"The few of you, prepare your high-level magic chants, quickly! We have no way out of this other than ending this fellow!"
Up to now, the Queen was still directing the mages around her, speaking in a decisive tone; the mages around her were all nodding their heads and joined the chanting teams, getting ready for that final, all-out attack.
Except that… They did not understand that from the moment Benjamin had spoken the syllable, the rules of the game had changed.
The first change was in regards to the red sun hanging in the sky. In the clash with the elemental shield, it was already being extinguished ceaselessly. And, after the activation of the "Descending of Water", Benjamin had lifted his eyes and waved his hand casually at the red sun.
There was a sudden flurry of snowflakes in the skies.
"This is…"
At first, the mages of Icor could only feel that the surrounding temperatures were decreasing and involuntarily raised their heads, startled. However, what they saw could be said to be a scene they would remember for the rest of their lives.
The numerous, drifting snowflakes, like a whirlwind, were flying around the red sun in a continuous swirl; and at that moment, the red sun was no longer formidable, unable to spout even the slightest bit of flame. They could see, with their naked eyes, that it was shrinking quickly.
Shrinking to a certain size, they saw that the outer layer of the red sun, made out purely of fire, had a thin layer of ice on it.
It had become a humongous, flame-containing ice ball.
All the mages were stunned and scared...
Especially those who had cast their magic. They hurriedly controlled their magic, wanting to get the fire to break through the enclosure of the ice ball from within. However, as the snowflakes continued to dance around it gracefully, the icy layer enclosing the red sun grew thicker as the flames inside began to burn weaker.
Very soon, the last bit of fire vanished, as though even the hope in the hearts of the mages had also been extinguished along with it.
All that was left in the skies was a solid ice ball, as big as a house.
"This is the price you pay for destroying this place," Benjamin opened his mouth and spoke, his voice echoing slowly from the skies, "Academy is a small town we had spent months building, and countless of townsfolk had spent who knows who much effort and heart into this home. You have no right to stand here."
With his words, the humongous ice ball quivered slightly, before crashing violently down, towards the Queen!
"Quick! Guard the Queen! Guard the Queen!"
"Everyone, come back! Protect Her Majesty! Don’t let Her Majesty get hurt!"
"My heaven…"
The entire Icor battalion was in a mess, and even the Queen was screaming her lungs out.
Faced with such a huge object hurling down from the sky, the mages’ shields did not seem to be able to provide much protection for her.
The soldiers around them could only give up their battle against the academy mages and scrambled back.
They surged toward the Queen and the mages. Although they could not get into the shield, they still stayed outside the shield, using their bodies to form a wall.
Within the blink of an eye, before the unorganized wall could fall into place, the water ball crashed into the place with a bang.
Dong!
At that moment, the earth shook, and mountains swayed.
The area, several hundred meters wide, looked as though there had been an earthquake; rumbling noises and awful screams rang through the skies. The students in the academy far off had also been shaken so much that everything was topsy-turvy; even they were shocked and panicked, not to mention the mages of Icor who were right in the midst of the "quake".
The second before the ice ball had landed, they had done their best to build a bigger and stronger defense. Ice walls, earth shields… If it was not due to insufficient time, they could even have used the special defense spells of high-level magic to build a magic barrier.
It was too bad that Benjamin did not give them that leisure of a time. With the ice ball crashing in, just the huge collision force created by the object falling from a great height was enough to destroyed half of the shields. At the same time, the ice ball had exploded with a loud bang. The shards flying in every direction looked like a terrible hail of gunfire; the shields that remained were reduced to nothing. If it was not for the hundreds of soldiers using their bodies as shields, there would have been casualties amongst the mages.
Although none were hurt, their will to fight had, at this crash, been completely destroyed.
By rolling up snowflakes, he had managed to freeze the high-level fire magic that had been summoned by tens of people. And, he had not just frozen it, but also used the ice ball to hit them, sweeping them off their feet. How could they still fight?
"Quickly! He must’ve used up a lot of spiritual energy finishing this technique! Take this chance and strike back!"
It was likely that the only fighting spirit left was seen in the Queen; she was still shouting.
No matter how despondent they were in their hearts, the Queen had spoken. So, once again, the mages struck and started to retaliate. Because they did not have enough time to chant, this time, various intermediate magics were used to attack. Fireball storms swirled up, and, although they were much smaller than the one just now, as there were many of them this time, the strength was still formidable.
Nevertheless, Benjamin’s cold laughter still rang once more from the skies.
"I’m sorry. That was just the beginning of my spiritual energy. There’s more."
Snowflakes began to fly and dance once again, like a violent wind blowing up the fallen leaves all over the skies, spreading out. The moment any magic entered the domain of the snowflakes, it was frozen solid. It did not even matter if they were immaterial things, like flames and wind- they were all trapped in ice and dissipated into elements, falling to the ground with a pitter-patter.
However, it was at this moment that a few shadows rushed out from amongst the mages.
"Protect Her Majesty’s retreat! Continue attacking! Block this fellow!"
At that instant, a few mages escorted the Queen and used flying spells to escape to a distant place. And, seeing the look on the Queen’s face, gritting her teeth, she seemed to have made her decision early on and had let her mages attack only to confuse Benjamin.
Seeing this, Benjamin shook his head.
It seemed to be a bit too late to attempt an escape now.
The scene below him at that time was extremely chaotic; most of the soldiers did not even know what was going on. Some of the mages were also stunned and were apparently oblivious to the fact that the Queen’s hot-blooded roar, that single sentence, was only an act. And because of that, the trouble they could bring to Benjamin was really limited.
The Queen wanted to deceive Benjamin, but at the same time, she had also deceived her own men. Although these mages would not be angry, their reactions were far too slow.
Benjamin sped off in hot pursuit; the sparse magic that came his way were all turned into ice in mid-air. Large snowflakes covered him, and very soon, he was above the heads of the Queen and the few mages.
"You run so slowly."
Throwing out such a sentence, Benjamin had let a fatal heave of snowflakes fall.
For a moment, the temperature around them fell, and the few mages who were responsible for the escort had on shocked expressions.
These snowflakes… What a frightening level of water elements... To think it condensed so quickly, what a shocking freezing ability... They felt as though their knowledge was once again subverted.
They had used wind magic to facilitate their escape. However, at this moment, they could feel the wind around them slowing down, and somewhat unable to carry them anymore.
They had slowed down involuntarily, and the snowflakes had not yet even covered them.
"Hold on, Mage Benjamin, you cannot kill me, I have a…" In that second, the Queen realized that things were bad, and turned around to stretch out a hand, speaking to Benjamin, who was in the sky.
Except that she was only halfway through with her sentence before the snowflakes swallowed them up. The low temperature froze through the shields, turning them immediately into three ice sculptures.
Benjamin let out a cold laugh.
"If you have anything to say, you can say it slowly later."
With a wave of his hand, he used water vapor to carry the three ice sculptures and flew back speedily to a place nearby the gates of the academy. Near the academy, the tangled warfare seemed to have started again. Within the thirty seconds that Benjamin had left, the remaining mages and soldiers, without a target, could only turn and continue to attack the academy mages.
Perhaps they had felt that they had no hope of returning alive anymore, and wanted to take down as many enemies with them as possible while the most powerful one was not around. It was a pity that Benjamin came back in such a hurry.
"Stop. Your Queen, Her Majesty has been captured without a fight."
Hearing the voice from the sky, they lifted their heads dejectedly, looking at the familiar ice sculpture, as though seeing the fate they would have to face after this.