Battle Admin System 13

13 - Homeland Advantage

Captain Airmance shook with rage after Lillea lay into him with cutting words. Air circled around him faster and faster. Lillea let him and his underlings draw closer. One wave of the bandit lord’s hand started the next round of violence.

Lillea exploded into action… and retreated. A large air blade sliced through half of the tree trunk she’d used as cover. Another air blade sliced through the snow flurries and toward her back. Lillea rolled forward and let the attack sail by.

The Level 300s followed up with a magical bombardment. Red lightning streams. Mana conjurations of giant bear paws. Steely crescent waves. Lobbed acid orbs. Heavy arrows with impactful enchantments. Rock cone volleys. And half a dozen more.

Between Captain Airmance attacking with overpowered air magic and his Level 300s filling the gaps in between, they had everything they needed to kill a strong giant. In fact, their combined might could kill up to four monstrous giants in the Level 300s.

Giants were some of the toughest creatures in all of Kolossi. A common giant at Level 100 was much greater than a common human at Level 100. Humans leveled the playing field with magic, enchanted items, tactics, and numbers.

But Lillea Solo Moonstrider defied practical logic.

She burst with sudden speed past the lightning streams and slashing bear paws. She dove with her feet off the ground to avoid the low crescent waves and splashing acid. The heavy arrows deflected off her metal arm. She soaked the rock cone volleys and others.

Giant blood spilled on the snow. Then the injuries healed rapidly before she lunged away again with an explosive step. A huge drift of snow flew behind her and blinded her pursuers on the ground.

Captain Airmance scattered the snow screen with a sweep of one hand. He gestured his other hand for another working of air magic.

Lillea heard something windy forming ahead of her. She felt a slight tingle and dug her heels into the snowy mud. She was too late. A sudden updraft of air and snow blasted her off her feet. The roaring air twisted into a rising column and sent her high up off the ground.

“Like blasting fish in a barrel!” Captain Airmance shouted with a nasty grin.

His magic maintained the vortex keeping Lillea up in the air. She suffered no damage, only disorientation from getting juggled around amid whipping wind and snow. But the worst was yet to come.

The Level 300s channeled their powers and aimed to destroy her with a unified attack. All at once, an incredible display of different magical skills and spells struck at the column and burst together in one chaotic cacophony of destruction.

They hit nothing but air, though.

“What?” Captain Airmance shouted. His men shared his dismay.

Lillea laughed wickedly on the other side of a tree she’d caught with her Strings of Pride and Shadow. Before the Level 300s unleashed their devastating blow, she yanked and swung herself out of the vortex and to safety. Now she returned to running while laughing haughtily.

Not one to miss out on mocking their enemies, Solo joined her voice with Lillea’s. The demonic duo sounded like the very stuff nightmares were made of. Wicked. Villainous. Fiendish. They shared the same cadence in their voices. But Lillea’s voice was deeper and smoother. Solo’s voice was metallic and haunting. Hearing them together while surrounded by darkness left an impactful impression on the bandits.

“She’s running away because she can’t fight us!” Captain Airmance shouted. “She’s the empire’s shiny pony. Killing her is a stab to the empire!”

A Dark Bolt flew at Captain Airmance’s head. He struck it down with a gust of wind. His eyes found Lillea’s peeking from behind tree cover. The chase resumed but with less eagerness from the bandits.

Captain Airmance remained a dangerous foe with cutting wind waves, bomb-like squalls, and vortex traps. Lillea put most of her energy toward avoiding the bandit lord’s spells.

His Level 300s had Lillea outnumbered, but they weren’t consistent or spectacular in the long run. Their accuracy worsened. They shot out magic with less vigor. Their coordination weakened as the chase drew on.

A time came where the trailing Level 200s found room to attack. There were three dozen of them, so their magic came out in larger volleys.

Lillea barely acknowledged them.

The magic from Level 200 bandits became easily ignorable. But they struck more often since they had the larger numbers and were fresher. It looked like they could weather her down over time. Maybe they could kill her with a thousand cuts.

Nevermind the time wasted. Or the limits to human mana channels. Or all the running Lillea forced on them. Nevermind how Lillea purposefully slowed down to make sure they could continue following. She only moved at top speed to avoid an attack from Captain Airmance and the occasional Level 300.

