Chapter 112
They saw their own mouths moving, felt their throats tightening, yet no commands came through.
Tactical communication—the lifeblood of their formation—had been completely severed.
All that remained were desperate hand signals and exchanged glances, eyes straining to convey panic that had to be forcibly contained.
At the center of the storm, a subtler yet far more dangerous calamity was unfolding.
The incantation of the Five Possibilities, woven by the Banner of Zhulumat, suddenly suffered a catastrophic frequency disruption.
The wave of sanctity from the chants of thousands of beings did not merely suppress them; it actively scrambled the threads of probability they were in the midst of weaving.
More horrifying still, the Satanic High Elders sensed a malicious metaphoric shift.
The Five Possibilities—meant to serve as traps and defenses against their enemies—abruptly reversed their direction.
Instead of targeting the ranks of the Holy Beings in the sky, the probabilistic energy spun wildly and threatened to coil back upon themselves.
"Their chanting is effective, and yes… it slows us down.
But listen carefully.
We have not been stopped. We are merely being held."
Fhuuuuh!
"And from this moment onward, we are not merely enduring. We are learning how to make sanctity wound its own creators."
The eyes of Zhulumat Katamtum—like twin embers glowing behind the shadow of his mask—swept across the battlefield with an undeniable, cold appraisal.
He acknowledged, though with reluctance boiling in his chest, that the situation had reached a critical threshold.
The wall of praise had become a tangible trench, the cracks in their shields were the first gaping wounds, and the chaos within the Five Possibilities incantation was a cunning metaphysical counterstrike.
Advancing in their current formation would mean slow self-destruction.
Yet remaining still was an even worse decision.
It would mean surrendering to the enemy's rhythm and allowing that sanctity to erode their resolve until nothing remained.
With a decisiveness that cut through all hesitation, his formidable will surged outward.
Not as a shout, but as a mental command implanted directly into the minds of every layer commander.
Three instructions descended like sledgehammers, forging a new fate.
To the Anti-Thunder Formation, the order was simple yet crushing.
Hold the line and harden the position.
The soldiers on the front line were to drive their feet deeper into the trembling ground, stabilizing their three quivering shields at the cost of mobility.
Then, with measured movements, they reached for mid-tier exorcism equipment strapped to their backs.
Not offensive weapons, but tools resembling concave mirrors of black metal or curse-etched stone.
These devices were carefully mounted behind the shields, adhered to their surfaces, functioning not to attack but to reflect and absorb the intensity of holy assaults more aggressively—transforming their shields from passive defenses into reactive surfaces that retaliated against disruption.
To the Orbit-Breaker Formation, Zhulumat ordered a complete paradigm shift in communication.
Verbal instructions were now useless.
Thus, captains like Shaqar, Onigakure, and Makakushi swiftly grasped the telepathic bands hidden around their armored wrists.
The dark leather bands, stitched with artificial neural fibers, glimmered briefly as they activated.
In synchronized motions, they also hurled similar bands toward their subordinates in the Anti-Thunder Formation.
In an instant, a silent communication network took shape.
Within each soldier's mind, the voice of their captain now resonated—not through the ears, but as a direct impulse within consciousness.
"Hold. Tighten. Tilt the left shield three degrees."
The commands were clear, instantaneous, and immune to interference from the celestial chants, restoring tactical control that had nearly been lost.
Meanwhile, within the core circle of the Banner of Zhulumat, a new division of roles took place.
Zhulumat himself temporarily withdrew from the incantation ritual.
His massive hand reached into a ritual pouch crafted from the hide of a dark creature.
From within, he produced several pairs of peculiar devices, shaped like wireless earphones but carved from finely etched bone and embedded with smoky black crystals.
He distributed them to each Satanic High Elder surrounding him.
These pressure-reversal devices were fitted into their ears.
Upon activation, the effect was immediate.
The piercing hiss of celestial chanting suddenly dulled, as though pushed away by a bubble of relative silence.
More than that, the devices began capturing and reversing the psychic pressure of the holy aura, priming it to be returned as a destructive feedback.
"What they perceive as chaos is discipline too precise for them to comprehend."
The effectiveness of these adaptive measures began to show, though imperfectly.
In the Anti-Thunder Formation, where the warriors of Team Xirkushkartum stood like the roots of ancient trees gripping the earth, the sensation of agony tearing through every nerve fiber began to subside.
The searing heat in their eardrums diminished into a tolerable hiss, and the pressure on their breastbones no longer felt as if it would shatter their hearts.
This did not mean the suffering had vanished, but that it had been contained and managed—overcome by iron discipline and exorcism equipment now emitting a steady repulsive energy from behind the shields.
Faces behind the visors were still slick with sweat and tension, but their eyes were no longer wild.
They had rediscovered their anchor amid the trembling earth, an island of resolve within a sea of holy madness.
In the Orbit-Breaker Formation, a silent and exquisite tactical symphony unfolded.
Through the newly formed telepathic network, commands from the captains flowed like pure data streams, directly into the motor centers of each subordinate.
Shaqar sent an impulse to shift body weight onto the right foot.
Onigakure simultaneously ordered the left shield to tilt two degrees.
Makakushi slipped in instructions to regulate breathing into a short-short-long pattern.
As a result, the Anti-Thunder Formation—which appeared static from the outside—was in fact performing an extraordinarily complex micro-dance.
Each soldier moved to the same rhythm, adjusting position, tightening grips, and redistributing weight in perfect synchronization.
They resembled parts of a single colossal organism, breathing and pulsing together, their movements so uniform it seemed as though directed by a single mind.
This miracle was possible only because the captains of the second layer were not working alone.
They had merged their telepathic awareness on a secondary level, complementing and patching one another's instructional gaps.
A stability command from Shaqar was instantly refined by Onigakure's precision correction, then safeguarded by Makakushi's anticipation of interference.
This soundless collaboration transformed their formation from a group of individuals into a resilient and adaptive collective entity.
Meanwhile, at the very center of it all, the Banner of Zhulumat reached a critical point in its preparations.
The Satanic High Elders, with pressure-reversal devices in their ears, had moved beyond mere defense.
Their reversal prayers were no longer just shields, but active tools for weaving reality itself.
Their unified concentration began to manifest tangible physical effects in the sky.
The clouds that once reflected golden light and majesty, heavy with overwhelming sanctity, began to suffer contamination.
From a central point above them, a dense black stain appeared—like ink dropped into holy water.
The stain spread rapidly, not like smoke, but like swift decay creeping across the canvas of the heavens.
These blackened clouds possessed a sound-killing quality; regions they touched seemed to undergo acoustic dampening, where praise and celestial hymns were abruptly muffled, smothered by a heavier, more ominous silence.
And the color blanketing the surface of the sky began to change.
To be continued…