Henwell knows it’s crucial to maintain long-range pressure on the Fury Spirits, getting caught in close-quarters chaos would only make things worse if the forces get split apart.

  He shouts, “Push forward and gather all the arrows!”

  Thanks to the nature of Fury Spirits, arrows don’t get badly damaged; once a Fury Spirit vanishes, its arrows fall to the ground intact.

  Within a hundred meters ahead of their formation, countless arrows litter the battlefield.

  After issuing the order, Henwell leads the charge, swinging his war spear as he leaps into the Fury Spirit horde, cutting through them like a whirlwind.

  In an instant, vast empty patches open up, and the squads press forward steadily.

  Before long, they pass beyond the scattered arrows.

  Each squad dispatches two members to collect the arrows from the ground.

  Henwell covers the rear, allowing the knights to gradually pull back from the intense frontline.

  His pn is to fall back into the fortress and use its terrain for defense.

  But suddenly, a new, greater threat emerges.

  As the troops retreat toward the fortress courtyard wall, the wall is violently breached.

  Dozens of Fury Spirits pour through, attacking the rear ranks.

  Fortunately, every squad has at least one Battle Knight who immediately intercepts the Fury Spirits, buying precious time for the troops to react.

  Through the colpsed wall, the group realizes something arming.

  At some unknown point, numerous Fury Spirit shadows have appeared inside the courtyard, and their numbers keep growing.

  Even worse, several Fury Spirits have broken inside the fortress itself, bursting out from various doors and windows.

  This means everyone is now completely surrounded by Fury Spirits.

  Before Henwell can decide the next move, the Fury Spirits outside suddenly surge in a frenzy, unching a full-on assault against the knights’ defensive lines.

  What’s worse, Henwell notices the Fury Spirits are now materializing much faster.

  Where it used to take two minutes for a Fury Spirit to shift from shadow to solid form, now it takes less than a minute.

  Though Henwell fights fiercely, sshing down the surging Fury Spirits, their numbers have already crossed a critical threshold, beginning to split the squads apart.

  The Henwell group’s knights, under Orak’s command, react swiftly.

  Seeing the situation worsen, five squads immediately start regrouping.

  Just in time, before being completely divided, they barely manage to form two clusters.

  One cluster consists of three knight squads led by Orak himself, all from Phoenix and Orak’s own command.

  The other cluster includes two squads from Peace Haven.

  Though Peace Haven’s numbers are smaller, their knights coordinate better, so their combat effectiveness isn’t far behind.

  In contrast, the Golden Guard Knights face a much more dangerous situation.

  Their eight squads regroup more slowly and end up split into four fragments.

  The distribution is uneven: the rgest group has three squads, two groups have two squads each, and the st group consists of only one squad, with no Battle Knight to lead.

  This lone squad immediately feels immense pressure, and everyone is trapped in a tight encirclement, making rescue difficult.

  Facing the relentless, crashing waves of Fury Spirits, the knights struggle just to hold their ground, let alone push forward to help.

  Two minutes ter, the besieged squad starts taking casualties.

  Once that breach opens, the situation rapidly deteriorates.

  As their leader, Obian can’t simply watch his men fall.

  Charging ahead, his longsword fshing, Obian strikes fiercely.

  He leads two squads to link up with another two.

  Then, despite his men’s protests, Obian hands over command and charges alone toward the isoted knight squad.

  A Battle Knight forged on the battlefield, Obian is just over forty years old with a brutal fighting style.

  He’s no showman, every move is a solid, deadly technique honed in countless wars.

  Experienced in fighting surrounded by enemies, Obian knows the nuances of chaotic melee combat.

  It’s not about how many enemies you kill or how fierce you are.

  It’s about reading the moment, minimizing losses, and sting as long as possible.

  Obian charges forward for dozens of meters, reaching the isoted knight squad fighting desperately.

  By now, two knights in that ten-man squad have fallen, and two more are gravely wounded.

  The remaining six are all nursing injuries to varying degrees.

  Upon arriving, Obian takes over part of the defensive effort, freeing one knight to tend to the two seriously injured.

  Meanwhile, Henwell notices several unusual Fury Spirits materializing into reality.

  These Fury Spirits look much like the others in size and shape, but each bears an extra glowing symbol on its chest.

  If destroying any one of these glowing marks causes the Fury Spirit to vanish, then this added weak point is good news.

  An extra kill point means improved efficiency in sying them.

  But soon, these Twin-Eyed Fury Spirits dash Henwell’s hopes.

  After the battle, Henwell confirms that only by destroying both “eyes” can these Twin-Eyed Fury Spirits be fully eliminated.

  Even worse, these Twin-Eyed Fury Spirits possess strength equivalent to knights.

  Although fewer than ten appear, Henwell can easily cut them down.

  Still, it’s bad news. It proves that stronger Fury Spirits truly exist.

  Not to mention the even fiercer Fury Spirits out there, just a few dozen knight-level Twin-Eyed Fury Spirits combined with numerous One-Eyed Fury Spirits could spell utter disaster.

  At best, half the knights present might survive half an hour.

  Gradually, Henwell discovers something else: if he only shatters the limbs of these Twin-Eyed Fury Spirits without killing them outright, no new Twin-Eyed Fury Spirits will appear.

  That’s a silver lining.

  Henwell immediately reduces the newly emerged Twin-Eyed Fury Spirits to mere stumps, deliberately avoiding finishing blows.

  But before he can rex, those crippled Fury Spirits regain their fighting strength.

  It turns out they don’t regrow limbs on their own.

  However, other Fury Spirits graft limbs onto them to restore their power.

  The grafting method is peculiar: One-Eyed Fury Spirits detach their heads and pce them onto the chests of the Twin-Eyed Fury Spirits.

  The Twin-Eyed Fury Spirits absorb the single eye symbol from the transpnted heads.

  Meanwhile, the One-Eyed Fury Spirits without heads colpse and vanish.

  With the grafted heads, the Twin-Eyed Fury Spirits rapidly manifest new arms and legs.