Fire Mage (Web Novel)
chapter-683

Chapter 683: Expenditure

"Is it really possible?" Pale Night asked with doubtful eyes.

"Well, it's theoretically possible. But even if we fail, we should at least make that damn bird suffer a terrible loss." Erwin said in a solemn tone.

Although they showed a hesitant look at first, Pale Night, the vampire, and the Elven woman were the first ones to agree. Following that, the other commanders also decided to support this plan and soon cut off the communication.

Once again, the main hall fell into an abrupt silence.

"Hmm, the question is: Who will betray us and side with that Devil Crow?" He let out a deep sigh.

"I think no one will be stupid enough to mess up this great opportunity."

"But before that, I should do something about the human from another world. Although I want to help him whole heartedly, his final goal somewhat unsettles me. If he really get his hand on the 'Sacred Oath' spell model, he might become the next Devil Crow. Moreover, he seems to have more secrets. Should I personally accompany him to this expenditure and find out?" A plan formed in his mind.

But he soon shook his head and decided to give up.

"Let Nick and Heath take care of this matter. Hmm, I also need to send at least 100 members to support him in this expenditure."

"Now, if the plan really goes as expected, I also get the 'Eye of God' team ready to stop the Guardian from interfering the main battle."

As he spoke, he released his wisdom power to the surroundings and soon found Charles in one of the houses on the fourth street.

At that exact moment, Charles, who was sitting in Alistair's house, suddenly looked in the direction where the mansion was located and smiled.

A moment later, he enveloped his body in a crimson flame, disappeared from there, and reappeared before Erwin.

"You have an interesting flame teleportation ability," Erwin said with a chuckle and went straight to the topic.

"The preparations will be ready by tomorrow evening. A total of 100 people will accompany you, along with my two trusted aides. And all of them are Legend Rank Powerhouses with years of battle experience. You can use them at your disposal."

"That's good." Charles nodded his head and added.

"But be careful of getting in my way. If your men dares to trouble me, I won't be polite." Although Erwin looked far stronger than Alistair and all the other mages he had seen in this dungeon, he still had multiple ways to deal with him.

'A single question with the 'Burning Thoughts' spell can at least harm him easily due to the penalty of the Contract. Well, I don't think he doesn't have any mental resistance artifact to compensate for the weakness.' Shaking his head, Charles again enveloped his body in flame and disappeared from there.

After that, he returned to Alistair's house in the fourth street and took a long rest. Following that, he also went to the library in the Baston Fort and started gathering information about the Fortress of the Soul Graves and the dense forests. He also kept notes on what type of Magical Beasts residing in the Forest, learned about any dangerous areas or lairs of the Magical Beasts, and so on.

...

The next day, around 4 P.M.

A hundred people stood outside the Baston Fort and looked at the blonde-haired young kid with curiosity and confusion.

Meanwhile, Charles stood before them with a stern look and slowly turned his attention towards the two black-robed mages standing beside him.

One was a chubby-faced fat man with golden hair, while the other was a tall, muscular man with short black hair.

"Nick... Tell me more about the expenditure team."

The chubby-faced man named Nick took a step forward and spoke.

"Our team has a total of 100 elite Battle Mages, Sir. Under the order of Commander Erwin, we will follow your every command until this expenditure is over."

Charles raised his eyebrows and scoffed inwardly.

'He doesn't give any information about his team, huh? Well, I don't need his help anyway.' As soon as he muttered inwardly, countless rows of blue icons popped up before his eyes and showed everyone's personal information.

"Hmm, ten Light Mages, seven Dark Mages, fourteen Warlocks with different bloodlines, Five Water Mages, Nine Fire Mages, Eleven Thief Class Mystics, Ten Ranger Class Mystics, Two Druids, twenty Soldier Class Mystics, Four Madkillers, Four Swordsmen, and finally four Knights. And you two are the only Dual Class Mystics, am I right?"

His words caused Nick to feel like his whole body was being seen through.

Charles then turned his gaze towards the hundreds of people and spoke thunderingly.

