With the elves taking the human defensives and their camp, they were set up to take out the anti-magic artifact and retake the prisoners. The old elf however, stepped up to stop them. Leading half of the remaining black knights, he confronted Noriko. Despite the strange feeling she had from him and the questions she had for him considering he was an elf, Noriko drew her bow and unleashed several quick runed arrows at him. Surprising her, the old elf deflected a few while cutting the others. The cut ones didn’t explode.

Noriko looks to the anti-magic artifact and then to the prisoners and back to the old elf. With the other elves behind her, she says,

“A quarter of you with me! The rest take out the artifact.”

The old elf laughs,

“Do you think you can win with just you few?”

In an instant, the old elf closes in on Noriko, causing her to parry his slim elven blade with her own as he swings it at her. The black knights charge at the other elves.

“I did not want to participate in the prince’s first battle, but it seems that I must if we intend to win.”

Pushing back the old elf with her parry, Noriko observed her opponent’s weapon. It was ancient and would fit perfectly with the style of Yumi’s armor. Noriko steadys her stance, adopting the standard draconic sword stance. She strikes back at the old elf in a cold fury. The old elf easily fends off her blows and calls out to the prince.

“Young prince, take the prisoners and retreat to the other camps.”

This causes Noriko to quicken. She couldn’t afford to lose the prisoners. She needed to take him out quickly. Despite her lightning fast strikes and precise parries, the old elf showed no sign of being affected. Suddenly, in one of Noriko’s parries, which were done with speed and strength, she allowed the incoming blade to be led and deflected fluidly like water rather than a rock. This caught the old elf off guard before Noriko pulled out a dagger, one of old elven make, with her off hand and attempted to slash him with it. He deflects it, but it grazes his shoulder. Utilizing a kick, the old elf makes space as Noriko dodges.

“What a surprise! Is that an elvish sword style? An older type too might I add?”

Ignoring him, Noriko pushes on, switching between the two stances in order to gain ground and surprise him.

“Such prowess, to be able to use both sword stances at once. You could even rival the elven warriors of old.”

She does not respond however. Instead she focuses on cutting off his head, to which he replies with another parry.

“I am, however, disappointed in your lack of chatter though.”

He pauses to shrug, giving Noriko a window to attack, but just as she closes in on him, she finds it odd and dodges instead. A magic explosion explodes right in front of her, knocking her on her back. The old elf looks with mild awe.

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“Excellent reactions.”

Noriko looks up at the old elf as he voice casts “Reflection”, before voice casting “Explosion” right on top of Noriko. Noriko holds up her katana in defense and voice casts “Shield”. It faintly appears. Yumi had set up earlier on the hill and given that her aunt was in trouble, had decided to shoot a normal arrow at the old elf. With “Reflection”, the arrow sped right back at Yumi. Yumi barely dodged it, diving out of the way, resulting in the loss of hair. Noriko had survived the magic attack, but her armor was shredded alongside having multiple parts of her katana sprinkled all over her.

The old elf walks over and stands over her, poised to cut her down.

“You were interesting but now it’s-“

He stops as he hears something shatter in the distance. He looks up at the anti-magic artifact. Elves, the reinforcement from Yumi and the group sent by Noriko, had successfully destroyed the anti-magic artifact. As it crumbled, all the contained magic released itself in an instant. The elves began turning their magic on the humans, scoring a now easy victory against the inferior magics of the humans. The black knights however, activated magics of their own and began escaping with the young prince.

Noriko felt invigorated as she felt the returned magic all over her skin. She immediately voice casts “Knockback”, pushing the old elf away from her. While he was still in the air, she followed up by symbol casting “Magic Arrow Rain”, conjuring up two dozen magic arrows and sending them right at the old elf. To her surprise, he doesn’t even flinch as the magic arrows break upon his chest, or rather the magic inside the arrows broke, causing the magic arrows to shatter before reaching him.

Now that there was a little time to think, Noriko wondered who she was fighting with. Someone who is capable of such abilities like breaking magic arrows with their body. Only a dragon could do so… or more like it was a shapeshifter. Such beings were equally scary to fight, but she had to rescue the children. Symbol casting “Great Heal” on herself. She painfully felt each piece of metal that lodged itself in her body move and worm its way out as her body returned to a normal state.

Getting ready to fight again, Noriko begins chanting body strengthening magic, but the old elf interrupts her instead, saying,

“Alright you win. Just the fight though.”

With a grandiose bow, Noriko could tell that he was planning something. Behind him, a dozen or so ballista turrets were aimed at the sky and fired. She looked behind her and up. There she saw Gaelia fighting the god form. With panicked disturbance, she turned back around as black smoke began rising from the human army, the ballista turrets, and the cage wagon that held the prisoners.

“Shit he was stalling for this.”

With no time remaining, she voice-casted “Loud Voice” and screamed,

“Counterspell, quickly Counterspell!”

All the other elves around her and even those not around, but could hear and see the black smoke began casting “Counterspell”. Her hands began glowing and directed the spell with a throw at the black smoke. The smoke however remained unaffected. Instead she applied her focus onto what mattered most.

“Target the prison wagon!”

Dozens of glowing projectiles flew towards the wagon, each being ineffective alone, but with many the teleportation spell began to fade. The old elf cursed at the elves before casting his own magic arrows and firing it at Noriko. Distracted as she was, she could not hope to defend herself from that, but just as the arrows closed in on her, other elves, ones who couldn’t use “Counterspell”, came to her aid, stacking the spell “Shield” in her defense. To provide covering fire, the elves then fired their own magic arrows back at the humans and the old elf. He took cover as a rain of both magic and physical arrows poured at him.

At last the black fog around the wagon had disappeared, but the black fog was still affecting the rest, taking the old elf, the human soldiers, and the ballistas with them.

“Secure the wagon. Half of you, help the wounded and scavenge weapons and ammunition. The rest, follow me. We’ll symbol cast “Teleport” to the other sites in 5 minutes.”