The mages weren’t giving up as easily as Karl had expected. They had built a barrier around the portal that was withstanding the artillery barrage, and while Karl and Ophelia terrified them, the mages were not hesitating to engage with the monsters of the Newbon Army.
More of them were pouring through the portal by the second to establish the beach head outside the city.
[Thor, how are things going there? The faster the kids get finished, the faster they can be relocated to somewhere safe.] Karl asked.
[Most are inside right now. Tessa has the others calm, and they’re waiting for the last few soldiers to come out.]
That was as good as they could hope for. As long as the defenders could keep the invading force away from the orb until the kids could finish and be extracted from the combat zone, it should all be fine.
They were mostly Awakened and Ascended Rank magical beasts or monsters. Most of them were only half grown, and they wouldn’t have done more than the very basics of combat training so far.
Karl faced off with the mages who had come to challenge him and considered his options. Hellstorm wouldn’t work, as he didn’t have the control to keep the vortexes in midair.
Remi already had a [Thunderstorm] going, but the mages all had barriers, so it wasn’t taking them out until they were already heavily injured. The question was what was the fastest way to achieve that.
Karl decided to start with the classic crowd control skill. [Chain Lightning]
The bolt came out ethereal blue from his left hand, and arced to ten more targets, shattering Commander Rank barriers and knocking mages out of the sky.
They didn’t have a chance against the skill, and Karl simply continued to channel it, allowing the damage to stack and the lightning to function as a magical stun baton.
The leaders of the attack squad realized that within seconds and began erecting a barrier to block the lightning before it could hit and arc.
That let some of the mages get to their feet and make a shaky retreat back to the safety of the portal.
It wasn’t like Karl had something in particular against these mages from one of the other human nations. But that didn’t mean that he was going to give up an opportunity for his people without negotiation.
If they had sent someone powerful, the leaders would have sorted it out between them. The fact that they hadn’t implied that they were either too weak of a faction for it, or they wanted it to be solved this way.
With their shield isolating them from Karl, the mages retreated. The same was happening on the other side of the battlefield, where they were facing Ophelia, and the battle was quickly turning into a rout.
Hawk and Dana were raining spells down on the barrier defending the portal, but it didn’t appear to be faltering at all. There was most likely a powerhouse on the other side keeping it active, though it was only at the Royal Rank. If they couldn’t exhaust the power behind that barrier, they would be unable to do any more than hold the battle to a stalemate.
[The kids are all done. Tessa is moving them to Rae’s stone maze, and I will keep them all protected.]
[Excellent news. Thank you, Thor.]
While Thor prepared to protect the kids, Karl studied the barrier that was erected between them and the portal. He had enough power that he could shatter it with one strike of the maul, but it was definitely being fed power from the other side of the portal. If he broke it, he could get through, but it would be back up in under a second, and that would be troublesome for him. Trapped inside a barrier full of enemies, with a portal to their home base, was a terrible idea, even by his standard of bad ideas.
However, that didn’t mean that he couldn’t mess with them at least a little bit.
Karl put away his sword and took out the maul to stack [Disintegration] on it.
The first swing of the maul shattered a hole in the barrier, through which Karl hurled [Chain Lightning] into the startled mages. Off to his right, Cara was torturing the mages in a different way.
She had blocked a group of them from retreating, and she was just repeatedly casting [Nullify] every time they tried to cast a spell to get around her. On foot, they weren’t fast enough to get around her, and she wouldn’t let them use magic, but without using skills, they couldn’t harm her either.
She was having a great time, and every mage that saw it was absolutely terrified, so it was a win on both fronts.
Cara knocked them all over once more, and then sent Karl a mental message.
[Tell them to stay put. They are my prisoners now.]
[What are you going to do with prisoners?] Karl asked.
[I dunno. Poke them with a stick maybe? They’re funny when they’re frustrated.]
Karl laughed and walked towards where she was pummelling a mage’s face in the dirt before flying off to recapture another one who had made a run for the barrier.
“Gentlemen. I believe you have found yourselves prisoner of a Void Badger. If you will kindly stop resisting and trying to run away, she can stop beating you.” He announced.
The closest mage cursed and tried to throw a skill at Karl, but at the end of his sword swinging gesture, nothing happened.
Cara had [Nullified] his skill.
“It seems that you are slow learners. You can either sit here and behave, or I can stun you into submission. Which would you prefer?”
The mages put away their blades and sat down on the grass, while their comrades only a dozen metres away watched with concern.
“Now, my lovely associate here just wants to poke you with a stick to see what noises you make, but I have a few questions. First, what nation are you from. Second, what will it take to make you go away? This matter has been settled between the Totems, it is not up for discussion or such impolite attempts at poaching.” The Mages gritted their teeth, unwilling to provide him any information that he didn’t already have.
[They’re from Baria. The Dana Mage recognized a token on a body I collected.] Hawk informed him.
“Fine, I will start the question and answer period for you. You were sent here by Baria to try to gain the benefits of the Relic. That much is plainly obvious.
We can skip those basic details, and I don’t care what faction, Clan or Spellblade Sect you were hired from. So, we can skip straight to the important part. What will it take to make you go away? Will your people leave voluntarily? Should I call for a couple of Overlords to come here and flex their might?
What’s your directive on retreat?”
The mages that were caught outside didn’t want to say anything at all, so Karl simply stepped over and smashed a hole in the barrier, through which he cast another Chain Lightning.
The retaliation was half-hearted, only a dozen Commander Rank fireballs that were crushed to nothingness by [Flaming Body].
“Is my inflection unclear? I am being nice for now. Don’t make me send a fist of Monarch Rank mercenaries into your barrier with orders to kill anything that moves.” Karl suggested.
“Fine, we can do this the hard way, then.”