The next ti a group of worldstrider soldiers exited the base, we followed them. The worldstriders seed a bit more wary of their surroundings today. A few of them detached from the main group to scout the area, and the group jumped at shadows. To make sure they didn't see us, Anise and I stayed very far behind them. If it weren't for the range of my soul-sight, we would have lost track of them.
The first few worldstriders died to extinguishes. Then, as usual, the worldstriders started to thin their bodies out - only for Anise to get started.
Within seconds, six worldstriders fell. Afterwards, they finally found my illusion. She gave them a cheery wave as worldstriders continued to drop. I heard one of them curse, and the group started firing dark essence balls at my illusion.
And then the Worldstriders brought our first surprise. A worldstrider reached inside its body, and pulled out an unexpected weapon.
A Vernese rifle.
I saw a tendril of black essence worm its way into the rifle. Then, the creature pointed the gun at my illusion and pulled the trigger.
Luckily, my reflexes were on point. Even though the soldier's weapon caught off guard, I still teleported the bullet away. Out of habit, I returned the bullet to the shooter...
Only for the bullet to whiz right through the creature’s body, as if it weren’t even there.
The worldstrider had countered my ‘return projectiles’ ability perfectly. I couldn't kill the worldstriders with their own attacks anymore.
I killed it with an extinguish instead.
Right afterwards, six more cracks of gunpowder sounded through the air.
The shooter wasn't the only one who had stolen a gun from the Vernese.
This ti, I was prepared. My illusion teleported to a different location, and then launched a few spells at the worldstriders. I used a few extinguishes to kill the worldstriders who were 'hit.' The number of shooters dropped from six to three.
The remaining worldstriders with guns were much more cautious. They wove left and right as they peppered my illusion with shots. However, I kept having my illusion 'teleport' around. I wanted it to be as hard as possible for the worldstriders to keep track of her.
It took three rounds of exchanges to finish off the ones with rifles. From there, the fight got much easier. Within half a minute, thirteen worldstriders had died, and none of them had hit my illusion yet.
That was when the worldstriders gave us our second surprise of the battle.
One of the creatures threw a match at our surroundings, causing the grass to catch on fire.
I imdiately teleported a huge clump of water out of my dress and onto the flaming grass. As I did, a part of shivered.
Why were the worldstriders trying to light the grass on fire?
Had the worldstriders buried gunpowder under the grass, or sothing? How could they have prepared an ambush for us? This group hadn’t even left the base since our attack yesterday!
My thoughts grew more paranoid as the fight wore on. I kept a careful eye on the remaining twenty-seven worldstriders for any new tricks. However, it seed like they were out of ideas. By the ti the twenty-fifth worldstrider died, the worldstriders started to look desperate. Finally, they broke and started to flee.
Anise and I kept attacking the fleeing worldstriders. After all, the worldstriders didn't let fleeing Vernese troops live. I felt it was fair to adopt the sa war code against them.
Within a minute, the last worldstrider died.
After that, I walked over to the patch of grass that the worldstrider had tried to light on fire, and frowned. I couldn’t find any hidden barrels of gunpowder or other traps in the grass. What had the worldstrider been trying to do?
said Anise.
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