The moment that the [Fast Travel] spell activated, Wolfe found himself standing in the middle of a group of witches lying on the ground with their hands on their heads.
The mundane army was right in front of him, jeering and laughing, until they noticed the lone form standing among the crowd. Thick white smoke was everywhere, and the soldiers were beginning to move to surround the witches.
Wolfe dropped the two packs with the belt-fed guns and grabbed an automatic rifle from its position hanging under his arm.
The army didn’t even have time to react before the explosions started, and Wolfe brought up an [Unholy Fire] barrier around the group of witches on the ground.
The few soldiers who dared to charge the barrier were covered in the dark blue flames that spread to anything they touched, making it impossible to save the hapless soldiers. Even the water that was thrown on them caught fire before being turned to steam and floating away.
He had made a minor miscalculation on the inscription for the enchanted bullets, and the [Fireball] spell took a split second to activate, with the [Gravity Enhancement] activating first. That meant that most of the bullets had already penetrated into their targets when the explosion occurred, making them particularly lethal but also especially messy.
The [Fireballs] decimated the front ranks of the mundane army and filled the area with a thick black smoke of burning bodies and vehicles as Wolfe dropped the first empty magazine from his rifle and loaded another.
“Someone get on the big guns.” He called, and two middle-aged men rushed forward, grabbing the rifles and flipping open the tripods.
The two men weren’t expecting the rounds to be enchanted and nearly lost their grip on the handles of the weapons when they panned the weapons through the ranks of the attacking soldiers, and explosions spread everywhere, highlighting vehicles in the haze when their armour absorbed the impacts.
Wolfe targeted them with [Chain Lightning], and the vehicles came to a sudden stop, smoking as their occupants piled out, only to leave them to face the wrath of the machine guns.
The shouting began as unintelligible orders and panic, but now Wolfe could pick out a single phrase, repeated.
[Tell Command it’s here. Send the Bombers, or we are all going to die.]
It was a nice sentiment, but it was far too late for that. The few witches who had resisted the effects of the gas so far had renewed everyone’s armour spells, and the witches were up and charging the flanks with swords, hacking apart the soldiers that had survived the explosions.
“Drop your weapons and surrender. This is your only warning.” Wolfe called as the machine guns fell silent, switching to the only reserve belts that he had time to enchant.
“We don’t negotiate with terrorists.” A man yelled back.
If that’s how they wanted it, it was their choice. Wolfe sent a wave of unholy flames forward into the army unit, burning everything, until suddenly it exploded with a massive vortex of energy and began pulling everything nearby in.
It was exactly what happened the last time he shot a null stone, and it was even pulling vehicles in this time.
“Witches retreat. The null stone has destabilized.” Wolfe yelled, then fired a lightning bolt into it for good measure.
“What the hell was that?” Cassie yelled as they ran.
“A trick I learned. Their anti-magic weapons don’t react well to being set on fire. What was the plan before I arrived? Do you have a safe fallback point? I am supposed to be on scout duty with Priya.”
“It was chaos. The only order was retreat. We were heading for Morgana since Reiko and the Noxus Elders were with us. She’s in the back with Mary. Both Mary and Pup were hit with those anti-magic bullets, and their aura collapsed, which is making it hard to heal them until we can extract the bullets.”
“You must be the Frost Demon. The army said it was a Sasquatch with a machine gun, but a guy in a ghillie suit makes more sense. They’re hunting for you to get revenge for their units in the Waste.” One of the witches informed him.
“Let them search. But we need to go. They called for bombers.”
The Sylvan Coven unit left at a full run to the south, with Wolfe and the two Noxus Elders taking up the back line in case someone was following them.
“Incoming from above” Someone yelled, so Wolfe raised the Unholy Fire Barrier and immediately felt the few remaining competent witches in the unit throwing mana into it.
The bombing run mostly hit the scene of the battle, but the last few crashed into the barriers, filling the area with blinding light fire a few seconds before fading away and leaving a swathe of stunted trees and craters for hundreds of meters to their north.
Fortunately, it looked like they were close enough to the edge of the bombardment that it wasn’t obvious that the barrier had blocked the bombs, and the witches were already on the run again.
The sound of jets faded into the distance and didn’t return, letting the forest fall into silence with only the panting of exhausted soldiers and crunching leaves under boots as the witches retreated.
“There is an overhanging rock not far from here. If we can make it there, we we’ll be out of sight of their spy planes. We need a moment to rest and check on the wounded. The gas did a number of them, and there were only the two of us who could do anything about it.” The dark-haired Noxus Elder suggested, pointing to their southwest.
Nobody questioned how he knew where the safe spot was. They just changed course and made for the promised resting spot.
ƥαṇdαηθνε|
“Wolfe, check on Mary. The witches can’t touch her wound without having their aura damaged, and the bullet is still inside.” The Elder instructed before moving to start healing damaged nerves on another witch.
Wolfe was impressed to see that the Elders had finally learned the trick after he had shown them back at the Academy. It would be invaluable now that there were so many in need after the humans attacked and in very high demand, with so few who could do it.
The wound had been bandaged, and it was not deep. The bullet had travelled outside of Mary’s ribs and was visible just under the skin. It was shallow enough for Wolfe to confidently make an incision with a scalpel borrowed from the nurses and cut it out.
With it removed, he tossed the slug away and poured a heavy dose of mana into Mary to let her start stabilizing her aura before Cassie came over to cast a healing spell on her.
That just left Pup, and he was in much worse shape than Mary had been. By Wolfe’s estimation, he has been shot five times while protecting his witch, and he had lost a lot of blood.
The bullets were deep, and the Familiar was fading fast.
“Give me a hand here. We need to get them all out as fast as we can so that he can be healed.” Wolfe called to anyone who would answer.
Four nurses came over with long forceps, prepared to take the damage to their already nonexistent aura to save the Familiar.
All five of them started at once, quickly removing the bullets and then letting Cassie heal him. It seemed to be enough to stabilize him, but Pup wasn’t waking up. Alive was better than nothing, but it wasn’t a good sign that he wouldn’t respond at all, even after healing.
The nurses packed him back onto a litter along with the others who were recovering, and Wolfe started repairing damaged nerves to allow their auras to naturally rebuild over time.
Almost everyone here had taken heavy damage to their aura. Even Ella had taken a fair bit, which left only Cassie close to the strength that he remembered.
The five servants were among the worst damaged by the gas, and if Wolfe hadn’t recognized them, he wouldn’t have realized they were formerly talented witches at all. They showed no signs of aura, but there was hope that he could fix that with a little time and effort.