"Together! Pull!"
To the left, a group of laborers, surrounded by the two layers of veterans, pushed against the ground with all their strength, pulling onto two ropes binding the corpse of a Gryphex, an evolved Gryphon.
"Do not falter! Hold fast!"
To the right, the flank of the Gracian army pushed the remaining monsters just as hard as they did half an hour ago, while the battle still raged at full intensity.
And in the center…
"Master, wait!"
Gracian's bodyguards could only scream in futility as their ward pretty much held the entire center of the formation on his own.
Dodge
Gracian's nascent soul, suspended a small distance above his head, granted him an additional perspective of the battlefield around, allowing him to see the attacks he couldn't with just his eyes.
He could feel the strike coming, sense its direction and speed…
But there was a stark difference between feeling something and seeing it in overwhelming detail, along with every intricacy of the spiritual energy involved in the attack.
Gracian took half of a step to the back and then shifted to the side, allowing the sharp claws of the Bies, one of the last remaining high-ranking monsters of the horde, to miss.
'Just die already!'
The Bies looked like a mix between a human torso, wolf's legs, and then two long hands fitted with nightmarishly long claws. Topping all of three meters' worth of muscle and hate was an oversized buck's head adorned with a crown of long, sharp horns.
Out of all the monsters in the horde, this was the most nightmarish of the enemies Gracian faced.
A monster corrupted by the spiritual plight, leading to the creation of this nightmarish form.
And yet, Gracian was going to slay it all the same.
"REEEEE!"
The monster pounded its long arms against the ground, furious at how it couldn't even scratch Gracian with any of its attacks.
"PULL!" the men to the left shouted.
"PUSH!" the soldiers to the right screamed out.
"SCREEEE!" the monster at the front cried out.
All of those sounds mixed with the very specific rhythm of Gracian's steps, turning into a symphony of battle. A song of a warrior's soul, the flow of the spiritual level…
A heavenly pulse.
A quality of the world around only those of the last of the mortal ranks could experience.
And Gracian, the fourth son of the Valor family, could feel it.
The air brushing past his hair, the feeling of the solid, dried-out ground below his feet, even the gusts of air and dust kicked by the monster pounding on the ground, all of it was just a part of the bigger picture, the intricate tapestry or endlessly complex flow of spiritual energy.
And with the spiritual power welling up in every cell of Gracian's flesh, he unleashed his sword and cut straight through this intricate design.
Gracian closed his eyes.
His nascent soul, hanging just a bit above his head, marked out the perfect path for his body to take.
His feet, brimming with spiritual energy, threaded on the world's Qi, allowing him to approach at a speed only a cultivator could reach and from an angle one had to fly through the air to assume.
Three steps, two, one…
Drawing so close to the Bies his face nearly collided with its muscular, furry chest, Gracian felt the spiritual energy overflow from the bottom of his core, gushing forth like water from the mountain and then rushing up his chest, through his arms, down to his hands… And then extending further, into the entire length of his sword.
The nascent soul marked the path. The sky step allowed him to approach from an unexpected angle. The Dao root allowed him to transform his spiritual energy into the power of a law he imbued his sword with.
And as he struck right at the Bies' throat, the heavenly song reached its climax.
Swish!
Imbued with the law of severing, Gracian's sword slid through the monster's neck with hardly any resistance. Then, carried by the momentum of his strike, Gracian ducked underneath Bies' approaching arm only to then push his sword backward, nailing the demon's heart located right in the middle of its massive frame.
The world appeared to come to a stop. The tapestry of the spiritual energy, severed by Gracian's strike, held on through its innate desire to remain unchanged… Only to then collapse all at once, right as Gracian felt his grasp over the sensation of the heavenly pulse slip away.
"Haaaa…." The young warrior let go of his sword and dropped down to one knee, the sense of perfect unity with the world and purpose now vanishing, leaving him with the spiritual hangover caused by his overexertion.
As a fledgling rank ten cultivator, he couldn't wield the heavenly pulse at will, not just yet, otherwise he risked the very drawbacks he came to experience right now.
Drawbacks that could quickly go from annoying to lethal in the middle of a battlefield.
Thankfully, as necessary as it was for Gracian to go all in before, he didn't have to worry about further dangers once he reached his limit.
"Protect the prince!"
Pushing past the corpse of the dead Bies, Gracian's bodyguards clashed into the few monsters that hung out behind the Bies before, stopping them before they could attack the immobilized prince. A moment later, regular troops poured in too, backing Gracian's guards up and, after taking over the frontline from them, allowing the prince's bodyguards to drag their ward away from the heat of the still ongoing battle.
"Haaa…" A moment later, Gracian exhaled, prompting his men to slow down. He then stood up and took a moment in an attempt to stabilize himself on just his two feet… Only to fall right back to his knees and then lean forth, filth bursting out of his mouth as he retched directly onto the ground.
"BLERGH…"
There was no trace of Gracian's last meal in his vomit, with it all replaced by the condensed stomach acid and the stinky remains of the potions he stuffed himself with before the fight.
"That was a close one…" Gracian muttered, wiping his mouth with the sleeve of his fancy battle robe, an act that would make the tailor responsible for creating this masterpiece of an outfit pull the hair out of his head in frustration.
'I can almost hear his cries,' Gracian thought to himself, recalling the quirky old man from back at the castle while reaching out and accepting a cup of freshly iced water one of his guards already managed to procure.
"You fought valiantly for the sake of the troops," Leno, one of Gracian's officers hurried to kiss his ass a little bit. "Those men will remember that," he added in a slightly tenser tone.
'Right, that's what I came here for, didn't I?'