Lord of Charm



Everyone in the enemy base instantly felt the huge surge of mana when 300 soldiers cast their spells and became alerted.

However, it was too sudden, and the enemy wasn't given time to prepare. At that moment, 20 spells were shot out of the platoon. The platoon was divided into 5 squads that were divided into 4 teams each.

Every team had 5 expert mages and 10 advanced mages, and the spells were combined spells of whole teams.

Kisuke remembered the crazy damage that happened to the surroundings when Ronda and he combined a spell together, and when a team with expert mages and advanced mages did it, the damage was hundreds of times stronger.

'Wars aren't child's play. I won't be able to survive against such combined and organized attacks from trained soldiers.'

Kisuke thought to himself while watching the huge spells being shot at different buildings, about to obliterate huge chunks of the base in a moment. He underestimated the power of a trained army. Before, he believed he could easily take on a whole squad of advanced mages.

The buildings exploded all over the place when suddenly Elizabeth's voice resounded in the base.

"Soldiers, listen to my orders. Platoon 1 and Platoon 2 leave your areas and come to reinforce the center. The enemy has been prepared."

At that moment huge explosions echoed in the base and 7 people floated in the air.

"Sukehiro! Why are you here?"

The Empress asked a muscular man in his late thirties. He wore simple gray pants and a white top. His appearance wasn't neat; he had whiskers, and his hair was long and messy.

He had an overused wooden toothpick between his teeth as he looked back at The Empress fearlessly.

"I heard you came to visit, so I made sure to come and protect my people. Why are you here?"

It was a comical sight to see; he used mana to hold the toothpick suspended in the air while he talked so it wouldn't fall. When he finished talking, it just went back to its rightful place between the man's teeth.

"As I'm sure you know, my first daughter died. After investigating the circumstances in which that incident happened, I concluded that the only ones with the ability to pull it off are the magi of the Assassin Order."

"Then you can go back, it has nothing to do with us. Must be another empire that found a way to sneak into your lands or another dynasty managed to bypass the oaths."

"Do you think I will believe it because you said so?"

"Then we can fight."

"Let's do it; I would slaughter any base of the Order even if you guys didn't kill anyone I care about."

It was true. Regardless of whether the Assassin Order took part in the assassination of the first princess' life or not, she'd still send her troops to attack the base. 

The only difference it made was that she came there herself to make sure everyone did a thorough job of killing the Order's members.

"Then why are you pretending to care about your daughter's death?"

"Hmph, why are you playing tough? Since you're here, it means you rushed here from the Xia Dynasty without a rest; you've already spent a huge deal of your stamina and mana."

The two disappeared into the sky to fight each other to avoid implicating the mages in their fight. They were both under oath not to massacre mages of the other side unless it was an attack on their HQ.

Since it was neither the dynasty's capital nor the Order's HQ, they'd get seriously injured from breaking the oath if they fought and killed dozens of mages with the fight's shockwaves. 

In a similar manner, the three magi of the dynasty and the other two magi from the Order disappeared and fought in another place. Although they could handle being next to the fight of the eighth-stage magi, they preferred not to.

Since they were fighting in broad daylight and the Order's assassins didn't enjoy the element of surprise, they suffered from a disadvantage even without the numerical difference.

However, they didn't need to win; they only needed to hold the magi back for a while and let the other assassins fight fairly against the troops of the dynasty.

Even if magi couldn't directly kill the enemy mages, their presence alone could tilt the whole battle in favor of their side. 

For example, they could pressure the mind of all the enemies, neutralize the enemy's attacks so their troops would be able to attack without any need to defend, and cage most of the enemy mages and let only some of them out to fight their troops until they're all dead.

None of those actions broke the oath against massacring mages yet would be determinantal to the other side. 

"Everyone, we are going to the center to help Platoon 3! Wind and Fire Mages, boost our speed!"

The Deputy Commander shouted and led the platoon to help the soldiers who were fighting in the center.

At that moment, Kisuke felt a strong boost of speed washing through his body. It was another astonishing group spell; the boost was on the same level he could achieve by boosting himself without holding back.

Given his SSS Wind affinity and high Fire affinity along with him being a Higher Ruler Human, his boost was far better than any normal expert mage could ever have. One must not forget that all the mages in the platoon enjoyed this boost, not only him.

The platoon ran at full speed toward the middle of the base, which was around 10 kilometers away. They covered that distance in less than 3 minutes and saw Platoon 3 getting repelled back slowly.

As a military, they had the upper hand in a group fight against assassins who were used to working solo or in small groups.

But the Order still had one important advantage; they had powerful magic circles to boost their power. 

Platoon 3 was slowly taking casualties and being pushed back, and already lost over 50 soldiers by the time the other platoons arrived. On the other hand, the defenses of the Order weren't breached.

While the attacks on the western and eastern sides completely destroyed the empty buildings, the central part where all the enemies were was safe.

"Platoon 1, support Platoon 3 to prevent any further casualties. Platoon 2, switch to squad attacks!"

The expert mage who was given the right to command the operation in the absence of the magi shouted orders to the platoons and they acted like a well-oiled machine.

Platoon 1, the one Kisuke was part of, shot their team spells against the magic circles of the Order, offering great relief to Platoon 3 who could stop retreating. 

There were around 600 assassins on the enemy side, and now with the two platoons working together, they entered a stalemate. Of the 600, only around 80 were expert mages and 150 were advanced mages. The rest were true mages or lower.

It was a great demonstration of the power of magic circles; the assassins managed to enter a stalemate in a direct group battle against an enemy far stronger than them despite being bad at group fights and direct fights.

Sukehiro rushed with another magus to hold back the magi of the Nikkokuni Dynasty, but they couldn't carry mages with them to the battle. It was the best they could do for their subordinates.

Kisuke couldn't combine his spells with the trained soldiers. He didn't train with them, and he never combined his spells with 15 people before. Thus, Kisuke, Hanako, and Taeko simply sent normal attacks and tried to help as much as they could.

Kisuke could feel that the enemy tried to put mental pressure on them, but once the other two platoons arrived, they easily negated the pressure.

Suddenly, huge 5 attacks blew up against the building where the assassins stayed. Those were five squad attacks; each one of them was a combined spell of 4 teams, or in other words, 20 expert mages and 40 advanced mages.

Kisuke felt his face turning slightly pale when he saw the power of those blasts. Although he believed he could survive a team attack if he put his all into dodging and defending, he knew he would never survive a squad attack.

The main downside is that even trained soldiers needed a few seconds to load such attacks, which was the reason that two platoons held the assassins back using team spells while the last platoon charged the squad spells.

Kisuke watched the building shake from the attacks, and he could sense that some of the magic circles were destroyed. After a few more rounds of those squad attacks, the building would be destroyed for sure, and the slaughter would begin.

"Again!"

The assassins did their best to hold their ground against the military, but soon 5 more huge blasts resounded in the base and a few more magic circles got destroyed, killing the assassins who were occupying them.

"Three more rounds and their defenses will crumble completely!"

However, after the third go, the whole building unexpectedly exploded, sending debris everywhere. At the same time, huge black fog spread from the building and covered the three squads.

It blocked sight and sound, leaving the platoons in a confused state for a moment. However, they were elite soldiers, and the units that got picked to deal with an organization of Darkness Mages were trained to deal with such situations.