27.

"Did someone go ham? What the heck happened here?" I asked myself in pain as I looked at the collapsed wall. The gold I spent on building the wall vanished... just like dust blown by the wind.

The entire front wall was removed making us open to siege weapons like cannons from the enemy army.

I ran around and saw that all of my commanders are engaged against 1 v 2 in the favor of the enemy powerhouse. My commanders can't get any advantage since the enemies' teamwork was superb. All the sword-shield infantry soldiers were engaged in melee. The archers were unleashing their arrows behind a wall of sword-shield warriors. The mages were casting spells and barriers to attack the enemy soldiers while protecting the soldiers.

Without saying any word, I activated <8 steps, 2nd step>, my goal was to assassinate one of the enemy commander by catching them unaware.

I held Vasavi Shakti with two hands and red lightning surrounded my body once more as I charged forward and aimed the spear at the heart of the enemy that one of my commanders is facing.

A red lightning sweeped by and the powerhouse only noticed when my spear was about to connect on his chest. He casted a thick barrier but Vasavi Shakti just destroyed it with brute force.

"Sh*t...!" Was his famous last words before I pinned him down in the wall and quickly pulled my spear out before chopping his head off.

His partner was also shocked because his partner suddenly died and from a child's sneak attack too. Seeing that he was in a disadvantage, he tried to flee and rejoin others to outnumber other commanders and kill them. Unfortunately, my commander was already blocking him with a sword and shield at hand.

"You won't get away." My commander said as he tried to disrupt the escaping enemy. Seeing no chance of escape, he decided to fight.

With the two of us, we were able to defeat a lone commander.

"Lord Duke! You've returned." The commander said.

"Commander Dale, we have to help the others. Tell me what happened on the way." I said as I asked him about the current situation.

"We were simply outnumbered, Lord Duke. Although we managed to fire the magic cannon two more times, other powerhouses blocked us while a 5th circle mage, along with other earth mages, destroyed the front wall with the magic cannon attached with their magic. Fortunately, Commander Charles made the correct move to retreat to another section of the wall. The commanders then held the powerhouses down. As you can see, we're severely outnumbered and we cannot help the soldiers gain the advantage. But now that Lord Duke is back, I believe we can turn this around." Commander Dale said with hope in his eyes.

"Obviously. We're here to chase away the enemy and now that they're clustered inside the walls, its time to use one of our trump card. Commander, let's go kill as much powerhouse as we can." I said to Dale seriously and Dale nodded.

We found one of our commanders fighting against the two powerhouse. The Western Coalition was smart to prolong their fight and not to kill my commanders since they can entice my commanders to join them after their soldiers wipes out ours.

After telling Dale a simple but effective plan, Dale quickly jumped in making the situation 2v2 while I lurked in the rubbles to find a chance to sneak attack. Fighting a frontal battle will only hurt me, besides they are powerhouses while I'm just a strong brat. I won't take the front line in a battle against a powerhouse.

"How did you get here, Dale?" Commander Ayze asked Dale. The other two powerhouse were quite curious as well.

"They're just weak. They can't hold me down at all." Dale said with a smirk.

"What a big mouth you have, tough guy. Maybe you fought the weakest of us, but so what, we're still going to take over this place and become its new ruler." The man said.

"Be careful Dale, they two of them are part of the Earth mages who shattered the wall to pieces." Charles said as he was reminded of the horrifying power that made the wall crumble.

"Yeah. Leave him to me." Dale said as he raised his shield and stared at the Earth mage seriously.

"Really? You want to face me with a shield? Even your friend over there only managed to survive because of his reflexes." The Earth mage said.

"Bital, shut up and let's finish this. We still have to barricade this place before the reinforcements from the outside arrives." The man who was beside Bital said to him annoyed.

"Come on, take a chill pill, Takum. They aren't as strong as us. Who can defend them from us? Their brat of a duke?" Bital mocked me but I just shook my head and concentrated on hiding stealthily.

Assassinations were always about patience, timing, and the ability to keep your emotions in check. In the past run, I've assassinated so many mages that I couldn't even count how many mages I've killed without them knowing.

Dale and Charles were provoked into moving forward facing their enemies together. Dale's reflex was not on par with Charles but his instincts on where the danger will come from is very sharp. He blocked the Earth shards that Bital casually threw to him. He was so relaxed that he didn't even feel me creeping slowly towards him.

