Chapter 291: Spatial Magic
Rhodes's final words of admonition were like water poured into boiling oil. Not only did they fail to quell the battle intent, but they also incited an even stronger killing desire within the army.
Goaded by the officers' mockery and the lure of bounties, these elite soldiers abandoned their last shred of hesitation, charging fearlessly toward the solitary figure.
Facing a military force capable of crushing everything, Rhodes completely put away his last trace of mercy.
He held nothing back.
He raised his right hand gently. A small magic circle unfolded in his palm, yet the mana fluctuations contained within were nearly solid.
These soldiers had no idea just how strong the young human mage before them truly was. Perhaps even Serie—or Rhodes himself—didn't know exactly how powerful he had become.
He had dabbled in almost all magic in the world, with the exception of Time Magic.
Was Annelise strong?
Very.
As an existence born from Rhodes's discarded body, having absorbed and fused with all the corrosive divine power of the Godfall Land, she had become a terrifying entity comparable to the first Demon King, Asmodeus.
But that was all.
Rhodes had many ways to kill her. He simply hadn't acted because he temporarily couldn't solve the issue of her self-destructing pollution upon death.
Now, facing ten thousand elite soldiers, there was not a trace of fear in Rhodes's eyes.
He pressed his hand down gently toward the phalanx of heavy infantry charging at the very front.
Gravity Magic.
The hundreds of heavy armored soldiers at the forefront felt as if an invisible mountain had instantly crushed down upon them.
In this moment, their fine steel armor was no longer protection, but a fatal burden.
Under the terrifying force of hyper-gravity, the tooth-aching crack of shattering bones formed a continuous sound. Soldiers let out miserable screams as they collapsed in droves like flattened ants, blood spraying from the gaps in their crumpled armor.
Even the ground was forcibly pressed into a massive depression!
This bizarre and terrifying scene caused the soldiers in the front ranks to halt in horror, staring in panic at the sunken area ahead.
But this daze was only momentary.
The Empire's elites didn't earn their reputation in vain. The follow-up troops reacted quickly, and commanders screamed new orders hoarsely: "Spread out! Prepare anti-magic arrows! Get close to him! He is a mage; without flight, we just need to keep closing the distance!"
The soldiers dispersed rapidly. Dozens of massive heavy ballistae were pushed to the front lines from the rear, their bowl-thick bolts glinting with a cold, eerie light.
Hearing the commander's orders, Rhodes's eyebrow twitched.
If he hadn't given all his Holy Swords to Serie for self-defense, he would have taught these soldiers what a "melee mage" was sooner or later.
Rhodes took a moment to glance at Serie on the other side.
She was already surrounded by over a hundred mages, her petite figure submerged in a sea of black robes.
But judging from the violent mana leaking out and the various large-scale spells being cast, she didn't need his help for now.
So Rhodes withdrew his gaze—or rather, he had to withdraw it.
Because countless arrows were shooting toward him like a swarm of locusts, blotting out the sky.
Mixed within were special enchanted bolts capable of dealing massive damage to defensive magic. Rhodes even sensed that some of these arrows had been enchanted by mages.
In other words, hidden within this black mass of soldiers were a few mages who hadn't participated in the siege against Serie.
The dense attack covered almost every inch of space around Rhodes.
Rhodes frowned slightly.
Tanking these bolts head-on would waste too much mana.
So without hesitation, he blasted a large-scale spell forward, forcibly clearing a vacuum zone. Then his figure blurred as he cast a short-range spatial teleportation spell, leaving an afterimage in place while his true body appeared dozens of meters away.
BOOM!
The place where he had stood was blasted into a deep crater by the bolts, his afterimage shredded completely.
"Damn it! How can he still use teleportation magic? Lock onto him! Keep firing! Don't give him a chance to breathe!"
Seeing this, the commander immediately ordered the ballistae to adjust their aim. Moments later, another volley of ten thousand arrows was fired.
However, this time, Rhodes simply stood in place, not using teleportation to dodge again.
A super-large magic circle unfolded in his hand. Under its interference, the space around him instantly shifted and became chaotic.
When the arrows entered the ten-meter range around him, they seemed to hit a twisted wall, colliding with each other or even bouncing back along their original paths.
For a moment, screams of their own soldiers rang out from the Imperial formation!
"Spatial Magic! It is Spatial Magic capable of distorting ranged attacks!" a mage within the formation exclaimed. "Stop using ballistae!"
The officer reacted too: "Everyone spread out! Cavalry flank from both wings! Spearmen form up and advance! Grind him down!"
The army changed formation rapidly, trying to use their numerical advantage and multi-angle attacks to exhaust Rhodes.
Cavalry charged from the flanks, attempting to disrupt his casting, while directly in front, a phalanx of infantry wielding long spears marched toward Rhodes with disciplined steps.
The cavalry weren't wielding lances, but rather special short spears designed for throwing—clearly equipment specifically for dealing with mages.
"Interesting," Rhodes muttered to himself.
Legate had indeed made quite a few preparations to deal with them.
Two magic circles unfolded in his hands simultaneously.
His left hand swiped toward the direction of the short spears thrown by the cavalry, and an invisible spatial wall instantly rose up.
The whistling spears slammed into it and were all deflected away. But that was enough, as these cavalrymen were merely stalling for time.
Rhodes looked at the cavalry now ten meters away from him and shook his head slightly.
"Futile."
He extended his left hand, fingers spread, toward the cluster of cavalry charging from the flank, and gently clenched his fist.
Space began to compress.
The charging cavalrymen discovered with horror that the space in front of them seemed to have turned into a shrinking box.
Warhorses neighed as they slammed into invisible barriers. The immense inertia caused knights and horses to be crushed together instantly.
The sound of breaking bones, the crunch of twisting metal armor, and screams formed a cacophony.
The cavalrymen closest to Rhodes were forcibly "squeezed" into a ball of scrap metal and flesh and blood!
But more cavalry continued to charge.
In response, Rhodes continued to use Gravity Magic.
Under the effect of Gravity Magic, the charging cavalry and their horses seemed to sink into a swamp. Their speed plummeted, their movements became incredibly sluggish, and they turned into live targets.
Rhodes fired blades of light, precisely severing the legs of the warhorses, thoroughly dismantling the first wave of the knights' charge.
Simultaneously, the frontal spear phalanx had closed in.
Rhodes raised his hand to his shoulder, turned slightly sideways, and assumed a very familiar posture.
Then he gently spat out a single word:
"Tremor."
Hum—!
With him as the center, an invisible yet majestic shockwave expanded outward rapidly in a sphere.
Where the shockwave passed, the earth rolled and shattered like waves. The advancing spearmen were blasted off the ground, armor and all. The fine steel spears in their hands snapped like straw.
The terrifying concussive force penetrated their bodies, instantly shattering even their internal organs.
The entire frontal phalanx fell in swathes, like wheat swept by a hurricane.
But the soldiers on the ground were like the tide—one wave settled, another rose.
Using their numerical advantage, they surged from all directions, throwing dense rains of spears, covered by specialized shield-bearers to prevent the spears from being reflected back.
The soldiers formed tight formations, compressing Rhodes's maneuvering space step by step.
Although Rhodes still held the absolute upper hand, felling large swathes of soldiers with every wave of his hand, the opponent's tactical coordination and fearless charges did delay his clearing speed, preventing him from ending the battle as quickly as he had initially anticipated.
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