In the Great Forest.

Faust and his convoy marched through the night at a quick and steady pace. Through the thick foliage, one could see the moon that drifted in and out from behind the clouds. The breeze was light, making for a calm and peaceful night. Faust and his men were far from calm, however.

They marched on toward their goal as worry gnawed at their psyche. Faust was no exception. While he had ordered Rose to leave with prince Will while he and his men provided a diversion, he couldn’t help but worry. While he believed that this was the best course of action, there was always that possibility that the opponent would see through him and ignore the bait completely. Or barring that, Rose could meet with unexpected trouble that she couldn’t handle.

He was a soldier, however, and a general at that. With his years of experience and toeing the border of life and death, he had learned that there was no perfect plan. He could only stiffen his upper lip, harden his expression and pray for good fortune.

Indeed, the gods did not let him down.

Just shortly after his prayer, he noticed movement deep in the forest. Shadows seemed to be closing in on the convoy’s position from its flanks.

He sighed. He knew they had been found. The mana sense of mages is indeed terrifying. To think I didn’t even notice until we were completely surrounded.

A rueful smile traced Faust’s lips. To make such a complete encirclement, he knew that they had to have begun coordinating their movements from a considerable distance away to be able to evade his senses.

He didn’t waste any time lamenting, however.

“Deploy the formation!” he bellowed. “Enemies incoming! Battle formation!”

Like clockwork, the carriage driver immediately slapped a formation disk onto the top of the carriage. The disk glowed as it spun and secured itself on the carriage roof. A translucent barrier then spread out from it completely encasing the carriage and the horses pulling it.

The remaining soldiers were not idle either, they immediately took up positions around the carriage to form a protective buffer. More soldiers were stationed at the front, however, to act as the battery.

With Faust’s command, the attackers hiding in the shadows no longer bothered with stealth. With a loud battle cry, bandits, scavengers and all sorts of ruffians all charged out of the shadows.

“Shields!” Faust ordered.

“AYE!” The soldiers responded with their own war cry.

Sounds of iron clanging filled the night as the soldiers hammered their weapons on their shields.

“Forward!”

With this final order, Faust drew his sword and pointed it forward. With a kick to his mount’s side, the horse neighed as it galloped onward.

Swish! Swish! Swish!

Before long, sounds of arrows whizzing through the air were heard. This was followed by the clangs of metal as they connected with the soldiers’ shields.

“We have the numbers! CHARGE!” came a voice from the forests’ depths.

Battle cries resounded through the air the next second as the swarm of bandits charged at the military convoy.

“Kill!”

Faust swung his blade with overpowering might and two heads flew into the air. Blood spewed as two bodies fell one after another.

With first blood drawn, a frenzy ensued. Faust’s horse galloped as he cut down one foe after another. He, coupled with his lieutenant were the only ones in the skirmish who were mounted. As such, arrows imbued with mana showered them from all directions.

It was complete carnage!

Faust charged fearlessly into the enemy ranks. Like deaths envoy, wherever his blade passed, a life was reaped. Death and gore plunged the enemy into disarray. His lieutenant followed closely behind and together they planted the fear of god into their enemies.

Back at the carriage perimeter, the foot soldiers fought fiercely trying to push back the enemies that their leaders had let slip through. But they were heavily outnumbered and soon begun to be pushed back. While they had discarded their traveler’s disguises to don their military armor, the protection it afforded was limited.

“Gah!” One soldier screamed in pain. An arrow had managed to slip into the armors crevices and puncture his shoulder. The power behind the arrow was so fierce it knocked him off his feet. The soldier felt his world spin as he fell onto his back with a thud. The image of the moon obscured by forest branches filled his vision but it was swiftly blocked by a dark shadow looming over him.

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Raising its arm, moonlight illuminated the shadow’s silver blade as it cut air ready to split him in twain.

The soldier closed his eyes ready to accept his fate but his eternal rest did not come.

A clang was heard followed by a squelch and an odd gurgle. Then a thud accompanied by the metallic scent of blood followed.

“Up, newbie!” a voice bellowed as the fallen soldier was hefted onto his feet by his armpits.

Opening his eyes, he saw his comrades by his side fighting off multiple enemies that had attempted to surround and overpower them.

At that moment, a command boomed over the cacophony of metal clangs and screams of men being torn apart by mana imbued attacks.

“Iron-wall Formation!”

The command came from general Faust.

He had noticed that his men’s formation had collapsed when two warriors left their positions to help the newbie. The sudden overload on one side caused the remaining seven to almost be instantaneously overwhelmed.

