Few saw Baynard’s tragic fall from his horse, his heart brutally pierced by an arrow, blood gushing profusely as it filled his mouth.
As Baynard’s grip on reality slipped away, his horse, though unscathed, reared violently beside him, trampling the dying man’s abdomen before bolting into the chaos. Terrified by the relentless horde of beasts and the fierce clash between mages nearby, the once obedient steed snapped back to its primal instincts, abandoning its role as Duke Dayflare’s loyal cavalry mount.
Just as they dismissed Baynard, both sides of the battle paid no attention to horses like the one fleeing. The beasts of the Eternal Village continued their merciless massacre of the enemy cavalry and infantry, while the few remaining men struggled to survive, finding no opportunity to escape. Simultaneously, as the three main mages engaged in fierce combat, Eliot shifted his gaze toward the group of archers, now targeting the village guards.
Petyr led the village guards against the less than fifty individuals in the archers’ squad, having traversed a terrain ravaged by Jonn’s meteors and endured the hellish visions of that chaotic site. Leaving the village animals behind to slaughter the main enemy warriors, they found themselves fifty meters away from the archers’ group, now under fire from wooden arrows.
Fortunately, these arrows were not like Eliot’s. Otherwise, their simple armor and shields would prove ineffective, turning this mission into a suicide pact.
The men wielding the large wooden shields advanced at the front, protecting their comrades from the incoming arrows, while those armed with spears and swords took positions farther back.
“Take cover!” Petyr shouted as he saw another volley of arrows. His men moved closer to the shield bearers, who raised their shields diagonally in response.
Each guard bore tired expressions, fear etched into their lines, making them appear older and malnourished. They were dirt-smudged, their boots muddy from recent rain and the dust kicked up by the ongoing confrontation.
Their minds, yet, remained clear and focused on one goal: survival.
The sound of arrows slicing through the air heightened the horror among the combatants, each one thudding against the ground or clanging against shields already marked by the day’s fierce battle.
The piercing sound of wood being struck echoed through Petyr’s group, punctuated by a few screams from the men injured by the arrows that had breached their defenses.
“Aaaagh!”
Despite the enemy assault, the group remained mostly intact. Lowering their shields, they saw the archers prepare for another barrage, realizing the time they needed to walk a few more meters forward.
Most of Duke Dayflare’s archers held their positions, preparing another wave of shots with enough ammunition reserved for up to eleven more attacks. But some were growing visibly frustrated as their supplies dwindled, noticing that the enemy group, mostly, remained steadfast in battle.
This was not the behavior of the losing side, but of the victors in the fight!
“To hell with it! Time to run!” one archer muttered to himself as he dropped his weapon and fled.
“Bastar—” began one of the archer leaders as he attempted to shout at the first to abandon the formation, but before he could finish, he lost focus on the enemy and was struck by an arrow in his right eye.
Eliot deftly took another clean, swift shot, piercing the skull of another foe in his path—the ninth since the battle began. He watched as the struck enemy staggered, turning toward the fleeing archer before losing his footing and collapsing hard onto the ground.
Quickly preparing his antepenultimate arrow, Eliot fixed his eagle eyes on the fleeing man, noticing that others were making the same escape.
Another shot whistled through the air, its scream more pronounced than the flurry of enemy archers’ movements.
Another body hit the ground, prompting more glances in Eliot’s direction and eliciting further thoughts of escape.
“Forward!” Petyr shouted, recognizing it was their decisive moment. The gap between his group and the enemies had narrowed, but so had the stability within the archer ranks—almost 30% of their members were abandoning the formation to flee individually.
Eliot wasted no time firing his last arrows, then rode his horse toward the scattered arrows lying on the battlefield. These were defective weapons—broken upon impact or buried in wounded bodies, having lost some of their offensive capabilities.
But better a weapon with a few defects than none at all!
Jumping off his horse and picking up an arrow that had penetrated an enemy’s body and pierced the corpse’s neck, he turned his gaze toward the fleeing enemies, spotting a red dot in his sight. As he focused on this point, the mana enriching his eyes made him feel closer to the target, shrinking the red dot from the size of a head to the size of an eye at the back of the moving man’s head.
Eliot’s pupil constricted slightly, enhancing his vision even further, with the red dot now as small as the point of a needle. He finally fired his arrow, allowing it to trace the path he had envisioned in his mind.
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Eliot’s defective arrow flew with 80% accuracy, hitting its target moments later and knocking the enemy out just millimeters from where he had aimed.
’A defective weapon makes the job a lot harder,’ he thought to himself, realizing that not even his {Skill} could fully compensate. “Whatever. At least he fell unconscious. That one’s out of the fight for now.”
Eliot moved again, noticing that Petyr’s group was now engaging in close combat with the archers who hadn’t attempted to flee. These enemy men dropped their bows and drew swords from their belts, advancing toward the group of village guards.
At this point in the battle, some animals joined Petyr’s group alongside Eliot, compensating for the difference in numbers and slightly balancing the odds.
