Chapter 100: The Battle

Zhao Xu entertained the thought but obediently moved behind Maple Leaf, who held his shield up front—having someone to absorb the brunt gave him at least a bit more cover. Until he learned spells capable of deflecting arrows, he remained rather fearful of stray projectiles on the battlefield.

"Iron Stone, what is the meaning of this?" Luo Ya had by now recognized the commander of the force lying in ambush here.

Iron Stone wore a suit of heavy armor far more luxurious than theirs, mounted on a finely bred warhorse, looking down at them from a distance.

Zhao Xu thought to himself—so they knew each other. No wonder the ambush was so lacking in finesse; they hadn't even bothered trying to assassinate the rogues. It was practically like planting a flag to announce their presence.

"Luo Ya, out of respect for having fought alongside each other, leave your goods on the ground and walk away. I'll pretend you fled." The warrior named Iron Stone bellowed.

Though Zhao Xu considered the warrior mediocre, it was true that only these battle-hardened veterans could serve as commanders of a fighting force—only they could command the respect of the troops.

"Iron Stone, do you think that's possible? How about this—I'll share some supplies with you as a toll fee?" Luo Ya looked at the encirclement of nearly a hundred men slowly emerging around them and understood that this matter would not end peacefully.

"Luo Ya, I won't beat around the bush with you. Think about it—why did we go out of our way to intercept you in this godforsaken canyon?" Iron Stone called out loudly. "Just this morning, the Merchant Alliance issued a decree. The position of the Ninth Elder, as well as the city lord seats of Kasuo and Butan, will be distributed according to merits in the suppression campaign! Give up."

Hearing these words, the entire caravan knew they were in serious trouble.

The two cities of Kasuo and Butan sat at the foot of the Heaven-Severing Mountain Range. They had always been critical thoroughfares leading to Mystra, yet throughout the entire Northern Tian Merchant Alliance, they had never held any significant position.

Resource allocation never favored them either—this was precisely the spark that had driven the two cities to resolve to split away.

They simply hadn't expected that the Northern Tian Merchant Alliance, before even reaching a disadvantageous position, would so quickly offer up even greater benefits.

If the Northern Tian Merchant Alliance had been willing to grant one elder seat to the two cities from the start, things likely would never have escalated to this point.

No wonder the caravan had chosen such an out-of-the-way route and still been cornered by those with ill intent.

It turned out that every caravan secretly smuggling supplies to Kasuo and Butan had become sweet prey for the ambitious bigwigs within the Alliance.

As for Luo Ya's smuggling caravan, Zhao Xu would sooner believe pigs could fly than accept that no one in the Alliance's upper echelons had smoothed things over for them beforehand.

But often, the interests of the Alliance as a whole and the interests of certain mid-to-high-ranking members within it were not entirely aligned. Yet this desperate gamble by the Alliance had overturned the entire chessboard.

No matter how skilled Ysi was at greasing palms, could she possibly outdo letting a faction's leader rise to power?

Not to mention this time, three positions were being handed over—there was no fear whatsoever of the "two peaches kill three warriors" infighting that could sabotage their own efforts.

---

Watching Luo Ya and Iron Stone still bickering over there, Zhao Xu dismounted directly. He hadn't expected that his rare moment of showing off would end with him having to get off the horse after barely riding for any time at all.

"When the fight starts, kill Iron Stone first," Zhao Xu instructed the others.

Maple Leaf looked at Iron Stone's full plate armor and shook his head. "We can't pierce through that tin can."

The defense rating of full plate armor was as high as Tier 8, while Zhao Xu's own mage armor spell was only Tier 4.

This kind of heavy knight clad in full plate and mounted on horseback had always been a terrifying weapon of the cold steel era. Without special formations or the intervention of powerful warriors or mages, ordinary people could hardly deal with them.

"Don't worry. I'm a spellcaster. I have the means to handle it," Zhao Xu arranged.

In a place like Arthur's realm, which prized individual martial valor, even a person of extraordinary strategy would struggle to hold a commander's position if his own combat ability was lacking.

