Anfey and his group arrived back in the Country of Mercenaries around noon. Seeing the totally different scenery than what they remembered, Anfey could not help thinking of the word "devastated." He remembered that when they passed the Transverse Mountains previously, they could see merchant wagons and groups of mercenaries of different sizes. They saw none of them now, only a big road stretching far. Except for few rotting human and animal corpses, there was nothing else. Their surroundings were quiet. It seemed there were countless dangers waiting for them.
Anfey turned back to look at the already anchored suspension bridge and highly secured city border, and then turned to look at Ernest. After the war broke out, all the magic crystals had been reserved for military use. Civilians were not allowed to use them. Of course, civilians did not include royalty. Their lives had not been affected too much, but they were just as scared other civilians. People had to get permission from Central Empire before they could use magic transmission portals. With help from Augustus, Anfey got in touch with Baery very fast. With Baery’s influence and power, there was no question that Anfey would be allowed to use the magic transmission portal.
In any event, Anfey did not waste any magic crystals. He had two good people, Ernest and Black Eleven. With Ernest in his group, the whole group’s fighting ability was increased to a higher level. Black Eleven was very familiar with the Country of Mercenaries. He was a great counselor and the key for completing missions in the Country of Mercenaries.
Another person who could be even more valuable than Black Eleven was Entos. Unfortunately, he was building a magic transmission portal in Violet City that could not be completed in a short period of time. It was very important to build an escape tunnel, especially when they were under the threat of death spirits.
"Anfey, let’s go," Blavi said quietly. With Ernest in the group, Blavi was very excited, since he felt safe with Ernest. He did not care for a peaceful life anyway. He badly wanted to showcase how he could perform in danger.
"All of us will ride horses. You have to save some magic power. Don’t use your levitation magic unless it is necessary," Anfey ordered.
"Isn’t it too dangerous to take this main road?" Christian frowned. Those rotting corpses showed that something had happened here before. The general at the city gate also told them death spirits had been wondering on the main road.
"Dangerous? Those death spirits would be in danger if they met us," Blavi said with a weird laugh.
"It will be fine," Anfey said casually. He easily jumped on the horse. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. The trees in the forest about three hundred yards away started to shake all at once. Anfey’s sensing ability got stronger and stronger. Previously, he had to be in the forest to order plants, but now he could perform it from a distance. The effects were almost the same. He could clearly sense everything around him, including those crawling ants and bugs. His telepathy had also improved. He could take in all the information without mixing them together.
"Ok." Christian realized he was too cautious. With Ernest in the group, death spirits could barely post any threat to them.
"Let’s go!" Anfey yelled in a deep voice. The horse Anfey rode suddenly started to run ahead of everyone else.
The main road was built through the Transverse Mountains. As its name implied, it had thick forest on both sides of the road. Except for Ernest and Suzanna, no one else noticed a gust of spirit constantly flowing out of the forest and covering Anfey and them. The horses they rode ran faster and faster to the point they felt they were as fast as lightning. The horses became much braver. They were not scared and ran over the corpses on the ground like nothing. They were almost as good as the blind-folded war hors
es cavalries rode.
Rows of trees looked like green walls flashing by. The extreme speeds had them excited. This sounded right, otherwise there would not have been so many racehorses in Anfey’s previous world. Because they were so fast, Christian and Blavi had to use their magic shield and Black Eleven released combat power as well. By doing so, it allowed them breath better. The pressure did not affect them. They all felt proud as a result of the speed.
Blavi was the most excited one. He was yelling at the horse and looked very excited. Christian and he had ridden horses before, but never with such freedom and speed. The speed of their horses was surpassing the maximum speed of regular war horses, almost a match for famous racing horses. Black Eleven seemed to notice something and kept checking his horse and the war horses following behind them.
After running for dozens of miles, there seemed to be more death spirits, but with body parts missing. A few stronger ones tried to attack Anfey’s group. Blavi had no opportunity to show off his pride and excitement. Seeing those zombies, he shot out a big fire ball first that hit a zombie’s head.
