Book 3. The Long Journey. Chapter 175. Repaying the Favor.

“Flee south!” the one-armed man yelled with the aid of his Qi after passing a few hundred more meters in the matter of three powerful leaps. “Flee to the Ruishi Federation, hurry!” he yelled again, his voice clearly sounding desperate, hysterical almost. Still, even with how hard the man tried to infuse his voice with what he had left of his Qi, his words only reached Arslan’s group and failed to reach those involved in the fighting further up ahead, further towards the north.

“This voice,” Sirius frowned slightly. “Zaban?” he said aloud, a heavy frown appearing on his face. If anything, not one member of the White Guard would take such extreme steps without offering any explanation for no good reason. Considering that the one urging them to flee south was most likely Zaban, Sirius was ready to immediately ask everyone to change their plans and start running in the direction of the Ruishi Federation immediately. However, before any words left his mouth, something that caused his throat to clench entered his eyes.

“How did they…” Sirius asked himself, the feelings of helplessness almost overcoming him at this very moment. He looked around, only to see the same thing everywhere. Thousands of riders were converging with this point as a center from all directions around them, perhaps with the exception of a small portion of the northern path that was quickly being shut off. Their approach wasn’t extremely fast just yet as they appeared to be intent on first completing the entire encirclement and only then pulling through with any kind of an attack. Yet, perhaps because Zaban had escaped them, they began tightening their ranks and revealed themselves from behind the horizon a little too early.

“About seven kilometers away, maybe a little less,” Sirius judged quickly. The terrain in the area was relatively flat, so the distance he could see from atop of a horse would be just about this much. “Maybe I can’t see them all, but there appear to be around seven, maybe eight thousand altogether. Now that I look again, quite a few of them aren’t mounted either. Did they ride their horses so hard that most of them exhausted themselves to death?” he asked himself, all of those thoughts going through his mind while Anna and everyone else was starting to look around.

“Damn it,” Sirius clenched his fists. He knew he ought to focus on what they could do from this point onwards, but he couldn’t stop a series of annoying thoughts from surfacing in his mind. “I didn’t think they would be able to suppress our scouts to such a degree. They also got here so fast they had time to encircle us from a large distance without us noticing. We should have ignored the casualties and pushed past Abdain when we still had a chance to run away from Yimar Maar’s forces.”

Yet, despite having such thoughts, Sirius was wise enough to easily realize that the current outcome was inevitable. With the limited amount of information they’ve had, he wouldn’t have pushed for an extreme solution and neither would Arslan or Laien have done it. However, as he was overwhelmed with those unwanted thoughts, he couldn’t help but become somewhat absent-minded.

“Wolf brothers.” On the other hand, Anna spared no time for feeling shocked once she had noticed what was going on around them. “We flee south. Call them back, go!” she ordered the two young men. She held back from giving the two of them any more detail as she trusted they would know what to tell Casimir and the others and as it seemed, the two young men understood her intentions perfectly. They rode out immediately, having merely exchanged a glance with their young Princess.

“Emma,” Anna shifted her gaze to a woman who appeared not much older than her but was, in fact, one of the eldest members of her Royal Guard. “Go pick that man up, hurry,” she instructed and the woman obeyed with a nod. As a water-element spiritual master of the fourth rank and a pseudo-wind-element martial master of the second rank, she was definitely a suitable choice for the task.

“Duke Diego!” Anna called out right after Emma went to bring Zaban, whose speed fell drastically once he delivered the warning. “Position yourselves behind us in thirty-man rows. Once Casimir and the rest join me at the frontline, spread out to sixty-man rows. We are going to break through them at once!” she ordered resolutely, then gestured to her own royal Guards to start shifting their ranks. She did, however, choose not to bring up the fact that their enemies could very well give up on capturing Arslan and instead leave whether he lived or died up to luck. If Yimar Maar chose to do so and ordered his people to go all-out, then forget breaking through and escaping, against such overwhelming odds all of them would be pretty much certain to be turned into lifeless corpses.

