702: Salute to Those Who March to Their Deaths!

By the time Murphy arrived, the goatman sorcerers had everything ready.

On the northwest watchtower platform of Fort Valor, facing the Blackflame Pass, three Nocturne barrier core crystals floated nearly a meter above the ground. The goatman sorcerers had used a peculiar method to charge them with psionic energy in a very short time.

The energy inside them was so intense that dangerous-looking arcs of electricity visibly danced across the crystals' surfaces, making them as dazzling as the legendary plasma spark towers.

This was clearly a rapid charging method that sacrificed the crystals' integrity. But considering that the three crystals were unlikely to survive tonight's supernal rift intact anyway, the damage was entirely acceptable.

The Nocturne barrier had seven core crystals in total, and five had been found. Three were here; the remaining two were in Shadowvale. As the war progressed, they would eventually be returned to the Maginot Line, where everything would end.

This meant that Crimson Castle currently had no barrier crystals, and that the unwalled city was effectively "undefended."

Murphy, Triss, and Mirian understood perfectly well that if the Black Calamity front could not hold, then even with all seven crystals in hand, Crimson Castle could protect only the city itself.

That was not the fate Murphy had chosen for Transia. These unparalleled protective relics on the continent deserved to be used where they mattered most!

Besides, the Blackflame Pass position had collapsed earlier despite being protected by a Nocturne barrier. That had already proven the barrier was no panacea. Especially after the ratmen appeared, able to move freely underground without being detected, the era of ground-based barriers had truly come to an end.

So what they were doing now was called "putting something to good use."

"Governor, we've calculated the total psionic energy the three cores