Chapter 253 — Encounter

Despite the one-sided battle, the patrol leader kept his eyes fixed without the slightest slack on the direction from which the enemies had emerged. He still remembered the flickering light of the mana shield he had glimpsed earlier. From experience, he knew the enemy mage must still be hiding in the rear, brewing a spell under the cover of the soldiers in front. Although the annihilation of the charging soldiers in a single wave might greatly surprise the opposing mage, the enemy's spell attack would certainly still come.

Just then, a flash of firelight suddenly glimmered in the drifting smoke—a fireball came tearing through the air, sure enough.

Far smaller than the fireballs Miss Rebecca conjured. These days Miss Rebecca had not only succeeded in conjuring fireballs the size of washbasins—she was even attempting to knead two fireballs together into the shape of a barbell. These fire mages from out of town really were beneath mention.

The patrol leader assessed it in his mind with some disdain, then forcefully blocked with the force-field shield mounted on his left hand. The fireball veered off course and exploded in a dazzling burst of fire among the nearby rocks—and the caster's position was now completely exposed.

"Concentrate fire on that direction!"

The patrol leader shouted, then directly began bombarding the enemy mage's position with the thermal ray guns mounted on both arms. By now the enemies who had charged out were all dead on the path of their charge, so all firepower poured at once into the spot the captain indicated. Through the smoke, the patrol leader saw various colors of magical radiance flickering there—it might be a shield, or it might be some life-saving magic device, but whatever it was, as long as the suppressing fire did not stop, there would come a moment when it stopped flickering.

Those flickering magical lights held out for a moment, then finally went dark.

Uneasy, the patrol leader swept another dozen searing rays in that direction, not stopping until the energy crystal in one arm guard was exhausted. Then he swapped in a fresh crystal and led his soldiers over to inspect the results.

They walked past the narrow mountain path, and the veteran captain, rich in experience, instructed the soldiers under his command: "Watch these fallen fellows—some are only wounded in the limbs. Tie them up and don't let them get away."

In the dead corner of the rock collapsed by the grenades, the patrol leader saw the enemies, already thoroughly dead. Here there was not only a mage but also a knight in armor. Both bodies had several holes blown through them, and the mage had been killed outright by a searing ray to the head.

That knight had presumably stayed behind to protect the caster, his role being to prevent stealthy assassins or suicide squads from slipping close to kill the fragile mage—but he had clearly never imagined that the entire battle, from start to finish, would never reach the blade-to-blade stage. The magic attacks, thrown out as if money meant nothing, had simply destroyed every defense.

This was probably the most wretched death a guardian knight could suffer.

But the patrol leader had no room for pity toward the enemy—especially enemies who lurked on the mountain path to ambush him.

He bent down to examine the traces left on the corpses, hoping to find where these people had come from.

Although these men had been crushed in battle, that was because they were not accustomed to the new way of fighting and because his side held the advantage in equipment. Otherwise, if the two sides had truly known each other's strengths and faced off in a proper fight, the patrol leader did not think he would have gained much advantage.

The soldiers he led, though well trained, were mostly without real combat experience—while these enemies... judging from how they could still organize an orderly assault even amid chaotic, urgent circumstances, these were elites.

Such elite troops could not have sprung up out of nowhere.