Asher communicated his commands with the mages and immediately made his move.
The gate that barricaded the mountain pass was shaped like the letter 'U' but with the two sides slanted at an angle of 45°. The structure of the gate was more similar to that of the Great Wall of China except at front part -the bottom of the U- there was a metal gate fixed in. Nonetheless, both the stone fort-like structure and the metal gate were all commonly referred to as the mountain gate.
There were roughly sixty bandits, varying between the Human stage and the first stage of the Guardian rank with only five at the peak, present in this area from what Asher could sense. There were also some 'elite' figures but they were in a fortress behind. At the top of the gate, there were about twenty-five bandits who acted as sentries on all sides and another five that were in charge of opening and closing the metal gate at the centre. The remaining thirty bandits were in a fortress built right behind the gate.
For Asher's team to make it in, they had to first take out the sentries and then seize control of the gate before attacking the bandits in the fortress behind. This looked like a difficult task but was nothing to Asher.
Asher dashed through the mountain, using the rock forest by the side to hide his silhouette long enough to get close. Once he had reached the gate, Asher immediately used his fifth-stage senses to knock out his targets, who were the sentries atop that side of the gate. The section Asher had targeted was the edge of the right-hand area of the gate, which due to its slanted nature, made it possible for him to sneak on top without getting spotted. With them out of the way, Asher hurriedly made it to the top of the gate and right behind him was Luther, who assisted him in securing the area before the remaining twenty-nine mages made it up.
Because it was in the daytime, they didn't wear dark clothing but an ash cloak they had prepared long ago. Part of the team's mission outfits were three coloured clothings: a black cloak, an ash cloak and a desert brown cloak. The first two had been stored with them right before they had departed for the mission, each for attacking at different times of the day.
The team had only attacked one section of the wall to prevent the other bandits from being alerted but they had to move quickly because soon enough, the other bandits would notice something. With all thirty mages present, Asher gave the command and they immediately dashed towards their target. Part of their training routine in the past few months had been on improving their speed and reactions so even with their magic suppressed, their physical capabilities were still the same.
Within just twelve seconds, the team of mages had taken down all the sentries on the gate. However, they laid them by the edges of the stone walls to create the impression that the bandits were still alive and on duty.
Asher on the other hand, had wandered into the fortress behind the gate using basic void movement. This was a special short-distance teleportation spell from his memory which Asher had first used in his battle against the protector mages of the academy. If one could recall, in his past life as Yi Feng, Asher had control over the Dao of void; which was known as the element of space in this new world. The reason Asher didn't use it much was because his body didn't align with the spatial elements like in his past life. Nonetheless, he was still able to utilize some spells for two reasons.
The first was that Asher had a really high mastery over space in his past life so even without any ounce of affinity to it, he could use his knowledge to pull it off a bit. The second had to do with the unlocking of his beyond-heavenly constitution. If one could recall, Asher's current constitution was called the 'Chaos-Origin body', and one of the principles of Chaos and Origin was space. So, even without any affinity from his physique, the dual-elemental Dark-Ice Wood physique, Asher could still depend on his constitution and knowledge to perform the unthinkable. Even so, the lack of affinity from his physique meant that he needed to consume more mana than usual just to utilize a simple space magic like basic void movement.
Nonetheless, as long as he unlocked his constitution further, Asher believed that the mana cost would decrease. As of right now, only 10% of his constitution's full prowess was unlocked.
'Found you.' Asher thought as he glanced at a certain direction from within the fortress and then blinked out of existence again.
. . .
In a certain room located within the fortress, a small meeting was currently taking place.
"The boss says that we should be wary of an attack and make sure that nothing, not eve a fly gets past here." A guard, who acted as a messenger, said.
"Yeah, yeah I know. Either way, it's bright as heck and it would be pretty stupid for anyone to commence a raid at this time of the day. They would be spotted more than a mile out so sneaking over is impossible." A lean man spoke.
He was the only peak-second stage Guardian mage present on duty at the fortress and was the one in-charge at the moment.
