Chapter 319 - Avalanche

In the end, the group wasn't attacked at night. So, basically, Zaos only lost a good night of sleep. After a quick breakfast, the group moved to the North since it was the direction they found most footprints in the snow. Soon enough, they found something, but it wasn't human… it was a snow bear. Apparently, they were pretty standard in that region, probably because the soldiers in the North never had the chance to venture that far and find them.

"Can you deal with that?" Vitalar asked when the bear began to move toward the group. "We only have a limited stock of bolts coated with poison."

Zaos stepped forward and then fired a Wind Sword toward the face of the monster. The skull had a high endurance level, but it hadn't been enough to stop Zaos' attack. He had heard that a soup of bear was pretty good, but it was a pity he didn't have to taste it… the group will have to survive for the next weeks with rations alone.

"Oh? To think that your magic is even more powerful than theirs…" Vitalar said, visibly interested. "If I remember correctly, you trained in the northern base until you were thirteen, so you didn't have time to go to the magic school.. So, how come you became this good with magic?"

"That is classified," Zaos said.

"I figured as much," Vitalar said. "Still, if you only can use simple elemental attacks like that, then I am not really interested in your magic."

"Good for you," Zaos said.

At some point, Zaos felt like something was amiss, they had been following the traces of the villagers that escaped for almost three days, but they didn't find any sign of a village. 

"Oh, this will be good…" Vitalar said. "They headed toward this direction and kept moving without stopping, it is pretty obvious that a big village, if not a town is ahead."

Zaos considered that possibility. It wasn't exactly impossible, but it was hard to imagine. That region didn't have a single place where one could build a decent camp, much less a village. It had too many mountains, and it almost looked like…

"It almost looks like the place where the northern base is located," Zaos muttered.

"You finally noticed, the mountains in these parts are too close from each other, so it won't surprise me if we find an even camp that is protected by a wall of mountains," Vitalar said.

It was quite crazy to think that two places like that could exist, but it would be the perfect place to create a village and train many people with magic. However, Zaos noticed that there was something different in that region. Around the northern base, there were enough parts where the people managed to create roads, the same couldn't be said in that area, and so they will have to use a very difficult path.

After a couple of hours, they found a decent path in which they could use, and they won't have to climb the massive mountains in that area. However, the path seemed weird from Zaos' perspective.

"Don't you feel anything while looking at that?" Zaos asked.

"I feel relieved for finding a very good road without rocks blocking our path," Vitalar said. "Stop wasting time, the enemies' big settlement must be behind those mountains."

"That is probably why I feel that it is weird, that is the best path, but it is also a decent place to prepare an ambush," Zaos said.

Vitalar stopped and looked around. On both sides of that path, they could find two mountains completely covered in snow. It wouldn't be weird if some caves were hidden somewhere, but finding those just by looking from a distance would be impossible.

"We will use that path, the others will make us waste two or three days, and the risks of accidents are high and that will inform our presence," Vitalar said.

Zaos sighed… it was obvious that Vitalar's curiosity was making his behavior become annoying again. While he had some tactical knowledge and experience preparing ambushes, he ignored those when a huge discovery was so close. That was why it was a pain to work with others when he was the only soldier in the group. 

Zaos led the group without any other choice because it would be faster to notice any ambushes if he stayed in the front. Not to mention, it will also be easy to protect them. After following the path for a while, they almost reached the summit between the two mountains, and just like Zaos had expected, two groups suddenly appeared from both sides.

"I told you, damn it…" Zaos said and then sighed before he drew his sword.

"Drop your weapons and surrender," Zaos heard a male voice coming from the right side.

"Run!" Vitalar shouted.

What a dumbass… he had toward the enemies. Zaos followed them by behind while watching to both sides. Immediately, he saw some Fire Spears appearing out of nowhere and then being fired toward them. He enhanced his arms with wind magic and blocked all the ones coming from the right side, but the others were too far away from him.

In an instant, Zaos fired several Wind Swords and made them collide. An explosion happened that made the area tremble, but at least it prevented all the projectiles. However, for some reason, Zaos had a bad feeling about that.

The explosions made a part of the mountains tremble and then made snow from both sides fall… it was an avalanche. Two of them, and the amount of snow that it was losing was enough to bury a big town. Zaos enhanced his legs and then approached the group. In the blink of an eye, he also increased the rest of the group's moving speed. That bought them some time, but Zaos still could see the sea of snow quickly approaching. Without any other choice, Zaos enchanted his sword with mana, with all the mana he could muster before firing toward one of the mountains of snow. His attack somehow hit the target and made the avalanche stop, not really. It only made the snow fly toward all directions. However, when Zaos tried to do the same on the other side, he noticed that he was out of mana.

"Oh, shit…" Zaos said.

Zaos turned around and began to run, but he was eventually engulfed by the snow.