Chapter 395: Surrounded
Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
"Master, Zagreen City is just ahead of us," Thompson politely said to Anfey.
Anfey nodded and looked at the barely-seen city ahead of him. Anfey did not reply.
"Anfey, what are you hesitating for? Let’s fight!" Blavi laughed. "Long and Ling have confirmed that there are 40,000 to 50,000 death spirits at most." Blavi was confident that they would win this fight. Anfey had about 2,000 mercenaries on his own. As they had recruited about 1,700 surviving mercenaries in Madrid Town, there should be about 4,000 mercenaries now. 4,000 mercenaries against 50,000 low-level death spirits. Mercenaries would win without a doubt. An additional 700 or so Knights of Light and priests were part of the main force fighting against death spirits.
"I just have a bad feeling about this," Anfey said quietly. As a professional assassin, he would rather believe his instincts than what he saw and heard. Anfey felt the atmosphere was way too gloomy. He felt weird about it, but could not figure out what was bothering him.
"Anfey, we have to take Zagreen City today, otherwise we will run into trouble soon," Riska said in a low voice. In order to recruit mercenaries from different cities, they had made a good and flexible plan based on the distance among those cities. For example, to help Shuklan City and Madrid Town, they had divided into two groups. The next city would be Zagreen City. Anfey would meet up with Blavi to attack Zagreen City. After taking Zagreen City, they would be divided into three groups. They had to take Zagreen City now to give them time to reorganize the mercenaries later in the day so they could be divided into three groups by early the next morning. If they could not take Zagreen City soon, they would have to stay through tomorrow.
Anfey kept quiet. He had his way of doing things and was not easily influenced by others.
At the same time, a few Knights of Light hurriedly came back, yelling rudely, "Master Anfey, why haven’t you started the fight yet? The mercenaries in Zagreen City have rushed out. Are you going to watch them all die in front you?"
Anfey was shocked for a second and laid his eyes on Blavi. Blavi immediately released Eyes of Sky. Just as they thought, the mercenaries in Zagreen City had gotten excited and bet their life on the reinforcement troops. They had rushed out of the city when they saw the reinforcements.
Anfey heaved a sigh and slowly closed his eyes. He started his internal force immediately and maximized his sensing ability. Anfey could see around him for dozens of miles, but he could not find anything suspicious.
"Let’s start the fight," Anfey said slowly. He had to start against his better judgement because he could not watch the mercenaries in Zagreen City die one after another. It would be bad for his reputation.
Mercenaries were not soldiers. When Anfey’s order was passed down, the mercenaries in different units rushed in without any formation or strategy. Anfey was not experienced in giving orders in battle, neither did he understood how ridiculous his mercenaries looked to those soldiers. However, he did not care. For Anfey, as long as they could win the battle, it did not matter how they fought.
Mercenaries and soldiers all got scared the first time they fought against death spirits. In the first place, their vision, hearing, and sense of smell were affected. They had to face the ugly looks, terrifying sounds and horrible smell of the death spirits. They could only conquer it with their will power. Second, there were a large number of death spirits. No matter how good the squad was, they would be surrounded by death spirits. Of course, being surrounded did not mean they would lose the battle. Elite soldiers could always keep their formation as they killed death spirits. When they had killed enough death spirits, they all could join the battle and wipe them out.
Anfey’s mercenaries were used to fighting death spirits. The negative factors did not bother them. After communicating with each other, they had accumulated a lot of common sense to fight with death spirits. For example, low-level death spirits mainly attacked by biting their opponents, mainly on their faces, necks, hands and feet. As long as they could protect themselves in those areas, they should be fine. If they were scratched, they could be healed by priests. The toxins in their bodies could be removed by priests so they would not turn into death spirits. Mercenaries covered those parts very well in battle. They did not follow the rule that they would never let their weapons down. To protect their own arms, they would toss their weapons and retreat once the death spirits snatched their weapons. If they were bitten by the death spirits, they would fight the death spirits as best they could, hoping to kill as many as they could. They would rather exchange their lives for a few more death spirits’ lives, because they knew they would be killed by their peers after they were infected anyway.
The mercenaries’ superior intelligence helped to reduce fatalities to the minimum. About 4,000 mercenaries gathered together and looked like a gigantic stone mill. They passed the area with a high number of death spirits and quickly defeated them. The priests had released Holy Light spells, which had slowed down death spirits and weakened them as well. It looked like they would finish this battle soon.
