Ancient Barons and the Returned Assassin

by Weiqi Wang

‘Once again, this is a mission, not a tour. We are here to protect you, but if you think three of us will be able to babysit all of you against thousands of wild beasts, you’d better pray really hard.’ Sandoray followed up with Kastico’s words. ‘The bottom line is: you are all wizards and you need exercises in real danger — if you don’t appreciate that danger can sometimes mean death, so be it.’

  ‘After we get off the carriage, we will meet the group from Sunrise Alliance. They will do most of the work in this mission, but they are not here to protect you.’ Kastico nodded at Sandoray and continued. ‘Therefore, you listen to your professors. I don’t care how spoiled you have been in your family, or how confident you are in yourself. If you fail to obey our orders, we won’t try to stop you, but you are solely responsible for the consequences. Understood?’

  ‘Yes, sir!’ Everyone replied in union.

  ‘Get off and line up!’ The carriage had stopped, and Kastico kicked open the carriage door. Everyone dashed out and stood in a line. Meanwhile, they had noticed a small forest not far away, and a number of people rushing back and forth for something — the Sunrise Alliance team had arrived earlier than them.

  ‘Long time no see, Kastico.’ An old wizard walked over from the Alliance team. ‘I can’t believe Libral is so ambitious this time.’

  ‘Likewise, Tifonal. It’s good for the kids to brave it up.’ Kastico shook hands with Tifonal and turned to the students. ‘Tifonal is a Wind Expert; he’s the main attacker in this mission. Each and every one of you, try to stay out of his way — you don’t wanna be cut into halves by his vancoblades. Understood?’

  Vancoblades! It’s real! Soarame exclaimed inside. As the upgraded edition of windblades, vancoblades had the power to cut through almost anything and were commonly regarded as the most powerful single-target spell across all seven lineages under Master level. Soarame had actually been dreaming to learn this powerful spell, but it was impossible for him at this stage.

  Kastico carried on introducing all the other wizards from the Alliance, and managed to impress the students every single time. Everyone in the Alliance team was an Expert, and altogether they covered a full spectrum of seven lineages and all three sub-levels within Expert. The youngest one was a similar age to them, named Moelmos, a level-7 Expert in both Fire and Darkness. He was probably the most impressive one to the students, because he didn’t seem to be much older than them, but he was a double-7. This also reminded Soarame of Rodka — he might have been on a similar level to Moelmos if not for the incident...

  Because of this, unease rose inside Soarame again. He was so eager to know what was happening with Sachastain and Rodka at this moment.

  ‘Soarame!’ Kastico’s sharp voice frightened everyone all of a sudden. ‘What are you thinking this time?’

  ‘Ah!’ Soarame was caught off guard. ‘Nothing, professor!’

  ‘Every time I see you, you appear to be day dreaming.’ Kastico was very unhappy. ‘What did I just say? You just don’t care about the danger of this mission, do you?’

  ‘No, sir.’ Soarame stood upright. ‘I know it’s dangerous. I’ll be very careful.’

  ‘Actually, we won’t really be able to cover this many students when the battle starts.’ Sandoray walked over to Kastico. ‘Why don’t we set apart some of the best ones and let them join the Alliance team? They can practice harder there; besides, some of them don’t even listen to us anyway.’

  ‘I wish I could, but I can’t.’ Kastico was surprised at Sandoray’s suggestion. ‘We need to protect our students, that’s why we are here.’

  ‘We need to train our students, that’s why we are here.’ Sandoray disagreed. ‘And the training should be according to their capacity. For example, Mr. Jadeking can fly, why should we restrict him by keeping him within our team?’

  ‘Hmm…’ Kastico took a glance at Soarame, who didn’t seem to be that worried about their conversation. ‘Okay then. Soarame, you can join their team, as long as Tifonal doesn’t mind.’

  ‘We always welcome young talents.’ Tifonal smiled aloud. ‘As long as Mr. Jadeking doesn’t mind.’

  Soarame was surprised to hear this decision made just like that; he had to ponder a bit. But before he had a chance to decide, another voice sounded. ‘Professor, I want to go with Soarame too.’

