The Amber Sword volume 3 - Chapter 19

Chapter 19 – The battle for the sawmills (6)
When the warriors felt the Subterrane Dwellers crashed onto the raised shields with their weapons, not even a single sound happened. It was almost a comical sight to have the warriors fly up into the air due to the massive impact, then thrashing their arms wildly as they fell down towards the back rows. It was complete silence.
Everyone stopped in confusion.
Jana was the first to turn around, her eyes darting around to find the cause, and she saw Brendel holding up a radiating light in his hand towards their direction:
A massive Silence spell that covered sixty feet wide at their location, covering the entire battlefield they were in.
The Subterrane Dwellers fell into complete chaos as they lost their senses to ‘see’ and losing their ability to judge. Their first instinct was to retreat, or swing their spears threateningly around them, trying hard to protect themselves. This chaos spread everywhere. They started treating each other like enemies, or run around in random directions. Quite a few mercenaries were dragged into their frantic attempts to fight, but the majority managed to escape the chaos and realized something a short moment of confusion:
Victory was right in front of them.
‘I understand now’, everyone thought of these words.
Brendel threw away the expended Soul Gem in his hand as his eyes went back to the third Earth Spirit Bear. It was as though he had seen the conclusions of the battle a long time ago.
[I see, so these foolish bastards have this kind of weakness.] Cornelius and Raban thought of the same thing as they looked at each other.
Cornelius quickly bade the Flagbearer next to him to change the flag’s color. A red flag with two swords was raised into the air. There was no need for words since the meaning was clear: Attack.
The warriors dropped down their shields and took out their weapons. They were the defenders a moment ago, but now they were leading the counterattack. It was as if an invisible wave swept through the battlefield as they cleaved down their enemies with both hands.
The Subterrane Dwellers were completely unable to defend themselves from the organized attacks, and in this ‘darkness’ they felt an instinctive fear and started retreating from the direction of the attacks.
The Camlu were unable to stop the formation from breaking down. The entire surroundings around them were being robbed away by the Silence spell like a black hole and preventing all aural feedback.
Even when the Subterrane Dwellers escaped from the spell’s effective area, they discovered that everyone was escaping, and they had no desire to stay behind. Very soon, the Camlu and the Earth Spirit Bears started retreating as well, causing a massive defeat.
In truth, the casualties were significantly less than one would think. At the mercenaries’ first charge, they killed only twenty Subterrane Dwellers. They were felled near the river, and the water reached their bodies.
The remainder of the Underworld creatures did not have any thoughts to check their losses and simply obeyed their fear to run away. Once they reached areas where they could hear again, they began fleeing as fast as they possibly could without any formation or organization. Many of them were trampled to death by their own, leaving behind a road of corpses.
The mercenaries who followed them out of the effective area of the Silence spell, changed their formation and chased after the stragglers that strayed away from the group. They truly did not think the entire battle changed that easily.
It was just like what Brendel had said; this was nothing more than a warm-up battle.
At the other end of the forest, there were only thirty Subterrane Dwellers left. Brendel had slain all three Earth Spirit Bears, and the remainder of the enemies had to deal the angels and twice their numbers. The conclusion of the battle was foregone.
Brendel turned his eyes to the escaping Subterrane Dwellers at the other river’s bank and chanced upon the mercenaries keeping a constant speed to chase after the scattering monsters. He snarled in annoyance at their cautious attitudes. At this rate, they were going to allow the remaining Subterrane Dwellers to retreat to the fortified sawmill.
Even though they appeared to be in dire straits, they did not use up their stamina to fight. Their injuries were practically non-existent, and eight out of ten were still ready for battle. None of the Earth Spirit Bears died either.
Allowing them to escape was a waste.
[There’s no choice, I’ll need to use that.]
Someone familiar was appearing from the direction of the Sawmill. A red ponytail fluttered strongly and created a trail of red in the wind, as the rider charged at the retreating creatures on the summoned card, Silver Colt.
It was Scarlett.
She was tasked by Brendel to cut off the retreating enemies, and her spear was raised up threateningly with an electrical arc trailing from it. She stopped before the hundred odd Subterrane Dwellers.
