Back at the dark walls. Elias was seen killing the remaining monsters from the horizon. He knelt to the ground, adjusted his scope and fired the bullet at perfect accuracy. Elias's marksmanship was higher than mine. He only uses high-ranged weapons more than close-combat weapons.
While he killed the last remaining leaders in the monster army. He soon noticed a silhouette between the mountain ranges. Then, he reacted…
"Hm, isn't that…"
At the edge of his vision, Elias saw something yelling wildly at the fleeing monsters. It looked suspiciously like a person's head, so Elias uses his scope to get a clearer image of what it was. It was unmistakably a human head, covered by a black robe and a skull mask.
The robed man was yelling at his retreating army like a child throwing a temper tantrum. Seeing as it was having no effect, he raised up what appears to be an artifact, a staff, and began chanting.
Elias naturally had no reason to let him finish, so he blew the staff out of the robed man's hard with a well-placed shot from his sniper rifle. The force of the shot sent the robed man reeling back into his hole.
Elias wasn't sure if it was the black robed man's doing or not, but a number of black wolves chose the moment to leap out of the crowd and try to take him down. Their strength and coordination was far greater than that of regular monsters. He guessed their strength was high-level beasts, but judging by how they sometimes managed to dodge one of Elias's attacks with impeccable timing, he surmised their special magic was reaction time.
In other words, they matched up to the strength of the weakest monsters from the horde. Even that was an impressive feat, though.
But right now, he needed to focus on the enemy in front of him. And so, he switched his attention from the monsters leaders to the twenty high-level black wolves leaping at him.
He transformed his sniper rifle into a revolver using metamorphosis magic. In the distance, I saw my brother was attacked by high-level beasts. Knowing that he is in real danger, I decided to help him before I began my pursuit from that robed man.
"Eirene! I need some help here!"
"Brother!"
"Eirene, I will create a gap from their defenses, use your bow as a weapon and aim for the head!"
"Roger that!"
As I saw him. He spun in a circle, firing his revolver in all directions to try and shoot down the coordinated pack surrounding him. Since he knew they'd dodge his initial barrage, I fired one of my blood arrows directly at the black wolf. With no time to react, they were killed instantly.
Some of them manage to dodge both Elias's black bullets and the blood arrow. Even though the blood bow has homing capabilities, it still wasn't enough, which surprised me. They had a crude form of Telepathy that allowed them to exchange information during battle.
In the split second it took Elias to reload, one of the remaining wolves leaped at him from behind. However, one of my blood arrows pierced the wolf's skull like a bullseye.
Another one tried to use its downed comrade as a stepping stone to leap at Elias, but he was blown apart with a shotgun blast on his revolver.
The rest tried to surround Elias, while I was maintaining my hidden distance, but with a concentrated burst of fire from my blood arrows, they were forced to abandon the idea. Elias reached in time through the opening of my blood arrows, firing his revolver behind him as he slipped out of the encirclement.
Two of the wolves tried to chase after him and set up a pincer attack, but my blood arrows shot them down, so his revolver claimed the lives of two more.
Luckily, I didn't spot these wolves because I learned to be cautious. I was hiding behind the rock over the tall grass. It concealed me temporarily while remaining hidden from the black wolves that were about to attack Elias.
"Graaaaah!"
Another one of the wolves was hit by one of the monsters that had been blown back, and hurtled toward Elias. He dodged to the side, killed the monster that was coming his way, and blew the head off the wolf that was tangled up with it. He then rolled to his feet, only to find a wolf inches from his face, maw open wide. It had picked the perfect time and place to attack. Almost as if it had known where he would be. Anyone watching including me would be certain Elias had been bitten.
However, Elias slayed a little, and the wolf's teeth clamped down on empty air. He had somehow moved a step back in the span of an instant. He then pressed his revolver into the wolf's stomach and fired.
