Chapter IV

The plan worked smoothly; the Dicathian forces were pushing the Alacryans into their encampment. Although, as more and more forces were pulled to the scene, the advantage they had was slowly disappearing. It was also a matter of time before the Alacryan leaders would organize; one thing they failed to do was murder them before they could give commands. Arthur's sword barely missed one of those commanders, who professionally deflected the sword and kicked away the boy.

He snarled, "Darn those Dicathians, putting toddlers at war. This again proves the point, soldiers, These people don't deserve such leaders!" He was not taking the fight seriously in front of Arthur, maybe because of his appearance; he really looked like a mere teenager.

[Use this to your advantage. He isn't taking you seriously.]

Arthur created a spell in his hands; this was more advanced than he knew, and a fire lit up just as intended. His aim was directly at the enemy's face, willing it to splash over his body like water. To the enemy's surprise, it was quite a damaging spell, as the fire almost burned through the black armor and reached his skin. *Slash* With a single powerful movement with his sword, the fire dissipated.

'Dang it, I thought it would last for more.' Arthur didn't put enough mana into this trick, and it cost him a distraction. A double edged sword came swinging towards him, forcing him to put up his own for defense. Two swords collided and slammed into each other. The enemy felt vibrations go through the sword to the handle and into his hands. It was painful. Meanwhile, Arthur was only slightly pushed by the impact.

'Holy... he is so strong!' [And I told you so; be aware of this one. You are unable to harm him; you have a vast size disadvantage along with magical.]

The enemy wasn't going to sit around and wait; he charged up a spell of his own. He shot it towards Arthur, who wasn't able to block it in time and received the fireball right in the shoulder. Fortunately, the magic wasn't powerful enough to get through the shoulder pads.

Arthur pondered, 'Did he not put enough mana in this spell?' Regis responded by saying to not get distracted mid-battle and focus on survival.

...

Tessia noticed how Arthur was trying to fight an opponent who was maybe twice as strong as him. It was an immediate execution, she thought; however, Arthur stood strong. Even though he made a significant effort, the Alacryan knight ignored his attacks. She had to switch with him; otherwise, he might lose and the knight would slip away from their palms.

"Arthur!" She called out, watching how a fire spell hit his teammates shoulder. 'Thank god, he is okay.' Tessia sent out multiple of his vines towards the Alacryan, who noticed them in time and jumped away. "Arthur, I'll take care of him. You help out others!"

"Alright!" There was no time for debate, especially from someone weaker. Arthur switched places with Tessia, allowing her to engage the man while he began figuring out how to get to the teleportation gates.

Returning to Tessia, she was unconcerned by her adversary because he was not competent enough to challenge her. The vines extended to keep people away from them as the princess charged the heavily armored knight. 'He could be holding valuable information for our army...' Though it was difficult to decide what to do with the man. Killing him would be less beneficial than, say, gathering intelligence.

"What is it, woman? Not as confident as you were before?" Trying to play with a few words, the man spoke. However, he was concerned about his current situation because the Princess' aura was not to be taken lightly. His senses were so overstimulated that he was unable to plan his next moves against her. *Slash* He cut another vine that approached her, *Clank!* Besides that attack, Tessia who came running was barely blocked by his heavy sword.

*Grip* Multiple vines appeared from beneath the ground and grabbed the man's foot. The vines' power was too great for the metallic boots to handle, and they were easily bent like paper.

"You were never a danger to me, Alacryan." When saying that, Tessia's emerald colored eyes that glowed saw a glimpse of fear through the helmet of an Alacryan knight. Her sudden explosive display of speed could never be countered by any defenses; with her swift legs, she moved away from the front and slashed the back of the enemy's knees.

'My legs!' He couldn't feel them anymore; more vines dug his knees into the ground, and he couldn't resist. He was struck in the back of the head by Tessia's sword, losing vision but remaining alive. Similar to what they did to her fellow soldiers, Tessia would hold him captive.

'That's only one of them; today, I will make all of you answer for what you did to my continent.' Before she sent out all of the vines that had previously surrounded them, she let a few flashes of rage appear in her eyes. 'Sylv, has anybody escaped yet?'

'Nobody has come out or in yet, mama.' 'Alright, keep guarding it.' Tessia shot glances at her teammates; they were under the pressure of Alacryan soldiers, but it was manageable. 'I didn't know Arthur... was this capable before.'

These types of thoughts surfaced during the battle. They did not back when they lived in Xyrus, though, and Arthur was weak despite being a very active mage who frequently engaged in fights. He appears to have changed now. 'Of course, he would've changed. Years passed.'

.

"Things are going a little bit different from what I expected, so the girl that Asuras has been training returned. That is quite... an interesting sight to behold. Never have I imagined that they would train a lesser."

The silhouette of a person appeared to be female, and a man stood next to her, watching the scene from the side. He still asked, "Would you like me to intervene and stop this?"

