an almost imperceptible spot on their heads.

"No need. This is their battlefield." Priam shook his head. His cousin still had a soft heart, and she didn’t want to see people from the same sect falling in large numbers.

The core disciples naturally shouldn’t have felt so much pressure from these beetles. However, once they engaged in combat, they realized that they simply couldn’t defeat them quickly.

Those Specters weren’t absurdly powerful yet, but they coordinated perfectly, as if they were robots programmed specifically for this battle.

As a result, the pressure on the ranks increased dramatically. Several disciples were injured in the general panic, and the first fatal casualties soon began to appear.

"The strong survive. That’s the law of this world — a cruel law. Even if you help them now, you won’t be able to save them for the rest of their lives. Everyone has to fight for their own destiny," Priam said, watching Flaris’s face contort slightly.

He himself felt somewhat uncomfortable, but he had learned to swallow this kind of compassion. Dandara, on the other hand, watched the scene coldly and indifferently. After all, those disciples had been given every opportunity in the world to become strong and had wasted them; now, they were paying the price for their naivety.

This brutal reality was something all the outer disciples had already experienced firsthand.

As for the hothouse flowers in front of them, they would have to go through the same baptism of blood. Only the toughest would survive.

Nise immediately became anxious when she witnessed the casualties. Panic caused her to make one mistake after another while issuing orders, resulting in even more victims.

"Lord Priam!" Nise shouted, sweating coldly.

"Compassion can’t lead an army."

Dandara shook her head and said it indifferently. It wasn’t that she had a heart of stone, but if she wanted Nise to mature as quickly as possible, the young woman would have to face some harsh setbacks.

Priam spoke solemnly afterward:

"These golden beetles have slightly superior defenses and form a good combination with the lizards. However, against the outer disciples beside me, they’re worthless. The reason you’re panicking is that you don’t know what a real battle is. Wielding a blade and swinging it around aimlessly isn’t fighting... It’s just wasting energy and lives."

Priam paused and turned toward his own troops behind him.

"Evanthe!"

"Present."

A woman answered the call — a Holy Sage who wasn’t even specialized in direct combat. She was a medium-height, slender healer with a fragile appearance, wearing a soft white robe that offered little protection.

She walked up to Priam holding an apparently simple wooden staff.

"Go and show them what a real battle is." Priam gestured toward the chaos of the battlefield.

"Yes," Evanthe replied, a sharp glint appearing in her eyes.

She then advanced with graceful, swift steps, charging directly into the tide of Specters.

"She...!"

When they saw Evanthe face that shapeless mass of enemies armed with nothing but a wooden staff, the core disciples were left dumbfounded.

Did that delicate-looking woman actually intend to fight those terrifying monsters in close combat?!

Evanthe advanced, and a golden beetle attacked her first. As it approached, the monster retracted its limbs beneath its shell and projected the full weight of its body forward to crush her.

This was the most annoying maneuver of those beetles: even if someone killed them with a weapon while they were in the air, the impact of their falling mass would destabilize the warrior, leaving them vulnerable to the lizards’ claws.

What surprised everyone was that when the golden beetle lunged toward her, Evanthe didn’t even use her staff to block it. Instead, she made an agile leap and pressed the edge of its shell with the tip of her foot.

The golden beetle spun off balance, and Evanthe lightly pressed the tip of her staff against the creature’s head. The staff was a Divine-Grade Spiritual Equipment — originating from the treasure vault of the 11th Branch — and possessed an emergency offensive function.

*BANG!*

The beetle’s head instantly exploded.

As soon as the Specter collapsed from a single blow, several lizards charged toward Evanthe simultaneously. But the woman didn’t even flinch; her expression remained cold and indifferent, like that of a veteran warrior who had already walked through hell countless times.

Her staff struck like a viper, precisely hitting a protrusion just beneath the targets’ front claws.

With that simple touch of the wooden staff, a dazzling white light flowed through them, and the lizards stiffened instantly, exploding into a rain of red blood.

They died cleanly and instantly.

Evanthe’s figure continued moving fluidly amid the frantic mass of Specters.

Her staff struck with pinpoint precision, repetition after repetition. She was like a small boat gliding across turbulent waves; no matter how stormy the sea became, it could never sink her. On the contrary, it was the monstrosities that ended up sinking and falling one by one.

Quickly, more and more creatures advanced toward her. Evanthe easily dodged every attack without taking a single step backward, reaping one enemy after another.

