"...Guess I was overthinking it."
He grumbled quietly to himself, then turned his gaze toward the distant area where the two sides' commanders were clashing.
"Over there... should be wrapping up soon too."
With that, he pulled his eyes back, lowered his lids, and poured all his focus onto the other side of the plaza, onto the ice clones still locked in fierce combat.
...
High in the air, a dense swarm of small fireballs traced dozens of high arcing trajectories, raining down wave after wave of saturation bombardment on the enemy ranks from a distance of tens, even hundreds of meters.
The Hazer and the Berserker, tormented over and over by the interwoven ice and fire magic until they were grimy and disheveled, glared murderously at the ice clones casting in the distance, eyes bloodshot, panting like oxen. Their whole faces had flushed a furious, livid purple.
"Shadow of Sorcery!!!"
"You've got some nerve, why don't you stop running, damn it!"
"Come face me head-on!"
"Argh!"
Hearing that, Leon, who was controlling the ice clones at full tilt to reap the battlefield, went stone-faced, and with a flick of his wrist he hurled a few head-sized fireballs right back!
Faced with the incoming fireballs, Dix and Gran's expressions changed in an instant. The former rolled nimbly to the side, while the latter swung his door-plank of a broadsword with a roar, smacking the fireballs away!
The ground was blasted into several scorched black craters, and the spray of debris sent a chill through Dix.
He was Lv.4, no question, even one of the standouts at that level.
But even so, he was still flesh and blood, still a carbon-based creature. Take a fireball of that power to the face and, even if it didn't kill him outright, he'd absolutely end up gravely wounded and dying.
Then there was the crimson cursed spear he relied on... against a monster Mage like Leon, who seemed to be made head to toe of nothing but "quick-cast magic," he was at far too much of a disadvantage without proper defensive gear.
By comparison, the giant broadsword Gran used was actually the bigger advantage.
He fell well short of Dix in Agility and flexibility, but his outstanding Strength and the broad blade could at least block a direct fireball hit at the critical moment, sparing him from ending up as wretched as Dix.
Especially with Leon also having quick-cast control magic like Frost Nova in his kit.
The moment it landed, Gran could still raise his broadsword and tank a few waves head-on, but Dix, who relied on spear thrusts, would be in serious trouble.
"Boss, we can't keep this up!"
"The boys we brought are about to be wiped out by this devil, and Rudra's side is tangled up with those self-righteous bitches, no way they can spare anyone to back us up!"
"So what now?!"
Gran's bald head was bright red, partly roasted by the constant searing heat of the fireballs, and partly from being run ragged by Leon's ice clones.
Dix gulped down ragged breaths, his face twisted as he glared at the ice clones in the distance.
The answer he got was an ice clone crooking a finger at him in taunting invitation, along with an undisguised, contemptuous sneer.
A plodding heavy warrior like him, facing a great mage who had already shaped the battlefield to his advantage, wouldn't even manage to touch the hem of Leon's clothes.
"Argh!"
"Gran, you take the front! Draw the fire!"
"I'll find an opening and get in his face!"
"Huh?"
Gran pointed a finger at his own nose, utterly baffled.
"Me?"
But before Dix even finished speaking, several huge fireballs came flying in from the air on the other side, blasting the two of them off their feet in an instant!
"Dammit!!!"
"What the hell is going on?!"
"B-boss... we're in trouble!"
A flunky covered head to toe in wounds came scrambling over, his voice on the verge of tears:
"Ron and the others... they're all dead!"
"What?"
Dix's eyes went wide, and a wave of dizziness washed over him.
He whipped his head around toward where his boys had been standing.
What met his eyes was the lingering frost mist of an ice burst that hadn't yet dissipated, and from within that pale, cold haze, several identical figures gradually came into focus.
"..."
One, two, three, four, five...
A full five ice clones, holding perfectly measured distances, had completely sealed the two of them in on this scorched earth.
And on their side, apart from the Hazer, the Berserker, and the flunky who'd just delivered the news, every last follower and soldier they'd brought... had already been annihilated.
"Boss... what do we do now?"
Gran's bald head was crusted with ice shavings, and the fairly fine set of armor he'd worn was burned down to a few charred, blackened rags. Face livid, he gripped his broadsword and looked to Dix, waiting on his boss for the final call.
"..."
What was there left for Dix to say?
The boys were gone, he couldn't so much as touch the hem of the enemy's clothes in a head-on fight, and on top of that... these were still just ice clones that couldn't draw on their full strength.
And yet these few shoddy constructs of magic had already run the two warriors ragged like dogs. If they hadn't gotten the jump on Yamato Rindou, who clearly had something going on with the Shadow of Sorcery, crippling her first and drawing the real Leon away, then... whether they could get out in one piece today would honestly be anyone's guess.
Dix's expression shifted wildly, scheme after scheme flashing through his mind.
But before he could get a word out...
A shrill, ear-splitting screech abruptly tore across the sky over the whole battlefield!
"Hm?"
"That's Arachnia's..."
"The retreat signal?"
Dix and Gran both went rigid as if struck by lightning, dumbstruck in an instant!
...
In the distance, Leon, mid-bombardment with his ice clones, heard that piercing retreat signal, and his movements faltered for a beat.
The next moment, the glow of magic surged in his eyes!
The magic output of the six ice clones was pushed to the limit without the slightest restraint! The magic nodes droned under the unbearable load, and the spell intensity of every clone spiked yet again!
"Retreat signal?"
"Oh no you don't!"
"Are you kidding me, with this many Excelia bags, not a single one of you is getting away!"
"Blizzard!"
"Blizzard!"
"Blizzard!"
The ice clones linked up in groups of three, using the Circle Linking technique to forcibly expand the magic's range.
In the blink of an eye, the surrounding area was utterly swallowed by a winter storm, leaving nothing in sight but a despairing sheet of icy white.
"Frost Nova!"
Bone-chilling frost mist burst outward in chains, freezing every fleeing figure that had turned to run into rigid statues.
"Fireball! Fireball! Fireball! Fireball! Fireball!"
Right on its heels, a scorching meteor shower of fire poured down like vengeance, ice and fire interweaving over this scorched earth into a death symphony that cut off any path of escape.
"Crap!"
Caught up in the blizzard, Dix and Gran suddenly let out a sneeze each!
After fiercely wiping the white frost off his goggles, Dix glanced back at the ice clones over there frantically hunting the "deserters" down to the last man, his mouth twitching as he resolutely abandoned this cannon fodder:
"Dammit, Gran, retreat!"
"Huh?"