Chapter 34: Torrent city [5]

The dust cleared to reveal numerous flashes of colour and Mana. A battle between two magic using factions was already underway and by now nearing it's climax.

*Clang!*

*Bang!*

*Boom!*

The sounds of weapons clanging against each other, metal crashing into flesh and spells colliding filled the air. The spell chants of each individual casting a spell on the battlefield resonated with the other noises to form a cacophony which was truly beffiting of such a horrific battlefield.

The two factions which were engaged in combat were easily distinguishable from each other. One group wore a special battle oriented augmentation of the usual buttler uniform and protected their vitals with light armour, while the other group were either clad in casual armour or the attire of the order of magic knights.

The count's elite forces were now going head to head against the rogue faction and magic knights. The magic knights had dropped their act as soon as the results of the investigation were out. It had already become apparent of their involvement in all this, and as such there was no need to keep up the act.

At a single glance, it would seem like the two factions were on equal footing, but a closer Inspection would reveal that they were actually not on equal footing at all. The count's forces were superior in terms of quality, but their opponents outnumbered them severely. What was going down was a real life example of quantity beats quality.

The location of the current battle were the underground tunnels built during the civil war. The traitorous magic knights had regropued with the criminal faction to double team on the Swordhearth's forces after blatantly inviting them into said tunnels.

Under the orders of their captain Alvin, the guards were forced to enter direct confrontation with the opposing forces. It would seem like a stupid idea at first, but it was actually not when viewed from an objective stand point.

The surface was filled to the brim with citizens and Innocents who would most definitely get caught up in the cross fire if a battle took place above ground. Evacuating the entire towns folk would have been the preferred course of action, but it was actually impractical as it would require a lot of time and labour, both things they did not have as there was no guarantee of the criminals not taking action till they were done clearing out everyone.

  Protecting the Innocents' lives as well as maintaining the count's pristine reputation was the main aim of this entire ordeal, so it would be very unwise to take the aforementioned actions. Though having a magical battle in an enclosed underground space would also seem foolish and hazardous at first, it really wasn't as the walls were actually properly reinforced courtesy of the adventurers guild officials. An action they took for a reason which was still unknown to the public.

The chances of the tunnels collapsing were low, but the probability still existed so a group of capable mages were deployed to the surface. If they were to sense Mana fluctuations above the normal levels, then they would immediately take action and evacuate the surrounding citizens. 

So not only did the criminal group have the numerical advantage, they also had the strategic advantage as the battlefield was close to their home base. Though they could not exploit the latter as much as one would think because of the nature of the tunnels.

The tunnels were structures which were built for the purpose of safely transporting a large number of individuals a long time ago, they were very large and very wide. They also had a very straight forward path, a factor that would actually work to their disadvantage if exploited.

"Ugh shit! When the f*ck is the boss going to appear." A random mage who was holding up an Earth barrier said to his collegue between gritted teeth. 

Like everyone else on their side, he was covered in minor cuts and bruises which took a tool on him, his breath was also ragged due to the rapid rate at which he was burning through his reserves.

"I..I don't....fire ball! Know." The collegue responded as she pushed back an opponent with a tier one fire spell.

"Would you two quit the chit chat and shut the hell up! I am trying to concentrate here!" Another man said as he finalized the activation of his spell.

"Thundering javelin!" The man screamed as he cast his spell. It was a forth tier lightening spell; Thundering javelin.

Several long tendrils of yellow coloured lightening condensed to form a long spear headed projectile which fired out of the man's fingertips. The cackling lightening burst forward into and through the enemy ranks, mowing down quite a few of the opposition and sending them into the cold hands of the grim reaper.

"Nice!"

"Good one Toby!" 

His teammates cheered for him.

"Huff..Huff.. yeah." Toby responded with a thumbs up. The single spell had in truth drained more than half of his remaining reserves. He still had enough Mana left to fight, but he required a few moments to catch his breath. It was expected, after all a fourth tier spell could serve as a trump card for any B-rank. But at the time, he had no idea that it would be his last spell.....

*Stab*

"Kuok.." Blood spilled from Toby's mouth as he had suddenly been stabbed by an enemy. He turned around to see the face of his killer and he saw a bald man. The man had a victorious smirk plastered on his face as his knife had struck a vital.

"Kuok...d-damn...you.." Those were Toby's last words. He coughed out blood once more and collapsed to the ground with a loud 'thud'. The sound alerted Toby's allies and they turned to witness their friend collapsed in a pool of his own blood, his life force slowly draining away.

"Che..." Most of them didn't know who Toby was personally so they only offered him a glance as they were busy fighting off enemy forces. The ones who did could only offer him a few moments of shock, even though he was dying. 

