It's their scattered formation what will cost them the battle, his cavalry will charge unhindered all the way through them, slaughtering hundreds in seconds and routing everyone else in less than half a minute.

His aides were arguing heatedly, though. They suggested telling the scattered elites on the infantry to break formation and rush ahead through the mud to fight in melee with the magicians, to disrupt the constant burst of spells that are raining down on them now that the surviving archers aren't a worthy target. The cavalry still wasn't just there and in the short time that took the cavalry to turn directly at them and start charging them, a lot of attacks decimated his first wave of infantry.

The enemies' right flank turned to face the cavalry wing charging them, about 150 mages shooting all sort of water affinity spells from their hands. Each of those mages attacked so many times in such a short amount of time, like an armadillo spins rolling down a hill, that at least each launched five spells before one of them stepped forward. His cavalry weathered the magical barrage heroically, holding true without stopping. Barely under 300 horses survived but they were already upon the enemy, the horses abandoning their scattered formation to build power with the proximity between them, barely a breath worth of time away.

Lu Wei calculated twenty meters of distance between the two forces when the mage who stepped forward lifted his hands. Judging by his slightly fancier black cloak and blue lines along with it in comparison with others he must hold a higher rank among his military.

Even over a kilometer away Lu Wei felt the temperature dropping several grades and his aides going silent at the same time. With a chill going up to his spine he watched as light blue flowers blossomed from thin air, from the ground below and ahead of his men and from the knights and horses themselves. He quickly made the connection, everything that was wet by the water magic.

He observed incredulously as the charge with four lines of profundity was forcefully stopped as the cavalry crashed into the wall of ice flowers, cut and dismembered with the lightest of touches. Corpses, legs, and arms rained upon the mages' lines along with a shower of blood as the charge was stopped but their momentum kept going, sending them flying or crashing on the ground where impossible sharp blades of ice awaited them, cutting men and armor alike. A gruesome picture of blue and red. Only a handful of more or less unscathed knights survived and after a short internal deliberation turned around and fled.

Cryomancer, Lu Wei thought.

"Indeed his Majesty, one of those who rule over a magic affinity. This one is dangerously strong too," his advisor replied, so Lu Wei just didn't think that but said it out loud, perhaps the years were catching up to him.

And about the cryomancer, it is rare to find someone talented enough and willing to relinquish all but one of his magic affinities; much rarer than finding an ability user too.

"Now the attacks with water magic make sense, these were to decrease the Cryomancer's mana expenditure," said Han Bei while caressing his Warhammer.

The Cryomancer wasn't done yet, though. He seems spent but with a hand gesture, something materialized in front of him, a mist figure with arms, and darted away to finish off the dying knights trapped in Ice. Lu Wei sensed danger just at seeing the creature. The damned man can even summon an elemental.

His gut told him to order a retreat, the threat of the enemy army rising by the second. So many losses aren't a question of luck. Maybe it would have been better to have brought the siege machines that they left behind even if that slowed them down or maybe to have waited in the security of the fortifications. But he can't retreat, there are many things to lose now that he had risked so much. If it's necessary, Lu Wei will win the battle himself with his own martial strength.

Too late to regret now.

In the center the melee with the mages started, the elite buying time for their compatriots and something similar happened with the enemies, some stepping forward with weapons ready and unsheathed to receive his soldiers.

Some must be battle mages to be so confident to challenge true warriors. With so much mana those mages have they can't be better than average martial warriors in strength and now those will fight his vanguard, who weren't harassed by magic attacks all the way, those magicians preferring to hit where there are large amounts of his soldiers.

And surely enough upon the clash of the two forces his men were pushing back the enemy while fighting on the artificial swamp. Shining more than his brothers in arms Rayan Growild, not born in Mastan, cut mages left and right with each swing of his greatsword. Even if they blocked his sword they still couldn’t stop the power behind the blow and were cut anyway. The strength of this mercenary is famous over all the continent and it was exactly what his ability was. Not a born ability but one got through an ability crystal.

