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Emilia also activated one of the daggers’ enchantments and improved its sharpness, before blocking Astrus’ charge. Sparks flew as the sound of clashing weapons reverberated through the courtyard, black and white smoke billowing from both weapons.

Astrus tightened his grip on the spear and pressed on Emilia, who couldn’t resist and ducked, letting the spear pass over her head as she slid her daggers along the spear’s hilt and tried to cut his gloved fingers.

Astrus took a step back and narrowly avoided losing the fingers of his right hand, swinging his spear and attempting a side swing. Emilia jumped back and dodged, launching two blades of dark aura to keep Astrus away.

Astrus blocked it with his spear shaft and lunged again, this time trying to pierce his ribs. Emilia tried to dodge to the side, but Astrus used the piercing aura skill, a spear version of the aura blade.

The piercing aura grazed her ribs, and Emilia responded by hurling one of her daggers at Astrus’ forehead. The general just cocked his head to the side and tried to keep pushing.

Now that she only had a single dagger, Emilia was forced to be on the defensive. Astrus looked briefly at the other skeleton and became impatient seeing the teleportation crystal turn almost completely black. He attacked Emilia furiously to try to kill her quickly, but Emilia blocked or dodged all of his attacks.

Losing his cool completely, he activated one of the spear’s enchantments, lightning stab. Each stab now released a thin bolt of lightning that left blackened marks on Emilia’s bones whenever it hit, but was imperceptible on her dark bones.

Astrus couldn’t see any immediate difference, so he got more and more impatient, but Emilia knew she couldn’t take any more attacks like that. With a single thought, the dagger she had thrown flew towards her again, aiming for Astrus who was in the way.

.....

Unlike the generic enchantments that Athos asked for himself, Emilia asked that her daggers have an attraction enchantment that would allow her to retrieve her dagger after being thrown, as she had the habit of throwing daggers to gain space when fighting.

Astrus felt the dagger approach thanks to his helmet’s enchantment, which enhanced his perception and activated the armor’s light barrier as he tried to pierce Emilia in the head once more.

Emilia blocked him with her dagger and ducked, the lightning nearly knocking the dagger out of her hand and pointing her other hand at knee height. The flying dagger changed direction midway and went through the leg made of light, causing him to fall backwards.

What Astrus failed to realize because of the heat of the battle is that the armor’s light shield didn’t extend to his conjured leg, so it was an easy target as he didn’t put in much mana and just used it to keep himself upright.

Emilia took advantage of her low position and stabbed both daggers into Astrus’ groin. The barrier cracked, managing to stop the daggers from going deeper, but not the mana blades. Blades of corrupted mana extended from the daggers and hit the gaps between her thighs and pelvis.

...by a few centimeters, the corrupted mana blades missed the crown jewels.

“Argh!” Astrus screamed in pain and slammed his spear into the ground for support, at the same time he landed a left hook to Emilia’s jaw. The punch broke her jaw and if she hadn’t jumped back at the last second, it probably would have destroyed her entire skull.

Emilia was flung through the air and crashed into the stone floor, but quickly got up on guard against possible counterattacks, but none came. Astrus fell to the ground shortly after he punched her, unable to stand.

Emilia hit the nerves in her waist and Astrus lost feeling in both legs. He couldn’t get up anymore, but he didn’t give up the fight. Now that he didn’t need to keep his conjured leg and control his movements, Astrus was free to cast magic.

White lightning gathered in his right hand, but a spike of dark earth struck his shield from below and sent him flying.

“I finished!” Caio shouted as he approached Emilia. The teleportation crystal in his hand was almost completely black. Caio purposely avoided participating in the fight and focused only on feeding the crystal, believing that Emilia could buy him enough time.

“Let’s go soon!” Emilia spoke, her speech a little affected by the loss of her jaw. Caio nodded and fed the crystal with what little energy it needed to fill it and soon a black sphere surrounded them both, the air around them quickly draining away.

“I won’t let you!” Astrus screamed still in the air, hurling his spear at them. The vacuum generated by the rip in space only increased the spear’s speed.

Caio squeezed his remaining mana into a makeshift earthen wall, but the spear sliced through like a hot knife through butter. The spear dug into the ground between them and released a bright glow to scorch the undead, but it did nothing to stop the teleportation.

With no other choice, Astrus tried to pull the spear back to avoid losing it, but Caio clung to it desperately and they were finally teleported away.

He fell to the ground without support and gritted his teeth in frustration. Now that the fight was over, he could hear the sound of the soldiers’ screams coming from outside and it only made his mood worse.

********

A few kilometers away from the fortress, the black sphere appeared with a gust of wind before knocking Emilia and Caio to the ground.

Their ragged bodies fell to the dry grass with a strange sound, before Caio stood up abruptly. The spear he was holding continued to radiate light element even after moving away from the general.

Caio looked curiously at the spear and noticed that just behind the blades, there were two magic stones embedded in the spear. The stones were powering the enchantment with their own energy, so the spear would continue to radiate light until the stone ran out of mana.

“Hey, how long are you going to stand there?” Emilia asked as she stood up and took the teleportation crystal.

“If we leave the spear here, the general will retrieve it as soon as the pursuit begins. I was thinking of taking the weapon with us, but the light is irritating.” Caio explained his idea.

“Wrap the spear in what’s left of our cloaks.” Emilia suggested. Most of the tattered overcoat she was wearing had been destroyed, but she handed over what was left anyway.

Caio did the same and wrapped the spear using the pieces of cloth. It didn’t do much to block the magical light, but it was better than nothing. “Where are we going?”

“Let’s go meet our master. We ran away in a hurry and haven’t decided on a meeting point, but it’s likely that he fled in the direction of the army.” Emilia looked at the sky, trying to use the stars to locate herself.

The army was approaching from the northwest and she started moving in that direction. As she walked, she tried to find traces of Athos, but found nothing. The darkness in the bones of skeletons drained the vitality of everything they touched, so he would leave footprints of dead grass wherever he went.

Emilia had a bad feeling about this, but she ignored it, telling herself that her master was just taking a different route to throw the pursuers off track.

*********

Athos was currently resting on a hill, regenerating his mana as two hive hawks flew around him. It ran for approximately an hour before stopping.

Athos had sent the third back to the army to inform them that they had succeeded in disabling the large-scale spells and that he would make a slight detour, but would arrive in time for the attack.

He was moving north to where the metal mine next to the fortress was. Athos wanted to take the metal mines before the messengers were sent. The metal mines were a source of funds not just for the stronghold but for the nation itself, so it was obvious they would check this place out.

After finishing restoring his mana and doing the same with the hive hawks, Athos walked for another hour and finally reached the mines. The sun had already risen and it was early in the morning, so the workers at the mine should have started another day’s work by now.

Without the darkness of night to cover him, Athos had to be much more careful approaching. Luckily, the terrain near the mine was uneven and Athos used this to get close enough until he could see the entrance to the mine.

There were a few wooden huts around the only entrance to the metal mines. The soldiers responsible for guarding the mines were already on standby, but something was wrong.

As far as Athos knew, the raw ore was mined here and taken to the fortress where it would be sold to traders, but the number of huts was very small. Athos hoped to find a small mining village, but the huts were only enough for a few dozen soldiers.

A mining cart came out of the mine and Athos understood what was happening.