While Anna and practically everyone else around her was trying to keep their nerves at bay, the Wolf Brothers quickly got close enough to the battlefield for their yells to be effective. It wasn’t much of a surprise, but all those of their allies who were fighting Abdain and his remaining hundred or so men hadn’t noticed the encirclement of Yimar Maar’s army. To be fair, however, unless one of them happened to jump up and look at the horizon at the same time, they were unlikely to notice anything from the ground level since all of them had temporarily left their horses behind.

“Prepare to retreat!” one of the brothers yelled. He was enhancing his voice with Qi and sending it as far as possible with the additional aid of wind-element Qi, so even though not everyone would be able to hear him, the very majority of those present would. “Yimar Maar’s army surrounded us! We are retreating south by Princess Anna’s Command!” he shouted, trying to speak as briefly as possible while still delivering a tangible and easy-to-understand message.

“What?!”

Having heard the young man’s yell, the reaction of those fighting was majorly the same. They were all shocked and distracted and due to that, a few of them let their guard down and suffered for it. Thankfully, the advantage their side possessed by this point was great and their enemies were exhausted, so apart from some minor injuries, no one suffered any other consequences.

On the other hand, while similarly shocked, the main characters of the battle were quick to process the new information. They didn’t panic at all, but admittedly there were only two amongst them who were able to make a decision almost instantaneously, and those two were Julien and Casimir. As for those who needed a second or two more before taking action, all to think about what must have happened and what their new possible choices of action were, the likes of Laien, Yin, Reian, and the other various captain-level figures all belonged to this somewhat slower group.

“Regulars, disengage! Captains, guard the retreat!”

“Keep up the pressure! We retreat last!”

The two almost deafening shouts rang throughout the battlefield far more loudly than the yell of the messenger sent by Anna.

The first of the two belonged to Casimir, who was able to unhesitatingly order a retreat without even confirming whether there were enemies far away with his own eyes. The young Prince, despite his age, had experienced quite a few dangerous small-scale and medium-scale battles, so things like fear and shock were no longer able to shake him up to the core. Moreover, he trusted Anna’s character and abilities absolutely. He trusted she wouldn’t have sent a message like this one if she wasn’t one hundred percent sure that they needed to retreat immediately, without wasting even half a second. Thus, thanks to those two things he was able to make a decisive choice when it was called for.

The second of the shouts naturally belonged to Julien. While this silver-haired man didn’t possess the same level of trust in the validity of the message, he far outstripped Casimir in terms of battle experience. He had led a great plethora of missions ranging from assassination attempts and ending on the multitude of battles of all scales. He had gone through despair and rage in the past to finally attain a peaceful heart after slaughtering all those responsible for his miseries, and he had even nearly lost his life to Abdain half a day ago. As such, unlike Casimir who made his choice while trusting Anna, Julien was calm enough to instantly deduce that if they truly were surrounded, then it was most likely for Yimar Maar’s encirclement to be weakest in the south.

With Yimar Maar’s army coming at them from the south-west, and given how recklessly Abdain had chosen to face them, Julien saw it as highly probably that Yimar Maar wanted no further accidents to happen. He didn’t want to let them escape by some miracle and so, he had chosen to first surround them completely and only then attack. However, with how much Yimar Maar must have rushed his army to get to this place so early, it would be inevitable for the strongest people to end up with most stamina to spare, be it theirs or of their higher-quality horses. Because of that, those strongest people would end up being used to quickly cut off the encirclement to the north-east as that would be the furthest point for their army to reach. In the end, even if Yimar Maar wanted to be careful, he would need to be exceptionally calm to notice this subtle shift in the flow of his experts.

Of course, all of that was Julien’s own speculation, but he was positive that if they truly were surrounded, then their best chance was to go south and try to run to the Ruishi Federation. And, in contrast to everyone else, he was able to arrive at this conclusion in almost no time thanks to how used he was to reading the flow of battle. Thus, alongside Casimir, he was able to save a few seconds for their retreat to be carried out regardless of whether one would consider it to be negligible or not.

