The Holy Man of Another Century Gospel

Chapter 272 Comeback
On the first day of the last month of the year 731 of the Gaia calendar, a cavalry force of nearly two hundred men, sent by Governor Igor of Dorne, passed through almost half of Castelfel and arrived at the Star Origin Academy with ease.

The cavalry unit was led by Governor Igor's confidant, a man in his thirties who called himself Dexter. He seemed quite arrogant, but in front of Eric and Natalia, he showed them all the respect due to him.

"The elite knights I brought are more than enough to help Your Highnesses conquer this land."

“Governor Igor is being very polite, but he probably doesn’t intend to do so.” Eric glanced at the cavalry behind him and remained quite calm.

The chaos in Castelfel is multifaceted and not a problem that can be easily resolved by force, which is why no one has been able to truly conquer this land to this day.

But having strong military force can indeed make most problems simple in Castelfel.

"but……"

Eric then looked at the cavalry captain and said, "You're just escorting these mages to the Empire. At most, you'll be dealing with some roadside bandits, or even just scaring them away. Do you really need to send two hundred elite cavalrymen?"

Dexter replied, “Your Highness, for the sake of the war in Guradia, the mages recruited by the two princesses will receive basic military training here before heading directly to the battlefield. The men I brought are responsible for both training them and maintaining stability here during this period.”

“Then you can take quite a few mages with you on your first escort mission,” Natalia said.

Dexter bowed, "I believe this is also what His Highnesses wished for."

Eric and Natalia exchanged a glance, not seeing anything wrong with it. They trained on the spot and then went to the battlefield, which was efficient.

However, Eric still had a question: "Besides the escorting soldiers, Governor Igor should have also sent someone to be in charge of the follow-up recruitment. Where is he? He can contact us."

“I’m sorry, Your Highness, the Governor changed the personnel on our way here. The one who originally came with me has been temporarily transferred to Gradia, and the person who will replace him will arrive in Castelfel a little later,” Dexter replied.

Eric was slightly surprised but didn't say anything, while Natalia sighed.

"Hopefully he can arrive before your training ends."

Dexter lowered his head slightly and said nothing more.

What happened next was quite simple. Dexter led two hundred elite soldiers to set up a plot of land outside the Star Origin Academy as a training base for those mages.

All the mages who signed up during this period were taken to receive basic training. Eric and Natalia went to visit, and Dexter was also present.

"Most mages' lax attitude toward orders and order is almost as rigorous as their research on elements. Military training is not to give them the ability to wield swords and wear armor, but only to make them understand that on the battlefield, military orders are above all else."

“I understand, this is a process that all mages who join the army must go through,” Eric nodded.

Even during the defense of Lutia, Eileen and her young classmates at the academy had to undergo similar training before officially stepping onto the battlefield, only with a much tighter schedule.

"Attack!" the training officer shouted, and countless fireballs flew into the air, heading towards a scarecrow erected in front of the field.

The target attacked by the mages couldn't even withstand the second fireball and was instantly reduced to ashes, leaving only a red-hot iron frame.

Seeing this, some mages immediately extinguished the fireballs that hadn't yet been launched.

Soon, they were pulled out by the elite knights who were watching them from the side.

The training officer shouted, "I said attack! Are you deaf or blind? Why have you stopped attacking?"

"The scarecrows are all blown up, what's the point of attacking them?" one of the mages retorted.

He became the target of the next round of training attacks.

Seeing the mage being tied to the iron frame and screaming in agony from the burns, not only were the mages shocked and puzzled, but Eric and Natalia, who were watching from the sidelines, also felt that it was unnecessary.

Dexter said, “Your Highnesses, you have been in Castelfel longer than I have, so you should know better than I do what the mages here are like. What we need on the battlefield are soldiers who obey orders, not spellcasters who act on impulse! Your Highnesses should not interfere in matters of training.”

What he said made sense, although his method was much more extreme than they had originally thought.

In the end, neither of them stopped it.

"Ah—fire, fire protection… I quit! Let me go, I don't want your gold coins anymore!"

The mage, bound to the iron frame, struggled and cried out. The knights binding him quickly retreated to the side, and the training officer gave the next order for a full-scale attack.

"..."

The mages looked at each other in bewilderment, while two hundred elite knights blocked all their escape routes.

"No! No, no—" The monk's cries turned into desperate screams.

After a brief hesitation, countless fireballs rose into the air, blasting the target on the iron frame to smithereens.

The entire training ground was silent.

Eric and Natalia looked grave, while Dexter smiled with satisfaction. "The situation on the battlefield is far more brutal than here. Your Highnesses, why don't you go and take a look elsewhere?"

“Your Highness and I have both faced the demons on the battlefield. It’s not your place to tell us how brutal the battlefield is,” Natalia said, turning and leaving.

Before leaving, Eric added, "It's not just them who are recruiting mages. We'll continue recruiting here. If we make this too messy, it'll be difficult to get others to sign up later."

“Yes, Your Highness. We will be careful.” Dexter bowed slightly.

