Chapter 49 - 49. Battle intent
Twilboia Cliff was a deep gorge next to a small mountain called Twilboia Mountain.
A narrow passage divided the two and, since the caravan could not climb the mountain, it was its only possible road.
When the caravan neared the passage, a faint pressure dawned on the escort group.
They were aware that if Tobias had set up an ambush here, the battle would not be an easy one.
They had the disadvantage of the terrain while the enemy could attack from the mountain and retreat at will.
Kevin was staring at the gorge with some solemnity and Noah could not help but go next to him to ask more questions when he saw that expression.
"What's down there?"
Noah asked following Kevin's gaze.
"It's not sure. We know that the concentration of "Breath" is high at the bottom but the place is magical beasts' territory. The last time someone tried to clean the gorge and put their mansion there the cultivation world lost a medium-size family."
Noah gulped a bit, the cliff had become incredibly scary in his eyes.
"What's the plan for the ambush?"
They were against a man aiming for the title of patriarch of a medium-size noble family, if the gorge was the best place for him to attack, Noah was sure that an attack would be there.
"We can't retreat and we can't allow them to push us in the gorge. I'll charge ahead as soon as I see an enemy while you with some of my men will be in charge of defending the young master's carriage. The others are free to use their lives to give me the time to kill everyone."
A thick battle intent exuded from Kevin which made Noah tremble a bit.
'I really did the best choice by apologizing back then.'
His confidence in holding his own against Kevin was reduced by a large amount.
'He was the head of the guards after all.'
The caravan entered the passage and the escort group set up a battle formation around it.
Noah was on the roof of Basil's carriage with his eyes closed, sharpening his senses to sense the enemy approach.
The passage was not long, only about a day of travel with their speed, yet every minuted passed in there seemed to last an eternity.
The concentration of "Breath" had already increased when they entered the passage and seemed to reach its peak when they were in the middle of it.
At that moment though, something happened.
A bullet made of water hit one of the cultivators near Noah and pierced his skull, the man fell lifeless on the ground.
No one on the caravan had seen the attack coming and a suffocating silence followed the death of the soldier.
"MAGE!"
Noah broke the silence with his warning as he hastily unsheathed his sabers staring in the direction of the mountain.
He didn't feel the enemy attack coming which meant that the assailant had bigger achievements in mental energy than him!
The escort group was about to fell into chaos when Kevin's yell calmed them down.
"Get in position! Push toward the mountain! Follow me!"
He took the vanguard position and charged toward the mountain wielding a huge hammer with both his hands.
Another water bullet was shot in his direction but Kevin simply swung his hammer and shattered it, and then he jumped toward the area where it came from.
Two more bullets were fired only to get blocked by the hammer, then Kevin swung it downward hitting the ground in front of him.
BOOM!
An explosion rang out and a five meters deep hole was created on the side of the mountain.
"Irvin come out and fight me face to face!"
Kevin yelled seemingly to the air but then a figure appeared between the smoke raised by his blow.
"You never change Kevin, always charging ahead. I'm afraid that this time it won't work though."
A short man donned in green robes came out of the smoke and faced Kevin.
Irvin raised his hand and two more water bullets shot out from it.
Kevin just deflected them and charged in his direction with an oppressing killing intent.
Seeing the huge man rushing at him, the mage simply stood in his place releasing a torrent of bullets.
Most of the shots were deflected by the hammer but some of them hit Kevin's skin and left some small wounds on it.
When Kevin was about to reach the mage, three strings of water sprouted from the ground and tied themselves around Kevin blocking his movements.
Irvin nodded at the sight of the trapped man and spoke with pride.
"As expected from a rank 4 body, my water bullets can't hurt you consistently. If you were the one to kill the situation would have been really troublesome, yet your life is of no importance to Lord Tobias."
As soon as he said these words, a group of soldiers wearing green armors shot out from another point of the mountain aiming for the group defending the caravan.
Irvin had used himself as a decoy to draw out the stronger person of the escort, weakening deeply the defenses of the caravan.
The enemy soldiers amounted to fifteen people and directly stormed through the line of defense made by the normal soldiers, none of them could block any of the enemies.
The normal soldiers that were on their path were instantly killed or gravely wounded by just one swing of their weapons.
'They are all cultivators!'
Noah from his position on the carriage could clearly see that his moment was imminent and sharpened his mind like never before, a tinge of battle intent could be discerned in his cold eyes.
'Finally a real battle against a cultivator. I really want to see how far I am from their level.'
Tobias Lansay's soldiers broke through the first line of defense and engaged a battle with Kevin's soldiers.
Noah scanned the enemies and picked a man with a heavy ax as a target.
He sent a wind slash at him following it to deliver a melee attack when the soldier tried to block it.
The soldier though, seeing the wind slash, swung his ax to meet the slash.
The slash was shattered by the sheer strength of the blow and Noah was forced to block the ax that maintained its trajectory.
CLINK!
Two sabers blocked the heavy blow and Noah was sent flying for some meters before safely landing on the ground.
The soldier turned in his direction and was a bit surprised to see that the kid easily blocked his swing, but most importantly, that he was smiling looking at him.