Apart from him, the others present were somewhat high figures who had been sent to assist him. Three of them were similarly second-stage Guardian mages with only one at the mid-rank while the rest at the early-rank. The remaining two were peak rank first-stage Guardian mages, independent of the five Asher had earlier sensed. One of them was the messenger who spoke.
"Even though, it would be best to be on guard." The messenger said.
"I know, I know. I already know this better than you. Even so, use your brain and think. Who the fack would attack us in broad daylight?" The lean mage spoke with a scornful look on his face.
The man had only laughed for a second when he noticed that the expressions on his men's faces were weird.
"Hmm? What is it?" The lean man asked, but none of them replied him. Instead, the messenger pointed behind.
"In, intrud-"
His words immediately cut short as his eyes rolled back and he fell to the ground.
Similarly, the other bandits presented fainted on the spot.
The lean man's body turned cold and he hurriedly tried to run for it as he swung his hand backward, casting a fire spell behind him. Although he didn't know what had happened, the uttering of the messenger as well as the strange event was enough for him to understand that there was an intruder present. As for how they got in, he didn't know. All the lean bandit cared about was escaping with his life.
The lean bandit tried to call out for help as his body began moving forward.
"Guar-"
"Where do you think you're going?" Asher's cold voice sounded in the room as the lean bandit's voice was cut off and he was frozen on the spot.
Before the lean bandit could ponder on what had happened, Asher appeared in front of him and placed a hand on his chest.
The bandit began to spasm while standing and was drooling like a concussion patient. After twenty seconds, Asher released his hand from the man with his face slightly paler than it was. The man's body then fell to the floor with a thud as it became devoid of life.
'It's still a bit draining but I can get a hang of it with enough usage.' Asher thought.
He had used a memory-reading spell of the Ingens Spiritas race from his past life. As the name implied, the spell could read through the memory of the target. The amount of memories one could process with this spell depended on the proficiency, power difference and mental energy difference between the user and the target. At the same time, the side effects on the target and the consumption stress on the user also depended on those factors.
In Asher's case, his mana was at the third-stage of the Guardian realm, ahead of the lean bandit. His mental power was even further ahead, at the fifth-stage of the Guardian realm, but he was lacking in some proficiency with the spell. Nonetheless, Asher was able to see the most recent five years of the man's life thanks to this and he was also able to end the man's life or even turn him 'brain-dead' if he wanted.
"They should be done by now." Asher walked out of the room while massaging his brows.
"We have control of the gate." Luther sent a mental signal to Asher.
As a fourth-stage Guardian mage and thanks to Asher's training, Luther had an equivalent mental power. Asher had also taught him how to communicate mentally as in this age and time, the system of long distance communication was poor. For instance, the bandits at the peak of the mountain could only send signals to those at the fortress using smoke signals, but if the weather was against them, they would lack any means of long distance communication.
Wielding an advantage in communication could aid in deciding the end of a battle and Asher wanted his team to have the upper hand in this aspect. As such, each team captain had to know a bit about mental communication, especially so for Luther and Aaron.
"Attack." Asher ordered.
Before the bandits could realize what was going on, Asher's men charged from the gate into the fortress and attacked them. Chaos broke out with screams sounding in the air. The first chain of attacks had resulted in the bandit group alliance losing more than a quarter of the original men stationed here, but that was just the beginning.
Pushing on with the momentum in their hands, the mages from Asher's side continued with the assault and began slaughtering bandits like they were chicken, although some of them managed to resist futilely. The elite forces of the bandits had been single-handedly taken down by Asher and the remaining were just first-stage Guardian mages and Human realm mages. Considering that their numerical force was just thirty mages, on par with Asher's team, the quality of the two forces was the final determinant of the stronger power, and of the two groups, Asher's team was ahead by far.
Soon enough, a minute had gone by and all the bandits were now dead. The gate was in their control and the fortress was now included in the count.
'Now begins the hard part.' Asher thought as he looked towards the peak of the mountain.