Onwards and Upwards

Mike dodged to the left, narrowly avoiding a sweeping blade of force, while summoning his mana and spreading it into the ground under the elf. The dirt quickly changed into a muddy quagmire 5m in diameter, catching Nurenal off guard. Seizing the opportunity, Mike launched three quick Stone Javelin spells, before concentrating on the mud once more.

Nearby, two of the Gale Hawks traded blows with something that resembled a human composed of pure arcane energy. According to Appraise, it was an Arcane Construct, which was apparently some kind of quasi-elemental that Nurenal was able to call into existence. It fought by launching bolts of energy at its targets, but was thankfully limited to fighting on the ground.

The third Gale Hawk was circling overhead, occasionally launching wind blades at the elf, forcing him to defend and wearing on his reserves.

The battlemage managed to dodge the first of Mike's javelins, and deflected the other two with his sword, although in doing so, he sunk deeper into the ground. Flexing his will, Mike caused the mud to surge into the air in an attempt to envelop the elf in the suffocating muck. He suspected that his enemy would have some counter measure, so he was already moving as the wave of mud began to fall.

With a quick string of blurred syllables, Nurenal finished a chant and punched upward with one hand, creating an expanding sphere of arcane energy which pushed the mud away. Sinking low to the ground, Mike ducked underneath the spell effect while stabbing forward with his flame sword, in a manner that should have been almost impossible to foresee.

Incredibly, Nurenal managed to get his own sword up in time to push Mike's attack away from his vitals, but couldn't fully escape the thrust. He gasped in pain as the solid bar of fire punched through his side accompanied by a sizzling sound, and the smell of burnt meat. He attempted to counter with his own weapon, but Mike simply ripped his blade out horizontally, while slipping past the battlemage.

While not instantly fatal, the injury was nearly crippling, and only the elf's iron will allowed him to remain conscious. As Mike moved in for the killing blow, Nurenal used one gauntleted fist to smash a gold colored gem embedded into his armor. There was a blinding flash of light, and Mike found himself flying through the air, before crashing back into the ground and rolling for a good distance.

It took him a few seconds to regain his wits, but when he did so, he realized that he'd been thrown at least 20m. His arms and face were currently covered in burns that were still in the middle of healing. From the looks of it, all three of his Gale Hawks and the Arcane Construct had been destroyed in the blast. Rolling back onto his feet, he caught sight of the elf downing yet another potion, side already in the process of healing.

[How annoying….Is this what fighting me feels like?]

He took a deep breath and got ready to launch into another round of attacks, when a female voice interrupted.

"Dragonknight! Do you really have the time to waste fighting over here?" Jiri, the Tenundian strategist called while walking over to stand near Nurenal. "Even as we speak, our strike force is seizing the gates of Almirn."

Mike glanced back towards the city. He couldn't tell from this distance, but it did seem like there was some smoke rising from within the walls. Could the gate have already fallen?

"Jiri, what are you doing?" Nurenal wheezed quietly, pain evident in his voice. His injury was healing, but it was taking longer than before, likely due to cauterization caused by Mike's blade.

She looked at him briefly before continuing. "You may eventually defeat our Mage Corps Commander here, but how much time will you lose in the process. Are you really willing to sacrifice everything you are fighting for, just to kill us? Is your anger so great that you cannot see what you should be doing?"

Mike could tell that she was trying to get him to head back to the city, and his first instinct was to do the opposite. While there was the possibility she was trying to trick him, he nevertheless found himself conflicted. Taking stock of his current mana reserves, he determined that he was down to a little less than a third of his maximum.

[I feel like letting them live will create problems in the future, but I can't dismiss her claims out of hand. If she's telling the truth, then they'll need me back in the city.]

The noise he'd heard earlier, right before he started fighting Nurenal, was also weighing on him. It resembled the tone created by the signaling magic items he'd given to Sera and Tal, only it cut off almost immediately after it started. While it could have been something he'd imagined or a malfunction of one of the items, it worried him nonetheless.

With a sigh, he took up a more relaxed posture, mentally messaging the dragon who had been skirmishing with a group of Tenundian archers nearby.

