Chapter 1142: Radical Move

Before any of them could react and bolster their mental fortitude, a wave of fatigue washed over their minds, making most of them instantly sluggish, while making a few of Kujaku’s men immediately fall asleep.

But their assailant misjudged the people she was dealing with, and a few recovered in seconds before the enemies waiting at the edge of the glade could even rush in.

Alex, Kary, Violette, David and Yeoja, whose weapon forced her mind awake, all snapped back to full awareness as the three groups of four rushed at them from the south, east and west respectively.

Alex immediately dashed east, which he was closest to, aware that the illusion cast by Kujaku was both pointless now and most likely about to dissipate, anyway. There was no time to waste on intimidation tactics anymore.

David launched toward the four coming from the south, his scythe jumping up from his shadow into his hands, and clashing against the shield of one of his foes.

Kary, who was the only other one awake that could technically perform the duty of a melee fighter, rushed toward the last group, wreathing herself in fire, the flames flickering a bright orange with some flickers of blue and green here and there.

Left in the center of the grove, Violette immediately summoned a bubble of water around the people still asleep, and watched as Yeoja pulled at her bowstring again, aiming north, her eyes squinting and moving left and right.

They could all still feel the presence of a foreign consciousness inside their minds, which they couldn’t quite shake away, telling them that the telepath who had struck at them was still somewhere.

But where?

She was obviously not in the three groups that attacked them, considering she would need to concentrate to stay within the minds of the five that had repelled her initial spell.

But the fact that she remained at the edge of their minds at all meant she wasn’t too far.

Kary still had her senses stretched to the furthest she could while fighting, and she couldn’t sense anyone inside her range.

This either meant the person was magically shrouded, or had a means to completely erase her presence.

The thought of someone having a larger range of magic than her senses could grasp never even brushed her mind.

But hiding from all of them was no small feat either.

Violette stood amidst her unconscious friends, wondering what else she could do.

She didn’t want to launch ice or water spells into the fray wantonly; the risk of hitting an ally was too high for her taste. They needed to focus on fighting, as anyone fighting four enemies at the same time couldn’t afford to split their focus.

Especially not with someone nagging at their subconscious.

In the meantime, Alex had activated his perfect mana sense skill, hoping he would catch a whiff of the mana trace from the telepath. It was a Hail Mary; he knew as much, but it was worth a try.

No spell could be cast without leaving a trace of some kind.

Finding it amidst the fighting and other spells would be the hard part. Even if he used his thousand thoughts skill, which he was reticent to use for such a trivial matter, it wouldn’t be an easy feat.

And the longer it took, the harder it became.

Combat raged for five minutes, no one falling on either side, and the five on Alex’s side having to shield their minds every time they lost focus for a second, as spells targeted their psyche.

It was easy to figure out that these weren’t simple goons from the Syndicate.

These were the A-teams.

They fought in a tight formation, never left themselves open for more than a fraction of a second, and always had a teammate ready to help them out before an attack could take them out.

To make matters worse, their wounds, even if small, kept healing on their own.

Alex had already deduced this was a self-healing buff cast on them before the fight was engaged, but he couldn’t see a healer inside the formations. This meant the healer was hiding as well, most likely with the damned telepath.

Something needed to change and fast, lest the situation take a turn for the worst.

It was finally Kary that took the radical decision.

"Violette! Blanket the forest in ice!" she yelled, fending off an attacker with a flaming fist before pushing the others back with a gout of bluish fire.

Violette was stunned for a second before stammering back, "Are you sure? I’ll hit you guys too..."

Kary was about to reassure her, but David replied faster.

"Just do it! We’ll take care of ourselves, girl!" he barked, lashing out at the tank that was holding him pinned down.

He had been trying to go around the fucker for the last five minutes in vain. The man was always stepping back between himself and the three other foes.

’God damned full tank builds. How many interception skills does he have?!’ he mentally cursed.

"GO ALL OUT!" Alex added, a wide smile on his face.

He wanted to see how much her magic had progressed on this side just as much as he wanted to find the hiding little buggers that were causing them grief.

He had been unable to trace the mental attacks, spells of the telepathic kind already being the hardest to track, combat making it neigh impossible.

Violette only hesitated for another moment, Yeoja turning her head towards her and nodding with a smile.

"Okay!" Violette said, tightening her fist and steeling her resolve.

She immediately started focusing her mana inside her, accumulating it around her in a swirling blizzard, the temperature drastically dropping in the grove.

"Modified Blizzard: Land of Ice!" she shouted, her mana erupting outward.

A frigid wind exploded from her, quickly freezing everything in its path. Violette made sure it started affecting outside her water dome as much as possible, lest she kill an ally.

But the wind still crashed into all the enemies and her three allies outside of it, as she mentally crossed her fingers she wouldn’t cause the downfall of either of them by accident.

In mere moments, the forest went from lush greenery to a scene straight out of an ice age post-apocalyptic movie, silence echoing loudly everywhere around them, ice covering almost three kilometres from the epicentre of the spell, Violette.

Violette let out a tired breath, the hot air condensing before her into a cloud as it hit the frigid air.

"Are you all alive?"