"BOOM"
"CRACK"
"CRACK"
The loud bang of the explosion was followed by two more loud cracking noises. The scorpion's explosive arrow hit the tower's double doors, which were made of reinforced black stone. Two more hit the fifth and sixth floors, exploding and cracking the windows on those floors and disappearing inside.
When the smoke cleared, all that was left of the mighty double door were a few smoking red pieces of rock still stuck in the tower's hinges, while several cracks extended across the black stone in all directions. Caught off guard by the bold and extremely destructive attack, the Lords of Death tried to activate a ritual from the middle tower that formed a powerful wind shield to protect themselves from the subsequent attacks.
However, it was too late, the cracks prevented the shield from reaching beyond the fourth floor. At that moment, another volley of giant arrows hit the upper floors, causing tremors throughout the tower and causing the shield to weaken even further, this time falling to the third floor. With no choice, all the inhabitants of the tower ran out of there towards the powerful siege weapons, but the 3 men who remained at a distance of 200 meters, Omar, Jhon, and Ted's brother, entered the fight, easily crushing the attackers and preventing them from approaching the other apprentices.
During this first confrontation of apprentices, some sneaked through the shadows and were close to reaching the scorpions, when they were surprised by assassins dressed in black, they were extremely lethal in close combat and quickly slit the throats of the apprentices before they even got within 100 meters of the scorpions.
After the death of the first group, the Lords of Death had no choice but to launch a large-scale attack. About 30 trained assassins came out of the middle tower and slithered into the shadows using spells and artifacts, while a man wearing armor and a magical cloak over it walked out of the tower alongside 4 other apprentices.
The man who was the leader of this organization activated a speed spell and quickly ran past Omar. When Velaryon tried to stop him, 2 of the 4 apprentices intercepted him. While the other 2 went towards Jhon and Ted's brother.
Auron, who was now dressed in heavy Valyrian steel armor and very well prepared for the fight, very different from when he and his brother were ambushed, advanced furiously towards the apprentice, who was constantly using curses to try to weaken him. But, his fury due to his brother's death was enormous, ignoring the pain and suffering brought by at least 3 curses, Auron used spells to slow and distract the apprentice and when he reached him, he used his huge axe to cut his chest making him fall to the ground, while drowning in his blood. At that moment, he turned the axe sideways and began to crush the man repeatedly, not stopping even when he was already dead...
On Jhon's side, he created a whip of vines very different from the previous basic spell he used, it was covered in poison, and cut off the man's entire arm with a single blow from a distance, the man fell to the ground groaning in pain from the loss of the limb, and his skin began to turn green quickly. Wasting no time, Jhon turned and ran at high speed, trying to reach the supposed Master who was now heading towards the scorpions.
Omar did the same thing, after his dark wolf came out of its shadow and killed one of the apprentices by surprise, he left the wolf to deal with the second one, and used a light spell to increase his speed, with his Sea Cutter in hand he was only 1 minute away from reaching the man who was about to destroy the first scorpion.
***
Death Lord was a powerful warrior, born with the affinity of body and wind, he always used a sword and armor to fight, his wind spells were all focused on increasing his speed and mobility, while his body had reached all the limits of his racial power. When he received the mission to eliminate the Order of Sages, he did not hesitate and accepted it immediately. His confidence came from the fact that he had already killed two other Masters in combat.
Besides the known fact that this group was new to Asshai, and shouldn't have any Master, he knew that a certain Master would personally deal with the Red Sage. When the Order's counterattack began, he was shocked, he didn't expect them to come so quickly. One of the giant spears thrown at the tower almost hit him in his chambers, but he soon calmed down, it was already unusual for someone to use siege weapons in Asshai, much less such powerful weapons, these people wanted to put on a show and wanted to use him as some sort of example…
Knowing that the only danger from this group was the siege weapons, he completely ignored the surrounding apprentices and ran straight towards them.