In this manner, once Casimir’s and Julien’s orders rang out, their subordinates started following the new instructions at haste. Similarly, despite being a step slower than Casimir and Julien, the rest of the commanders started retreating and calling their troops off to the back, too. Curiously enough, neither Laien nor Yin yelled any orders out to the White Sword unit as the two of them hadn’t quite realized that those hundred men started treating them as their leaders.

“Keep them here!”

However, as all of them were disengaging, Abdain’s yell revitalized the broken morale of their enemies. It could be easily seen that Abdain rules his subordinates with more than strength and benefits as all of the remaining hundred and fifty elites launched attacks once again. But, with how exhausted they were, Julien’s elites and the strongest members of Casimir’s Royal Guard who all stayed on the frontlines as they had been ordered were able to fend them off easily enough.

“Do we retreat?” Laien asked himself when he saw how weak those elites were. Given one more minute… no, if Reian and Casimir stayed behind too, then in just thirty seconds they would be able to wipe them out. They had killed a great number of them already, but if they got rid of this batch too instead of letting them recover, then they would have gotten rid of one future problem.

“But it’s not worth it,” Laien replied to his own question after a momentary consideration. Those people were tired out, so they would be a no-factor in the short-term as far as the chase was concerned. If they truly were already surrounded, then every second counted as getting out once the encirclement once it was tightened up and once it grew thicker would become nigh-impossible. So, as regrettable as it was not to kill dozens of martial masters of fifth and fourth ranks when they were weakened to such a degree, the price of the trade-off was too high to justify it.

“Laien.” He heard a thought and an intention sent by Yin the next second. He looked at Yin who was running just beside him and nodded, agreeing to the suggestion. He relaxed his body and prepared to synchronize his movements with Yin’s and just the next second, he felt Yin grab him from behind. Then, alongside a flash of lightning, the two of them moved about one hundred meters in the blink of an eye, only for Yin to repeat the movement art two more times with brief intervals of rest in-between. After a quick whistle on their part, their horses galloped towards them and as a result, they mounted up as ones of the very first despite being further away from the horses than the most.

The two of them immediately directed their mounts in Arslan’s direction and started looking around the area. They quickly spotted the thousands of elites from atop their mounts and saw how the only empty space in the north-east was just about to be shut off. “Can we get out?” the two of them asked themselves. The best-case scenario was if they charged a weak spot of the encirclement, but even then, they would need to get past over two thousand elites to get out of this place.

It was one thing to charge through the lines consisting of mercenaries, of which perhaps a few were weak martial masters of the first rank, and another thing to break the lines consisting purely of Realm of Heroes experts. A few combined waves of martial techniques would be able to easily destroy the wind protection of a charge of four hundred Tempest Riders and then slaughter the riders themselves. Even if by some miracle most of the four hundred survived, they would still need to fight their way through the ranks of two thousand martial masters ranging from the second to fourth ranks. There was also the issue of Yimar Maar’s elites, who would definitely be harder to punch through than those regular Realm of Heroes experts.

“… A few of us might get out,” Laien murmured with a stern look on his face. “The rest will die,” he finished the thought and suppressed the sigh. If it came to the worst, then he fully intended to keep to the promise he had made to Yin over a month ago and which the two of them had renewed and expanded alongside Arslan, Raphael, and Mikaela just a few days ago. The lives of the five of them would be the top priority, then the lives of others close friends and companions, only then everyone else would be taken into consideration. If need be, Laien was resolved to sacrifice all of Casimir’s and Anna’s Royal Guard alongside the experts of the White Sword and Black Sword units if it meant their survival. The same thing went for the experts under Julien, naturally. He wouldn’t feel good about it, but if his friends and companions survived, it would be an acceptable outcome.

As for being stubborn and doing something like trying to find a way for everyone to survive, he wasn’t naïve enough to try to do it.

