Dragon Gods Reign

[Ilnori]

Standing far up on one of the more robust trees in this outer region of his home forest where he currently found himself, Teril peered down through a gap in the foliage and at the invading group of over fifty soldiers.

Watching with fury in his eyes as they cut down any plants and smaller trees that even slightly obstructed their path deeper into his homeland, he constantly reminded himself of his orders to follow them undetected. Only this kept his urge to annihilate them whenever they destroyed yet another rare type of sapling at bay, with him instead gripping the pommel of his short sword tightly as a miniscule outlet for his rage.

While only a third rank aura user, after having shadowed the group from the moment they had set foot into the forest he by now knew that they mainly consisted of manaless individuals. Even their leader was only an early second rank mage, with him and two first rank aura users being all of the mana users in this scouting party.

The rest were all normal soldiers.

And though they were likely to be quite formidable for manaless individuals as they were a part of the standing army of a duke, their equipment and tactics revolved around and were only capable of dealing with first ranks and maybe an especially careless early second rank. Against a third rank like him, their unenchanted steel weapons wouldn't even manage to pierce his skin if he didn't use aura.

Due to that, Teril silently wondered why they were even being sent here. Thanks to the mana tree, every adult elf living inside the forest has awoken as a mana user. As such, no branch of their military employed any manaless individuals. Even first ranks were practically only found garrisoning the city and manning the fortified outposts spread throughout the forest, both something where human kingdoms employed most of the manaless individuals in their militaries.

The branches operating outside of their fortified positions meanwhile consisted mainly of third ranks. As such, even the strategy through which manaless soldiers would usually at least indirectly influence even fights between mythic ranks wouldn't help them to make any impact.

This was because it relied on helping their side's first ranks win the fight against the enemy's first ranks, allowing them to then do the same with the second ranks who would then expand the advantage to the third ranks and so on.

The history books contained thousands of different tactics to do just that, but at their core, all of them needed the presence of enough individuals in each rank. And while first, second, third, and even fourth ranks could also serve as starting points for this strategy, all lower ranks might then as well not be there.

That is without even considering that though this strategy is widely known, most generals treated it as a last resort. Whenever possible, they would instead use groups of equal or higher rank to engage enemy forces, often going so far as to order organized retreats once there were no more equal or weaker enemies to not risk their forces in fights where any stray shot could wipe out entire units.

As such, Teril could imagine the confusion his superiors were currently feeling.

From what he had sensed when the unit below him had entered the forest, at least two dozen more such groups were currently also making their way further inward. But whether he assumed that each group acted separately or that they would link up later, the composition he believed the others to also have made no sense for any tactic he could think of.

Still, he was a soldier and as such, he kept to his orders and carefully followed the intruders over the following hours despite deeming them to be no serious threat. Regularly reporting his position, he shadowed their movement from outpost to outpost.

Only by late afternoon did this start to change when his targets came to a stop in a small clearing rather far into the forest. Dispersing across it, they started gathering firewood and prepared to establish camp despite being deep in enemy territory and having moved dangerously close to the publicly known search range of over half a dozen outposts.

In fact, the only reason why they weren't already swarmed by elven soldiers was that his superiors in the Brightwood guard had assured their colleagues in other units that they were already being followed.

First waiting a couple of minutes to make sure they were planning to establish a camp, Teril took out the badge identifying him as a member of the elven army of Ilnori and channeled a tiny amount of mana into it. As soon as he did, he felt the feedback of the magic tool contained in it connecting to the communication network of his unit.

“Ranger Teril Kyren reporting, enemy forces have stopped moving and seem to be building a camp. Position, approximately 247 degrees around the great tree and about thirty kilometers from the forest edge. Awaiting further orders.”

Speaking in hushed tones despite being over two hundred meters away from the enemies, Teril also placed the badge back into his pocket immediately after and moved to another tree a few dozen meters away. Although it is unlikely that even an average fourth rank could as much as sense the weak mana wave in which the message was carried toward the receiver, it was possible even for especially perceptive third ranks to do so, and as such it was standard procedure during stealth missions to reposition afterward.

Ducking behind the trunk of the tree once he arrived at his new position, he first stayed in cover for a couple of seconds in case the slight rustling of the leaves had revealed his position. Only when there still were no attacks flying his way a few dozen seconds later did he lean past the tree and peered through a small gap in the leaves.

Seeing no change in the behavior of the enemies on the ground below, he finally sat down on the branch and leaned back. Using the trunk as a backrest, he occasionally glanced toward the humans while he waited for an answer from his superiors.

But before he could relax for even a full minute, sudden mana fluctuations about ten kilometers to his right caused Toril to abruptly jump up. Drawing his weapon but not activating his aura, he slowly turned his head and let his gaze wander across the dense foliage.

Practically at the same time he also sensed a reply reaching his communication tool, bringing him into a conflicting situation. On the one hand, there could be enemies waiting mere meters from him, waiting to strike the moment his attention drops even by a tiny fraction, on the other hand, he could be being called on to aid a nearby colleague.

Deciding to slowly reach for his badge after multiple seconds of deliberation, he lifted it out of its pocket just enough to activate the communication tool inside.

