Wasting no time and using the path cleared to our foe by Zhu Men's Supreme-level fire spell, Luo Mian and I flanked the Silver Sky Sovereign and prepared our casts.
"Ten Thousand Indictments, target—right wing/left wing!" we shouted in unison. He used a prepped spell; I used my trusty artifact. Big thanks to Salan for the hookup—I'll repay her someday!
"Skriiieee!" the eagle screeched, realizing we'd tricked him, but too late!
"Ice Rose!" Using my prepped High-level fifth-step ice spell, amplified by my Soul Seed, I aimed it straight at the bird Warlord's wings the moment our curses hit, freezing them. Now the Silver Sky Sovereign couldn't fly temporarily and plummeted fast. But not fast enough!
"Lightning Knight Strike!" With a furious roar, regrouped Zhu Men slammed into the Warlord from above at full force, adding his acceleration ability.
Feathers and blood flew; the already dropping bird now fell bullet-fast, screeching to summon minions. But Zhu Men had already nuked the small fry with fire, and the main pyramid had pulled away, needing time to return. Time the Silver Sky Sovereign lacked!
Even under two Supreme-level curses mid-fall, this bird barely twitched one wing, nudging his descent toward his tribe. The one I cursed—he could move it because my artifact curse, unlike Luo Mian's spell, wasn't fivefold amplified by dark substance; it was standard, thus weaker. Logical. But we planned for that! He still couldn't fly thanks to the extra freeze—that was key to our plan!
"Sunken Earth!" Flying low and adjusting cast spot to the Warlord's trajectory, Tan Zhong yelled and unleashed his prepped Supreme-level first-step earth magic. Instantly, dense soil and grass in a several-hundred-meter radius turned to quicksand, welcoming the guest!
Boom! Raising a sand geyser, the Silver Sky Sovereign crashed into the prepared zone. But his torment didn't end! As he sank into upper and middle quicksand layers—still able to escape soon—the next mage stepped up!
"Catastrophic Wave!" Eyes blazing, hovering Li Tian unleashed Supreme-level first-step water; a high-pressure giant wave drove the Warlord deeper into quicksand, shoving him to bottom layers and thoroughly soaking him and surroundings!
While dazed and disoriented Silver Sky Sovereign tried recovering and freeing himself, our sneakiest member acted. His long-awaited moment!
"Heavenly Blade!" Aiming precisely at one wing-body joint, Wu Pin Jin maximally concentrated and released his prepped Supreme-level first-step wind spell right there.
Normally, no chance against an air-maneuvering bird, but now the Silver Sky Sovereign was off-territory, stunned, pinned by quicksand layers—densified by water. To miss here, you'd need irredeemably crooked hands and mole-blind eyes. Glory to the Totem, Wu Pin Jin lacked that mage-crippling set.
Pffft! Skriiieeee! Blood sprayed; the wing, hanging by a scrap of skin, flopped onto sand. Pity not fully severed as planned, but the bulk of the fight on-script has me mentally dancing! The Warlord disagreed vehemently, screeching in agony. Even this battle-hardened bird rarely took such grave wounds. But real torment was just starting!
"Prohibition! Twelve Divine Pillars!" Reunited Zhu Men barked, erecting twelve lightning-energy columns around the pinned, soaked bird, each towering hundreds of meters.
The time since his last spell sufficed for Zhu Men to prep a new Supreme-level one—his strongest available! Though the fight seemed long, under ten seconds passed! Clear why he got conditional power as spear-armor: lightning his most-used, favorite element.
Skriiie! Skrii! Skriiiii! The Silver Sky Sovereign screeched as pillar lightning arced through wet sand into his body, partially roasting innards. Not enough—two responding Commander-in-Chiefs flew into the Prohibition barrier to aid their lord but turned to ash!
Second-step Supreme-level lightning was special. Upgraded from Nine Pillars Prohibition, Twelve Divine Pillars Prohibition created a barrier suppressing the target inside with constant lightning, preventing relaxation or power-gathering.
But its main power: exit the barrier, and all creation energy surges through you—as with those two Commander-in-Chiefs. They couldn't withstand the lightning flood and ashed.
Now, with multiple heavy wounds and constant lightning barrage, the Silver Sky Sovereign wouldn't dare brute-force the barrier soon. It wouldn't kill him but leave him vulnerable—even first-step Supreme spells would dismantle him for artifacts.
But no relaxing yet. Though trapped, this bastard slowly regenerated under lightning. See—the skin scrap holding the near-severed wing thickened. Leave as-is, in fifteen minutes he'd smash the barrier barely scathed.
"Ice Rose!" To slow regen and brittle his defenses, I cast my second prepped spell, icing the Warlord's whole body and flash-freezing him.
"Mass strikes of withering blades!" barked Lo Mian, who had finally managed to compose a new Supreme-level spell during all this time, this one of the first tier of the Shadow Element. A dark space formed around the Silver Sky Sovereign, from which strikes of shadowy, blade-like claws poured out, possessing a corrosive effect, and thanks to my having lowered the bird's defense, they were able to pierce its guard and reach the muscles, inflicting numerous micro-damage upon them.
The other mages in our group also began preparing their spells but did not cast them immediately. We wouldn't kill this Warlord with metallic feathers anyway, and wasting all our available Supreme-level spells in the first minutes of the fight would be foolish. After all, we needed to hold out for an hour, so we had to conserve and strike the bird only from time to time, not letting its injuries heal to a degree sufficient for breaking through the Forbidden Barrier.
Only Li Tian separated from us to deal with the White Eagles occasionally flying in at their lord's call. Though they couldn't destroy the Forbidden Barrier on their own, merely killing themselves in endless attempts, each such death would drain its energy, easing the Warlord's subsequent escape from it, and we didn't need that.
Moreover, Li Tian's Catastrophic Wave spell wouldn't bring much benefit in worsening the monster's injuries. Better for him to help us rid ourselves of the pesky gnats, which, relying on their numbers nonetheless, could ruin our plan.
Now all that remained was to wait for Tang Yue. I hoped I hadn't trusted her again in vain.