"Dark Mages, four warlocks with stealth-related abilities, a Druid with taming skill, and Thief Class Mystics will work together and form a Scout team. I'll further divide the Scout team into four groups; each responsible for scouting all four directions every 15 minutes and reporting back to me. Next is the Support squad. Two people with Curse-removal skills from Light Mages, Three from Water Mages, a Druid with nature healing abilities, and the Seven-Headed Python Warlock with poison removal skills will be joining the Support Squad. Then, the Long Range Attack Squad will be composed of Nine Fire Mages, Eight Light Mages, Two Water Mages, and Ten Ranger Class Mystics, with Nick being the Leader. And finally, the short-range Attack Squad will be composed of the rest of the Warlocks, Soldiers, Madkillers, swordsmen, and Knights, with Heath being the Leader."

Upon hearing those words, not only Nick and Heath but almost everyone was surprised.

Under the leadership of Charles, the Expenditure group departed from the Baston fort and moved towards the Fortress of the Soul Graves.

After traveling for more than four hours in the rocky terrain, they finally saw the forest region and mountain range far ahead. Although a few Chaos Magical Beasts attacked them, they were instantly taken care of by the Swordsman Attack Squad.

By the time they reached the entrance of the dense Forest, the Darkness had also arrived.

Charles wasn't a fool to enter the Forest in Darkness. So, he told everyone to stop at the entrance and start building tents.

None of them disobeyed his words and decided to take a rest.

The next morning,

The Expenditure group finally entered the dense Forest and approached the Fortress of the Soul Graves.

Thanks to Charles's leadership, they didn't face any difficulty killing Legend Rank Magical Beasts and advanced incredibly.

But what startled Charles was his wisdom power increased whenever the Attack Squad members killed a Magical Beast.

The group hunted more than 1300+ Rank-5 Magical Beasts and Seventy Legendary Magical Beasts at the end of the day and crossed around 50 km deep into the dense Forest.

When the Darkness descended, Charles used the [Ignis Sanctuary] spell and made a large protective layer around the surroundings.

Although some Legendary Magical Beasts attacked the shelter more than seven times, Charles, Nick, and Heath were enough to fend off them.

Following that, the next day's expenditure also went smoothly, without having any causality.

But on the third day of their expenditure, a first causality occurred. It was an ambush of a Legendary Lizard-type Magical Beast. It not only concealed its appearance but even. Its wisdom power makes it almost impossible to recognize its presence.

If Charles hadn't noticed the change in one of the future visions on time, the whole scouting team might've been annihilated.

After that, the expenditure team's progress started to slow down drastically. Just after the Lizard-type Magical Beast attack, more than 400 Rank-5 Wolf-type Magical Beasts with Five Legendary Humanoid Wolf-Headed Magical Beasts as their leaders attacked them.

But what made Charles startle more was a mutant Humanoid-Wolf with rainbow-colored eyes.

"It's almost as strong as the Fallen Jinn we faced in the previous layer."

Although Charles was prepared for such a large-scale Monster wave, it was still too much for him to handle, even with hundreds of Legendary Mystics.

Countless Legendary Spells, glowing arrows infused with skills, and aura energies flew out from their base and descended upon the upcoming monsters, creating massive explosions everywhere. If they were normal and low-rank Magical Beasts, they would've turned into meat pastes in mere seconds. But all those large-scale attack spells managed to kill only dozens of Rank-5 Beasts.

What was more annoying was that the Humanoid Magical Beasts also stepped up to face the most potent spells and blocked them.

"Nick, Heath, Joseph, and David. You guys take care of one each and stall for time. Meanwhile, I will kill that Rainbow-Eyed Wolf Beast."

As he spoke, he instantly cast [Fallen Angel's wings] spell and flew up to confront the Boss. On the other hand, Nick and others also followed after him and faced each Humanoid Wolf Beast.

But Charles didn't dare to waste any time as he unsheathed Grace and activated its first skill, 'Madness Berserk.'

Thanks to the special effect, his attack spell powers, and even his status doubled. Charles didn't waste a moment as he overpowered the Rainbow-eyed Humanoid Wolf by sacrificing his lifespan and ended the battle in less than 20 seconds!

Although the death of the Leader caused massive panic among the four other beasts, the low-rank ones didn't waver at all.

With no other choice, Charles first joined Nick and others and started killing the remaining Humanoid Wolves.

After that, he also joined the rest of the mages and eliminated all the wolves.

The battle lasted for more than three hours. Although Charles's team managed to win the war thanks to his intervention, they still lost over half of the close-range attack Squad and three Warlocks.