Chapter 168

: Massacre (Part 1)
Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio

They are running away!
someone in the shadows hollered as the sound of sharp metal clanking together filled the air.
From both sides of the road junction, four big carriages were pushed out from their hiding spots. The linen cloths covering the carriages were torn down, exposing the fearsome crossbows hidden underneath. The black fog began to burn, and a fire dragon was formed. The fire dragon lunged at the four ballistae. To the rear of the street, a ballista had already launched three metal arrows.
The arrows whistled through the air and flew into the remaining fog, and the sound of the metal colliding with an object could be heard.
When the black fog dispersed, two metallic people appeared out of thin air and stood behind Saleen, helping to block the arrows from that ballista. The metal arrows struck the chests of the metallic people, causing them to be hurled into midair by the impact.
A mage clad in white robes walked out from behind the four ballistae and stood in front of them. This mage had three magic symbols on his chest, and that revealed his grade – a grade-3 mage.
The mage was astounded when he saw the Fire Dragon spell. That was level-6 magic, and he could not negate its effects. However, it was too late for him to escape now, so he clenched his teeth and opened a scroll. That was his precious level-4 scroll, and it would be used to protect his life.
A green ice plate armor appeared and covered the mage’s robes. The fire dragon crashed into the mage ferociously, producing the sound of a robust explosion.
The strongest mid-level defense spell had lived up to its reputation. The mage clad in white robes was flung back by the impact, but his ice plate armor was not completely destroyed yet. However, the four ballistae behind him were not so lucky. The Fire Dragon spell might not have possessed the strongest offensive capabilities in level-6 magic, but its area of effect was massive. Hence, the four ballistae broke into pieces, and the loaded arrows were spilled all over the ground.
The mage in white robes was struck by three arrows while in midair. One of the arrows penetrated his body through a crack in his ice plate armor. The two finger thick arrowhead left a gaping hole in that mage’s body.
If he had been a grade-4 mage, he would have been able to repair any holes in the ice plate armor whenever he wished to do so. However, he was only grade-3, hence he could not maintain the original state of the ice plate armor after casting it.
The fire dragon then disappeared, while the mage in white robes slammed heavily into the ground, but no one cared about him. The display of power by Lex and her team was truly fearsome. The attack by that holistic mid-level spell had caused the two-pronged attack to lose its purpose.
A vigorous whining filled the air. From an area some distance away, twelve alchemy crossbow bolts flew towards Lex and her team. Earlier on, Lex had already deployed ten fully constructed puppets. These tall metallic people stood in front the horses, and four of them even held gigantic metallic shields.
Om…
A thunderous vibration sound came from the metallic shields as they stood in the face of those alchemy arrows. An acute grinding sound with the potential to pierce a person’s eardrums filled the air as the alchemy arrows penetrated the metallic shields and struck the chests of the fully constructed puppets.
Those metallic shields had been put on the puppets by Lex, so they could not stop the alchemy arrows at all since those arrows were used to attack cities. The alchemy arrows penetrated the shields and were stuck into the chests of the fully constructed puppets.
The chests of these puppets had been made from entire pieces of metal. The arrows could only advance halfway through the metal before they could no longer advance anymore.
Saleen ignored whatever that was happening up ahead. He turned his horse around and brought out the bronze magic book. Dozens of phoenixes charged out of the bronze magic book and lunged towards the ballistae at the rear of the street. Even though these ballistae were not alchemical equipment, the lethality of their metallic arrows were pretty horrifying nonetheless.
With ice plate armor blessed onto his own body, Saleen activated his icy sight. He could vaguely spot hundreds of swordsmen rushing out from both sides of the courtyard wall. Saleen despaired. If those swordsmen came out onto the street, he would be in grave danger. At that point in time, Saleen realized that such battles could not be managed by just one or two mages alone.
No matter how powerful a mage was, their magic chords would eventually be depleted. Without their magic chords, the mage would only be able to fight one beginner swordsman at most, and that was provided that they had a blade and that the swordsman was a poor one.
Saleen did not dare slow down. Once he saw that the ballistae were burning, he immediately commanded a fully constructed puppet to charge towards the wall.
The metallic person was unusually heavy since it was wielding a heavy weapon. The puppet that Saleen was controlling wielded a square axe, and the puppet made two slashes on the wall. The square axe was sharpened at both ends, so it easily created a large opening in the wall. The remaining fully constructed puppets then rushed in through the opening, causing dust to fill the air and the ground to tremble.
Without any pity for the soldiers, Saleen steered the puppets into the crowd under the pressure of potentially being killed. There were more than three hundred swordsmen, and the fully constructed puppets flitted about. With one slash of an axe, more than three swordsmen could lose their limbs.
When the swordsmen noticed that those metallic monsters could kill dozens of their comrades with one blow, they became more agitated and began rushing forward with their weapons. The fully constructed puppets did not put up any defenses and allowed the swordsmen to slash at their legs. One puppet then simply flung its axe forward in a single move and destroyed the chest of a swordsman.
A metal chain was attached to the square axe. The eyes of the fully constructed puppet reddened and started spinning in their sockets. Then, the hefty axe danced in midair as fresh red blood spurted everywhere.
Elsewhere, Nailisi commanded another fully constructed puppet to go to the wall on the opposite side. This puppet wielded a halberd with a long pole, but it did not use its weapon. Instead, the puppet simply crashed into the wall, thus blowing open a human-sized opening in the wall. Then, the puppet began its massacre.
Sika rode on horseback and charged along the wall to the right towards the road junction. She noticed that two ballistae in the distance were being loaded with alchemical arrows by dozens of soldiers.
The speed of the arrow loading was slow, so a mage disciple would be needed to help catalyze the process. Sika quickly scanned the surroundings and spotted two magic disciples. She then took her boomerang from her waist and threw it at them.
The boomerang appeared out the blue. However, a swordsman who was helping load the arrows reacted swiftly. He took out his sword and tried to stop Sika’s boomerang. The boomerang took a hasty dive, went around the sword, and made a sudden bend before slashing the thigh of one of the magic disciples.
That magic disciple fell onto his face, and thus the magic array on the alchemical ballista stopped functioning. The swordsmen shaking the rocker no longer had the strength to pull on the crossbow chord, so they let go as well. One of the swordsman did not let go of the rocker in time, and the metallic rocker spun in the opposite direction at lightning speed, smashing into the hand of that swordsman.
By then, Sika had reached the ballistae. She bolted off of her horse and flanked from the side as she waved her weapon from side to side. The ballista on the left was destroyed by Sika’s cudgel as if it had been struck by magic, and a rumbling noise came from within the ballista.
Swordsmen charged out from all sides of the road junction. Sika roared wildly. The swordsman directly in front of Sika felt that his eyes were playing tricks on him, as that female warrior seemed to expand and grow half a foot taller.
Pu…
Sika simply swept her cudgel across, decapitating the swordsman.
After destroying the alchemical ballistae, Lex proceeded to separate the fully constructed puppets and allocated two to protect Saleen. At least one hundred swordsmen jumped over the courtyard wall, planning to kill that low-grade mage first.
Saleen turned his head when he heard the cries of pain from the war horses. Saleen saw that a swordsman had slashed the front legs of the horse he was riding on. Saleen fumed, and flipped a page of the bronze magic book. A flash of white light appeared and an ice arrow shot out.
The swordsman quickly used his sword to block, but the speed of a magic arrow was vastly different from that of a normal arrow. At least a mid-grade swordmaster was needed to be able to block such a magic attack.
A roar came from the earth. At the same time, the swordsman was penetrated by the ice arrow and lost his breath of life in that instant. Saleen then noticed that a horde of heavy cavalry had appeared from behind the street.
Once again, Lex gave two fully constructed puppets to Saleen and said calmly,
It’s fine. They aren’t genuine heavy cavalry. They are just wearing the equipment of heavy cavalry.