Blavi had never released magic on a fast running horse before, so he had no experience with it. As he released the big fire ball, the horse was still about 20 yards away from the zombie. He was about a dozen yards away when the fire ball hit the zombie. When the zombie turned into a cloud of flame, Blavi felt he was running into the zombie with a lightning speed. He panicked. Luckily, the horse changed direction when it sensed the danger. Suzanna swung her sword at the zombie and knocked its head off. Blavi barely passed the flaming zombie without touching it. He could even feel the heat of the flame. It happened so fast that he broke into a cold sweat afterwards.
"Bravo!" Blavi was shocked for a second before he laughed crazily.
Suzanna rolled her eyes at Blavi. She should not have helped him. Suzanna thought to herself, If Blavi could have hugged the zombie, he would have felt even better. Christian found it frustrating but funny at the same time. He yelled, "Blavi, you should be a beast, not a mage."
Blavi did not even care. He shrugged and started to attack the death spirits on both sides of the road. This time he learned. He constantly changed direction. Death spirits turned into flaming fire balls behind him one after another. Blavi’s excited yells mixing with the screams from the struggling death spirts sounded horrible.
Anfey could sense what was behind him, but could forget about it immediately after he sensed it. He had reached a level that he was not affected by this ability to connect with the plant world. The spirit of nature had constantly flown out and surrounded him. Every time Anfey breathed and his heart beat, he would take in decent amount of spirit of nature. This spirit was endless.
As it was getting dark, Anfey saw a small village between the mountains in the distance. He pulled in the reins. Anfey could sense that there were about eight zombies crawling around in the village, even though he was still two hundred yards away from it. The zombies were missing body parts. It looked like they had terrible fights before they turned into zombies. They were dumped by the necromancers, just like the ones on the sides of the main road. Their speed had determined they could not keep up with the main stream of zombies on their long trip. They were just a burden to take on the road.
"Anfey, are we staying here today?" Suzanna reined in the horse as she rode close to Anfey. Seeing everything in disarray, Suzanna knew there had definitely been an attack by death spirits. If possible, she did not want to stay here: it was too disturbing.
Anfey shook his head. "No, we are staying in the forest." Now that he had the Heart of Nature, every decision seemed to be easy. In the blink of an eye, Anfey had found a couple of trees they could stay in. He picked the best one for them.
"Is this the condition of the entire Country of Mercenaries?" Christian said, worriedly.
"No, at least not in White Mountain City or Blackwater City. The fighting ability of those four super mercenary groups should not be underestimated," Anfey said with a calming smile. "Blavi, it seems that you have vented pretty good on the road. There are still about eight zombies in the village. Let them rest in peace."
"Sure!" Blavi laughed. He jumped off the horse and strode to the border of the village. He clapped to try to draw the zombies’ attention. In fact, he did not have to clap to get their attention. The zombies had noticed him and crawled out. They crawled so slowly that Blavi did not see them until the clapping started to hurt and he had to blow on his hands.
"Come here, come!" Blavi moved a few steps back with a playful smile on his face.
These low-level death spirits with missing parts did not have any intelligence. Besides following the orders of necromancers, their only concern was eating flash left. They crawled towards Blavi without any fear.
As all the zombies crawled to an open field, Blavi released Swamp Magic followed by Dispel Magic. If Dispel Magic was used to dispel others’ magic, it would greatly affect other mage’s magic ability, telepathy and other factors. If it were to dispel his own magic, it was easy. As Swamp Magic had the hoped-for effect on the zombies, Blavi dispelled it. The result was half of the zombies’ bodies were stuck under the ground while the other half was still above ground. They screamed and struggled but could not bring themselves out of it.
Anfey’s eyes brightened. Is this the strategy Blavi thought of? He did not only try to improve his fighting ability, he also thought about his own fighting style. Everyone had been trying hard and was constantly making progress.
Blavi laughed proudly. He released another magic spell in slow motion. Firewalls came out right on those zombies. Their screaming sounded even worse. They still could not pull themselves out. There was disgusting smell in the air.
"Beautiful!" Christian complimented Blavi. Firewall magic was not nothing great in itself, but what surprised him was the way Blavi used it.