Throwing the spears was a bit inefficient, but it was the best way for Gaius not to stand out in the front lines. The enemies couldn't try to look for him while others were trying to kill them, after all.

At first, Gaius got excited that they were winning and pushing the enemies back. Still, when he began to pick quivers from the ground, his head cooled down a little, and he noticed it: pools of blood around him, corpses missing limbs or heads. The stench of blood and the smell of shit and piss left behind by those who saw death coming and looked into its eyes. In that situation, few people could hold back their bodies before they found their last moments.

"... There is no point in pitying them, but this whole scene is rather disturbing," Gaius thought while furrowing his eyebrows.

Gaius woke up from his daze when he heard the sound of arrows coming and his father groaning in pain. He lost focus for a moment due to the sound as well, and one enemy almost chopped off his arms.

"The enemies… they know that the arrows will kill their allies as well and yet…" Gaius thought while grabbing a shield from the ground and heading toward his father.

"Shields!"

"Shields!"

"Shields!"

A lot of soldiers worked as fast as possible, but in the end, the barrage of arrows still hit some of them. Gaius managed to protect himself and his father, though, with a nearby shield. When he looked in the distance, he saw another group of archers. The enemy's commander was running out of patience, and he wanted to change the flow of the battle no matter what.

In that position, Gaius couldn't interfere with them, and it would take a while for his desert wolf to reach them. It was a bit too soon to use that, but it couldn't be helped. Gaius grabbed one spear and then cut a bit of the palm of his hand and let some blood fall on the tip. After it was red enough, Gaius made his mana flow on the tip of the spear.

"It isn't perfect, but it is what we have for today," Gaius thought. "We have to show them hell instead of letting them show it to us..."

Gaius could make his mana flow through the bloodied tip of the spear, but not for long. He used eighty percent of the mana he had recovered and the rest to enhance his arm strength before throwing toward the next group of archers.

The weapon flew while making a high-pitched sound. In the darkness of the night, few people saw the weapon moving, but many saw numerous soldiers being impaled by it. It was impossible to tell who threw such a weapon, but Zarius had an idea since the weapon came from behind and killed dozens of enemies and the ones that were approaching him.

When Zairus turned around, he only saw his son firing arrows. He was taking his time aiming, but his projectiles were landing on the chests of the enemies. He wanted to confirm that Gaius did that, but he didn’t have time to do so.

Zairus moved to the sides to help his friends who were being overwhelmed, and Gaius took that chance to look around and confirm that no one was looking at him. At least the frontline wasn’t; some kids in the back were approaching to fight since they saw their parents and grandparents getting hurt.

When the backline was fifty meters away, they stopped moving and then pointed their bows upward. It wasn’t a particularly impressive barrage of arrows, but it was a barrage nonetheless. Several enemies were hit by it, and then the second barrage soon came after.

“This should help me a bit… and the others ahead,” Gaius thought while looking around.

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The battlefield was as chaotic as he had expected, but Gaius noticed that they had the upper hand despite their lack of numbers. The reason for that was his first attack and the fact that his monsters were attacking the sides of the enemy's formation, preventing them from surrounding their sides. Some villagers died, but it was a small number compared to the enemies.

“I should feel happy that we are winning, but… I don’t,” Gaius furrowed his eyebrows while looking at the corpses of the villagers that had fallen. “I can’t feel happy knowing that people are dying and I am holding back. Still, what could I do in this kind of situation?”

It wasn’t the best place or time to think about that. Overthinking on the battlefield would never be a good thing. Still, at least that made Gaius have a certain idea. After thinking about not trying to hold back, Gaius moved closer to the frontline and then took a deep sigh. When he saw one enemy that seemed stronger than the others, he fired an arrow at his face. When the villager he had just helped looked behind his shoulder from the direction the arrow came from, he didn’t find anything. Gaius had already vanished by using Silent Step and was behind the blind spot of another villager.

Gaius calmed down, and his focus improved to the point that he could tell which enemies were a threat to his father with a single glance and then put an arrow in their heads the next moment. At the same time, Gaius watched the enemies beyond their first line and soon found the leader of the squads that were relaying the orders from their higher-ups. Gaius’ Bow Mastery reached level thirty already, and he managed to snipe those fifty meters away.

The villagers began to like the fight even more, and they let the blood rush to their heads, but a single shout from Zairus made them wake up and stop. Gaius couldn't help but frown, those guys needed to be more cool-headed, but he couldn't say much since he wasn't seeing steel getting closer to his face while some mad enemies were trying to chop him alive.

“Retreat! Retreat now!” Zairus shouted with all his might.

Even amid the chaos of the battlefield, the defeating screams of pain, and the sound of steel clashing, the villagers recognized that voice and obeyed Zairus. Thirty seconds later, they heard the sounds of hundreds, if not thousands, of arrows crossing the sky toward them.

Half of the enemies had been defeated in that battle, but it looked like their leaders decided to cut their losses and then moved all of their reserve archers to attack that flank and kill all of them in a single swift attack. Zairus noticed their weird movements and prevented that, though.

"... I was too focused on the fight,” Gaius thought and then gulped. “This could have been bad if it weren’t for Father… this is my second large-scale battle, but it can't be compared to attack from above and using ambushes.”

The villagers thought that they would have to fight soon, but the enemies retreated to count their losses as well. They already knew that they lost the confrontation that night, so they had to understand what happened to avoid the same thing from happening again.

The kids of the group thought that they would have some time to take a break, but soon they understood that was just them being naive. They lost around one-tenth of their strength, and around twenty percent suffered some damage. The wounded soldiers needed treatment, and there was no one else who could offer it.

Some people like Zairus began to order around the kids to look for water and clean bandages to help the wounded, while some kids like Gaius and the archers who helped the fight were told to keep a close watch on the surroundings. There was no telling if the enemies would send some people to harass them, after all.

While he was on guard duty, Gaius also looked in the direction of the other battlefields, and it looked like the right flank was still busy fighting. Things would stay like that for a couple of hours.

"I don't see anyone here using magic… it must be really rare…" Gaius thought while imagining that learning some healing spells would come in handy now.

Gaius killed dozens of enemy soldiers, but only a few of them granted him some skills. They were all physical, though. Spear Mastery, Bow Mastery, and Sword Mastery were among them. It was a bit boring. Spear Mastery was what he needed the most for close-range combat, but it would take a while before he could summon all those people he killed.

"I can't avoid summoning them. A force of that size will help us cover our losses and also surprise the enemies," Gaius thought. "The others should be around, and they bought clothes and gear as well, so I will make them attack the back of the enemy lines."

Although Gaius had enough mana to summon some of them, he wasn't alone guarding the borders of the camp, so he couldn't do much. He just charged the summoning bars with mana and waited several hours. Just like he had expected, the other battlefield stopped around two hours later, and then some messages arrived with new orders.