The bewilderment was not limited to the supremely exalted Archmages.
The armies of the Two Great Empires had just poured everything into the battle, even sacrificing their most precious heavy cavalry as cannon fodder, merely to deplete as much of the Rulson-Xinfei Allied Forces' ammunition as possible and find a chance of victory. They had even begun to glimpse that chance. But the arrival of over a hundred Mana Airships immediately crushed every flicker of hope in their hearts with utterly overwhelming force.
Clearly, the armies of the Two Great Empires, including the Archmages who represented their greatest combat strength, could inflict no meaningful damage on either the Mana Airships high above them or even the Rulson-Xinfei Allied Forces on the ground. Yet any casual counterattack from the enemy could easily breach the defenses they had painstakingly constructed, rendering all their Mages' efforts futile.
This was no longer a question of which side was stronger. They were on completely different levels.
Once they recognized that fact, the armies of the Two Great Empires instantly lost all courage to continue fighting.
When the Xinfei Merchant Guild's Mana Airship Battalion stopped attacking, the armies of the Two Great Empires below could only stand there blankly. They had neither the means nor the courage to retaliate, and not even the desire to flee arose in them.
They knew that if the Xinfei Merchant Guild's Mana Airship Battalion wanted to kill them, their speed on the ground would never allow them to escape.
Watching the battlefield, which had been filled with deafening battle cries only moments ago, suddenly fall into an eerily profound silence, Count Darcy could not help twisting his mouth.
"If the Mana Airship Battalion had shown up a little earlier, we wouldn't have had to spend all that time risking our