"Guard the kingdom's secrets." Kesde said.
These four words set off a resounding "Yes sir!" from the crowd of escapees.
Chaos broke out as they brawled with their compatriots. I felt a pull at my mind but Spirit put up my walls and we resisted it.
'Knights, on me, we can't rely on numbers for this one.'
Plien and Fultz stood on my flanks with their shields on the side facing me.
'Plien will have trouble swinging his sword, his shield arm is carrying his sword.'
"Bella! snake head maneuver!" I shouted as Plien and Fultz charged under my command.
Bella nocked an arrow while I braced my spear for a charge.
"AAHHH!" I screamed on my approach, trying to draw as much attention to myself as possible.
My golems deflected all of the attacks that would have hit me while dodging most of the rest. In seconds we reached Kesde, it looked like a commander assassination, and it was.
"Dumbass." Kesde smiled as the Knights fell to his slave-warriors.
'They lasted barely a second, I need a little more.'
"As if." I quipped as I made waves in the metal floor, making everyone lose their footing except Kesde, Bella, James and me. I covered the humans in metal to restrain them while they were down.
I feinted with my spear and Kesde fell for it.
Thwish!
James electrified his ax and threw it at Kesde, hitting him square in the chest and stunning him for a second.
'Not enough.'
I stabbed at his throat with my spear, only for his armor to shape-change slightly and barely deflect it.
"You like that kid? We can do it to!" He spat a little blood and swung his sword down at me.
The metal spear tip moved down the shaft and became a plate to absorb the incoming strike. I tried to deflect the strike because Kesde was stronger than me, but I ended up taking the full force and it made my arms numb. While my arms were unresponsive, he used a blood glyph to try to shock me, but he only managed to shock everyone around him and himself when he electrified the metal at his feet.
I used my Changeling Armor in the same way I used to use Skeleton Armor, to empower my hits. I kicked with lightning in my feet into Kesde's nether regions.
He doubled over and gave me time to use flow manipulation. I tried to pierce him with the metal in the walls, but he was too fast and jumped back.
'My turn' I used the blood glyph Truth to cast Flying Flare.
"Using the same trick twice? You think I wouldn't be prepared?" He tried to make me lose my cool, but I wasn't trying to blind him.
An arrow flew from behind me, through the flare, taking it with the arrow until it hit Kesde square in the face. A zone of near zero pressure appeared, centered on the arrow and then the zone filled again, violently. Needless to say, there wasn't much left of my old teacher.
"Ugh... what happened?" One of the Slave-Warriors said before going unconscious.
[No spirit core, presumed human, reading brain rune.]
[Galloe Glass-Hands]
'What the?! Fuck it! They aren't hostile anymore and neither are the mages, we have to get out before the reinforcements come.'
I extracted the cores from the husks of the knights and put the rest into a compression sphere. Then, in a feat of flow manipulation, I gathered the mostly unconscious group of mages and the slaves into my range and started moving them along the floor and through the holes I made in the walls.
A few walls later and all of the people involved in the fight, including Kesde's men, were safely outside.
'There aren't any archers?' I thought as I let my guard down. 'Whatever, better get to the ship ASAP'
"Over here! We have to tie them up!"
My arm split into thousands of small splinters that I used to hold ropes and tie the brainwashed naturals, then I used a bit of metal to bind the hands of the slave warriors. While I did the tying, the naturals who didn't get brainwashed carried them to the ship. Soon, James's golems showed up and started ferrying people to the ship.
"Let's go! Freedom waits for none!" I shouted once the last of the brainwashed ones was taken away.
I looked off into the distance to see Team A running our direction with a singular glider troop at their tail.
'Hmph, child's play'
I unfurled my wings and assumed my Wyrmling appearance. I took off and made my arm-blades. I got closer until the soldier noticed me and I noticed the rank of archers.
'NOT child's play!'
I began evasive action, I banked, rolled and dodged for almost a minute as the archers rained hell on me and the glider made attack runs on me.
'This won't work, they can keep going until they run out of ammo because they are staggering their fire. I need to fix it.'
I dove directly at the archers and prepared to use my trump card.
As I landed I poured my Eneru into my Airstepper boots to slow my fall and ward off the incoming barrage of arrows. Many of the archers pulled their swords because I got close, but I had a plan. I put my hands on a tree and activated the runic combination I had been making.
The tree's roots grew to a giant, conductive network, slowly grabbing up the feet of the archers.
'They're either weak mages that can't use much Eneru, they don't know about Eneru, or they don't want to hurt each other. They'll all die the same if I burn them though.' My thoughts started to scare me, but the bows aimed at me made my mind.
All of the archers were dragged mostly underground, restraining them.
'If you let them live, they will just come back to kill you later.' Spirit sounded sinister.
The archers were dragged the rest of the way down and were left to suffocate.