Captain Airmance would’ve noticed the issue eventually. But Lillea taunted him to keep him from thinking about the worsening condition of his best bandits. She kept enraging the man. She kept him chasing and wasting his time.

This came with sacrifice, of course.

She lost her denseness. Her injuries healed slower. Her mana channels felt ragged from constant force-dashes and other magic techniques. She was indeed suffering a death of a thousand cuts. Everyone involved must wonder who would break first.

The bandits.

Or the Demonic Moon Giant?

That depended on if things stayed as they were. They couldn’t, however. Lillea wouldn’t allow it. These were her ancestral lands, and she knew where she’d been leading them for hours.

Lillea howled like a wolf. She could hear Captain Airmance shouting something in alarm. She sensed a huge coordinated effort of magic channeling and preparing to strike at once behind her. Lillea kept howling.

A different howl responded. A single one. Then over a dozen howls joined the single.

Her heart hammered hard. Excitement filled her veins. Her excitement remained even when Lillea tripped over her own feet and crashed down.

The coordinated bandit strike rained toward her, but the smile on Lillea’s face gave away no fear. She was where she wanted to be. Even after plenty have changed in the north, the Sword-Tailed Wolves remained in the same cave system.

Silver crescents slashed through the coordinated bandit attacks. Elements collided. They burst in the air with a whopping blast. Multiple effects twisted around each other, negated, or added fuel to the chaotic pyre while spilling in all directions.

Lillea rolled away, caught on the edges of the chaotic explosion. New and old wounds appeared all over her body. Burns raged over her flesh. Her blood colored the snow. Even her demon arm had dents, scruffs, and rents across its metal surface.

And despite all of that, Lillea pushed up to her feet as two dozen little forms padded up from behind her. Sword-Tailed Wolves. Some of the smallest monsters found in the north.

They were the size of southern dire wolves, their snouts leveled with the average human’s chest. Silver fur. Coal-black eyes. And sharp teeth.

But those features were the least important features compared to their prehensile tails and preference for wielding swords they’d conjured through a skill. Each of the two dozen stood by Lillea’s feet held a claymore in their tails.

And they were all Level 300s.

“I do not have anything to offer now,” Lillea told the Sword-Tailed Wolves in the language of intelligent beasts. “Let the ancients hear my vow. I will return the favor for your help. I swear this on my name, Lillea Solo Moonstrider.”

“You reek of the netherrealm. But your name is Moonstrider, and your heart howls with truth. This pact is accepted,” one wolf growled. The other wolves rubbed against her ankles and feet in a gesture of acceptance. They wouldn’t have without her Moonstrider heritage.

“Sir, she’s talking to the wolves,” pointed out a bandit. “And they are listening.”

“Eyes to the flanks and rear. Get ready to fight your way out,” Captain Airmance ordered. His voice lacked his prior boldness.

Lillea showed him a smile filled with teeth. She was ravenous, too. The bandits had more numbers, still. But all the bandits could tell they were outmatched.

Their channels would be overdrawn. Their stamina would be worn down from the long chase through cold weather. And they were far from backup in lands that didn’t belong to them.

“You’re all going to die,” Lillea said. “The only hope you have is to get hacked down by a Sword-Tailed Wolf. If not, I will catch you. And I will make you suffer a horrible death.”

The Level 200s broke away from their formation and ran. The Level 300s looked at Captain Airmance for guidance.

The bandit lord locked eyes with Lillea and saw something he didn’t like. He shot upward and deserted his people. Lillea knew this would happen but wished she had a way to stop him.

A nearly translucent wall appeared in the sky ahead of Captain Airmance. He crashed into it hard. Lillea’s mouth fell open as the deserter plummeted from the sky while half-awake.

She lunged after him. The Sword-Tailed wolves dashed forward with blistering speed. She was halfway to reaching Captain Airmance by the time the wolves put the sword on the bandits. A massacre colored the snow scarlet under the dawn of a new day.

Captain Airmance snapped awake and swooped away from hitting the snow. He shook his head and looked up when Lillea’s right hand came down upon him.

He slipped from her grasp and shot toward the air to escape again. Strings of Pride and Shadow crossed over his head and ensnared him in a simple net drawn by her left hand. Cutting wind blasted out from Captain Airmance’s body and slashed apart the strings.

Lillea’s right fist suffered wind cuts but connected on Airmance’s back. She squeezed out magic for added force.

