Chapter 791. Both Sides Retreat
Before the retreat horn sounded, when Arther’s army was still in a heated battle with John’s force, Jack’s regiment similarly fought a fierce battle.
While Arlcard’s black fog held the encircling army at bay on one side, Jack’s force went to the opposite side, killing everyone they passed through. Arlcard cast his Perpetual Sword of Death and increased the killing pace. The spell’s black energy swords zoomed around the battlefield, hitting enemies while sparing friendlies. It was an ultimate large area offensive and support spell. The enemies couldn’t concentrate on facing their foes because they kept on getting stabbed by these black energy swords.
The Ice Fiend Demon’s passive icy aura also only affected enemies, sparing allies. This caused the fighting to be easier as the enemy’s movement became slower.
As they proceeded, a gap soon appeared in the encircling army. Prince Therribus’ soldiers that were holding their positions next to the gap were unsure of what to do. They looked as the gap became larger when Jack’s regiment went the other way and continued massacring their comrades. They had sent signal messages to Prince Therribus and Lord Marshall Arther to ask what they should do in such an unusual situation. Until they heard from them, they could only carry out their original orders, which was to stay and maintain the encirclement. They stretched out to close the resulting gap, which made their formation even thinner, but not too close to Jack’s regiment that was still working their way in the opposite direction.
While fighting, Jack sent a message to Jeanny, “On which side of the wall are you?”
“The one facing West. Are you in that regiment that is fighting the encircling army?” Jeanny replied.
“I am,” Jack answered.
“I know John asked us to stay put, but maybe we should come out and help? That encircling army is outside of our catapult’s range.”
“No! If you open the gate, this encircling army will abandon their positions and come swarming at you. Just leave everything to us. I don’t call you to ask for help, I call to ask if you have copied the divine gem?”
“I have,” Jeanny answered.
“You have made two extra, right?”
“Yes.”
“What about the extra ten magic crystal?”
“Yes, I copied them as you asked,” Jeanny replied.
“Do you bring them on your person?” Jack asked.
“Of course, it’s too valuable to leave in the guild’s warehouse.”
“All right, I’m coming over to pick them up.”
“Now?”
“Yeah. Oh, please tell everyone to not shoot at the tiny dragon that flies to the fort.”
“Tiny dra…,” And then Jeanny saw it. A speck flew out from the fighting regiment in the distance. It rapidly came closer and its shape became more visible. It looked like a draconian that looked more like a dragon complete with a pair of huge bat-like wings.
When one player aimed his bow up at the incoming flying draconian, Jeanny hurriedly yelled, “Hold your fire! Do not shoot! It’s friendly!”
The player was hesitant but lowered his bow. The others stayed their weapons.
The flying draconian came closer and slowed down after arriving above them. It then perched on the parapet wall.
“Hey, everyone!” The humanoid dragon greeted and waved.
“… Jack?” Jeanny asked.
“Yesh, it’s me. May I have the divine gems and magic crystals, please?”
Jeanny took the gems and crystals out of her storage and handed them to Jack, while saying, “I have heard the report, but I’m still having trouble believing you have a dragon form.”
“It’s not a normal dragon form, it’s a supreme dragon form,” Jack corrected while receiving the gem. After storing it, Jack turned to Prince Alonzo and said, “Hang in there, Your Highness. We have a plan. Just stay put and focus on defense.”
“Thank you for your help, Mister Storm Wind,” Prince Alonzo replied.
“Don’t worry, I will keep him safe,” Samuel said.
Jack nodded, he then said to Duchess Isabelle, “Arther is there fighting our outworlder’s main army. If you can, please make some trouble at the opposite side from where my regiment is.”
“Oh? So, he is there? He must have not used any high-energy skills to not let me know,” Duchess Isabelle said. “All right, I will head out for a bit.”
“Great, but don’t stay out too long. We don’t know how fast the guy is. We can’t have him attack this fort while you are away. I’m off!” Jack said and shot away.
“Are you using that divine gem now?” Peniel asked while they flew back.
“No, I will have my levels stuck if I use it now, right? I will use it after all my classes are level 50,” Jack said. “With this war, it looks like it won’t be long.”
“Why ask for magic crystals as well? Don’t you already have ten in your possession? You have one extra set more than is needed for the divine treasure’s upgrade.”
“It’s for Haon’s Fire God Blessing,” Jack informed.
