Chapter 184 Re-Taking Zoren (Part 1)

[Lightning Strike]

A bolt of lightning shot out from Leo's hand and split into several pieces, mimicking the roots of a tree. Each of the cultists standing guard outside the building were hit with a bolt of lightning and instantly killed.

It was easy for Leo to tell when his enemies were still alive after an attack. For one, they can't hide their breathing since it generates kinetic energy and he can feel it through his auras.

On the other hand, whenever he kills something or someone, he always receives a message from the system that confirms the kill and awards XP.

[Level Up]  (22 - 23)

'Finally. I barely got to level up while over the last few months because they wanted me to stay out of the fighting...'

The level up only awarded a single stat point which he immediately placed into his Energy, bringing it up to 500.

Once Leo's lightning had faded, the doors to the building opened and Leo's allies joined him outside.

"Do you have a specific plan in mind or a tactic you'd like us to follow?" Connor asked.

"I do. It's nothing special but it should give us an edge in the beginning. Listen up!" Leo said, getting everyone's attention.

A few minutes after explaining the plan, Leo and Connor were in the main street that lead to the city gate, charging towards said gate.

There was a group of ten cultists standing guard near the gate, none of them were paying attention to much of anything and the ones that were actually doing their jobs were looking through the gate to the outside of the city, not within.

It was the middle of the night and most of these cultists were sitting with their backs against a wall, fast asleep. Only four of them were awake and two of those four were playing some kind of dice game around a fire.

"Haha! That's ten copper plates for me, pay up!"

"Yeah yeah, give me a second." The cultist started fishing around in his pockets and eventually pulled out a handful of copper plates.

"Here you bastard, don't ever say I don't... What's that...?" The cultist suddenly stood to his feet as he noticed two figures approaching with speed in the darkness.

"Hey, everyone wake up! There's somethi..." Before he could finish his sentence a blade of condensed air sliced through his jaw/neck at a diagonal angle, cutting off most of his head and neck.

"Aahh!" The other cultist jumped back screaming. The ones who were asleep until now were slowly waking up, most them opening their eyes just in time to see a giant Golem appear in front of them.

The Golem grabbed onto the screaming cultist and slammed his body into the ground with a splat. It reached out for two more cultists, crushing one in its hand and throwing the other through the air.

Two small bolts of fire emerged from the darkness, piercing through one cultists chest and leaving a gaping hole with fire spreading over his body.

The other was hit in the head, causing a portion of their head to explode while the rest of their body was slowly consumed by fire.

Leo emerged from the shadows behind where the fire had come. He pulled his arm back and threw out a heavy punch.

His fist tore through one cultist completely, blowing away part of his torso as it did. His punch didn't stop there, hitting the another cultist behind the first one and caving in his chest.

The remaining cultists were crushed by the Golems large feet as they struggled to get up from their deep slumber.

Looking up at the top of the wall, Leo could see that Connor had sent one of his Golems to the top to get started.

Leo looked at the stair case that went up the side of the wall in a zigzag fashion and decided it would take too long to use them.

[Leap]

He bent his legs and jumped with immense force, his body flew dozens of meters into the air, arriving at the top of the wall in seconds.

There were about 15 to 20 cultists surrounding the large Golem, stabbing at it from the sides and back when it turned to kill someone.

'There's more of them up here than I thought there would be... I shouldn't let Connors Golem get too damaged, it would be a waste of his Energy if he had to fix it already.' Leo thought.

The Lightning Strike skill does exactly the same thing as Lightning Bolt but with two differences. Up to 10 targets can be chosen and each one of them will be hit with a bolt of lightning, whereas only one target will be hit when using Lightning Bolt.

The other difference is that each bolt is individually weaker than the one generated from Lightning Bolt.

Leo quickly counted the cultists, selected his targets and proceeded with his attack.

[Lightning Strike]

[Lightning Strike]

Two bolts of lighting appeared from the sky, each one splitting into many. In total there was 17 cultists, meaning there was 17 bolts of lightning.

There was a bright flash of light and a thunderous boom so intense that Leo was blinded for moment after the attack.

His eyes took a moment to adjust and his ears were ringing as he viewed the destruction caused by his attack.

Where there used to be cultists there was now small craters. The Golem was unaffected by the sound or light generated and the lightning didn't touch its body, so it was perfectly fine.

There were several charred corpses and body parts all over and even Leo was surprised by the power generated by the two Lightning Strikes.

Even though his ears were ringing slightly, Leo could still hear the shouts of dozens of men as they charged through the main street towards the city gate.

He turned towards the incoming cultists with a smile on his face as he leaned on the edge of the wall and watched from above.

The Royal Army soldiers that had arrived through the Gate suddenly burst out from several alleyways on both sides of the cultists and attacked them.

Due to the sudden ambush and the fact that they were surrounded, the cultists were absolutely slaughtered.

Their group of 40 reinforcements were quickly dealt with and there wasn't even a single death among the Royal Army members.

There were some injuries but thanks to the healers that were brought with, they could be patched up after only a few minutes.

Duke Wesley was especially impressive, having defeated at least 10 of the cultists on his own. His speed and strength were leagues above regular people.

Leo jumped off the wall, using Absorb and Redirect to slow himself as he descended. He walked up next to Connor once he landed.

Duke Wesley walked over to Leo and Connor and joined them as they watched their men recieve treatment from the healers.

"It worked exactly as planned." Duke Wesley said.

"We were lucky it went so smoothly. Regardless, we've managed to take out a significant number of them already." Leo said.

"We should have more men than they do now. From what you told me, Duke Wesley, they left behind a smaller group instead of their entire force."  Connor said.

"That's correct. If they have more than 90 men I would be surprised... I suppose they've already lost about 70 of them." Duke Wesley replied with a chuckle.

"They still have some regular fighters left and at least one Imperium. We may have the upper hand right now but you never know what could happen. We need to stay focused and treat them like a threat until the very end." Leo said with a stern tone.

"I agree. We can't allow ourselves to become complacent because we had one small victory so early on in the battle. They will be sending more of their people here soon enough and we've lost the element of surprise." Duke Wesley said.

Leo still had his Battle Aura active. After he was ambushed several times because he didn't have his Aura, he made it a habit to always have one of his Auras active to avoid those situations.

So when a flying humanoid creature with wings suddenly entered his Battle Aura, he could feel it immediately.

It was clearly aiming for him but due to the speed it was moving at Leo couldn't react in time to dodge or block what was coming.

It's hands reached out and dug into Leo's shoulders with its long claws. It pulled him up and away from the wall, dragging him into the sky above at quite a fast pace for something of its size, especially when carrying something as heavy as Leo.

As Leo was being dragged into the air, an intense pain spreading through his upper body, he was shown several messages from the system.

[ - 8 Health]

[You are bleeding profusely]

[ -1 Health every second you are bleeding]

[You have been poisoned]

[ -1 Health every second you are poisoned]