Badge in Azure

Aini could not understand this element mage’s style of roaring and shouting. A mage should just keep quiet, except when chanting curses. Shouting out the name of the spell would not increase its power anyway. There must be something wrong with his brain.

To his credit, the element mage’s spell was powerful as more than one-hundred huge stone shards protruded from the ground and pierced into the sky. These stone shards intersected with each other very closely and the one-hundred heavy infantrymen were in a mess because of them.

Each stone shard was six yards long and was extremely sharp at the tip. Even the heavy armors on the soldiers could be penetrated and more than half of the infantrymen were impaled by the stone shards and were screaming in pain in mid-air.

“Flame totem!”

The element mage’s voice suddenly became sharp as a row of three-yard tall flame monsters appeared and charged towards the remaining heavy infantrymen.

Aini thought to himself, “If we only have one such mage within the caravan, at the rate that he is using his magic chords, they will be completely used up in no time and everyone will be in danger then.” This grade-5 mage was able to cast spells with great speed and his spells were extremely destructive. The Flame totem was so effective that in the blink of an eye, the metal armors on the infantrymen had been burned beyond recognition and the flame beasts had also vanished thereafter.

With two of the grade-5 mage’s spells, the one-hundred heavy infantrymen were decimated so quickly that only a few were left.

Both these spells were grade-5 so a typical element mage could only cast twelve of those consecutively before needing six hours of quiet meditation to fully restore the magic chords. If the environment was not suitable for meditation, they would need at least a day to recover naturally.

Even though Aini looked down on Sharman’s mage, he had to admit that the spells were extremely effective and complemented each other well. He first used the stone shards to slow down the infantrymen’s charge, then he used the flame totem, which had an area effect, as the finishing blow. The first spell required some time before casting so one must be able to predict in advance, while the second spell could be cast almost instantaneously so the enemy would not be able to react in time.

These two grade-5 spells combined to destroy almost the entire one-hundred heavy infantrymen leaving less than ten survivors. In order to destroy the enemy’s elite forces, even if using the strongest spells required exhausting a lot of magic chords, it was still worth it. Element mages were different from death mages. Death mages possessed powerful summoning abilities and could afford to use the spirits of the dead that they have summoned to wear the enemy down. On the other hand, element mages were able to use the most powerful attack to strike at the enemy’s weaknesses.

What Aini was upset with was that the flame totem had turned all the bandits into ashes so he would not be able to turn them into corpse soldiers. If only the bandits had been killed by poison or a similar methods instead, Aini would have gotten himself another one-hundred corpse soldiers clad in metal armor. With such armors, the corpse soldiers’ fighting abilities would have increased.

In the barrack, Saleen was still sitting calmly despite hearing the loud explosion from the flame totem. Narnia asked, “Sharman’s mage is already using grade-5 spells. Aren’t we going to help?”

Narnia’s suggestion was not wrong. If they went to help, the grade-5 mage would be able to rest and recover some of his magic chords. If a few mages took turns to attack, he would be able to rest even longer.

“Narnia, you must trust Aini’s abilities. If I had not advanced, I may not be his match either.”

Narnia sighed and said, “Saleen, you have changed a lot after one year.”

“Really?” Saleen did not understand why Narnia suddenly changed the subject.

“Back when you were still a junior mage, you were cautious in everything you did. Now you are very assured, just like… like viscountess Lex.”

Saleen smiled and said, “One thing has not changed.”

“What?”

“We are still friends, right?”

Narnia hung her head before raising it again and said, “Of course, we are still good friends.”

Mages always watched what they said. It meant a lot whenever mages of similar grades became friends. When mages’ powers were combined together, the effect was not as simple as one plus one equals two. When Saleen said that Narnia was his friend, it meant that in future if Saleen built a magic tower, she would be able to use it for training.

Based on Narnia’s background, there was no way she would have the money to build a magic tower unless Lex helped. Other mages would never have allowed her to use their magic towers for training either. After what Saleen said, Narnia’s mood brightened.

“Let’s continue.” In Saleen’s hand, many miniature water shields that were the size of pearls were floating, spinning and changing. On the surface of the miniature water shields were magic patterns of a faint green color that were also constantly changing.

“If the water shield became smaller in size, its defence ability would increase. As long as you can predict where the enemy will attack from, this is also a way to protect yourself.” Saleen was demonstrating while explaining to Narnia how to shrink the water shield. The entire room was filled with the fog that Saleen had released and visibility was close to zero. Su was already at the door entrance, so bored that he was watching the battle from afar.

There were many enemies, but Su was not concerned at all. Based on his abilities alone, although he might not be able to defeat all of them but at the very least, they would not be able to stop him if he decided to escape. Cuisi hid in a dark corner and had yet to strike. He realized that Sharman was nervous purely because she was worried about the loss of her goods. Her guards were all actually very strong and if this was all that the bandits could come up with, there was no way the bandits would win.

Cuisi recalled what Saleen reminded, “Don’t do your utmost for others.”

This camp was set up on a very good location. One side was facing the mountain and the other was facing the road. If the bandits were to come from the road, they would have no cover. Aini’s bodyguards hid behind the big shields with their alchemy crossbows, not intending to rush out to battle with the enemy.

The few leaders of the bandits outside of the camp were extremely anxious. They had not expected the situation to become so difficult. With merely two spells, one-hundred heavy infantrymen were gone just like that. The focal point of their attack had disappeared in the blink of an eye.

“The black dragon king is here!” Bandits from a distance away began to create a din. The ground shook as the sound of horses’ hooves were as loud as thunder and came closer and closer to the camp.

