Chapter 428 An Army Of Mages
?”I’ll go for the one with the pointed hat; the rest of you cover each other!” Alba shouted.
If there was one thing that was quite clear with these mages, it was the fact that they were organized. Their strength wasn’t that strong, but they were able to cover each other’s backs.
There were similar things that other clans did with formations and techniques that were meant to be used by one or more people.
So, in this case, Alba thought it was best to go for the leader of this little group.
Lilly charged in with her spear, but it was hit by the side several times by a strange beam of light energy. It just veered the tip of her spear to the point where it would touch the floor, and right after that, it was frozen on the ground.
It was only for a few moments, but it gave an opportunity for them to try and strike; thankfully, Tilon was there with his shield, which was able to mostly block everything that was sent their way.
A few ice attacks had landed on his shield, freezing it slightly, but with an almighty roar and burst of his Qi through his weapon, he was able to break it to pieces without damaging his weapon.
When Alba charged towards the pointed hat squad leader, he had jumped and pushed himself back with wind magic. At the same time, he swung his hands through the air, creating wind slices that were aimed towards her.
“Are you running away? Come and fight me directly!” Alba shouted.
“Running away? All you warriors are as barbaric as the next. A mage fights with distance, in order to create an even larger spell!”
Lifting both of his hands above his head, a large fireball could be seen. It was the size of an entire cart. He then hurled it straight at Alba. It was as if a meteor was coming right at her.
When Alba’s foot touched the ground, instead of jumping to the side or trying to run back, instead, she kicked off her foot and went forward. She tucked in her chin towards her chest and placed both swords by her side.
On the other side, the mage had landed back in the sand and was looking at the area around him.
“It’s unusual for us to run into warriors, but it has happened on the odd occasion. It’s a good thing that they upgraded the mages to 3-star that are on this expedition.”
The squad leader himself was a 4-star mage, with the commander Eston being a 6-star mage. There wouldn’t usually be this many star mages in an expedition like this; it was only due to the last events.
When looking in front of him though, he expected the fireball to hit the ground, but instead, it was still floating there in the air until a large cross shape could be seen in the fire.
It had split apart into four different sections, and coming right through the center of the flames was Alba.
“Your powers confused us for a bit at first, so we were a bit hesitant, but let me tell you we aren’t by any means weak!”
When Alba landed on the ground, she kicked off her leg and spun. Both her blades were placed together as she slashed right past the squad leader.
He was standing there in place; he couldn’t even see her movements, and the top half of his body fell onto the ground.
Right after, Alba didn’t move straight away; instead, she was staying in her position, and a sweat mark could be seen running down the side of her face.
‘I used up a lot of Qi dealing with that attack, and the fight with that Hybrid from before. We haven’t really had time to rest; the rest of them… I wonder how they’re doing.’
Alba turned to look, and there was a smile on her face. Just like her, the trickiness of the spells they were going against, they were getting used to it.
Kizer was charging in, wildly swinging his blade one after the other, and he felt a rise in strength. The more enemies he went up against, the stronger the power from his weapon.
Swinging his sword to the side, he managed to knock two away, killing them on the spot.
Froma was offering support, constantly on the move, jumping and firing her arrows. At first, when her arrows hit the mage’s robes, they looked to have bounced off in some way.
However, as time went on, it looked like whatever barrier was protecting the mages from her arrows, it was starting to fade away.
Now she was able to accurately hit them, and with nothing protecting them, she was taking them out one by one, until all 11 of the mages that they had gone against were dealt with.
The Crimson Crane group, all of them were a bit tired, but were satisfied with the result.
“It looks like we managed to do it in the end,” Kizer said, digging his sword into the ground and leaning up against it.
“Sorry I couldn’t help out much,” Reno said. “I was a little worried that Raze would get hit in all of that mess.”
“I couldn’t help much either, since I lost my weapon and all,” Elvlin said. “They were quite tricky to get close to.”
“It seemed like fighting from a range was their forte,” Froma commented. “And that they had fought against warriors like us before, whereas it was the first time for us, for that, I would have to say I think we did pretty well.”
“You sick scum!” A loud voice shouted.
When they turned their heads to look at the situation, they could see almost a sea of white heading their way.
They were standing around thirty meters away from them, and it wasn’t just in one direction either. From all the different areas, there were more mages that were heading their way.
The Crimson Crane and Alba grouped up in the center, with their backs facing away from each other so they could cover all of the sides.
