114 Charred
Jack's face spread in a grim smile as his modified Farsight spell slashed a line of pure heat across the oncoming Lolin warriors.
When he first saw the spell up close he thought of changing it into a weapon at once. Only after he found out about the Clear Water spell's lack of effectiveness did he even consider using it to check on the state of the purified water.
Ever since he learned it, he started practicing the best way to modify it into his first real attacking spell.
In the beginning, he studied what the spell's sigils could do in depth, and added a few of his own assumptions, then found a secluded spot near his lab and started testing.
He found that the most spirit energy-efficient method was to use the shape sigils to make a large convex lens-like spell structure out of the sigils for water while using the light sigils to attract as much sunlight to one side of the lens as possible.
When he formed the spell's structure he thought that constructing the spell and then keeping it running would make him more flexible in combat, but he found out that he wasted a lot more spirit energy and attention on maintaining it instead of just dropping it and then forming it again when needed.
After that, he just had to let natural laws take their course and figure out the largest possible focal length for the spell while trying to form it as fast as he could.
By the end of his testing, he found out that he could at most make a two and a half meters wide lens-like spell structure and have its focal point melt rocks at a distance of around twenty meters.
The entire thing relied on him having enough spirit energy in reserves to keep it up for a long time, and on the amount of sunlight being sufficient to generate enough heat, but he thought that the end result more than made up for its flaws.
'Good thing that it doesn't rain that often here, otherwise we'd have to abandon the wagons and whittle the bastards down from a distance.' Jack thought as he watched the fur half of five Lolin beasts go up in flames, together with their unsuspecting riders.
In a dark corner of his mind, he tried to guess if the sudden fire and burns hurt them as much as the beasts coming straight behind them did when they trampled over them.
While the beasts' fur burned from the heat, the flesh of the cultivators started boiling wherever the spell's focal point passed.
It all happened in a couple of seconds.
After that, Jack tilted the large lens to rake over the entire line of riders before he cut the enormous drain of spirit energy and used Moon Step to retreat to around a hundred meters distance from the enormous crash.
Amidst a cacophony of cries of pain, anger, and fear, the Lolin Tribe's charge came to an abrupt halt.
The unhurt warriors watched their burned and trampled companions with horror, only to look over at the man that did it all and shudder at the frightening weapon he rose to his shoulder.
A second later, blood blossomed out of the throat of a grade five warrior and the entire raiding party remembered that the enemy could end their lives at a large distance.
The eyes of the only grade six warrior that didn't get hit by the invisible fire spell hardened. He glanced at his panicking men and yelled "Spread out, use the Ironskin technique, and charge at the Haechi dog from multiple directions! His projectiles will not hurt you and he cannot get us all with that spell!"
Almost as one, the eyes of the rest of the warriors shone with a do-or-die glint. After another grade four warrior fell with a hole in his gut, most of them used the Lolin Tribe's strengthening technique and urged their beasts into a charge towards the distant white-clad mercenary.
Even some of the wounded warriors pushed themselves up and sprinted on foot.
Jack raised the cylinder up to his shoulder and saw the glow of spirit energy on the Lolin tribesmen's skin. He smirked and lowered his aim.
The head of the first beast that started moving exploded in a shower of gore and it tripped up two other beasts behind it.
He shot two more beasts which had riders that could use the skin-strengthening technique before a group of the riders got too close and he had to prepare to meet them.
The looks of the group of oncoming Lolin warriors turned from grim to furious with each beast downed. All of them ignored the orders to spread out and charged straight at the bastard that hurt their loyal companions.
Jack inserted another metal ball into his cylinder and took aim at the closing beasts.
When he saw the warriors focus on the weapon's aim, he pushed his spirit energy into the air above him and constructed the huge lens-like spell.
The unwounded grade six Lolin leader shouted "Watch out!", but his warning came too late for the warriors to stop the built up momentum of their beasts.
Jack's beam of concentrated sunlight raked across the beasts and riders in an instant. He had to do small adjustments to the position of the spell at the cost of increased spirit energy consumption, but it enabled him greater range than just the people straight in front of him.
Out of the six riders that charged straight at the mercenary, one managed to get close enough to attack while his Lolin earned burns on its scaled rump and kept running.
He aimed the beast straight at the cursed enemy and prepared his spear but, before he could land the finishing blow, the calm teen stopped using his dreadful spell and danced away with graceful steps.