They were all trained soldiers, and they had learned to never allow their personal emotions get in the way of work. It was something everyone learnt, but only seasoned veterans could adhere to.

Amongst the many who saw Toby's lifeless corpse, one of them was a woman. The woman stared at Toby's corpse like she couldn't believe what her eyes were seeing.

"T-toby!!!!" The woman screamed and ran towards the corpse. Tears of sorrow filled up her eyes as she ran. There was no doubt that she had a more intimate relationship with the deceased mage.

"Toby!" She cried out as she feel on her knees, right beside the dead Toby. She shook his lifeless corpse violently, screaming and shouting at the top of her lungs for him to wake up. 

*Slap!*

She even slapped him, continuously as her face donned a sad and desperate expression. She really seemed to care for the dead mage, and wanted nothing more than for him to open his eyes. To wake up and beam at her that care free smile of his that hovered in her memories, but it did not matter what she tried....

Death. An inevitable fate of all mortal creatures which simply entailed being unable to ever see the light of day again. It entailed being unable to see, to touch, to breathe, to live. It was so simple yet so difficult to accept.

"No.. Toby. No. You can't do this....you promised. You promised that you would marry me, we agreed to have children and, and...no please don't leave me." The woman– Toby's fiancee weeped. She had fallen into despair.

"Hehehehe....." The culprit behind Toby's untimely demise laughed maniacally behind the mour ing widow.

Upon hearing the criminals laugh. Toby's fiancee rose her head up and turned to look at the man. 

"D-did you just laugh?" The woman asked. Her malice was practically laced in her very voice 

"Yeah. I did. So what?" The criminal replied with a smug look on his face. At that moment,he had failed to realize the threat of an angry magic using widow. A mistake he would pay dearly for.

  At this reply, the woman's face contorted into one of sorrow and pure, unfiltered, unbridled rage.

She started murmuring indiscernible words.

"Huh? What are you doing?" The man asked, completely oblivious to the fact that his death was fast approaching.

"You idiot! It's a freaking spell! Get the hell out of there!" One of the man's collegue yelled at him. His eyes went wide with realization as he attempted to turn and run away. But alas, he was too late.

"Water tentacles." A third tier spell.

As she uttered the words, several tendrils of water appeared out of thin air and wrapped themselves around the man.

"Die!" The woman screamed, and immediately the tentacles squeezed hard on the man. The water tendrils applied so much pressure, that the man's bones began to break. The one which wrapped itself around his neck squeezed his throat tightly, obstructing the passage of air through his oesophagus and as such, It didn't take long for the man to die from suffocation.

The culprit behind her beloved's death died, but the woman still felt this insatiable hunger for blood, her enemies' blood.

  She stood up, her eyes shone a great madness. She had seemingly lost all sense of rationality.

She went on a rampage. She cast spell after spell, mowing down the opposition at alarming speeds and simultaneously burning through her reserves twice as fast. She had been taken over by her own bloodlust and was to blindsighted to see that she was rapidly expending herself.

"Aaassagh!" She screamed as she controlled the water tentacles. They whipped at their opponents, drawing blood upon contact. The opponents were mostly low leveled and as such, their physical bodies were more than insufficient to resist the attacks of a mage at the cusp of B-rank.

The tables quickly turned. A testament to the volatile nature of the battlefield.

The strike force now had the upper hand. The criminal group was not very smart, but the magic Knight squad were aware of the fact that they had to dispatch the rampaging woman. Fast.

They centered most of their attack on her. She managed to block a few of them, but even more made it through her defenses, weakening her in the process and creating a lot of openings, which the opponents would not fail to exploit.

The widow's rampage continued. Each wave of her hand moved a water tentacle, and each arc that the tentacle drew brought an enemy an inch closer their death. The widow maintained enough of her sanity to be able to distinguish between enemy and ally, but if one got to close then she wouldn't hesitate to attack, so they kept their distance.

Unbeknownst to the widow, an enemy had taken advantage of her blindspots opening and used wind magic to sneak up behind her. Quietly and decisively, the enemy swung his blade, in attempt to put an end to the rampage by beheading the one responsible for it all.

"Dana! Watch out!"

The woman–Dana, felt the wind created by the blade's motion press down against her neck, and quickly reacted by waving her hand, but her spell was not going to make it and she quickly realized her situation.

Best case scenario, she would die and take the enemy down with her, worst case, she would die without doing anything. Either way, her death was all but assured.

As the blade drew closer to her neck, the woman's life flashed before her eyes. Memories of the time she spent with her fiancée flooded her and a single tear threatened to fall.

'i aorry Toby....I'll be with you soon.' she thought as she had already resigned herself to her death. But then, something happened.

"Freeze." A voice uttered from a distance.

