The Fire Elementalist approached Arath conjuring a ball of fire in her hand and with a broad smile on her face. Without even flinching her eye she unleashed full power of the spell aiming to kill.

'Fuck, that's unfair. I don't know any offensive spells and haven't even stepped into the intermediate level while she freely casts firebolt. Give me a fucking break.' Arath inwardly cursed trying to dodge the incoming attack.

The firebolt was a spell with a considerably big area of attack which was his weak point. Even though, thanks to his ability, he could percieve and easily dodge most types of attacks there was nothing he could about explosions. He jumped as far away as he could but the schockwave sent him flying. Before he could get up one of the more normal enemies tried to stab him with their spear. Arath rolled to the side and jumped on his feet.

'There is no way I can defeat her. My only choice is to try to get past her and do something about this carriage outside. If I can slow them down the Council's Guard will deal with them quickly.'

But saying was not doing, moreover it was from from it. The young man avoided few stabs and slashes directed at him and with a few smooth moves he disarmed one enemy taking his short sword. With a familar feeling in his hand Arath felt as if a stone was lifted from his heart. Putting all his strength into his legs he started to run forward like a wild bear. The woman once again conjured flames in her hand and tried to stop her enemy by spreading the fire around her. She became the core of a giant fiery wall blocking everyone's only way outside. Arath tightened his grip and prepared for the pain. He was going to crash into his enemy with all his strength in order to break through but to his surprise the woman backed away and gave him way. Realizing something was wrong he looked around trying to understand her reasoning only to find a burly man behind her. A giant, over two meters tall with arms as wide as normal person's torso, cracked his knuckles and smirked. Two hands, the size of a head, reached towards Arath and tried to grab him, the young man slipped away just by a hair's breadth and panted heavily.

'That scared the shit out of me. If this bull got a catch of me, Clara could collect my bones from the ground. I need to be extra careful now that there is two of them. What to do?'

Thinking of a solution while fighting didn't prove to be a good idea. Few consecutive hits landed on Arath putting him in an even more disadvantagous position.

"Did this midget really force you to reatreat? I think I will have to report you to the boss."

"Don't shit yourself. You hit him and there he is standing on his two legs still able to fight. You, who call yourself the best Body Elementalist in the unit."

"Humph. Let's take this kitty out now, he might be dangerous if left alive."

That conversation between his enemies gave Arath the pause he needed to catch his breath and think of a plan.

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Clara was surounded by heavily armored enemies from every side. She once again activated her ability and with the speed of sound crashed into a tall man with a mace in his hands. The power of the kick threw him off balance and he had to take few steps back to learn how to breathe again. Four arrows flew in her direction but just before they were to reach their target a wall made entirely of ice rose before Clara saving her in the last moment. Philip jumped in the circle efortlessly freezing three closest enemies.

"Pick a target of your own caliber next time!" Philip looked at the girl with mockery in his eyes.

The middle-aged man stabbed one intruder with his his estoc while his companions dealt with the rest. The huge room filled to the brim few minutes ago was almost empty now, the side entrance allowed the crowd to escape from the claws of death, while all heroes that decided to follow their new option gathered near the main door. The floor initially white and clean was now painted red and with every step Philip, Clara and the rest had to step over dozens of bodies. The dead belonged to both factions, yet majority had good clothes and shock carved in their faces forever, it was this detail that allowed them to recognize who was who. Other allied elementalists soon joined the group and moved towards a group of enemies standing next to the renegade heroes. Six intruders came out to meet them, this time it was easily recognizable that each and every one of them were also elementalists and not weak ones. To rub salt in the wound they immediately started conjuring different manifestations of elements.

"Unbelievable, they all reached intermediate level! I thought the Council's Guard was the only larger unit with so many strong elementalists!" Philip gasped in surprise but took the lead of the charge. He wasn't inferior to his enemies, he reached the apex of the same level after all. Three strongest men joined him at the front and with this, both sides clashed against each other.

---------------

Arath looked behind in order to see if he could request any back up but the battle inside was even more fiercer than the one he was fighting. Resigned he turned to his enemies and noticed that the two were finally making their move.

'Looks like I will have to give it my all if I want to survive not even mentioning achieving my goal.' The young man corrected his stance, readied his sword and braced for the hardships the following minutes would bring.

Air before him started to heat abruptly and in the next milisecond it exploded with a loud bang. He jumped to the side but what welcomed him was a giant fist less than ten centimeters away from his chest. Arath was aware of the incoming attack before avoiding the previous, so he easily evaded it by lowering his upper body. Arath used the power and strength behind this attack against it's owner by moving forward, weapon in hand, and slashing the enemy's abdomen, but to no avail. The skin and muscles of the Body Elementalist were as hard as steel and the sword just bounced off but hurting the enemy wasn't the boy's main goal. He run with all his strengh in the direction of the carriage. It was a rather large model made for more than sixteen people and if one wanted to squeeze as many people as possible it could provide seats for a group of more than 30, provided that the draft animals could still move. In this case it was not a problem because three giant blestols were tied together for this job. This poor creatures were Arath's target, just killing one would significantly slower the carriage and slowing the enemy was all he needed to do. Finding their weak spots with his ability was not a problem so not a second has passed after he arrived when the first animal shrieked in agony. Not stopping there Arath stabbed the next creature in their neck causing it to slowly die and fall under it's own weight. He tried to attack the last blestol but his senses told him that it was a stupid idea as an explosion was about to take place half a meter behind him.

'So they finally caught up with me. I did what I could, now I will leave the rest up to the elites.' Arath backed away and with his remaining strength sprinted to the building. He was just about to make it when he spotted a fist approching him faster than anything he had ever seen.

'Nope. No way I will dodge it. So this is how my story ends.' Arath closed his eyes and gave up on his life. Suddenly the air surrounding him was much different than before. He could perceive every molecule and the forces between them. The space around him no longer seemed to constrain him. In complete awe for the phenomenon he no longer cared for the outside. That was until a blow as heavy as the Awakening Hall itself landed on his cheek.