Chapter 405 - Changes

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Since Zaos's magic crossbows were no good, he brought an ordinary rapid-fire crossbow in the town. That way, he will leave traces behind. While he will have to waste some time enhancing the bolts, they still could be as fast as the magic ones.

Zaos waited for a while, but Kat showed up while driving a wagon around three in the morning. That was really helpful… Now Zaos will have the chance to let Milliendra sleep in a place that can mimic a bed while he fights.

"Are you really going to bring her?" Kat asked.

"I can't leave her alone while her mother is away, she will cry and that idea alone makes my heart grow cold," Zaos replied.

"What a doting parent…" Kat frowned. "Where is your wife? Is she the one tailing those three?"

"Yes…" Zaos replied.

"Quite the odd couple you two are," Kat said.

Zaos couldn't agree more. Not only were they weird together, but they also weren't a real couple. Regardless, just to be sure that Milliendra would sleep soundly, Zaos used an enhanced version of Sleep on her. That could be dangerous, though, if the user doesn't know how to use Cleanse. One day, Zaos used that on a bear, and the creature slept for seven days… in the middle of the summer.

Putting that aside, Zaos noticed that the wagon being driven by Kat and all the others were moving too fast. At that rate, they won't be able to use stealth in their favor.

"Sorry, but it seems that the fight has already started," Kat said. "Those bastards sure were cautious, they put lookouts in many places and from ten of my nest trackers, only three managed to return and tell the others where the enemies were."

Zaos wished that she had told him sooner. Still, at least she had some mercenaries nearby that kept the enemies busy… it would have been a disaster If they had had time to run away. Kat told Zaos that the enemies apparently used the ruins inside a certain cave to hide, which caught his interest since he had never seen ruins before. However, it seemed that he would have to forget about that… he could see a grove ahead on fire and many shadows moving around and fighting.

Zaos felt that something was weird… they had traveled for half an hour, and Kat shouldn't have sent too many soldiers with the trackers, to begin with. So, how come the fight didn't end until now? It was a trap… but then when everyone noticed that, it was too late. The wagons stopped, but then the shadows which were fighting dashed toward them… they weren't actually fighting. They were just the mercenaries working for the other group and used that to lure Zaos and the others closer to the grove.

Kat jumped from the wagon and equipped her rapier, but before she could choose a target, she saw three enemies in front of her holding their necks in agony. Zaos had hit them with his enhanced bolts.

"As if I would let you get in the way of Millie's good night of sleep," Zaos thought.

Zaos had no idea how many enemies were hidden nearby, but he bought three boxes of ammo just in case. However, he didn't use the bolts to kill as many enemies as possible. He only hit those that picked their crossbows as well or tried to run toward his wagon. That plan worked for a while, but the enemies reacted fast enough to gather the shields on their backs and cluster together to approach.

"Now this is quite shocking… even without their leaders they can respond this fast… they were well trained," Zaos thought.

If Zaos could use his big spells, shields wouldn't be a problem, but he couldn't. However, Kat's mercenaries also responded fast to their actions. While they didn't have many large weapons that could pierce the protection offered by the large shields, they had their leader that didn't hesitate in charging toward the enemies, and that raised their morale tremendously.

When the enemies noticed that their target was aiming for the melee, they raised their weapons without dropping their shields. When the melee broke out, grunts and the smell of blood began to spread around the area, and that made Zaos impatient.

After clicking his tongue since Zaos didn't want to leave Milliendra and join the melee, he decided to aim for the only part of the enemies' body he could actually hit: the legs. He could worry about making a name for himself later. Now he just wanted to make the fight end.

It was a bit difficult to aim and hit the enemies in the darkness of the night, even though there was a grove on fire illuminating the battlefield. The main reason for that was the fact that Zaos was behind his temporary allies, the shadow cats. That being said, he still pulled the trigger of his crossbow time and time again. Since he increased their speed at max with wind magic, Zaos managed to avoid hitting Kat's mercenaries. Even better, with that much power behind his attacks, they would completely lose one of their legs whenever the enemies were hit.

Kat had thought of asking Zaos to stop his bolts before he hit her soldiers. Still, she gave up on that when she noticed that not a single one of her soldiers had been even scratched by those. His aim was so good that he made many enemies drop their shields and break their formation by hitting their legs.

In the end, thanks to the trap, Kat lost some of her mercenaries. Still, after a couple of minutes, the enemies had decreased in size so much that they decided to run away. Again, without their leaders, they couldn't raise the morale by themselves or respond to that dire situation and try to change the flow of the battle. That caused some problems for the shadow cats. Still, ultimately, since it was easier to hit enemies running away with his crossbow, Zaos stopped most of them.. Before the sun could rise, the battle was already over.

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