Chapter 11: Breaking the Siege
Nunemund, 4th day, 217th known year.
There were two reasons why Stephanie’s role was declared at the very end. One of the reasons was to cover up some of its significance by declaring Draego’s extreme role right before that. The other, was to make it sound as much like an afterthought as possible.
Unfortunately, neither of the goals was achieved. Immediately after hearing about her role, the gathering became quiet as every eye focused on her. Mutters of misgivings and doubt circulated among the mages. However, Stephanie simply gave them a valiant smile.
“Leave it to me.” She said confidently. Cessa blinked, a little taken aback by Stephanie’s change in attitude. Then, she gave a slight smile, before nodding. Immediately, Luke gave the signal to move, and the small platoon moved out of the east gates towards the fort. Cessa and Draego brought up the rear.
“I don’t know what you said to her,” Cessa said to Draego as the group walked into the forest. “But good work.”
Draego looked at Cessa impassively, before turning to look ahead at Stephanie again.
“ ‘Take care’.” He said after a short while. Cessa blinked in confusion. Draego shrugged in response.
“That was all I said.” He clarified. Cessa frowned.
“That’s all?” She asked. “You didn’t say any words of encouragement or give any advice or anything?”
Draego shook his head.
“Sometimes,” He started. “The best thing to say is nothing.”
Or at least that’s what my father once said. Draego thought to himself. Cessa soaked those words in for a moment, before bringing a finger to her chin. She started dropping her pace slightly as she lost herself in thought. Draego nudged her back into the present. They could meditate on philosophy later, for now, they ought to focus on winning the war.
“Also,” Draego went on, his eyes following Stephanie, even as she seemed to disappear from the view of those around her. “She has awakened.”
Cessa’s eyes widened upon hearing Draego’s words, and she let out a mana net to probe Stephanie. The instant the net touched Stephanie’s feet, she turned around to look at Cessa and Draego. She smiled and channeled a bit of mana through her feet, making it seem as though the mana net wasn’t hindered at all.
“I see… Amazing.” Cessa gave another smile. Draego nodded back in response to her words. To be perfectly honest, Stephanie’s awakening to mana was probably just a coincidence. However, the timing couldn’t be better. Now all that was left was to enact their plan in its entirety.
The unit assembled to the east of the eastern camp, having snuck past it. Draego and the rest of the unit watched as Stephanie left them, almost disappearing from view. However, this wasn’t the magic trick Draego used, but a completely physical method of hiding one’s presence. It was a technique born of training, practice and experience.
If one used Draego’s method, it would be found out in a flash by a mage due to the erratic mana. However, Stephanie’s method didn’t seem to have any tells of its own. The normal loophole would be the fact that she’d still be found out by a mana net. However, having awakened to mana Stephanie now had a fighting chance against that too.
Without wasting any time, she slid into the shadows and scrambled towards the walls. There were only four lookouts this night. They were all Novices, with three watching the east of the fort and one watching the west. The reasoning behind such an arrangement was simple. There was an allied camp to the west, so any sizable army would have to fight them first.
For any small groups, they’d be spotted soon and then they’d have to face over twenty mages, out of which, three were Amateurs. As far as the commander was concerned, his enemy didn’t have elites that could fight off such a line-up as long as they were well-defended inside their fort.
Of course, he didn’t expect someone to sneak under the gate, climb it up, and silently slit the throat of the lookout. In his defense, who’d expect someone to sneak up on a mage? Stephanie dealt with the mage with relative ease. Draego and Luke only noticed her presence when they saw the lookout collapse silently upon the ramparts.
Stephanie took a good look around herself, confirming none of the lookouts had been alerted before waving her hand. Draego and Luke saw this signal well and clearly. Immediately, twenty two mages made their way to the gates of the castle. Luke stayed with Cessa at all times. His duty was not to win the war, but to guard his lady.
