Two days later, the Rohault Army took to the battlefield with renewed vigour.
As predicted by Murciel, the O’Brien army took a more defensive stance, merely trying to delay the advance of their enemy as much as possible. Unfortunately, they weren’t even able to do that as well as they would’ve liked.
Initially, the O’Brien Army had an army that was almost twice the size of their opponents which enabled them to rotate their soldiers regularly and allowed them to keep their uninjured soldiers fresh, but after losing so many soldiers during their failed ambush and then with the addition of Ace’s team, they were forced to send out their full strength each day, and although on the first day, they held the numerical advantage, after a long month, it was their enemies, the Rohault Empire that held every single advantage imaginable.
The reason for this was the team of robed experts on the side of the Rohault Empire. It wasn’t just Ace; his whole team – including Ebeze and Chukaya – had heavily tipped the scales in favour of the Rohault Army.
Each of them was a genius in their own right. Even Ebeze, who was the weakest of them, was able to challenge and defeat most warriors of the sixth rank, whilst Killian and Chukaya were both capable of challenging those at the seventh rank.
On the journey from the capital to the battlefield, Ace had already told Kil and Mira not to use everything they had in their arsenal so as not to give too many clues regarding their identities. As a result, whilst they went all out as warriors, both disciples of the pavilion decided to only use one of their elemental affinities,
Of her light and wind affinities, Amira chose to focus on her wind affinity as it had the most supportive spells to assist her as a warrior, which would allow her to use more of her strength. As for Killian, despite having strong affinities to the laws of Destruction and lightning, the element he chose was Earth.
Even though his original affinity to the earth element was at the exceptional grade, after being fed the Earth Root Fruit, Killian’s affinity to the earth rose even higher. Even though there were no official affinity grades above exceptional, according to Aiden, Killian’s affinity to the earth was not a whit inferior to Ace’s to the laws of fire.
As such, Killian felt as though there was a lot of room for improvement with regard to his comprehension, and what better place than the battlefield?
Killian’s current strength came as a shock to all who knew Killian’s true cultivation realm. Though they expected him to be extremely talented, coming from the same institution as Ace and Amira, they didn’t expect him to not only be able to jump two ranks but also make visible improvements on a near-daily basis.
The person affected most by the display of Killian’s strength, though, was undoubtedly Chukaya.
He originally came to this war with grand ambitions of showing off his prowess to Amira and, ultimately, earning her hand in marriage due to his incredible feats. Unfortunately, ever since they left, it had turned into the Pavilion show, with each disciple displaying otherworldly talent.
Even Amira, who was the weakest of the trio, was able to jump two ranks above her own to do battle.
Still, as downcast as he was by the discovery of the abilities of the disciples of the pavilion in comparison to his own, there was no denying his talent.
But without a shadow of a doubt, the ones that stole the show were Ace and Leo.
Like Killian and Mira, Ace also held back, but whilst they limited themselves to only one element, Ace held back a whole path, limiting himself to only his abilities as a mage.
Though he preferred fighting at close quarters, his decision made sense. Right now, other than his physical realm, there wasn’t much left for Ace to improve on as a warrior, whereas there was still much of his potential as a mage to be unearthed.
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Still, because he wasn’t alone, he couldn’t afford to be as unrestrained as he would like, charging head-first into enemy lines. As such, he and Leo decided to take a step back and allow the rest of the team to bear the brunt of the enemy’s assaults, only taking action when things got too much for the rest of their team to handle.
Unfortunately for the O’Brien Army, it didn’t matter if they tried to overwhelm Ace and his team with a high number of weaker soldiers or a few additional warriors at the seventh and eighth ranks; the moment Ace or Leo stepped in, they would show that all tactics fail in the face of overwhelming power.
They quickly understood that it would take one of their ninth-rank warriors to defeat them, but as the O’Brien warriors at that level were tangled up with their counterparts, the options they had at their disposal were limited.
