A tremor could be felt as if it was a small earthquake.

When the mercenaries looked into the distance, they saw a dust cloud rising into the sky. "What's going on?" enquired a young mercenary.

"Look, what's that?" exclaimed another mercenary, pointing to the sky at the distant horizon; they looked up only to see a swarm of dark shadows approaching them; each mercenary squinted their eyes to better examine the swarm.

"Raise your shields, fools, we're under attack!" yelled the captain of the guards.

The guards raised their shields fast and orderly, but one could see the panic in mercenaries as they raised their shields not even covering themselves properly.

THUCK! THUCK! THUCK!

The volley of arrows fell like rain, injuring the majority of the mercenaries who failed to defend themselves properly, "be careful, there are mana embued arrows mixed among them." The captain yelled

"That's why I was against bringing noobs; they just get killed, and where do those lowly bandits get so many arrows? " Thought the guard captain annoyed.

On the other side.

After the volley of arrows had stopped, Alexis stood up and lowered his shield, waiting for the dust to settle.

"Stay in formation and be alert," Alexis commanded.

"Bwa-ha-ha!

"Look what we have here," said a hoarse male voice with a creepy laugh from the other side of the dust.

" Guard each others back, form a circle, and get injured in the centre." Alexsis, commanded.

His orders were carried out quickly as the guards demonstrated their excellent training.

"Brother, how's the situation here?" Liliana asked as she came running, Fionn leisurely following her.

"Not good. I believe we are surrounded and have only a slim chance of survival. " Alexsis responded with a solemn expression on his face.

In any case, this mission was never supposed to be easy. " said Liliana with a smirk after ruminating for a while.

Fionn just stood by their side, calmly observing the situation, his eyes slightly glowing violet.

As the dust settled, they noticed a horde of bandits encircling them, the bandits consisting of both men and women riding horses.

The bandits appear to be quite fierce with their expressions, but their ragtag clothing makes them appear quite comical, heck, one of the guys was even dressed in a ladies nightgown.

"Are these bandits or beggars?" was the first thought that everyone had upon seeing them.

"Their dressing sense is quite interesting," Fionn remarked with a chuckle.

"How could there be so many bandits in a single group, I don't recall such a group existing near Black Stag kingdom," the guard captain inquired as he approached Alexsis.

"The whole situation is strange, but if they helped the bandits, everything will make sense." Alexsis responded with a ruthless glint in his eyes.

That creepy voice could be heard once more as the bandits parted and a man riding a hyena emerged, "Remember me, young master Alexsis."

The man was over two metres tall and was clad in red metallic armour from head to toe; his face could not be seen clearly, but the malice in his eyes is terrifying.

When Alexis heard the man's question, he looked at him, perplexed, and said, "at least remove your helmet, who do you think you are that people will recognise you by your body outline?"

"Let's see how long you can keep up that cocky attitude of yours," said the man with gritted teeth as he slowly removed his helmet.

Surprisingly, a rather decent-looking face with scars and a trimmed beard appeared.

"You were the leader of the Cracked Skull gang, that was exterminated by me and my father, but you luckily escaped using a spatial magic scroll, tell me how did you even get your hands on that kind of item," Alexis exclaimed with an enlightened look on his face.

"It was the Broken Skull Gang, not the Cracked Skull Gang." Said the man, the mallice in his eye becoming deeper.

"Whatever, your name is Brody, right? So, are you going to fight or just keep spouting nonsense? " Alexis asked, a little impatiently, afterwards he secretly inquired to those nearby, "so what's the plan?"

Before anyone else could respond, Fionn asked, "Can you handle others? I'll take care of Brody."

Alexis, taken aback, responded with a chuckle, "it would be quite troublesome, but not as much as your side."

"It's settled then," Fionn said, smiling.

"Sure, hopefully they don't have more than two vice leaders," Alexis replied.

Everyone was baffled as they watched those two conversing.