Draego climbed up the gate, over to where Stephanie was, before lowering them using the coordinated mechanism at the bottom of the ramparts. Just like that, the fort had been infiltrated.
“INTRUDERS!!!” A shout rang out in the night. The opening of the gate had made enough noise to alert the lookouts on the other end. However, someone or the other was bound to have been alerted due to the noise, and so Stephanie had decided not to take the risk of trying to eliminate those three.
The unit of mages sprang into action. Half a dozen small fireballs were shot towards the three lookouts. The lookouts did their best to dodge them using mana-reinforced bodies, but only managed to reduce the damage they took. The real piece of good news for them was the stream of soldiers that emerged from the barracks and the keep.
There were slightly over twenty on both sides. Draego was surprisingly the first to enter the melee. Instead of using any spells along the same lines as the others, he drew his sword, cast Body Reinforcement and charged right in. A mana net around him kept him informed of the enemy mages’ positions.
By the time the melee had truly begun, Draego had already cut down three enemy mages. Unfortunately, they were all Novices. The Amateurs, on the other hand, had already identified Cessa and Luke, and had engaged them in combat. The three Amateur mages on their side, including Luke, had engaged the four on the enemy’s side.
Spells blazed as fireballs and icicles flew about across the air. The dazzling light and deafening sounds covered the fort. Slashing down his fourth Novice mage, Draego turned towards the spot where Cessa was. She was still near the entrance, in a place where she could withdraw at any moment.
No one blamed her for not being actively involved in the fight. The mages all liked her quick and decisive personality which had kept them alive so far. They recognised that her death would also mean the end of cooperation between the mages she had gathered here. Which would mean either prompt execution, or a melee where every man was for himself.
Luke was trying to hold his own against a swordsman and a spearman. He would charge in and push back any of the two who tried to approach Cessa. Another archer was engaged in a shoot-out with an enemy archer. At the same time, two shield wielding swordsmen were engaged in a melee between the two archers, often blocking the enemy arrows with their shields.
Draego let out his signature mana net and let its threads seep into the bodies of the Novices around him. Without caring for friend or enemy, his threads robbed at least a dozen Novices of their mana. As they collapsed to the ground due to the sudden weakness, Draego moved in a blur as he eliminated all of the enemies.
Time for the real show. He turned towards the administrative keep, right in the center. A man with brown hair stood a few meters in front of the tower. He was covered in a thick layer of fur clothes, and held a long sword in one hand. The long sword was about three and a half feet long, with about ten inches as its hilt.
There was no one fighting him, and there were no corpses at his feet. There were two reasons for this. First was that he himself was waiting for an opportunity to strike at Cessa, and thus conserving his mana and stamina. The second, he was a Class 4 Amateur mage, putting him on the same rank as Luke. The mages wouldn’t carelessly give away their lives against such a foe.
Draego took a deep breath before breaking into a sprint towards the mage. Just when he was a couple of meters from the mage, the mage seemed to realize something was amiss and turned towards Draego. At that moment, Draego channeled mana through his body, quickly casting Body Reinforcement, and closed the distance in an instant.
The man only managed to widen his eyes and barely start bringing his sword ahead when Draego slashed at his neck. The man’s intuition saved his life. His sword pushed Draego’s slash downwards, creating a long, shallow cut on his chest instead.
“GYAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!” His pain-filled shout cut through the night. Coincidentally, this was the moment of a lull in battle. Almost fifty pairs of eyes shot to where Draego and the man were. Draego flew past the man’s figure, just finishing his slash. He immediately kicked the ground and turned towards the mage again, his kick increasing his rotational speed.
He swung his sword at the man in another horizontal slash, this time aimed at his side. The man waited till the last moment before bringing his sword to meet the slash. With a resounding ringing sound, the sword strike was blocked. Draego’s sword didn’t bounce back, and a jarring sensation went up his arm.
