Battalia: Kill the King!

12. Life for Life

A few minutes before, Yolanda and Angie hid above the cave on the topside. Their plan was for Shaddox to draw as many guards as he could inside the cave. When that happened, Yolanda would create an illusion of Shaddox from above, leading them toward a branch of the cave that had been long abandoned. This area had been stripped of what little mana stones and ore there were, and would soon be the resting place for the guards who entered.

"Angie, I'm sorry, I spent years avoiding you," Yolanda said. "I expected you to grow on your own. At least that's what I told myself. The truth is I was scared. I still remember that day." The old woman shivered. She could still feel the lightning searing her skin.

"It's okay, granny. Casting illusions gives me a stomach ache."

Yolanda sighed, accepting granny as her nickname. "Listen up brat, I'm going to teach you something important. You can't naturally see mana without spells or skills. What pops up in our heads is simply our minds trying to conceptualize it. Now, every tangible object in this world possesses mana. If you were to break a non-living object in half, the mana would simply divide. Living beings are different. We lose ours upon death. When you sense the mana of someone who's died, you'd probably picture something burning."

Shaddox had entered the cave. Yolanda cast an illusion, creating a duplicate of him which ran towards the abandoned branch. Five guards eagerly followed it, no doubt wanting to be the first ones to get in a hit. Angie placed both of her hands on the ground. With one, she cast multiple barriers around the tunnel. With the second, she prepared to set off a series of small explosive spells she had placed earlier. The barriers were to prevent the shock from spreading and causing other parts of the mine to collapse. Yolanda has decades of experience as a mage. She could sense what little mana the mercenaries had and knew they had just entered the abandoned line.

"It's not too late. We can always hold them off until Battalia gets back," she told Angie. The young mage didn't say anything back. She just triggered explosives. The ground trembled below them. Containing the shock with her barriers was difficult, but after a while, they eventually quelled. While Angie couldn't see the destruction she caused, she could sense it. The lives of the five men burned away below her. She had killed for the first time. Shaddox left the cave, charging back towards the cottages. Angie and Yolanda followed.

The miners were trying their best to fend off the guards. While they had numbers, these were mercenaries who had experience fighting. Another massive disadvantage was their lack of weapons. They were swinging pickaxes and shovels against axes and swords. On top of that, only a few of the workers had fought before, and it had been years. Shaddox joined the fray without hesitation, drawing a knife and running into one of Clay's men. He had to fight. All of them did. As he ran towards the mercenary, Shaddox felt everything: the shame of his family name, the rage of being tormented at Derrick's hands, and the frustration of his own powerlessness. He dug his knife into the unsuspecting man, killing him.

Once Angie and Yolanda arrived, only two guards remained. They were much stronger than the others. One of them cautiously guarded against every approaching miner, fending them off and striking when he could. The other was quite the opposite. He was enraged, overpowering anyone who came close. Angie stared at the chaos, frozen in horror.

"There's just two of them left, why can't they beat them?" she asked.

"They're augmenting their strength with mana. Battalia does the same thing."

The two continued to fend off the remaining villagers. A torch had been knocked over during the chaos. Behind the two trapped beasts, an orange haze glowed. Their faces were covered in blood and sweat, but their eyes lacked hesitation.

"That being said, it's still impossible for them to win, but I do wonder how many they'll take down with them."

Angie felt overwhelmed. She had just killed, but this was different. This time, she would have to watch her victims die. Her hesitation was overcome when she saw something truly horrific. Elain was on the ground. His young daughter was shouting, running towards him as the angered one stood above him. The man's eyes were filled with pure contempt. He didn't care about escaping or surviving–he just wanted to unleash his rage and kill. Angie acted without thinking.