Chapter 406

The longer the battle drew on for the more hateful glares the group received. Surprisingly enough however Aranor was on the receiving end of most of the glares, the elves were blaming him for their casualties since he stood by guarding the group rather than respond to the attacks.

As the hours dragged on the losses started to lessen, every attack claiming less and less lives. The two champions had done their job well as they picked off half of the enemies highest level combatants.

“Start uprooting the camp and get ready to move.” Lioriel commanded. 

“You can be serious?!” one of her commanders yelled back. “We’re still under attack here.” 

One of the things that have picked up in frequency as time slowly ticked by was the number of yelling matches Lioriel had found herself in. While her advanced social skill did wonders in calming down each commander, that didn’t help as much when a new one would show up more enraged than the last half an hour later.

The prince had managed to come out slightly quicker than they expected, it only took him eleven hours on the outside to clear the floor though that was closer to two whole days on the inside.

“What’s happening out here?” the prince asked as he saw the elves moving with the edges of the camp armed and ready.

It took about two minutes before a quick overview of the situation was briefly explained. “You’re back, perfect.” Lioriel was clearly on edge as some of her sarcasm made it through despite her social skills. “Let's get moving the quicker we get you out of here the fewer of my people get hurt.”

Nobody had any objections to the plan. Ajax couldn’t help but be slightly troubled by how tired the prince was. More than that he wouldn’t even get a chance to rest until they crossed the border and were safely under the ranger squads’ protection.

“Not going to contact the king?” Ajax asked once he saw that the prince didn’t excuse himself in a privacy bubble when they finally got moving.

“This isn’t all that time sensitive.” the prince responded, surprising Ajax a little. “Chances are he already knows about this as the Queen would be quick to prove her innocence. Even if he doesn’t however my mana reserves are best saved for any combat we might get caught up in.”

Three days later and the group was very much behind schedule but nobody complained about that. Moving a convoy guarded by over a hundred soldiers in such a dense forest was touch work on the best of times, even more so when they were getting attacked.

“The mercenaries gave up.” Lioriel updated them. Despite the constant fighting Aranor had only needed to interfere once when an ambush on a tight portion of the road got near the carriage. 

“The attacks are over?” Ajax asked. 

“Not yet.” Lioriel shook her head. “There is still the syndicate and their assassins. They are the strongest of the bunch but they just lost most of their support. More than that the mercenaries turned on them when they gave up to earn some good will.” 

“More likely a requirement of accepting their surrender so conveniently.” Harold piped up knowing how politics worked. 

“Along with a very discounted contract signed to enlist with the military for the next century.” Benedict also joined in. 

“Leadership also had to give up their employer, that won’t look good for them going forward.” Elara finished.

“I can neither confirm nor deny the terms of their capitulation.” Lioriel said diplomatically  “I am only here to inform you that the following attack or the one after will be their most desperate attempts.” 

Both Aranor and the prince gave a thankful nod before Lioriel moved back into formation. “Its a waiting game now.” the prince said. “They have one more chance and they’re not going to hold anything back so be ready.” 

Ajax was in a tough situation right now. His instinct was to unleash his [Mana Syphon] to weaken any sneak attack heading for him, especially since he knew that they had a stealth and ambush specialist. The issue was that doing so would hinder the soldiers all around him and even Aranor who was already preparing himself.

It was only a minute later when Ajax realized that Aranor’s chant changed. He couldn’t clearly make up the words of his spells but he noticed that they weren’t the same ones he was saying until just now.

“[Spell Storage].” Lexi gasped as she picked up on the same thing. 

“What’s that?” Ajax asked curiously. 

“It's an Epic skill that allows the caster to prepare spells in advance. You can hold an extra spell for every threshold.” Arianwyn gave him a quick rundown. 

“Expect the spells slowly lose the mana they are charged with the longer they remained stored.” Lexi continued unhappy with the incomplete explanation. “It takes about a week for a high mage’s spell to fully drain. The mana cap each spell can hold, how quickly it drains and even the strain releasing them puts on the body can be shored up through the thresholds on top of the increase in capacity.” 

“You seem to know it well.” Elara pointed out.

“Grandpa has spent centuries on that skill.” Lexi made sure to remain vague on the subject, her grandfather hadn’t actually managed to unlock the skill but that wasn’t something she wanted to confirm for anyone, even those from Gryndor. “Be sure not to hurt yourself.” 

Lexi’s final statement was directed towards Aranor who had started chanting his third spell. Unleashing all three of his charged up spells at once would undoubtedly wreck the mage’s mana channels seeing as each spell held more than one thousand mana.

The attack came as the caravan was getting around a turn in the road. Three people were all that remained of the initial ten that had started harassing the elven army days ago. The attack wasn’t too much of a surprise, they had expected it to come here since it was one of the most exposed positions on the road.

“Remember they have a long range archer still out there.” Lioriel called as the assassins charged straight for the carriage.

None of the three elves had bothered with their face coverings any more, instead sporting helmets that while exposing some of their features provided better protection for their heads. WIth their faces more uncovered it was easy to see the crazed eyes and the patches of rashes that each of them had even from the neck up.

The opening defensive move went to Aranor who bought time for their protectors to get to work. In an instant the elven champion unleashed a massive amount of mana with a single word. From his extended hand and fingertips a powerful wall of wind and snow pushed back against the attackers not only stopping their forward momentum but sending them backwards until they made contact with a tree.

None of the assassin were injured but that wasn’t the point of the spell. Their momentum had been stalled and now the two other elven champions could finally engage them on even footing.

WIthout the element of surprise and their numbers reduced to only three the battle was lopsided to the extreme. It only took three exchanges before one of the assassins lost an arm and two more before another of them died. 

With the numbers now even the elven champions had no issues working together to kill one of them off but they remained wary of the hidden archer. As soon as he was alone the final assassin took out a few potions and chugged them. 

Even from inside the carriage Ajax was monitoring the fight with [Mana Sense] and he could tell that something very wrong was happening. The assassin’s body was clearly rejecting the alchemical mixture but the assassin didn’t care and instead focused on sending a powerful of a final attack towards the carriage before his body gave out.

The attack had easily two thousand mana enhancing it and more a more physically oriented fighter that was a lot, but it wasn’t enough to phase the elven champions. They had known what he was doing the moment he pulled out the potions and they perfectly deflected the powerful wind slice off to one side where it felled twenty trees easily before it stuck the ground.

That was the moment the final assassin had been waiting for. Knowing his arrows wouldn’t be able to hit their mark he had instead chosen to rely on his stealth and with his accomplice drawing all their attention he moved past Aranor and broke his way into the carriage.

Unfortunately for him the first thing he saw as the door gave way was also the last thing he would ever see. The prince had been ready for him, the moment the door gave way his sword was already in motion, the assassin’s body was sliced in two so quickly the momentum of the strike sent both halves out the door.

“Why do all this for a human?” In his final moments the assassin glared hatefully towards Aranor. “Sylvanthal could have had ten dungeons.” 

Aranor didn’t even have a chance to answer as the light went out in his eyes as soon as the final words left his lips.