591 The art of killing and economics Part 1 (2/2)

That grade-5 mage was at the city's entrance, standing next to Sharman. He had clearly observed the coordination between Saleen and Su, and his face turned pale.

Sharman actually began clapping, then said, ”I knew that Brother Saleen had been lying all along. Fourth Brother, he is a grand mage, you should be convinced by now.”

The mage wanted to rebut, but that mage killed by Saleen could already fly with ease, which was a trademark of a grade-6 mage. The coordination between Saleen and Su had slaughtered a grade-6 mage in one second. No matter how arrogant he was, he would not feel that he was superior to Saleen anymore. Both of them were grand mages, in this abrupt battle, there was nothing to conceal.

If he and Sharman were the ones in the fight, they could only manage to escape in the best scenario.

The battle continued, and Aini's undead soldiers arrived. The undead soldiers were originally laying an ambush outside the city, as Saleen was worried that there might be some indomitable experts in the enemy. The Berserk Undead Soldiers could stall the enemies for a while while Saleen and company would escape. At the moment, Cuisi had been darting amongst the bandits for several rounds, but he did not release any distress signal. That meant that there were really no experts among the bandits.

If this was a field battle, Saleen would be afraid of sustaining too many casualties. Now, he was in the city, and his team had seized an advantageous position, thus killing over two-thousand enemies in all that chaos. Saleen had no need to worry anymore.

After a short discussion with Aini, Aini began summoning the undead soldiers into the city. Eighty spirit wolves were still lurking outside the city. Saleen had taken into consideration the worst scenario. A spirit wolf's attack might be weaker than a grade-4 magic beast, but it could move about pretty swiftly. In a short sprint, even a grade-7 sorcerer would not be able to catch up to them.

The undead soldiers hiding outside the city were summoned by Aini's spell and at the same time, their berserk abilities were stimulated. Hundreds of soldiers stabbed the bandit gang in the back. At the moment, there were only more than one-thousand bandits outside the city. Most of the bandits had been burned to death by the phoenix. The remaining bandits were at a loss of what to do, and the appearance of the undead soldiers from the rear created even more confusion for them.

As Saleen soared in mid-air, he could observe everything, then he sighed in his heart. ”The individual offensive powers of these bandits aren't weak, at the very least, their abilities are similar to the pirates which I recruited in the past. Back then, I was still planning to form a powerful army using those pirates, it was such a joke. Whenever such bandits run into a regular army, the outcome will be total destruction. There were more than ten-thousand bandits, but a third of them were massacred by less than one-thousand of my men. There were many more injured servants in this battle, but none of them died. Including the over one-thousand people who were killed by the phoenix, the bandits have already lost half their manpower.”

This was totally different from the stories told by traveling poets. At this moment, Saleen had gained an understanding. Hooligans were inferior to bandits, bandits were inferior to a normal army, a normal army was inferior to a noble's private soldiers, and these private soldiers were inferior to the swordsmen from the imperial family.

In those tales narrated by traveling poets, the powerful bandits could single handedly exterminate an entire army!

It was no wonder then that the nobles never restrained the poets' verbal freedom. Anyway, in the eyes of the nobles, the stories told by a poet were all jokes and were the lousiest of jokes. The largest fortune in this world was grasped tightly in the hands of the mages and nobles, it would be strange to see bandits getting powerful.

If the bandits were organized, disciplined and had more mages, that phoenix could not have possibly killed more than one-thousand of them. This spell might seem mighty, but it was only used against normal humans. Saleen only needed to use a spell of the same grade to destroy it. A phoenix traveled slowly after all.

There was still quite a number of bandits in the city. Over at Saleen's side, other than the servants who were in charge of firing arrows, the rest of the people were injured. The bandits existed in overwhelming numbers. The team was slowly assembled, the injured personnel were treated with the Restorative Water first, then they were issued steel crossbows. Those servants who were originally shooting arrows now wielded weapons and joined the battle.

The city gates had been thoroughly cleaned. Forces from both merchant convoys were gathered. Under Su's command, they advanced into the heart of the city.

Cexing City was not huge. The city owner's residence at the middle of the city had been conquered, but the bandit leader had learned that his men at the rear had been exterminated. This young bandit was actually very decisive. A grade-6 mage had been lost, he did not want to lose all his forces here as well.

This bandit leader ordered the remaining bandits to advance north and receive Saleen's army, while he himself led a few trusted aides and fled from the southern door.

The enemy did not have a grand mage. Saleen followed behind Su, calmly casting spells with large effective areas, causing the bandits to collapse in groups. This battle had already become meaningless, it was simply a massacre. If this was a war between two nations a mage or holy master would only take on an auxiliary function, they rarely charged at the front. The enemies were bandits, they could be killed without a judgment.

There were no laws nor moral obligations restraining a mage from slaughtering these bandits. When the bandits realized that their leader had escaped, they began dispersing. Cuisi had led twenty cavalrymen on several killing sprees in the city, he was already very satisfied and did not want to kill any more people. He also knew that Saleen was not planning to kill all the bandits, otherwise Saleen would have already laid traps outside each entrance.

One party was giving chase while the other fled. As long as there was a way out, these bandits would not fight. If the city was blockaded, the soldiers would inevitably get hurt too.

Eventually, over two-thousand bandits fled from the city. Sharman joyously led her limited manpower on a hunt for the injured bandits in the city.

Saleen asked Sharman to come back. He said, ”Why are you doing that?!”

”Brother Saleen, they are bandits. Look, they all have tattoos.” Sharman picked up a human head and used a short knife to shave off the long hair, revealing tattoos on the scalp. Saleen never expected a young lady like her to be able to carry out such gruesome acts.

Seeing Saleen furrowing his brows, Sharman said, ”Each head can fetch one gold coin. Since a few thousand people are dead, that means they are worth a few thousand gold coins!”