Shang only took a couple of seconds to arrive at the place.
At the moment, one of the Adepts was keeping the Ice Demon busy by summoning several walls of earth while the other ones were bombarding it.
The Ice Demon was a mix between a lizard and a humanoid. It usually moved on all fours, but it could also stand up for a bit to strike its enemies with its five long, icy claws.
Ice Demons could summon and dissipate their long ice claws at will, giving them the option to run quickly without the ice claws getting in the way and the option to attack with devastating force.
The Ice Demon kept jumping around, trying to get past the walls. Whenever it jumped, it summoned its icy claws to strike, which were over two meters long.
There were a couple of cuts on the Ice Demon's body, which bled quite a bit. Shang guessed that these cuts came from the Adept with green hair and green robes. He was obviously a Wind Adept.
There were also a couple of big icicles stuck in its body, which came from the Adept with the icy blue hair.
'Ice Affinity, huh?' Shang thought. 'Why would someone with an Ice Attribute want to kill beasts with Ice Affinities? That would only make their life difficult.'
'Seems like the Ice Demon really got the drop on them.'
The Ice Demon slashed through several walls, and it eventually hit the Earth Adept, a rather tall man with brown hair.
Shang only kept watching.
"Somebody, help!" the Ice Adept shouted in fear.
Shang didn't react and stayed hidden.
When the Ice Adept saw that no one reacted, she gritted her teeth. "I know that you are there. I can feel your Ice Mana."
Shang only snorted silently. 'Feel my Ice Mana? Who would believe that? I learned how to isolate myself from the surrounding Mana long ago. There is literally zero Ice Mana inside my body right now.'
The fact that the Ice Adept had said that she could feel Shang's Ice Mana basically confirmed Shang's guess.
She knew that he was here, but she said the wrong reason.
If she were innocent, knew that Shang was there, and truly wanted help, she would have said the real reason why she knew that Shang was there. After all, there was no reason to lie.
The face of the Ice Adept morphed into a frustrated grimace as she realized that Shang wasn't answering.
She threw a look at the Ice Demon, who had destroyed the Earth Adept's Mana Shield. Right now, the Wind Adept was running around the Ice Demon with incredible speed, distracting it while the Earth Adept kept using his Focus to save the Wind Adept a couple of times.
"Fine, you win!" the Ice Adept shouted.
Then, she summoned a fancy piece of paper. Complex Magic Circles appeared around her fingers, and she touched the piece of paper.
A second later, she threw the piece of paper over an inconspicuous stone, the place where Shang was currently.
Shang caught it and looked at it.
'A Magic Contract,' Shang thought with a laugh. 'I get 300,000 gold if I help them, and she swears on her life that her group will abandon the mission and leave.'
Shang knew how to check the validity of a Magic Contract, and he knew that this one was real.
She was actually giving up.
There was no way out of this contract.
The longer the contract, the more freedom one had to screw someone over.
However, this contract was extremely short.
It simply had two clauses, nothing else, and they were formulated in a very direct and unambiguous way.
The Ice Adept only gritted her teeth. '300,000 gold. That's like half a Focus. He sure made off with a lot of money,' she thought.
Only an idiot wouldn't accept something like that.
And then, Shang noticed something.
Whoosh!
Shang ran towards the north, and the Ice Adept's face fell.
'Why is he running?!'
Then, the Ice Adept felt a concentration of Mana getting closer from the north, and she realized what would happen with horror.
The commander of the outpost had noticed the ruckus, and he was coming!
Shang quickly arrived in front of the commander and threw something at him.
The commander caught it and looked at it.
It was the contract that the Ice Adept had thrown to Shang.
"They are Cleaners sent here to deal with me. This is proof of their identity," Shang said.
The Cleaning Service was an illegal organization, and everyone working for them was wanted by Greenwind County.
The commander looked at the contract with surprise.
Then, he looked at Shang, and a second later, he looked at the fight.
"Alright," the commander said as he pocketed the contract. "Then, we shouldn't disturb their fight."
Shang only nodded with a slight grin.
"Let's get closer. I might need to save the Ice Demon if they win. It's worth more than them," the commander said before stepping forward.
Shang nodded and also stepped forward.
A couple of seconds later, the two of them stopped on top of a big rock and watched the fight.
The Ice Demon had received several more injuries, but its passive regeneration had also healed a lot of the previous injuries.
The passive regeneration which the warriors that had undergone the Procedure had received came from the beasts. With enough time, beasts could also regenerate.
This hadn't really become a factor to Shang until now since his aggressive fighting style ended the fights very quickly. On top of that, the passive regeneration used up the beast's Mana.
By now, the Ice Demon no longer dismissed its ice claws and kept them active at all times, lowering its speed.
The reason for that was its low Mana storages. Dismissing and resummoning the ice claws took some Mana.
The Ice Demon was exhausted, but the Adepts didn't feel any better.
Only the Ice Adept had over 50% Mana left, while the Wind Adept and Earth Adept were focusing on recovering their Mana storages.
Sadly, whenever they recovered some Mana, the Ice Demon would hit their Mana Shields, depleting their Mana storages again.
The Foci of the Earth Adept and Wind Adept could barely keep the beast from killing them, and dealing damage was completely left to the Ice Adept.
'This battle could go either way,' Shang thought. 'However, chances are high that at least one of them will die, and the others will be very exhausted.'
'Why should I kill them when I can get them into prison? I mean, I'm not some saint that doesn't want to kill my enemies, but it's simply far better. With some Mind Reading, the Inquisitors might be able to find some proof regarding the Wilburys.'
'They would be able to win against the commander in their peak conditions, but a Mage without Mana is basically just a normal person. On top of that, I'm here too, and-'
BANG!
Shang's eyes widened as his vision began to distort.
At this moment, Sword had come out from Shang's back, and its blade was between a saber and Shang's head.
Shang was thrown forward, and he could barely keep his consciousness. His own blade had hit his head very hard just now.
But an instant later, Shang's Mana healed all the damage, and Shang's mind recovered.
That attack could have only come from one place, and Shang's eyes narrowed.
BANG!
Shang used an Ice Blast to shoot himself to the side, and an instant later, a saber stabbed into the ground where Shang had just been.
Shang quickly stood up and looked at the commander, who had just pulled the saber out.
In the commander's eyes was greed.
Shang quickly glanced over to the Ice Adept, and he saw genuine surprise and shock in her eyes while she looked at the commander.
'They are not part of the same team,' Shang quickly concluded as he glanced at the commander.
'Which means he is not a Cleaner.'
'Honestly, who wants me dead this time?!'
