While the bandits had been taken off guard they managed to defend against the majority of the initial bombardment of their position with the use of some defensive talismans. But those talismans wouldn’t last forever, so they reorganized himself into a basic offensive formation and began to move towards their attackers with the shields raised, Diana and Felix quickly rushed to the front.

While the shields were a set back to Captain Tasius’s plan it was only a temporary one as he ordered everyone to continue firing upon barriers, specifically towards the largest one covering the leader of the bandits.

Using any and all weapons they had at hand, Arthur began to use his large stockpile of fire seeds to pelt the shields and try to break them up. One thing Arthur had recently discovered he could do was create a slipstream effect by making a small air barrier shaped a bit like an arrow head over the fire seed, that way when he threw it he could get a lot more speed and a lot more distance.

But even with all this the bandits still managed to get close enough to drop the shields and engage in melee combat. Since most of the bandits used shorter weapons such as swords and clubs they had to try and flank their enemies of which about half wielded spears and could keep out of reach.

With a great amount of teamwork and trust the guards and mercenaries under Captain Tasius managed to slowly whittle down the forces of the bandits, but the leader and her strongest ranking subordinates were strong and smart enough to start exploiting holes in their formation and push them back a bit.

The bandit leader in particular was the most prominent of them all, and her skill with the war hammer was putting the captain on his backfoot. “It’s so nice to finally meet you in person Captain, I have been looking forward to it for so long.” Diana said with a sickening smile as she slammed her war hammer down grazing Captain Tasius.

Captain Tasius stumbled back from the force of the strike and readied himself for her to attack again, but instead she blocked an arrow with her armor from the left of their fight. By the time the arrow had been deflected off her armor Kavok had already drawn a second one and was ready to fire.

But Diana wasn’t all that willing to allow someone to interrupt her fight, she reached down to her boot where she pulled out a thin rod made up of a white stone. She pointed it towards where Kavok was standing and a fireball erupted forth and struck the pillar he stood next to. The explosion flung him backwards and against the nearby wall causing him to drop his bow.

With the temporary obstacle out of the way Diana turned her attention back to her opponent, but Captain Tasius hadn't been idle. Diana barely had the time to block a stab directed towards her har face.

Captain Tasius unleashed a flurry of strikes against Diana who only just barely held her ground. And when a small explosion occurred just next to her killing a few of her fellow bandits and knocked her off her feet, Captain Tasius did not hesitate.

“AAHHHH!” Diana screamed out in pain as her vision in her right eye went dark. Tasius retracted his halberd and attempted to stab her again only to miss, and in a rage Diana began to swing her war hammer wildly, uncaring of who else she hit in the process.

With the ferocity she displayed she began to push the captain back forcing his own men behind him to move out of the way. Several attempted to intervene and attack all at once, but she recklessly swung her war hammer around and hit a few people nearby, both allies and enemies. This along with the orders of the captain forced them to avoid intervening.

Arthur who threw the fire seed that exploded kept his attention on Diana and Captain Tasius, the frenzy that the bandit leader found herself in was a bit worrying as she appeared to be unhindered by the large gaping wound where her eye used to be.

‘Gods that is terrifying. I do not envy the captain, but I hope he can keep just out of reach for me to fit her with a few more fire seeds. She might not be reacting to her injuries, but that doesn’t mean they can’t kill her.’

Arthur continued his barrage of fire seeds guided with aeromancy to keep Diana from killing the captain with some success, but she was moving far too erratically for him to be certain that the captain would avoid a direct hit as well.

But this did not last long, Arthur and everyone else was in a battlefield. It wasn’t a particularly large one, but it still counted. As such Arthur was not the only one who could intervene in the fights of others, and Felix, the lover and second in command of Diana, was not happy with what he was doing. The only thing that stopped him from rushing over earlier was that he was preoccupied by one of the elite guards, but with him out of the way he could now deal with the man who is causing the injuries to the love of his life.

Felix was quick to put Arthur on the backfoot and force him away from the main fight, giving him enough room and limiting the possibility of anyone else intervening. Felix was also stronger, faster, and most importantly more skilled than Arthur with fighting with the longsword. And even when the blade itself did not hurt him the chilling effect from the blade made him feel more cold and numb with each strike, causing him to move and react even slower.

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The main forces of each side however were starting to conclude their fight, since most of the bandits only wore armor they stole they were not exactly well protected, and they also had very little sense of friendship and comradery compared to the guards and mercenaries who knew and for the most part cared as well as trusted each other. This left the bandits on the losing end without even counting the tactical advantage they were lacking in, and as the fight continued the bandits slowly began to die off.