Without wasting any time thinking, Draego leapt backwards. The mage took half a step forward as he turned, bringing his sword in a lightning quick counter attacking overhead slash. Draego forcefully turned his body mid-air to avoid the slash and landed slightly off balance. Luckily, the man himself was unable to recover his stance in time to strike at him.
The man breathed hard, his chest aching with every breath, as he looked at Draego. Unwittingly, they had both started using the Body Reinforcement spell, and were both consuming mana at an incredible rate. More importantly, however, noticing a leader in trouble, Amateur mages of both sides had started fighting even more fiercely, freely using the mana-consuming Body Reinforcement spell.
Draego gave his opponent a good look as the sound of battle started again around them. Both sides fought, exchanging blows, yet neither side committed completely, refusing to use spells, and just watching the other’s attention and stamina. They’re keeping each other in check. Their purpose was no longer defeating their opponent, just making sure they didn’t interfere with other fights.
“You have heart, brat.” The man said, dragging Draego’s attention back to his own fight. “Charging at an enemy almost a full rank above you… Isn’t something most mages have the guts for.”
Draego simply gazed on at his opponent. The man was breathing hard, not because he was out of breath, but because the act of breathing caused his chest to ache. He grit his teeth as he stabilized his stance against the brat in front of him. Draego turned his gaze towards the rest of the battle again.
“Two Amateurs and twelve Novices.” He said, before turning back to the man. “You’ll be my fifteenth.”
His words and impassive gaze sent a shiver down the man’s spine. Draego stepped forward and swung his sword in a diagonal slash. The man reacted in time, blocking the attack by bringing his own sword up in time. Draego connected his attack to another downward diagonal slash from the opposite direction. Once again, the man raised his sword to block it.
Immediately, Draego gave a kick to the man’s knee. The man flinched as he immediately stepped backwards, his knee aching now. Draego jumped up and brought his blade crashing downwards in an Overhead blow. Off balance, the man was unable to dodge and brought his blade up to block it once again.
The force of the blow sent him staggering back yet again. Draego took the chance to step forward with a horizontal cut at the man’s neck. The man raised his sword to block it, only to see the blade suddenly drop into a cut at his side. He reacted quickly, leaping backwards with all his might, however Draego’s attack left its mark.
Another scream of pain tore through the somewhat quiet, somewhat noisy battleground as a deep cut bore into the man’s side. Draego immediately sent several mana threads into him, plundering a large amount of his opponent’s mana. The man, crumbling with pain, had no ability to resist Draego’s threads, and they rapidly sapped away at the mana the man had been circulating.
At the same time, Draego felt his own mana pool expand rapidly as he broke through the thirteenth spell level. With another spell’s worth of mana capacity, he would officially become a Class 7 mage. The man brought himself unsteadily to his feet. Even as he struggled, Draego’s threads mercilessly reaped his mana and expanded Draego’s own mana pool.
When he finally took his stance, Draego channeled mana into his sword and swung it at the man. A blue colored arc shot towards the man. The man tried to channel mana into his own sword, to try and push the arc aside, but Draego’s mana threads held fast onto those streams and delayed him by a fatal moment.
The blue arc crashed into the right side of the man, creating a massive cut from his shoulder to his waist. With another heart-wrenching cry of pain, he crumpled to the ground. The Amateur mages on his side, hearing this cry, felt their hair stand on end. The strongest among them, a Class 2, turned around and raced back towards his commander.
His companion took the role of locking Luke down all by himself. Luke let out a cry of rage and worry, but Draego simply gave that area an impassive glance before turning back to his opponent. His mana threads consistently and effectively robbed the man of his mana and expanded Draego’s own mana pool.
He felt himself being just a small push away from Class 7 when the man’s reinforcements reached within a ten meters of the two. Draego expertly manoeuvred his mana threads to wrap themselves around the man’s organs, and slice into them. At the same time, he turned around to face the new threat.
Noticing this set of developments, the Novice mages around them pretty much stopped fighting in all but name. That said, one couldn’t hold them responsible. They had just witnessed a Novice mage dominate an Amateur mage in combat. Even the Novice in question was impressed with his improvement.
