Soon, Jay and a couple of blue-furs stood just a few meters away from the red commander. But even now the red commander didn't really seem to take this too seriously, he even looked rather bored.
But knowing that this commander hadn't suffered any wounds fighting 10 blue-furs the group knew they had to be careful.
At this point, due to his wounds, Jay was slightly weaker than Geralt.
"Oh, you are the commander I assume, where is your lord?"
Jay smirked when he felt the commander's aura pressuring him before he released his own aura. The blue furs around them felt suppressed by the auras of the people next to them. And the red commander himself was also rather surprised by Jay.
He had a slight smile on his lips when he felt Jay's aura which nearly equaled his own. A first rank expert against a pseudo-first ranked expert and some strong regular troops. This wasn't something that was seen often at this point.
The commander held his sword in his right hand casually, his stance was also rather casual leaving openings everywhere.
Yet Jay didn't move at all, he knew he had to be especially careful against this enemy and he couldn't make any rash moves. Despite this being the smart choice, it still disappointed the commander who looking forward to the fight.
The taunts of the red commander were clear for him to see, and in truth, being looked down upon like this did hurt his pride a little. After a bit, Jay decided to test this red commander, the next big opening an icy pike that was hidden behind Jay's pike shot straight towards it.
As expected it didn't land, the commander's sword moved up at a nearly inhuman speed, blocking the pike. Jay frowned, even if the Iceborne had been here for a month longer than him, having a peak tier-one fighter was far from normal. It looked like it wouldn't be long until this Iceborne would be able to become a tier 2 fighter. Something that should take at least a year even for the most talented people.
This made things a lot more worrisome. If the red commander had only just broken through he would have a decent chance of victory even with his current wounds but as it was now that was extremely improbably.
Hold up, since this siege group consisted of just over 100 people it would be classified as a 'complete siege group' by the system. This meant that it was handled similarly to a town fight.
Since the commander/leader was still alive and hadn't surrendered it meant that they needed 90 percent of the enemies to surrender in order to be given victory. He had gotten the blue-furs by using a similar tactic.
But when he managed to steal a glance at the main battlefield, he noticed that many of the Iceborne who were previously about to surrender had raised their weapons once more.
The reason for this was probably because Jay and some of the blue-furs had left the battlefield weakening their side. They were probably waiting to see how the battle went on his side before they would decide whether to surrender or not.
Jay couldn't help but curse himself, if he had thought of this earlier he wouldn't have had to fight this commander and there would've been a possibility the commander joined his forces. This situation was a bad one. There was no way to disengage since the blue-furs wouldn't be able to stall him for long enough.
Right now Jay only saw one clear path to victory, they just had to disarm him. Jay's sword was a C+ grade weapon with Sharpness III, so if he managed to hit the commander's sword properly it could break.
Now the question was how to do that, his test earlier had shown him the commander was even faster than himself when he wasn't wounded, leave alone now.
After a bit of thinking, Jay realized he didn't have a choice. He would have to break through to a first rank mage, right here, right now. Right now he was even closer to breaking through than he was in the Main City and at this point, it would take practically no time. But there was still a large problem.
Doing such a thing would paint a huge target on his back. Since he would be the first human from earth to break through to the first rank he would be engulfed by heavenly light. This way any human Lord in the region would be able to deduct his general location.
Once he made up his mind Jay's aura changed. His previously aggressive aura softened as if it became liquid and calmed down.
The red commander felt something was wrong and decided to attack at this moment, lunging towards Jay. Yet in the end, the blue-furs forced him to stop as they stabbed right at some of the openings in the commander's armor.
The commander cursed while he swung his sword at the blue furs killing 2 in an instant, but they had already stalled enough.
Golden clouds formed in the sky and a moment later this golden light headed for the ground, engulfing Jay in its warm heat.
At this point, all over the region, human Lords looked in his direction. Yet other than the Lords there was another person who was looking in his direction. In the middle of the Main City an adventurer looked into the skies just after he had beaten up some other adventurers who had intended to beat him up. The golden zither in his hands gave off a particular feeling.
"So there is another, what a surprise."
The man frowned slightly when he looked eastwards, this information changed everything.
In the very East of the region close to where Jay was situated the Lords all had worried looks, some immediately started giving out orders, they had to find out where this Lord was situated and how they could beat them.
At this point, the red commander no longer looked bored in the slightest. He had noticed that Jay was wounded earlier, greatly lowering his battle prowess. But since he was one of the first, or perhaps even the first, human to get to the first rank, he was enveloped by the light of fate.
The light of fate could do many things. It not only increased a person's fate and talent but also got rid of impurities, healing wounds was a side-effect of this.
At first, the commander was confident that he would be able to beat him, but when he saw the rank-up of Jay he felt less confident. It would be normal if mana formed and swirled around him when he ranked up to become a first-ranked mage but this wasn't all that happened.
Not only was the mana especially thick and powerful but there was a second layer of something different, sword intent swirled around it and in some places mixed with the mana strengthening it further.
He had only recently been able to master sword intent recently, and it wasn't nearly as strong as what he could now sense.
After a short deliberation, the red commander turned around and ran, unwilling to put his life on the line for this mission.
This battle was Pangea's victory, but the price they had to pay was heavy. Now the Iceborne were no longer their only enemies.