Mastan doesn't have either ability users or rulers of elements, always concentrating his resources in cultivating the martial strength of the spiritual energy in the young and talented.

The enemy also had a strange soldier. Attacks directed at him were strangely redirected, deviated, parried away by an unseen force. He seems untouchable. Lu Wei has never heard of something like this. Is it magic? Or he has an ability too? Whatever the answer was Lu Wei noticed his General giving orders to focus the fire of the surviving mages and archers on him. It seems that the mage is attracting a lot of attention and not without reason he kills his opponents even faster than Rayan.

Soon enough that particular mage, who wields two blue sabers, was being showered with spells' bolts and arrows. He moved and avoided most attacks but those that were about to reach him always turned slightly to the sides. Swords, magic, and arrows alike. A soldier slashed at him, the swing was too high, stupidly high as it passed above the mage's head without needing to even duck under the sword. The soldier's face frozen in shock as the chopped head sank in the mud.

The enemies were stronger than he expected. They probably don't just use spiritual energy but also some sort of body buffing spell. As Lu Wei expected, Rayan and the bizarre mage met in combat and the General ordered the long-range units to change targets to avoid friendly fire. Better sure than sorry.

Both fighters were fierce. The mage holding the offensive, pushing Rayan back. Rayan's attacks going strangely wide or off aim but he made for it with his high speed and back steps. His experience as a duelist showing, blocking, and evading the mage's swings efficiently even at a disadvantage.

Lu Wei's soul ached for a battle. These two are strong, talented but not at Lu Wei's level. Even with his prodigious strength, Rayan Growild wasn't a rival for the Peerless Warrior Lu Wei. If Rayan had a better grasp of the control of his spiritual energy then he would have won already, that the match is dragging this much just shows how much he relies on his ability.

And then, after twenty seconds of exchanges at high speed, the battle was decided.

Rayan's attack was too wide, just as it happened several times before but this time it was different. The mage didn't follow up with a slash to take advantage of the opening. Rayan's mistake was to get cocky and forget about who he is fighting against. He forgot that he isn't fighting with a martial warrior. He is fighting with a mage.

Without warning, a magic orb was shot from the mage's left sword mid-thrust. Rayan blocked it and it exploded in light that pushed him back. It was just a distraction, the mage was upon him an instant later. His sword glowed bright orange and stabbed Rayan's chest. The sword penetrated the armor like it wasn't there. Lu Wei winced, what in hell was that spell? That full-body armor was enchanted and made of a resistant material so heavy that only someone with Rayan's strength could casually wear it.

The sword shattered in thousands of fragments after being removed, probably a side effect of such a monstrous spell. The mage quickly retreated to the back of the line. Rayan's corpse fell sideways to the mud. His expression unknown thanks to his helmet.

Anger boiling inside and eager to let loose himself in the frenzy of battle Lu Wei instructed his subordinates and personal guard, they are charging with him to battle, just leaving some elites behind with his son. He personally will salvage the situation, his army continuing to be slaughtered and on the border of routing. He will teach those puny magicians how strong a martial expert is.

Lu Wei turned to his horse and put his hands above it, seeing his son on his mount looking at him and ready to go, Lu Wei smiled and started to tell him that he won't go to the battle. But before he could open his mouth he saw the expression on his son's face change to one of shock, his eyes quickly darting to look behind Lu Wei.

Lu Wei's elbow shot behind him before feeling it. Before his son could say a thing. His attack caught nothing. He turned around at the same time that he reached for his throat with his left hand. His beloved spear in the right one. He could feel the blood running down his neck and on his hand.

In front of him, with the same sneer in his face, that hateful representative stood. Dagger in hand dripping with blood. His spiritual energy surging in a second at full power, Lu Wei charged at him. One-handed with his spear and his left in his throat as he tried to futilely stop the blood flow.

In the two seconds that took his guards to dismount and get into arms reach of the assailant, Lu Wei had thrust and swung his spear a dozen times and the mage, who masterfully weathered Lu Wei's superior spiritual energy with his own, survived the onslaught unscathed. He didn't avoid or blocked the attacks, he disappeared before any attack could reach him. Disappearing from the front of a thrust just to reappear a step at the side or reappearing a step behind when Lu Wei swung his spear. All that without that sneer leaving the one called Ferio's hateful face.