“This is… it’s all the groups that had gone out before; it looks like they’ve come here, there’s around forty of them here,” Reno said.
Alba was thinking about the situation. Together they were strong, and now there were even more of them, and their group was worn out as well; was it something that they could handle?
Now there were four of the pointed-hooded mages as well.
“That attack in the air from before, of course, it was a signal,” Reno added. “I was so thankful that we had gotten out of the current situation that I had forgotten about it.”
“At least, their commander or whatever he was doesn’t seem to be here. I wonder what he’s doing?” Reno commented. “Do you think these guys will be so nice as to let us talk this one out like the man from before?”
The mages started to gather magic, swirling around their hands, a flurry of different lights and colors were showing from all over.
“I didn’t think so,” Alba commented.
Chapter 429 You just made it worse
?The Crimson Crane group had struggled fighting against 11 of these mages. Although a lot of that was due to them never fighting these types of opponents before.
Now, with them going up against more than forty of them, they could all tell that it was going to be troubling, more so than they ever imagined.
“Ha, ha, ha!” Kizer started to laugh; he could feel his special sword pulsating with power. The power from the weapon was surging back into him.
One of the traits of his weapon was, after all, the more opponents that he was going against, the stronger it would be.
“Tilon, just protect us for a while, and I’ll be sure to wipe these guys out for us in one hit; we’ll show them, these freaks, the strength of a Pagna warrior!” Kizer lifted his sword in the air and held it with a single hand.
Then he placed it down on the ground behind him as if he was dragging the weapon. The downside of the weapon itself created by the Dark Magus was skills couldn’t be used more than once.
Including that of even footwork, but what choice did they have in this situation.
“Attack!” the mage squad leaders said, pointing out.
A flurry of different spells went through the air, and in some cases, the spells were combining together, to make a whirlwind of flames and lightning strikes.
There were even beams and lights of energy that were coming across them all.
That was when Tilon lifted his shield up in the air with a single hand, large and rectangular in shape, black in color it started to flow with all of his Qi energy.
“My job is to protect the Crimson Crane, and that’s exactly what I’m going to do, and Kizer, your job is to cause as much damage as you can, so do it!”
Tilon slammed his shield on the ground, and a line of energy had spread around the group. Just as the attacks came their way, the energy exploded up from the floor surrounding them all.
All of the attacks that were hurled toward the members were being blocked by this power. Tilon still had his hand on the shield, but Lilly, who was standing behind him, could see something was up.
Tilon was huffing and panting, and his grip on his own shield was getting weaker by the second.
‘Tilon’s been blocking attacks non-stop,’ Lilly thought. ‘Even before when we fought that Hybrid, he hasn’t been able to catch a break. This is probably the hardest fight we’ve ever had to face, and I have no way to help him.’
She looked at her spear, which was designed to create pinpoint damage in a singular area. In a fight like this, and against so many, what could she do?
Worse than that, she thought Tilon couldn’t hold out much longer.
After the initial attacks were blocked, the attacks didn’t stop but the scale of them did. The technique that Tilon had used came to an end, and the rest of the Crimson Crane were left protecting themselves.
Meanwhile, Kizer started to run from the position he was in, the sword continuing to drag on the floor.
“I’ll protect you!” Alba said, as she stayed in front, rapidly swinging her dual blades, hitting all of the spells. The problem with spells compared to the techniques she would face, at times her Qi couldn’t completely block the attack.
Cutting through a fireball, the lingering power would still hit her in areas, the same with lightning or ice, but no matter what pain she was in, she still had to help.
When the two were around ten meters away from the closest of the mages, Kizer gave the order.
“Now!” Kizer shouted.
Immediately, Kizer swung his weapon from the ground; it had sliced through the sandstone underneath as if it wasn’t even there, and a giant sweep of energy was unleashed.
The large power burst from the weapon was being added to his own Qi; it was an attack that could deal with half of the enemy with ease.
One of the squad leaders that were in front of all of this, though, then pulled out a rounded circle device that looked a bit like a coin.
He flipped it, and when it landed on the ground, a large barrier had appeared.
The attack, all of the energy, started to move towards this barrier. Rather than stopping the attack, it was almost sucking all of the energy in.
The energy looked like it was being wrapped into a single area until it had completely disappeared just like that.
Kizer stood there completely still; he was too stunned to even notice the attacks that were still coming at him.
Alba had to jump in his way and continue to hit the attacks away.
“Kizer, we’re still fighting, what are you doing just standing around!” She screamed.
