While Zaos was thinking of what to do, he realized that the battle behind him was getting more and more intense. As expected, trying to take the commander as fast as possible wasn't something easy. Even if they manage to kill more soldiers than lose, Zaos's unit will lose much more in the big picture.

"Nyana, you lead the guys here and make sure to attack those assholes if they try to approach," Zaos said. "Don't hold back on the use of your mana."

"Understood," Nyana said.

  It was a bit risky, but Zaos couldn't lose too many soldiers right now, for his conscience's sake and for the fate of that entire region. Garrik's soldiers were almost finishing an encirclement around the two hundred soldiers who were following Cohnal. While clenching her teeth, Melisse wondered how she could prevent that using her archers… she almost joined the fray but then stopped when Zaos appeared.

"Captain," Melisse said, visibly relieved.

"Watch over Moody," Zaos said and then jumped from his horse.

  The enemies were too busy trying to decimate the two hundred soldiers following Cohnal to notice Zaos's approach… in the end, he brought a tempest of steel with him. Using the same tactic as before, if that could be called a tactic, Zaos joined the fight. They began to slash apart mercenaries and the horses.

When the mercenaries noticed that something was off, Zaos had either killed them or was too far away for them to see him. They could only find a trail of blood and corpses in the places he passed. A few dozen meters away from Zaos current location, Cohnal was fighting the big mercenary, Garrik, and he learned the worst way that the rumors were quite humble… Garrik was way stronger than anyone could have imagined.

  Cohnal tried to swing his sword and dash at the same time, but Garrik had been faster, even though his battle-ax was supposed to make him slower. As if things weren't bad enough when the weapons collided, Cohnal was pushed backward for several meters, and his arms were screaming in pain.

"Shit… at this rate," Cohnal clenched his teeth in annoyance.

He finally had a chance to show that he deserved to be a lieutenant in a promising unit, but Cohnal couldn't help but think that he would fail. The frustration only grew stronger since his friends were keeping the mercenaries at bay so that he could finish the enemy commander screaming in agony one after the other. Cohnal couldn't look at them, but he could imagine what was happening.

Cohnal couldn't win in a duel of brute strength, so he decided to change his tactics a little bit. If a dispute of full horizontal swings wasn't his best option, Cohnal could always try something. He assumed the tail guard and made the enemy imagine that he would attack the same way, but when he dashed, he changed the position of his arms.

Garrik attacked first, but before he could finish his swing, his ax was hit from below. Cohnal didn't use that vertical swing often, but he was surprisingly fast with it. In the end, he stopped the attack and damaged the ax, but he didn't succeed in making the enemy lose his weapon. That trick won't work twice, so Cohnal was really in a bid spot. However, an arm passed above them for a fraction of a second, and that caught Garrik's attention. Cohnal ignored it since he knew who could make an arm fly above the battlefield, and so he dashed toward the enemy and attacked with all his might.

The sword and ax collided again, but Cohnal had the advantage in speed, momentum, and strength this time. That made the enemy ax crack in several pieces. Cohnal sword cracked as well, but he had time to swing it down again and pierce Garrik's body diagonally.

  Cohnal sighed in relief, but then he realized that his sword was beyond any repair. Not to mention, blood began to rain over the area, and then he saw some human and horse body parts falling around as well. After a few seconds, he found Zaos, and he looked like a monster since he was covered in blood and looked like a beast with his eyes.

"That is him?" Zaos asked.

"... Yes," Cohnal replied.

"You took too long," Zaos said. "Anyway, let's open a path to retreat because I have a bad feeling."

  Garrik's soldiers soon realized that they lost their Commander and that a monster in human flesh passed by them and ignored that he was alone in the middle of the enemy's army. However, those factors worked well and gave the melee soldiers a chance to retreat without finding many enemies trying to block their path. The few that tried were stopped by dozens of arrows.

"Retreat! Retreat!" Melisse shouted.

That was the first time the whole unit saw Melisse so nervous, but then when they left the melee, they noticed why she looked like that. Hundreds of arrows began to fly over the unit, and they weren't ready for that. Zaos didn't have time to use magic and repel some of them. So, he only blocked them usually. Others tried to do the same, but the reflexes of most weren't quite there.

"Shit… Nyana!" Zaos sweat cold when he recalled that his little sister and the mages were supposed to block the enemies.

After looking around for a second, he found them retreating and protecting themselves with a few Magic Shields. Not all mages were using, and that proved that they were out of mana. They tried to stop the enemies, but they only could do it for so long.

The second and third army archers pursued them while they tried to hit Zaos's unit with as many arrows as possible. Meanwhile, Garrik's men tried to avenge their leader, but Zaos stopped them by firing some strengthened Fire Swords. The explosions and the fact that those got hit directly began to melt made the enemies think twice before chasing...

Zaos once more was thankful that no one could see when he was out of mana.