The human shot into the base of a tree trunk and struck hard. Splinters sprayed from the crash. He barely shook it off when Lillea’s foot kicked him into the tree trunk again. His body dug into the dent and tried to channel more air magic.

A Dark Bolt struck first and his magic blinked out for a tiny moment. Lillea filled that moment with another kick and felt a few crunchy bones break.

Captain Airmance coughed blood and crumpled out of the crater in the tree bark. He rolled down a root and fell in front of Lillea’s feet.

The once mighty soldier withered in pain. Fear gripped him to his core. He squirmed and scrambled in her shadow before he tried to fly away again.

A lash from her shadow string knocked him back down. He stopped and held up his hands, begging for mercy. He received the sole of her foot. It took a few stomps before Lillea received a satisfying and final crunch.

Lillea removed her foot from the squashed mess. She stared at it before tilting her head back and closing her eyes. She savored the moment.

Few could claim a kill with such a large level disparity.

Solo gave feelings of pride and glee. She wanted that kill just as much as Lillea. Still, there was no denying the help they’d needed to achieve it.

Opening her eyes, Lillea turned to the frail-looking grandpa beneath her. From an outsider’s perspective, she looked one step away from squashing the old human faster than Captain Airmance.

That would be a ridiculous assumption, of course. The old man was too crafty to fall for that.

Lillea tried to step on him anyway. He moved to the side just enough to avoid her foot with a few inches to spare. She tried again. The same result. She gave it her best attempt for the next six steps. They were hard, rumbling, cratering stomps, too. But the old man remained untouched.

“Must we always do this when we meet, young lady?” Lord Oxford chuckled, adjusting his monocle. “Can’t an old man just stand and enjoy the views?”

Lillea grinned fiercely at him. “You can enjoy the views as much as I want to step on you.”

“I suppose that’s fair. Not my particular cup of tea, the stepping. But I can see the appeal for others.” Lord Oxford kicked back and bumbled lazily into the air until he was at level with her eyes. “It was Pruz, by the way.”

An onrush of emotions flowed through Lillea’s body. Questions popped up inside of her mind. She took some time to settle down and looked at Lord Oxford for more information.

“Pruz was separated from the others days ago. He ran all the way back to Cold Tooth. Suffered some severe frostbite, poor lad. But he didn’t let that stop him from going to the guild and asking for help.”

Lillea held her breath.

Lord Oxford continued. “They turned him down repeatedly. Except for one. The receptionist, Fiona Foundling. She risked losing her job to help the lad and was dismissed from work for a day. So she did the bravest thing anyone of her station could do. She went to my manor and demanded an audience with me.”

“Really?” Lillea gasped. She understood that was a huge break in decorum for humans. And knowing Fiona, the poor girl would suffer constant fear and nervousness. That is very brave and helpful of her.

Lord Oxford had more to say.

“She needed help along the way, however. Ran into a female goblin. And knowing their kind, when they set their nose on something, they won’t be stopped. That’s how they got through the guards and up to me during a scrying call. Can’t turn down a determined lot like that, so I hear them out and realize the bumbling idiot running the guild is a bigger lost cause than assumed. So I gathered some guards, some good natured adventurers, some of your goblins, and teleported us into the area.”

Lillea’s emotions were a riot. Amazement. Exhilaration. Joy and bliss. And suspicion.

A teleportation of that magnitude would require more than just mana and a skill. The man would have to pay a fortune in reagents. These were symbolic materials born from natural things infused with concentrated mana. Rituals with rune scripts and reagents worked hand-in-hand for certain spells, especially large scaled ones.

Moonstriders had used reagents like alchemists, combining them through procedures for consumable enchantments. She had the knowledge for it, but Lillea didn’t want to spend time on alchemy. Still, she understood the price so she had to wonder what Lord Oxford would want out of this.

“Don’t give me that look.” The old human shook his head. “I’m here because this is a massive failure of leadership and a terrible negligence from adventurers. And the only ones who were trying to do a damn thing about an active bandit army are a bloody gang of goblins and a man-eating giant posing as their queen.”

Power crackled around them. Lillea froze from the forceful showing of might. This was purely mana being channeed under the will of Lord Oxford.

When he was serious, even Lillea felt wary of him. He was of the Noble Rank, which was below her Legendary Rank. But Lord Oxford was a human spellcaster in the Level 600s. He would make Captain Airmance look like a mere novice.