Jack flew over where the battle was still ongoing. His spirit weapon was about to run out of duration, Jack sent a mental command for it to prepare to activate its finishing mode.
He first had Ice Fiend Demon fire its Ice Beam, creating a safe path in a straight line. This allowed his spirit weapon to rush forward into the middle of the enemy’s mass. Once it was deep into the enemy’s line, Jack had it activate its finishing mode while casting Myriad Venomous Vipers where the spirit weapon was. The spirit weapon also had an HP bar, it was difficult to hit the spirit weapon when it was moving around due to its slender form. However, it was static when it started its finishing mode. Hence it was more vulnerable if many enemies attacked it at the same time. The Myriad Venomous Vipers incapacitated the enemies that got into a melee mode with the spirit weapon.
When the spirit weapon broke apart revealing its core that was enlarging and was about to explode, Jack also unleashed his dragon soul breath at the same spot. The last time inside the legacy dungeon when he was trying to act cool by using Lightning God Barrage and spirit weapon’s finishing mode at the same time, he had noticed that the resulting damage was higher than the sum of the two attacks.
After he asked Peniel about it later. The fairy confirmed that some explosive attacks when combined could result in enhanced damage. Especially if the combined attacks contained different types of energy. If one of the combined attacks was one of the two special damage types, soul or chaos damage, it would increase the likeliness of enhanced damage even further.
His soul breath contained soul energy. His spirit weapon had chaos energy. When his soul breath struck his spirit weapon’ core just as it was exploding, the resulting explosion was three times larger than usual. The resulting damage that swept the army was also much higher than the sum of the two attacks if unleashed separately.
All the elite native soldiers in the area of the explosion died instantly, while the special elites had less than half their lives remaining. His regiment immediately utilized the chance to sweep in and finish the ones that were wounded.
Jack continued flying above and supporting with range attacks. When high-level officers with flying ability flew up and came at him, he flew back above his regiment to allow the ranged soldiers to support him while he clash with these flying officers. Jack’s flying speed was faster than their flying spell or wing tool. Luckily, such an enemy was rare in between. Considering the enemy’s formation was spread out in a large circle, this was to be expected.
His beast form ended soon. He could only do battle on the ground then. After some more fighting, he saw several large pillars of light descend from the opposite side of the fort. He knew then that Duchess Isabelle had taken action.
Not long after that, he heard a horn sounding in the distance. He then saw the distant native army that was fighting John’s force start to pull back. He received a message from John soon, “They are pulling back. Hurry, run away from there. The mythical lord marshall is still guarding their retreat from the water serpent’s assault. Once they are free of harassment, you will be in trouble if he comes at you.”
“Ah… Such a pity,” Jack muttered. His level had undergone a huge level-up from all the killing in this war. All his classes leveled up by two times. His levels were now 49, 49, and 48 for Blade Dancer, Archmage, and Beastmaster respectively. His Blade Dancer exp bar was very close to reaching level 50.
He had a hunch that he now understood how Master had kept his levels high despite having so many classes. He must have given control of an army and the civil war in Liguritudum supplied a constant supply of sources for him to level up. He didn’t even need to go out into the wilderness to farm exp.
If only he could have a larger army to command. But after thinking about it, he thought the size of this current regiment was already the right size for the level-up purpose. He needed to be at a certain distance from his army that did the killing. If he was too far, he won’t get the exp. So, too large an army didn’t mean that he would get more exp speed than this.
Jack reluctantly ordered his regiment to retreat. He summoned his Runestone of Marching to increase their retreating speed. The Ice Demon Fiend was left behind to continue wreaking havoc while Jack’s regiment retreated. Arlcard was similarly reluctant to leave. The vampire didn’t increase in level. But even though he didn’t get express exp farming as Jack, this killing ground still provided much exp for him.
Jack unsummoned both Arlcard and Therras while retreating. Therras also didn’t receive the exp gathered from the killing done by other soldiers, but it still increased by two levels to level 48.
Jack’s regiment went in high speed and returned to the back of the hill where they had come out from.
When Arther’s army had pulled back a certain distance, he flew to Fort Garadhor. He didn’t chase after Jack’s regiment. Duchess Isabelle had been causing trouble while he was away. So, he now returned to make sure the Duchess didn’t cause more damage. The duchess was standing on top of the wall in plain sight. Arther stopped after seeing the duchess. The two stared at one another. They both understood now that they were both a deterrence for their respective armies. Both of them could not move away from one another or else their armies would be the ones to suffer the consequences.
