The Guardians' Throne - The First Magic Swordsman

Chapter 331 - Weird Feeling

            When Vitalar heard of what the avalanche caused, he gave up on the attack and gave the other for the soldiers to clean the path. As long as they get rid of the snow in the mountain base, they will be able to march while keeping a defensive formation. Not everything was lost yet... Still, he had a bad feeling as how things were working out.

              Although they had many soldiers that could work and clear the snow, they didn't have many shovels. Some soldiers began to clear the path using their weapons, but in the end, they only finalized digging at the end of the next day.

"Are you serious?" The Captain of the first unit asked. "We lost one day digging in the snow? What kind of sick joke is that?"

"I am starting to think that the avalanche wasn't an accident or a mistake," the Captain of the third unit said.

            Everyone has reunited at the Vitalar's tent again, but he was nowhere to be seen.. Only after a couple of minutes did he show up, and he seemed to be in a bad mood.

"... My apologies for the delay," Vitalar said. "I was organizing a team to look for other routes or even secret routes in the mountains that the followers of the demon god might use. We will keep trying to succeed on plan A, but we can't expect that will succeed no matter what. It is obvious at this point that the enemies are more ready for this battle than we thought."

"Are we going to attack at night again?" Cohnal asked.

"Yes, we will, but we won't wait to attack only at night," Vitalar replied. "As originally planned, Arlen's unit and the blood knights will attack as soon as they are ready, but lieutenant Nyana and the mages will stay close to the frontlines to help with magic if necessary. Your job will be to stop the logs that the scouts mentioned earlier."

"... Understood," Nyana replied with a dark expression on her face.

          Nyana had cried a lot when she waited for Zaos to return, but he never did it. However, now she had another reason and was much stronger to eliminate the enemies.

          After some quick preparations, both units headed to the mountain ahead. Arlen's men were carrying some heavy shields since they were supposed to focus on defense only, and Nyana's special group was right behind them. Once they reached the midway point in that route, they saw some logs rolling down the mountain, and their speed was quite troublesome. However, Nyana and the other mages easily attacked and destroyed them with wind magic. 

"Eh?" Nyana said, surprised.

            However, much to their surprise, the logs didn't explode in many pieces, they broke, not they kept rolling down while some weird things around them kept the wood attached to each other. Arlen's unit blocked the logs, but even though the impact had decreased, some members were grunting in pain since the impact cracked their arms in certain parts.

            Soon after, Nyana and the others noticed that animal fur had been used like rope to keep most parts of the log connected. The knot was quite complex, and it wasn't something that could break with one or two wind projectiles. Unfortunately, before they could find a solution to that problem, other logs began to roll down the mountain.

          The mages attacked again, not once but twice. Some of them missed the second hit, but the majority of them managed to hit. Unfortunately, they failed in completely destroying the logs again. The frontline got hit by them, and some of them fell on their knees and dropped their shields. Once that happened, some followers of the demon god showed themselves and attacked the group with Earth arrows.

"Second line! Take the front!" Arlen shouted.

              A new group of men armed with shields blocked the arrows, but soon after, they were hit by several logs. Since the shields were blocking their field of vision, they were caught off guard.

"Brace yourselves and keep advancing!" Arlen raised his voice again.

          The group tried, but it was impossible to protect the mages from the Earth Arrows and let them attack the logs at the same time. The number of injured was increasing, but no one had died yet. Due to that, Arlen was wondering if he should keep pushing forward or retreat. Aside from the mages, the bloody knights had the energy to spare, and they could easily defeat the followers of the demon god at the top of that path, but…

            When Arlen was about to give the order to advance, suddenly, the frontline began to lose their balance, and large sounds of impact echoed through the area. Arlen saw some rocks rolling and hitting the shielders, and since the point of impact was lower, their stances were breaking. As if that wasn't bad enough, their shields began to melt after getting hit by Fire Arrows.

"Retreat! Retreat!" Arlen shouted.

          In the end, Arlen decided to retreat before he could suffer some losses. As long as they don't lose soldiers and the enemies use their resources, they will always have the advantage.

            Once they were back at the base of the mountain, Arlen noticed some surprising eyes directed at him; he had retreated a bit too soon, after all. He ignored them and went to talk with Nyana.

"Nyana, I think it will be better if your group focuses on support," Arlen said. "Try to mend the bones of everyone and we will eventually succeed in our advance."

"Yes, sir," Nyana nodded.

          Truth to be told, Nyana didn't like that idea. She wanted to kill as many of the enemies as possible. Still, she was smart enough to understand that she and the other mages had to play for the team in order to secure victory.

"In any case… something smells fishy with their actions," Nyana said while looking at the summit of the path. "What is this weird feeling that I have right now?"