Yale, Wyba, and Lar rushed towards the main plaza after hearing the message from the governor.

It had passed more than a year since Yale reached Sword City for the first time, but he had never seen that the members of the Sword Five had been called to the main plaza, so he supposed that something important happened.

When they reached the main plaza, the serious face of Ralen confirmed that their meeting wasn’t for something good.

“You finally came. We are currently in an emergency situation, the doors of Sword City had been shut, and bandits had blocked any way to exit. They want us to surrender the city.”

Huge walls surrounded the city, so unless the bandits could fly, they would need to enter by one of the entrances of the city, and all the gates were closed at the same moment the governor detected the presence of the bandits near the city.

However, the same applied for those inside, with the bandits in front of their gates, they couldn’t leave the city without flying or jumping from the walls.

“Don’t they fear the retaliation of the Larken Clan or those big clans that support Sword City?”

Yale had only heard that sometimes there was someone with intentions to take over the city, but that was because they were ignorant and didn’t know the background of Sword City. For a huge bandit group capable of blocking all the gates of the city, it was difficult to think that they didn’t know anything about that.

“They didn’t fear it. The bandits in all the area had been regrouping and trying to increase their power and influence. I don’t know their reasons for stop fearing the background of Sword City, but this is quite a big problem because their numbers are quite high. Right now, they are waiting for our surrender as that would make the things easier for them, but if we start a battle, the others will start to attack the walls, and I doubt that the wall can resist enough time.”

Ralen didn’t fear the bandits, but that only applied to protect himself; while he battled it was extremely possible for the city to be exterminated by the other bandits. After all, the bandits would use any means to kill; they wouldn’t have a fair battle like everyone was used at the Sword Arena.

“How strong are they?”

The numbers were important, but the overall strength was also important; after all, it wasn’t the same being surrounded by a huge group of bandits at the Expert Rank or by the same group but at the Mortal Rank.

If the overall strength of the bandits was too high, Yale was ready to put Wyba and Lar in his Storage Space and flee from the city flying; he was sure that there was no way the bandits could stop him from escaping.

“There is only one at the Expert Rank; I can deal with him. However, there are around thirty at the Practitioner Rank, more than a four hundred at the Apprentice Rank, and countless at lower ranks.”

Almost all bandit gangs in the areas surrounding Imperial City had made an alliance. Those bandits who had banded together to attack Sword City were just a tiny part of that force. Fortunately, the strongest members of their alliance weren’t there because seizing Sword City wasn’t their highest priority.

In fact, they weren’t even interested because Sword City didn’t have any true value itself, its value was by its government and training system for the younger generation; the leader of the bandits that attacked Sword City was the one with personal reasons to attack it. The only benefit from seizing the city was that would hurt the pride of those big clans and the Larken Clan.

If one truly looked at the numbers, Sword City wouldn’t lose against the bandits, but Ralen knew that most of the members of Sword City lacked experience in such big battles while the bandits were extremely used to it. Moreover, the bandits were coordinated while the citizens of Sword City had never battled together and would block the others instead of helping them in that kind of battle.

At that moment, excluding Ralen, there were another four citizens at the Expert Rank in Sword City, but they were just at the 1-star or 2-star and couldn’t be compared to Ralen who was at the 5-star or the leader of the bandits who was at the 6-star.

Moreover, even Selenia had managed to win against those members of the Expert Rank before, so Ralen wasn’t counting too much on them.

“If you take care of the one at the Expert Rank, I will deal with the others before they could harm anyone in the city. Of course, if someone leaves the city, I can’t ensure their safety.”

Everyone was shocked after hearing Yale’s words, but when they thought about the previous times Yale shocked them, they could believe that the Sword Mage was ready to create another miracle.

“Are you sure?”

Ralen knew that Yale was someone who he couldn’t predict, but it was still difficult believing that he would be able to end all those bandits. If he followed Yale’s plan, there would be only two people battling against all the bandits, Ralen against the leader and Yale against all the others.

“If you don’t open the gates I can kill all of them before they manage to enter into the city.”

Yale was completely sure about that because the bandits weren’t strong enough to make him fear them since there wasn’t any rule to restrict his battle prowess like in the Sword Arena.

“I can jump from the wall, with my rank I will be able to endure it without being injured, but you are only at the Apprentice Rank, how do you plan to leave the city without opening the gates?”

The walls were quite high, and a normal guy at the Apprentice Rank would end injured after jumping from them; battling against a swarm of bandits after being injured wasn’t a good idea. However, Yale’s defense and resilience were completely different, so he didn’t fear that wall; anyway, he didn’t even plan to jump.

“I just need to do this.”

Two wings appeared on Yale’s back, and he started to fly. At that moment, Ralen understood why Yale was that confident; the aerial advantage was something that could change the course of a battle.

The fact that Yale could fly shocked everyone for a few seconds after they just sighed and thought that after all Yale was the famous Sword Mage and making some unbelievable things was still normal.

“You are surprising as always. Very well, we will act as you say, I will stop the bandit leader while you kill the others.”

Ralen knew that there were skills to fly, and since he believed that Yale was someone who trained in the Magus Path and had some mysterious background, it wasn’t that strange that he knew a skill of that type.

Yale’s wings looked real because they were real and he didn’t need any skill to use them, but there were indeed skills that created physical wings which looked like his own. However, those skills were all high level and far more difficult to learn than the Wind Wings which Yale learned.

While Yale went to the sky, Ralen quickly went to the top of the wall and looked to the bandit leader from there.

“Ralen, do you finally plan to surrender to me? I told you years ago that I will come back to take this city!”

The leader of the bandits was someone who was expelled from Sword City for cheating at the Sword Arena. It was Ralen when he had just obtained his position as the governor who expelled him after beating him in public for disobeying the order to get out of the city.

The cheating of that man was far too obvious; when he saw that he couldn’t win using a sword, he took out an enormous hammer and almost killed his opponents. He did that a lot of times, but he was too strong, so nobody stopped him.

However, the governor was stronger than him in a real battle, so after obtaining the position, the first thing he did was expelling that man from Sword City.

That man had never killed his opponents although they were near to dying, so the rules only ordered him to not come again in his whole life to Sword City.

That man had turned a bandit after that day, and when the bandit alliance obtained power, he managed to get enough resources to advance one level more than Ralen even though both had always been at the same realm previously.

“I won’t surrender. I will fight to the death to protect this city!”

One of the reasons for Ralen to remain in Sword City when almost all the people of his rank had already left was that he felt that he owed to much to Sword City.

After all, he was also a kid without background the first time he reached Sword City and relied purely on his swordsmanship to obtain all the resources he used before reaching his current level.

He knew that he would have died from hunger like a nobody without Sword City, so he was ready to protect it with all his strength until someone else was strong enough to protect the city and take his place.