Chapter 54 Full Retreat

After Shizu and her squad of 5 mounted soldiers were able to successfully eliminate the remaining monsters that trailed them, they retreated with Rulu, Nosuri, Ougi, and the survivors of the caravan's vanguard.

They still had gengiri on their tail but since gengiri were considerably slower than Kengiri, Shizu's group did not have to worry about being attacked from behind. Azi on the other hand, moved to the destroyed caravan's rearguard.

Luckily Yashimu and his four brothers were holding their own, but the soldiers were less fortunate. 5 kengiri had appeared from the snowstorm and made quick work of the 10 rearguard soldiers.

Yashimu and his 4 brothers were quite skilled and worked well together so they were able to hold out. Unfortunately, team work could not overcome the ever increasing number of gengiri, Azi had to act quickly and looked at the white scaled gloves on his hand.

Coming up with a quick plan he dashed to Yashimu's side to tell him his plan.

"Yashimu, I am detecting more gengiri approaching this position. We need to go now. So I will push the gengiri back with a fireball. When I send it off, I will hop aboard and direct you to our fortress. Inform the others we have little time."

Dashing off to reposition himself for the plan, Azi did not heed any retort Yashimu would make.

Sighing to himself, Yashimu called out to his brothers in his magically amplified voice.

"Brothers on my mark, follow behind me."

"Understood!"

His brothers were still locked in combat with the gengiri and Kengiri, but still had the calm of mind to heed their older brother's command. Panic and fear had not yet overcome them as the teaching of their parents were serving them well.

After moving himself in the path of the approaching swarm of gengiri, Azi channeled magic into his goggles which now glowed a white gray hue. These goggles had the function of detecting magic which allowed him to see the flow of magic energy. This also meant he could make out the magic energy of the gengiri and kengiri through the snow storm.

Azi could see over 100 gengiri and 10 kengiri approaching his position. He planned to stall them with a spell to give Yashimu's party a chance to escape. Looking at his right hand he made his hand into a fist as he charged it with red fire elemental energy.

The veins on his arms began to spread and soon red lines began to integrate themselves with the white kengiri scaled glove. The gloves that Azi made were a prototype magic catalyst that was the basis of his original idea to use the rune meaning "seal" as a way to store complex magic spells into items.

Azi learned from Touma that the rune for "seal" was used for basic spells and storing magic energy, but not for complex spells. At best a single fireball could be used before the rune was destroyed.

The fact that Azi was able to engrave the rune to allow it to repeatability was one of the reasons why Touma almost fainted from shock earlier.

The gloves were a successful prototype but had one downside.

As more energy was charged into his right arm, the gloves white scale began to turn a crimson red that glowed notably in the black and white snowstorm that raged around Azi.

Keeping his eye on the approaching enemy, he tried to time it just when they were about 10 paces away. While Shizu's umbrella had a longer range when it came to casting distance, this was limited to how much magic energy was in the catalyst or staff.

The amount of magic energy was limited to the size of the catalyst, so the range was much more limited when comparing his glove to Shizu's umbrella.

When the first gengiri was 10 paces away from Azi, he pounded his fist into the ground. A red line traveled 10 paces across the ground in the span of a second and after that second a large eruption of a fireball ensued.

The flames of the fire did not go out immediately, as Azi had overloaded the fireball spell to create a makeshift flame wall spell.

Pulling his hand out of the snow, the glove fell away into bits of sand and dust as it crumbled from his now bare hand. This was the downside to Azi's current prototype glove, organic materials like scales and leather did not have enough internal structure strength to allow for the infusion of magic energy for long and recurring uses.

Metal like refined steel would have worked, but it lacked the qualities to channel magic energy effectively. But with Azi's newly created blood steel, he was able to ensure that the catalyst was not destroyed from one use and could be receptive to magic energy. This was why Azi made Shizu's weapon almost entirely out of blood steel.

