Braxton was a mage with a rare wood attribute. He was proficient in casting wood magic and a forest with such dense and towering trees was a heaven for any wood magic practitioner. This was his home turf.
The men gave Braxton a weird look.
"Does he really know the direction or is he just bluffing with that puffed up chest in order to show off?" One of the men couldn't exactly put his trust in Braxton and voiced out his opinion as if talking to himself.
"Shush…what are you saying? Don't you know he is a wood element mage? He can use the forest itself to track them with even more accuracy than us." The young tracker finally decided to reveal the information that he had collected about Braxton in order to shut up the others.
"Who knows what the agitated mage might do if he heard any of them running their mouth?" The young tracker thought silently as he doubled after Braxton.
It wasn't long before the group had to acknowledge the skill of the mage. The trackers soon picked up the lost trail of their enemies.
Braxton on the other hand was sweating slightly because he had expended some of his mana trying to locate their target. He handed over the task of guiding them to the young tracker once again.
The young tracker passed by Braxton apprehensively as he led the group forward while carefully following after the trail.
*BOOM*
The deafening sound had come from behind him. The tracker looked back and found a swirl of smoke and dust with a small crater in the ground and immediately halted his steps despite his natural instinct yelling at him to run away.
One of the group members had been blown away by in the explosion and panic could be seen on the faces of everyone else.
"It's a trap. I should have known that the enemy so skilled at removing their traces couldn't have left such an obvious trail behind them." Braxton ground his teeth in anger as he viciously cursed this unknown enemy.
The group members panicked as soon as they heard the word 'Trap'. They felt their hearts being constricted under the unknown deadly threat that could pop out of anywhere.
"Who knows how many more traps the enemy has installed on this path?" said one of the men while looking at the rest of the group in fear hoping that the rest of them would agree to run away with him.
Some of them had the same expressions as him but the remaining ones were looking towards Braxton for some reason.
Unlike what had happened, Braxton was a very cautious individual. If it hadn't been for his heavy mana consumption earlier which made him feel delirious, he would have seen such a trap coming a long way back. Alas! It was too late now.
"Everyone calm down. Don't move and stay wherever you are. I will take care of the traps first." Braxton calmed down the rising emotion of the group and began using his wood element to scour the ground for more similar traps.
The explosive traps that Zach had set up on his way while escaping were not very effective since they were triggered by application of pressure and not by proximity. But Zach had planted those traps so ingeniously that as long as his enemies followed after him, they were bound to trigger them sooner or later.
Braxton spread out his mana along the path that they were going to take and the forest responded to his call. In exchange for some mana, the grass around the trees began to move and soon located the disc like explosives that Zach had planted along the path. There were several of them which made Braxton feel a little apprehensive.
"The enemy has done a thorough job. He didn't leave any leeway and was determined to get us out of the way if possible without making any contact. They are definitely a ruthless group." Braxton thought as he reminded himself that caution along the path was absolutely necessary.
Soon grass covered the places where Zach had installed the traps.
"I have located all the traps. Everyone move towards me while avoiding the grassy patches. If you step on any grassy patch than you will be triggering an explosive trap, so be very careful as you move with steady steps." Braxton instructed the group severely in order to not have any more casualties because of known danger.
When every one of his team members was safely behind him, Braxton commanded the grass to push in on the ground with enough force so as to trigger the explosive traps.
There were loud explosive sounds in succession as if some huge fireworks festival was taking place in the middle of the forest.
Although Braxton managed to deactivate all the traps, his mana consumption was significant considering he had to make use of the forest like this again. But he didn't let it show outwardly to his group, whether out of pride or out of caution was unknown,
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Zach was keeping an ear out for the sound of the explosions in order to determine the distance that he had managed to gain on his pursuers. He was delighted upon the sound of the first explosion since he knew that the enemy would proceed with caution after having witnessed the consequences of triggering a trap.
But he was subsequently dumbfounded when he heard the series of explosions without any time difference in between. This was definitely not within his expectations. Someone who was able to find and deactivate all the explosive traps simultaneously was not any normal existence. Zach was sure of that and raised his caution up a notch.
"So they have managed to deactivate my traps. They have some skill, I guess. Damn this weak gear. If only I had the Flame Gloves, all of them would be crawling beneath my feet by now." Zach complained out loud due to which Luna looked at him with curiosity. She had been curious about the traps that Zach was setting along the way but had never asked him about it.
When the explosion sounded in the distance, it was only then she knew what those weak looking traps were capable of.
Zach was beginning to worry as his enemy turned out to be more skilled than he had anticipated. They had trackers who were able to follow him despite the fact that Zach had been cautiously clearing all his tracks while moving forward. Moreover, they had someone who was capable of identifying and deactivating his traps that he had carefully hidden in the ground and out of sight.
Zach took out the map and looked at the red blips moving speedily towards them. It seemed that the enemy had thrown caution to the wind in order to get a hold of them.
"We should start moving. At this rate, it won't be long before they catch up to us." Zach said with a serious expression on his face.
Luna on the other hand mustered up some courage and refused to go with Zach.
"You can go ahead by yourself. It is because of me that those people are chasing us. They won't stop coming unless they find me. This way at least you will be able to escape them."
Zach sighed heavily as he stared at Luna who looked like a scared child who was trying to look brave by clenching his teeth and balling up its hands.
"Let me worry about that. You don't have to think about such things. Also, who can say that I am not their target? Since I have killed their men through my traps, I may have become a target as well." Zach said in a nonchalant manner as if he didn't care if he was a target or not.
Luna on the other hand refused to agree to his point view. Her stubbornness was really something.
"But if you want to escape on your own, I know you can do so without any difficulty. You are only in their range because you have to carry a useless burden like me with you. If you leave me behind, you wouldn't have to worry about people chasing after you."