Chapter 48: Chapter 47: Battle in the woods

[On the battlefield]

Standing amidst the treetops, Allaire watched as the forest below her became a battlefield. She had followed the group of second rank beasts since a few minutes ago and was now watching them fight against the ambush they had walked into.

Her plan had initially been to directly search for and attack other third ranks, but she had soon noticed the difficulty of finding some that weren't already fighting. In over two hours she barely managed to do so thrice and thus changed her approach.

She had noticed that whenever a group without one would encounter a third rank, one would arrive at the location soon after. So instead of blindly running after them, she chose to let her targets come to her.

Thus she waited for the fight below her to end, which wouldn't take long. Apart from the number difference of nearly five to one, the beasts were also of a lower rank. Only one peak second rank was pitted against seven among the beastmen and thus he was soon overwhelmed.

After the beast fell it barely took another two minutes to finish up the remaining eight. Just as the group finished off their opponents and sighed in relieve, Allaire sprang into action.

Spanning three arrows bowstring, she let loose towards the third order individuals. While she would normally try and prevent as many deaths as possible, they were soldiers and knew the risk when they signed up. And to add to that was that they weren't harmless to her so she hadn't the luxury to ignore them. 

Due to this power difference the three arrows perfectly found their mark. Shocked by the abrupt death of three of their comrades, the group quickly gathered closely and tried to locate her. Repositioning herself to another tree, she let loose another arrow before dropping down with a sword in hand.

The arrow found its mark like the previous three, but this time the beastmen didn't have the luxury of time to react to this. Instead it was directly followed by Allaire cleaving through the fifth third order individual with her sword before chaining her swing into a stab towards the next one.

Luckily for them her target managed to barely jump to the side, forcing her to get into a defensive position and stopping her momentum. This allowed the rest to take enough distance, glaring towards her materialized sword with a frown.

“Why is a beastmen attacking us?” One of the men shouted, half questioning her and half his allies.

Instead of answering Allaire activated her external aura and disappeared behind a veil of illusions. Alerted by this, the more experienced among them barely managed to bring their weapons in a defensive position, forcing her to switch from targeting lethal places. Instead she rushed towards one of the two remaining third orders while targeting his leg.

Sensing her attack too late, the man realized he couldn't stop her strike and instinctively tried strike at her instead. To his dismay she was even faster than he anticipated, making him strike empty air and leaving him unprotected from her follow up. Having dashed past him, Allaire pivoted on her outstretched leg and easily struck the man's neck with the momentum of her turn.

Despite loosing a lot of their fighting power, the man's death bought the rest enough time to prepare for her attacks. With the last remaining peak second rank being a mage he was able to offset her invisibility with a light spell of his own that cancled the illusion.

Slightly annoyed at this, Allaire thought for a moment whether she should try to use a spell of her own but she decided against it after just a moment. She had planned to keep the fact that she was also a mage hidden as a trump card.

Instead she changed the sword in her hand into a large two handed one while also changing the element of her aura. Now enhanced with lightning and its higher power, she instantly closed the distance to her opponents. While light allowed for faster movement, in the case of bursts of speed across straight paths strength also plays a large role and thus lightning was more efficient even if her affinity with it was slightly lower.

When she arrived before them, only two of the beastmen had managed to react to her movement. Instead of focusing those that didn't Allaire chose to target one of the two as they were the greater danger.

Swinging the greatsword in her hand with her entire momentum behind it, she struck at one of them. While her target barely managed to bring his sword in the path of her attack, he couldn't put enough pressure behind his block. Cutting cleanly through him with minimal resistance, Allaire turned out of the path of the strike that came from her right.

Just as she wanted to continue her assault, she felt an attack flying straight towards her. Jumping back in hast and dodging the crescent aura strike, she looked towards its source. Upon seeing the early third rank that had launched it she smiled before jumping back a bit more and taking on a relaxed stance.

“You just wanted to lure me out, didn't you?” The man asked after arriving between her and the other beastmen.

“Of course. Why else would I have stretched this out so much instead of finishing them off?” She replied carefree.

While her answer clearly displeased him, her opponent remained calm and continued, “Congratulations, you succeeded. Now tell me what your goal is and I will let you live.”

His threat made Allaire chuckle in amusement. Before the man could react she jumped to the side while manifesting a bow made from pure aura. Realizing her intentions, the beastmen could only watch helplessly as she drew it back and fired past him, striking the last peak second rank among them that his position had originally shielded.

Just a moment after the arrow left the bowstring, the third rank arrived before her with two daggers in his hands. Aiming at her shoulders to incapacitate her, he watched as she smiled carefree despite his attack. Realizing that something was wrong, he looked down just to notices his daggers passing through the illusion of her body.

Directly bringing his weapons defensively before his head, he waited for a counterattack that didn't come. Carefully standing back up, he saw the reason for this when he noticed Allaire standing a bit away from him with two short swords in hand. Realizing that his attack was probably closer than he had feared, he smiled slightly.

“Leave and get back to camp.” He said to the group without letting Allaire out of his sight. Surprised and irritated by his words, the group didn't move.