“Reian!” At this time, while all the northern forces had retreated, Julien shouted while still trading blows with Abdain. “Take my men and retreat!” he added hurriedly, then used Lightning Steps to get out of the bad spot he had gotten himself into by talking in the middle of the duel with Abdain.

“You…” Reian’s eyes twitched when he understood Julien’s intentions. There needed to be someone to hold Abdain in check while they attempted to break out of Yimar Maar’s encirclement. Having a martial master of the seventh rank charge their vulnerable backlines would be disastrous given how the man could run at almost nine hundred kilometers per hour while their horses could at best reach six hundred for a while before exhausting themselves to death. It needed not to be mentioned that their speed would slow down as they were breaking through, too.

“I’ll be fine, go!” Julien shouted again, seeing how Reian was hesitating needlessly. He was the only one who could fulfill this essential task, so it was either that or all of them would die. He was a lightning-element martial master of the sixth rank now, so with some luck, he would have a chance to flee on his own. It wouldn’t be a good chance, but it would still be there.

Although Reian didn’t like the feeling of worrying over Julien one bit, he couldn’t help himself from growing flustered. What ‘I’ll be fine, go’ crap was Julien spewing, anyway?! If Julien stayed behind, he would almost certainly be as good as dead. It was the best choice to take at this time, Reian knew this much, but he couldn’t agree with it. He never liked Julien all that much since the man also appeared to have been interested in Jasmine, but he couldn’t stand it when the bastard was trying to sacrifice himself while telling him to go on ahead. There was no way he would go along with that!

“Retreat, now!” So, he shouted to Julien’s men but instead of retreating with them, he leaped back into the ranks of Abdain’s men and killed three of them with one powerful attack. “You too, retreat!” he rebuked the unit-leaders under Julien, all of whom had apparently chosen to stay behind and die here all to make sure that what was left of Abdain’s men wouldn’t be able to give chase. He then used the weakened version of Wind Steps to move sideways across the battlefield and cut off the second flank of Abdain’s elites with a few quick attacks.

“Hurry up and go!” he yelled for the second time and finally, saw the three unit leaders retreat with everyone else. He smirked when he saw Julien move his clash with Abdain to the left, making it harder for their enemies to pass by and thus tunneling them towards him. It would be a pain in the ass to hold over one hundred experts off on his own if they were moving through two spots, but as long as they were in one large group, it was a doable task considering how tired those people were.

“You are a fool!” Julien couldn’t help himself and yelled at Reian. Why was this goddamn fool staying behind when he told him to go with the others? Did he already forget that the top priority of their mission was to protect Arslan? He alone would be enough to stall Abdain for long enough! Escaping after that would be entirely up to his fortune, but there was no need for Reian to stay too! He had advanced to the sixth Realm of Heroes for god’s sake, he wouldn’t die in less than an hour!

“Perhaps I am!” Reian replied loudly, his clear laughter resounding alongside his voice. While his frustration at the thought of leaving Julien to almost certain death just for the rest of their group to escape was the trigger behind his choice to stay and help, it wasn’t the only reason behind it. He was loyal to Mustafa and he had known Arslan since the boy’s birth, so there was no way he would have abandoned them on a whim. He had chosen to stay here since he judged that taking a risk now would reduce the danger later on. After all, for Arslan to escape, they couldn’t afford to have Abdain come chasing after them mere minutes after they broke through Yimar Maar’s encirclement.

“Goddamn idiot,” Julien commented with a snort but made sure to keep working together with Reian in order to keep all their current enemies in this place. There was no time for him to try and convince Reian otherwise and it wasn’t like he had the leeway of forcing Reian to flee. Still, he smiled slightly and yelled one more thing before returning his full attention to Abdain.

“Once they arrive, follow me!”

It didn’t really matter if Reian understood his intentions, but he guessed that he probably would get it. Since there was two of them here, then the best way to keep Abdain occupied would be to threaten Yimar Maar himself. On his own, he would have needed to keep attacking and running while defending from all the experts around him, but with Reian, some new possibilities opened to them.

