More and more of the barriers became clouded and impenetrable as more and more Mages started to fight.
The barriers continued being clouded for a very long time. After all, battles between roughly equal Mages took a long time to resolve.
However, there were still a few barriers that became transparent rather quickly.
And surprisingly, nearly all of these barriers had had at least one warrior fight in them.
About 50% of the warriors survived, but naturally, there were also many deaths among the warriors.
One of the Mages that had barely won took a deep breath and looked at the flag he had planted.
Over 59 minutes remained on the timer.
That was when the Mage realized something, and his eyes widened in shock and horror.
When everyone had prepared for the war, they had assumed that they would only need to fight one battle. After all, duels between Mages took hours, and the timer was only one hour.
This meant that, as long as they didn't fight someone extremely weak, they would only need to fight once to conquer the territory.
None of them had even thought about the warriors.
They knew that there were other Paths, but the other Paths were not even relevant in the Third Realm.
The different additions, evolutions, and resources the Mages had access to elevated their Battle-Strength far beyond the reach of anyone else in the Third Realm.
Sure, they had heard about a couple of warriors, but they were a fancy collectible at most.
Warriors didn't really reach the power of Mages, and if there were some that did, there would be so few that no one cared.
Yet, these warriors had appeared in the war.
And the Mage realized that he would most likely die today.
The power of the attackers was hard to discern since there were many ways of hiding someone's aura and their intensity.
But when one of the Mages won, the enemy would be able to tell quite a bit more about their power.
How long did the battle take?
What was the condition of the winner's health?
Naturally, this entire war wasn't only being fought by the forces of the Empires themselves.
Sure, when it came to Ancestral Mages and Mage Lords, there probably weren't many unaffiliated people, but for Archmages and High Mages, the majority of the forces were comprised of people living in the Empires but not actively working for them.
Naturally, that only counted for the attacking force since there was no limit on how many flags one could plant in the same spot consecutively.
The defenders still had to be very powerful since losing a territory was very bad for the Empire.
Essentially, one had infinite chances at attacking but only one chance at defending.
Unless one had warriors.
The Mage floating beside the flag nervously looked at the edge of the transparent barrier.
He wanted to leave.
But he couldn't!
Once an Attack Flag had been planted, one couldn't leave until the timer was up.
The Bolts took note of the barriers that became transparent again very quickly and sent stronger people.
The warriors that managed to win quickly ran to a group of Mages.
The Mages distributed Contribution Points based on their performance, which the warriors quickly exchanged for resources.
Surprisingly, most of the resources were powerful weapons and armor.
That was because they had to defend more territories.
The strongest warriors had all signed contracts that gave them bountiful resources in exchange for having to defend the Lightning Manor if there ever were a war.
Naturally, since there had never truly been a war, everyone signed it.
It was free resources.
And here they were now…
Fighting a war…
Of course, most warriors were mad that they had to go to war, but there was no way out.
They had signed the contract.
However, not everything was bad.
Each battle they won gave them a boatload of Contribution Points, and these Contribution Points could be exchanged for essentially everything.
The plan of most of the warriors was the same.
First, get the best weapons and armor. That would help in winning more battles.
About 99% of warriors did that first.
Second, get enough Contribution Points to choose one's opponent instead of being assigned one.
That would take about three additional battles on average.
About 50% of warriors chose that next.
About 30% decided to skip that step and immediately go for step three.
Step three was to be freed from having to fight in the war.
After purchasing weapons and armor, this would take about five battles on average.
People that decided to buy the privilege to choose one's opponent would need to survive for a total of nine battles from the start of the war, while people that skipped purchasing that privilege only needed to fight six battles.
However, these people would need to fight two additional battles where their opponents were assigned, making this extremely risky.
The remaining 20% decided to purchase the privilege of choosing their opponent but wouldn't immediately want to exit the war.
Instead, they bought resources that would increase their level and would help them in becoming more powerful in the future.
For example, a True Path Stage warrior could commission the creation of a fitting technique for them from a Spark working for the Research Department in the warrior division!
A Spark was an insanely powerful Ancestral Mage, and these specific Sparks had been working on researching warriors for centuries!
The techniques these Sparks could create were insanely powerful and useful.
On top of that, there were even ways to purchase a sort-of ritual that would increase the power of one's Mana Pathways, allowing a warrior to create a Beast Core when they broke through to the Impose Stage.
There were even weapons that could move on their own and absorb ore to become more powerful!
These weapons weren't nearly as good as Shang's swords, but they were vastly better than all the other weapons the warriors had access to.
This war could transform a normal warrior into a genius!
One could even purchase a spot in the Lightning Manor!
About 80% of warriors wanted to leave the war as quickly as possible.
The remaining 20% wanted to take this opportunity to reach for the sky.
Yet, how many warriors would actually survive?
That was still unknown, but one thing was certain.
There wouldn't be many survivors.
The war raged on.
And on the southeastern corner of the Empire, Shang was also fighting his battles.
