Rise of Legends - DISCONTINUED

Counter-Attack

Lancelot POV:

I silently went into the emergency hall that would serve as our meeting place. Even though it was enticing, fighting the invaders without a proper plan wouldn't be a good idea. 

Firstly, the attack is very well-planned. This means that they must have thought about counter measures for myself and the professors. Not only that, many of the more powerful noble professors and noble students betrayed the school.

This means that we lost the home stage advantage that we had before. 

Finally, Gary, Director Goodsky, Arthur and Alistair weren't at the Academy either. This is a huge loss of manpower.

The panicked noise coming from the hall immediately caught my attention. Dozens of injured students were sitting on the ground while getting patched by the school nurses and healers. The DC were trying to organise the survivors with the professors and the Student Council but the state of the students made it quite difficult.

'Everyone is afraid, ' I thought as I looked at them. 'If Gary was here, he would capture their attention and instantly calm them down,' I looked the other way, 'Unfortunately, I am not that guy.'

"Everyone, calm down!" Rachel's mana amplified voice spread across the entire hall. The nervous chattering slowly died down as their eyes were directed towards the blonde girl who was in everyone's view.

I could see lack of confidence in the cadence of her footsteps, yet she didn't back down as raised her head to speak.

"Who are we?" she asked everyone while scanning the crowd. The students all cowered from her, hesitant to meet her eyes.

"I asked, who are we? Are we not the prestigious talents of Dicathen who will all lead our continent in the future? Are we not the heirs to your noble families, or future great mages who will pave the path forward? Are we not the pride of your parents and of your kingdoms?"

"Y-yes!" A second year noble boy stuttered out. Slowly, everyone starting yelling out agreement to the questions posed by Rachel.

"Then, why are we shaking in fear from the power of the invaders of the other continent? Do we want the mastermind to crush up happily while we are silently despairing? Or are we going to get off our butts and fight our way through our enemies like real talents, real mages who are meant to protect Dicathen?"

She took a deep breath before finally saying, "All those who have not given up and wish to prove their worth as geniuses can follow us as we cut through the enemies, the rest can simply do nothing as the invaders cut through their fellow friends and hide in fear."

'Her speech... was simply amazing,' I thought as a grin formed on my face. All the students, including the injured, were completely energised by her speech and wanted to give their all in the fight against the invaders. Even my fighting spirit was aroused from her splendid speech.

I followed after Rachel before patting her shoulder. She turned around in surprise before saying, "Oh, it's just you Lancelot. Wait, how long have you been here for? Why didn't you help me before?"

"You didn't need any help, Rachel," I replied before my expression turned serious, "Good job on getting the students fired up. We need to have proper plan of attack before continuing."

Alistair POV:

After the short meeting we had with the mages guild and the other survivors, we decided to split into two groups. Twin Horns along with Arthur and I would go towards Xyrus Academy while the rest of the mages will focus on rescuing as many citizens of Xyrus City as possible.

They decided to use a bunker they had just in case and had a few A-class adventurers alongside Mom and Dad for guard duty. Sylvie, Ellie and the Helstea family were also there.

It was mostly Arthur and I clearing the beasts as the Twin Horns struggled to keep pace. I did feel a bit bad for them but I was too worried about Tess to slow down my pace.

After we killed another group of AA and A-class mana beasts, we were finally almost at the Academy's crimson barrier. 

'This barrier.... it won't be easy to break,' I thought as I analysed the mana used in it, 'But we can worry about that later, since we have enemies ahead of us.'

"You all need to stay back, you will only get in our way for the beast ahead of us," I told the Twin Horns after stopping our advance.

"But—" Jasmine began to protest before a huge wave of mana suddenly hit us. Everyone's faces paled as they sensed the powerful SS-class mana beast.

"This is why I am telling you to stay back," I said as I tried to convince them again. Arthur also took my side, "I agree with Alistair, the beast is simply too powerful."

The Twin Horns exchanged glances before slowly nodding their heads and agreeing. Just before they retreated a safe distance, Jasmine hugged both of us, "Remember, be safe, ok?"

We both nodded before going out.

What greeted us was a lion like beast similar to Grawder. Unlike Grawder, however, this lion was a pure midnight black in colour. It had bright soul-blue flames as its mane and it trailed to its tail.

"Let's finish this quickly, we need strength for what's inside as well," I said to Arthur as he activated the second stage of his beast will.

His auburn hair turned into a wheat blonde colour while various mana runes appeared on his arms and face. 

He nodded as he took out Dawn's Ballad. I also took out my sword that mother gave to me before cladding it in blue flames and black lightning.

"Huuu.." we both took a deep breath before taking a step forward at the same time. As expected, I was a bit behind Arthur even though we both leapt at the same time.

The beast realised our intentions and let out a deafening roar. We both ignored it as its blue flames shot towards us. The two of us used wind magic to create footholds in mid air to dodge or cut through the blue flames conjured by the beast.

Arthur summoned frost fire before applying it to his sword alongside black lightning. Our swords both hit the beast at the same time but didn't do too much damage.

The beast flicked it's mighty tail at Arthur while jabbing at me with his left paw. Time seemed to slow down as I saw the paw trickling towards me. I ducked to dodge the paw attack while Arthur simply grabbed the weaker tail flick and froze it.

Or at least, he attempted to.

Frost fire spread from his palm onto the tail, meeting with blue fire and fighting ferociously. While the lion coursed more blue fire to its tail to avoid it being frozen, I took the opportunity to bring my blade to right where its neck is.

The beast realised by intention and blasted me with blue fire but I already had a defensive spell ready to counter it. The beast was forced to sacrifice its left paw to save its like while also losing its tail to Arthur.

Now angry, the beast let out another roar and Arthur took advantage of the opening. Using the first stage of his beast will to freeze time while also using his second stage to instantly cover the gap allowed him to kill the SS-class beast easily.

He deactivated second stage and laid down on the ground to recover some strength.

"That took more out of us that I ever expected," I said to him before looking over to the crimson barrier.

"Now it's time to enter the Academy."