Every little wound would slowly build up and every time one of the leaders was killed off the moral took a nosedive. Each bandit knew the only way out was through their attackers resulting in many poor decisions made from desperation that pushed the odds into the guards and mercenaries' favor.

Eventually as the outlook turned to be impossible a couple of the bandits dropped their weapons and ran in the opposite direction, they had nowhere to run and only managed to distract a few of the remaining bandits to find themselves with a blade in their gut when they weren't looking.

Diana and her frenzy did not last for very long as the adrenalin eventually wore off and her movements began to become clumsy and sluggish, Captain Tasius used that opportunity to strike at her knees and cripple her. He chose to do that because he figured it would be best if the mastermind of the whole operation was publicly executed, the people would be happy that their largest source of danger was dealt with, and it would reflect well upon him and perhaps gain his district more funding for security.

As Diana fell to the ground with both her knees covered in wounds she shouted out in pain momentarily distracting Felix. “Diana!” Felix shouted as he saw the guards mercilessly cuff her arms behind her back and gag her so that she may not shout. He turned back to Arthur who took the opportunity to take a step back and begin casting a spell.

“Ignis iaculum!” Three small bolts of fire were conjured and were directed by Arthur towards Felix. While avoiding most of the damage two of the bolts still managed to graze his face and leave a small burn.

As retaliation for such an underhanded move Felix swung his sword towards Arthur’s neck with the intent to cut his head right off. He missed as Arthur took a set back, but he swung again, this time an overhead strike that would be much closer than the last. Arthur was forced to block the strike with one hand on the handle and the second supporting the blade.

Arthur could hear Felix grunt and grumble in anger as he pushed down harder on the sword as if he was attempting to cut through it. But even if he was it didn’t really matter as the cold radiating from his blade slowly seeped into Arthur’s causing his hand to get even colder and numb.

In his fit of rage Felix let his right hand off of the handle and winded it back for a punch to the face. Arthur, noticing the clear and choreographed attack, let his left hand stop supporting his blade and prepared to deflect the attack. Using his wrist deflected and pushed Felix’s arm to the side, as Arthur did this he dropped his sword and quickly conjured a thin knife from earth, the blade was designed like a needle and relied on stabbing as opposed to slashing.

With the enclosed distance Arthur practically tackled Felix and repeatedly stabbed him in one of the few places his armor could not easily, the armpit. The thin blade managed to side right in between any of the chain main that protected the area, but the thinness of the blade forced Arthur to nearly constantly reinforce it to keep it from breaking off.

The sword that Felix was using was practically useless at such a closed distance forcing him to drop it and attempt to use his hands to force Arthur to stop, but the pain coming from his left arm from the stab wounds kept him from using that arm. Felix frantically swung his right arm towards Arthur wildly, he started with repeatedly punching him in the head to disorient him, but that failed due to them practically being face to face creating an awkward angle to strike even with fist.

Eventually the other mercenaries and guards took notice of the struggle and rushed over to assist Arthur and subdued Felix who was now steadily bleeding out from his armpit from all the stab wounds and the increase in blood flow.

By this time Kavok regained his footing and helped Arthur find a decent box to sit on closer to the main group. Shortly after all the bandits that weren't killed in battle had their wounds treated if they could be, this left fifteen or so bandits including Diana and Felix who were kept separately for security reasons.

Of course the mercenaries and guards were the first to receive medical treatment, those with shallow or light wounds were treated with regular medicine and bandages while those with more life threatening injuries were treated with restoration magic thanks to the handful of mages that took part in the raid.

Upon helping Arthur to a place to sit Kavok also pulled up a box and sat next to him. Arthur took out his lunch from his dimensional bag, he made said lunch earlier in the morning while Kavok retrieved a potato from a small backpack he carried with him and began to take bites out of the potato.

Arthur noticed that whenever the potato got close to Kavoks face the parts closest it would disappear like a thick fog had enveloped it, the very same ‘fog’ also concealed his face. ‘That must be an enchantment that hides his face. I hope he doesn't have it because he is an assassin and regularly needs to conceal his identity.’

Kavok took notice of Arthur staring and let out a small chuckle. “Are you still trying to determine if I am a vampire?”

Arthur paused and looked at Kavok with a mix of worry and alertness as he subtly readied his mana just in case he needed to fight. Kavok took no notice and continued speaking.

“When Captain outright asked me if I was a vampire I knew someone had taken notice of me, and when I looked back I noticed that you were paying quite a bit of attention to me. It also helped that when I asked the captain if it was you who said something he froze for a second.”

Kavok paused his explanation as he took another bit out of his potato.

“He denied it of course, but it didn’t matter, but I did prove to him that I am not a vampire.”