The black dragon king was a bandit gang that roamed the border of Laiyin Duchy. Sikeqinya has tried to capture them many times but to no avail. No one knew how many members there were in this gang, but it was rumored that the leader was a dragon knight.

Dragon knights had only been heard of in myths because real dragons would never allow themselves to be ridden by humans. It was still possible with monsters that were wurm-types since they had been known to be subdued by humans.

Even if they came riding on thorned dragons or bronze-armored dragons, it was still terrifying.

The sound of the horses’ hooves caught Su’s attention. He entered the barrack and whispered to Saleen. He then took out the alchemy binoculars and handed them to Su.

Su left the barrack and scurried up the roof to use the binoculars to observe. He only saw a group of knights from far away that were heading in their direction in a hurry. Leading the knights were three heavy-armored knights that looked tall and strong. They were riding on three metal-armored dragons.

Compared to the bronze-armored dragon, the metal-armored dragon was less formidable in terms of speed and defence. Nevertheless, it was still a grade-5 wurm-type and could make a huge impact upon collision. If these three metal-armored dragons were to charge at this barrack together, the barrack would be crushed.

The heavy armors that the three riders were wearing were the same metal as those on the dragons. Su had only seen such designs in diagrams and pictures. The subcontinental plane had no dragon knights so all information he had on dragons all came from myths.

These three leaders were at least high-level swordmasters and could possibly be zun grand swordmasters. Including the metal-armored dragons and the magic armors that they were wearing, their abilities might be close to that of black metal grand swordmasters. Behind them were one-hundred heavy-armored knights and they were riding on metal-armored giant lizards. Only grade-4 beasts like them would be able to take the weight of the heavy-armored knights. Even the best warhorses would not have been able to take their weight and travel for such long distances.

Behind the one-hundred heavy-armored knights were four-hundred light-armored knights. These knights were wearing metal armors. Although light armors had lower defense abilities compared to heavy armors, they were still more than able to protect against normal arrows.

A troop of knights such as this could definitely rob large-scale caravans.

After what he saw through the binoculars, Su lamented, “Don’t tell me the robbers in the mainland dimension were these ferocious! This gang of bandits is definitely more powerful than a conventional army!”

Of course, Su was not aware that even amongst the four empires on Myers Mainland, conventional army troops might not necessarily have such beast knights. These one-hundred bandits riding on metal-armored giant lizards could definitely go up against the private armies of an Earl.

Behind these five-hundred knights were even more bandits that were riding on low-quality horses and were definitely not knights. Typically, only conventional armies would arrange their forces in this way, where the foot soldiers would ride on horses in order to increase the speed of the entire army. The bandits that attacked Aini’s caravan earlier on were the typical bandits that would not have been able to form a decent group of knights even if they tried.

Everyone had something to ride on so the expenses incurred by these bandits in order to reach there must have been huge. Those giant lizards were carnivorous so they would definitely cost more than warhorses.

The bandits that were originally getting anxious finally received a boost to their morale when they saw that help was coming and it came in the form of the notorious black dragon king bandit gang. The person that hired them had promised great rewards. As long as they could keep the caravans here, their rewards would be so great that they would not have to work for a year.

The black dragon king bandit gang was coming closer and Sharman’s mage was devastated. He had totally used up the flame totem and could only use violent stone shards one more time which would not be enough to deal with the three grand swordmasters. In fact, it might not be enough to deal with even the one-hundred bandits riding on the metal-armored giant lizards since every suit of armor had been boosted with spells.

There must be a grand mage amongst this group of bandits. No bandit gang was powerful enough to solidify the spells on the one-hundred knights, so they must have been boosted temporarily by a grand mage.

“Lord Aini!” The mage gave up his pride and walked out from the crowd to bow in apology to Aini.

Aini frowned and nodded to the mage and said, “Don’t worry. I will find Saleen for help.”

The element mage was taken aback. The enemy was almost there, yet Aini was going to seek help from the white-robed mage? “Oh yes, the white-robed mage had a follower, which was a silver grand swordmaster. The silver grand swordmaster will definitely be able to fight against the three dragon knights.”

Sharman was called to Saleen’s horse carriage. Saleen did not want anything to happen to this girl from the Rolande family. The Rolande family had been on friendly terms with Metatrin and was of great help during the construction phase. Saleen was interested to interact with Baroness Guyana. Sharman was her sister so if she died, things would become tricky.

The Rolande family had also built something similar to an army barrack. This temporal barrack could contain up to ten people. Saleen and Aini entered but a swordsman tried to stop Su. Aini shouted at him to back down.

“Aini, you are impressive!” The little girl sat on the floor with a very short table in front of her. Beside her was a middle-aged lady. She was the leader of the caravans.

Saleen wore a white mage robe while Narnia was honest and wore a gray mage robe. No one took notice of Saleen. Aini made himself at home and sat down as servants served food. Seeing that Saleen and Su were also about to take a seat, the middle-aged lady beside the little girl said, “The two of you. This is the ladies’ room. Shouldn’t you take your leave?”

Saleen did not mind. After all, he was the one that chose not to reveal his identity and to wear a grade-2 mage’s robe. Su could not bear it anymore though. He was Saleen’s follower and he could not stand seeing his lord being shamed like this.

Su reached out his hand and used his nails to draw a line across the table and said, “It’s fine as long as my lord does not cross this line.”

The line was drawn horizontally. The middle-aged woman was slightly upset and pushed against the table to stand up. No one expected that the moment her hands touched the edge of the table, the table broke from the middle and all the soup and water had spilled onto the floor.

Su laughed coldly and said, “If you are impolite to the mage, I will kill you.”