Some of them died trying to defend themselves from the enemy while some of them gave their lives in order to save Wang Yan and Wu Ming. Wu Ming was already at his last breath and would have died without the timely support of the Phoenixes.
He had endured the most attacks from the beasts in order to not let a single one get through to Wang Yan. Each Phoenix that died was a spiritual blow to the Black Phoenix King who was their leader.
Black Phoenix King wanted to stop them from giving their lives away in vain but no voice came out of its mouth. Its mouth had dried up just like the flames that it had stopped emitting a while ago. The unquenchable flames in the surroundings had already burned everything away into cinders and the fires had died down.
Just like that more and more of the Phoenixes had started to die and in the end only two remained. Even those two were still alive only because they had lost consciousness earlier.