Over and over, Dominic led the team into battle with ever decreasing numbers of monsters.

Some of the packs had been deployed to deal with the larger threats of the military units, but from what they were seeing, it looked like the central area used to be the new arrival area, and the summoned monsters were deployed outward to join larger groups of their own kind.

So, the closer they got to the middle, the more portal beacons they were destroying, and the fewer monsters they were encountering.

They were not letting the Dagos forces off too easily, though.

Every portal that was open was inspected to find its destination, and to see if there was still a monster horde on the other side.

In most cases, there was not. But where there was, a radio report was sent, so the armies could update their maps with current threat levels for the counterattack in assistance of the Dagos King.

Word was spreading fast through the armies of Dagos and Skiple, as well as with the Cygnia and Axbridge Royal Families, who had a vested interest in what was going on within those nations.

If either fell, it would be a catastrophe for the neighbouring nations, but also a great opportunity for them to gain some extra land.

Cygnia hadn’t taken much in the armistice, but if the King should fall and Prince Kaizon took his place, they would happily renegotiate for more after crushing what was left of the Rebel force.

Axbridge, who shared a border with both Dagos and Skiple, was in a similar position.

They could claim whatever they wanted, even that it was a short-term stability measure, while they took over an entire country. Then, leadership would either pass to a puppet among the Skiple Royal Family, or a marriage alliance would bind the two Royal Families, with the Skiple Royals placed in a conveniently inferior position.

Dominic wasn’t concerned about that. The potential ramifications had been discussed many times before, but until the attack was over, and they found out if there were any more of these reserve armies of monsters, it was all just speculation.

"We’ve got Goblins again. Why is it always Goblins?" Amie complained as they stepped out of a small stand of trees that had once been a forest, before the monsters started cutting them for cook fires.

"Goblins are like cockroaches. They are eternal. Even if every other monster species was wiped off the face of the planet, the Goblins would find a way to survive." Dominic joked.

"Oh, how I wish that you were wrong." She complained as the horde finally noticed their presence.

"Just use [Fireball] at a low level, and we should be able to clear them fast enough." He suggested.

"Says the man with unlimited mana."

Dominic shrugged. She wasn’t wrong, but she also had a pistol that regenerated mana on hit. If she cast fireball through that, she would get enough back from the Goblins to continue with a level four or five [Fireball].

Fighting Goblins in the open was mindless work, and Dominic let his mind wander for a moment. In any other circumstance, they would be in real trouble with these sorts of monster numbers, but with one high-level mage focused entirely on defence, and six rare grade mana revolvers doing the hard work, accompanied by [Fireballs] the horde was much less dangerous than the raw data would suggest.

It was almost a cheat code, having four mages together with magitech weapons.

A glorious cheat code.

The fact that this wasn’t a natural grouping, with experience and leadership also helped. There were only Goblins here, with no clear leader, no Shamans, no Lord. Just a bunch of summoned monsters without a clue.

They had been called to this place with no details given, and this close to the centre of the formation, they hadn’t even been contacted by other monsters to explain what was going on.

They only had the magical directive to remain in this place until ordered otherwise.

Then, Dominic and the mages broke through the horde, and found themselves in a massive clearing around a blood soaked ritual altar, along with thousands of soldiers.

Everyone was holding back, not wanting to get too close to the source of the blood magic, and unsure what they should do now that they had run out of monsters to fight. Normally, that would be a matter for the Generals, but they weren’t here as soldiers, only mercenaries.

And their pay package didn’t include whatever that thing was.

"Amie, you’re with me. Let’s go destroy whatever blood magic ritual they’ve got going on in the clearing here, and then call it a day. It should be the primary summoning ritual for this army, I would assume." Dominic instructed.

Amie nodded. "I certainly hope so. Because if it’s just some random destroyed temple that a group of Ogres made a mess of, I am not going to be a happy mage."

Dominic laughed, then began walking toward the blood soaked field, hoping to put an end to this drama once and for all.

But when he got right to the edge of the ritual area, he found that he could go no further.

The entire area was protected by a barrier so strong that he couldn’t even feel a flicker from it when he hit it with an [Arcane Blast].

"Whoever cast this, they’re way beyond our level. It might be the combination of an entire Sect, but I would have thought that we could still cause some reaction." Amie muttered as she stared past the invisible barrier at the ritual altar, which was still dripping with fresh blood, despite there being no bodies present.

"We’re missing something. Some detail that would make this all make sense." Dominic sighed.

"You’ve got that right. But until we can at least find a clue what that is, I don’t see how we can change anything about this situation. All we can do is leave someone to watch it and update us if anything changes."