Petyr grappled with one of the archer leaders, feeling the stark contrast between facing a professional battalion and guards he had trained amateurishly. Even so, the men from the Eternal Village seemed stronger, even if their weapon-handling techniques weren’t the most refined.
The village guards suffered, receiving cuts and blows that would need time to recover from, but they also inflicted wounds on their enemies.
Luckily for them, their opponents were only archers and not infantrymen!
While Sarre, Wy, and Asher fought side by side with Petyr and the other guards—enduring pain while also wounding their foes—Ice and Phantom joined the pursuit of the fleeing men.
By this point, the battle of the beasts had concluded, with a group of just over 100 men, both infantry and cavalry, slain on the outskirts between the stage of Jonn’s confrontation and the area where the archers were fighting or fleeing.
Jonn could feel the result approaching from afar while he still had the two enemy mages against him, each of them quite tired by now.
Mana: 332/3,450
He saw his mana at the lowest it had been in months, his [Stamina] reduced to only 120, and his [Health] at 230.
Only four minutes of combat had passed since the chaos unleashed by the meteor shower he had orchestrated. In that short time, Jonn had activated his [Flame Avatar] for just a few seconds, as maintaining such a powerful {Spell} was unsustainable for long periods.
Throughout most of the fight, he exploited his opponents’ weaknesses, targeting the weaker enemy physically while deftly avoiding the stronger one. His [Arcane Sight] proved exceptionally effective in combat, allowing him to track the trajectory of enemy attacks and identify their vulnerable points with uncanny precision.
The brief duration of Jonn’s [Flame Avatar] bought him time, weakening his enemies and uncovering their vulnerabilities in ways that could be tactically advantageous.
Using some mana crystals he had stored, explosive items that added an extra layer of defense, he evaded several attacks and even wounded both opponents, who now regarded him with hatred in their eyes.
Though he himself was nearing exhaustion, the situation was not much better for the two enemy mages. Jonn couldn’t discern their exact statuses, but he was certain they had even less mana than he did. Their lack of innate warrior instincts provided him an edge, as he possessed superior physical attributes and robust armor.
“Damn! Damn enchanted armor!” shouted the commander of the nearly decimated troop, frustrated by his repeated failures to land fatal blows on Jonn because of the man’s resilient armor.
The other mage, now with one arm immobilized and blood oozing from deep wounds between his elbow and shoulder, was pale and on the verge of fainting. Yet, he could still comprehend their dire circumstances and his ally’s exasperated remark.
“The situation is bad, Hank,” said the sword mage, noticing Jonn doubled over in his blurred vision. “I don’t see a future after this battle.”
The old commander echoed his despair, aware that his group was almost entirely wiped out and that the enemy beasts remained powerful. Soon, a hen and an eagle sprinting towards them would join forces with the enemy against them.
As if that wasn’t enough, even after unleashing all the powerful blows from earlier and deploying at least a dozen different strategies, the enemy leader remained steadfast, calculating his next move as he continued to glare menacingly at them.
“I’m not afraid of death!” the old battalion commander said to his companion, discarding his wand and drawing a spear from his storage pouch. “But if he wants my life, he’ll have to take it the hard way!”
The swordsman glanced at his companion for a fleeting moment, his body trembling with exhaustion. Yet, seeing the fierce determination burning in Hank’s eyes, he shouted out, forcing himself to rise. Struggling to grip his weapon with both hands, he surged forward, intent on following his staunch ally.
With the scant mana he had remaining, he pressed on after Hank, his focus fixed on their enemy.
Hank was right. If they were to fall, they might as well do so fighting!
They needed to wound the enemy and bring him down, too!
The two roared with fury, their steps almost frenzied as they advanced toward the equally enraged adversary.
They weren’t the only ones consumed by anger in this fray. In Jonn’s eyes, the issue ran deeper. This group wasn’t merely here to intimidate his people; it was a blatant declaration of war, signaling that their enemies had no intention of backing down anytime soon.
Listening to those two fueled Jonn’s rage more than anything in recent months, prompting him to contemplate whether to reactivate [Hex of Silence]. They had already disrupted his {Spells} a minute ago, allowing them to voice their declarations.
“Tsk! You come to my house and think you can get away with death?!” Jonn said aloud, the veins in his neck throbbing visibly as orange flames ignited in his eyes and fists.
“Dream on! This is the Eternal Village, and you will pay for your crimes for a long time!”
As he moved, channeling his mana into his hands, he ignored the system’s warnings, attempting to activate [Air Palm]. But instead of the intended effect, a completely unexpected reaction surged through him.
-200 Mana
What was supposed to be a forceful palm to incapacitate the two enemies rushing toward him transformed into a cascade of dancing orange sparks. These sparks coalesced into a sweeping wave of air as the surrounding temperature skyrocketed.
An orange vortex of flames formed around the two men, the swirling inferno rapidly contracting its radius and hurtling toward them with violent intensity. The searing heat scorched their hair and threatened to engulf their clothes and skin, testing their heightened senses and showing if their wills were truly indomitable as they endured the relentless burn.