Immediately, the voice of his unit's lieutenant was projected from it to convey his orders.

“You're free to start the hunt ranger.”

As soon as the message ended, Toril let his aura flare to life around him.

Slashing his sword horizontally before him, he first sent out an arc of energy to clear his sight into the dense foliage. Simultaneously manifesting three dagger-like aura constructs between the fingers of his left hand, he was prepared to follow up his attack should his first action reveal anyone.

Though when the branches his attack cut through then started falling and revealed only more empty forest, he directly spun around and switched to his main target.

Jumping around the tree trunk, he revealed himself to the humans below who had already turned in his direction due to the falling branches. Surveying their positions for a moment, he launched the daggers in his left hand at the three closest soldiers before reaching for the bow on his back.

Dropping his sword and leaving it to plummet next to him, he also reached for the quiver on his back and drew an arrow. Placing it on the bowstring and drawing both back in the time it took one to blink, he let a surge of aura flow into the arrow before letting it shoot toward one of the two enemy aura users a moment later.

Striking true to his aim, the arrow shot through his unfortunate target before the man could mobilize his aura.

Not letting this success distract him, Toril again reached for his quiver, this time drawing two arrows. Holding one in the hand while he placed the other onto the bowstring, he searched through the crowd below him before finding his target and aiming the arrow at the mage.

Letting lose the first shot, his arrow struck the shield the man had conjured up around him and exploded into a wave of nature element attuned mana that ripped the shield apart.

Before the ensuing greenish-brown cloud of energy fully disappeared, Toril then shot the second arrow he had drawn back in the same motion. Leaving a cylindrical hole in the floating concentration of energy as it shot through it, the arrow tore straight through the mage's chest.

With the only even remotely dangerous enemy thus dealt with, Toril then swung his bow back over his shoulder and clamped it into the holster on his back before bracing for the landing.

Pointing his other arm downward, he used the elemental manifestation associated with a second order aura expert like him and sent out a continuous gust of wind to slow his fall. This was less so to prevent himself from being injured as a third rank aura user of nearly any humanoid species could survive impacts even at terminal velocity, but more so to prevent himself from splitting the ground open and sinking into it.

This worked as hoped, allowing him to immediately jump back up after bending his knees to catch his landing.

Rushing into the chaos that had by then erupted around him, he disregarded the mostly unarmed manaless soldiers that were running around. Instead, he headed straight for the last remaining mana user in the unit despite still not having picked his sword back up.

Moving fast enough to appear as a mere blur to the man, he overtook him and calmly stopped a few meters further into the direction he was fleeing.

To his opponent's credit, he didn't panic but swung his weapon. But sadly for him, the gap between them was simply too large.

Simply lifting his arm as the man swung his sword down at it, Toril caught the blade with his palm. And though it was enhanced through his opponent's internal aura, the weapon barely left a trace of Toril's skin even as he held it tightly.

Rather the opposite happened, as the steel started deforming under his strength without even forcing him to use aura for it. After a short moment, it fully snapped when slightly twisted his wrist, leaving his opponent to stumble back as he had pulled against Toril's hold on the weapon.

Throwing the piece of metal left in his hand after this to the side, Toril was just about to dash forward and end the fight when he sensed mana flaring up behind him.

Immediately covering himself with a nature elemental aura, he did so just in time before he felt an impact on his back. What followed was an ear-shattering explosion as the fireball that struck Toril exploded on contact, burning through his enchanted uniform, scorching his skin, and catapulting him through the air.

Ignoring the burning pain on his back, Toril first manifested an aura armor around himself before raising his arm in the direction where his sword lay. As it was a weapon that was mana-bound to him, he then simply needed to push a slight bit of mana into his connection to it for a vine to suddenly spring out from his palm and return his sword into his hand within a second.

Twisting his body around as soon as his weapon had returned, Toril landed on his feet when he fell back on the ground a moment later. Sliding backward one or two more meters, he came to a stop near the edge of the clearing, almost thirty meters from where he had stood before.

Raising his blade before he even fully reorientated himself after the sudden impact of the explosion, Toril was surprised when he didn't see attacks heading his way as soon as he regained his bearing.

Instead, he found a group of seven humans standing on the opposite end of the clearing, weapons drawn but seemingly hesitant to attack.

Just as he realized this and wondered why that was, the reason started appearing around him.

Fading into existence as the invisibility spell cast over them ended, eight elves and three other individuals whom he didn't recognize appeared around him.

“You've done your part soldier, we'll now take care of the rest.”

Glancing toward the man as he stepped past him while speaking, Toril's eyes widened at the sight of the familiar uniform of the most elite elven military branch. Watching with bated breath as he neared the enemy without drawing the sword at his waist, he kept a close eye on the metallic gauntlet that was their signature weapon.

A second later this weapon activated without warning, with first a thin branch of wood barely two fingers wide jumping out from it and turning into a solid pipe-like structure in the man's hand. Once hardened, the branch that Toril knew to belong to the mana tree their unit guards became covered with thin glowing lines as mana flowed through it, shortly followed by a blade construct not too dissimilar in appearance to manifestation yet vastly more powerful appearing around it.

And with this signal, eleven figures dashed across the clearing.