Saleen clenched his teeth. Under the protection of the two fully constructed puppets, he continued flipping the pages of the bronze magic book. With every page that was flipped open, a low-level spell was released, killing at least one swordsman. More and more swordsmen jumped over the courtyard wall, and they killed a few of the reserve war horses.
Lex commanded ten fully constructed puppets while flawlessly executing different spells at the same time. When she noticed that Saleen could not withstand the intensity of the battle, she deployed six of the puppets to form a line. These puppets then charged towards the horde of heavy cavalry.
The six tall metallic people stood shoulder to shoulder and charged forward. The noise they gave off almost surpassed that of the heavy cavalry. As both parties clashed against each other, the offense by the cavalry was extinguished immediately. The fully constructed puppets were taller than the soldiers on their horses. Two of the puppets which stood in the middle wielded large blades the width of a door, and those blades were full of serrated edges. When the blades were swung, the metallic armor of the heavy cavalry simply crumbled like pieces of paper.

Once the mages are dead, the puppets will be useless!
Before the swordsman who was yelling could finish his sentence, a spider slightly larger than his fist had torn his armor open and crawled in. Those inspirational words immediately became cries of excruciating pain.
Saleen was extremely nervous. He felt that he had already killed many swordsmen, yet they still kept coming in hordes. Was this a battlefield? Smashed and bloody bodies were strewn all over the place and excruciating screams filled the air. There was no time for rest as swords were slashing and arrows were flying in all directions. If not for the ice plate armor, Saleen would have died several times by now.
The eighteen spells stored in the bronze magic book were depleted swiftly, hence Saleen had no choice but to recall the fully constructed puppets. The metallic bodies of those puppets were soaked in blood and flesh. None of the swordsmen could withstand the blows from the square axe.
Saleen hid in the center of three fully constructed puppets, then began opening his scrolls.
The swordsmen surrounding Saleen were going crazy. Hundreds of their comrades had been killed, yet the magic of their enemy seemed to be endless. Did they possess infinite magic chords?
Swordsmen at the back could not see what was happening up front, and Saleen was hiding behind the puppets while he opened his scrolls. Whenever the swordsmen at the front collapsed, those at the back would think that Saleen’s magic chords were exhausted. But once the whole row of swordsmen at the front were dead, those at the back would then vaguely spot the item that the young mage was holding in his hands.
Now, any shouts of encouragement would be useless. If the mage did not deplete his scrolls, then the soldiers could only wait for his mental power to be fully depleted. The swordsmen believed that Saleen would be doomed once he cast another dozen or so scrolls, because low-grade mages possessed very few magic chords. As long as these swordsmen killed Saleen, then half of the puppets would lose their functionality.
Almost all the swordsmen thought that way, and so more and more soldiers swarmed Saleen.