Chapter 161 — Focus Fire on That One...
Blade of Dawn · Page 2 of 3
And while the underlings and lesser officers were being cut down one after another in focused volleys of scorching rays, the mercenary captain in half-plate survived by luck—owing to a leader's dignity, he had not joined the charge with the others, so the instant he saw how badly things had turned he still had time to dive for cover. He practically scrambled on hands and knees to the nearest boulder, but along the way he saw a figure in black robes still standing there, slow and stupid, rooted to the spot.
It was one of only two mages in the mercenary company. The man had actually raised a magical shield and begun chanting an attack spell—raising a shield while casting, the basic and indeed standard opening move for any battle mage facing another caster—but the mercenary captain realized at once that this foolish battle mage was already finished.
He watched helplessly as dozens of scorching red beams converged on the robed figure, effortlessly shredding the man's arcane shield and sending ripples racing across his magic-resistant robe. The black-robed mage, propped up by his shield and his expensive resistant garments, survived the first volley—but the second volley blasted him into a ball of charred flesh bursting in midair.
This was no battle. It was a one-sided slaughter—the gap in strength as vast as when he had led his men cutting down refugees in the settlement.
The mercenary captain abandoned all thought of resistance against such power. He glanced around, confirmed he was not yet in the enemy's line of sight, and immediately began moving along the haystacks and corpse piles beside the boulder, preparing to flee this terrible place. But the moment he shifted, an icy chill spread from his back through his whole body, and a cold blade pressed against his throat.
"If I were you, I'd put my hands on the back of my head right about now."
Amber held a dagger to the nape of the mercenary captain's neck, delivering her threat with force while firmly resolving in her heart: at the slightest sign of resistance from this obviously formidable mercenary captain, she would run.
But if he didn't resist, she'd trade this merit with Gao Yang for a roast chicken and half a bucket of iced beer.
The mercenary captain did not resist—because he was now utterly convinced that dozens of battle mages had this place surrounded. Strange as those battle mages looked, magic could not be faked, and before a whole company of mages, no amount of martial skill meant a thing.
Gao Yang and Philip, who had not lifted a finger the entire time and merely observed and recorded the battlefield, stepped out and began clearing the field with the arcane infantry, while the mercenary captain rose from behind the boulder under Amber's dagger and docilely submitted to being taken captive.
Looking at the scorched black bodies strewn every which way, and recalling that mere minutes ago these had been crack elite mercenaries, well-equipped and even boasting superhuman fighters among them, Gao Yang felt a measure of pride and trust in the new thermal ray guns.
At the same time, he spotted many shortcomings in experience and tactics among this first generation of arcane infantry. Quite a few soldiers still had not shaken off traditional ways of fighting and failed to grasp the essence of lying in ambush and concentrating fire. Some exposed themselves too early; some, overexcited after their first magical kill, forgot the squad leader's assigned firing focus and blazed away at random; two even botched their handling and spent ages going pew-pew at the enemy without releasing the safety—only now, at their comrades' prompting, realizing they hadn't hit a single one...