So, I stop worrying and fly as fast as I can towards the road out of the city. My best option is going to be to go deal with the threat and come back as fast as possible. The people I spotted left the city on foot, they haven't gone far by the time I reach the edge of the city.
When I reach the edge of the city, I stop and hover as I send my mana out to take a look. I quickly spot the group that left the city, they are not too far out and have taken up ambush positions. When I send my mana out further along the road I spot a caravan approaching.
However, there is a problem, I can't see or sense any elves in this caravan. It looks like this is the wrong caravan and I was worried over nothing. Just as I am about to turn around I notice the symbol of the merchant group.
It is Zachariah's merchant group so I can't just ignore them and let them be ambushed. I quickly pick out the leader and then try to use mana to send him a message. It seems to work, the leader stops the caravan and they take defensive positions.
Looking down at where the road enters the city, I can see the guard post. The city guards are just standing there staring up at me, so I tell them about the ambush. One of them blows a high pitch whistle and within two minutes a patrol of adventurers shows up.
The guards update the adventurers and then they rush out to ambush the ambushers. Between the caravan guards and the adventurers, they shouldn't have any trouble. With that taken care of I circle back into the city to check on the groups.
However, there is absolutely nothing unusual going on, the city looks normal. The elven groups are fine, the ship is fine, and Lin is at the dock waiting for me. It looks like I was wrong about everything, no one was plotting anything.
Instead of flying back to the dock to join Lin, I head over to check the other road into the city. There, when I send my mana out, I find the caravan that actually has my elves. There are just over a hundred elves, and well over two hundred guards in the caravan.
That small group of criminals wouldn't stand a chance against this many guards. I should have known that Zachariah wasn't going to take any chances with my people. Just to be sure, I do a quick check of the surrounding area, and it ends up being a good thing.
The road may enter the city on the west side, but before that it swings to the south. Approaching the road from the east is a group of several hundred demonic beasts. Rather than turning north to attack the city, the dog-like demonic beasts are heading straight for the caravan.
The caravan guards are outnumbered, but if they are decent they should be able to handle it. However, I don't plan to wait and find out, it isn't worth taking the chance. Luckily, the beasts are running together in a tight cluster, so I can hit them with an area spell.
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Since the last time I used it, the wind blade storm took some time to form, I aim it ahead of the beasts. However, when I try to activate the spell it fails because I am too far away. Since the city is calm, I fly out further along the road heading for the caravan.
The caravan guards actually spot me before they spot the approaching beasts. Some of the guards are from the city, so they don't panic when they see me. However, the caravan still stops and the guards take up defensive positions.
It doesn't take me long to cover the distance to the caravan and take up position above it. At the same time the beasts have only covered about half of the distance that they need to cover. By now the caravan guards have finally spotted the approaching wave of beasts.
As they are getting ready to fight, I target an area ahead of the beasts and cast my spell. Unfortunately, unlike when I built the spell myself, this spell triggers instantly. Meaning the spell runs out before the beasts even reach the area that I targeted.
That means that I just wasted almost half my mana and didn't kill a single beast. It is my own fault for assuming how the spell works, I really should have tested it first. However, I don't have time to worry about that now, the beasts are getting closer.
So, this time I target the area directly in front of the first beast and cast the spell again. Dozens of beasts are inside the area when the spell activates and the ones behind them can't stop. A few dozen beasts that were on the sides of the group manage to go around the spell.
Other than those, the rest of the beasts run right into the spell and get diced. Hundreds of beasts being reduced to small pieces is a very gruesome sight. The entire spell turns red from all the blood, just like when the swarm died.
348 Rank 3 Blood Hounds defeated! 10,440 Exp gained!
74 Rank 4 Blood Hounds defeated! 2,960 Exp gained!
The caravan guards easily take care of the remaining few dozen beasts. That is a good thing since after casting the spell twice I am almost completely out of mana. Once the fighting is over I gain some altitude and then start circling above the caravan.
The caravan takes a few minutes and then starts moving towards the city again. I continue to circle above the caravan, I am going to guard it until it reaches the dock. Luckily, nothing else happens and the caravan safely reaches the dock.
By the time the caravan gets to the dock, the groups of elves have all returned. Zachariah is also at the dock and is chatting with Lin when the caravan arrives. The women that Stillwater brought are the first ones to rush to meet the elves in the caravan.
As I had hoped, the elves are not in chains, nor do they look like they have been mistreated. They do however look to be in shock, but that is completely understandable. After all, the caravan guards probably didn't tell them what was going on.
Even if they did, the elves probably wouldn't have believed them anyway. The elves probably thought that the better treatment was a bad thing and meant they were headed somewhere worse. As slaves, they had no reason to expect that anything good was going to happen to them.
The fact that they are being welcomed by other elves is probably a huge shock to them. Especially since some of the elves are armed and the humans are staying back. Some of the new elves scream in fear when I land and shapeshift into human form.