He had expected a reasonable increase in his combat abilities since he had effectively increased his mana capacity by fifty percent. However, he never expected to be able to dominate a Class 4 Amateur in such a manner. Must have been the initial strike. He judged. And to confirm his increase in strength, the Amateur approaching him was at the same level as the one on the bridge.
To top it off, the mage was using a greatsword too, just like the other one. Yet, Draego could tell with one glance this one’s combat ability paled compared to the other. To begin with, the man dragged his greatsword with him, as opposed to the other mage who had used his greatsword to facilitate his own movements.
The greatsword swung downwards at Draego with great weight and force. In response, Draego took a leisurely step to his left and stabbed his sword at the newcomer’s neck. The newcomer leapt forcibly to the side, even as his slash was still on-going. As a result, many of his muscles were forcibly pulled and damaged.
He didn’t use Body Reinforcement. The reason why there was such a large effect for such a small reason was apparent immediately. The man had rushed and panicked. Instead of using Body Reinforcement to increase his muscle strength and endurance, he simply sprinted towards Draego. As a result, he had to overuse his muscles to respond to Draego’s counter.
Draego pushed in his advantage. He released a series of feints and slashes, leaving his mark on various parts of his opponent’s body. A cut on the cheek from a narrowly dodged stab. A gash on the side from a shallow slash. A bruise on the thigh from a strong kick. As the small wounds accumulated, the man finally crumpled to the ground.
Without wasting any time, Draego raised his sword and lopped off one of the mage’s arms. The shock, pain and fatigue of first losing a fight to a mage half his rank, and then of losing an arm, caused the mage to lose his consciousness. Draego’s mana threads immediately went to work, pushing him to his fourteenth spell, and then past it to his fifteenth.
Already, he had surpassed the point most demons spent their entire lives reaching. However, the influx of mana was yet to stop. To make things worse for the defenders, the mages who had been out of commission temporarily due to Draego’s theft of their mana, recovered to a reasonable point. Their former opponents had already been dealt with by Draego, leaving them with the time and leisure to support their allies.
Finishing his absorption of mana, Draego summarily beheaded the mage in front of him. His mana pool had expanded to the level of sixteen spells, making him a Class 8 Novice. With about four more spells worth of mana, he would finally be able to start converting his mana pool into a mana sea and become an Amateur mage.
Enemy mages fell in large numbers thereafter. Even the remaining three Amateur mages started running low on mana, alongside their counterparts at Cessa’s side. Draego took down the remaining Amateur mages in turn, allowing Luke and the other mages to sap mana from the enemies to expand their own mana reserves from the battle.
As the final Amateur mage fell, so did the remaining Novice mages’ weapons. They had won the skirmish between the commanding units. Cessa raced to Draego as the cheers rang out in the massive courtyard of the fort. Draego, on the other hand, took his seat at steps to the central keep’s door.
“There.” Draego said impassively as he saw the crimson haired beauty approach him. “I defeated them.”
Cessa’s sprint turned into a brisk walk, which in turn turned into steady steps as she walked silently up the stairs to where Draego was. Draego blinked impassively as Cessa stood in front of him. Then, she practically leapt at him. Not reacting in the slightest, Draego simply stood as she threw her arms around him.
“T-Thank you.” She said with a strained voice.
Draego could feel the heat rushing into her face as she buried it into his shoulder. It was only then that he noticed he had lost one of his shoulder plates sometime during the fight. He wrapped his own arms around her shoulders and patted her head. The two stayed like that for a while as the mages celebrated around them.
“You did well.” Draego said softly into Cessa’s ears. Cessa’s ears flushed red as his breath tickled them. Ah, the Red Head mode. Draego thought a bit rudely to himself. Unbeknownst to anyone, the corners of Draego’s lips were, in fact, a bit higher than normal. I can soon return home. He raised his head to look at the starry skies.