The core disciples were filled with a mixture of reverence and awe as they witnessed such ease. She hadn’t even invoked her Essence of Creation. With nothing but a ’wooden staff,’ she was carrying out a massacre without the slightest effort.

Dandara nodded, satisfied.

Even though Evanthe was a support Holy Sage, in the chaos of the battlefield, no one could be protected all the time. Precisely because of this, Dandara required supports to train in physical combat with far greater rigor than any other class.

Because they didn’t belong to a direct-combat class, they would never match the others in raw destructive power during open combat. However, since they spent most of their time observing from a distance, they developed the tactical eye necessary to instantly spot the glaring weaknesses of enemies like these.

Thus, when forced into direct confrontation, they knew exactly how to survive and buy time.

It was safe to say that there wasn’t a single man or woman in Priam’s army who was easy to kill.

"Your fighting method is as primitive as possible. All you know how to do is foolishly attack with maximum force instead of identifying and exploiting your opponent’s weak points. Not only does this drain your energy, but it also exposes you to danger. Every form of life has weaknesses. If you learn to see them, even the most terrifying enemy will become as vulnerable as a rabbit," Priam’s voice rang out clearly to all the core disciples.

"Besides, fighting and killing are completely different concepts. When you fight, you’re defending yourself. When you kill, you’re risking your own life to take another’s. I’ve said it before: those who fear death the most are the first to fall. Only by forgetting the terror of death will you be able to fight at your full potential. However, words are only theory. If you can’t absorb this through practice, you won’t understand it even at the moment of your death. This is the priceless experience accumulated by the outer disciples beside me, earned by walking the thin line between life and death. Evanthe, return."

"This battlefield belongs to you. If you want to become true experts and reach the top of this world, know that there are no shortcuts. The only reason you seem so weak right now is because you’re shackled by fear — while the support standing before you overcame that obstacle years ago."

"If your fear of death is too great, feel free to retreat. My army will block the hordes. But if you want to become experts like them — or even surpass them — there’s only one choice left: go all out!"

*BOOM!*

Evanthe slammed her staff into the ground. Countless wooden stakes burst from the earth, instantly impaling the line of enemies in front of her.

The attack opened a clear corridor through the mass of Specters, allowing her to calmly return to Priam’s faction.

"Kill!"

"Even a support risked her life on the front lines! If we retreat, are we even men?!"

"Kill!"

"Why were we chosen by the sect?! Where is our talent?! I’ll prove that I deserve my place!"

"Kill!"

Evanthe’s demonstration ignited a blazing fire in the chests of those young geniuses.

Until then, many had been trembling and failing out of sheer terror, even dying shamefully in their desperation.

Seeing a supporter stare into the abyss while they cowardly hesitated provoked a visceral fury — a deep hatred toward their own weakness.

Consumed by this violent awakening, the core disciples plunged into battle, beginning an unrestricted slaughter. It was as if each of their souls were on fire.

As they abandoned their fear, their spiritual perception expanded dramatically. A subtle control over their surroundings, previously inaccessible to them, began to manifest.

Before, paralyzed by fear, their reflexes had been limited to whatever immediate attack appeared before their eyes. Now, with their minds free of terror, their tactical field of vision expanded: they noticed attacks coming from behind and dodged them with instinctive ease.

After all, they were already geniuses by nature. All it took was the shock caused by Evanthe to break through their mental block and put them into a true ’battle state.’ Their destructive power skyrocketed.

Their raw power hadn’t magically changed — they had always possessed that strength. It was fear that kept them shackled. Even when they believed they were giving it their all, it had merely been an illusion.

Their current performance didn’t even seem to belong to the same people from moments ago.

Whether it was Nise, Safira, or anyone else... as they witnessed this collective metamorphosis, a deep reverence for Priam and his methods blossomed in each of their hearts.

After reaching that state, the core disciples transformed into sharp and lethal blades.

They finally emanated the imposing aura of true experts. If a Central Elder had been there to witness the scene, they would have been left speechless. Hardly anyone besides the combination of Priam and Dandara could have forged such a mental transformation in such a short time.

"Fuck, don’t attack blindly! Use the minimum amount of energy necessary to neutralize your opponent! Maintain a rhythm between advancing and retreating, turning the battle into a sustainable cycle. That’ll ensure you have enough stamina to fight for much longer. And never forget to keep an energy reserve for emergencies..."

Dandara’s voice echoed firmly across the battlefield. Seeing the disciples fighting with such intensity, even her own hands began to itch. She also longed to fight for real.