Eric quickly caught up with Natalia.

Natalia wasn't as angry as she had seemed earlier. Just as Dexter had said, the lax mages of the Star Origin Academy did need some firm measures to intimidate them, but she hoped that the necessary firmness would be used within reasonable limits.

“Being too forceful right from the start might backfire,” Natalia said.

"So the first mage to stand up and refute the military order was burned to death. The mages' thoughts of resistance were also burned away by the fireballs they themselves launched."

Eric glanced back; the scene inside the arena was no longer visible. "I think a lot of people must be resentful of us right now."

Natalia paused for a moment, then turned to look at him. "Do you really have to say it?"

Eric smiled. "Your Highness and I are one."

Natalia looked at him for a moment, then looked away.

A few days later, the first batch of mages who had received training completed their initial military training and were to set off for the battlefield that very day.

Since the mages were physically weak, Dexter didn't have them run or march, but instead arranged for a large number of carriages.

The procession stretched out in a long line. The mages boarded the carriages, and once they were full, they set off. After several days of training, the mages all looked different.

Eric and Natalia watched from the sidelines as the last carriage departed. Dexter rode over and bid them farewell.

"Your Highnesses, we've worked hard. We'll need you to continue your efforts for a while longer. The people sent by the Governor will arrive in a few days."

“I remember you said the same thing when you first came here,” Eric said.

Dexter simply smiled, then saluted the two princes, mounted his horse, and rode away.

Only when the galloping warhorses were out of sight did Eric turn his gaze away and look around. "Your Highness, don't you feel that once they left, the entire Xingyuan Academy and the surrounding area became much emptier?"

“Yes,” Natalia agreed. “We’ve only seen off a few hundred mages. Before, it seemed like there were only ants here… Did they think these people were here to conscript men and hide?”

"It probably won't be so easy to recruit so many mages in the future. They're not murlocs; they can't be killed and then a new batch will grow back quickly."

"Cut?"

"Well……"

Back at Xingyuan Academy, perhaps because they had just pulled off a big job, the two of them weren't particularly interested in the upcoming recruitment. They found a classroom to wait for Igor to send someone to take over.

That afternoon, Rusdy suddenly came to find them, looking very hurried.

"Why did you change locations? I've been looking for you for ages... I'm fine. I was just about to ask when you could set off, but I think I saw a demon outside the academy. Of course, it could also just be a dark elf."

Meanwhile, Eric and Natalia were puzzled by another intelligence report that arrived only a few minutes earlier than Rusdy's.

"They went west?...Didn't Dexter say that these mages were to be sent directly to the front lines in Gradia? They should have gone north."

"Maybe we should go back to Dorne first?" Natalia guessed.

"What are you going there for, to be inspected by Igor?" Eric retorted.

"Hmm..." With war imminent, Natalia couldn't fathom why the mages weren't being sent directly to Gradia. "The northwest is Dorne, and the southwest is Arsha..."

Eric stared at the intelligence in his hand for a while, then suddenly noticed that Rusdy was still sitting next to him.

"Excuse me, what did you just say?"

Rusdy was speechless, but he still repeated what he had just said.

“…Demons?” Eric frowned, and Natalia put down the intelligence report she was holding and looked over.

“I’m not sure. It could be dark elves, since more and more dark elves have come here to hide since the war started,” Rusdy said.

Eric suddenly felt a little uneasy.

Dexter's two hundred elite cavalry and several hundred mages who were on their side had just left in the morning, and in the afternoon, traces of what appeared to be demons appeared here.

Eric got up and went outside the classroom, only to find that the already sparse number of mages in the academy were now completely gone.

“Your Highness?” Natalia followed him out, looked around at the empty corridor, and then looked at him.

“Something doesn’t feel right,” Eric said, looking at her, Kasha, and Rusdy, who also looked grave. “We need to find somewhere else. Are you sure you only saw one person who looked like a demon?”

“I only saw one,” Rusdy said.

"Let's go deeper into the classroom and find a place to hide," Eric said, leading the group away from the classroom.

Because things had been relatively peaceful recently, his knights hadn't been accompanying him and had been standing guard outside the academy. At this point, they didn't know the specifics of the situation.

After walking deeper into the academy for a while, Eric still couldn't see any other mages, and his unease grew stronger. As he passed by the base of a mage tower, Eric thought for a moment and decided to go up and check the situation.

"You guys find somewhere to hide."

Alone, Eric ascended the Moon Elf's mage tower. Standing atop the tower, his view suddenly opened up, and he immediately spotted the battle raging at the academy's entrance.

"..."

Flames, ice blades, and a raging storm of thunder.

The targets of the attack were not only his knights, but also the tall gargoyles at the entrance of the academy, and the leaders of the attack were clearly some human mages!
He wasn't wrong; these human mages who had sided with the demons had returned to the academy while the knights were escorting the mages away, leaving it vulnerable.

To be on the safe side, they even waited quite a while before launching their attack.

