"Owen, back!" Cassius shouted warning, but it was too late.

Even if he couldn't see it with his eyes, Ou Fei felt that he had detected the location of the enemy, and he didn't even need to turn around, his hand reached directly back, grabbed the claw of the vampire who sneaked up on him from behind, he didn't even need to look at it, he raised an elbow to lift the vampire's face, and then took advantage of the opponent's unstable footing, dragged his hands hard, and pulled the vampire out of the spatial crack, and then threw it over the shoulder, slamming the latter to the ground.

The young vampire probably couldn't figure out why a human teenager who looked so thin could subdue him so lightly. But before he could figure it out, he was surprised to find that 7 or 8 sharp arrows soaked in garlic water or filled with silver powder were aimed at him, glowing with a cold cold light. The vampire's expression froze, no matter how fast he was, he couldn't shoot a crossbow bolt from zero distance.

In a series of screams, the vampire was consumed by the flames that erupted from his body, and his body turned to ashes, leaving only a charcoal-like skeleton that would turn to powder at the slightest touch.

In total, this is the seventh vampire to be completely killed after they entered the Blood Mountains, and in addition to this, there are many more vampires who have been teleported away by space magic when they are seriously injured and endangered.

"The strength of these vampires is terrifying. Cassius shuddered.

"If that's scary, you'll have to be more prepared. Owen said, "Compared to the guy who turned Hansa City upside down with just three people, the vampires we have encountered so far are probably only the lowest-level minions." ”

The Blood Mountains, inhabited by the vampires, have been shrouded in an eerie chill for many years, but they still have to be exposed to the sun. Since entering the range of the Blood Mountain Range in the morning, relying on the power of the sun's rays, the strength of the vampire clan has been weakened to the minimum, and they do not dare to move in groups, so they can only rely on natural shadows such as woods and mountains and rocks to rush out and launch sporadic attacks. But even so, this army, which was full of squadrons, still lost a third of its men in just a few hours.

Speaking of this army, I have to mention that a few days ago, the blood crisis in Hansha City was temporarily resolved, but Sophia was captured by the Vampire Prince, which was unbearable for the partners. Since Joika, Ray, and Dani are being treated for serious injuries and are unable to return to the battlefield for the time being, the task of rescuing Sophia falls to Owen and Cassius, who are one step late and miss the battle with the Vampire Prince. The Silver Dragon Ice Yous had returned, and Owen and Cassius had to find another way to get to the Blood Mountains.

Across half of the kingdom, riding a griffin is the fastest way, but with Cassius's physique, he can't even stand a long journey on horseback, let alone ride a monster to fly, he hasn't thought about any riding skills, and it is impossible for a griffon to carry two adults to fly so far, besides, there is a magical barrier in the sky above the Blood Mountains, and any flying creature entering it will fall from the sky;

Cassius felt embarrassed about being a burden, but Owen had an indifferent expression on his face, and the journey of the past few days had been like a leisurely stroll. Cassius asked his question more than once, but Owen's reply was always one sentence: "We can definitely catch up, we can't afford to tire ourselves down on the road." ”

Cassius had no choice but to believe Owen's headless explanation. Although he didn't know why Owen was so sure, Cassius had no doubt that Owen's decision to save Sophia was weaker than his own. Eventually, the two reached the entrance to the Blood Mountains yesterday afternoon. But Owen was not in a hurry to enter the mountain, he first went to the city where the lord who ruled the nearby area stayed with Cassius, rested for the night, and the next morning, when Cassius and Owen were about to enter the mountain, they met the army at the gate of the city.

Since the horses of the cavalry were useless in mountain battles, and the heavy armor of the heavy infantry became a burden, this was a squadron of light infantry with swordsmen and crossbowmen as the main force, with a total of more than 300 men, including 4 chaplains. They did not belong to the regular army of the kingdom, but were family soldiers belonging to the local lord, and the commander was a champion knight. The commander stopped the two men, and after asking them for their identities, he explained their origins: it turned out that their lord had received an order from the king from the royal capital to send at least one squadron of soldiers to protect them into the Blood Mountains. In contrast to Cassius's jaw-dropping, Owen seemed to have expected an army to come to his aid. He didn't say anything superfluous, and directly accepted the aid of these troops.

The Blood Mountains are a forbidden area for life, these soldiers know that after entering the mountains, they will face terrible vampires all the time, each of them has a look of fear on their faces, but none of them take half a step back, the duty to obey the order and the sense of honor of the soldiers, let them faithfully carry out the orders of the lord, they are all good men with blood. Owen admired these people, and the only thing he could do to help them was to get as many soldiers home as possible alive.

Therefore, at the beginning of the march, Owen gave advice to the commander on the issue of tactical deployment, however, his advice was not taken seriously, and the commander did not change his original tactical deployment because of a strange teenager. In his eyes, these two fat and thin guys who didn't know whether to live or die to enter the Blood Mountain Range were just targets to protect in this unfortunate mission he received. But he soon suffered from this conceited mentality. When they first encountered vampires and engaged in a fierce battle, the soldiers were still fighting in the mindset of fighting against their human opponents, and as a result, they were bitten on a steel plate. The enemy only had three vampires, and this team suffered nearly 80 casualties, such a heavy loss made the commander's heart ache, and after learning from the pain, he finally began to pay attention to the silver-haired boy's words. Under Owen's advice, the commander adopted a new tactical deployment, which worked wonders, repelling wave after wave of vampire attacks with considerable losses, and penetrating deeper and deeper into the depths of the Blood Mountains. Although some casualties were also paid, the casualty rate was already far less than that of the first battle.

