CHAPTER 10 - GRAND MOUNTAINS II

Surveying the battle, I saw how the earthen wall was holding its own, none of the arrows being able to penetrate through. Focusing on Durden, I watched his left hand that was directed towards the earth wall as he maintained a constant flow of mana to keep it from collapsing. Forming a narrow slit in the middle of the wall gained him vision of my father and the archers scattering, trying to run away.

“Take heed, Mother Earth, and answer my call. Pierce my enemies. Let none of them live.”

[Rupture Spike]

After a brief delay, a dozen spikes began shooting up from the ground at the bandit archers. Some manage to escape the attack while others got impaled, their screams only lasting a couple of moments before dying.

Durden looked recognizably drained from that spell; his jaw clenched as beads of sweat ran down his pale face.

It was at this moment that I noticed my mother had taken out a wand. Her trembling fingers were fumbling with it before she shook her head and stuffed it back into her robe. In the wand’s stead, she held onto me tighter.

There was no one injured on our side besides Helen, who had bound the wound on her calf. Fortunately the arrow wasn’t lodged in too deep, thanks to Helen’s mana reinforcement; by the time she wound it, the bleeding had stopped, but throughout this whole time, my mother had a constant look of paranoia, her face pale with worry. I couldn’t help but notice that her hand would keep reaching for her wand in her robe until she decided to draw it back at the last minute. Her eyes never stayed fixed to one place, always turning left and right, trying to look out for anything that could harm us.

While a little confused at first, I dismissed it; mentally concluding that, since she wasn’t an adventurer for too long, unlike my father, she was simply not used to situations like these.

With the battle coming to its peak. The bandit group had not suspected that every one of our group members would be capable mages. Because of that miss calculation, all of the melee fighters were dead, the only ones alive being the four mages and a couple of scattered archers on the run.

Jasmine was still having trouble with the perverted chain user, but the arrogance on his face was wiped clean this time, with a couple of nicks and cuts on his body dripping blood.

Adam was engaged with a dual-sworded augmenter. His fighting style reminded me of a snake, with his flexible maneuvers and sudden attacks. He should be considered one of the rare elemental augmenters with a water-attribute style.

Reinforcing the shaft of his spear to be flexible, his attacks were a mirage of quick thrusts and fluid swipes. The battle looked to be in his favor; the dual wielder had wounds that were profusely bleeding as he desperately tried to parry the onslaught of attacks.

A thundering crash shifted my attention away from Adam’s battle. My father had been knocked down against the debris of what was now left of the [Earth Wall] spell and was struggling to pick himself up as blood dribbled down from the side of his lips.

“Reynolds!” “Dad!” “Honey!”

The clashing continued with the bandit who sent my father flying, Uncle James trying to chase him away from my father and the rest of us.

I rushed out of the wind barrier, kneeling in front of my father, my mother following immediately behind. I could see the panic written on her face as she nervously contemplated what she could do.

I didn’t know why she wasn’t healing him, maybe because she was so startled, but just when I was about to suggest it, my father cut me off.

“Alice, listen to me. Don’t worry about me. If you use a healing spell right now, they’ll realize and try much harder to capture you because of what you are. Sacrificing a lot more than what they have now!” He stressed, his voice in a low whisper.

It was a brief moment of hesitation before my mother took out her wand and began to chant. I would’ve assumed that her stammered chanting was caused by seeing her husband injured, but for some reason, it felt like she was almost… afraid of using her magic.

After failing to persuade his wife, father turned to me with a bitter look.

“Art, listen carefully. After the healing spell activates, they're going to try to capture your mother at all cost. After I’m healed enough, I’m going to join James to distract the leader and try to buy you time. I think we both could beat him, but not If I have to worry about protecting you guys. Take your mother back down the road and don’t stop; Adam will open up a path for you.”

“No dad! I’m staying with you. I can fight! You saw me! I can help!” Consideration for being mature eluded me. At this moment, it seemed like I was really acting like the four-year-old I was on the outside, something that I didn’t care about. Not now. I wasn’t going to leave behind my family whom I’ve grown to love and friends who I’ve bonded with so much this past week and a half.

My father roared agonizingly, “LISTEN TO ME, ARTHUR LEYWIN!” This was the first time I’ve heard his voice like this; the kind of voice that one would only use for desperate measures.

“I know you can fight! That’s why I’m entrusting your mother to you. Protect her and the baby inside of her. I'll catch up to you after this is over.”

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The words that entered my ears shook me like thunder.

Protect her and the baby inside of her…

Suddenly, everything clicked. Why she was acting so paranoid. Why she was clutching me and making sure nothing got even close to us. Why both Durden and Angela were guarding us with defensive spells, instead of just one of them.

My mother was pregnant.

“I was planning on telling you when we arrived in Xyrus, but…” Not finishing his sentence, father just looked at me sheepishly; still pale from the blow he received from the bald, axe-wielding boss.