When battle erupted, these leaders were also the most targeted figures. If they could be killed cleanly, the psychological pressure on a force of a hundred would be immense.

The same applied to them—if Luo Ya died and no one stepped up in time, the entire escort of roughly fifty would collapse.

By now, Luo Ya had clearly reached a breaking point with Iron Stone. The latter roared on the spot and began charging toward them.

At the same time, from deep within the canyon, numerous warriors wielding simple weapons surged forward in attack, while only a handful raised crossbows to provide ranged fire.

"Youyou, protect yourself." Maple Leaf shoved a small round shield into Youyou's hands, while he himself lifted a tower shield to guard in front of them.

The bard hurriedly began singing a battle song for them, while Rainbow the rogue circled around them with dagger in hand, watching for anyone who might charge in.

Youyou, being a benevolent cleric, raised her hand crossbow and began shooting at the distant enemies.

In the distance, the warrior Luo Ya and several of his trusted followers charged straight at Iron Stone's group.

Yet despite the momentum of their charge, against Iron Stone's full plate armor and shield, they had no particularly effective means of breaking through.

Zhao Xu's group was at a numerical disadvantage. In the blink of an eye, four or five warriors in leather armor had broken into their defensive perimeter, raising their cleavers and charging at them.

The warrior Maple Leaf let out a shout and raised his shield, attempting to block them.

Youyou, who had shot at monsters before but never at living men, gritted her teeth and squeezed the trigger, firing at the approaching warriors.

But without divine augmentation and with agility that wasn't particularly high, her bolts merely grazed the warriors' shoulders—which only made them fix their attention on her as a ranged threat, changing direction and charging straight at her.

The warrior Maple Leaf hastily cast aside his shield, drew his sword, and tried to chase after them.

---

Zhao Xu now had a handful of colorful powder in his hand. He shouted at Maple Leaf, "Get out of the way!"

Then he cast the powder into the air and intoned the incantation: "Color Spray."

A seven-hued rainbow light burst forth, and a fan-shaped area with a five-meter radius instantly blanketed the foremost charging fighters.

Like ants doused with insecticide, the few warriors who had been the fastest to leap forward were swept by the rainbow light, collapsed on the spot, curled up, and fell unconscious.

The remaining warrior who had been slower to run saw his companions' miserable state, his face turned ashen, his steps faltered, and he sat down hard on the ground—though he still remembered to shout at the top of his lungs, "Run! There's a mage here!"

Then he scrambled on all fours, crawling and stumbling back into the main force behind him.

Zhao Xu's teammates hadn't expected him to possess such power either; they all stared at him in astonishment.

"Don't just stand there. Finish these ones off quickly," Zhao Xu urged.

The rogue, who had been providing mobile support, had already rushed over. Hearing Zhao Xu's words, he said nervously, "How do we finish them off?"

As he spoke, he could feel the dagger in his hand trembling slightly.

"Knock them out," Zhao Xu said, looking at the somewhat dense Rainbow. "Then tie them up quickly."

His spell could only control these Tier 1 warriors for a few rounds—just like that night when the wraith had taken down Maple Leaf's whole group with a single Color Spray.

Hearing that it wasn't a matter of killing them one by one with a blade, Rainbow breathed a sigh of relief and quickly worked together with the bard who had come over. Zhao Xu, meanwhile, continued to watch the front of the battlefield.

Zhao Xu wasn't surprised that none of these Tier 1 warriors had passed the spell's Will save, and that all of them had been taken down by a single Color Spray.

Tier 1 warriors didn't have the sort of enhanced Will saves that spellcasters like them had—let alone the fact that these people lacked the talent to become proper warriors in the first place. Their physical attributes were entirely unremarkable, the equivalent of starting a game with only 8 talent points, so one could hardly expect high Perception to bolster their Will save.

Youyou and the others had simply fought so many monsters that they failed to appreciate the gap between ordinary civilians or warriors and standard adventurers like themselves.

A Tier 1 mage being weak only applied in comparison to the other ten core classes.