“AYE!” came the response.

Rhythmic stomps of boots followed as the ten-man squad immediately gave up the offensive initiative in favor of defensive stability. They arrayed themselves in a ten-sided polygonal formation with shields facing the enemy. Then, a faint blue hue emanated from the warriors’ bodies.

“War Formation!?” yelped one of the attackers in surprise.

The blue hue engulfed the warriors like a protective film before it extended onto their weapons and shields. It didn’t stop there, however. After enshrouding the soldiers, the mana continued to extend before it connected the entire ten-man squad in a seamless decagonal formation.

“RAAGHH!”

With the formation complete, a mana enhanced battle cry boomed. The nearby trees swayed violently from the sound waves and the weaker bandits bled from their ears as their eardrums burst.

“RAAGHH!”

“GRAAAHH!”

Roars of Beast Kings resounded from the depths of the forest as if taking the battle cry as a challenge or provocation to their authority.

Faust took in the scene calmly. He knew this was all for show. While his men were elite warriors who were nine times baptized in the blood of battle, they were still outnumbered by more than five times. If the enemy was willing to pay the price in lives, he and his men could be slowly exhausted to death. But Faust was not worried.

Currently, he was holding back four warriors. He surmised that three of them were at the stage of shedding mortality while the weakest was a peak tier warrior.

Unable to bear the wanton slaughter of their forces, the enemy leaders had joined hands to kill, or failing that, pin him down and render him unable to take part in the main battle. After all, it was the contents of the carriage the bandits were after.

Faust’s lieutenant was in much the same condition. While his opponents weren’t as formidable as the general’s, they were still peak tier warriors. Therefore, being at the stage of shedding mortality himself, the lieutenant easily suppressed his opponents and continually forced them onto the defensive.

The foes were resilient however, and being bandits and scavengers, they were adept at fleeing and survival. More than once the lieutenant grasped what he deemed a fatal opening only to almost be counter killed. Thus, the two supreme battlefields entered a precarious deadlock.

I have already revealed strength equivalent to the peak of the Mortality Shedding realm and the Iron-wall Formation has been assembled. Faust thought to himself. We are deep in the forest and the battle has already caused a disturbance. Yes, you can win a battle of attrition but can you afford to?

Faust chuckled to himself.

While the situation looked dire, he could still see the full picture. After alarming the forest’s apex existences, the Elves were sure to notice the disturbance as well. While the fight to could be signed off as a territorial challenge between the Beast Kings, the Elves would still send scouts to make sure.

Faust was counting on that hidden mage to reach that conclusion as well. He was gambling.

Yes!

Gambling on the chance that that hidden foe wouldn’t dare antagonize the Elves!

Now then, what will you do?

He didn’t have to wait long for an answer.

In the sky beyond the forest canopy, Faust felt a faint fluctuation of mana. It was so faint that he would have entirely missed it if he wasn’t looking for it. However, now that he had sensed it he knew…

An attack was coming!

His mind went into overdrive as he surveyed the carnage that was the battlefield around him. He looked at his men protecting the empty carriage and then at his lieutenant fighting who had just slayed one of his opponents.

Where will he attack? The world seemed to slow down as he performed all kinds of calculations and assessments in his head.

“Aaarrghhh!!”

In the end Faust gritted his teeth and with a loud roar his body erupted with overwhelming earth shattering might as he swung his blade at his four opponents.

Petrified by the sudden eruption of power, the four opponents immediately took up defensive positions as they tried to put some space between them and the terrifying general.

It was futile.

A killing intent so dense and boundless as the sea inundated the four mortality shedding experts as a blade that seemed to sever Heaven and earth descended upon them.

Bestial roars erupted from their lungs as they drew on the trump cards and forbidden techniques they had to weather the crisis. But still… it wasn’t enough. Two of them were slain on the spot while the remaining two were blasted back into the depths of the forest. The sounds of tree trunks buckling and falling under their own weight followed after them.

It was unknown whether they were dead or alive.

At that moment a sonic boom was heard from the sky as a projectile that looked to be coated in fire cut through the air like a meteor descending from the firmament. Trees were reduced to charcoal as the beam incinerated everything in its path.

Faust roared.

Pushing all his mana into his feet, earth shattered around him as he flexed his calves. In the next instant he appeared in front of his soldiers that were protecting the carriage.

The fiery projectile arrived immediately after as Faust channeled all his energy into his long blade to meet the attack head-on.

When he caught side of the projectile inside the fire type mana however, his pupils constricted.

It was a spear!

“A Supernatural!?” Faust exclaimed in incredulity.