“Move away!” Jana was completely shocked, not knowing why the girl stopped in front of them. Their numbers included the Earth Spirit Bears, and their instinct to survive would surely bring out their aggression. Even a Gold-ranked fighter would have trouble facing them. In fact, if they gathered together to put up a last-ditch effort to fight back, it would mean their victory would be wasted.
But Scarlett did not move from the spot as though she did not hear.
The next instant, countless green lights appeared in the forest near her, and Jana swallowed her curses that were at the tip of her mouth. She knew how powerful they were.
The spiders were directly commanded by Brendel, and they began their assault, shooting beams of Light Energy unerringly at each Subterrane Dweller. Each laser that fired at them was the full strength of a Silver-ranked fighter’s attack, and the enemies were unable to defend themselves.
Brendel used the attacks sparingly to conserve his EP by using a lower number of spiders. He ushered the retreating groups of Subterrane Dwellers to the right and did not attack them. This prevented them from retreating into the sawmill, and they scampered off into the forest in fear.
Scarlett did not move from her spot and merely sent off waves of thick bloodlust. The remaining creatures that somehow escaped the spiders’ attacks did not dare to run past her and fled to the forest.
Scarlett did not attack. She merely waited till the last Underworld creature disappeared into the forest and waited for the mercenaries to join up with her. She then pulled the reins and turned the Silver Colt around.
The Subterrane Dwellers within the sawmill realized that none of the of their allies were coming back and hurriedly closed the wooden gates. Scarlett smiled with a hint of challenge in her eyes, and she swung her weapon against it.
An explosive sound echoed in the vicinity, with the gate hurling high up into the air before they shattered into pieces and rained onto the ground.
“That’s really troublesome,” Amandina frowned to herself and grumbled, “If she destroyed the door, we still need to get people to repair it. Why can’t she think more about it.”
Amandina walked out of the forest when the battle was over. She was almost not bothered by the corpses around her, most likely because she was used to it.
“Let her do it.” Brendel laughed, his eyes capturing the trails of golden light flying towards him. He had gained approximately ten thousand XP and was able to advance his Mercenary profession by a tenth.
Amandina did not continue her complaints after hearing his words and watched Scarlett lead the mercenaries into the sawmill. Their enemies were not their match, and the conclusion was drawn.
“It’s hard to imagine that these creatures would be so weak against specialized magic. They should logically understand what their weaknesses are.” Amandina said quietly.
“That’s not true, miss Amandina.” The Nightsong Tiger rode over and dismounted as he spoke.
Amandina turned over and asked for the reason with her eyes.
“The Subterrane Dwellers are grouped with other units.” Brendel explained: “The Jurgen Underworld is akin to a huge kingdom. Many different races gathered with each to form it. Not only do the Subterrane Dwellers work together with Earth Bear Spirits, but there are also witches with eagle bodies, and dog-headed bipeds as well. The Subterrane Dwellers do have their witch doctors, but the enemies we are facing here is from a small tribe, and there might not even be one. It’s not strange for them not to be capable of handling magic.”
“Their witch doctors are few?”
“One wizard out of every thousand humans. That ratio is actually pretty high on our side. The Subterrane Dwellers have far less in their ratio.”
Amandina nodded and pondered for a while: “I didn’t expect the Underworld to be comprised of so many races. It’s completely different from the books. The Subterrane Dwellers are mentioned prominently; I thought the place below is a place where civilization doesn’t reach, and it’s a barbaric place. The world is certainly interesting.”
[It’s normal to make this mistake since Kirrlutz is the one who writes all these books and promotes humans as the superior race. From the gamer’s point of view, this world is incredibly vast.]
“If I compare these Subterrane Dwellers to the Madara’s skeletons, they are much more powerful. There must be even more fearsome creatures below. To think there’s such a threat from the Underworld.” Amandina said.
“One characteristic of the Underworld’s creatures is the individual’s might. This has something to do with their environment,” Brendel said, before shaking his head and looked towards the sawmill with a sigh, “yet if you think that these creatures are powerful, that’s actually because Aouine is much too weak. If it were Kirrlutz’s army, they would never say these words.”