The problem with Bital is his arrogance, instead of staying on the ground to keep his advantage, he chose to fly in mid-air. Because he's in mid-air, his connection with the Earth was weak. Making use of this weakness, I slowly moved towards him and erased any presence I have, even my killing intent.

I gripped my spear and used it as a baseball bat and struck Bital so hard with the barbed part of the spear that he fell down to the ground, much to the shock of Takum.

"Yep. Their brat of a duke just killed you." I said to him and stabbed his head consecutively until I was satisfied. These guys collapsed the wall, do they know how much I've invested on a single part of the wall? I even installed magic cannons there, the pain of losing so much money was great that hitting him with the barb of the spear didn't satisfy me.

Takum immediately retaliated but Dale blocked his attacks with his shield until I was satisfied in stabbing the bastard who wasted my money.

Charles and Dale worked together to take down Takum. Takum thought of escaping by creating a wall of dirt and escaping under the ground, but when he was about to escape, his magic malfunctioned. The two of them destroyed the wall of dirt and struck Takum who was shocked by the events that just happened.

'Although I can't nullify it, I can still make it malfunction.' I thought as I stared at the dead bodies of the two.

<Nullification> was such a fascinating magic. Not because it can make mages helpless but because of the different ways to nullify someone's magic. What I did earlier was simply overloading the magic circle with mana by controlling the mana in the air and pouring it into the magic circle.

Wait... if I did that, then doesn't that mean that the elves can do it too? The answer is no, Elves' can't pour mana with pure mana from nature since Human magic system relies on the mana inside their body. Elven magic system relies on the mana that came from nature. <Nullification> is the product of combining my mana and the mana in the air to make the enemy's magic malfunction.

"Lord Duke, I'm glad that you're safe and back." Charles said to me.

"Enough of chit-chats, go help out the other commanders. We need to cause as much mayhem as possible to help Uncle Wilhelm on his tasks." I said, although they didn't know what Wilhelm's mission is they followed my orders. Meanwhile, I immediately went towards the walls where the archers were holding their line. I shoved my spear at the enemies blocking the stairway to the top of the wall.

Because of the narrow space, the enemies find it hard to fight back as they were either pushed aside, pulled down, or stomped to the ground.

When I reached the top, the archers cheered in glee they kept chanting that 'The Lord Duke is back!'

The mages tried to bury me with spells but I realized that they are just 2nd circle mages with a few 3rd circle mage. Magic circles started malfunctioning much to their confusion, while I dodged the 3rd circle spell before charging in to the enemy backline by using my spear as a pole to jump through the enemy frontline. The enemy archers tried to shoot me down but my reflexes were faster.

When I landed, I started going for the archers as they are the most annoying one. Seeing me causing chaos inside the enemy formation, the sword-shield warriors, the archers, and the mages joined the fray by targeting the enemy frontline who are distracted by me.

After dispatching the enemy archers, my next targets were the mages. The mages did their best to cast their spells but their spells always failed to be realized. While I was nullifying the 2nd circle mages' magic, I realized that my mana reserves were bigger than before.

'I reached the 3rd circle? Was it because of exceeding my limits followed by the rebirth given by my spear?' I thought for a second before shaking it off. I can inspect all changes after the war, we are currently in a tense situation and I need to create the signal for my trump card to take action.

With my 3rd circle power, I didn't have to dodge the 3rd circle spells anymore as I just erased them from existence. I rushed forward and cast <Entangling roots> to stop them from escaping and charged towards the mages. A mage who can't cast a spell is just a normal person waiting to die.

Blood was shed as I quickly wiped the mage regiment on top of the walls. I then looked down and saw that the enemies were all clustered inside the territory. Houses were burning and the place was filled with blood.

Seeing that most of the main army are inside the walls, I cast another <Inferno>, a 3rd circle spell. I didn't have to squeeze myself this time since I've reached the 3rd circle rank. Instead of pointing my spell towards the enemies, I pointed it upwards before releasing it. The spell kept flying upwards before exploding like a firework.

With the signal unleashed, rumbling sound could be heard and the land was shaking. 10,000 royal guards on horseback came from the left side of the forest while 5,000 of my most elite soldiers on horseback came from the right side of the forest.

"Charge!" The leaders of both regiment roared as they charged at the enemy soldiers. The sound of their charge was like a firework inside the hearts of the enemy soldiers. The charge incited fear and restlessness among their ranks and couldn't help but feel like they've been cheated in this war.

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I'm back baby!