Chapter 278: A Pincer

After killing the professor, Kai's army and Paolo's army seemed to have gotten a new kind of momentum. The soldiers became more energetic as they trounced the magical beasts.

Even Rila behind Kai was watching his back as a mysterious feeling crept into her heart. Although the professor wasn't a combatant and he would be killed within a few rounds, she never expected that there was a sniper waiting for her chance.

In other words, Kai had planned all of this in advance as if he knew how the battle would proceed. It might also be the reason why he asked for the finest elites from Jose's army.

Rila couldn't help but smile, understanding why Jose wanted her to follow Kai's every order.

Kai, on the other hand, lifted his head a bit and raised two fingers.

'What do you want to do, Kai?' Michelle couldn't understand the earlier signal, so she asked.

Kai didn't answer her immediately. Instead, he focused his entire strength to break through from the magical beasts, heading toward the Unsi's army.

With the addition of Erica's five thousand soldiers, he was fighting against seven thousand soldiers right now. If Alex came his way, there was no doubt he would soon collapse. He himself might be able to escape under their relentless attack, but this would endanger the princess because all soldiers in this place would march toward the main battle on the east.

For the sake of stopping Kai, he needed to sacrifice himself. Even if he needed to be cut or something, he needed to hold them back with his little army.

Kai also saw this and glanced at Rila. "This is your turn. Can you help them to stop that protector until general Paolo finishes his battle? I will handle the rest of the soldiers."

"I am going alone, Sir?" Rila was surprised of course. The soldiers were her responsibility, but it seemed Kai had another plan. She was put in a dilemma where she needed to choose whether to sacrifice her duty or her soldiers.

She thought for a moment and gritted her teeth. "I understand. I don't know your plan, but I know that you are an extraordinary person, especially on a battlefield. If not, General Jose wouldn't lend you the soldiers. I will leave the soldiers to you, Sir."

"Yes." Kai nodded with a solemn expression. Ardus alone wasn't enough to hold Unsi back since Erica couldn't really fight. Hence, Rila was the only solution since he needed Tasha and Isabelle in the upcoming battle.

Kai continued his way toward those armies, camouflaging his real intention.

*Bam Bam!*

Unsi raised his hand, deflecting the bullet from Isabelle. Unlike the professor, Unsi was stronger and more experienced, so doing something like this was just a piece of cake.

He then turned back to Kai, ready to stop him, but Kai's army suddenly turned in another direction, avoiding direct confrontation. Instead, he kept running toward the east.

"Wait. What?!" Unsi widened his eyes.

…

In the meantime, the east battlefield was filled with tension.

"Foolish human! Do you think you can defeat me with your puny strength?" The mermaid snorted, looking down on Nathan. She was standing above a tall magical beast, making it look more majestic.

Nathan had no change of expression. Even though he was advancing, he didn't move his soldiers too deep. Instead, they slightly retreated as soon as they killed a magical beast, allowing them to maintain their position and preventing the enemies from surrounding them.

"You say as if you are looking down on me even though you can't do anything but a sneak attack? We are aiming at the spider, but you only dare to appear because you know we don't have enough soldiers to handle you. See? You are just a coward." Nathan smiled, taunting her back.

The mermaid turned serious. "A coward huh… It seems you still don't understand the situation you currently in. If we want to destroy your little base, we can do it. You should just know your place and hole yourself in there."

Nathan suddenly furrowed his eyebrows as if he sensed something wrong in her words. Although he understood the power of the protectors, he also questioned himself why the protectors didn't destroy them entirely.

When Michelle told him about the mystery of Easter Island, he came to a realization. There seemed to be some sort of rules that kept the protectors from doing something more. And her words just reinforced the doubt in his heart.

From the past few hundred years, they rarely appeared to the point it looked like a rumor instead of a fact. Or they might have appeared, but the majority of people were just not aware of it or refused to believe it. Only when Kai actually went to the battlefield, he heard it and turned it into a fact.

That was why the security level of this information was so high previously and only went down after Kai brought them some facts to the point Nathan and Ethan faced the mermaid herself.

Nathan thought for a moment and said, trying to probe some information from the mermaid. "Since you are that almighty, why don't you just annihilate us once for all? Even if we need a few thousand years, we will kill all of you."

"You know nothing of our strength. Even if you face me right now, you will die within thirty minutes."

"Hmph. Just say if you can't. The fact that you are targeting Kai Carter makes it more believable. At the same time, he might become a threat in the future, so you want to annihilate him." Nathan snorted.

"A threat? You are thinking too highly of yourself. We simply think he has the potential to be one of us."

"One of you?" Nathan squinted his eyes. Rapakha once said that his tribe was protected by the protector and integrated themselves to become a protector. However, he also understood that the protector before them was only a new one, and they were not as powerful as the original protectors. Hence, he doubted the mermaid told the truth.

He smiled and pointed his finger. "He is human and won't be one of you. So, go back to the water and never bother us anymore."

The mermaid smiled. "It's our decision, not yours."

"Hmph! Then I can only destroy you here."

"With only you here?" The mermaid snorted.

"Do you think I would waste my time if I am going to fight you alone?" Nathan smirked.

When he said those words, the mermaid seemed to notice something, along with the turtle hiding behind her.

They looked toward their right, finally noticing the dust kicked up to the air. She never thought that Nathan was distracting her this whole time while probing information from her.

Although she had expected to give a few pieces of information to confuse him, she never thought Nathan would manipulate her to this extent. She looked down at the turtle and noticed that the turtle didn't really care about it.

He only watched the west and fell into deep thought. He never thought that there would be someone who managed to do this.

He leaped on top of the magical beast, finally revealing his appearance.

"!!!" Nathan widened his eyes and sweatdropped as he muttered. 'There is another one hiding?'

Nathan was not the only one getting shocked by this. The mermaid also had a shocked expression as she looked at the turtle. "Elder… Are you serious?"

"Yes. I can feel their movement… Although their number is only around three thousand, I believe they really want to take you down."

"What about him?"

"I don't know. He is smart, so he might be able to hide. If not, he should have the power to escape. The problem is where is this army coming from?"

The mermaid gulped down before the army revealed their appearance. And obviously, Ria was the first one to appear.

"That is… This place's strongest person?" The turtle squinted his eyes. "This might be bad. She must have killed the spider if she comes here. But it's too fast. There must be something wrong with our information. Princess, I will bail you out if the situation turns worse."

"What? We can still—"

When she was about to say she could win, Ria Ross shouted. "That is our target. No matter what our opponents are, they are going to die today."

"Ooh!" The Graham Family's soldiers roared as they advanced together with Ria, ramming the right side of the enemy.

The turtle closed his eyes for a second when Ria's army hit them before shaking his head. "Have you not realized it yourself? They are not the type to do something meaningless. They fully intend on killing us."

"But how?" The princess gritted her teeth, looking very frustrated.

The turtle thought for a moment before finding something was wrong. They were hit from the front and the right, but… What if they actually knew there might be someone keeping them on tab, letting Ria Ross go to the river. And with this kind of army, they should have come from another place. In other words, this was a reinforcement that only a few knew.

If he were the one knowing all of this, he would silence the ears on the right… In that case, there would be…

"We have been played." The turtle smiled helplessly. "Unsi and Marlin are trapped in the middle of their armies… And there is something else. No. Something is coming!"

As he said those words, footstep sounds started echoing in their ears as everyone turned to the left.

The mermaid widened her eyes, seeing the one leading them. "Kai Carter!"

Leading the two thousand soldiers, he finally arrived at the battlefield, striking the enemies from their left.

Nathan smirked as he said, "An eye for an eye, a pincer for a pincer!"