**Chapter 48: Ambushes and Geniuses**
The Limestone Realm, once a primal and mysterious wilderness, had become a brutal hunting ground.
The natives’ coalition displayed organization and intelligence far beyond the Noren Academy apprentices’ expectations.
They weren’t just scattered tribes but trained hunters. Every trap and ambush targeted the apprentices’ weaknesses.
“Damn it! It’s those natives!”
“Any recovery potions left? My mental energy’s almost gone!”
“What the hell?! Why isn’t my escape ring working?!”
“We… we can’t escape!”
Desperate cries echoed across the Limestone Realm.
As traps took their toll, the apprentices found themselves hunted.Native hunters, cloaked in camouflaged hides, wielded poison-coated bone spears and arrows, striking silently like vipers.
Masters of the terrain, they used point tokens or rare materials as bait, ambushing apprentices when their guard was down.
A single volley of surprise poison arrows could paralyze or slow the inexperienced apprentices.
The native warriors that followed, fueled by explosive enhancement powers, moved with blinding speed, their metal spears piercing apprentices’ bodies before shields could be raised.
Many scattered apprentice teams were caught off-guard in the initial ambushes.
Their trusted flight spells and escape rings failed under strange spatial fluctuations. Without their escape tools, they were like caged beasts, worn down by the natives’ relentless hunt.
Communication artifacts buzzed with intermittent distress signals, soon falling silent.
“Shield energy’s down to ten percent!”
“My staff’s out of uses, damn it! Why are these natives so resilient?!”
In a narrow canyon, an eight-member apprentice team, backed against a rock wall, struggled to fend off native knights’ charges.
Their artifacts’ energy drained rapidly, shields cracking under strain and shattering.
Potions dwindled visibly, and mental exhaustion from intense combat overwhelmed them, slowing their spells and weakening their sorcery.
These were senior apprentices who scoffed at the newbies and natives after hearing distress broadcasts.
With an extra five years of training, these combat-focused seniors had deeply studied offensive and defensive sorcery.
Though they couldn’t yet independently construct spell models, they were far stronger than the newcomers.
They were confident in handling ambushes, and early encounters with weak native squads validated their belief.
Successful skirmishes made them overlook the danger, unknowingly leading them deeper into traps.
Now, these seniors were pale, sweating coldly.
Despite combat training, they had never faced a true life-or-death war of attrition like this.
Compared to their current plight, the academy’s combat tests were child’s play!
Each spell could easily end a native’s life, and enemy corpses piled high, yet more kept coming!
*Why aren’t they afraid?!*
*Why don’t they retreat?! *
Their past confidence eroded under relentless pressure, replaced by visible fatigue and anxiety.
“Captain, how much longer can we hold out?” a young female apprentice asked, voice trembling.
Her mental energy was depleted, forcing her to rely on physical weapons, but her swordsmanship was feeble against the ferocious, armored knights.
Besides their team, several others in the area were drawn by a dazzling pile of point tokens in the valley.
But now, under the natives’ relentless assaults, the apprentices abandoned solo strategies, grouping in defensible terrains like high cliffs or narrow caves.
They formed temporary alliances, barely holding defensive lines against wave after wave of native attacks.
Yet, each clash saw apprentices fall.
Injuries mounted, potions ran dry, and despair loomed like a dark cloud over their hearts.
Without exception, as the last apprentice’s mental energy was exhausted, the valley’s battle cries ceased, leaving only a hellish scene of blood.
Though the losses were heavy, for the natives, it was a bearable price for vengeance.
As time passed, more apprentices fell into traps.
The entire wasteland became a purgatory of blood and despair.
Yet, in this “war,” there were exceptions. Geniuses emerged, breaking through the natives’ traps and making names for themselves on the battlefield.
Two shone brightest, like radiant stars piercing the grim sky.
Miss Augusta, the academy’s darling with a ninth-grade lightning element talent, led her team across the plane, invincible, as if no one could stand in her way.
Her power was like a god of lightning descending, each strike accompanied by devastating thunder.
“These insects think numbers will win? Foolish.”
Augusta’s slender fingers flicked, and a torrent of blazing white lightning roared forth like an enraged dragon.
Hundreds of meters away, native ambushers, along with their hidden runes and mental-disrupting totems, were vaporized in the violent thunder, leaving scorched trails snaking across the ground.
Clad in light lightning armor, she flickered across the battlefield, each advance precisely striking the natives’ weak points.
Knights attempting to surround her were pierced by writhing lightning serpents before they could close in, reduced to charred husks.
As Miss Augusta’s fame grew, the native coalition took notice, setting traps specifically for her—some deemed certain kills.
Once, they turned a canyon into a massive magnetic interference zone, burying runes for chain explosions underground and suspending curse totems in the air to weaken wizard powers, with hundreds of elite armored knights and shamans poised to overwhelm her with numbers and terrain.
“Hmph, petty tricks.” Augusta merely sneered, and a violent thunder tore through everything.
She summoned a towering lightning pillar that pierced the heavens, obliterating the ground’s rune array and shattering the aerial totems.
Her body surged with lightning, transforming into an uncatchable bolt that tore through the ambush force with unstoppable force. Where the lightning passed, only scorched earth and trembling natives remained.
She barely spared a glance for the defeated natives, her eyes fixed on her next target—a high-value point token.
To her, these natives were mere nuisances obstructing her path to glory.