118 I will do the countdown. (1/2)

”Stop! Don't do it, Venessa!” Clara suddenly shouted at Venessa when she realized what the latter was about to do.

Venessa, who had doubts about her actions from the start, hesitated after hearing her shout and decided not to cast her spell from the middle of the encirclement.

If Hanry were in her place, he would not have hesitated even for a second and just fired his spells at the drake. The only reason that he was not attacking it right now was that he was afraid that his spell might hit Clara because of all the confusion.

Instead, Venessa chose the second best thing that she could do to protect Clara. And that was to run away from there.

However, there was clearly not enough time to run away as the drake had already reached the front lines of the formation.

It was only a matter of seconds before the drake would kill its way through all the mercenaries.

Moreover, the mercenaries were surrounding them from all sides. It was ironic that this formation that would have protected them had now become a trap for them.

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A few moments earlier, Rufus had stood watching these events play out, with the rank 7 mages rigidly standing behind him.

”Leader! Shouldn't we help them? At this rate, the drake could become a huge threat to lady Clara,” suggested one of the rank 7 mages behind Rufus.

For a moment, Rufus did not reply and just kept staring at the scene from afar. It seemed as if he was waiting for something, but his subordinates did not understand what.

”No, just a bit more... Ok, I will do a countdown. Rush to help on my go.” Rufus instructed. It seemed that even in the last seconds, he did not want to reveal their presence to the group.

Rufus wanted to avoid showing themselves as much as possible. The mission they were sent on was crucial to the plans made by his Majesty. He tried to avoid failure as much as possible.

The rank 7 mages behind him did not understand what he meant by waiting even more than they already had. For them, the situation already looked dire enough that waiting even longer would only increase the odds of Clara dying.

Moreover, they did not see anyone that could help the group out of their predicament at this point.

”3,” muttered Rufus in a low voice as everyone behind him got ready to take action.

”2,” the mages' bodies tensed as they started circulating their mana to increase their physical strengths.

”...1,” said Rufus in a downcast voice. Revealing themselves at this point meant that it ruined all their future plans.

Just as the mages had jumped from their positions, Rufus saw something in the battle and shouted, ”Halt! Back to your position. We will not interfere.”

A few of the mages tripped and were falling down, but they managed to balance themselves because of their decades of experience.

Rufus smirked as he saw a man in a white shirt, slowly walking towards the drake from the sidelines.

'You've finally decided to step in, eh?' Rufus thought in his mind, amused and glad that they did not have to step in and reveal their presence, failing the mission given by his Majesty.

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