  ‘Your name is Halgon, correct?’ Kastico frowned on hearing this. ‘I saw your performance in the Championship; it was good. But that’s no more than a game, between human rivals of equal numbers. Are you sure you want to risk your life against two thousand beasts?’

  ‘Positive.’ Halgon nodded without hesitation. ‘Soarame and I are used to working together. If you separate us, our combo shot won’t work anymore.’

  ‘Fine.’ Kastico quickly checked with Sandoray and decided to allow it. ‘Anyone else?’

  ‘Me.’ This time, the volunteer surprised everyone — Sophie stepped forward. ‘I’m an Adept Lightning and Earth. I believe I can protect myself well and also help in attacking.’

  ‘Nice.’ Before Kastico and Sandoray had a chance to speak, Tifonal clapped his hands. ‘I truly appreciate your courage, but let’s not overdo it. This lady can join us as the last one; we don’t want any more. And remember, if you join us, we may not have time to protect you. If tragedy happens…’

  ‘I blame no one.’ Sophie said word by word. ‘If I die, I asked for it.’

  ‘Hooo…’ Everyone had to take a long breath at that, including the professors. Therefore, Sophie walked to the Alliance team, following Soarame and Halgon. Tifonal quickly decided to let the three students group with Moelmos, so that they could look after each other and be safer together. After that, the professors started to synchronize everyone on the overall plan.

  The idea was to use the small forest nearby as their main battlefield, and set all the traps and bombs within it. When the beastide arrived, someone would lure them into the forest, so that the crew could wipe them all out. The professors had chosen the forest to be the battlefield mainly because the most horrible part of the beastide was its charging and collision in the beginning — the huge group of beasts would be marching forward all together, and the most effective way to stop them was to use the forest plus the bombs and traps. Then the professors would start attacking, and the students would join the battle when the situation was under control.

  The Alliance team had made great efforts to deploy a gigantic magic array, so that once the beasts got into the forest they would be sealed within it. Thanks to the small size of the forest, the beasts wouldn’t have much space to hide; but there was a hill in the centre. That meant there were likely to be caves, so it could be challenging to wipe out all the beasts if they chose to hide in those. Fortunately, that was just a matter of time and therefore not a major flaw in the plan — the major flaw, however, was what to do if the beasts weren’t successfully lured into the forest in the first place.

  The professors spent some time discussing the solutions and backups for that problem. In the meantime, the students were quickly touring around the forest to familiarize themselves with the environment.

  ‘Nice to meet you all; I must say I respect your courage.’ Moelmos was happy to be joined by three students of a similar age to him. ‘And Soarame, you can fly? Is that true?’ Seeing Soarame nod and float up as a demonstration, Moelmos’ eyes brightened up. ‘That’s fabulous! I actually have a plan to maximize our effectiveness as a team, but it may conflict with Halgon’s plan to use your combo shot.’

  ‘It’s okay. We don’t have to combo shoot.’ Halgon waved his hands — there was actually no combo shot, but just his excuses to stay with Soarame. ‘Let’s hear your plan.’

  ‘Sweet.’ Moelmos was overjoyed. ‘Then let’s do it this way…’

  The discussion and debate between the professors took quite a while. It was already dawn, but the debate on how to effectively lure the beasts was still not finished. On the other side, the students had been practising their part. Thanks to the forest, they
could hide in or among the trees so that they wouldn’t get pounced on straight away. Therefore, each student had a relatively simple task, initially, at least — to defend his own tree. Only when he could properly protect himself would he be allowed to help others or make contributions in active attacking. The three Libral professors would be looking after the students and helping them out whenever necessary.

  The plan for Moelmos’ group was different. Since they had joined the Alliance team, they had to protect themselves all by themselves. However, they seemed to be dissatisfied with that — not that they complained about lack of safety, but instead they asked for more aggressiveness in action. After the discussion within the group, Moelmos actually made a proposal to the professors that frightened everyone — Soarame would be the one to bait the beastide into the forest, instead of a professor!

  ‘Nonsense!’ Kastico instantly denied this proposal. ‘He will die!’

  ‘Sir, Soarame can insta-cast flying spells, he will be fine!’ Moelmos wasn’t convinced. ‘He volunteered for this.’

  ‘Easy for you to say!’ Kastico didn’t buy that at all. ‘If an accident happens, are you going to be responsible?’

