The first target Samuel saw was someone standing on the small staircase going downwards, hidden from several angles but still in plain sight, Zalbas put a hand on Samuels shoulder and slowly advanced before standing up and walking forward confidently.
The man noticed a shadow behind him and turned around, "H-" Was all he could say before Zalbas punched him in the throat to silence him and quickly followed it up with a precise and quiet chop to the neck.
It was enough to put him asleep and Zalbas caught the body so it wouldn't make a loud thud. But he didn't bother dragging it away, he only took it up the staircase and left it on the walk where they were gathered.
"We are the distraction for going in loud remember!" Zalbas said with a smug smile and not lowering his voice. Someone else seemed to hear him and came walking around a corner and grew wide eyed in time for Zalbas to already be mid air jumping towards him and taking out another one.
"Well let's follow his example I guess!" Markar spoke up and cracked his knuckles before going the opposite way around from Zalbas. In a few seconds they started hearing loud cracks and people shouting.
Vacarlo turned around looking mighty confused, "Hey whats going on? Check it out! Before I..." His words got stuck in his throat as one of his henchmen came flying over several crates and landed with a heavy crack on his head.
"Who the fuck dares!?" The sun elf angrily shouted and almost as if on command, Samuel followed by Vuldara walked down looking like proper nobles down the main staircase for everyone inside to see. A lot of weapons were aimed their way but none dared to fire right away.
They simply walked down with too much confidence for anyones taste. "Took you long enough!" Khazan grunted while struggling to remain upright.
Vacarlo turned to him and then to Samuel, "You... I think I know you! This is your mighty backup?" Vacarlo asked and started laughing joined in by some of his grunts after a short while. Both Zalbas and Markar walked forward from the sides, they had taken care of all the goons on the sidelines, now remained only the ones in the middle.
"4 versus 44? Thats your master plan?" Vacarlo raised his hands and with them all the thugs and mages raised prepared bolts and spells aimed at them. Samuel slowly drew both of his blades, then he smiled. "Seems like a fair contest doesn't it!" Samuel stated and looked toward the few windows of the buildings.
"Thats why we decided to make it unfair!" Samuel spoke with a huge grin and magic flowed through started flowing into his swords. One of the mages became anxious enough to cast a fireball right at Samuel.
Time slowed down, the normally high speed projectile that would erupt into a big firecloud when it hit was now suddenly not so fast anymore as Samuel's water infused blade cut right through the ball shaped spell.
Everyone was distracted and confused by the instant slash that cut the spell in half and made it fizzle out completely. Enough so that they were taken by surprise when the walls were blown open in three seperate places and Samuel's faction came charging in.
Zalbas and Markar took the opportunity and charged in from opposite directions and started punching their way through the goons as several arrows started hitting the ones with crossbows. A green blue was seen in the back among Samuels followers aiming his bow with fine precision.
Samuel dashed forward to Khazans side and several spells started flying towards him and Khazan. His grin grew wider as he cut asunder one spell after the other, one of the mages casted a lightning bolt straight at him.
Samuel held out his sword and infused it with lightning and earth around the hilt. Holding out his sword he blocked all of the lightning energy although the energy was enough to push him back and he slid a few steps backwards.
"Time to return the favor assholes!" Khazan growled and lightning gathered around both his hands until it completely envelopped them and he struggled for a second to pull them apart before throwing a punch which made an entire carriage sized lightning fist erupt from his hand.
The first fist hit almost no one as they all dodged out of the way, so Samuel instantly casted the spell, 'Water Creation' which created a thin layer of water all the way from him to where most of the mages stood.
They didn't see it because they were busy dodging the first lightning spell, but Khazan instantly noticed the reflection and grinned before punching the water with his other lightning envelopped hand.
The water instantly spread the lightning to a whole group of them, and all they could hear were people getting electrocuted and lightning being discharged in several places.
Vacarlo dodged one spell after the other and tried to discern what was going on, all the explosions had made quite a bit of dust and fog to surround them. But he kept hearing screams around him, so he was quick enough to cast a clear fog spell.
