“We’re in position,” Gizmo said over the team chat system while continuously moving. Everything was going according to plan so far, Gizmo and Tyron led away two enemy soldiers to deal with them without inference.
Once the operation began, Luon and Bendan needed to stop the advance of their opponents that may come to their aid them. The worst possible thing that can happen was that instead of occupying themselves with battling against Luon and the others, Team Warbeast could have forced Luon and the others to fight them head-on if they had targeted their Crypt of Heroes instead.
The combined effort of Gizmo and Tyron, depending on the situation, could only eliminate two of their foes. Bendan could use his armor piercing attacks to deal with another.
The only one who had the most trouble was Luon. The best weapon he had on him was a sword that specialized in stabbing and slashing his opponent. If he had made a blunt weapon like a mace, he might have been able to inflict some internal damage. However, he only found out about their opponent’s equipment a day ago.
If a person practiced using and crafting swords everyday how could he even consider using something like a mace?
Because of this, there was just no time to create a better weapon nor practice with it. Luon didn’t even have that much to buy one as he was practically relying on his student budget as well as his part-time job.
Although he could have made a simple metal bat which is relatively more similar to a sword, compared to Zythos’ armor, it was akin to smacking a wooden stick against a brick wall. Straight out ineffective, which was why Luon was practicing new magic spells in the first place.
As he continued to lead the two armored soldiers away, Gizmo attempted to notify Luon and Bendan to start the operation. However, all he was able to hear from the two were rude remarks. At first, Gizmo was mad because they cursed at him, however, before he could give a reply he pondered from the naming convention used in the curses.
‘Why does it sound like they’re cursing at a dog? Ah, Luon and Bendan must be playing mind games with their opponents right now which is why they can’t reply to me,’ thought Gizmo as he began to relay to Luon and Bendan the news.
Even though Luon and Bendan heard the message, they couldn’t give a reply right away as it would look too obvious. Instead, they continued to curse at their opponents while dropping hints that they were stalling for time.
Seeing how they didn’t reply to his message Gizmo signaled Tyron to start the operation.
Loading his rifle with a new set of bullets Gizmo continued to run while unleashing a storm of projectiles at his foes.
Gizmo shooting at his opponents was a common occurrence for the last minute, or so, it was to the point where his enemies had gotten used to the action. Merely dodging the repetitive attack, the two soldiers continued to pursue Gizmo and Tyron. However, the situation changed.
The bullets that missed their mark grew vines that silently crept under the tall grass, and after finding their target dashed towards their target with incredible speed. Sensing something amiss, one of the beastmen turned around to see a wave of thorns coming towards him.
In response, the beastmen jumped away from the vines but was instantly caught by another set of vines. Because the armor he wore restricted his vision it caused him to miss several vines that had approached him from the side.
Tangled and held upwards he turned to face his ally screaming that there was an ambush. Too bad the scene before him shattered his hopes, the only person that could help him right away was foolishly trapped in a different set of green vegetation.
‘How did they do it?’ thought one of the Beastmen.
He didn’t notice anything unusual happen, other than running away, their targets did nothing remarkable to his eyes. Like a hunter chasing after his prey, he found himself in a situation where he was being hunted.
The magic spell that was engraved on the bullets was the result of one of Luon’s failed products. Originally Luon wanted to solve the problem that standard rifles had with lacking damage. The simplest method that people had done in the past was to increase the size of the bullet which in turn increased the amount of damage it dealt. Instead of doing what everyone else had done, he merely changed the materials used for the bullets with a more magically capable one and carefully set a magical circle on them.
According to his research so far, it was not possible to increase firepower using this method, in fact, all magical offensive spells engraved on the bullets had their effectiveness drop by half using this method.
A spell was the composition of mana and formula, to use spells in the first place a mage would have to channel his energy into the formula and depending on the amount, the effectiveness is scaled upwards.
Since the bullets have no mana stored inside of them, the power it held was near zero. Besides offensive spells, several defensive spells were proven useful as they didn’t rely on a caster’s mana, but their surroundings.
Thankfully for the Beastmen soldier, he was heavily armored. However, just as he got around to notify Zythos over their team chat that they needed help, the ally that was trapped just like him flashed into a white light and vanished from the spot. An announcement popped into the Beastmen soldiers’ head as it said, “”First blood!”
Scared by the light, he looked towards the source and found Tyron to be charging another shot that was aimed towards him. He quickly relayed the information to Zythos only to receive a notice to hold on, that he would be there as soon as possible.
Grasping on that hope the soldier continued to struggle beneath the restriction.
“How is it, can you keep going?” asked Gizmo as he continued to shoot the entangle skill at their target, the more he shot, the easier it was for Tyron.
Sweating profusely from injecting nearly half of his mana in each arrow, Tyron gave a simple nod to Gizmo telling him that he’s alright and that he could make the next shot.
Gizmo understood his look and continued to focus on restricting their opponent while being careful on the number of bullets left in his magazine.