To be fair, though, by being vague he had hoped that Abdain wouldn’t read his intentions. However, considering how Abdain’s attacks suddenly grew fiercer, this little attempt of his seemed to have failed. Regrettably for their side, as much as Abdain looked like an idiot with overly grown muscles, he was by no means a blockhead.

“Hah.” Reian chuckled when he noticed the duel between Julien and Abdain growing more intense. “He had it coming,” he mused contentedly. He guessed that Julien likely intended for them to go after Yimar Maar once Arslan and the rest got away, but there really was no reason for Julien to say it aloud. He wasn’t so inexperienced to be unable to figure such a simple thing out and even if by some miracle he failed to do so, he would have still followed Julien at once if called to do so.

“Tch, annoying.” The next moment, he clicked his tongue and used Wind Steps two times in quick succession to kill off those who were trying to move around him and chase after Arslan’s party. They wouldn’t even give him a moment to glee over Julien’s little misfortune, truly extremely annoying!

Meanwhile, those who joined Arslan’s group started noticing that both Julien and Reian had chosen to stay behind and delay Abdain. However, they hardly had any time to ponder their judgment as by this point, their entre over seven-hundred-man strong group was in motion, riding south.

“Get ready!” Casimir shouted once their four northern units joined into a wedge-formation and started speeding up and accumulating momentum. He could already see how the encirclement was shifting to block the path they had taken and he could see how thousands of more enemies were coming from the south-west. They had to break through all at once and then quickly turn to escape to the south-east, to the Ruishi Federation, or else they would all end up dead or captured.

The tension in the air was clear to everyone including Laien and Yin, who at the moment were riding directly in front of Arslan, Sirius, Kasha, and the one-armed but healed up Zaban. While the over three-hundred Tempest Riders further ahead of them were beginning to rouse their Qi, causing a surge-like wave of wind-element Qi to form, the two of them were silently discussing what they would need to do in case Casimir and Anna’s forces were felled. Had it been just the two of them they then would have been able to hide their auras and hope to escape during the chaos, but they couldn’t leave Arslan behind. So, they needed to at least try and come up with some ideas while they still had some time to think.

“No matter what, don’t stop!” Casimir shouted out an order, and perhaps surprisingly, all of his and Anna’s remaining men responded with a battle-ready ‘Hoah!’.

The original four hundred Tempest Riders, after the two battles, now counted around three hundred and twenty, not to mention that many of them had used up considerable amounts of Qi. They knew that most of them would probably die in the next moment, but still, they rode bravely and with their heads high. With Casimir and Anna leading them from the very front of the formation, how could they not follow their lieges? None of them would abandon their Royal Children in battle, so even if all that awaited them was death, they would gladly jump right into the fire if it was required of them.

In fact, the world itself seemed to be turning red in front of their eyes in response to their passionate feelings!

“Red… eh?”

Be It Casimir, Anna, Laien, Yin, or anyone else, all of them had their gazes drawn to the south-eastern sky. There, good ten kilometers away, a gigantic crimson mass of energy was converging into a mysterious shape hundreds of meters above the ground level. Moreover, the rate at which spiritual energy was accumulating at that spot was so great that they could feel the energy fluctuations all the way from where they were! Many of them had thought of Great Magic at first, but it couldn’t be it!

“Runic Magic!” Laien exclaimed in utter shock. He recognized those crimson patterns in the sky! That gigantic runic sigil made of fire-element spiritual energy was undoubtedly something made by that old woman, by Flora! There was no other explanation, there existed no other way for a spell stronger than even Great Magic to gain this much power so quickly, in a matter of two or three seconds!

“Hah!” Laien chortled with a bright smile on his face and exchanged an ecstatic look with Yin. This old grandma, she really was there, wasn’t she? They never would have imagined that of all the people they could think of, it would be her coming to their rescue!