During most of the fight, Samuels faction had helped move away the members of Khazans faction, so when the fog cleared Vacarlo stood alone in the middle with a few of his mages still in the back. Most of his henchmen taken out, the ones previously injured had gone down almost right away, Khazans members had weakened them quite a lot.
Samuels faction had all withdrawn to the sidelines to stay safe, all following Vuloc's plan that was going right as he had calculated. The Genius Strategist was smirking off in a corner, the only ones left in the middle out of Samuels faction was his own team.
Vuldara slowly walked up behind Samuel and started healing Khazan, the crossbow bolts stuck in him were twisting out on their own and the wounds healed up leaving only scars when the healing took effect.
"As you were saying?" Samuel raised his voice against Vacarlo who looked distressed and panicked. "Kill them!" He shouted to his remaining mages, they had huddled up in a group forming a circle so they didn't see Zalbas when he came flying with small ethereal dragon wings and landed in the middle of their circle.
They did hear the thud however and all started turning around. Zalbas aimed one punch, two, three, four, five, six, as his punches flew out in a flurry of multiple blows at the same time, fire, ice, lightning, acid envelopped them.
There were ten remaining mages and six seconds later there were zero. They all flew several meters off into the sides as he hit them with force. Samuel realized Zalbas was actually really powerful, he was no mage but he could fight with the power of the dragon aspects.
Zalbas quickly stood up and the ethereal wings slowly dissipated, as did the ehtereal dragon horns and draconic claws that had manifested. He stood tall with a grin, meanwhile Markar had finished off the last of the thugs with crossbows.
They had shot three bolts at him and the earth infusion had made his skin hard as mithril and the bolts just broke or bounced off his skin as long as he held his ground. But crossbows took long to reload so he quickly switched out offense for defense and were upon the last ones, giving them no chance to reiterate.
At last only Vacarlo was left as he turned to see enemies surrounding him leaving him no way out. His men had been taken out so easily and quickly, this was supposed to have been an easy trap for Khazan and a way to get rid of him for good.
But it had quickly turned into a nightmare the moment Samuel had shown up. "This is all your damn fault! I will make sure you pay for this one day!" He threathened like a cornered animal baring its fangs.
Samuel knew that a cornered animal was dangerous so he slowly walked forward and cut apart any spell that was thrown at him. Before reaching him he sheathed his swords and grabbed Vacarlos arm, his arm infused with earth made it easy to break his right arm.
"Aaaaah!" Vacarlo screamed in pain and agony as Khazan, almost entirely healed up walked behind Vacarlo and with great force he applied enough strength to break both his legs with one lightning powered kick.
They left the sun elf whimpering on the floor. "I will take full responsibility and leave your name out of this!" Khazan turned to Samuel, "I hope thats alright with you?"
Samuel saw that some of his faction members looked annoyed at those words but he accepted. "Yes I think that would be for the best, after all... our faction is still small and new, I wouldn't want any early complications." His reply made Vuloc nod in approval from the side.
"What will be done with him?" Vuldara stepped forward and Khazan turned and raised his eyebrows. "That will be for my father to decide, but I honestly wouldn't mind killing him!" He said and turned to Vacarlo and smiled, "Please try to run, I will so enjoy killing you!"
At those words the elf passed out from fear and pain. "Me and my faction will clean this up, seeing as how you have healed many of them. I owe you nothing more than thanks!" Khazan grinned, "It's a shame that I did this all by myself."
Khazans inner asshole couldn't help but come out at the last second and Samuel sighed but waved for his faction members to follow, together they all left to go back to the Gillfall manor grounds. Where they were treated to food and lodging for the night.
Samuel was content with letting Khazan handle the rest. He still had no wish to stick out too much, even if he wouldn't hold back when fighting. There was still a difference between sticking out socially and when in a fight.
So together with his faction they all sat gathered at a dinner table where plenty of food and drink was served. A few of them excused their presence to go back to the college rather than stay there, so at the end the ones that accepted to stay were, Vuloc and his three sisters, Markar, Zalbas, Vuldara & Fraudren.