But Azi did not have the time to create greaves out of blood steel as he was still working on Shizu's weapon.

Disappointed that his glove was now destroyed, Azi quickly got over it as he had little time. He turned and ran to Yashimu.

With an outstretched hand, Yashimu picked Azi up from the ground and helped him up onto the back of his saddle. The now group of 6 began their retreat to the fort.

*****

Shizu's party was now approaching the makeshift fortress, with a tubed device Shizu shot a blue flare into the sky to single the group manning the barricade to open it.

In the distance, Shizu could see the sight of the torches on the fort's walls and could see that the earthen barricade that was conjured by Touma was coming down.

Touma was currently manning the fort's defense while they were away to rescue Rulu. It seemed that they were successful as the corpses of what looked like another swarm of gengiri littered the outer wall.

Kajima, who stood upon the wall, commanded the volunteers to release their arrows. He could see the gengiri that were following behind and wanted to ensure the approaching party's safety.

With his command, the volunteers continued to fire a volley of arrows that skewered the gengiri. The snow did not impede the volunteers' aim as they were trained hunters who have hunted through many white.

Most were survivors of the last two brutal winters and this snowstorm was a normal occurrence for them at this point. For their survival, they would hunt in any condition to acquire food be it snow, storm, or both, if it was necessary, they did so.

With the barricade down and the enemy on their tail eliminated, Shizu's group was able to enter the fort with no problems. When all were inside Shizu dismounted with the rest of the retreating party.

Immediately when Rulu dismounted from Kokona, she was assaulted by a big hug from her older sister who began to rub her cheek against her own.

"Oh Rulu, you made me worry so much. What made you think to come here? You are such a kind girl. OH, I love you so much. Please never leave me."

All were witnesses to the sight of Shizu accosting her sister Rulu with hugs and cheek kisses as she displayed her sisterly love for Rulu. In response Rulu could only stammer out a few unintelligible words as a kind of attempted retort to Shizu.

Rulu was unsuccessful with her words as Shizu continued to cuddle her younger sister until Rulu was red in the face.

The soldiers and volunteers could only look on in amusement at the sight. They all knew just how much Shizu loved her Rulu and it warmed their hearts to see that Rulu was now safe from harm.

On the other hand, Nosuri and Ougi had turned their heads away to give the sisterly couple their moments.

After letting Shizu get it out of her system, Kajima approached and asked.

"What of Azi?"

Loosening her grip on Rulu, Shizu responded with a sudden tone of seriousness.

"He should be back in a few minut....." *Kaboom* "Or now"

Just as Shizu was going to finish her sentence a loud boom was heard outside the walls of the fortress.

Shizu and Kajima had moved to climb up the 3 meter tall wall to see what was occurring. Rulu, Nosuri, and Ougi followed behind.

*****

As Azi was directing Yashimu to the fort, it seemed that the kengiri were hot on their tail. The firewall had done the best it could, but it unfortunately did not deter the swarm long enough. They were at first fearful of the fire but soon realized that the fire wall had little effect on their snow-covered bodies.

To ensure that the kengiri did not follow them into the fort, Azi had told Yashimu to continue riding into the fort and told him he would follow behind him.

Jumping off the saddle Azi and landed 30 meters away from the fort. He then used the same technique he did with his glove and created another wall of fire that exploded forth to forestall the swarm for even a moment more.

Unfortunately, the gengiri and kengiri did not fall for the same trick twice. Knowing that they outnumbered the humans, the kengiri ordered with gengiri to storm through the wall of fire. With an eerie click and clack of its jaws the kengiri commanded its gengiri to crawl forward.

The fire burned many of them, but the gengiri behind them just crawled over the smoldering and burning corpses of its fellow kin.

From the wall, everyone could see that Yashimu's party had safely made it inside but now saw that the wall of fire was being breached by the gengiri horde. With a commanding tone Shizu ordered. "Azi, retreated. GET TO THE WALL!"