467 The Trapper and Trapped
After some time, Ulrich Salazar recovered his wits faster than Emperor Renardier; his eyes flickered with a sharp glint.
"You need to make your move, Your Imperial Majesty," Ulrich urged before mentioning, "While it is considerably shocking that dragons have appeared, they are only Low-level Rank 5 beings. Your power is still greater!"
"Right," Emperor Renardier agreed with a firm look as he gripped his sword. "My holy knights, charge with me! The rest of you, wait for me to attack the enemy!"
"Yes, Your Imperial Majesty!"
Shortly after Emperor Renardier's twelve concubine witch supporters buffed him, he immediately led his personal guards into battle with him.
Swish!
"Die, you vile dragon!"
Following Emperor Renardier's roar, he soared in the skies with a powerful step and slashed at a Rank 5 dragon named Zafnir with his lightning-fast greatsword.
Ka-cha!
Zafnir immediately conjured a magic barrier—only to have it shattered almost instantly. But the brief delay in Emperor Renardier's attack provided just enough buffering time for him to evade the fatal strike.
Swoosh!
Emperor Renardier's sword missed, but his sword aura slightly grazed Zafnir's neck, splitting apart some of the latter's dragon scales like a hot knife through butter.
Zafnir flapped his wings and quickly soared into the skies, far away from Emperor Renardier.
"Holy smokes! I almost lost me head! Oh, darn it! Me scales have been cracked!" Zafnir exclaimed with great shock and fright, quickly checking if his head was still intact before warning the others, "Watch out, bruvs! This dude with the big stick is very strong!"
"No shit! That's the fucking emperor!" another dragon cussed right after getting targeted by Emperor Renardier right after.
"Oh, snap! When did he get over 'ere? Dude's fast!"
Zafnir trembled after checking Emperor Renardier's original location at the top of the rocky mountain cliff was absent.
Meanwhile, Emperor Renardier's sword came at another dragon after a great leap. But this time, it was blocked by a wave of blue flames rapidly shooting over from his left side.
After Vaan reminded Astoria, Aeliana, Eniwse, and Hester to be careful, he immediately joined the fray, aiming for Emperor Renardier.
Although Zodreg and the other dragons could flee from Emperor Renardier's attack range, they weren't his opponents. More importantly, the dragons were needed to balance the power and numerical differences between the imperial and witch armies.
He couldn't have them tied down by Emperor Renardier.
"Your opponent is me!"
"You want to challenge this emperor? How old are you? 18? 20?!
Back when this emperor was still roaming the land, challenging all the greatest warriors of Pangea, you weren't even a sperm in your father's balls for me to scratch! So fuck off back to your mom and drink some more milk, kid! You can come back after you grow some hair!"
Although it sounded like Emperor Renardier was too contemptuous to fight Vaan because he was too weak, his actions didn't match. He could only flee while hurling provocative insults as Vaan chased him.
"You're funny," Vaan chuckled and casually asked, "Does the emperor of the Holy Knight Empire only know how to fight with words?"
If he wanted, he could close the distance instantly.
However, he was aware the enemy emperor was purposely luring him away from the main battlefield and into a trap. Even so, he willingly followed at a leisurely pace. He couldn't fight to his heart's content with his people in the way.
Thus, he had to fight elsewhere.
Since his opponent was working so hard to prepare the stage for him, why would he refuse?
"Why did my words hurt your little heart? Are you angry? Do you dare chase this emperor to the mountains?!"
"Why wouldn't I dare?! Do you think you can get away from me after spouting such insults?!"
Considering Emperor Renardier could only resort to low-level, obvious goading, it was clear that he was not used to such cowardly tactics. Even so, Vaan played along perfectly like an enraged person would while laughing in his heart.
…
At the top of the rocky mountain cliff, Ulrich watched Emperor Renardier luring Vaan toward them. He quickly raised his hand and signaled his troops to prepare.
"The emperor is coming with the enemy. Get ready to deploy the trap!"
"Yes, Marquis Salazar!"
…
Although the rocky mountain cliffs had steep inclines, Emperor Renardier easily scaled them with his great strength and speed.
On the other hand, Vaan relied on the propulsion of his blue flames to fly over.
He immediately noticed the top of the rocky mountains were all flat as if the peak had been sliced off.
There were also countless large, round boulders, which the empire had intended to roll down the mountain to crush their enemies.
Unfortunately, they didn't get the chance to use it in the end.
"Activate the antimagic field!" Ulrich barked the moment he saw Vaan fly over their heads.
At the same time, the imperial soldiers activated their large pillar-looking magic tools at each far corner of the mountaintop, disrupting the mana flow and rendering all magic useless within the area.
Vaan dropped out of the sky and landed on the ground with a heavy thud.
"Hahahaha!" Emperor Renardier laughed raucously, rejoicing with glee, "What an utter fool! Even if you wield powerful magic, you're still too green to fight me, brat! Your overconfidence will be your undoing!"
"Without your powerful fire magic, you're just a useless young man.
This is the end of the road for you—" Ulrich added — when Vaan's sudden laugh made him frown.
"What's so funny? Do you think you can get away? The strongest aura users in the imperial army have been gathered, just for you.
You're completely surrounded and trapped here."
Despite being surrounded by Aura Lords, Ulrich, and Emperor Renardier, Vaan couldn't help but chuckle while listening to them celebrate their early victory, unaware of the true situation.
"I'm sorry, I couldn't help myself while watching you all make a fool of yourselves. You are all gravely mistaken about one thing: I'm not trapped here with all of you. You are all trapped here with me!"
Following Vaan's declaration, his blue flames reappeared, forming a sky-high barrier that covered the edges of the mountaintop and cut off all paths of escape.
During that moment, Emperor Renardier, Ulrich, and the other Aura Lords could only glance back and forth between the sky-high wall of blue flames and their active antimagic pillars with incomprehensible, dumb looks of confusion, doubt, and budding panic.
"From the start, you had no chance of winning this war with me in the picture. Given the effort you all went through to prepare the stage, I hope you will do well to entertain me," Vaan stated.
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