“Now!” He shouted again after a few seconds, causing them to slowly back away while looking towards Allaire nervously.

To their relief she didn't try to intercept them. Once they were out of the immediate surrounding of her they stopped their careful retreat and instead ran as fast as they could. Only when they were far enough away that she couldn't easily reach them did her opponent sigh in relieve.

“I doubt you would let me leave as peaceful as you did for them, or?” He asked Allaire.

“Of course not. I spend all that effort to fight against a third rank, I won't let it all go to waste.” She replied with a carefree smile.

“Thought so.”

With those words he closed in on Allaire while simultaneously sending a crescent aura strike flying towards her. While this was easily sidestepped by her, she was forced to divert the closely following swing of the blade.

Trying follow this up with a slash from his other weapon, the man found that she had created enough distance between them to be out of his reach. Just as he wanted to close back in she punched forwards. Without even needing to sense the mana her opponent already knew what would come and barely managed to dodge the aura projectile hurled towards him.

Using this to regain the initiative, Allaire dashed forward with an overhead strike. Forced on the defensive, her opponent crossed his two daggers in the path of her strike to block it. When the strike connected with this he became shocked when the force of her swing forced him down far enough that his knee reached the ground.

Feeling her continue pressing downwards, he grew increasingly more desperate. Looking up helplessly, he found her smiling down at him mockingly. Seeing that she had no intention to let him live he decided to take a risk.

Letting go of the weapon in his left hand while re angling the one in his right, he diverted her blade to his left as good as he could. But despite his best efforts she managed to cut a deep gash across his left arm, nearly completely peeling the flesh from its outside half.

Powering through the pain of this, he took a swing with his remaining weapon at her now undefended upper body. As soon as Allaire noticed this intention from him she turned the left side of her body back while covering herself in aura armor. She also used this movement to redirect her blade, swinging its back edge towards him.

Despite the attack being weakened by the armor she had materialized, Allaire felt the blade strike at her left, just under her ribs. But at the same time her strike also found its mark, cleaning cutting through the man's entire upper body before he managed to form an aura armor around him.

Straightening her back with a deep breath, Allaire dismissed her sword. Looking down to her wound, she frowned at her own carelessness. Holding her left hand over it, she cast a healing spell that closed it without leaving any trace of the wounds existence.

Making sure that she had no other wounds, Allaire searched her surroundings to ensure that no other enemies are there. Only then did she go over her fight again, remembering every little detail and thinking about how to improve every single one of her actions.

Amidst this her attention was suddenly drawn to the sky when Darganth flew overhead in his true form. Realizing that he had started drawing attention to him to get the more foolish adventurers to walk into their trap, she delayed the rest of her review of the fight and made her way back to the hill they had fortified. 

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Some time earlier, Jennia was making her way through the dense forest in human form. Compared to Allaire who wanted to find a third rank that wasn't yet entangled in a fight, she didn't care for this and thus already had more success. While walking through the forest without hast, she was searching a large area around her for the next third rank that failed to fully hide his presence.

A few minutes after she noticed the first mana fluctuations from a battle, she also encountered the first group of beasts. Despite her transformed form being that of a human and not a beastmen, the bird type beast that found her instantly attacked her. Sensing this she just wanted to use plant magic to entangle it when she noticed her attacker shrinking.

Canceling her spell before it could take effect, she reused most of its mana in a wave of flames that burned the beasts right wing. While it was far from uncommon, she was still slightly annoyed by its display of the ability to shrink its size before the mythical rank due to the fact that she would only gain it then. With this being the first time she saw a beast demonstrate the ability since meeting Darganth she let out the last bits of frustration she had over this at the enemy before her.

Before the beast could even hit the ground its involuntary landing spot turned into jungle of spike pointing upwards. Before it could even understand what was happening the spikes already riddled the beasts body with holes, killing it instantly.

Having one of theirs taken out this easily startled the rest of the beasts. Before they could even understand what was happening, the forest around them started to change. In a circular shape with them in the center the trees started to disappear, leaving them confused in the middle of a large clearing.

Despite now being easy targets from the top they didn't scatter back to the treeline, knowing that no matter what they try the beastmen couldn't easily clear the sky's of their ally's.

Seeing that they didn't react as she had hoped, Jennia teleported above them with an annoyed expression. As soon as she arrived the sky became filled with metal spears that threatened to drop all over the clearing.

This instantly caused the expressions of the beasts down below to fall, leading to the reaction she had hoped for. Running towards the cover of the trees in a chaotic manner, the beast tried their best to escape her attack. To their misfortune this played right into Jennia's plan.

As soon as they reached about half way there, they found themselves walking straight into dozens of unseen traps. The lightning fox that was the first to arrive at this point fell for them first, with the ground below its paw carving in and surprising him.

Before its victim even had a chance to react, the trap activated and turned the beasts own momentum against it. This was done by a simple mechanism she had build into it that used the downwards momentum of the wood plate the beast had stepped on to launch a series of earth spikes upwards.

With barely any delay, three more traps activated, though each one far less sophisticated. Two of them archived their desired effect, leading to two beasts walking into a trap each. The last one barely managed to dodge it, though the pillar of flames that was conjured by the basic formation it walked in still burned a large part of its fur.