Finally succumbing to fathers words, I said, “Okay I’ll protect Mom.”

“Atta boy. That’s my son.”

My mother finished her chant at this time and both she and my father glowed in a bright golden-white light.

“Son of a– One of them’s a healer! Don’t let her get away!” the leader roared, pushing Uncle James a couple of feet away and looking at our direction.

Quickly, I grabbed my mother’s arm with both hands and tugged at her to move while reinforcing myself with mana.

We reached the area Adam and the dual-wielder were battling a dozen meters down the road.

“Art, hurry down, I got him!” Adam barked as he kept his opponent at bay.

The dual-wielder was obviously frustrated by the inability to neither reach me nor mother because of Adam. We hurried down the slope when I heard a faint *wizz* sound to our left. Acting on instinct, I jumped up, bringing my wooden sword up and reinforcing my whole body and the sword to withstand the blow of the incoming arrow.

A splintering crack resonated as the arrow met the wooden sword. Fortunately, the arrow wasn’t reinforced with any mana so, even though the force pushed me back, I was able to regain balance mid air by using the force of the shot by rotating my body and redirecting the arrow away. I landed on my feet a bit less impressive than I wanted to, throwing away what was left of my wooden sword.

“What the– Ugh!”

…Was all I heard from the assailant before he was promptly impaled by an arrow fired by Helen.

“GO!” she exclaimed, nocking in another arrow and firing it at the leader of the bandits to support my father and Uncle James.

That was weird.

Currently, Jasmine, Adam, Uncle James, and my father, along with Helen, were fighting a mage.

Wasn’t there four?

“Damien! Forget the plan, don’t let them live!” The leader barked out.

Who was he commanding?

“...respond to my call and wash it all to oblivion!” A faint voice finished chanting.

[Water Cannon]

For the mountainside, one of the scattered “archers” had his hands brought together, aimed at me and mother. We were tricked. He had camouflaged himself during the chaos. He wasn’t an archer or even an augmenter. He was a conjurer!

Shit!

Not having much time to react as a huge sphere of pressurized water, at least three meters in diameter, shot towards us, increasing in size as it neared.

My mind raced, trying to come up with options.

To my immediate right was my mother, and to my left were Adam and his opponent not farr off; and behind me, of course, was the edge of the mountain. Even if I could dodge this, mother wouldn’t be able to and she’d be forced off the ledge of the mountain.

What can I do? What should I do?

“Dammit!” I let out a roar unfit for a four-year-old

Willing all of the remaining mana left in this cursed body, I tackled my mother, propelling both of us out of the way.

That is when I quickly realized that my forty-pound-body didn’t carry enough momentum to push both of us out of range of the water cannon.

No choice!

If I was going down, I was going to make sure that the bastard was going down with me!

I channeled mana into my arms and pushed my other farther down, out of the range. In that moment, everything seemed to be moving in slow motion as my mother’s eyes slowly widened in panic and disbelief. She might get a pretty bad bruise from the push, but minor bodily injuries were the least of my problems at the moment. If she didn’t want to get hit with another spell I had to get rid of this conjurer.

Unsheathing the knife Jasmine gave me from my waist, I imbued it with mana. What I was trying to do I had only done with ki in my old world, never with mana.

After putting mana into the knife, I threw it like a boomerang, aiming it at the conjurer, who was still concentrating on the water cannon. Barely curving around the edge of the giant cannonball of water, I heard the firm thud of the knife meeting skin.

The mage let out a shrill howl of pain followed by a string of curses indicating that the mage wasn’t dead.

Losing concentration, the mage’s water cannon lost shape, but unfortunately, there was still a surge of water strong enough to push me off the cliff.

Now, for plan B.

Plan B was just in case my initial throw couldn’t kill him. I managed to succeed in the gamble of Plan B, and that was creating a thin string of mana attaching the knife, currently engorged somewhere on the conjurer’s body, to my hand.

I tugged back on the mana string just as the spell rammed against my body like a brick wall, knocking every ounce of air I had in my lungs and most likely breaking my ribs. Like a fish caught on the line, I could hear the mage’s scream over the gushing tide of water as he was helplessly dragged down with me by the force of his own spell.

Even as my vision began darkening, I was able to see the battle coming to an end. Father, Uncle James, and Helen, had just managed to kill the leader. Angela provided Jasmine with backup, allowing them to out the whip-user on his last stand, while Aunt Mia rushed towards my mother. Meanwhile, I spotted Durden as he was desperately conjuring a spell in order to save me, but I knew it was too late; the spell had knocked me too far away.

Still, I was comforted by the fact that everyone was and will be okay. Maybe the only thing I would regret was being unable to see my baby sibling.

With that, I felt the cold grip of sleep steal me away.

Damn… I had always wanted to be an older brother.

“Found you.”