Boom! Boom! Boom!
On the surface of the Red Goblin Mountains, Headmaster Astoria and Marquis Ember continued their highly destructive battle with the goblins and B-rank hunters from the Assembly of Silent Night.
Throngs of goblins and hobgoblins were easily wiped out with every move that Astoria and Ember made, while the environment was completely devastated.
Not a single tree in the area was left intact; they were either broken or charred to crisps and ashes.
“Dammit! Just how much mana do these High Witches have?! How can they keep unleashing powerful attacks like this?!” a Peak B-rank hunter cursed.
He quickly dived out of the way as a big wave of crimson flames blew past him and wiped out hundreds of goblins along its path.
Silver Hawk and the other B-rank hunters felt heavy-hearted when the goblin horde was reduced to less than two thousand.
“We don’t have many goblins left! We have to pull back!” a Peak B-rank hunter suggested.
“Pull back?! We have to press on! This is our only chance to kill the two High Witches! If we retreat now, they can recover their mana, while we can’t recover our goblin forces!” Silver Hawk asserted with bloodshot eyes.
He had come across other High Witches before, but even those High Witches weren’t as impressive as the two High Witches before him.
‘Is this the power of the first generation of High Witches that ascended with the help of the Realm Fragments?’ Silver Hawk gritted his teeth.
Surely, even if they are first-generation High Witches, their mana reserve couldn’t be limitless.
‘There has to be a limit!’ Silver Hawk wanted to believe.
“We don’t have a choice, Silver Hawk! We’ve already wasted too much time! The High Witches had far greater mana reserve than we could have anticipated!” another Peak B-rank hunter argued.
“Our battle should have long caught the others’ attention by now!”
Perhaps they did have a chance.
However, it was undeniable that the present situation was disadvantageous for them, especially when they didn’t know how much mana the two High Witches had left.
As if confirming their fears, Lord Helia arrived with all the abled troops she could gather. They numbered over two hundred.
“I’ve brought the troops to assist, Marquis Ember! Headmaster Astoria!” Helia loudly announced upon her arrival.
“Lord Helia, huh? You’re a bit late to the party! Haha, we’re almost about finished here!” Ember laughed joyously as her grand presence dominated the battlefield.
As she decimated her foes with powerful flames, her excited expression made her look crazy.
…
“Pull back!” Silver Hawk immediately made the ultimate call to retreat upon seeing the enemy’s reinforcements arrive. “We can no longer win this battle! We must retreat to the cave and seek the Cave Master’s help!”
“About time!” the B-rank hunters all celebrated.
They quickly commanded the remaining goblin forces to cover their rears as they retreated from the devastated land.
“Where are you all going, doggies?! Come back and play!” Ember hollered as she pursued the enemy with Astoria.
Neither of them had any intention of letting the wolf-men escape.
“Fuck off, crazy woman! Who wants to fight a pyromaniac like you?! You’re a goddammed lunatic!” one of the Peak B-rank hunters hurled curses as he retreated, venting all his frustration.
“Dark Blade, why are you trying to antagonize her?!” Silver Hawk reprimanded.
However, it was too late. What had been said could not be unsaid. Ember’s expression turned solemn, and her eyes radiated with coldness and sharp killing intent.
Swoosh!
Ember’s flames spread like wings before slapping against the ground, allowing her body to soar into the sky quickly. And with a kick against the air, a burst of flames thrust her body forward.
She shot toward the person called Dark Blade, closing the gap between them at an alarming rate.
“Fuck!” Dark Blade cussed.
He quickly commanded a few Rank 3 Goblin Shamans to sacrifice themselves to cover his retreat.
Although the Rank 3 Goblin Shaman was no match for Ember, it still succeeded in slowing her down with its magic.
“Watch out, Marquis Ember! Don’t blindly charge ahead! You’ll create openings that you’ll end up regretting!” Astoria warned.
At the same time, she kept up with Ember from the ground and blasted a cloud of poison mist away with a swing of her greatsword, sending it back to the enemy.
In a short instance, dozens of goblins quickly breathed in the poison mist before they foamed with bubbly saliva and dropped dead.
As Astoria and Ember continued their pursuit with Helia and the other troops following behind, the remaining goblins were slowly hunted down to their last.
However, Silver Hawk and the rest of the wolf-men successfully fled to the cave entrances two-thirds up the mountains.
“Cave Master, we have failed! Please forgive our intrusion as we seek refuge in your territory!” Silver Hawk quickly pleaded for the Cave Master’s understanding as he fled into the darkness of the cave with the others.
None of them dared to stop for even a moment as the High Witches were hot on their pursuit.
They had set out with more than fifty members, yet less than half of them managed to return to the cave entrance alive.
Everyone below the B-rank had seemingly died or gone missing while hunting the other witches and aura users in the cursed region.
“Useless! Not only did you fail to eliminate the intruders, but you also got all my minions killed! And yet you all still have the galls to come back alive?!”
The Cave Master’s ghastly female voice echoed out from the depths of the cave.
Even so, the unknown being didn’t take any actions against Silver Hawk and the other wolf-men, allowing them to flee deeper into the dark cave.
At the same time, Astoria and Ember quickly halted their steps outside the cave. They were alarmed by the ghastly female voice.
“I thought something was off when I heard those dog-men mentioned a Cave Master… But I didn’t expect the so-called Cave Master to possess such a familiar ghastly voice!”
Ember knitted her brows as she stared at the cave entrance with a solemn.
“Right,” Astoria nodded with an equal solemn expression and said, “Who would have thought that a Fallen Witch was hiding in these mountains?”