Chapter 128: A Volley of Flame Arrows (1/2)
Because of Dohby’s order, the scene turned into a chaotic bloodbath in an instant. In the midst of the chaos, Ancarin, under the cover of the hunters, saved any villagers she could from the backlines while unleashing spells on the bandit minions. As for Regine, she stood guard by our conspicuously expensive looking carriage, killing any bandit who tried to approach it with her now well practised assassination techniques.
Sigh, how could a human give the order to massacre others so easily…the whole point of me staying behind was to prevent this worst case scenario from happening and yet I seemed to have helped it along instead…
Fear and panic was thick in the air as the bandits ran amok amongst the defenseless villagers. The old were cut down and the children were trampled while the women could only watch helplessly, crying out in anguish as the bandits had their way with them…this was the tragic fate of the weak. If nothing was done soon, there would be no more villagers to save.
NO! There must be something I can do, anything! I must stop this madness right now, but…how?
By now, the situation had spiraled out of control, even if Dohby or Dawson were to give the order to stop, it would probably be too late to prevent the impending disaster. The only option now was to kill off these two heads and shock the bandits into submission.
If their leaders were to die, the bandit horde would naturally fall apart and flee. Of course, this was the best case scenario; it was entirely possible that they could, in the midst of their bloodlust, continue killing even if their leaders died.
In the end, it all depended on luck…luck huh…I wonder if my luck could be considered bad or good?
Putting aside the outcome, do I even have the means to kill their lead-…wait…I still have Shadowfang!
Even without the Inverse Cut, Shadowfang was still an epic weapon that I could wield. Being such a powerful weapon, there’s no way it was just an unstoppably sharp blade, there must be even more secrets hidden within it waiting for me to unlock. Even though there’s no time to unlock its potential, I could still use its sharpness to pull a sneak attack on Dohby.
Just one chop, that’s all it took and he’ll be in halves just like those two bald brothers; one chop and their bodies were bifurcated, defensive enchanted gear and all.
Before that however, there was still one more trump card I could employ.
The enchanted straight blade had a three-star fire spell engraved onto it which Ancarin identified as being an offensive spell. Although she wasn’t entirely sure what it did exactly, judging from its engravings, it was probably an immensely powerful fire arrow type of spell.
However, wasn’t fire arrow a one-star spell? With enough mana, a powerful mage could boost its power to two or three-star but shouldn’t a high-grade blade like this at least have a three-star spell engraved on it? …did someone make a mistake somewhere?
Whatever…with Moranthal keeping Dohby busy, now’s the best time to use it…I just hope it works out.
With that, I channelled all of my mana into the blade and prayed that this unknown engraving could create a miracle.
In order to prevent any chance of friendly fire, I made sure to remind Moranthal with a quick yell: “Moranthal!!”
As the channelling dragged on, a circular magical array formed of flames appeared half a meter in front of me. From within it rushed forth a flame arrow that sped right towards Dohby.
Just one…? As that question flashed through my head, the flames coagulated once more into a flame arrow and fired off followed by a third, a fourth…soon, an unending volley of flame arrows could be seen slicing an incandescent line across the air as they flew towards their target…how was this a magical spell? It’s practically a machine gun!
The ten over flame arrows flew in a straight line towards Dohby at a speed faster than the wind.
Having been warned beforehand, Moranthal expended all his efforts into stalling Dohby until the instant my spell was finished channelling, at which point he immediately leaped to side. A giant sword sliced through where he was just seconds ago at which point the first flame arrow reached the bandit.
Feeling the scorching heat up close, Dohby knew there wasn’t enough time to dodge. He swiftly raised his greatsword in front of him as a pseudo shield, while he focused all of his Fighter’s Aura into defense.
*bang*
As the flame arrows battered the metallic obstacle, they exploded in a raging display of fiery wrath that rapidly engulfed the man.
Despite that fearsome display, I knew that he was still alive even without any visual confirmation. His soul was still there, it had merely been weakened, so it probably meant that he only sustained some minor injuries.
I promptly sheathed the straight blade and charged at the bandit. As my feet drove into the ground, I reached for Shadowfang just in time to see the burly silhouette reveal itself amidst the dispersing smoke. It wasn’t exactly a clear target but it was more than enough for me to confirm that it was Dohby.
I lowered my back, gripped down tightly on the hilt and with the aid of my running momentum, swung it over my back in a—diagonal iaijutsu slash!
While it wasn’t exactly a traditional iaijutsu slash, this was still a slash by an epic grade blade. If he dared to block it, all that awaited him was death!
“Hahaha, bring it on!” As expected, he knew of my presence before I even reached. Standing there without even bothering to put up a defensive posture, he activated his Fighter’s Aura and nonchalantly put up his greatsword in an arrogant display of overconfidence. “A two-star demoness like you actually dares to fight me head on, hah, you’re either retarded or overly confident…you…”
It goes without saying what the outcome of the clash was. With his brimming confidence, it never once crossed his mind that I was a threat at all….yet I was. His greatsword was merely a low-grade enchanted weapon and simply wasn’t a match for my Shadowfang.