"Why?" The woman turned her head towards him, "Isn't it more beneficial for us to see what a lesser trained by Asura can do? Wait for some time; maybe she is a threat after all." She rested her chin on her hands while in the shadows of the cave. "Inform me if anything happens, I'll be gone from here."

"Understood."

...

[Stop wasting your mana by channeling it through the entirety of your body.] He always made his observations when Arthur was actually able to take the advice into consideration. The boy could only accept it, despite the fact that it was a little harsh. Every time his majestic friend would come out true, [Use your own physical prowess; you believe I, the weapon designed for slaying gods, will need some assistance to cut the flesh of this... Alacryan?]

He was finally feeling a bit weary after swinging this friend of his nonstop. He was starting to notice some effects of his knighthood at the very end; he never thought he could be of such use on the battlefield before. [I devour mana because my design is such. The Asuras are beings dependent on mana; without it, they can't exist. They would rather collapse on their own bodies than exist without even a bit of mana. So, don't ask me why spells are so weak against me.]

'So, you could devour mana even from the spells?! Why didn't you say that before?' Arthur screams internally; if this information had reached him before, he'd be doing so much better than now.

[Because, it wouldn't have changed much, believe me. My ability to devour mana is your ability to resist magic. Now, I don't want you to be reckless with that and still be careful with what you do. Remember, we have that teleportation gate to destroy.] With his attention on the state of the battle, Regis spoke calmly.

'Got it. Tessia is pushing forward, I'll try to do the same.' The only thing Regis could recommend now was for Arthur to maintain focus. With that, Arthur engaged more enemies, sometimes even two at a time. Noticing the pattern of each, they were similar in a sense, as most of the time they used one or two spells at most...

[Hah, that bastard of an Asura has tried to replicate the Djinn spellforms. Arthur, these people are unable to use a wider variety of spells; they are rather tied to a single one. But they've trained it to a different extent than you've done with yours.] The sword laughed bitterly, confusing the boy with what he meant.

'What is this spellform that you are talking about?' Arthur asked whilst slashing through another unfortunate Alacryan's armor. The sword got stuck, his strength wasn't enough to make it go through armor.

[You better concentrate on the battle than ask a question.] The enemy grunted in pain and screamed, but still raised a weapon in the air to attack Arthur, who didn't know what to do. [Use your hand.] *Bang* He clenched his left fist and banged it on the man's revealed neck. *Bang* Another one.

Sword finally came out. [Spell Forms were simply a way... to control something that Djinn bodies couldn't handle. The idea existed solely for Aether, as their bodies couldn't do it naturally. However, it seems like the idea was replicated for mana by this Asura and used on those Alacryans.]

'Is it better way to use magic than ours?' Arthur asked a natural question, to which the Sword of Judgement hummed. With this much knowledge about Alacryans, it was hard to give an answer. He could only suggest why Alacryans used it this way...

[I can't exactly give you an answer; I'm not knowledgeable about this myself. However, I do have some ideas, which I'll tell you when we are done... and stop asking this many questions! You are in the battle, do you want to get yourself killed?!]

Tessia, meters away from him, used the vines to cover the entire area around her, binding enemies but then being unable to control them. The team used this momentum to mercilessly murder Alacryan soldiers in front of their comrades' eyes, installing fear.

"Free the mana-beasts!" One of the Alacryan commanders made an announcement. When his yell was heard, the hundreds of mana beasts that were imprisoned in cages were released. Their bloodlust could be sensed even by the least powerful mage in the cave. Alacryans could direct these beasts and target their bloodlust towards Dicathians. Mana-beasts rushed with no concern for toppling the soldiers in front of him. It only wanted to eat Dicathian's now.

'Sylv!' Tessia used the mental connection that she had with the dragon, 'I need you here, right now. There are mana-beasts, many of them, we'll need your help as well.'

'I'm coming there, mama!'

.

"Commander! They released mana-beasts, this will turn out disastrous if we are this scattered!" A person ran up to Commander Graves, who was not engaged in combat and instead organized other squads.

"Do you think I can't see that! Conjurers, while you can provide cover for those at the front!" The group of conjurers that had been casting spells while waiting at the back was under Graves' command. Due to that, they simultaneously launched multiple spells to approach mana-beasts.

Once more, the spells flew in an arch and hit their target just as the first line of Dicathian soldiers was about to be attacked. The second magic explosion caused the dust plume to rise, blinding the soldiers in the front line. Although they were unable to see the beasts, they could hear them. They were screeching in agony, while the enemy soldiers kept screaming from pain.

As the dust settled down, an unknown Tessia figure remained standing alongside the beasts. 'I don't remember him being there...' She narrowed her eyes on the person,

"It seems that the Dicathian strategic genius shouldn't be underestimated..." Tessia analyzed the person from head to toe. He wasn't wearing armor like any of the Alacryans; instead, he was without a protective helmet.

[That's an interesting turn of events.] 'The horns...'

The person was dangerous.