Chapter 371: Against the Dead Wing Elites
Very few warriors ever had the chance to fight someone at a higher level than themselves, and even fewer survived. But that was exactly the odds we faced. My guards were all at the peak of fifth level, some even relatively close to breaking through, and yet now they were asked to fight several soldiers above that. The elite of the Dead Wing Legion, Alpha team, as Barron called them.
"Kill the soldiers and that mutt, but leave the filthblood alive," Commander Barron said.
"Alive?" one of his soldiers, a woman with a viciously curved dagger, asked with a raised eyebrow. "After what her elementals have done to us?"
Barron’s face twisted in a scowl. "As much as I’d like to feed her to the wyverns, the Storm Hero said she needs her alive." Suddenly, the lasciviousness of his earlier taunting returned. "But she didn’t say in what condition. Whoever captures her gets to use her first."
"Publicly? Roughly?" A scarred man asked hopefully.
Barron shrugged, and the sixth-level soldiers all leered. Even the woman’s lips curved up in a lewd smile, sending a shiver down my spine. For some reason, this threat felt far more visceral than their earlier taunting, and I took an unconscious step back. I almost collided with Jenna and upset the Sunpurge, but she steadied me with a surprisingly firm hand.
"Don’t worry, my Lady," Jenna said, her flirtatious voice serious for once. "They may be sixth-level, but without their magic or wyverns, we still stand a chance. At the very least, we’ll hold them back until the Commander can send us reinforcements."
I nodded, but my twitching tail proved her words brought me no comfort. Before the wind mage could say anything else, the elite of the Dead Wings were upon us.
The first to reach us was the scared man, blessed with a huge stature and wide, broad shoulders. His acceleration was near instantaneous, catching us all off-guard. No matter how powerful Luxxa and Orion were, they were still only fifth level and completely unable to compete in raw speed. Be they even realized he’d moved, he’d dodged past Orion and swung his sword in a wide arc toward my head. I cried out but didn’t even have time to stumble away, watching with wide eyes as his sword collided with the Blade Ward. Magical sparks skated off the impact, a single jagged crack snaking across the golden ward.