Vile Evil Hides Under The Veil

Everything happened too fast for Layla or Ivor to do anything about it.

It was a well-coordinated move by Oliver. And he crafted it in a few moments after finding out how the prism barrier worked. The captain ordered the five rankers to use their joint attacks as a fake to free themselves from Ivor's control.

The remaining members of Oliver's team quickly approached Oliver and formed a battle formation in unison. The old man Biru lay in the middle of their circle with his dying breaths. There was an array disk attached to his back that was exuding a faint light and spreading strong mana pulses.

The array disk spread its floating runes across Biru's fragile body and completely covered him. The runes spread further and climbed onto Oliver and the remaining five members of his team.

Zimmm!

The battle formation was completed faster this time because Oliver sacrificed a defenseless Master ranker's life for it. As a result, it was executed faster and was relatively stronger and more stable. Plus, the battle formation was completed using six rankers instead of using too many rankers which would have only complicated it further.

"Hmmm?"

Eren finally completed his living undead ritual when he felt a strong mana pulse in the surroundings. He looked back to see that Oliver and his teammates had successfully formed a battle formation.

"Kirin darling, don't."

Kirin was about to attack Oliver and his group of rankers when Eren's words stopped her. She appeared beside Eren and looked at him curiously before asking.

'Lord husband, what are they doing?'

With the cat out of the bag, Layla appeared beside Eren too. She was a bit unsatisfied with the fact that Eren and Ivor couldn't get rid of all of Oliver's rankers on their own.

Ivor appeared beside Layla in his battered form. He couldn't keep his pride armor on himself anymore due to sensory overload. After dispersing it, he decided to catch his breath. The guy just sat cross-legged on the ground and started channeling his mana throughout his body to get rid of fatigue and prepare himself for another round.

Argo was also called forth since Eren had let go of the demon beast transformation. The beast had a bit of saliva dripping from his mouth when he inhaled the smell of blood prevailing in the surrounding area. But he also realized the situation was a bit tense so he didn't open up with his usual antics.

Eren looked at Oliver's group closely before looking at Biru's dead body. He immediately understood how Oliver had managed to activate a powerful battle formation with just five Adept rankers around.

Still, Eren wasn't intimidated by Oliver's stance. He looked at his opponents casually before answering Kirin's question.

'This is called a battle formation, Kirin darling. I don't think you used these in the Oni dungeon. So I'll give you a brief introduction.'

Since an unofficial stalemate was being observed, Eren decided to explain to Kirin everything he knew about the battle formation.

He was sure that the continent of Echidna would have something similar to battle formations as well. He just wasn't sure if the children of Echidna used battle formations in the same way rankers of Anfang did here.

Alephee had also said to Eren once that many peculiarities developed by rankers in Anfang were unique. For example, the Historian class never existed outside of Anfang. It was exclusive to this continent.

The battle formations weren't exclusive to Anfang. But they were certainly refined to perfection by the rankers here.

Kirin nodded her head when Eren finished his brief introduction. The latter paused for a bit before continuing.

'In a crude sense, battle formations could be called spells that get cast by a group. But that is a very simple way of putting it. They can exceed a spell's definition depending on who or how many rankers were involved in the battle formations, as well as where that spell is used.

There are many types of battle formations– attack types, defense types, or combos of both. There are also battle formations meant for item or convoy extraction. Some are used to target single or multiple targets at once.

Some battle formations are only meant to be used against beasts while others are employed to gain terrain advantages. Battle formations apply a very simple rule and take it to the extreme– combining individual strength and converting it into group strength.

The reason battle formations are used by a bunch of Adept rankers to fight other Adept rankers and beyond is because of the outcome they generate. The addition of individual strength to battle formations would never be linear.

Successful activation of battle formations will always result in compound effects. The compound output will depend on the rankers involved as well as the synchronization among them.

The higher a man's ranking status and the more in-depth his elemental achievements are, the more fearsome he would seem to others. Battle formations were created to counter individuals like these. These formations are meant to suppress overwhelming individual strength.

This is why there is almost no ranker in the land of Anfang that can truly act as a lone wolf.

High-ranked entities who have the necessary strengths to tackle battle formations will never fail to record their names in the annals of history. But to get there, one needs to survive by being part of the group first.'

Eren's emerald green eyes shone when he said that. Battle formations were one of the reasons he never thought of handling everything by himself. He knew that if he acted hungry for power and kept on challenging the system, it was bound to get him one day. This was true no matter how strong he might be on an individual level.

A ranker's individuality would become more apparent as they moved up the ranking ladder. And some individualities were just too domineering to be handled by relatively ordinary rankers.

Battle formations were, in a general sense, law enforcers of the system that the people at the highest echelon would use to suppress the top-tier monsters of the world. Even a particularly talented Sage could be targeted by Sage-level battle formations no matter how strong their individualities were compared to other Sages.