In the end, the old mage fainted from mana exhaustion.
He was weaker than me in the first place, so he ran out of mana faster.
It was to be expected since I did not think some of the people stronger than me had larger reserves than me.
After the old mage fainted, since I didn't want to kill him, which turned into a battle of attrition while he got beaten, I trapped him by using my origin ability to create earth chains and tie him to the ground.
After doing so, I went to help the emperor's soldiers and started attacking the ogres to minimize the emperor's losses.
In fact, it wasn't until I started to concern myself with the emperor's soldiers that I found out that there weren't that many losses.
Some died, and many were injured, but even among them, out of the one thousand five hundred soldiers that came with the emperor, I'd say that only about 200 were dead.
When I observed more, I discovered why.
One of the earliest conversations Emperor Dawn and I had since we encountered each other in this world was about my pills.
After noticing their use, he ordered a bunch of pills for his soldiers and has paid quite a bit for my help.
Before the war started, he already had a large chunk of my pills.
I knew they were meant for the soldiers because regardless of how potent my pills were, they'd hardly be useful for the emperor.
And observing the soldiers for a while, I caught a few of them popping my pills into their mouths.
This was why it seemed the numbers weren't reducing, because it wasn't.
The emperor's soldiers were relying on pills to match the ogre army.
They couldn't do so in overall strength, but they could do so in attrition.
When they got injured, they took a health pill.
When they ran out of mana, they took a mana pill.
The amount of impurities their bodies would get from all this was concerning, though.
In any case, the situation didn't look as dire for the emperor's army as I thought it would.
This was good news for us.
The ogre army wasn't having it easy either.
My hands glowed gold, and I could feel my mana steadily dropping.
Without wasting time, I slammed my hands to the ground and infused my mana into the earth.
Rumble!
The area where I and the strong ogres fought was about 150 metres.
Before the departing ogres could reach the edge of this distance, together with the ogres that stayed to continue attacking me, several earth spikes emerged from the ground.
Since the ogres could not fly, it was difficult for them to avoid the earth spikes. They were physically strong, but their huge bodies made them less dexterous to avoid the spikes.
It didn't take long before all the ogres that had been attacking me earlier found several spikes in their bodies.
They were trapped and could not move, but due to their monstrous vitality, they were still alive.
They just couldn't move.
However, that was already enough for me.
Since I had already started using a lot of mana due to wanting to keep the stronger ogres with me, I didn't mind spending more to end them.
I was just about to create several wind blades condensed to the extreme to make them sharper when a sound came about me.
Screech!
And the ogres got drowned in golden fire.
******
I'm back, guys!!!!
For real this time!
I know I've said this a lot in the past few months, but please, I'll really try my best now, and I hope y'all are still ready to hop on this ride.
No more long breaks. I can't promise anything, but I'm gonna try and return to two chapters per day.
If I see good support from the novel, I'll increase that number.
For now, the goal is one chapter per day.
I want to thank you all who are still here with me.
Let's write an amazing story together!