Infinite Paths: The Raging Phoenix

Rain could have dispersed the dust with a burst of wind, but he waited until he could clearly feel the footsteps of the enemies… When that happened, he used his earth magic and made them sink on the ground. Still, before that could happen completely, the targets exploded.

"What the hell…" Rain thought.

The blast pushed Rain and the other guards until they hit the carriage… as if that wasn't enough, the explosion made flames around spread like wildfire… it was because of the dust, Rain couldn't explain how that worked, but he knew that such a thing was possible.

Before the flames could reach them, Rain used his magic and pushed the dust away from the carriage. Instead of the flames burning him and his allies, it burned the enemies that were approaching and soon they began to explode one after the other.

"Human bombs? Are you for real?" Rain thought

The buildings nearby began to crack thanks to the tremors and the temperature increased. Still, when all that stopped, the enemies that jumped away and escaped the attacks saw the carriage covered by an earth sphere, it was completely filled with cracks, but it resisted the attacks.

The enemies began to run away after the surprise attack ended and since they didn't expect a mage of such caliber to be around, but soon Rain made the earth sphere fall and then he shot Fireballs toward the enemies… Rain regreted a little when he saw the enemies exploding with a single attack, so he pierced the legs of others with his Wind Bullets, but when they fell, the enemies began to explode in inspite of that.

The buildings nearby began to lose their walls in a domino effect.

The skill Fireball received 500 experience points.

The Mage's path received 100 experience points.

The skill Fireball received 500 experience points.

The Mage's path received 100 experience points.

…

"... Is everyone fine?" Julie asked while looking around and seeing that all of the enemies had been dealt with. The only problem was the fact that there were many pieces and would be impossible to identify. "Are you unharmed, my lady?"

"... Yes," Lorene said with her head down and slowly seeing the scene of chaos around her.

There were craters around filled with blood and some buildings were slowly collapsing. People in the distance and were running away from the area while shouting… while Rain had a cloak and hood, and he wanted to leave the area as soon as possible as well, but some guards were moving toward them to interrogate them.

Rain looked on the spot where the first enemies exploded and then saw those two guards alive. He contained the explosion a bit by making the enemies sink on the ground and also emerged an earth wall on the soldiers, but they were still hit by the debris. They will be fine, though.

"It looks like the enemies tried really hard to take us down from the very beginning… even if Orcis wasn't with us," Rain said when he approached the carriage.

Lorene nodded while showing a pale expresion… She waited for a lot of things, but not for the enemies to kill themselves while trying to kill her. Still, was that really it? Rain took a good look at the enemies before they died, and they didn't look like they were magic people… since their bodies exploded, it was impossible to tell.

Since Julie was well known in the city, she smoothed things over until Orcis arrived in the area. While looking around, he clicked his tongue when he realized how far the enemies were willing to go to kill Lorene… it seemed that he was only a bonus in the grand scheme of things.

"I suppose my skills still lack some polish… the attacks were too powerful for me to block them completely," Rain thought. "The idea of capturing some of them also almost resulted in disaster…"

It was annoying, but in a conflict like that, Rain finally realized that he couldn't do the most obvious thing to capture enemies to interrogate them… he had to kill them all without hesitation. It was quite something… to think that the people of their own country would do the same as the enemies that they have been fighting together.

"... Thanks to you, the enemies were dealt with, Lorene escaped unharmed and even my soldiers survived… I am truly thankful," Orcis said and then bowed his head when they returned to the mansion.

"I was just doing my job, I figured that I would receive less if she were to get scratched during the mission," Rain shrugged.

Lorene left with Julie to her room since she was still in shock by what had happened… It didn't look like she had to deal with such a bloody world until now since she lived a peaceful life in the Capital. That was bound to change her forever.

"Did you learn anything during the right?" Orcis asked. "That might help us connect this incident to their ring leader."

"Not much, but they seemed like humans… humans that were put two types of spells on them, and some explosives as well," Rain replied.

"... Can you elaborate?" Orcis asked while furrowing his eyebrows.

"The enemies didn't look strong and their presence was ordinary as well, but even so, they exploded as soon as something unexpected happened," Rain replied. "That makes me think that someone put a spell on them that would make them explode upon death or when the caster decided it. The explosives would increase the power of the spell."

Rain thought that he was the first person who thought of enhancing spells with other tools, but he was obviously wrong… those enemies easily increased the power of the explosions by two hundred percent by carrying with them a box of explosives.

Since that was the case and their lack of hesitation, Rain assumed that they were being controlled as well… the explosion spell shouldn't be able to do that.