Touch of Fate

Chapter 196: Five's Company

Mike sized his new enemies up, while holding his mana at the ready. When the standoff broke, he would need to move quickly. There were four individuals who stood out from among the small horde of Tenundian soldiers were surging around him. From the looks of it, they had devoted an entire team of highly competent individuals to take him on.

[Should I be grateful?]

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Orin Fald

Age: 43

Race: Human

Class: Steelsouled Disciple

Title: Master of the Empty Fist

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The first was a short and unassuming man, whose head had been shaved completely bald, and was, by all appearances unarmed. In fact, he wore little more than simple traveling clothes, but there was an unmistakable aura of power surrounding him. While the rest of the Tenundians were keeping their distance, he strode forward unconcernedly.

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Lorelia Garington

Age: 30

Race: Human

Class: Angrosh's Herald

Title: Favored of the Unconquered

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The second was as surprisingly large woman, whose muscular frame dwarfed those around her. Scars crisscrossed her bared arms and face, with a particularly nasty one cutting through her left eye, obviously rendering it blind. Short, poorly cut red hair and sun burnished skin gave her an air of savage vitality that spoke volumes on her personality when coupled with her battered breastplate and her massive, heavily notched club made of a bronze-like metal. A cocky grin was plastered on her face as she pushed through the crowd.

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Calian Andras

Age: 22

Race: Human (Demon)

Class: Demon Binder

Title: He of Blended Soul

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Third was a slender and pale man with pitch black hair, garbed similarly colored leather armor. While keeping his emotionless gaze fixed on Mike, he slowly started circling around at the edges of his perception. Judging from his class, title, and bloodline, he was probably some kind of Pact Mage, but it was a little hard to take him seriously with that get up.

[Slap on a little eyeliner and he could be the lead singer for an emo band.]

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Salubrious Wren

Age: 25

Race: Human

Class: Fen Shaman

Title: Gold Ranked Adventurer

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The final member of the team was a small and slightly mousy looking woman dressed in a travel stained robe of greenish-brown. A wide brim hat obscured most of her features, but Mike could see a pale and slightly freckled face. Unlike the other three, she looked more afraid than confident, and was currently in the middle of panicking, eyes darting around as if to hunt for an escape route.

[Quite the diverse group we have here, and at least one of them is a Rank 6 adventurer, although she doesn't seem to really fit the role that well. Probably mercenaries, now that I think about it.]

He glanced back at his dragon mount to see that Red had broken free of muck, and was now ready to launch himself into the air. All he was waiting for was Mike to join him.

[Go ahead and take care of the siege weapons. I'll draw their attention. Just let me know when you are done.]

Red replied with a snort that roughly translated into "Suit yourself, don't get killed," before taking off to resume his systematic destruction.

"What's the matter Dragonknight? Domestic dispute?" The large woman Lorelia taunted once she was in position.

Ignoring the barb, Mike addressed the group, "You are mercenaries, I presume?"

She answered with a disinterested shrug, "Something like that."

"Would you be willing to consider switching sides? I can assure you that the Almirans will be more than generous." Mike asked while paying special attention to the youngest member of the team. It seemed like he was biding his time for some sort of attack.

Orin, the bald man that looked like a martial artist replied first. "While I cannot speak for the others, I won't betray a contract once accepted." His voice was calm and collected, as if he were having a chat over tea.

"The old man's got the gist of it. Betraying your clients is a surefire way to get yourself blacklisted in the mercenary industry." Lorelia snickered.

[Looks like they are just playing for time. Are they waiting on the Pact Mage, or are more reinforcements on the way?]

Mike nodded, "Fair enough. Then I will offer you and the rest of these soldiers a choice. Flee now, or be killed."

This just earned him a laugh from the large woman, an audible "eep!" from the Shaman, and silence from the rest. Not wanting to let them seize the initiative any more than they already had, Mike leapt into action.

Charging his free hand with mana, he kneeled, slamming it against the ground and causing it to surge and buck uncontrollably in an expanding circle. The foot soldiers were quickly thrown to the ground, but it had little effect on the three of the four mercenaries. Surprisingly, the large female warrior proved unable to maintain her balance, sprawling in the dirt unceremoniously.

The one named Calian was a bit lighter on his feet, and Mike was forced to roll to his left to dodge a sudden spray of black quills. The young man had undergone a transformation in the intervening moments, and was now covered in sleek black spikes that glistened with a sickly green color near their tips.

The Pact Mage whipped his arm forward, chucking another wave of the quills in Mike's direction. Normally they would have been easy enough to dodge, but as he was doing so, he found himself face to face with Orin, who had swept into the fray with efficient and graceful steps.

