Steven watched as his man slowly pulled down the walls, the runes only lit in dime light.

This Michael had tricked his scouts into thinking their defenses were weak to bait an attack. They even had magic circles that buffed the mages in them, giving them extra firepower.

That's why he made a solo attack on the castle. He flew over the walls and attacked the casters and the magic circles with the cleansing flames and light beams from his lance.

It took him longer than expected to destroy the magic circles. At that point he was injured and almost out of mana, but it was worth it.

Without his action, they wouldn't be able to raid Michael's base today and would only have delivered free credits, which was probably what the bastard had planned.

Now that the tide of the battle had turned, his mages were doing a good job weakening the defenses. His archers, although helped with fully charged arrows, which even dealt more damage than most spells.

Minutes later he was almost fully healed by one of his strongest healers, and his mana had recovered fully from a talisman one of the smiths had made for him, giving him a strong mana regeneration.

Now it was time to breach the walls. The runes even started flickering. "Thorwald, go smash that wall into pieces," he shouted at the muscular man.

"With pleasure," Thorwald replied with a grin on his face. Thorwald was waiting for this moment the whole night.

He sprinted forward, activating an ability to give him extra strength and speed, and his axeblade grew a large red edge, and with incredible speed and power, it connected with the wall, shattering the 7-meter-tall and two-meter-thick wall entirely.

Thorwald dashed through the breach he just created in Michael's base and started to massacre the people there.

"Go!" Steven screamed at his people, and they all ran at the breach in the wall.

Steven summoned his wings and rose in the air, helping Thorwald from above, who was attacked from all sides but just ignored it while swinging his axe like a madman.

He landed on the wall and began charging the archers and mages placed there, his shield held high.

They fired at him with all they got, but he blocked it all and pierced the heart of the first defender, then fired a beam of light that threw the corpse into the archer behind him.

He swiped with his lance to the side, throwing the corpse of the man he just impaled over the battlements.

Then he started charging again with his shield forward, crashing into the barrier of the mage and shattering it with his speed. Steven slammed his shield into the mage, throwing him back before his target could get up. He pointed the lance at him and channeled his cleansing flame through it.

This was one of the incredible abilities his lance had; it not only had a tool spirit ability that could be used, but it also allowed him to channel all his skills through the lance and even empowered them.

Otherwise, he had to open himself up by channeling the fire spell with his hand.

The white fire came at the defenders of the wall like the breath of a dragon and grilled over fifteen defenders on the wall.

As more and more of his men were inside, he took to the air again and flew to the higher towers, where some mages, one of them Michael, had set up another magic circle and started bombarding his men.

The fireballs flung from the tower were powerful, and Steven saw how they hit a group of his men, killing most of them.

Steven sped up even more and rammed the two mages with his shield, throwing them off the tower.

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To his dismay, both could also fly, fire shot out of their feet, and they flew around the tower, bombarding him with fire spells.

He blocked them with his shield, and with a beat of his wings, he chased after them.

Michael and that other guy were sadly no amateurs and split up, with one trying to get behind his shield.

Steven tried to stop the one by shooting a light beam at the man, but he was too fast and dodged it.

Michael had turned his body around and fired some sort of red lightning at him. Steven blocked it with his shield, but the impact was so hard that he was thrown a few meters back.

He switched his target, now going after the mage that had positioned himself behind Steven. The guy immediately unleashed some kind of flamethrower at him.

With a beat of his wings, he dodged to the side, but parts of his light wings got burned, and it did cost additional mana to repair them.

He blocked another fireball from Michael that threw him downward after impacting with his shield, he had already charged up his light beam before stabilizing and unleashing the beam at Michael.

The man turned into pure flames and appeared a few meters to the right, fully avoiding his spell.

How much mana did those guys have? They flew and kept attacking him, but he was confident that he would win in the end. The moment those two mages were out of mana, it was truly his turn.

At the moment it looked like he was losing, but it was quite the opposite. The other side was wasting a lot of mana for throwing him around without dealing any damage and wasting their precious mana.

He decided to speed things up because he didn't want to miss out on too much credit from the other defenders who got slaughtered by his men.

His wings glowed more intensely while he was pushing more mana into them, and with a beat of his wings, he shot to the side while shooting another light beam at them with his lance.

The two men were surprised and not fast enough to react, and Michael got hit in the shoulder and flung backward.

Steven turned direction and flew at the other mage that already looked exhausted. The guys reacted quickly by throwing another fireball at Steven that slowed him down when he blocked it with his shield.

It didn't slow him down enough for the mage to get out of his reach, and with a stab, he impaled the mage on his lance.

Finally, that felt good. Steven thought, turning around to that bastard Michael, and saw him in the distance, flying away at full speed.

He had escaped. It would not be worth chasing that guy. He would miss out on too much credit if he chased him all night, as Michael probably knew.

Steven could just hope that the guy would not join Kael, or at least if he does create problems for the man.

With that, he dove down to help his warrior. His orders were clear, kill everyone who resisted and leave the others alive to join them. In the end, the people had a higher worth alive than the credits earned by killing them.

Thorwald watched how Steven started attacking the mages on top of the tower. He currently let another charge at the defenders in the streets. They didn’t attack the people hiding in the houses as long as the people didn't attack them.

Well, they still checked for ambushes, but that's it, and maybe if the people there looked rich, they often did not survive the safety checks, but most made it.

They had attacked with a little bit over 50 men a base with over two hundred.

Well, most of the defenders were no warriors anyway. Some were weak, and some did flee, so it was pretty easy, and they also didn't have any elite warriors.

Thorwald hurled his throwing axe at a lone archer that was still alive on the wall. Next, he took his axe in both hands and charged up a powerful cut.

After swinging a cut as wide as the street crashed in the wall of defenders, killing most of them as they were just level 25 and not strong enough to withstand his might.

He dashed into them, swinging his axe, killing the warriors in rapid succession.

After the street was cleared, it was time for another round of house-checking. He wondered what treasure would be waiting for him.

He hammered his fist against the door and screamed, "Open the door if you want to live another day.".

After a short while, the door was opened by an older man who addressed him with fear in his voice. "Please, there is no need for violence. We have nothing to do with this conflict."

"You are a very wise man, Thorwald retorted grinning internally, I just need to check for potential threats. If you do not resist, nothing will happen to you and your family."

With that, he walked inside like he owned the place. The man was at level 25 and the others were not higher.

They were all weak, and Thorwald took his time with the inspection, checking every room and then the spatial rings.

They had potions, but that was it. Well, it was time to leave, and there was no real reason to kill them, even if he would like it. Steven was against it, so after a short time he opened the door to join his men, who were most likely waiting for him to continue the raid. He liked those tiny powerplays, and the battle was over after all, so no worries.

What he saw on the street was not what he had expected. A creature made out of darkness was holding a woman, the only healer in his company, by the neck while the rest of his men lay dead on the ground.

"What the fuck?" he exclaimed, infuriated while drawing his axe.

The creature head spun around and, without much effort, broke the neck of the woman and threw her away like she was garbage.

The next moment, the creature blurred as it appeared before him, striking at him with its long black claws.