The battlefield became silent.
Susan was the strongest of the group from Balvan mansion, and right now, she was convulsing on the ground engulfed by flames.
'Fuck!'
Noah was the first to react.
He hastily slashed the throat of one of the men in front of him while the unexpected event still stupefied him.
Then, he prepared to run away.
He didn't know much about magic spells, but he was sure of one thing.
'If that man can make that attack again, we are doomed! I must retreat! I will never be the last one to escape again!'
He swore this to himself since the events near Lilun village, if you have to escape be the first to do that!
That was the main reason why he was the first of the group to react.
He was constantly wary of any unexpected thing that could happen, like a rank 3 magical beast rising from a shore made of bones, or a misleading report not mentioning a mage in the group of deserters.
Before he even managed to turn back though, a shockwave ran from the flames, extinguishing them.
Susan's figure struggled to get up, showing to the onlookers the pitiful state she was in.
She was completely naked without any hair left on her body.
Her skin was almost completely burned, and crackling sounds came out of it.
She was missing her right arm, which probably took most of the destructive power of the spell, while her left hand had only two fingers left.
A guttural voice came out of her mouth while she spoke slowly.
"Can... hold him back. Complete... mission."
Then she jumped back on the man now visible high in the mountain path.
He was staring at her with a slight smile, apparently satisfied by the damage dealt by his spell, yet his complexion looked pale like he was tired.
Noah was stupefied.
He was ready to run away, but then he saw what should have been a burned corpse getting up and speak.
'She should have been killed already just by the injuries created by the flames, not even considering the impact of the attack hitting her. Is this a real cultivator?'
He looked at the remaining man standing in front of him, about how he blocked his attack, and could not help but feel like he was an ant fighting another ant.
'I am incredibly weak.'
He wasn't thinking only about his physical power but also about his mental state.
The sight of Susan's determination inspired him.
As if sensing the change in his mental state, his acupoints started absorbing "Breath" at speed like never before, slowly refilling the "Breath" he used till now.
The man seeing the kid slowly moving toward him felt a chill down his spine and got ready to block any incoming attack.
"It's useless."
Said Noah walking past him.
"You are already dead."
The sword in his hands, held in a horizontal position in front of his chest, divided itself into two halves, then a red line appeared from his head till his waist.
Blood sprouted from the red line as the man was cut vertically in two.
A weak cultivator could do nothing against the full power of a rank 3 martial art!
Even though Noah could have defeated him conserving most of his "Breath" that would have taken some time, and he was eager to give support to the other people in his group.
'Even if I can't defeat the mage, they probably can if they work together. I have to use my last full-power attack wisely.'
His last strike halved the "Breath" in his body, but now he could assist the others in their fight.
Meanwhile, Sandy and the others had resumed their fights after seeing Susan's attempt to buy time for them.
Ethan was fighting with the man that tried to block Susan previously while the brothers were still dealing with the three injured cultivators.
Ethan seemed at a disadvantage against the maneuverability of the man's short sword, and he kept getting wounded superficially by its fast attacks.
On the other side, Sandy and Mark seemed close to delivering a fatal attack to one of the men surrounding them.
Still, they would always be obstructed at the last moment by the other two, the advantage in numbers was slowing the arrival of victory in their fight.
Noah chose to help the brothers since their fight was the easiest to end with his help, and since he wasn't too sure that he could block the short sword of the man if he focused him.
Uncaring of their bleeding wrists, the three deserters were still delivering powerful blows containing great force, they used their martial arts empowered with their higher tier of "Breath" to unleash peak rank two attacks continuously.
Noah could do that only twice, and that was because his martial art was rank 3!
Even though theirs was an art of a lower level, their attacks contained the same power, and the deserters had fewer restrictions in their usage.
Yet, the brothers would always dodge them while delivering swift counterattacks that would either be blocked by one of the deserters or wound them lightly.
Wounds kept accumulating on the trio, but they held still, waiting for their boss to finish his fight with the almost dead woman.
Another counterattack was launched by Sandy but was blocked by one of the men confidently.
He was preparing himself to deliver another powerful blow when he felt a sudden pain to his back.
He turned around to see a kid with black hair in a ponytail getting away from him at high speed.
He had icy-blue eyes and donned a tight black kimono, in his hands, there were two black sabers, one of them had dripping blood on it.
He had no time to say anything because Mark didn't let this occasion slip by and planted his knife in the man's chest.
The man died, still wondering where the kid came from.
After one of the three deserters died, the fight became utterly one-sided, and Mark and Sandy took out the already injured opponents in a few rounds of attack.
They didn't waste any time as they sped toward Ethan's battle, Mark only slightly nodded at Noah's figure following them at some distance.
Ethan was having a rough time.
His opponent was slowly overwhelming him, locking him into a passive position.
There were a lot of light wounds on Ethan's arms and a deep one on his left leg that was hindering his movements.
The brothers arrived at full speed, stopping the man from inflicting another massive wound on Ethan and then, together with him, unleashed a series of attacks on the encircled deserter.
Seeing that the situation wasn't looking good, the man chose to escape, getting injured on purpose to avoid the encirclement and then running at full speed toward the forest.
But then, a black saber appeared in front of him.