Chapter 212: An Overwhelming Battle (1) |
Jeremy stared at one of Fran’s legs and recalled the taste of human flesh the first time he had ever eaten it. Even now, he still could not forget that sensation.
Nathan also revealed a savage grin. He gestured in front of his eyes as though measuring something, then said,
“I’ve heard that a mage’s brain is the most delicious brain in the world. Even if it’s the brain of a Spirit Realm mage, I imagine it should taste about the same as one from an Alliance mage.”
While they were talking, the beastmen behind them were already growing restless. They too wanted a bite of food made from human flesh.
On their way here, they had originally still been able to occasionally raid nearby settlements and snatch a few people away to eat.
But for some reason, after reaching the area around here, no matter how hard they searched, they could not find a single settlement. All they found were ruins with faint traces of habitation.
By now, the beastmen had gone so long without eating human flesh that they were almost mad with hunger.
Having finally come across a lone traveler, there was no way they would let her go so easily.
The moment they had spotted Fran, they had already been discussing how to eat her. She looked small, and there probably was not much meat on her, but something was still better than nothing.
When Nathan saw how calm Fran’s face remained, all of his desire to toy with her vanished. He had originally wanted to see fear on her face, but even now, her expression was still as still as water.
That completely exhausted his patience. He raised his right hand high, then, under the eager gazes of all the beastmen, swung it fiercely in Fran’s direction.
“Charge!!”
“Wooo!!!”
“Awooo!!”
The beastmen immediately let out war cries as they charged, and even the Riding Wolves beneath them seemed infected by the excitement and joined in with a few howls of their own.
Jeremy pulled the giant axe from his back. Just as he was about to urge his Riding Wolf forward, he caught sight of Nathan already driving his own wolf ahead out of the corner of his eye.
He hurriedly tried to urge his wolf forward as well, but before the beast could obey his command, Nathan’s Riding Wolf had already taken a step and planted its paw solidly onto the frozen earth.
The magic trap flared with a crimson light, releasing an aura that made both men instantly realize something was wrong, but neither of them had time to react.
Flames exploded in front of them, and the tremendous shockwave blasted both men and their Riding Wolves into the air before hurling them backward to the ground.
Yet this did nothing to hinder the charge of the other beastmen. They still roared and rushed forward.
Many of the Riding Wolves beneath them had never seen such a scene before and instinctively wanted to stop in fear, but the beastmen dared not allow that.
Any wolf that tried to halt was struck viciously on the head with brute force, leaving the beasts no choice but to overcome their fear of the violent explosion and keep charging ahead.
But Fran’s second spell had long since been prepared. It was 【Earth Uplift】.
For a moment, even the beastmen riding atop their wolves could feel the trembling of the earth.
At the same time, a beam of earth-element light spun rapidly underground, curving around the flank of the beastmen before arriving behind them.
Before the beastmen could understand what was happening, several enormous spikes rose from the ground at their sides and behind them.
These spikes did not strike a single beastman, but when they turned to look back, they could no longer see the path they had come from.
“We’re trapped.”
At that moment, the last beastman in the charging group realized the problem, and a bad premonition surged up in his heart.
But when he looked ahead, he saw that his companions were still rushing forward recklessly, paying no attention at all to the changes around them.
That was simply how their squad fought. There were no fancy tactics, no elaborate arrangements.
As long as Nathan gave the signal to charge at the right moment, the mighty beastmen would crush everything in their path.
Even now, with Nathan and Jeremy, the two leaders at the front, blown away by some unknown force, their charge had not slowed in the slightest.
Only this time, something felt different.
Before the smoke and dust from the previous magic trap’s explosion had even dispersed, the beastman at the very front charged straight into it, riding ahead alone.
There was no way Fran had set only one magic trap. It was simply that the second trap was too close to her, so she had not used 【Flame Trap】.
The moment the Riding Wolf’s forelegs touched a patch of comparatively clean ground, it suddenly felt its body sink, followed immediately by a burst of intense pain.
It lowered its head slightly and saw that beneath its body, several spikes had pierced through it, swelling its torso grotesquely.
Its entire body lost strength at once. Pinned through by the earth spikes, it could no longer move.
As for the beastman on top of the dying wolf, the spikes had likewise passed through the mount and driven into his body as well.
But he was, after all, a First-Tier Professional. Even though the spikes had already pierced up to just below his chest, he still endured the terrible pain, forcibly smashed apart the protruding spikes with his weapon, and staggered toward Fran.
The beastmen behind him, still mounted on their Riding Wolves, failed to control their spacing and crashed headlong into the raised spikes. Several beastmen were flung into the air.
At that moment, the spell ring containing 【Howling Gale】 on Fran’s hand glimmered faintly, then suddenly blazed with light.
An invisible current burst forth in front of her. And at the instant of release, Fran thought of the Enhanced Wind Blade Nora had used during the attack power test.
She did not know how Nora had infused wind elements into it, so she simply poured wind elements directly into the place where she was channeling her mental power.
The spell structure of 【Howling Gale】 underwent a subtle change, and in that instant, Fran grasped the crucial key behind the wind elements Nora had added to her Enhanced Wind Blade.
“So only mages with elemental affinity can add the corresponding element when casting an affinity-based spell?”
Fran understood the core of the Enhanced Wind Blade. Only people with elemental affinity could do it.
Strictly speaking, her current 【Howling Gale】 could also be considered an enhanced version.
She simply lacked the years of technique developed by the Elemental School, so the amount of wind elements she managed to infuse was still only a tiny trace.
But even that tiny trace was a qualitative transformation for her. She believed that as her proficiency increased, the amount of wind elements she could infuse would grow as well, making the spell even stronger.
Only after thinking that through did she cast the Howling Gale from her hand.
The invisible current swept forward. This time, the gale carried a hint of the nature of wind elements. When it struck the earth-spike trap blocking the way, it sliced the entire spike cleanly in half, and one half was sent flying away with the wind.