"Lily!" He yelled, "It's time to go!" While he was waiting for his allies to arrive, he looked back at Jiri.

"We'll call this one a draw. However, I want you to know, that if you ever attempt to kidnap one of mine again, I will personally hunt you down and teach you a new definition of the word pain." He spoke quietly with a mana-infused voice, his words carrying much farther than they should have.

The strategist started trembling, and even Nurenal seemed taken aback, although Mike didn't bother watching their responses.

Lily arrived first, cratering the ground after apparently jumping from somewhere else in the camp. Red wasn't too far behind, landing gently while shaking to dislodge several arrows which had embedded themselves into his skin, but not deeply enough to actually cause any damage.

"All finished?" Lily asked absently, while untangling the remnants of tent that had gotten wrapped around her at some point during the fight. She shot a curious look at the dragon that was patiently waiting for them. After a moment of inspection she turned back to him questioningly, completely unconcerned about the creature of legend.

Mike climbed up onto Red's shoulders and offered her a hand. "Yeah, let's go. We are needed elsewhere."

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Brenden caught the haft of the halberd with one hand, stopping the Tenundian officer's attack cold. Despite the man's best efforts, he couldn't free his weapon from the beastman's grasp.

"W-What? What kind of monster are you?" He stuttered, eyes filling with fear.

Sighing, Brenden planted one foot in the officer's midsection, kicking him away and sending him crashing into the wall of a nearby house. He might have found the man's attitude flattering, if he hadn't be subjected to it repeatedly over the last few days.

The training techniques he'd learned from his master had given him an incredible level of power, but it was starting to get tiresome dealing with other people's reactions.

[I wonder if this is what Mike feels like most of the time.]

Dismissing the thought, he concentrated on the battle in front of him. The Tenundians had been largely unable to push past the defenses his followers had set up, and repeated attempts to take the new barricades by storm had mainly resulted in a thick layer of bodies clogging up the road. Despite all that, it was getting increasingly difficult to throw them back.

The original strike force seemingly had multiple intended targets, judging from the way they split up into four groups to pursue different objectives. After the fall of the 2nd Division headquarters, two of them joined together to attack the gate, and only Brenden's direct intervention prevented them from seizing the structure.

Now it seemed like the section of the strike force attacking them was getting reinforcements from the remaining two groups, and not just in the form of more soldiers. Powerful experts began cropping up amongst the enemy, leading to extensive casualties among Brenden's followers. While some of the gang members were strong enough to hold their own, overall they were slowly getting pushed back and overwhelmed.

[We should be able to hold out until reinforcements arrive, at least.]

Almost as if to spite him, one section of the defenses vanished in an explosion of heat and light. The sounds of the battle momentarily lulled to near silence, as all participants took stock of the sudden change. It didn't take long for the panic to spread.

"Fire Mage!" Someone yelled, and chaos ensued as the defenders scrambled for cover from the lethal projectiles they imagined raining down on them.

For a second, Brenden was torn. Part of him thought it would be wise to rally his troops and throw back the current offensive. Already, the Tenundians were taking advantage of the defender's confusion as they pushed forward vigorously. However, he realized that he needed to neutralize the mage if they wanted any hope of surviving the next few minutes.

"Hubert!" He called to the noble who had been largely directing the battle. "Take over. I'm going after that bastard mage."

Without waiting for a reply from the man, he leapt over the barricade and began cutting his way through the enemy formation, heading towards the most likely place for the mage to be. Another explosion ignited behind him, spurring him to move faster.

[They would need a decent vantage point in order to avoid hitting their own troops. Additionally, they would likely try to operate out of somewhere hidden or concealed.]

Brenden started scanning the buildings on either side of the street. His instincts told him that the mage would probably try to lob spells from the nominal safety of a third or fourth story window. It didn't take long for him to find a suspicious looking one.

On the top floor of chandler's shop, he caught sight of motion in the darkened room behind a large bay window, facing the gate. Thanks to its placement at the corner of a Y-shaped intersection, whoever was inside had a commanding view of both the gate and the makeshift defenses in front of it.

