Chapter 236: Firefight (Part 1)

  At the edge of Whispering Woods, the mages from the Tower of Fangs were still hesitating at the perimeter.

  They had almost no mental preparation for a fight. Although many of them felt resentment towards the Elves who had injured Tower Master Graden, they had never thought of directly charging in, slaughtering the other party, and snatching their things. They were not bandits.

  They had charged over menacingly, originally just wanting to use the formation of over a hundred senior mages to intimidate the other side, to force the Elves to apologize and hand over something that could heal Tower Master Graden. So when they saw Master Aiden directly unleash a legendary great magic spell, 'Falling Stars,' from high in the sky, they were all stunned.

  But what surprised them even more immediately was that this great magic spell, which could destroy an entire army, didn't even knock down a single leaf of the forest. Only a few great mages could feel that the vast life magic force within the forest had weakened.

  Then, one of Master Aiden's Thunderblast Bombs finally elicited screams and wails from deep within the forest. It was just a bit strange that the other Thunderblast Bomb had landed in the forest not far from them.

  "What do we do? Why did Master Aiden make a move directly? Should we go up too?"

  "What is Tower Master Aiden doing? Using such a great magic spell right at the start, does he want to raze the Elves' forest to the ground? What kind of magical barrier is that? It can even block Falling Stars?"

  "Wait, everyone, don't panic for now." The speaker was a great mage of the fire element, dressed in a red robe. He looked somewhat puzzled at the air mages floating above the forest, then back at the forest. “I think we should probably try to negotiate properly with those Elves first. Although I've never had contact with Elves, they should be a noble race that loves peace...” He stroked his large, snow-white beard, speaking with the steadiness characteristic of an old man. “Why don't we send someone in first...”

  With a soft "whoosh" sound, the upper body of this fire great mage suddenly vanished.

  From the waist up, the great mage's chest, his mature and steady face, that snow-white beard, the hand stroking the beard, along with the last half of his words, were all gone. Only flesh and blood fragments splattered onto the surrounding mages. The lower half of his torso stood there for a moment, spurted some blood, and then went limp and fell.

  Behind him, the bodies of two tall air elementals also opened up with a very, very large hole, so large that their magical structure within was completely collapsed and destroyed. The self-healing unique to air elementals could not occur, and the two cloud-like giants then dissipated.

  "Old Master Oga!" the surrounding mages cried out in unison, completely stunned by this bizarre scene.

  "Everyone, be careful. It seems to be an archer." A mage who had been enhanced with a high-level Eagle's Eye saw it. It was a flash of green light from the forest, silent and without a trace, and then everything in the path of that green light shattered. Although he found it hard to believe what kind of archer could shoot down two elementals with one arrow, this was clearly not the destructive power of magic.

  "These damn Elves. Everyone, quickly put protective magic on yourselves." A great mage of the wood element raised his hand and waved it quickly. A large, crystalline wall of ice immediately appeared in front of all the mages. The ice wall conjured by this great mage, who specialized in the water element, was not only wide enough to cover everyone but also very thick. To say nothing of arrows, probably even a warrior's heavy hammer would have difficulty breaking through it.

  The green light once again shot out from the forest at a speed difficult for the naked eye to see. With a crisp "clang" sound, a large, round hole opened in the ice wall. The water great mage who had cast the ice wall didn't even grunt, and another large hole appeared in his chest. This hole was so large it almost split his body in two from the chest. He looked at his now-missing chest with an expression of disbelief and collapsed to the ground.

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  Two other mages standing on the same line also fell. One had a small half of his body turned to fragments, letting out a strange scream as he twisted and fell to the ground. The other was luckier, only having his shoulder and arm grazed. Half of his shoulder looked as if it had been bitten off by a wild beast. The sound of him screaming on the ground from the immense pain sent chills down the spines of the other mages.

  Along the trajectory of this green light, everything seemed to become as fragile and easily shattered as an illusion made of smoke. Everyone could see that no matter what kind of protective magic, it would be like paper before a ballista under such an attack.

  Fear most easily transforms into fury. In the next instant, almost all the mages roared and cursed, chanting incantations and making gestures towards the direction from which the green light had come. Then, dozens of top-tier attack magic spells swarmed out.

  Ice Storm, Thunderblast Bomb, Boulder Blossom, Erupting Hellfire... and even two Blazing Might Shots and a chain lightning. The frantic elemental magic fluctuations instantly filled this region. The dozens of mages here were all top-tier elemental mages. White thunderballs, magical rocks torn from the ground that flew into the air and exploded after solidifying, a huge flame that condensed and then violently detonated, a giant ice ball that shattered into countless magical ice shards, an incomparably hot pillar of light... The most destructive elemental magic rushed towards the forest in front like a huge, colorful wave.