“But my attack, how… I don’t even think middle-stage warriors could stop something like that,” Kizer mumbled.
It certainly was strange, Alba had to admit. The mages they had gone up against before were unable to do things like that, so how did they stop such a large-scale attack this time?
Were there even stronger mages that they were fighting against? But that wasn’t the case at all.
The squad leader had bent down to pick up the large coin from the floor and looked at it glowing.
“The Mythical item Lucky Block. Fifty percent of the time it can block any attack completely by absorbing its energy, while fifty percent of the time it does nothing.
“There is a big difference compared to those that come from your world and our world, and that is the number of items that we hold and that mages have created for us.
“We are blessed by Idore, The Noble, and his items. Our strength doesn’t just come from the star level we hold but the items that the Grand Magus has created for us!”
The squad leader was laughing to himself.
Both Kizer and Alba were heading back to the others, as they could see they were starting to get overwhelmed by the attacks.
They still weren’t getting badly hurt, but an opportunity wasn’t arising, and it looked like there wasn’t going to be a chance for them to break out of this.
“We just need an opening, one thing to go our way, I thought Kizer’s attack was going to be that, but…” Alba decided she needed to do something herself, but it would use up the last of her energy.
Readying her sword, that’s when she saw something from above come in between them. A person landed right in front of her.
It wasn’t a person in mage clothing though, but it was one in Pagna clothing instead.
With his iron leg, he kicked the sky, destroying most of the spells out of the way.
“I bet you wished these people would have talked it out rather than fight, and it looks like I was right about you having the kid,” Amir commented with a smile.
It was strange, the hybrid they were fighting was now in front of them, although not in his hybrid form. What was he doing here, and why did he just stop their attacks?
“Are you here to help us?” Alba quickly asked, wondering if it was another enemy they had to worry about or not.
“I’m sorry, but I might have brought more trouble than help,” Amir said, looking up at the sky.
When looking up herself, Alba could see a man in white and gold-trim blazer just floating above, slowly he was coming down to the ground bit by bit.
As he was coming down, the other mages were letting up with their attacks. They didn’t want to hit the commander after all.
Right then, the commander landed in front of the other mages in the sand and looked at all of the others that were present.
“My my, I never expected this, I never thought that there would be more than one, but a whole party in this place. I wonder how this even came to be.”
“Are you sure you don’t know anything about the last expedition, the death of our people?” Eston, the commander asked.
“You brought the commander!” Alba stated.
“As I said, I might have brought more trouble rather than help. I was trying to get away from him and ended up here.”
“I guess there’s no choice now though, I’ll just have to go all out. Protect the White Dragon!” Amir stated as his body started to transform.
Chapter 430 The Truth has been Found
?Those in Pagna felt like they were in a tricky situation. After the meeting with the Principal and Vice-principal, the other students had been told to head back to the Red Headband base.
The thing was, while at the base, the security had been increased. More of the masked men were outside, and all of the students had been told to gather and remain in one room.
They were given a big executive room on the second floor. A room that the teachers and instructors would stay in at times.
“What is all this, the teachers have such a soft and luxurious bed, this place was in the building the whole time!” Liam said as he bounced on the bed a few times.
“Do you really think that’s what’s important right now?” Simyon replied.
Liam was still bouncing on the bed. He had never felt something so soft before.
“What do you mean, they had this the whole time, and the teachers hardly stay here, apart from the ones that are watching us.”
Dame looked at the door. There was a single entry point, and he placed his finger on his lips. There were two large windows that faced the outside.
Just outside that, though, one could see a line of six guards, all of them wearing masks. It was almost as if they expected the group to escape.
They knew what Dame’s gesture meant, that there was someone on the other side of the door as well, so if they were to say anything, they should be careful.
“It’s been a while though, do you think Raze is okay?” Safa asked, being vague. They all knew the situation he was in.
“Yeah, he should be good, you know he always pulls through in tough situations,” Dame commented, walking away from the door and heading to the window.
There was one worry on his mind; it had been a long time, and the longer they spent without Raze, it meant they needed to get ready to act out at any moment.
However, he noticed something, that Safa was moving her hands about and had her eyes closed quite a bit. She also managed to get the book from her room before coming here and had been studying it a few times.
He was wondering what she was up to, when she eventually started to draw something on the floor in front of them all.
“What is going on, have you gone mad without your brother?” Mada commented.
When the circle was finished being drawn, Safa sat down and placed both of her hands together. Since the magic circle had been drawn, there was no need to cast out a spell just for her to use her magic.
