The men looked at each other before rushing towards Zach while roaring loudly as if in an attempt to extract some courage from within their souls. Another possible reason for such an action could have been to avoid thinking about the consequences of such an action.
Despite having thought of all the various ways in which they might end up dying, they fearlessly attacked the monster in front of them; a monster who was capable of single handedly mutilating a defense type D rank beast like the Earth Bear to death. Even all of them together weren't possibly capable of pulling off such a feat let alone individually.
One of the men who was slightly timid in comparison to his compatriots looked back towards their leader for reassurance but what he saw left him utterly stupefied.
Their leader Braxton, who was their last hope, was nowhere to be seen.
Upon a closer look, the timid man saw an extremely elusive silhouette sneaking away in the opposite direction without making a sound. He sneered as he watched Braxton the mighty E rank mage running off into the distance after having sent his men to their certain deaths in an attempt to stop the enemy from chasing after him. His steps came to an absolute halt in the middle of the charge as if his feet had gotten stuck in quicksand while the rest of the men continued rushing towards the demon like enemy who had a menacing look on his face; one that was akin to that of a wild and feral beast that had somehow managed to free itself from its eternal chains.
The rest of the men though didn't know that the last bastion of support that they had been relying on in their minds had already escaped from the scene leaving them all to fend for themselves.
Zach watched the leader run away with a blank look on his face as if it was of no consequence. Although, he hadn't expected the enemy leader to fight him to death, he had thought that the enemy would have some backbone at the very least. Such cowardice was a surprise to him considering that the cunning of the enemy mage had previously pushed him very close to death. So Zach had put him slightly higher on the danger scale.
In a matter of seconds, he was surrounded from all sides by Braxton's men, some of whom even wore mage battle gear while the others seemed to be melee fighters.
The mages stood at a distance as they prepared to chant magic spells of different kinds while the melee fighters closed in on him from all sides while trying to buy time for the mages to cast their spells.
To prevent them from pulling off their simplistic scheme, Zach pulled out an ancient looking revolver from the weapon holster at his side and fired two rounds towards the mages at the back one by one calmly.
Being F rank mages, the defensive capabilities of the mages had already been very minimal and on top of that they were in the middle of chanting attack skills as the bullets from the revolver found their way into their bodies draining all the life from within their eyes turning them completely soulless.
The melee fighters who had exercised caution after seeing the weird weapon in Zach's hands didn't even get the chance to attack and distract him before the bodies of the mages that they were trying to protect behind them fell with a dull thud. Dumbfounded, they turned their heads back only to witness the lifeless bodies of their colleagues with whom they had spent quite some time with.
The mages who had been about to complete the chanting for their attack skills immediately stopped channeling them and began working on their defensive skills. Soon transparent colored barriers surrounded each of the mages as they tried to save their skin instead of allowing their opponent to pick them off one by one.
To Zach, the F rank mages were no challenge at all. He could kill them in the blink of an eye if he wanted to but he didn't want to kill all of them if possible. His feud was primarily with the leader of the group since the rest of them looked like hired goons at best and those seemed to be of the lowest caliber as well.
As long as they didn't obstruct his path, Zach was willing to let them go. He put the revolver in the holster as he equipped his Flame Gloves before rushing in to meet the melee fighters.
Fire and destruction rained down along with the flurry of his agile punches as the enemy group found themselves under heavy artillery fire.
[Critical Hit]
[Critical Hit]
[Critical Hit]
…
Unable to dodge, they desperately looked towards the mages who cast several shields and buffs to help them withstand the merciless onslaught of the young man as he smashed their pride with ease.
Zach only demonstrated his strength in close combat just to keep the enemy from obstructing his path and from antagonizing him again. This was the only way in his mind that could possible reduce the body count of the assailants.
If they still didn't heed the advice hidden inside his attacks, Zach had no intention of sparing a single one of the mindless fools. He was planning to wipe them all out if they still obstructed his path.
Of course Zach didn't tell them this openly. He was waiting for them to notice this on their own since he believed that even salvation shouldn't be dished out freely or people start to take it for granted too.
The enemy group was terrified of Zach's strength to the extent that all of them began to treat him like a demon from hell that was hell bent on killing them. The thought of surrender didn't even emerge in their minds until the timid one who hadn't attacked Zach came running in between Zach and the rest of the group.
"STOP…the one you are fighting for has already escaped using us all as scapegoats. Why do we have to die for such a person? Let Braxton fend for himself and take a step back since we don't have any feud with this brother in the first place." The timid one finally managed to put a stop to the pointless struggle of the remaining group members. He had stopped the tide of the battle by placing himself directly in the line of danger; after all, no one out of them truly wanted to fight for Braxton, their cruel employer who had left them to die and had been the first one to escape with danger in sight.
Zach unconsciously admired that kind of foolish attitude compared to that of their leader's cowardice.
"This brother…we don't have any hatred between us. Whatever we did to you, you have inflicted many times more back on us. Even though you have the right to take revenge, the target of your vengeance has already escaped. We won't get in your way any longer. Let's take a step back each and forget everything that happened since there weren't any irreversible losses on your end." The timid man tried to negotiate the terms of the surrender.
"Do you really think that this is enough to make me forget how close I came to death because of your petty schemes?" Zach countered with a cruel smirk on his face.
The timid man faltered a bit at his words but gritted his teeth and continued with his reasoning.
"If you wanted to kill us, you would have done it already. Why bother wasting time with us small fries when Braxton is on the run this very instant? You might not be able to find him if you delay any longer."
Zach laughed at his solid logic as a menacing expression replaced his good natured smile.
"Count yourselves lucky today since I need to hurry after that rat of a leader you call Braxton. If any of you appear in front of me again, none of you will survive…that much I can guarantee."
Hope emerged on the faces of all his assailants after hearing his words but the very next words out of Zach's mouth scared their souls out of their bodies.
"All of you…SCRAM. I don't want to see any one of you here in five seconds. Those still in my line of sight…will die."