Following the unknown man's words, a wave of frost surged from the darkness beyond and assaulted the man who attempted to behead the widow.

The frosty mist moved at tremendous speeds, such that it caught up with the criminal before his blade could even reach Dana's neck. 

Dana waited for her inevitable death for a few moments, but it never came. Her head never left her body, no pain no blood, no nothing. What's more the entire battlefield had fallen silent and all fighting had temporarily ceased.

Dana turned her head to see what happened and was greeted by the sight of a human ice statue. The person that was just trying to kill her had been completely frozen into a lifeless human figurine made solely of ice.

Startled she turned back to get a better look, but then her shoulder bumped into the statue, tipping it over instantly.

*Crash*

A sound, similar to the breaking of glass could be heard as the stone statue fell and shattered to a million tiny pieces.

  Her eyes widened in shock as she didn't expect it. She looked around to see everyone else's reactions but soon discovered that they weren't even looking her way.

She followed their gaze and discovered that they were all staring at the darkness beyond, where the Mana bulbs which brightened up the place seemed to have died out. She stared intently at where the frost had originated from.

*Klop*klop*

The sound of footsteps resonated through the now silent battlefield as the being responsible for the ice magic stepped out of the darkness. Unsurprisingly, it was Alvin.

The faces of the magic knights immediately paled as they looked as though they had seen a ghost. It was quite obvious that their reaction was caused by the emergence of a certain being. 

The being walked right behind Alvin, his black hair flowed down his shoulders gracefully and his brown eyes rada fiery gaze as his intense fighting spirit had been unleashed.

"I-i-it's c-c-count Raymond." A random man wearing the magic Knight uniform said with a trembling voice. It was not surprising as they had already been given front row seats to witness just how scary the count could be.

"Now now, is that any way for a mage of the Swordhearth family to behave?" Alvin asked a rhetorical question, as Dana didn't dare respond lest she suffer even more punishment afterwards.

From the stretched out hand to the signs of Mana usage which were evident around Alvin, it was quite obvious that he had been the one who casted the ice spell. The other Swordhearth family mages couldn't help but admire their Captain's prowess as he had demonstrated nigh perfect speed and timing in his casting of the ice spell.

"Oi..." A random criminal started talking. The criminal was a burly man with a pot belly, his aura testified to the fact that he was among the stronger ones on the enemy side.

"What the f*ck you all freezing up for?" The man said, before turning to give a disappointed look at his allies. After witnessing the pathetic expressions, which were especially prevailent on the faces of the magic knights.

Turning away while shaking his head, he started running towards the count while chanting a spell. Apparently he was an Earth mage as he had conjured up a mallet made of Earth magic.

"It doesn't matter who you are! All humans die when they are beheaded!" The burly man shouted as he ran forward at the count. It was unfortunate, but concieted individuals like this man would always be found in gatherings like this one. It was like a universal rule, someone had to do the job of the scape goat after all.

Alvin wanted to step forward, but Raymond blocked him.

"I'll handle this."

"Get ready to die, count!" The man shouted as a maniacal smile appeared on his face. It was unfortunate.....very unfortunate. Another soul, set to be sent to the fiery abyss of hell.

"You know....I agree with you...." Raymond started speaking as he emotionlessly watched the man who was currently running to his own death.

"... everyone, dies when they are beheaded." Raymond finished his statement.

*Slice*

In a flawless motion that seemed to escape the boundaries of humane mastery, Raymond's sword drew an arc over the man's neck, beheading him before he could even realize his own demise.

The head flew up and feel down to the ground like an empty container. A fountain of blood gushed from the man's headless neck, drenching the surrounding floors in a crimson liquid.

Everyone was shocked as most of them didn't even see his movements. The only person who actually kept up was Alvin, and he was filled with awe at the counts perfect mastery. He made then affirmed a decision he made a long time ago.

Apparently, Raymond was not finished yet as he released his magical aura. A bright white light hovered around his skin in a demonstration of magical superiority.

He faced his already unsheathed sword at his enemies and for a moment there, they all saw their cold and lifeless bodies being reflected by his blade. All of them knew, the only thing that awaited them now was death.

Fire magic appeared out of nowhere and wrapped itself around his sword. It shone brightly in the dark underground to tunnel like a blazing beacon of death

Raymond had just activated a second level fusion magic spell which was more commonly utilized by weapon weilders. As it was a must learn spell for every individual who aimed to call themselves master swordsmen, Raymond had long since learnt to cast it without a chant.

A feat which bore proof to his tireless efforts at mastering the sword.

A/N:

Whoo a long one, more than 3k words!!

Special thanks to my usuals halis_eren_balaban and Epic_Buddie123. Thanks for voting guys!!!