The remaining wolves all leaped at him, but for some reason every time they closed in, Elias would suddenly be in a different spit. And every time, Elias would shoot them down from point-blank range.
For me, it looked almost as if the wolves were mistiming their own attacks, which is actually they were. Elias possesses a huge amount of agility from his stats, meaning that he can move faster easily. However, it was very difficult to focus on observation while in the middle of a life and death struggle. And because these wolves relied more on their senses than most monsters, his deception was doubly effective.
Because of that, In less than a minute, The robed man's trump cards had been annihilated without so much as putting a scratch on Elias.
With the wolves out of the way. I sent my blood arrows out to finish off the remaining monsters' leaders. From the images my blood arrows were, Elias saw me and instead of a standard greeting, he plans out to wipe the remaining hypnotized monsters as a mark of the end.
In another two minutes, they had successfully eliminated all of the hypnotized monsters they could find.
After he was sure there was no one else left, Elias sucked a huge breath and let out a mana-laced roar of epic proportions.
"Hyaaaaaaah!"
His voice resounded throughout the battlefield. The sheer pressure of it intimidated the monsters, striking fear into their hearts. The entire army froze for a second. Then, they realized there was no longer anyone ordering them forward, so they slowly began backing away. When no one came chasing, they turned on their heels and fled back to the mountains, all of them making sure to give Elias a wide berth.
He was like a rock in the middle of a flowing stream, diverting the flow of their retreat around himself. As he watched the retreat, Elias saw the robed man try and make a break for it in the chaos. He was riding what was probably the last of the black wolves.
"What a shame. It's already too late. If you'd ordered all of your forces to cover your retreat earlier, you might have a chance." Elias muttered
Elias got back on his knees, transformed his revolver into a sniper once again, took careful aim at his weapon, and fired two shots in quick succession.
His aim was perfect. Sensing danger, the wolf quickly leaped to the side and dodged the first shot, causing the second to strike it directly in the femur.
Without a leg to stand on, the wolf collapsed to the ground, throwing the robed man with a skull mask off. With how high his stats were, the fall didn't cause any real damage to the robed man, so he instantly got back up. He ran over to the wolf and started yelling something. When it didn't respond, he kicked it in the head.
He was probably trying to get back on his feet so he could escape. From the looks of it, he was already in the grips of dying. Realizing it wasn't responding, he placed his hand on its head and started chanting something, most likely a spell to forcibly make it stand.
"No, No, No, you won't go anywhere, little bud." Elias muttered
But Elias didn't give him a chance. He fired another bullet at its head, putting the wolf out of its misery. The robed figure was sent sprawling from the force of the bullet. He got up again, and began running on his own two feet, mixing in with the horde of monsters fleeing north.
With no option left, Elias was forced to pull out his black horse using his shadow magic. His mana was about to be drained out, but he'd still manage to endure it. I hopped and joined the black horse and raced toward the robed man.
The boy turned around when he heard an unfamiliar sound, and did a double take when he saw a black horse, something that is a dark magic user, barreling toward him. He started running even faster, trying in vain to outstrip the black horse.
"What the hell! What the hell is going on! This can't be happening!"
The robed man spewing a stream of curses, boy one whack from Elias's dark magic shut him up. The robed man faceplanted into the ground and slid a few meters before coming to an unceremonious stop.
Elias immobilizes the robed man until his body barely moves, the man pleads for his life repeatedly, and yet, he still resists it. Unable to take it longer, Elias removes one of his skull masks.
"Maybe I want to see that face of yours."
Elias yanked the skull mask easily, through its shock, it was a handsome young man that was in his forties. Has a semi-blonde hair, freckles at his face and his eyes were in dark circles in a aqua blue. To me, he is just a complete stranger. But to Elias, he recognizes it easily.
"Long time no see, my friend."
I made a confused face at Elias, then I asked politely.
"Brother, who is this man?"
"He is Alistair Peregrine John, one of my father's killers."