A second later, his Lolin yelped and crashed down to the ground while a hole appeared on its chest.
The Lolin leader saw all this and paled. A second later, he squared his shoulders and gave a spirit-energy imbued shout "Ignore the mercenary's attacks and go straight towards the Haechi wagons. We complete our mission and retreat after we destroy them."
When Jack saw the rest of the riders spreading out and charging towards the caravan, he grasped the cylinder in a reverse grip and sprinted towards the wounded tribesmen that remained in the rear without looking back.
Over twenty dead and wounded people lay or crawled at the spot of the first clash. A lot of them had burnt and charred skin while a few unlucky ones had their eyes burned out.
When the healthier ones saw him coming, they tried to stand up and fight, but he finished the three lower grade cultivators with a metal ball each.
He walked to a distance of twenty meters away from the two other grade six cultivators that still lay stuck to their trampled and burned dead beasts. To Jack, it looked like their legs remained glued to where they fell from the heat.
The two leaders got the worst of the first blast because Jack focused the beam of concentrated sunlight on them from the start.
Without looking at or threatening the riders charging towards the caravan, he formed the large lens-like spell structure and started burning one of the leaders' undamaged arms.
The man who looked unconscious just a moment ago started screaming his lungs out as the heat first bubbled and then charred his right arm.
A few shouts of alarm came from Jack's back, but he ignored them and continued on to the jabbering leader's legs. By the time he finished with the leader's first leg, his screams stopped and his spirit energy started dissipating.
Even more shouts came from Jack's back, but he only tilted the lens a little and started burning the second leader down.
When his spirit energy fell to a quarter of his maximum capacity, and five Lolin tribesmen screamed until they died, he heard the rumbling of charging beasts and crazed shouts from his back.
Jack stopped his spell, turned around, and shot a couple more beasts before he ran away to the side and allowed a bit more than fifty remaining enemy warriors to scramble for their wounded.
He shot a few of the warriors that didn't use the Lolin's skin strengthening technique, Ironskin, while they gathered their wounded and decided not to pursue them when they retreated.
The remaining leader watched the cruel eyes of the young mercenary and branded the image in his brain. During their retreat, he even feared that the horrifying teen would pursue and eliminate their entire raiding party one by one.
When the Lolin warriors left his line of sight, Jack turned to look at the burned corpses of people and animals and sighed. The smell of burned bacon almost made him throw up, but he couldn't allow himself to show weakness to his men and the Haechi caravan guards so he kept swallowing the rising bile.
The smell bothered him so much that he turned away from the dead bodies, used Moon Step, and started sprinting back to his men.
Once he returned to the caravan, he saw the gazes of some of his men contain worship in them; only Gong Derui looked at him with horrified eyes.
'They couldn't see everything that happened from this distance, but he did, he knows. Good.' Jack thought and threw his Star Bag to Shi Furui while saying "Go get them, alone."
Shi Furui gave him a slow nod and darted out towards the battlefield.
Jack showed his new spell and explained its effects to three people, Shi Furui, Kuang Bindun, and Yin Ping. The rest of his inner circle knew that he invented something new, but they didn't know what. And the others from the former Gravediggers didn't know anything and saw it for the first time today.
Gong Derui stared at the teen in front of him with wide eyes and asked with a shaking voice "D-did you have to g-go that far?"
Jack sneered at him and said "If you show mercy to your enemy, you're doing harm to yourself." His eyes narrowed and he added "We're in this together, Haechi. Don't lose your courage at the start."
Gong Derui gave himself a slight shake and assumed his calm expression to declare "I will not, but what you did will earn us both enemies that we cannot afford to have right now."
Jack saw through the slight twitches of fear at the corners of Gong Derui's eyes when he nodded his head and said "It might, but with enemies come allies too. Word will spread soon and we'll see how things turn out."
The two men kept their gazes locked on each other for several seconds. Before Gong Derui's eyes slid to the side and he asked "Would you like to drive the first wagon?"
Jack blinked twice at the surprising question, but answered with "It would be my pleasure." and turned to watch as Shi Furui gathered the corpses of beasts and animals in the barren land to the west.
'At least I didn't get any blood on my coat this time.' He comforted himself with a grim chuckle, while the smell of charred bacon lingered in his nose.