While he was waiting he senses space distort behind him, he turned his head towards the intruder only to find a sword coming towards him. Unable to evade the sudden attack Gizmo took the blow head on.
Blood spewed out of his body, Gizmo who was just dealt a lethal blow to him fell down like a ragdoll without strings as white particles appeared around his body before vanishing into nothing, causing him to leave the battleground.
Gizmo was eliminated, Tyron who had seen all of this happen in front of his eyes found the new foe to be incredibly familiar.
“This was truly a good purchase, to think you guys would be able to eliminate one of my men, too bad you underestimated us,” said Zythos who had suddenly just appeared.
From a distance, Tyron saw Luon head towards their direction but was just too far to do anything.
When they continued to have their cursing battle, after Gizmo and Tyron had eliminated one of their opponents, Zythos frowned upon the news and had pulled out a strange looking device from his gear slot. Upon activation, a swirl of white particles surrounded his body and dashed towards a direction uninhibited by the laws of nature.
Following the light, Luon saw the scene of Gizmo falling before Zythos’ blade. Zythos turned to face Tyron who was still left over and pointed his sword at him. Before the edge reaped his life, Tyron who realized his end was near, shot the charge arrow at the still entangled man.
Despite knowing the fact that his arrow was fully charged, he knew if he shot at Zythos from point-blank Zythos wouldn’t fall that easily. If he was going to die, he might as well take one with him!
Just as the attack arrived before the beastmen, the vines that were holding him back disappeared causing the beastmen to fall a meter down. The arrow barely grazed against his body and injured him slightly.
He wasn’t dead from the attack and began to naturally regenerate his wounds by downing a health potion from his gear slot. Tyron who had missed his target was then slain by Zythos. Among the soldiers left in the battle. Team Ascension had lost two while Team Warbeast had only lost one soldier with one injured.
Although Luon wanted to run towards the wounded enemy before him, Zythos didn’t let him go that easily.
The two once again engaged in close quarters combat without cursing each other. Instead, Zythos gleefully said, “Did you not think the possibility of me seeing through your strategy? The moment we began our curse battle I suspected you were up to no good. How is it now? To be played by me as the fool you were. I purposely let you drag my teammates away thinking that my intervention will stop you guys from killing them, but because your teammates distanced themselves away from us, I was able to stop you from interfering with me when I go and slay your team. Hahaha!”
As the two continued to battle, the device that Zythos had used fell upon the ground which let Luon take a glance at it. It was a one-time consumable teleportation glyph which caused Zythos to travel a considerable amount of distance within a second. If Luon had known about this item, he would have changed the initial plan. He could only lament to his lack of consideration.
“You’re not the only one with a trick or two,” said Luon as he shot some dark magic towards Zythos’ face.
Unable to see due to a dark fog Luon had attached to him, Zythos began to sword randomly. Taking this chance, Luon coated his blade with ice magic and attacked Zythos chest region. The next set of actions once again surprised Luon. Zythos suddenly stopped swinging his blade around and countered Luon’s attack with sword pointing towards one of Luon’s vital areas. Luon found that Zythos had pretended he was unable to see while waiting to bait him in. Luon was forced to stop his attack because if he had continued he would receive more damage from the blow Zythos would have made.
“Dark magic and Ice magic, eh? Looks like you thought carefully about how to deal with our team. It’s too bad I’ve equipped myself with an anti-magic barrier isn’t it?” taunted Zythos.
‘Is there anything I can do?’ Thought Luon as he continued to attack Zythos in close quarters combat. Despite some minor losses concerning tactics, Luon continued to subdue Zythos who was crappily waving his sword around.
Repelling Luon away once more, Zythos tossed his sword on the ground and yelled, “Enough of this farce! I don’t need a sword to end your misery.”
After throwing away the expensive looking sword, the arm guards in Zythos’ hands reshaped themselves to form a pair of claws attached to a gauntlet.
.
After confirming his weapon Zythos unleashed a series of quick attack from his arms, ruining Luon’s battle pace.
Luon needed to adapt to these quick changes, the longer he took to beat Zythos, the worse the situation gets. The other soldier would then intervene in the battle, and ultimately they would win.
Luon was out of tricks, magic didn’t work, and two members of their team of five were dead. It was the worst possible outcome yet. He knew something has to change, he needed that little edge to excel. A move to turn the tides, it was then Luon managed to recall a particular set of motions. Picking of Zythos’ sword that he had tossed away, his blades mysteriously twirled as a ringing sound resonated with the surroundings.
Zythos’ scoffed at Luon’s futile resistance and said, “Just give it up, there’s no hope for you remaining.”
However, his remark flew by Luon’s ears as he had paid no heed to them. Instead, Luon was focused on replicating the swordsmanship that he had seen in his dream and practiced a bit a few hours before this.
Before the match this move was not battle ready, however, without any other choice, Luon decided to use it. It was now or never.
