I started walking towards her suppressing my anger I'm not strong enough to rely on my emotions in a fight against an opponent strong enough to kill Reginald.
The woman looked calm as I walked towards her and she asked a question.
"What the fuck is oxygen?"
I ignored her words and started running towards her as she started to unsheathed her long sword it was simple and probably meant to be a two handed sword but she was using it with one.
The strange actions revealed an unfortunate truth about her she almost definitely had a martial art that was the only explanation of how she killed Reginald and her unusual sword technique.
Our weapons met or at least they were supposed to but her sword appeared on the opposite side of my staff I was able to parry her sword with my staff though meaning it didn't just phase through.
I aimed my staff towards her head but I felt a forceful pull near the end and my staff was just beside her head so I quickly pulled it back.
I don't know the specifics but her martial art ability could warp reality in a way that makes her sword deadlier and her evasiveness super effective but honestly in the story there were much stronger martial arts.
Complete control of an element, large scale reality warping, curses even super speed all this was possible with a high level martial art.
Compared to that this woman's little tricks were nothing more than a nuisance but that same nuisance killed Reginald a veteran swordsman near awakening his aura.
One sided exchanges of blows kept occurring I had started accumulating small cuts and gashes around my body.
Fighting was still going on around us but it seemed this woman had said something to her soldiers to stop them from interfering and my army were fighting 8 or 9 people individually.
I needed to end this fight and help everyone that's when the thought of martial aura kept coming into my head I didn't want to use it yet but then I looked at the woman.
Not once had she used aura she looked around my age and was probably using the highest level of her martial art.
I had managed to hit her plate armour a few times now and it finally occurred to me that no one else currently had the ability to speed up aura awakening.
Reginald devoted his life for years to mastering the sword and only with the special technique did he come close to awakening aura.
I felt myself start to smile and I released my aura it was dark red and murky but it was aura the woman froze in place as I felt my perception and strength increase.
My staff was now coated in aura and with I stabbed towards the gap in armour near the woman's neck and since she was caught off guard she tried to block with her hands.
If I had a normal staff that would of been smart since it would be a dull impact but my staff was coated in aura and as soon as it made contact I activated the rune to make it a spear.
And in that very moment I heard the woman scream in agony as both her hands were pierced at once then I reverted it back to a staff.
She dropped her sword a fatal mistake I pushed my staff which had skewered both her hands towards her neck again and this time I felt the crushing of bones as my aura covered staff dug into her neck.
I started helping out my soldiers in their fights and sent them back to the gate I was doing a silent retreat.
The sun was almost setting by the time I sent most people back to the gate and decided that it was time for a cut off.
Basically I did all I could to covertly retreat while maintaining the appearance of a fighting front their numbers had dropped down to where it was two enemies to one serothor soldier.
Eventually it was just me and a small vanguard in front of the gate I ordered Elise who was back from the battlefield to do a head count and I with the rest of the vanguard held off the army until we could quickly enter serothor.
Elise came back she said that there were exactly 5003 people we had lost around 1000 people which was a astronomical and would definitely leave a mark on serothor.
then I spread my new orders around 3000 including healers and archers needed to go to the castle where all the other citizens were holding up.
the other 2000 would scatter around the city and attack any enemy soldiers they found once we opened the gates.
this was my plan all along to take down their numbers so that my soldiers wouldn't get overwhelmed in the streets by sheer numbers and to take advantage of having the home ground.
serothor's architecture was based on drawven cities and dwarf buildings are made of solid stone and other minerals meaning serothor was basically fire proof.
it was built for more people than it needed to be there were empty houses and entire street where people don't live.
it was relatively medium in population but the stone city is a labyrinth of stone and cobbstone streets.
trenches are almost useless unless it will be a long drawn out struggle or mass destruction but a complicated city? it was the perfect battlefield for people who can navigate everything street and every corner.
once everyone had scattered and the gate was being attacked with magic I climbed up to the front gate tower and opened the gates.
we will survive this battle me and this city even if I have to fight for it with my dying breath injured on a random street.