A series of punches and kicks, almost moving too quickly for Mike to follow, rained down on him, keeping his attention as Calian attacked him from behind. He felt a sharp sting in his lower back, indicating that one of the spikes had struck home.

Lorelia roared as she got back to her feet. Thoroughly pissed, she rushed the swirling melee, and attempted to crush Mike with that ridiculous club. While the attack itself was dangerous, it provided him exactly what he needed. Taking the opening her intrusion created, Mike pushed himself back with a blast of Air Magic, and began channeling mana for his counter attack.

[Let's see how they like this.]

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[How did I end up here again?] Wren thought to herself wryly while watching the other mercenaries throw themselves at the ridiculously terrifying man.

She had been on the way back to the Riverlands when the war kicked off. As a Rank 6 adventurer with a reasonable amount of fame, she was immediately offered a lucrative contract to sign up with the Tenundian army. However, she had refused, wanting nothing to do withe messy war.

Unfortunately, the Tenundian government didn't give her much choice. Not too long after she turned down the offer, Wren was arrested, charged with espionage, and thrown in prison. Their true motives became clear when a slimy official visited her in the cell and offered her a deal. In exchange for freedom, they wanted her to agree to be part of the invasion force.

Thinking that all she had to do was sign the contract, walk out of the prison, and catch the next boat going anywhere else, Wren had agreed. Much to her despair, the contract turned out to be a binding document, keyed to her blood. Failing to abide by the terms would leave her cursed in a painful, and eventually lethal, manner.

Despite her best efforts, she had not been able to break the spell on her own. Curses had long been one of the areas she was weakest at, so she resigned herself to participating. On the bright side, the contract had been relatively fair, and would naturally expire once hostilities had ceased. It would have been much worse if she had been forced to sign some kind of slave contract. Even now the thought of that possibility gave her chills.

Wren figured that the war couldn't last that long, since the Almirans were in a bad spot right now. She had largely been proven correct in that assumption, up until the siege started and she was placed on an anti-Dragonknight team, set to defend the Tenundian siege equipment. Her teammates were three mercenaries who'd come over from Bergell to fight in the war. They were a little intimidating, especially Calian, but overall they didn't seem like a bad bunch. Wren had thought the tasking wouldn't be too bad.

Now, having seen the Dragonknight for herself, she knew differently. One of her class's unique skills, Aura Reading, allowed her to gauge the relative strength of a living being. She had been told that it measured the sum total of the target's skill and attributes, providing an almost quantifiable understanding of the target's power.

She had quite naturally used this ability while they were moving in on the masked Dragonknight, something she almost immediately regretted.

[What in the hells?! How is this even fair?!] She thought to herself with growing panic.

The members of her hastily formed group were all fairly powerful, falling somewhere in the range of high Tier 2 and low Tier 3. A respectable level of strength that placed them among this world's elite. Next to the Dragonknight, however, they all looked like weaklings.

In terms of power alone, he should be well into Tier 4, but Wren could tell there was some small restriction, some barrier enforced by the system itself, that had prevented him from breaking through just yet. The result was a tumultuous and terrifying aura that stood on the threshold of becoming a living legend.

She had only seen a similar level of power once before, when she'd witnessed a parade in honor of Jurult the Uncanny, a Tier 4 native to the Riverlands. The man had appeared normal enough at first glance, but his aura had nearly knocked her unconscious with its potency. While the Dragonknight hadn't reached the same level of strenghth, his aura did inspired a soul-crushing dread.

[They want me to fight that?] The mere thought of it left her ready to bolt.

Things seemed to start off well enough. The Dragonknight was powerful, but the mercenaries had years of experience between them. They had survived years on the battlefield, doing exactly this sort of work. Surely they could handle it, right?

After a simple application of Earth Magic which they were largely able to avoid, the trio's counterattack had him on the run. They launched a series of deadly attacks that even managed to get a hit in on the Dragonknight's lower back. Calian had turned into some kind of demonic hedgehog, and had nailed him with one of the thrown quills.

[Alright! They can do this.] Wren had even started to feel some hope, when their enemy decided to change things up.

Leaping back in a blast of air, he landed amongst the scattered soldiers. Using pillars of earth, he threw a handful of them at Orin, Lorelia, and Calian, who promptly dodged. This must have been what the man was planning on, since he used the resulting time to finish a quick chant.

A cone of howling, boreal wind emerged from one of his outstretched hands, freezing everything in its path. Wren had just enough time to conjure a earthen wall to protect herself before the harsh gale washed over her, chilling her to the bone.

[Yep, this was definitely a mistake.]

As soon as the wind passed, a frozen silence descended on the area, and the Shaman was able to peak her head out from behind her barricade just enough to see the Dragonknight standing tall, already chanting another spell, evidently looking to finish the job.