Chapter 317 The Army Retreats

With the realization that their mana was almost depleted and that their movement had become sluggish, Yufan and Sios started panicking a bit. The enemy they had faced this time was truly something they hadn't thought they would encounter. They had fought against some of the coalition's top combatants and even though they were weaker than about half of them, together they were certain that they could not only defeat but kill any of them.

Fighting against Reign however made them realize that they had made a mistake when categorizing this young man with those people. It was of course not their fault entirely, even though the coalition had more top combatants than the kingdom, they didn't have any fighters that were on the same level as Lico was. Because of that, neither of the two was able to go against someone that truly stood at the top amongst those below the first evolution and they were unable to create any countermeasures against Reign. Even the coalition wasn't truly certain how powerful Reign was, all the information they had was from the spar he had with Lico, even though the new addition to the kingdom was rumored to be as powerful as Lico was, there was no saying whether or not that was true or simply a fabrication.

The army and the two powerful combatants were of course a great addition to the coalition, but they would still rather risk sacrificing them in order to find out the true power of Reign and some of the trump cards that the fortification had than risk losing their own people in the future against them. After all, even though the coalition had paid a huge price in order to get the army, they would rather lose them than their own people, after all, Yufan and his men were also mercenaries and they would leave them after some time.

So, the coalition devised a simple plan, attack the fortification which was in the past left mostly alone since Raigon was the one in charge of it, the coalition knew not to underestimate the man as even though he was weak physically, his mind and way of thinking were above all, not only was he able to send out spies everywhere and find out a lot of information from the kingdoms, he was also a brilliant strategist that could even lead a flock of sheep to win against wolves.

Raigon, and Reign who was new addition to the kingdom were two wild cards that the coalition wanted to know more about, because of that they decided to take a risky approach and send their newly acquired mercenary troop. If Reign wasn't as strong as the kingdom was boasting he was, he would die in the fight against Yufan and Sios, but if he was as powerful or even stronger than rumored, then the coalition would be able to make adjustments for the future.

Of course, there was also the case of Raigon and what he had done with the fortification, the more the army would manage to uncover the better it was for the coalition, not only could they save manpower this way, but perhaps the army could even surprise them and deal some significant damage to the fortification. The best outcome of this operation would be for the army to actually kill Reign and the other top combatants here as the coalition didn't believe that they would be able to break through the fortification.

Of course, they didn't mind splurging on the army, the defensive array and the other devices given to them were very hard to manufacture and the coalition gave it their all in order to make the army more formidable. Even if the army was unable to do anything, with the help of the array and other devices they could still return to the coalition and continue working for them.

Swish

Reign suddenly lunged at Yufan and swung his katana at him with full force, the attack proved to be too fast for the already tired and weakened Yufan whose ability and weapon skill were almost ending. He received a large cut across his chest and even the mana armor wasn't able to help him defend against it. Sios immediately used his sickle, like he did a couple of times during the battle he started spinning it with the help of the chain as the sickle transformed into something similar to a saw, immediately he threw it at Reign who surprisingly didn't bother dodging the attack and simply raised his broken sword in the air.

The sword vibrated slightly before Reign brought it down at the gray saw that was destroying everything in its path.

[ Severing, Sword One ]

The sword light immediately clashed with the saw, not only did the sword light manage to stop it in its tracks, but it pushed it back and destroyed the skill immediately. Both Yufan and Sios were surprised by the attack as Reign hadn't used the skill previously, one had to know that most people would focus on a couple of skills before the first evolution in order to get more familiar with them and bring them to a higher rank. Reign, however, didn't need something like that, his perception was incredibly high and he was able to learn and master skills faster compared to others, as such he had a larger repertoire compared to most people of the same level.

Immediately after the attack Reign charged at Sios who panicked, not only were both he and Yufan tired now, but thanks to their low mana reserve they couldn't use their skills as they did before. Sios had enough mana to use the saw skill two more times while Yufan could at max use his blood sword light three more times, against normal opponents this would have been enough, but against Reign who had already managed to survive the onslaught the two had launched previously, it was simply too little and too weak.

The two glanced at one another before breaking into a sprint toward the defensive array, they knew that the man in front of them was out of their league and that victory was impossible. Surviving however wouldn't be too hard as they could simply stay inside the defensive array, with their 2 000 men strong army, even Reign wouldn't be able to kill them.

Seeing their 2 leaders retreat made the two vice leaders and the top combatants of the army nervous since the enemy the leaders had faced was so powerful it meant that they would find it impossible to survive if they didn't retreat quickly as well.

It was during that time that Ilas finally acted. The enemy in front of him had suddenly lost focus for a moment as he had seen the two leaders retreating, seeing the opportunity Ilas immediately sprung to action. His ability was similar to Sios as he could camouflage himself to the point of being undetected by anyone, the biggest weakness of the ability however was that once he showed himself he couldn't become invisible for a long period of time.

He immediately lunged at the opponent with his dagger as the man suddenly widened his eyes after sensing danger, with an incredibly quick movement he dodged an arrow from Dain whose fingers were bleeding profusely before swinging his bat toward Ilas.

The bat glowed with a dark light as a powerful shockwave was sent toward Ilas, but upon seeing Ilas's calm face the man felt his heart drop. Ilas simply passed through the shockwave and the bat like he was a ghost before plunging his dagger through the chest of the enemy, the bat-wielding opponent was already tired from the constant barrage of arrows and his attempts to destroy the pillars, using the powerful skill drained him of most of the mana he had and he simply wasn't able to respond to the attack.

With the dagger managing to pierce through his heart, the man was a goner, even though Ilas barely had any mana left from being invisible for so long he grit his teeth and channeled the rest of his mana to the dagger before twisting it and causing a small explosion inside the man's chest, destroying his heart completely and effectively killing him.

As they start running toward the defensive array the final device in the army was activated, this was another device gifted to them by the kingdom of Asuria. The device suddenly started vibrating and shone a bright blue light, suddenly an invisible ripple spread through the battlefield. The ripple simply passed through the members of the attacking army without doing anything to them, when passing through Reign and the others a weird phenomenon took place. As the ripple passed through them they suddenly felt a bit sluggish and their mana was harder to control.

Lieara and her elite troops were weakened as a result and were unable to stop the vice-leader and the other elite fighters from retreating, even Reign was affected and his speed had dropped by a visible margin. Suddenly however his mark started shining brightly as an enormous amount of mana was released by him, his lightning covered the sky above the battlefield as he appeared in front of the two fleeing opponents.