Géandre's hand slowly tightened on his sword as he rushed towards the masked stranger who was attacking Valshesia. However, the young woman did not stand still and wait for help, and retrieving a small dagger from one of her protective gauntlets, she thrust it into the arm that was gripping her throat.
The blade sank into the flesh, without surprising her attacker. The latter pushed her back by giving her a kick in the abdomen, and while he rushed towards her with his sword out of its sheath, the young lancer rolled on the ground. Géandre stepped in just in time to save her from a sword blade coming down on her; two swords coming into contact and grinding against each other.
Valshesia took the opportunity to straighten up and use her teleportation spell to bring her spear back into her hands. Géandre stepped to the right, and she swung the weapon forward into the space he had vacated; forcing the enemy to leap back to avoid the spear thrown at him. His sword arced horizontally, sweeping away both Géandre's and Valshesia's weapon, and he suddenly swung his free hand towards them. A burst of magical light appeared briefly, and the two hunters found themselves hurled a dozen feet away; pushed back by an invisible force.
They fell heavily to the ground, and before they had time to get up, the masked enemy ran towards them.
The stranger was about to bring his sword down on them again, when a wall of earth suddenly rose from the ground between him and the two hunters.
A few meters away, the female alchemist had just had time to create it to interpose herself; her two hands stretched forward towards the area of the ground she was modifying. Her intervention did not go unnoticed, and the masked enemy brandished his left hand palm towards her: the young woman also found herself swept to the side by invisible hexagonal slabs that only revealed themselves very briefly upon contact with her body. She was now the new target of this lone foe, but before he could reach her, Thervis fired a line of several arrows directly in front of the alchemist to create a magical barrier between her and her assailant while the swordsman, Redrain, pulled her by the arm away from the combat zone.
Valshesia's spear flew through the air toward the back of their attacker, but he stepped aside just in time to be slashed in the left side. The weapon then vanished and reappeared in the young woman's hand.
"Be careful, this guy seems to have Bulwark magic," warned Géandre loudly.
"Bulwark magics aren't supposed to be mobile like that," Thervis contradicted him, shouting from the other side.
The ranged combat expert was right. Bulwark magic - also called Rampart magic - created a magical barrier, and could only be established at one point, with no way to move it once it was set up. Thervis' line of arrows, like the walls of armored cities, were a perfect example: they remained in one position, the one assigned to them from the start.
So if this guy could move his magic barrier like that...
"Would that be an artifact?" He said.
Valshesia looked at him and nodded.
That was the only possible explanation for this case; which also made this enemy suddenly more dangerous.
"The enemy has an artifact! Change of strategy!" Géandre exclaimed. "Scatter!"
If they were too close to each other, they might all be swept away at once by the invisible magic barrier; and suspecting that the weapon still possessed a predefined range, separating from each other while maintaining their distance from the enemy was the best thing to do.
Immediately, each of them took several steps back and separated from the others; Valshesia and Géandre putting about twenty meters between them.
The five remaining fighters now formed a huge circle around their enemy, ready to take action at the slightest movement of the masked man.
The latter remained motionless, glaring at his prey with a sky-blue gaze that no one could see because of his smooth and opaque mask. The wound on his left side continued to bleed, but the pain did not bother him. He was too busy estimating the threat of his opponents, and seeing that their tank was lying unconscious, Androanni realized that these hunters would not be a problem.
He raised an arm toward Géandre, whom he recognized as their leader, and pointed him out. A stampede echoed through the clearing; the Behemoth having risen up while the hunters paid no attention to it, and charging straight at the long-haired hunter with the braid.
Wide-eyed, Géandre narrowly jumped to the side, and looked up, petrified with trembling eyes, at the masked man who was already towering over him with the tip of his sword pressed against his chest.
Then, still holding Géandre down with the point of his sword, the masked man pointed at Valshesia. The Behemoth let out a roar, and resuming its crazy race, directed its two big horns towards the woman with the lance.
If he hadn't imagined all this, the situation was worse than anything Géandre could imagine.
This guy... was controlling the Behemoth.
Did that also mean that he was the one who ordered the monster to tear apart the other group of hunters?
However, even as he watched the behavior of the creature as it chased the other hunters, and the man who held it captive in complete silence, he had to face the evidence.
It didn't seem to be a summoning magic combined with taming, like what Géandre was doing himself. No command was given, and the creature seemed totally unleashed. Enraged, even.
It was not a control that called for cooperation between master and beast, but a pure and simple submission under a superior force. A powerful hypnosis, reflected in the Behemoth's gleaming but empty eyes.
The point of the sword pressed harder on his breastplate, and looking up at the masked man, Géandre gasped in anguish.
Even though he could not see the face and gaze of the man who was slowly leaning toward him, Géandre was petrified, convinced that the masked individual was starring at him with intensity.
A few more centimeters, and the masked man had crouched down completely, his face extremely close to the beast tamer's.
A gloved hand came to grip the bottom of Géandre's face, squeezing both cheeks and his chin, and a cold shiver ran through his body.
Without being able to explain it, the man had brought with him a wave of cold; as if his body radiated an extremely low temperature like a block of ice left in the heat.
Out of the corner of his eye, the beast tamer saw Valshesia and the other three hunters fleeing and dodging the Behemoth's charges; before the woman with the spear held up a piece of large bamboo with both ends wrapped in cloth.
She shouted something, and immediately a spark and then a flash of light exploded from the top of the bamboo. An orange streak of light rose high into the sky, before exploding again and producing a persistent orange halo visible for miles around.
He did not have however the opportunity to observe more the scene of stampede which occurred at several tens of meters from there, that a voice of man rose and made him turn his eyes towards the smooth mask where he could see the reflection of his own face; terrified.
"Where is the Salamander hiding?" Said the man, in a distorted voice.
The what? What was this guy asking him?
The blade of the sword continued to sink into his armor, beginning to cut through it to reach his clothes and skin.
Géandre felt a burn on his chest, a sign that the sword was cutting into his skin, and he winced in pain.
"Where is it?" Androanni repeated.