41 - Attack

///NunuNote///

Mage Classifications:

Apprentice Mage -> Arcane Mage -> Master Mage -> Sage Mage -> Archmage

Warrior Classifications: 

Squire -> Sworn Knight -> Elite Knight -> Weapon Master -> Warlord

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"Captain... are you sure we should invade Arcantor?" I asked, unsure and tired.

Ever since the God of Fear had appeared in Eldoria and unleashed all the power of fear on us, sleeping had become a much more difficult task than it had originally been.

And now, knowing that we would have to invade Arcantor, known as the safest kingdom in the world... that only made the fear in my heart grow stronger.

My captain looked at me with a stern expression, but I could see in his eyes that he was just as worried as I was.

"Don't question the God of Fear, you know what happened to the group that questioned divine power." My captain replied sternly before turning his gaze forward and following the train in front of us.

Sighing, I remained silent while I thought about it.

A group of Eldorian citizens were angry with the God of Fear and decided to protest against him in the kingdom.

The group of protesters even included a Master at Arms, who was equal in power to the Sage Mages of Arcantor, but with just a casual attack from the God of Fear, these people's minds were practically destroyed, leaving them in a vegetative state.

After this demonstration of the God of Fear's power, the King of Eldoria made it clear to the entire population that he would fully cooperate with the God of Fear, and that anyone who defied the God of Fear would be beheaded on the spot.

With the fear of having their minds destroyed and the king's threat, no one dared to question the God of Fear, and every order he gave was obeyed unconditionally.

As soon as he ordered us to attack the next kingdom, Arcantor became the target of the entire royal army.

Since I was only a squire, the lowest rank among knights, I couldn't question any of this and just had to accept the orders and come to Arcantor to cause as much chaos as possible.

According to the God of Fear, we didn't have to completely take over the kingdom, just destroy as many villages as possible throughout the kingdom and make the people of Arcantor afraid of us.

I couldn't understand what the point of that was.

If we just attacked the smaller villages around Arcantor instead of concentrating on the big cities where the richest nobles lived, how much booty would we get?

With no booty and only dead soldiers on our side, what was the point of such an invasion?

It's not even as if Arcantor would suffer, since the nobles and mages would hardly care about the lives of a few thousand commoners scattered across the kingdoms.

But no one had the courage to tell the God of Fear, and we just accepted his orders quietly.

At least we could have some fun with some women from the villages, right?

To make this as efficient as possible, our 5,000-strong army was divided into smaller groups.

My squadron had a total of 500 members, with 10 elite knights, 50 sworn knights, and 140 squires like me, while the other 3000 soldiers were just ordinary warriors.

Considering that we were attacking villages with no more than 1,000 people, our army was more than enough.

Even though Arcantor was controlled by wizards, and wizards could wreak havoc against warriors like us, there was no way we could have wizards defend all those small villages, right?

So we proudly marched at high speed to attack as many villages as possible before the mages noticed our attack and sent reinforcements.

The first village we would attack was already in sight.

From what I saw, this village should have a maximum population of 600, which was a good amount to start our attack.

Mounted on our horses, we quickly rode towards this village, preparing to use our increased strength as squires and knights to decimate as many people as possible once we reached the village.

But there was something different than we had imagined.

They could see us from three kilometers away, which was to be expected, but what could they do about us?

The problem was that the closer we got, I noticed something very strange happening among these people.

Instead of picking up weapons to fight us, they were holding books and reading?

Even commoners from the Mage Kingdom were foolish enough to think that books could save their lives?

But the shock came soon after, when a small orange fox appeared out of nowhere in front of those people.

And from the glow on the fox's tail, it was clear that this creature had at least a little magical power.

It's not possible for those people to have tamed a magical creature, is it?

No, I was wrong.

While that creature was looking at us with arrogance as it opened its mouth to attack us, the citizens of the village we were about to attack were looking at us with fear and anxiety.

But instead of despair, which was normal when seeing a squadron of knights as large as ours, it was as if they were curious?

The answer to my question came from the mouth of the little fox...

Within seconds of opening its mouth, the creature began to spit a powerful wave of fire in our direction!

This fire wave started out small, but as the seconds passed and the closer it got to us, the hotter it got!

"Aaarghh, it's burning me!"

"Be careful, it's a magical creature!"

"My arm!"

"My horse, help!"

"Don't step on me, please!"

When the fox's flame reached us, several horses were hit, others were frightened, and the soldiers riding those horses suffered, falling in front of the horses behind and being trampled to death!

In just a few seconds, our number of 500 soldiers may have dropped by at least 60!

"Move!" The squad leader shouted the command, causing our formation to split in half, dodging the wave of fire coming towards us, but continuing to ride towards the village, now more cautiously with the little fox.

Feeling the temperature of the fire, I knew that this creature was stronger than me, which meant that this creature had at least the strength of an apprentice mage!

How could a small village like this control such a creature?

Creatures with such fighting power were extremely rare in the world, living far away from civilizations and only submitting to people much more powerful than themselves.

Why would something like that help ordinary people?

I couldn't help but wonder when the creature changed its strategy and instead of blowing a huge wave of fire, it started to blow several smaller fireballs at us!

These fireballs caused even more damage, especially since the creature's attacks were focused on the horses, which were larger and more fragile than the riders, so the damage was very high.

Fortunately, the creature's mana shouldn't be too high... 

No... something was wrong, this creature's mana never ran out!

Even after a minute, the creature was shooting fireballs as if it had infinite mana!

How was that possible?!

A creature with the power of an apprentice magician should have as little mana as an apprentice magician, how could it maintain such a high attack rate?!

Even as we approached the village, our army of 500 soldiers had been reduced to less than 100.

With the villagers taking up arms to fight us and the creature unleashing magical fire attacks, our chances of victory were getting slimmer and slimmer...

God of Fear, why did you send us on such a mission?!

I just hope that the soldiers of the other battalions are luckier than us...

=== Adrian's POV ===

Seeing the large influx of prayers arriving in various villages near the border of Arcantor, I had realized that a possible attack was taking place!

It had only been two days since I had released the iMonster Guardian update, which had greatly increased the amount of Divine Power I had stored, so I was preparing to level up again.

But this attack had completely ruined my plans!

The amount of Divine Power I was using just to keep the iMonsters alive and attacking was too high.

Sure, I could cut off that supply any time I wanted, but right now it was important to keep morale high and make sure as many believers as possible survived.

So, unbeknownst to them, I used my own Divine Power to increase the iMonster's Strength by 1 level.

The iMonsters that had the strength of Apprentice Mages had risen to the strength of Arcane Mages without anyone knowing.

Only desperate enemy soldiers could tell.

This kind of thing was very expensive, costing me thousands of Divine Power Points per hour, but considering how much I'd received in the past few days from the new influx of believers and the users' addiction to iMonsters, it was an amount I could afford.

And unlike me and my followers, the followers of the God of Fear couldn't pay for the consequences of their actions, causing the army of more than 5,000 soldiers to be destroyed in a few hours!

This information was extremely important to me and the Archmages of Arcantor, but even more important was how to take revenge on the God of Fear...