  ‘I’m responsible for my own safety, sir.’ Soarame stepped forward. ‘I can do it. Please let me.’

  ‘Soarame, we all appreciate your great courage. We really do.’ Tifonal spoke up. ‘But do you have any idea what a beastide looks like? If you’ve seen a live one, I’d let you; but if not, better next time.’

  ‘I’ve seen a spidertide, sir. Thousands of arachnoles.’ Soarame said. ‘And I survived.’

  ‘But did you fly for that survival?’ Tifonal asked. ‘This time you can’t, because you have to run with your legs. You can’t perform any magic when you lead the run, or the beasts may be alerted and our plan may fail — don’t forget that there are Experts in them, and those ones can be really clever.’

  ‘Okay, I’ll run then. I can do it.’ Soarame persisted. ‘No offence, but I think I can run faster than you professors.’

  ‘True. But if the bait fails, we are still guaranteed to survive. And we still can eliminate them; it’ll just take a bit of time.’ Vracho’s voice sounded deep and heavy, making people picture a bulky rock rolling on the ground. ‘But if anything happens to you, there’s no way to bring you back.’

  ‘Pardon me, sir. But you know that’s not entirely true.’ Moelmos cut in. ‘If the beasts flee, we won’t be able to eliminate all of them today. We will kill some, but the rest will get our people and eat them alive! It will be too late to kill those afterwards.’

  ‘The reason for us to be here is to protect our people from that, isn’t it?’ Sophie also tried to back her teammates up. ‘If you think it’s too dangerous for Soarame to do it alone, I’m happy to join him to help!’

  ‘Easy, girl! You are not helping and you know nothing!’ Kastico really liked this female student, but this time he had to be harsh. ‘Has any of you, including Moelmos, ever witnessed a beastide? Ever? If not, shut up and listen!’

  ‘Can you imagine how striking that scene is going to be?’ Seeing the three indomitable, Sandoray cut in. ‘When the tide arrives, you will be transfixed. You may even be too scared to remember how to run! And I don’t even blame you for that, because it happens all the time!’

  ‘I will remember how to run. Let me join Soarame.’ After a brief silence as everyone was picturing the scene, Halgon spoke up. ‘We have our combo shots to cover each other…’

  ‘Halgon, you’ve only just come back after two years away!’ Kastico was annoyed to see the reckless kids coming forward one after another. ‘Let’s say you two still remember how to do your combo tricks, what can you do against two thousand beasts?’

  ‘Halg can shadow himself, and I can fly.’ Soarame bore with Kastico’s stare and insisted. ‘If the worst comes to the worst, we’ll use magic for escape and let the baiting fail. But we will survive, I promise you that!’

  ‘Mr. Jadeking’s words actually make sense. I think we can give them a chance.’ Sandoray finally decided to speak for Soarame. ‘If the worst comes to the worst, we’ll all show up to save them.’

  ‘Sandoray, you’ll be responsible for them, if something happens!’ Kastico stared at Sandoray. ‘You do know that, don’t you?’

  ‘Absolutely. And if they die, that means I’ve died before them.’ Sandoray nodded at the professors, then turned to the group of four. ‘I’m really proud of you. But don’t you dare to show off — hide your power only if you can afford to! Believe it or not, the tide actually runs many times faster than you think!’

  ‘Yes, ma’am!’ Soarame was so excited. ‘Thank you for the opportunity!’

  ‘It’s “Miss”!’ Sandoray gritted her teeth hard. ‘You’ve won another prize… but let’s see if you can survive first!’

  ‘Lonlong…’ When the sun had risen completely, the ground started to shake. Inside the forest, Tifonal flew up and made an arm gesture. ‘The tide is arriving. Everyone, on your marks!’

  No one replied in words, but everyone stood up and got ready. As instructed, all students needed to watch the pre-defined body gestures and magic spells as coded orders, instead of talking and listening. Feeling the gradually increasing shake of the ground, the professors were already in position, eyes locked on the horizon. Meanwhile, the students rapidly climbed up their trees, trying to suppress their quickening breath and steady their shaking bodies — from the gaps between the leaves and branches, they could barely see a large wave of dust in the horizon.