I never thought that Owen was actually an expert in commanding operations, and the commander was convinced, and at first he obeyed his words, and later directly handed over the command to Owen. In fact, everyone has their own strengths and weaknesses. In the past, when he was in the Paladin Training Camp, Owen had no talent for learning swordsmanship, but tactical command was the only discipline he could overpower Julian. Owen had served as a military advisor to his mother Elina in the Dark Elves Civil War, and later commanded a large barbarian army against the demons, and now he was at the helm of this small army.

As for Cassius, he felt quite guilty for doing nothing under the protection of the army, not because he didn't want to help, but because he tried to cast magic to help these soldiers several times, but was stopped by Owen. "Don't drain your mana early, there's going to be a tough battle for us to fight next. Owen admonished Cassius.

As for Owen himself, he did not personally participate in the battle, but consciously took on the role of a temporary staff officer; of course, not everything is static, when a vampire directly targets the sneak attack on him, Owen has to take action, just like the vampire who was shot into a hedgehog by an arrow after being thrown by Owen over the shoulder just now.

The vampires who were hiding in the shadows saw Owen's important role, but they took it for granted that Owen was just a weak scholar, and that by killing him, they would be able to disrupt the deployment of these armies and turn all the invading human armies into food for them.

Also surprised were those human soldiers, this was the first time that Owen showed his strength in front of this group of soldiers, with just one blow with his bare hands, he beat the vampires with a combat power of more than 20 human soldiers, such a hidden combat power, who would not be stunned to see it? The soldiers thought that this fat man dressed as a magician and holding a strange staff was just a half-tone magician, especially after a long day's journey, this fat man was tired enough wolf bèi, and some of the soldiers snickered in private, and no one ever took Cassius in their eyes.

However, they soon discovered that they were wrong.

What appeared in front of them was a cliff at least 100 meters high, there were no mountain paths, no shortcuts, and the only way to reach the top of the cliff was to climb the slippery rocks, which made everyone's hearts hairy. The soldiers did not carry any climbing tools, and if they climbed with their bare hands, they could easily fall to death, and when they climbed with all their might, they would have to disarm, and they would become a regular target for vampires, and the drop was too high for it to support each other. There was a dreary atmosphere in the air around them, and it seemed that there were quite a few vampires lying in ambush nearby, waiting for the army to sneak up the hill.

In front of the cliff, the soldiers could only sigh. This is the end of their journey. At this moment, Cassius stepped out of the crowd, standing in front of the cliff, holding up the "Grip of Endurance", chanting elemental magic spells that the soldiers did not understand. Soon, the two priests in the team felt a strong vibration of the water element around them, and the frequency of this shock shocked the four priests, the fat man in front of him looked young, but in terms of the control power of the water element, he had at least reached the level of the second ring mage!

With the chanting of the incantation, the air around him cooled sharply, the sky fell with goose feathers and snow, and a dark blue magic array appeared on the ground in front of Cassius, not to mention the priest, even ordinary soldiers who could not do magic could feel a powerful magical energy. I saw that with the magic array as the center, the surrounding water vapor quickly solidified at an extremely fast speed, forming a spiral-shaped ice staircase that led to the top of the cliff. And in order to avoid slipping, a lot of small protrusions are raised on the top of the building to reduce the slipping surface.

The soldiers erupted in cheers, and Cassius was sweating profusely, but he had a satisfied smile on his face.

Seeing that these humans had found a way to climb to the top of the cliff, it was impossible to sneak attack halfway, and those ambushed vampires simply took the initiative to attack, and 8 vampires killed them from several directions at the same time......

Under Owen's flawless tactical deployment, 2 vampires were nailed to the cliff by dozens of silver arrows and turned to ashes, and the other 6 vampires were injured and teleported to escape. During the battle, the vampire also attacked the Ice Staircase, but the staircase was not damaged at all, which shows how hard the ice cubes used to create the staircase are.

The army climbed to the top of the cliff without hindrance. The soldiers rested for a while, buried the bodies of the war dead, and after treating the wounded, they continued the expedition with Owen. Thankfully, they hadn't been attacked since they climbed the cliff, and it seemed that the previous battle had hurt the vampires.

During the march, Cassius worriedly asked Owen, "We've killed so many vampires, aren't we afraid of angering them?"

"These vampires also killed a lot of soldiers and civilians in the royal capital, and since it is a war, losses on both sides are inevitable. ”

"But in the eyes of vampires, the value of our human lives is not equal to them, and I am afraid of ......"

"You're right, we humans are nothing more than food in the eyes of vampires, and that's why we can't afford to waste any time, so the battle must be fought quickly. Owen analyzed to Cassius in detail, "Think about it, we attacked the vampire's house, and the vampires have long wanted to kill us, but because the sun is shining now, those guys can't go out on a large scale, so they can only make sporadic blocks along the way, delay time, as long as the sun goes down and the vampires attack in groups, it will be the end of everyone here." So we can't waste our time dwelling on things like 'whether or not to provoke them'. ”

"You mean we have to rescue Sophia before the sun goes down?" Cassius broke out in a cold sweat as he thought it was an impossible task.

Cassius and Owen didn't speak loudly to avoid being heard by the soldiers around them and affecting their morale, but the commander who walked with them could hear them clearly. Looking at the commander's tense face, Owen patted the other party and smiled: "Your Excellency, please don't worry, I won't harm the brothers. But before that, it is up to the brethren to fight a tough battle. ”

Say as you go. The team came to a swampy pond. Owen raised his palm, and the army stopped advancing.

"Your Excellency, give the order to the brethren to prepare for battle. Cassius, have you regained your magic?"

"Owen, what's going on?"

"What I call a 'tough battle' is here. ”