The remaining three beasts managed to stop in time to stay out of danger were now eying the clearing with fearful eyes. They were especially careful in their search for illusions after seeing two of theirs impaled by previously unseen metal spikes. But before they could decide on what to do next, Jennia threw a wench in their plans by letting the hovering spears drop down on them.

By the time they reached the ground she had already lost interest in the happening there, instead focusing into the distance. From there she felt the mana signature of two early third ranks in a fight, causing a smile to form on her lips.

Ignoring her privious victims and teleporting over there, she became the focus of both combatants who eyed her nervously. After a moment the beastmen started to smile victoriously, though this only lasted until Jennia cast the first spell.

Pointing her hands forwards, she let loose two streaks of lightning with one aiming for each of them. While the reptilian beast had expected an attack from her and managed to dodge despite its clumsy body, the beastmen was taken by surprise and barely managed to bring an aura armor between himself and the attack.

Despite this he was catapulted backwards, smashing through multiple trees before coming to a stop. A second later he burst back out of the pile of tree pieces he became buried under, aiming straight for Jennia. At the same time the nearly forty meter long lizard also attacked her, striking towards her with its whip like tail.

Despite this she still had a relaxed smile on her face, keeping her hands crossed before her chest in a provocative manner. A moment before the tail strike could reach her its path seemed to deviate, causing the beastmen to widen its eyes in shock when he noticed that he was in its path.

Bringing his hands before his face defensively, he covered them in aura armor just a moment before the tail hit him. Flipping backwards in the air, he positioned himself to land back on the ground on his feet. But just as he was a meter above ground, a portal opened below him.

Again taken by surprise due to the speed with which it was created, he flew through it and crashed into the beast with his full momentum. While he was prepared for such a landing, the lizard was taken by surprise by the impact to its left side.

Watching him stumble a few steps to the right, Jennia made a downwards slashing motion with her hand that let a concentrated slash of wind to fly towards the beast. While the beast sensed this attack, he couldn't do anything to dodge it due to the previous impact. This resulted in the wind slash hitting him just behind his left front leg, tearing a wound over a meter deep into his side.

Grimacing in pain, he looked towards the beastmen that he had been fighting previously. Seeing that he had managed to get back on his feet despite being rotated ninety degrees, he decided against his initial impulse of attacking him. While Jennia was the more dangerous foe, she mainly used their attacks against them so he deemed fighting her alone as more effective.

With that option off the table he quickly turn his attention back to her. The beastmen was meanwhile looking towards Jennia with a frown after noticing the look from his side. His initial opponent would probably rip him apart should he show too large of an opening, making fighting Jennia even harder than it would be normally.

With both her opponents standing still without showing any intention to attack, Jennia was growing impatient.

“Do you plan to stare forever or get back to fighting?” She asked them.

To this the lizard answered with a taunting tone, “Attack yourself if you want to, I have time. As impressive your magic is, you are but a measly human.”

“Then why aren't you attacking this measly human, scared?”

“No, but pests should fight amongst themselves.” He replied and in the same moment the beastmen jumped forwards with a shocked expression.

Having already sensed the beast spreading the cloud of poisonous gas behind him and as a result expected the beastmen to jump forwards to evade it, she watched this happening calmly. With the man forced to close the distance towards her, he chose to attack her after a moment of hesitation.

Just as he reached about a hundred meters away from her, Jennia let a cloud of dust spring into existence about a third the way towards him. While he was irritated by this as it wouldn't even delay him for a moment, he still chose to just dash through the small cloud. And just before he reached it, he noticed the beast letting its tail strike towards edge of the cloud, though it would only hit after he passed that spot.

Just as he was wondering what the purpose behind this was, he noticed something wrong with the cloud. Just as he realized that there was another, hidden, spell active around it, did he reach it and crash into it. Before he could even make sense of this he was already struck by the tail of the lizard that smashed his head into the solid cloud a second time and with even more force.

Feeling his consciousness fleeting, he could barely register the words that came from the beast behind him, “Marvelous use of time magic, that I have to admit.”

Jennia, of course, also hear this comment, though she only answered after making sure that the man was unconscious, “Its hard to use offensively so I had to get creative. And I hadn't expected you to notice my trap, so I can only return the compliment.”

This caused the beast to laugh out loud, completely ignoring the fact that his poison was slowly spreading towards the unconscious man.

“Isn't my first time seeing time magic and won't be the last one.” With those words he let the cloud of poison that had been gathering around him fly towards Jennia.

Though contrary to his expectation, she just scoffed at the attempt. Before he could do anything else she vanished from her spot, just to arrive directly next to him in her true form. This understandably startled him completely, allowing her claws to cut three more deep gashes into his side.

Stumbling away from her, he was just about to try and retaliate, when he saw Darganth flying above. Freezing in shock, the beast turned tail and fled as he, correctly, linked his presence to Jennia.

While she was slightly surprised that Darganth already initiated their plan, she took all bags on the beastmen's body before teleporting away.

Having gotten all treasures he was carrying she left his survival up to fate, leaving him behind both unconscious and poisoned.

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