And Rusdy wasn't mistaken; what he saw outside the academy were demons.

However, he only saw one when he came in, but from the top of the tower, the number Eric saw was astonishing.

He couldn't help but suspect that the demon sorcerer who had remained hidden until now, upon discovering that another group of demons had been wiped out and that he and Natalia, two important figures, had appeared at the Star Origin Academy, had simply left Castelfel to go to Tebnit to seek reinforcements.

—At Castelfel's borders, Imperial cavalry can freely enter and exit, as can the demons.

Realizing the situation was worse than he had anticipated, Eric quickly descended from the mage tower.

He found Natalia and the others and told them, "The demons who escaped earlier have gathered a large group of demon warriors and traitorous mages to attack this place."

Natalia and Rusdy both looked grim. "Is there a lot?"

“They’ve almost smashed the gargoyles at the academy gate,” Eric said.

Previously, there were only a few demons, and they could freely enter and exit using the academy badges provided by the traitorous mage. But now that they outnumbered them, they simply killed the gargoyles blocking their way.

Without the Moon Elf's real-time control, the gargoyles were left with only their thick skin and high health, and their own reaction was completely insufficient to cope with the mages' barrage.

"Are the other gates of the academy also blocked?" Rusdy asked hastily.

“From the mage tower, I can only see the east and south gates, and there are people attacking them. I can’t see the west gate completely, and there’s not much movement there, but I saw someone heading that way. They must be blocking the gate,” Eric said.

Natalia looked at him, "Then the North Gate..."

“We can’t see it, but we have no other choice now, so let’s go over there,” Eric decided. “Maybe there’s still a chance to break through.”

Xingyuan Academy looks large, but there aren't many places to hide. Once the demons rush in, they can block the door and search around to find them.

unless……

“I remember a certain school of mages has a group invisibility spell. As long as they stand still, they won’t be detected…” Eric looked at Rusdy.

"I won't!" Rusdy's answer was also very direct.

"Then let's run for our lives." Eric didn't hesitate. He grabbed Natalia and ran, while making Kasha transform into an owl and fly over the academy's high walls to find help.

"Don't get involved in the fight." Eric grabbed her hand and squeezed it hard.

Kasha nodded, transformed, and flew away.

The three continued to flee towards the north gate, but after a short while, Kasha flew back and told them that the north gate of the academy had also been blocked by demons, but there weren't many of them at the moment.

"Try it!"

Kasha stopped running for his life and prepared to join them in attacking the north gate of the academy, using the spell scrolls to strike from the air.

A few minutes later, the four arrived near the north gate of the academy. Kasha grabbed a scroll of raging waves with her claws and flew into the air first.

The north gate, being relatively remote, was the one Eric used the least, but now it was much busier than usual.

Two giant gargoyles stood guard on either side, while the demons that arrived one after another outside did not attack, but simply blocked the entrance.

The long brick path leading from the outer gate to the inner gate of the academy also deprived Eric of the opportunity to launch a sneak attack.

He himself wasn't under much pressure to break through, but he couldn't ignore the situation of Natalia and Rusdy.

In mid-air, Kasha received confirmation from his gaze, flapped his wings, flew to the top of the demons outside the door, and tore open the spell scroll with his claws.

Boom!
The sudden activation of the tenth-tier spell seemed to cause the air to tremble.

Then, a colossal wave descended from nowhere, crashing heavily onto the ground and onto the demons, sweeping them into its wake.

"go!"

Eric immediately had Natalia and Rusdy each use a protective scroll, and then rushed out with him.

Even after the giant wave landed, it continued to surge outward at a rate of once per second, transmitting a powerful impact. However, since it was released through a scroll, its power was somewhat diminished.

Eric quickly noticed that two tall demon warriors were braving the impact of the giant waves as they approached them.

And on their chests hang the school badges that protect them from gargoyles!

When they met on a narrow path, Eric had no choice but to fight.

A series of divine spell buffs were quickly applied to Eric's body. Eric swung his longsword, and a dazzling golden light covered it. He was like a cannonball, quickly launching himself towards the demon warrior charging at the front.

when!
In close combat, the human body, much smaller than Eric, unleashed an unexpectedly powerful force, causing the demon warrior fighting Eric to not only feel numbness in his hand but also change his expression.

Dang Dang Dang!
What's even more deadly is that while his attacks were so heavy, the frequency of his attacks was also frighteningly high, for a time the demon warriors could only defend.

Another demon warrior seized the opportunity to attack, slashing fiercely at Eric, who was busy with his offensive, with his curved sword.

Ding!
Eric parried with his sword, effortlessly neutralizing the attack with his combat skills.

The demon warrior, who had been on the defensive, seized the opportunity and kicked him hard in the chest.

Eric took a step back, and just as he created a small distance, he saw its body suddenly straighten up.

A soul-shaking experience!

He charged forward again, glancing back during the brief moment between attacks as he turned.

The Soul Mage raised his staff high, facing this direction, his expression solemn.

(End of this chapter)