BOOM—!!
The earth trembled. A fierce explosion erupted among the Caster squad that was leaving the forest in formation.
"A bit stress-relieving... no wonder W likes being an explosion-maniac, carrying that heavy, huge grenade launcher of hers everywhere she goes... oh, that's not right. In this world's terms, it's not called a grenade gun, but a grenade-cannon."
The high-pressure environment of the Ruination was causing the memories of the Ruined King to resurface in Viego's mind, forcing him to talk to himself to distract his attention and soothe his spirit.
—Lest his mentality be affected by the obsession from the Ruined King, who forever wanted to save Isolde.
Viego would rather die than let himself become that simp again. He had had enough. Moreover, Isolde wasn't just an ordinary bad woman; she was a bad woman who embodied the traits of being a manipulative, two-faced hypocrite. Thinking of it this way made him hate her even more!
Viego watched the bomb explode in the crowd, but it failed to cause any significant casualties. This was normal—Viego, after all, was not an explosives expert like W. He couldn't time the explosion perfectly and could only throw the bomb early to avoid blowing himself up. This naturally gave the Casters time to react and respond, allowing them to use their Originium Arts to block the damage from the explosive.
So no one died, only a few suffered minor injuries from the shockwave. But this was also intentional on Viego's part. After all, if he blew them all up directly, where would he go to collect so much high-quality life essence? Sustaining the Ruination was a matter of life and death for him; any gain was naturally better than none.
The enemies warily formed a circle, with the sword-wielding, armored warriors on the outermost perimeter, and the Casters and crossbowmen on the inside. They originally had thirty men. But now only fifteen were left. There were originally ten Casters, but now only half remained, which was five.
—Viego specifically targeted the most threatening Casters for assassination, followed by the crossbowmen, and finally, the warriors with swords. In a team fight, you always focus the squishy mages and marksmen first. This was the common consciousness of every assassin player.
But they had made a fatal mistake. They thought that Viego would still be wary of their focused fire, as before, and would rely on stealth assassination, killing only one person at a time. After effortlessly killing the six-man blocking squad on the other side of the forest, the "full-status" Viego was now ready for a frontal assault!
The figure of the white-haired man appeared before them, openly and majestically. A black bomb traced an arc through the air, landing in their formation. Viego, holding a new longsword he had just picked up, stomped on the ground and charged straight ahead!
What followed was a one-sided slaughter, like a tiger entering a flock of lambs.
—After all, an adult sheep still has a pair of horns and might be able to resist a little, but they had no power to resist at all and could only be called lambs.
They couldn't be blamed. After all, who could have imagined that with every person Viego killed, he would become stronger, and that he had no fatal weaknesses in the physical sense?
In a state where the Ruination was abundant, he was not afraid of being injured as he was before. Moreover, the number of enemies had already been halved. Even with focused fire, they could not inflict the same kind of near-instant-kill damage as last time.
This was the dimension-lowering strike from the Ruination!
Viego intentionally left one person alive—the Caster who had previously spoken up to remind the others in the forest. He had some questions he wanted to ask.
"How do you all communicate?"
The Caster stared at Viego. "We don't communicate. Everything is within that lord's plan…"
"Then it seems your lord's plan didn't anticipate my appearance." Viego didn't indulge him, his opening words dripping with mockery. "Thirty people can't beat one person. If word of this gets out, you'll bring shame to your lord."
The Caster's face stiffened, but he quickly sneered back. "Heh... so what? Your defeat is already sealed. Look around you. The casualties of your mercenary company have already reached over seventy percent, while our forces are still numerous."
After saying this, no matter what else Viego asked, the Caster remained silent. Viego couldn't be bothered to waste time interrogating him and simply ended him with a single slash.
Having dealt with the Caster squad, Viego resumed his journey across the battlefield in search of W and Ines. He crossed the battlefield and arrived at the location where Ines and W had been attacked by the spells.
As expected, Viego did not see the bodies of W or Ines here, nor their "fragments"—the physical kind of fragments. Although it seemed they had avoided death, the situation was not optimistic even so.
Perhaps they were heavily injured, or unconscious somewhere? Otherwise, they would surely have stood up to command the remaining men in the two mercenary teams, instead of letting the company suffer a one-sided defeat like this.
The Caster was right. There were no longer any members of their mercenary company to be seen on the nearby battlefield. The team had been completely scattered. Most of them were fighting while retreating, wandering off or being driven to other places by the enemy. Or perhaps they had gone to notify Heavily and seek his help.
Even if this battle was won, it would be a pyrrhic victory. A mercenary company with so few people left would surely be unable to continue the escort mission, and they might not even get paid. Even if they won, it was still a loss.
Viego shook his head, no longer thinking about things that had nothing to do with him. It was better to find W and Ines first.
BOOM—
The sound of an explosion came from the distant eastern battlefield. Viego's eyes lit up. There were no longer many members of their mercenary company on the battlefield. Even if some mercenaries had brought explosives, they would surely have used up all their supplies by now. And at this time, the one who still had the ability and supplies to cause an explosion… was most likely that crazy female bomber, W.
BOOM—
The sound of an explosion rang out again, making Viego even more certain of his guess. He started to run, quickly heading east.
W is still alive, but her situation is definitely not optimistic. She's probably been surrounded by the enemy... otherwise, she wouldn't cause an explosion to attract the enemy's attention when her own side is almost completely wiped out.
------------
Near the site of the explosion.
"You made a pretty good decoy," W said with a grin, looking at the enemies who had been blown to pieces. She turned to look at Ines, who was leaning against a tree trunk. She was now wearing a cloak covering her body. Beneath the cloak, her clothes were torn in many places, and her whole body was covered in wounds from the explosion.
Ines's condition was even worse than hers. In the moment before the spell hit, she had pulled W away from the epicenter of the blast, but she was still heavily injured. At this moment, she didn't even have the strength left to stand up.
"Hmph... to think you can still laugh in a situation like this?"
"Don't you still have the strength to argue with me?" W said, propping Ines up, the smile on her face growing even more brilliant. "...It seems our people are almost all dead, huh? No reinforcements are coming."
"…There's an enemy search party to the north. If we bypass them and continue west, there's still a hope of survival." Ines's golden pupils shone with a faint light. "...I have a premonition. Reinforcements are coming soon."
"Oh? Then I'll trust you this once. If we're going to die, we'll die together anyway." W smiled happily.
Ines ignored her, just staring into her field of vision. On the chaotic battlefield filled with shadows, there was a void that had no "shadow" at all, rapidly approaching them from the west.
It's him...
To think that at a time like this, the only reinforcement would actually be Viego, the one she had been so wary of.
"Heh..." Ines let out a soft, unreadable laugh.
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