"I am going to sleep better tonight since you are here." Blavi laughed. The more power a person had, the more responsibility he had to take. To prove he was capable, Blavi did not take break when he was in Madrid Town. With Ozzie and Thompson’s help, he threatened and also gave rewards to the mercenaries to try to recruit them into the League of Mercenaries. In the end, he did not have to fight them to recruit them. Once he had Anfey with him, his dependence on Anfey came right back. Riska and others reacted the same way.
"You!" Anfey shook his head and smiled. Suddenly, his smile froze on his face. He could sense millions of death spirits rushing into the region. They looked like a clump of ants. It was hard to identify how many there were. Groups of zombies slowly crawled out from underground on the field. They joined the death spirits. There were death spirits everywhere. Their screaming was as loud as tsunami.
"Anfey, what’s wrong?" Blavi asked in surprise.
Anfey did not have to answer him, since he also heard the screams of the zombies. With the loud screaming, the mages and priests had to cover their ears. Soldiers seemed to react better than mages and priests to the zombies’ screaming. The mercenaries on the battlefield had to retreat. They worriedly looked around to see what was happening. They had no idea what had happened.
"Eyes of Sky! Hurry up!" Blavi finally realized what had happened.
Over 20 Eyes of Sky were released one after another. They searched different locations, but they all gave the same view. There were zombies everywhere, countless zombies.
The priests had been relaxed, but now looked tense. An intermediate-level priest suddenly yelled, "Master Anfey, what are you standing there for? We need to retreat. The death spirits are slow. We still have the chance to escape. Hurry up!"
"Retreat! Listen to me. Retreat!" Another priest yelled as he raised his scepter.
"Do not retreat!" Anfey yelled in anger and kicked the priest in the gut. He did not put too much strength into the kick, otherwise there would be a hole in tehe priest’s stomach. However, Anfey’s kick was still too much for a priest. That priest could not help kneeling on the ground and jerked in pain.
Everyone could not help fixing their eyes on Anfey. Anfey was not a general. He did not know much about strategies on the battlefield. However, the instinct he developed after experiencing so many dangerous encounters had resulted in excellent decision-making in a short period of time. Afterwards, he was very glad he made that decision.
"Suzanna, it’s your turn now," Anfey said with a poker face. He had put his hand on the sword shaft. As he pulled his sword out, he had already jumped in the air, yelling, "Fight!"
The fire, as a meteor, lit up half of the battlefield and fell straight down among the zombies. The flame rose in the blink of an eye and turned dozens of zombies near Anfey to ashes. Anfey could not hold anything in anymore at this dangerous moment. The Fire Sword in his hand was over 20 yards long. Every swing killed a group of zombies, like he was reaping crops. Even zombies outside of the Fire Sword’s attack range were scorched.
The lower-level zombies were not scared. They still rushed towards Anfey from all sides. However, the speed that Anfey killed zombies was a lot faster than the speed the zombies could reach him. The flame was so strong that everywhere the flame passed, it turned it into a burning hell.
The mercenaries in Zagreen City were more scared than zombies, especially when they saw Anfey almost make a path for them by killing the zombies. Anfey did not seem to stop, so they yelled and turned around to run back into the city.
Blavi, Elizabeth and others had really good responses. They immediately flew into the sky and followed Anfey. They constantly released Frost magic, which was not to kill zombies but to cool down the area Anfey scorched. Even with the Frost magic, it still took some time to cool down. Some areas still had very high temperatures. If they did not cool down the area, the regular swordsmen would definitely get burned, even though higher-ranking mercenaries could rush over those areas.
Mercenaries crazily yelled and ran forward at full speeds. They knew they were facing danger when they heard the thunderous screaming of zombies. At this critical moment, they had better follow Anfey. The fire and flame Anfey released showed the way.
The mercenaries in Zagreen City ran, crawled and rolled back into the city as Anfey cleared a path for them by killing zombies. He jumped on the city tower, which was not very tall. He turned around to look down at the whole battle field. The flame flickering and burning around him made him look like a Fire God. The mercenaries behind him all looked stunned and terrified. They did not know who Anfey was, but power was the most direct and sharpest way to represent a person, and it left those mercenaries with the impression he was trust worthy.
At that moment, Anfey was actually not sure if he was right or wrong about his decision to fight. However, to all the mercenaries, it was the right decision to follow Anfey. They yelled again and ran in the direction of the fire and flames.