Since the beginning of the invasion, Del and his two associates had already gathered in one of the corners of the place, preparing to leave as soon as possible.
However, they knew that if they were the first to run, they would probably also be the first to be chased by the enemy side.
With that, Del and his cronies wanted to flee the moment someone else made the same move so that the enemies couldn't go after them all!
It was easy for them to see that not all Minos soldiers were fighting inside that property. Some were in positions to stop those like Del, who wanted to flee.
Consequently, to keep from standing out, Del had held himself back from running the moment those men had appeared. Before, he even thought about fleeing the moment the barrier fell. Still, the enemy side was faster, and they were already surrounding the place at that moment...
Anyway, besides the two cronies who accompanied Del, there was also another crew with them. However, these people were weaker than them, and in an escape, they would surely turn the sacrifices of the three stronger pirates...
...
"Ahhh!"
Boom!
A few more seconds passed, and amidst the typical sounds of battles, finally, someone took the initiative and tried to flee that establishment.
The scenery in that place was getting more and more terrifying with each passing second, with Minos' soldiers slaughtering many of those criminals.
Each soldier seemed to be as strong as someone at level 45, and there were many of them attacking at this point. With this, despair was reaching the minds of those outlaws who had not yet entered the fight, fearful of being killed on the spot.
'Ahh, screw it! Fighting is meaningless!' A tall, strong man with short hair, thought to himself as he ran toward one of the place's walls.
And seeing this, not only Del's associates but other individuals, who were there at this time, started to move simultaneously while having an exceptional sparkle in the back of their eyes.
This was the opportunity many of them had been waiting for, the chance to use a sacrifice to escape from this place successfully!
...
At the same time, with more than 40 soldiers from the Black Plain Army fighting inside that area surrounded by walls, Minos, Abby, and Eda were standing on the roof of that house from before, calmly watching the fight.
For Eda and Abby, so far, this fight had been genuinely revealing. They were surprised to see such fighting proficiency from each of those soldiers that despite not being as good as Minos, they could still be among the best of their levels, even within the region's noble families!
"Looks like they're all equipped with Black-grade techniques… But that was to be expected." Eda thought to herself, remembering the Dry City Public Library.
If there was a place like that in Minos' city, where any citizen could get Blue-grade techniques, then Minos was certainly handing out Black-grade techniques to his soldiers!
And even though within the noble families of the region, the best cultivators trained techniques of the same rank, this was only among those who were original members of those families, not subordinates, as in the case of Eda.
So, Eda was very interested in this truth about Minos' forces...
As for Abby, she felt that these Blue talent soldiers could be as strong as her!
Maybe fighting individually, she would have more chances of winning against these people, but that was only because she had trained from an early age with techniques of that degree. Nevertheless, Abby was someone who had considerable resources at her disposal and the best training partners.
With that, she felt a little thrilled to see these low-talented people performing so well.
And finally, the young Stuart was watching everything that happened as he calmly ate a spiritual apple to replenish some of his energy.
Of course, the effect wasn't that significant now that he was in the 5th stage of cultivation, but that was better than nothing.
He couldn't cultivate in a situation like this, and Minos didn't like having to use spiritual pills. He knew very well that pills could greatly slow a person's cultivation speed, especially when looking at the higher levels, which were much more demanding for cultivators.
Consequently, even if he could recover spiritual energy with recovery pills, the young Stuart would not do such a thing under any circumstances. The pills he was willing to take were just regeneration and promotion pills, which would be unavoidable under certain circumstances.
Anyway, while evaluating his soldiers' performance, Minos finally saw that a group of outlaws was trying to flee.
'Oh? As expected, they only acted after others risked first… But that won't make a difference!' Minos thought as he had the corners of his lips turned up slightly.
...
Finally, the criminals were about to leave that property when four Sergeants appeared from the side where several were trying to flee, blocking their way.
"Trying to run away, huh?" A soldier said, while already activating his assassin technique, running towards one of those fleeing men.
Quick Cut!
As soon as he activated his sword technique, the Minos' soldier quickly followed to the place where that man was trying to escape, turning his sword in the direction of that individual's body, cutting him with the blade of that weapon.
For swordsmen, fighting by sending blades or using the sword's 'body' was something that depended on the enemy's objectives and strength.
As in the example of the young Stuart, he often fought by creating ranged attacks because he either wanted to avoid proximity to higher-level enemies when that was the case, or he wanted to decrease attack damage when fighting weaker opponents.
That's because the sword's 'body' would always be harder to stop than a blade of air created by a swordsman. This was easy to notice, paying attention to the fact that air blades could be destroyed with opposite techniques of the same power. Still, spiritual weapons needed to take much more severe damage to be destroyed!
Of course, if it were a blunt sword, for example, that wouldn't be valid. But a blunt sword was a regular item, which did not amplify the powers of spiritual techniques. Then, in this case, there was no need for a fighter to worry about excessive wounds when using the sword's 'body' to attack an opponent.
Anyway, because of all that, this soldier had used the 'body' of his high-level grade-1 sword, directly on that enemy, trying to do as much damage as possible!
"Ahhh!"
And just after a cry of pain was heard from the direction of that criminal, one of his arms could be seen falling to the ground as the man was sent flying back to the middle of that property.
But even after that happened, none of those thugs slowed down, continuing to try to escape from this place.
If they stayed, they would surely die, and in this case, the best thing to do was to bet on luck that the other fugitives would have more bad luck and receive more attention...
Boom!
Soon after, the other soldiers who guarded that place started to fight against those who tried to flee, increasing the escalation of effects and visible damage.
Chaos had already set in there, with several bodies already lying on the ground. At the same time, limbs could be seen here and there, creating a scene of carnage that could make those with sensitive stomachs vomit just by seeing and smelling the scents...
The odor released by shattered bodies was not pleasant, which looked like heaps of flesh, with brown, black, white spots, as if it were a mixture...
"Ahhh!"
And amid this chaos, all the soldiers were finally occupied, while the differences in numbers began to narrow a little.
At that moment, that pirate who had a red triangle tattoo on his back, Del, was almost making it out of the perimeter of that place.
Del saw that there was already a soldier coming towards him. However, he quickly used one of his associates as a shield, ready to flee, in the meantime, that the enemy soldier had to switch from one technique to the other.
After all, even if one could use several techniques simultaneously, a cultivator would undoubtedly have some delay when the technique's time was up. It wasn't instantaneous, so Del could try to use that moment to flee!
"Hahaha, Kage, it was bad for that, but my life is more valuable than yours." Del said as he started to leave that place with a smile on his face, right after throwing his partner's body to the ground.
But just when Del thought he could run away, suddenly something extremely terrifying for him happened, when he quickly stopped moving!