  Explosions, piercing sounds, cracking sounds, the roar of rising flames... in the blink of an eye, the forest within a radius of a hundred meters became a magical purgatory, a raging ocean. Countless various destructive elements ravaged everything in this space until it was torn to shreds. The originally thick trees were blasted apart, pierced, electrocuted, and pulverized.

  Kaelin, holding the jet-black longbow in her hand, scrambled back, stumbling and crawling. Behind her was that magical inferno that could have torn hundreds of her into the smallest of fragments. Her luck was quite good. If the blast wave from a Thunderblast Bomb hadn't happened to propel her, who was escaping, forward, the immense heat from the subsequent Blazing Might Shot would have instantly roasted her into charcoal. Even so, half of her hair was singed, her clothes were almost on fire, and her face was covered in dust and dirt. Her originally heroic and valiant figure now looked like a beggar who had escaped from a fire.

  Just two arrows; in such a short time, she could only shoot two. This was the limit of her Battle Qi now. But shooting two arrows had taken out more than three great mages, and then she had retreated when the moment was right. Kaelin was still very satisfied with her judgment. She could see that her targets just now were those with the highest cultivation among these mages.

  Strike first to gain the advantage. And to capture a bandit, first capture their leader. These were the two combat principles she had always believed in.

  After running a few more steps deeper into the forest, she saw the other Elven archers waiting ahead. Kaelin directed the Elven archers to disperse and climb onto the The Withered Wood Wardens that had also gathered nearby. “Everyone, be careful. These guys are all very high-level mages. Don't get close easily. Use the The Withered Wood Wardens as cover and shoot arrows when you can. Try to delay their advance and let the Sunwell slowly recover its power.”

  More than ten seconds later, the inferno-like magical storm finally dissipated. Not a single splinter of wood was left in this hundred-meter area. If one were to speak only of the destructive power in this small area, it was probably something that even a Forbidden Spell could not compare to with the frenzied bombardment of these dozens of senior mages.

  "These damn Elves, we'll make them pay in blood!" Looking at the mangled corpses of the three great mages on the ground, all the mages were now completely enraged. These few were not only highly respected in the Tower of Fangs, but even on the continent, they were absolutely among the few top-tier elemental mages. But here, without even seeing their enemy, they had inexplicably been turned into corpses.

  Various types of elemental shields began to flash continuously on the mages' bodies. Following the incantations and summons of the great mages of each element, giant fire elementals, earth elementals, water elementals, and other colored elemental giants were summoned, forming a tight guard around the mages as they marched majestically into the forest.

  Having seen that green light from earlier which even the ice wall could not block, no one thought that riding air elementals above was a good idea. These great elemental mages believed that the elemental giants they summoned alone were enough to raze this forest.

  Sitting cross-legged on the head of an air elemental, Master Aiden tilted his head back and downed a bottle of extremely precious auxiliary potion for restoring magical power. He closed his eyes and meditated briefly, recovering some of his over-exhausted magical power. Looking at the light of the magical bombardment below, he smiled with satisfaction. He had originally thought it would take some trouble to ignite the flames of war, but unexpectedly, they had ignited so quickly.

  In Tulalion, the Elves had long become birds startled by the bow due to the attacks from the Church and the Necromancers, so they would definitely counterattack after he made his move. And once the flames of war were ignited, he was afraid there was no water that could extinguish them.

  The sound of horses neighing came. Dozens of white Pegasus figures flew out from the forest below. These rarely seen creatures spread their huge white wings, which were several meters long, and soared upwards. On each winged Pegasus, there were one or two Elves.

  "Courting death." Aiden revealed a smile like a blade of ice. Turning his head to the few great air mages behind him, he said: “You guys take care of these fellows. I'll be the core, and we'll join forces to use Falling Stars one more time. That will be enough to flatten everything below.”

  On the ground, in a certain part of the forest, there was a loud boom, and flames and a heatwave rushed into the sky. Another area of nearly a hundred meters in the forest was turned to ash and dust under the ravages of magic. The combined power of these dozens of great mages was definitely not something that could be resisted by things like The Withered Wood Wardens.

  What shot into the sky was not just the explosion and flames, but also the frantic magical elements. Even tens of miles away from Whispering Woods, they were still clearly discernible.