At this time, when his sword was seconds away from reaching the first siege weapon, his thoughts suddenly became slow. Soon after, it was his body's turn to become slower, and a slight feeling of sleepiness followed as well. Experienced in combat, Death Lord knew that he was affected by at least two or three curses; his eyes turned to the men operating the siege machine, but that was his biggest mistake. Stepping out of the shadows beside him, a man in a gray-black robe tried to decapitate his neck with two long, poisoned daggers.
Due to the slight carelessness of mistaking where the enemy was, I could only react by moving my neck away from the daggers. The assassin, seeing that he could no longer decapitate, changed direction at the last second and cut off my entire arm at the shoulder. What surprised me even more was that his daggers managed to penetrate and cut the steel of my armor. In the same split second that my arm fell to the ground, I also realized that the man was controlling the Shadow Nullification spell. My ring, which would save me from a fatal attack, did not activate on its own.
At the same time that the assassin finished his first attack and went back into the shadows, the two disciples near the scorpions shot fireballs at me. My windshield, which was now activated, deflected the two balls away, while I made a final resistance to a tentacle made of shadows that tried to grab my leg. At that dangerous moment, an ice spear came and hit me in the back, canceling my windshield once and for all.
My ritual, which was my greatest combat weapon and which was tattooed directly on my body, finally began and I used my severed arm on the ground as a sacrifice to improve my body affinity to a new limit, this was one of my specialties as a Bloodmage, I gave a scream and a new, half-deformed arm with a different coloration was born replacing the previous one, when I tried to cut the two apprentices who destroyed my wind shield with my sword, the shadow tentacle spell that was previously prevented by the wind shield now firmly grabbed my leg.
I then used my ring that previously did not activate on its own due to the assassin's close range to escape turning into a pile of liquid shadows, at that moment, I felt that someone interfered with my spell, it must have been the same assassin from before, I should have reappeared behind the apprentices, but now I was on the opposite side of them, moving me at least another 10 meters away from the siege weapon.
I threw a wind blade at them, but they saved themselves from it using the automatic activation of their defense artifacts. It was then that another ice spear hit my back again, followed by a vine whip that grabbed my arm that held the sword. The whip had such great force that my armor began to creak. At that moment, when the time to use my wind shield finally returned, the gray-robed assassin reappeared and slit my throat before the shield activated, the shield prevented me from losing my head. But it was too late now, I tried to delay the effects of his poison using my powerful affinity and reinforced body, but my body was already at its limit dealing with the effects of the poison from his first attack, with my throat cut and bleeding, I would lose consciousness in the next few seconds. With no choice, and determined to take them all with me, I activated my final trump card:
Body explosion!
***
Jhon who had been the last to arrive immobilized the target with his vine whip and saw Omar hit the supposed Master with an ice spear in the back, Jack then emerged from the shadows again and slit his throat. Realizing that their victory was complete, something surprised the three of them. Blood lines covered the Master's entire body like a kind of living tattoo, and he exploded, sending pieces of armor, bones, and flesh flying in all directions. A bright light cast by Omar covered Jhon and Jack's bodies, preventing them from being injured, but Jack was too close to the target. The bright light of the spell quickly faded, and his body was hit by several fragments of steel and bones, seriously injuring the faceless man.
Realizing that the terrible explosion also had the harmful effect of blocking the automatic activation of life-saving artifacts. The man was indeed a Master. As the cloud of blood passed, Jhon activated the "Restorative Branches", a plant-type healing spell that began to heal Jack's injuries at a rate visible to the naked eye. Meanwhile, the faceless men trained by Jack finished off the last survivors of the Lords of Death.
Only then did the person watching the fight finally relax, the mission was complete...
****
Special thanks to Patreons:
Sage's Supporter: Jan, Vinnie, frimorigo, Leery Falcon, Parsa, Scott Robertson, and Pato Senalima!
Magical Apprentice: Axel Bour, Gabriele Sulpizio, Takatchi, mandeep singh, Austin, and Kobe Robertson!
Senior Magic Apprentice: Cole Bromley!