Feeling in his gut that he had the right place, he gave one last horizontal sweep with his great sword, momentarily clearing space around him, before bunching his legs and taking aim. As if fired from a cannon, he launched himself across the intervening space, and neatly flew through the open window with enough force to send the rooms occupants sprawling in surprise.

Taking advantage of his natural agility, Brenden landed feet first on the opposite wall, and had enough time to take stock his surroundings while his legs and one arm absorbed the remaining force of his flight. Thankfully it was made of stone bricks, so it survived the sudden impact, at least until he jumped again.

With the collapsing wall as a backdrop, Brenden maneuvered towards the first Tenundian he could see in the room. There were close to twenty of them occupying various parts of what looked like a storage room filled with a variety of crates and barrels. They all appeared to be dressed in leather armor emblazoned with an unfamiliar silver sword sigil.

He cut down the first soldier before the man had a chance to respond, and was starting in on the next when a barrage of flame missiles forced him to dodge behind a nearby crate. One of the Tenundians was standing near the window while chanting in a low voice. Two others were standing next to him with hands on his shoulders. Brenden wasn't sure, but it seemed like they were feeding him mana.

"Come out and face us, coward!" One of the Tenundians yelled, as the remaining soldiers started carefully moving to surround him.

Thinking quickly, he grabbed the lid of a nearby barrel, and threw it in one direction before running in the other. Another barrage of flaming missiles annihilated the circle of wood, but it created enough of a distraction for him to cut his way through another handful of soldiers and start moving towards the mages.

Unfortunately, it seemed like some of the members of the team were particularly talented. A lithe individual armed with two daggers launched a dizzying series of attacks which Brenden was unable to fully avoid. He jumped back out of the man's range, but not before he suffered a handful of minor cuts on his arms and torso.

At the same time, a swordsman, using a style Brenden had never seen before, stepped around to his side and thrust at him with a rapier. The beastman was able to drive this new adversary off with a sweep of his sword, but it didn't buy much time, and both enemies were on him before he had a chance to recover his stance.

[Not good.] He thought to himself. These were exactly the kind of opponents that difficult for him to deal with using his current skillset. Not to mention the mage, who had been operating in the background and was even now lining up his next attack.

While Brenden was seriously considering whether or not to activate his Atavism, another figure flipped in through the window. Landing softly behind the mages, this new arrival dispatched them with three graceful strikes with a dagger.

The sound of their collapse caught the attention of the swordsman long enough for Brenden to grab and throw him into the dagger wielder. Thanks to the resulting entanglement it didn't take long for him to finish off the pair. Looking up, he saw that the mysterious intruder had dealt with the remaining Tenundians, and only the two of them were left alive in the attic.

On close inspection, it was clear that the figure was female. She was dressed in dark colored clothes, with her face obscured by a hood and veil, only showing the copper-colored skin around her eyes, and a few locks of curly brown hair.

Meeting his gaze, the woman affected a cocky stance and started speaking. "You're welcome, by the way."

Immediately finding himself irritated, Brenden frowned. "I didn't ask for your help. I had everything under control."

She laughed in response. "Funny, from my perspective, you were about to be roasted."

Growling slightly, Brenden yelled back. "I hadn't gotten serious yet!"

Even in his own ears, the excuse sounded a bit hollow. While it was true that he could have probably made it out with some generous use of his skills, doing so would largely incapacitate him for the rest of the battle, and there was still much to do. He didn't want to admit it, but the strange woman had helped him greatly.

"Anyway, who are you? I don't think I've seen anyone like you among the gangs."

She shook her head. "Yeah, I'm not about that life anymore. My current boss told me to keep an eye on you, and make sure you stay out of trouble."

Brenden was about to ask some follow up questions, when a roaring battle cry from outside drowned him out. It seemed like the Tenundians were launching another assault. He needed to get back to his troops.

Quickly walking towards the window, he made up his mind to put off any questioning till later. "Let's go. If your job is to keep me safe, then you can help defeat the enemy in front of us, right?"

She only replied with a sigh, but nevertheless followed him as he jumped out into the street.