Three minutes after leaving the last street of Ironcrest and heading towards the mountains of the area, the only way out of the city besides the sea, Vicente realized something was wrong.
When he and his men could no longer see the city from where they were, given the trees and terrain in the area, he realized they were not alone.
Sensing three mana oscillations near where his group was traveling on an ordinary dirt road, Vicente frowned under his mask and shouted.
"Stop!"
Immediately, the men in front of the carriage controlling the horses stopped the vehicle, startled because they hadn't noticed anything to justify their leader's order.
"Boss..."
As one of them turned to ask what the problem was, three people appeared around their carriage, already activating their skills and spells!
"Shit!" One of the other two men at the front of the carriage saw the movement of these people, also wearing masks, and shivered as he moved a hand to the revolver at his waist.
Vicente clenched his fists at the sight of the enemies taking action. He didn't hesitate to activate his powers as well, seeing he had somehow made a mistake by not noticing that group before.
'Who are these people? Have they been waiting for me here?' Vice wondered as he appeared in front of his carriage, already breaking into a cold sweat.
As strong as he was, he had been taken by surprise, and all the enemies attacking in his direction were level 5 Acolytes!
From what he could sense from the mana in their bodies, their talents were not normal!
Not only that, these enemies clearly knew him, as none had any metallic items on their bodies, something rare for magicians in this world.
They were there on purpose, ready to deal with him!
As he realized it, Vicente saw the initial attack of the enemies forming against him.
One of the two masked women, a pink-haired woman, didn't have any extreme power when it came to fighting. But while her two companions were attacking Vicente with 'normal' warrior powers, she took her time to deal a mental blow to Vicente.
As a red and orange pentagram appeared, a glowing crystal appeared in front of her, shining brighter and brighter as it seemed to concentrate all its power to bring down Vicente in one blow.
On the other hand, the man who was the companion of these two women cast a spell in Vicente's direction, something based on the wind element, which had already created a powerful vortex over his target's body.
As for the last woman, she was circling the area at high speed, her extraordinary power, waiting for the moment to strike the target of her group.
Their plan was simple. While Mark would "hold" Vicente's body, Jasmine would strike him with a powerful mental blow before her last companion delivered the final physical blow to their target.
Mentally and physically wounded, Cesar would meet his end on his way out of Ironcrest!
But not everything went as planned!
As the three acted, they saw Vicente hovering over his carriage with two pentagrams appearing around him.
The first was normal, red. But the second was extraordinary: yellow, a color only seen in such essences in Mages or more powerful magicians!
"What?" The woman running around opened her mouth in shock at the sight, not believing what her eyes were telling her.
It could even happen that a Mage couldn't absorb a yellow pentagram after their breakthrough and were left with a weaker set of pentagrams, with the third space having an orange-level essence.
But achieving something better was unimaginable for almost any magician on the continent!
Seeing that, even the confident Mark hesitated a bit, feeling uncomfortable in front of an existence as strange as Cesar's.
"Damn it! How is this possible?" He felt sweat forming on his body, but he held his position as the cyclone around Vicente grew stronger and stronger, to the point where even small stones lying on the ground began to float upwards.
Jasmine gritted her teeth at the sight of Cesar's pentagrams, shocked but determined to eliminate him and steal the items stolen from the Irwin family.
"Cesar Mazzanti, hand over what you stole from the Irwin family, or we'll kill you!" She screamed from under her mask.
"You're going to kill me? Don't think amateurs like you are going to beat me here!" He said as he manipulated the electromagnetic field lines in the area and the metals nearby.
After reaching level 2, his abilities had become more powerful, and he could now easily control 40% more metal objects in his vicinity.
As invisible electromagnetic barriers formed around him and his men, several metal objects on the ground nearby suddenly appeared as the ground shook.
The woman running through the area almost stumbled over the shaking caused by Vicente's ability. At the same time, Jasmine and Mark felt the instability of the ground they were standing on.
"Die!" Unwilling to wait any longer, Jasmine fired her mental attack, causing a semi-transparent red laser to burst from the crystal in front of her body.
As this shot traveled at high speed toward Vice's body, several extremely sharp blades suddenly appeared from the ground around the area where Mark and Jasmine were standing.
Even under the attack of the two, Vicente skillfully manipulated the metals in the ground nearby, causing more than 30 blades to emerge from different points in the ground, heading towards the vital points of the two.
"Fuck!" Mark felt a shiver run down his spine as these many blades aimed at his legs and abdomen came at him so fast that he couldn't dodge them.
'I have to let him go!' He stopped focusing on the spell around Cesar and the three men trying to move in the carriage, aware that he could die right there if he didn't defend himself!
Jasmine felt the same. She turned extremely pale as she felt those many blades coming closer and closer to her after using more than 50% of her powers in the shot against Cesar.
"Aaaaaaagh!"
At that moment, while Vicente suffered from Jasmine's mental attack, Mark and she felt Cesar's fantastic power.
Even though they used their power to strengthen their bodies and create layers of resistance over their main vital points, they couldn't cover every point of their bodies in time.
Cesar's blades were very fast, and since they were numerous, at least 5 blades penetrated each of those two bodies!
While the third of the group of thieves who were there for Vice's items was frightened and did not know what to do, his electromagnetic barrier could not protect him from Jasmine's attack!