Light Magic touched the circle and it lit up; when it did, it started to expand out further and further until this energy passed through each of their bodies.
It was soothing for them all. A gentle feeling that brought calmness in all of their hearts.
“We should be able to speak freely now; this is a suppression spell so it drowns out what we’re saying, but we should make it quick, otherwise, I think the silence will make them suspicious,” Safa explained.
Both Ricktor, Mada as well as Tinson and his group were quite dumbfounded. Was there a skill that could do such a thing, what did she mean by spell?
Although Safa wanted to hide her magic powers away from the eyes of others, the situation was too serious. At the moment, all of their lives were at risk, and everyone was in this together. All of their lives were at stake.
“Well, what I want to know is why did they put you guys with us, I mean aren’t you the Principal’s son?” Simyon asked.
“That might be the reason why,” Ricktor replied. “He might think it is good if I keep an eye on you, that I will still be loyal to him.”
“And are you?” Liam instantly asked. They still weren’t sure they could trust the main disciples and with good reason as well.
“I would appreciate it if you didn’t call the Principal my father, because he does not see me as his son anymore,” Ricktor explained. “I’m sure you would know.”
Ricktor went to set his eyes on Simyon, and when he did, he gave a little wink.
“A certain incident made him somewhat disown me; I would rather not get into details, but to him, only my strength matters to the clan; there is no family bond.”
“If we can speak freely, then I want to know if Cronker with us?” Dame asked.
In the corner of the room, as if appearing out of the shadows, a small thud was heard, and then he had appeared.
“I am here; while you were in the meeting as well, I managed to snoop around and find a few things out,” Cronker said. “They went to check up on the Vice-principal, and it seems that the portal is closed.”
Everyone with wide eyes started to look at each other. What did this mean for Raze? What did this mean for them, and what were they to do now to get out of the current situation?
“The portal’s closed, but that’s just from our side right?” Tinson said. “Doesn’t that mean, there’s still a way for them to get out?”
“But we know who went after them,” Violet added. “It was the Vice-principal. That means that the dimension boss was defeated; was it done on purpose? Maybe it was even done by those that were helping Raze to try and keep them there.”
The thing was, there was too little information for them all to go on. It just put the worry in their chests even heavier compared to before.
“We shouldn’t panic,” Dame said. “If we need to fall back anywhere, then I know a place we should head to, at the back of the academy, past the forest down the cliffside, in the valley of fog, there is a cave. If anything should happen, all of us should head there.”
Dame knew Raze could create portals, so he wasn’t so worried about him; he was more worried about his group. If they went to the area of fog, and the academy didn’t give up their chase, then what would happen?
—
Cronker was right with his information he had gathered, and this information had, of course, reached the ears of the Principal Murkel.
“So, the portal has closed, and it’s been quite some time since it has done so. There is a chance that something happened to Amir after all then,” Murkel commented.
“On top of that, we have received information back from the Lethal Bite Clan. At the moment, they haven’t received an update from the Clan Head Feebie nor their Vice Head Royo.”
Hearing all of this, the Principal sat in front of his wooden desk and was stroking his soft beard slightly.
“Is it really possible for a bunch of students to orchestrate something like this? To have the power to do something like this?”
“Perhaps not on their own, but there is one thing that’s for sure. The students have to be involved in this somehow.”
“I guess it’s time to get some answers from them. Make sure the students remain where they are, and we shall do everything in the academy’s power to get answers from them,” Murkel ordered, standing from his seat.
Chapter 431 The only one, Ortian Guild
?The Crimson Crane was in trouble, no doubt. None of them had been heavily injured by the attacks they were dealing with, but they were running out of Qi, and energy in general, fast.
On top of that, one of the opponents they were going up against had just started to use items. Strong magical items, and it didn’t seem like they were the only ones.
How many of the mages that they were going against held these items? They wouldn’t know, and if things continued going on the way they were, then there was a good chance that they wouldn’t find out.
Alba, the leader of the Crimson Crane, felt a high level of responsibility. She was the one who had made this promise with the Dark Mage; she was the one who knew the risks, and the rest had followed believing in her.
‘No matter what, I have to make sure the others come out of here alive, even if I have to use every single cell of my blood energy!’ She thought, gripping onto her sword.
That was until a certain man had dropped down in front of her. From his clothing alone, she had instantly recognized him, but it didn’t make any sense to her.
Would an enemy she was practically fighting till death with have their back facing away from her, and not just that, why would they block all the attacks coming their way?