  ‘Careful!’ Kastico patted the shoulders of Soarame and Halgon. ‘Survival takes precedence over the mission! Remember that!’

  The two nodded and dashed out of the forest. Before the tide got close, they needed to be out there in the grass, pretending to be just lying around. Watching the two young boys proceed without hesitation, everyone was sweating and praying. In front of the rapidly rising fear, they had to concede that not everyone had the guts to do what those two were doing right now.

  ‘Holy crap!’ Feeling the ground shaking and bumping, Soarame barely managed to keep balance. ‘Have you tried this before, Halg?’

  ‘I’ve seen it once, but on the other side of the tide.’ Halgon exhaled. ‘It doesn’t feel very good in front of it, ha-ha!’

  ‘What? You watched a beastide from behind?’ Soarame was stunned. ‘Dude, we need to talk after this!’

  ‘Let’s survive first!’ Halgon patted Soarame’s shoulder. ‘They are coming, get ready!’

  THE BEASTIDE

  ‘How much longer shall we wait?’ Facing the fast approaching cloud of dust, Soarame had to shout aloud to make himself heard — the heavy footsteps, yelping, bellowing and howling from the magimals were drowning out any other sound.

  ‘Hold it for five more seconds!’ Halgon could already see the appearance of the magimals in the front of the tide, so they should be able to see the two boys too. But Halgon wanted to wait a bit longer to make sure of that, despite the earthquake-like tremble that already rattled them left and right. Now they finally understood Sandoray’s words — most people could easily forget how to run in such circumstances. And even if they remembered, they may not be able to do it in the earthquake!

  The professors in the forest were terrified to see the boys still standing there. Finally, just before Kastico and Sandoray decided to come to their rescue, Soarame and Halgon suddenly started running.

  ‘Damn it!’ Kastico had to swear; his palms were sweating. ‘Told them not to show off!’

  ‘I’ll certainly add a bonus to their prize.’ Sandoray also let out a deep breath and wiped her moist forehead. She saw the two boys dashing towards them with panic on their faces, but not looking as terrified as she had expected. A few seconds later, watched by everyone, the two got into the forest successfully, followed by the entire blast of the beastide!

  LONLONLONLONLONG!!!

  HOOOWWWWLLLLL!!!

  WUUUAAAWWW!!!

  The mixture of thunde
r-like footsteps plus all kinds of howling and roaring from the beasts almost shook the pale students off the trees. Everyone clenched their muscles so hard that they half-closed their eyes, and were tiring themselves out just holding on to the branches that they sat on. At that moment, the students found that they couldn’t do anything other than keep their balance, let alone make any attempt at attack. Only then did they start to realize what the professors meant by BEASTIDE, and why they repeatedly warned them that it was an EXTREMELY dangerous mission — for god’s sake, it was so unfair to just use the word “dangerous” for the description; it was a freaking hell!

  BOOOMMM!!!

  CLANGGG!!!

  HONGHONG!!!

  Soon enough, a blast of even louder noises sounded and deafened all ears — the beastide had triggered the traps and bombs. Barely opening their eyes, the students watched the brutal scene — the magimals, regardless of whether they were wolf-like, bull-like or boar-like, were blown up into the air and scattered. At that moment, they finally understood why they were instructed to watch and obey the gestures and signals instead of listening and talking — with such horrible noises, who could hear anything else?

  Soarame and Halgon disappeared behind trees soon after they arrived at the forest. Quickly, they climbed up the trees, breathing heavily, waiting for the next action — according to the plan, their group of four would only start attacking when three firebolts were cast into the air together. The Libral students had been commanded to wait even longer, till the majority of the beastide had been eliminated. Until then, it was a battle only for the professors.

  Dude, you are god-damn bold! Soarame looked towards Halgon on the other tree, with excitement in his eyes. We were this close to being seized!

  That’s why it was good, wasn’t it! Halgon’s eyes were glowing with heat. Years of grounding had been driving him mad, and he had really needed to let off steam somehow.

  WHIZ — WHIZ!

  A wave of tense noises sounded, and a blast of vague crescents flashed across the trees, cutting through everything on their way. The crescents looked like windblades, only ten times bigger — each of them was about ten feet long, and they were travelling at such high speed that even Soarame could barely see their outlines.