The Dawn of the New World

To Hazel, it felt like she was grasping the hand of God himself. There was a divine sort of feeling to the Grail Seeker's energy that made her feel invulnerable as if she was blessed by the mightiest of powers.

Her mind which was bogged down by numerous doubts, concerns, and insecurities was suddenly set free as if the weight of the world had been lifted off of her shoulders.

She turned towards the front and peered out into the dark night which held an uncountable number of horrors and uncertainties but felt no fear or trepidation. Only a strong will to fight and complete faith in her own abilities remained inside of her.

She closed her eyes for a moment to take it all before lightly tapping the Grail Seeker onto the base of the watchtower she was standing on.

A visible surge of golden light exuded from the lower cup of the Grail Seeker and flowed down to the ground before expanding in a radius of 200 meters around her.

Every person standing within the vicinity of that circle went through the same changes as Hazel but even more since it increased their combat abilities by more than three times. Their spiritual energies, mana, and Qi all became smoother and purer within the blink of an eye which made it much easier to control and utilize for other abilities.

Their cumulative state of mind turned from grimly despondent to unreasonably defiant even in the face of certain death.

Hazel made good use of this opportunity and before they could come back to their senses she sent them marching into battle.

"GET READY-" she yelled at the top of her lungs.

Her husky voice echoed in the air far longer than it ordinarily should have and reached a great many ears. The cultivators took aim while those that couldn't or didn't need to stepped forward anyway.

"-Fire!"

The first one to follow immediately after her command was a boy in a tightly fitted red robe. From his youthful appearance he didn't seem more than 15 to16 years of age but there was a certain stoic look in his eyes that made him appear older.

Holding an extremely thin and exquisitely designed black bow he aimed 70 degrees into the air and fired a simple-looking lone arrow.

The arrow shot out without any fanfare or special effects and slowly passed through the city barrier.

Claudia who was still watching through the eyes of the swallows scoffed instantly.

"What good is one arrow going to against thousands?"

But like many others, she still followed the arrow's trajectory until it reached the highest point and began its descent. But approximately 0.4 seconds after it started heading back to the ground something magical happened.

The arrow exploded in a burst of pale yellow light and each light particle turned into a whole another arrow several times larger than the original.

The grunts were far too busy focusing on the vanguards like Fulke and Rhisiat to notice the danger overhead as the literal rain of arrows the size of spears began to come down in waves.

*Kuelch*

*Screeech*

Yes, in waves, three to be exact. Each wave covered an area of roughly 40 meters which slowly moved further away from the barrier. That one arrow had cleared away scores of corrupted grunts and given a much-needed breather and space to the vanguards.

The high-pitched screeches came in moments later to fill in the short bout of silence that had fallen over the other cultivators. No one had not expected such an outcome.

The boy tried his best to keep up the uncaring attitude but a smile escaped his lips when one of the girls standing on the watchtowers gave him a thumbs-up.

Hazel also nodded in his direction before quickly focusing on the others.

"Magic and elemental users get ready, it's your turn now!"

The same girl who had given the thumbs-up earlier looked to the front and held out both of her hands. She brought the left hand back towards her chest as if pulling on something while the right hand rose into the air as far up as it could.

She then made a fist with the right hand and some 60 meters away a shard of ice began to materialize out of thin air. In less than a second it turned into a 5 meter wide dark blue colored piece of hard ice that fell straight down like a meteor.

*Tink*

*CRAACK*

The sound was identical to glass breaking as the ice shard shattered upon impact releasing a copious amount of Yin Qi that not only froze every living being within 7 meters but also obliterated the ones hit directly by the shard's main body.

"HAAAH!"

But she did not stop there and repeated the same motions five more times to create the ice shards that bombed the area below like mortar fire.