There was a good chance that the individual was just blocking the attacks so they didn’t hit them, but then why use such a large sweeping leg move?
That was until she saw the commander, slowly coming down, the man known as Eston, floated down and landed in the sand.
Things were moving so fast that Alba didn’t know what to do at this moment, and then, the words had come out of his mouth.
“I guess there’s no choice now, though, I’ll just have to go all out, protect the White Dragon!” Amir stated as his body started to transform.
“The White Dragon?” Alba turned her head and looked at Raze being carried on Reno’s back. He had white hair. He was the only one in the group with white hair.
On top of that, she knew the Vice-principal was looking for Raze.
Right as Amir’s body was starting to change, his arms were forming, the black substance was moving around his body.
Attacks from the mages could be seen coming his way. Alba was closest to Amir, and she needed to make a choice straight away.
‘My instincts, everything is telling me that this man, he doesn’t want to harm Raze. The fact that he let us go back then as well.’
‘I’m not a hundred percent sure, and I never can be, but in this situation, the enemy of my enemy is my friend rings true!’
Alba shifted where she was, a red streak was left in the ground from her foot as she twirled around and swung with her sword.
A large red slash was made in the air, breaking the attacks from all of the mages.
Even the mages were taken back by this a bit. If they were fighting against other mages, they would struggle to find many that could deal with so many in this situation.
It was the first time they were dealing with Pagna warriors that were at this level.
“I’ve made my choice, I used up a lot of Qi blocking that attack. I was saving just enough to run away if that was the only thing left to do, but now with that attack, I’ve chosen to fight, it better be the right decision!” Alba said.
Amir’s arms had formed, the claw marking, and as for his tentacle-like arm, instead of forming into the giant cleaver like he had done before, instead it was thick by his arm and extended out until forming a cylinder-like shape with an opening at the end.
It was something that Alba had never seen before.
Pointing the large barrel-like object at the mages, a large condensed round beam of energy came out right from his arm.
It went fast in the air and hit a mage right in the head forming a hole through him, in that moment the mage fell to the ground dead.
‘What is that thing, was that projectile Qi that he just used, but that’s impossible. That amount of Qi control is meant to only be possible by Divine stage!’ Alba thought.
Everything about the attack, and the strength though, certainly made it seem that way.
“Impressive, but I still believe you made the wrong choice,” Eston said as he lifted both of his hands.
Strange leather strapping he had around his forearms started to glow. He swung his arm to the left, and a large gust of wind was felt on Alba.
She felt no pain, but her whole body shifted to the side as if it was being pushed by some type of invisible force. Right after Eston shoved his hand out.
From the palm of his hand, a large vortex of wind erupted. It wasn’t just wind though; within the wind itself, there looked to be sharp strikes.
Instantly it had hit Amir, and lifted him in the air, as it did the sharp corners of the vortex hit his body constantly. The vortex then continued to move and as Eston placed his hands on the floor.
The vortex of wind slammed Amir onto the floor. The opening of the vortex was still sharp, like a thousand blades all of them cutting and slashing as they touched Amir’s skin.
“You people have no idea who I am,” Eston said. “There is a reason why I am one of the commanders of Idore’s Noble Guild!”
Eston the mage had a past, before he had joined the Noble Guild. Being a 6-star mage was quite an achievement, and he was a mage that had gained many achievements.
One of these was being in a military guild called Ortian. It was a guild that had only ten members. With it being part of the military, they were forced to go on dangerous missions from time to time.
Missions that only over 6-star mages could handle. The Ortian Guild became one that had menacing power. It was one many wished to join, but there was only one way one could join the Ortian Guild.
A mage would have to replace one of the members, that meant a person had to kill one of the Ortian Guild members in order to become a part of them.
This is what managed to make the guild and the strength of them rise higher and higher. However, there came times where members wished to leave the guild.
Maybe the fighting life wasn’t for them anymore, or they had a family to look after, but leaving the guild was even more difficult than joining.
All members of the guild had a pact that if one wanted to leave, then they would have to face all nine other members of the Ortian Guild at once.
If they were successful in beating them all, the guild would disband, and they were free.
For a long time, those that had tried to leave, all of them ended up dead. That was all apart from one.
Eston had received an offer from Idore, using the strength of his items, he had left the guild, annihilating all other 9 members.
All of the strongest 6-star mages in existence. That was Eston’s strength, that was the type of mage that they were going against.
“I am the only person to ever leave the Ortian Guild!” Eston shouted as the vortex grew larger.