As soon as his guards started attacking the mage, Lu Wei put all of his attention on the cut the mage made in his neck. Maybe he could manage to heal it before dying of blood loss. After a moment of self-inspection and to gather his spiritual energy to start the process of self-healing his expression turned grim. No wonder the mage wasn't preoccupied at having failed the assassination attempt.

He didn't fail. Lu Wei is as good as dead. He has less than a minute of life. He already can't hear much. All sounds now are in the background of his mind, maybe his brain is starting to fail. The injury will not heal, doesn't matter what he does. It must have been the dagger. Some sort of artifact that temporally makes healing increasingly difficult. Unfortunately, Lu Wei doesn't have the luxury of time or unparalleled healing skills; neither anyone on his retinue has them.

Lu Wei observed the mage toy with his guards as his strength left him. A specialist on spatial magic? Another of those kinds of mages? It has to be, he teleports at the speed of thought.

A moment later he was surprised to find out that Ferio wasn't a spacemancer as the mage launched spells of other magical affinities to his guards. He is just a very skilled magician even though he doesn’t seem to be over twenty-five. Such a skilled man, Lu Wei chuckled in anger and despair as much as his ravished throat let him. A formidable opponent fighting with such cowardly methods.

Ferio managed to kill three of his guards before his royal magician finally attacked him. The attack was avoided with teleportation and Ferio counterattacked with a barrage of magic spells. The royal magician jumped to one side and neutralized them except one with a wind blade of his own. A dark green orb of fluctuating magical energy advanced unhindered towards the royal magician, hitting him on the chest, to the royal magician's shock.

The necklace that he was wearing burst into pieces and the green orb was dispelled upon impact. A life-saving artifact, it nullifies one spell until a certain threshold of power. He and his son also have one, the only three on Mastan. Sadly for Lu Wei, it doesn’t work against daggers to the neck.

Ferio snorted and teleported away one last time. His mana likely spent by now. Lu Wei's legs failed him and he fell backward until a pair of hands caught him before reaching the floor. His head hanging to one side for a moment, and that allowed him to face the battlefield.

Even at the doors of death with just a glance, he could understand that his army was routing. His right-wing of cavalry lying dead between the backs of the enemy and dozens of catapults, these weren't there before, likely hidden with illusion magic. A giant whirlwind cutting in half his infantry annihilating and sending to fly everyone in its path. Less than half of his initial forces still alive. Worry creeping on him as he considered the enemy numbers, five hundred more than when this started. Where were they hiding? An overwhelming defeat.

His head was turned to the front after just witnessing that glimpse of his monumental failure. His son's, Lu Fung, tearful face greeting him. Lu Wei gave his guards, that are surrounding him now, the hand signal that signifies to protect his son with their lives. Then he gave another hand signal that means a global retreat. All the while his son was saying something but Lu Wei hears no more. Neither he has enough concentration to read his lips.

He caressed his son's face with the last ounce of his strength. At least he must get out of this mess. Thankfully he wasn't targeted by the mage, maybe they didn't know about him or wasn't considered that great of a threat. All happened so fast that his son probably didn't have time to move.

He admits his stupidity and sees clearly now. He was too narrow-minded before. The world is a bigger place than he thought it was and now he is here dying in this backwater place, far from his home. Now that he thinks about it, it was too easy to get here and wonders if the garrison in the fortification is well, if not they would get trapped. Lu Wei gave the signals that mean that their retreat is compromised and regretted that no signal indicates to never attempt to attack an enemy again. Nothing good would come out of it.

Lu Wei thought to see a fire in his son's eyes as the darkness claimed him and Lu Wei feared it, for his son's wellness. Lu Wei thought too that if he could talk right now he would tell his son how much he loves him and that he is proud of him. Lu Wei thought that as he closed his eyes one last time, to never open them again.

XXX