The moment the metal object resting in the Lionheart Leader’s hands absorbed the flames all around, it began to tremble wildly.
Michael and the others first thought that it was a bomb, which had been set off for the worst-case scenario.
They were proven wrong quickly.
Tiara began to scream the moment the metal object began to shake blood began to ooze out of her ears. She collapsed to the ground the next moment.
‘Sound? No, high frequency?’ Michael asked himself when Tiara collapsed while the others were unaffected.
The Lionheart Leader was already under the influence of the highly potent paralysis venom but that didn’t mean he couldn’t retrieve a bomb from his War Rune. Michael didn’t want any more of his subjects to die in this battle. The questions he had in mind were not worth sacrificing any more lives!
Seeing that Michael didn’t want to keep the Lionheart Leader alive the others pierced their swords deeper into their enemy’s body. More arrows, bolts, and water bullets pierced the Lionheart Leader, who couldn’t endure the onslaught of attacks.
He collapsed after a few seconds.
Michael caught the metal object, threw it into the air, and slashed at it after inserting his remaining bits of energy into Tigerfang.
He split the metal object into two before it fell to the ground. It had stopped shaking. Simultaneously, the tension in Tiara’s body was released. She had fallen unconscious but would wake up soon.
“You were lucky…” The voice of the Lionheart Leader rang through Michael’s ears all of a sudden.
He thought that the Lionheart Leader was already dead, but that was not the case. The Lionheart Leader was just on the verge of death. He had a few more seconds left to live.
“It was just luck that this Elf–….” The Lionheart Leader spoke, but he couldn’t finish his sentence as a razor-sharp blade pierced through his mouth.
Michael stared coldly at the Lionheart Leader, whose eyes widened in surprise.
“Who do you think you are to spout nonsense? Luck? Fuck off, who cares?! You don’t deserve any last words. Nobody wants to hear them either way, bastard!” Michael snarled while staring at the Lionheart Leader whose eyes lost the spark in them. They turned dim and lifeless as he stopped moving altogether.
The Lionheart Leader died.
However, Michael didn’t even bother to look at his corpse. This enemy didn’t deserve his respect, forget about the honor of a glorious death.
Instead of paying attention to the dead bastards who invaded his territory, Michael rather focused on his people.
He rushed over to Tiara and placed her head on his lap. Michael was just about to retrieve a potion from his War Rune when he felt her twitch. Tiara opened her eyes weakly and stared straight into Michael’s dark eyes.
“I…went out of control…I’m sor–….” She was about to apologize when Michael hurriedly placed a healing potion close to her lips. He nudged her gently to make her swallow the viscous liquid instead of talking. Michael didn’t want to hear any nonsense from Tiara right now.
His mind was in a mess, and so was his body.
When the content of the glass vial was emptied, Michael helped Tiara up. He retrieved a few more potions, and handed Tiara a few before he drank a healing potion himself.
“Were you knocked out from a high-frequency signal?” Michael asked Tiara as his eyes roamed across the battlefield.
The flames conjured by the Lionhearts extinguished with their deaths, but there were still some small dying flames that were sputtering.
Kelia Tan used the last bits of strength inside her to extinguish them before she fainted. She had used too much of her energy in today’s battle. However, that was the case for almost everyone. Everybody was utterly exhausted by now.
“I think he sent an emergency signal to someone. Usually, high-frequency signals don’t knock me out… It was pretty strong. I think it was sent to someone far away,” Tiara said while pressing one of her hands against her head.
Tiara looked like a big mess. Michael was not sure what aftereffect her bloodthirstiness had, or if it was somehow related to her Soultrait rather than her belonging to the Silverfang Tigerfolk, but he could tell that she was in a mess.
He patted her shoulder lightly.
“If the signal was sent to someone far away, it was probably sent to his backer. Either way, you should rest now. The others will take care of the injured,” Michael said, pointing in the direction of the territory.
Dozens of people from the territory had already come over, tightly holding onto their axes and other tools. They had been unwilling to stay away from the battlefield and wanted to help out even though they had never held a weapon in their lives, much less taken a life. These citizens were artisans and workers, and they never had only ever picked a weapon to build something, not destroy or with the intention to hurt anyone.
Despite that, they came to aid their friends and colleagues. Their arrival was a little bit late as the battle was already over, but their timing was perfect to tend to the injured and take care of the battle’s aftermath.
Blaire had rushed over to alert more civilians about the raging battle and ask them to help. That way, more than 200 people were now helping the injured.
Michael watched the scenery, his lips pressed together in a thin line. It was great to see the strong sense of unity between his subjects, and how they respected each other, but Michael couldn’t get himself to smile.
He was worried.
‘Did the signal go through, or not?’
That was the first thing Michael was worried about. However, even if the signal didn’t go through, the powerhouse backing the Lionhearts would realize that something was amiss when he would not hear anything from the Lionheart Leader for weeks.
The Lionheart Leader was dead and couldn’t report to his backer anymore. That would either signify that the Lionheart Leader forgot to report, he ignored his backer and abandoned him or her, or he died.
Neither of those paths provided a favorable result for Michael.
It was better to expect the worst right off the bat and expect more attacks in the coming few weeks.
‘I need to get stronger…no…we need to get stronger, as fast as possible…’
The first thing that came to his mind when he thought about getting stronger was the Temple of the Forgotten.
But there were also other options.
However, before that, Michael helped everyone to clean up the battlefield, help to rescue as many injured subjects as possible and to bring the remains of the deceased to the clearing.
Only an hour passed while they did the rescue operations, but Michael felt increasingly tired. He stared at the remains of close to a hundred subjects that died in today’s battle, and he grit his teeth tightly.
Most casualties were Starless Summons, who had been brave enough to join the battle, knowing that their survival rate would be close to nil.
They were the heroes of the territory, the reason why the territory was untouched and standing strong.
To other Lords, the death of close to a hundred Starless Summons wouldn’t bother them too much. Their value was negligible in contrast to the gains made by defeating more than 40 Tier-1 Lionheart Adventurers.
But Michael didn’t feel like that.
Today’s battle may have been a victory, but it didn’t feel like one, at all.