One by one, I lifted my siblings and put them on my elytron. I can't afford to leave them alone here, but I will follow those bastards no matter what and kill them. I'll just ensure my siblings are in a safe place before I engage.
"So they're the one who attacked the village of your benefactor? Then, the village they attack was not inside the land of Hestion Kingdom. Because if it is, it should have been reported to us. It must be small village near the Gashnor forest." Elissia said behind me.
I moved toward the exit of the cave and head straight towards the direction of the unorganised Knights whose roaming the Forest of leaning trees. Elissia's footstep was trailing behind me and I could feel the restlessness and unease on her.
"Are you afraid of them?" I asked. The princess's brow twitched and a tsundere can be seen glaring at me.
"Of course I'm not! They all posses huge mana pools but I had more than most of them. And I'm sure that we can defeat them with a plan and strategy!" She hastened her pace and were now on my side.
Kaisa opened her elytron and her translucent pair of wings flapped rapidly that it almost seems like a vibration. She hovered herself and landed on Elissia's shoulder. The latter smiled at my sister.
All of my siblings have developed a fondness of the Princess and Kaisa accumulated trust and fondness for her the most.
"Brother? Can I use magic?" Suddenly, my sister asked out of the blue.
"I don't know Kaisa. I sure do feel a small amount of mana gathering inside you exactly in the same place where my core was located. But I think you still don't have a proper mana core to execute magic."
Kaisa felt downhearted towards my answer and the rest of my siblings demand the same thing.
"Me too brother!"
"Yeah! I want to use magic!"
"Teach us brother!"
"I'm hungry!"
A sigh can be heard releasing from me and Elissia gave me a wary smile. And then her expression changed like she remembered something.
"Come to think of it, noble and aristocratic children's were taught and helped to form their core at a young age. I think the same method can be applied to your siblings Kaiser!"
"A method?"
"Yes! It's quite simple! All it need was someone who has a mana core and has already mastered it. They will guide the mana of the children to form a core!"
"Sounds like a great idea. But I want to focus on them first. Maybe after we go home guys. Is that fine for you?"
"Yes." My siblings uttered in unison with defeated tone.
We continued our silent and low-profile pursuit keeping us many metres away from the Knights. We've noticed their wide and scattered formation and their heads shifting from left and right that verified our suspicion that they were looking for something.
After another hour of silent following, the Knights settled in a place where there's a small area don't have any trees growing in it. Magic circles appeared on some Knight's hands and large steel rods, ropes and black clothe fabrics appeared in front of them. Their probably setting a tents for them to rest.
"Will you help me on this Elissia? I forgot to ask you first before we left the cave." I asked in a low voice on the Princess behind me.
"Of course I will. Even if that village was not under our kingdom's rule, they're still people who shared the same region as us. And they're probably after me anyways. As far as I know, I'm the biggest target for many enemies in our Kingdom." She said with a stoic expression etched on her face.
She's the King's only daughter after all. And the only rightful inheritor of the throne. I gave him a nod and told my siblings to slide down for a bit.
Beneath a leaning tree, I digged a small hole enough to give my siblings a small, safe and spacious shelter for now. I also asked Elissia to cover it. Now it looked like a stone of blue ice under a tree. It can be seen as a half spherical above but inside it was a wide space for my siblings and small holes for them to hide incase of a situation where the ice ceiling of their temporary shelter collapse.
When I determined that my siblings will be now safe from here, I looked at Elissia and her blue eyes met mine. She gave me a stern nod gesturing that she's ready now.
We Marched forward towards the encampment of the Knights. It dint took to long for some of them to detect our presences just 30 meters away from them. Swords unsheathing from their scabbard, metallic sound of armored shoe stomping into the ground, leaves and twigs beneath them, wary voice of Knights grouping up into different formation.
3 groups composed of 5 Knights each are marching warily toward us and another group headed left and right to circle and obstruct possible escape routes that we might possibly take to escape.
It is now confirmed then, they were after Elissia. They instantly moved out at seeing the sight of her, showing that she was the sole reason why they headed here. I can sense that most of these enemies has more amount of mana than those assassins, except of on individual.
This person was obviously their leader or captain. He has blue clothe under his glamorous armor which stands out of their group. The other knight has black clothes under their silver armour. And this leader of them has amount of mana greater than the rest by two folds.
Elissia's stance readied instinctively when we both saw the Knight's leader bend his knees forward like he's about to jump or burst forward. Both Elissia and I was taken by surprise when his figure blurred, he's after images made a blury line towards us and he finally blinked in existence in front of us. He's double-edged sword was already on a horizontal slicing position from his back.
Elissia immediately stepped forward and a deep blue ice shield appeared from her arms positioned to block the incoming attack towards both of us. The two object made contact resulting a clanging sound of hard objects meeting each other and the sound of cracking ice.
Elissia held strong into position but the force was stronger than she anticipated. Her feet digged deep into the ground as she was being pushed by the shear force of the impact.
The knight acted quick and used the shield as a stepping ground to sprung up high and slash down on me.
"What the?" Elissia uttered in shock.
He was targeting me? Was it because he's underestimating me and decide to eliminate me first? But it seems like it's not the case. My 6 legs skittered back to evade the downward attack. I don't think my trunk is hard enough to parry the combination of the sword's sharpness and the strength of this knight.
He's attack slashed the ground and I immediately burst a raging flame towards him and force him to hop back. After he landed, he's feet instantly moved to the side and he sprinted to deliver a quick attack to my side.
He's sprint was cancelled when the ground he was running into was replaced by ice and made him slide forward in a slower speed. He was smart enough to lower his body to stop himself from tripping.
From his back, Elissia hailed ice needles in his direction but was skillfully parried with his swords and inhuman speed of swordsmanship. Elissia materialised a wall of ice between me and the knight and I immediately bursted a raging flame towards it releasing a blast of steam towards the knight captain.
Elissia was now on my side staring warily towards the cloud of steam where a silhouette of a person covered in gleaming sphere of arcane shield.
"This is unexpected. They seem to be after you!"