The fire affinity of the Lionhearts was terrifying. Flames that could melt steel in the blink of an eye were enough to burn down the nature around them.
Michael was getting increasingly worried about the safety of his subjects. Most of them had never fought a life-and-death battle before, and even the veterans had never fought against an enemy with an elemental affinity.
‘Calm down! You have a Water Elemental Mage. She has an environmental advantage and can extinguish the flames with the moisture in the surroundings…calm down!!!’ Michael shouted at himself, and he would have slapped his cheeks hard if not for the Bow and Arrow in his hands.
Now that the five Lionhearts fighting the Starless Summons had been killed, Michael retrieved the Return Arrow. He nocked it on the bowstring and turned to the remaining Lionhearts.
Only slightly over 20 Lionhearts were still alive, and half of them were occupied with controlling the sea of flames around them. They wanted to burn the jungle in their vicinity and obliterate Michael’s territory simultaneously.
“Prepare to throw your spears!” Michael ordered calmly.
The Starless Summons, whose hearts were beating wildly, followed his order immediately. They changed their stances in the next second, and they were ready to throw their spears the moment Michael gave them the go ahead.
“Shoot at the count of three,” He announced in a voice barely loud enough for his Starless Summons to hear.
“1”
Michael channeled energy into the Hardwood Bow and pulled the bowstring back.
“2”
The bowstring reached the corner of his lip and Michael adjusted the Hardwood Bow’s angle. The Starless Summons pulled their spears backward and put some distance between each other to make space for acceleration.
“3!”
Everyone moved in unison. The Starless Summons took three steps forward and released the spear simultaneously with all their might.
In the next moment, one hundred arrows flew in a beautiful arc.
Michael released the Return Arrow when the spears had already crossed half the distance to their target.
Their targets were the Lionhearts, which were busy reducing the beautiful landscape to ash and smoke. They noticed the movement of the inexperienced Starless Summons and controlled the sea of flames around them precisely to continue wreaking havoc.
One moment, the sea of flames burned down the Untamed Jungle, and in the next moment, the flames formed a huge firewall in front of the 12 Lionhearts.
Most spears were made from sturdy wood – extracted by Michael. They incinerated and turned into ash the moment they touched the searing hot flames. Meanwhile, the spears they’d collected from the Gogi Warriors lost most of their velocity upon piercing through the firewall.
The Starless Summons grunted in displeasure. They had just lost their only weapons, without gaining anything out of it.
What was their Lord even thinking?
Some of them doubted Michael’s choice when they saw the flames flare up and devour their spears.
Yet, before the wall of fire could disintegrate, the pained shrieks and surprised screams of a Lionheart reached the ears of the Starless Summons. Their ears perked up and they looked at each other in confusion.
Their confusion didn’t abate for the next ten seconds even though several loud twangs rang through the battlefield.
The twangs’ source was the Hardwood Bow that was used repetitively with the Return Arrow which he had released four times in ten seconds.
His first shot pierced the nearest Lionhearts’ chest. The Lionheart let out a guttural scream and died miserably. The Return Arrow returned to Michael barely two seconds after he released the shot.
Michael’s right hand was already in position, swiftly nocking the Return Arrow on the bowstring before he pulled back in a smooth motion.
Then the second arrow was released.
He may not be able to see anything through the wall of fire, but the same could be said about the other Lionhearts. Unfortunately, they had failed to pinpoint his position before manifesting the firewall and had been busy destroying the landscape. Michael, on the other hand, did that using his Eagle Eyes and decent memories.
He knew exactly where the Lionhearts were positioned, giving him the advantage he needed to use the cover of the firewall against them. That was because the Return Arrow was neither incinerated nor the arrow’s velocity slowed down drastically despite flying straight into the flames.
The Lionhearts had to block the downpour of more than a hundred spears. Thus, the firewall was wide and huge. Because it was so wide and huge, the firewall wasn’t thick enough to slow down the Return Arrow.
Michael abused this fact to release the Return Arrow more than ten times in half a minute with the strongest pulling force the Hardwood Bow could endure – even if it was just barely.
The Hardwood Bow was on the verge of breaking apart, but Michael ignored that. He continued to use the Hardwood Bow even after the huge firewall finally crumbled.
Six Lionhearts were lying on the ground, unmoving. Meanwhile, two of the remaining six Lionhearts, whom Michael and the Starless Summons had aimed at, were injured lethally.
The six Lionhearts couldn’t maintain the huge and wide firewall anymore. They dispersed most flames into the surrounding area to burn down the Untamed Jungle. Meanwhile, the remaining flames swirled around them.
The remaining Lionhearts waited for the opportunity to strike and fire back. However, Michael didn’t want to give them the opportunity.
He returned the Return Arrow to his War Rune and retrieved a bunch of hardened arrows. They were enough to pierce the scales of Late Tier-1 Lizards.
Michael nocked the first on the bowstring before he released it. He didn’t aim precisely because he knew what was going to happen next.
The Lionheart, whom Michael targeted with the arrow, released a small fireball to encounter the arrow. The two projectiles collided, and the fireball exploded, burning half of the arrow.
But since Michael had expected this, he had already nocked a second arrow. The bowstring was pulled back as well and he released the second arrow.
Not wasting any time, Michael nocked a third arrow on the bowstring. He didn’t even follow the trajectory of the second arrow, knowing that another fireball would follow soon after.
The situation only changed after the third arrow was released. Michael aimed a quarter of a second longer before he released the arrow.
It shot through the air in a beautiful arc and approached the Lionhearts rapidly. However, the Lionhearts didn’t think too much about the incoming threat.
One of them waved his hand nonchalantly to conjure a fireball in front of him. The fireball was small and didn’t consume much energy, but it was strong enough to destroy the incoming arrow.
It was at the moment when he was about to release the fireball that something around him changed. The atmosphere felt weird, and he felt oddly uncomfortable. The other Lionhearts felt the same.
In the next instance, a water bullet pierced through the fireball, which exploded right in front of him.
A moment later, the arrow pierced through the Lionheart’s throat.
Even the Lionhearts that were busy dealing with Tiara and the other Warriors noticed that something was wrong. Now that the firewall was no longer blocking their vision, they saw the corpses of their comrades and were shocked.
However, the sudden change of events was not yet over. Kelia was not the only one who changed her targets all of a sudden.
The Aero Crossbowmen and the Archers had also pulled away from the battlefield in which Tiara and the Warriors were busy fighting with their lives on the line.
They switched their targets and rushed to aid Michael and released their arrows and bolts to put more pressure on the Lionhearts that were supposed to control the crowd of hundreds of enemies.
The arrows and bolts released by the long-range combat unit weren’t extremely strong or threatening. They were merely released by Low or Mid stage Tier-0 Archers and Aero Crossbowmen. However, the lethality behind the arrows was not the most important.
The most important was that they distracted the Lionhearts from the crucial incoming attacks. Kelia’s water bullets cut through the air, piercing the lethal wounds of the two injured Lionhearts cleanly while the others were busy fending off the arrows.
Meanwhile, Michael’s Return Arrow returned back into his hand. He and the long-range units spend the next two minutes bombarding the Lionhearts with more arrows, killing every single one of them.
Mercy was the last thing Michael would grant the invaders of his territory.
He didn’t care who they were, or how strong they were supposed to be. Fact was that they were his enemies and that they had to be killed.
An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.
‘You killed my people, so I will tear all of you apart!!’