During the course of the month, the O’Brien Army had lost a lot of ground, being forced back over a hundred miles, but because the vast majority of the land that made up the ground between the two sides were open plains, it wasn’t too important, but they were rapidly approaching the first of many towns that belonged to their empire, and whilst losing ground was shameful, losing an actual town was simply unacceptable.
Over the last few days, General Lyrin had fought desperately to slow down their opposition’s advancement as much as possible, hoping that reinforcements would arrive soon.
But even though it had already been a month, their reinforcements still hadn’t arrived. He didn’t understand why it was taking so long, but he couldn’t afford to think about anything but the task at hand.
“General,” One of Lyrin’s subordinates called out from outside the general’s tent. “I’ve got Tulse Redwin here as you requested.”
“Let him in,” Lyrin replied indifferently.
Redwin Town was a fairly small town named after its ruler, Tulse Redwin. He wasn’t particularly powerful, only being a warrior of the seventh rank, but because it was his town under threat of invasion, Lyrin forced the town leader to assimilate his army into theirs, as weak as they were.
“Sir,” A burly middle-aged man bowed respectfully as he entered. “I’ve been brought up to speed on the imminent threat my town’s facing. As requested, I’ve assembled all the able combatants my town has at its disposal, and although not much, we should be able to help slow down those Rohault bastards until reinforceme-”
“Lyrin,” A loud imposing voice called from outside as the entrance to the general’s tent was opened.
There weren’t many that would dare to enter General Lyrin’s tent so casually. In fact, there was no one among the general’s subordinates who’d dare to act in such a brazen manner, but Lyrin didn’t even flinch.
“Finally!” Lyrin sighed as he saw a towering figure duck down to enter his tent, along with a couple of other similarly imposing figures. “I was beginning to think reinforcements weren’t…
Olivier? I didn’t expect you to be sent as well.”
The last to enter the spacious tent was a cold-faced, brown-haired young man donning a glistening white robe who appeared to be in his mid to late twenties.
“The Emperor asked me to come,” Olivier replied indifferently.
“We had to wait for Olivier to return from his training before coming to assist you,” The large warrior who entered first explained, understanding that the young Olivier was a man of few words. “Emperor Johan wanted to ensure that if the mysterious expert you sent word back about is really a mortal, they’re dealt with now before they can grow any stronger.
And if they’re a saint, Lord Lanke will deal with them.”
“Lord Lanke?!” Lyrin asked, unable to contain his surprise. “As in sir War-God’s 24th Disciple?”
“That’s right,” The large man nodded. “If those pieces of trash from the Rohault Empire really dared to allow a saint to enter the battlefield for mortals, then Lord Lanke has been given the green light to not only kill the saint in question but also slaughter every soldier of the Rohault Army to send a message.”
“That mystery expert,” Olivier said, his interest suddenly roused. “What do you know about him.”
A helpless sigh escaped Lyrin’s mouth as he recalled the individual in question. “The first thing you need to know is that there are a total of six robed people in the team, and each of them is wearing a robe that prevents you from getting an accurate read on their exact cultivation realm – presumably to hide their identities.
The first is someone I believe to be a warrior at the fifth rank because when ‘wielding heavy as though it were light’, can only match up to a warrior of the sixth rank…”
One by one, Lyrin explained everything he knew about each of the robed experts, and if Ace and the others were there, they could only nod, as bar Ace himself, Lyrin had been correct about the assumed levels of the others.
What surprised Olivier and the other three peak rank nine warriors he had come with was that although the strengths of most of them weren’t impressive when remembering their assumed realms, they had to admit that each of them was beyond talented because their levels of comprehension had far surpassed the average elite at their realms, with Killian and Amira’s ability to cross realms to fight matching that of Olivier’s – the man referred to as the ‘Prodigy Sword Saint’ – when he was at their realm.
“…But the two we need to be most weary of are the fire mage and his fifth-rank magical beast…”