The World Dragon's Heir

Chapter 441: Find The Duke

The barrage of mortar rounds alerted the defenders in town that there was a ground battle occurring in the distance, and General Alator prepared to send troops to relieve what could only be Dominic’s force.

"General, are you sure that they need our help? I hear a lot of explosions. That has to be more than just the Duke and a handful of Trolls." One of the town guard officers asked.

"Trust me, that’s him. The force isn’t large enough to be anyone else, and only the Duke would use mortars on Goblins like that."

The soldiers laughed. The old man had a point. The mortars could tear through the ranks of even Level Five monsters like Hobgoblins, Kobolds, and such. But someone was blasting apart a horde of common Goblins with them.

Ammunition was a limited resource, and only the Duskblade Sect and a few members of the guard force had an orb to make them.

With the mortars, the Goblin charge was stalled until the last of the Ogres fell to the Trolls, who were now moving to defend their smaller companions. Sweeping strikes of their spiked clubs coated with [Lightning Bolt] spells not only shattered bones, but fried the Goblins alive.

Their battles had rapidly improved the spell gems, as the Trolls had focused all their loot on the one task.

Now, they were sweeping aside the Goblins like they were sweeping up dirt.

"To our left. There is an organized force coming our way." Dominic warned Amie.

Leaving the Trolls to defend them from the Goblins, the pair focused their attacks on the incoming Yeti Clan.

Mana Pistol rounds shattered against both Ice Element and [Area Barrier] type spells, revealing that there were mages with the force, and Dominic smiled. They had been looking for the leadership of the enemy force, and now it was coming right to them.

The fire element bonuses on the pistols were especially effective against the Yeti Warriors, and Dominic was using [Arcane Blast] to keep his mana up, while Amie used one pistol with mana regeneration.

He really did need to make her a custom one in her size, it just looked wrong to have different sized pistols.

With a dozen dead in seconds, the Yeti paused, and the mages behind them came forward to deal with the threat. One Elder and a bunch of Acolytes, Dominic noted.

The Acolytes would be no problem, but the Elder should be an experienced combatant, with stronger magic than they could easily deal with.

"War Criminal of the Wavemates Clan, surrender, and we will make your death a quick one." The Elder announced, his voice booming with magical emphasis.

"Hey, I’ve heard that line before." Amie giggled.

Dominic smiled, slowly lit a mortar on his horn and gave it an underhanded lob toward the mages before unloading his pistols into the Elder’s barrier.

The spell flared blue with power, and Dominic noted how it wavered under the barrage.

So, the Elder was at least ten levels stronger than his pistols. That was manageable.

At least it wasn’t twenty levels.

He raised his hands, and a massive spell circle formed in the air above Dominic’s head. Amie cursed, and began frantically casting something, while Dominic reloaded and continued to fire into the barrier.

The Acolytes were turning pale in the face as they expended every bit of their energy to keep the defensive shield up.

It wasn’t enough.

The barrier shattered just as a massive bolt of lightning hit Dominic’s [Area Barrier] shattering it and sending shocks through both his arms.

"We need to move." Amie shouted.

The spell was still active, and more lightning was crashing into the area.

Dominic dodged as he felt the air crackle around him, and a lightning strike hit where he was a half second earlier.

From the ground, he unloaded both pistols into the Elder’s barrier, and the final few shots hit the mage in the chest and shoulder. A wave of blood erupted from his mouth as the mage coughed, and then the spell overhead vanished.

The Acolyte closest to the Elder rushed to pour a potion into his mouth, but Amie was not going to let that happen, and the bottle shattered in his hand.

A flurry of gunfire took out the surviving Acolytes, and Dominic breathed a sigh of relief as he checked the Elder’s body. Dead for certain, but he had the foresight to not bring anything but a single storage ring with him.

There would be no good loot, Dominic knew.

If the Elder knew not to bring more than one storage item, he knew not to bring any of his true valuables, and would only have what was needed for the mission with him.

"Well, that was fun." Amie joked as she caught her breath.

Trying to suppress that lightning array had taken a lot out of her, and she still hadn’t been successful. If it wasn’t for the fact that magitech pistols were faster and higher damage than most spells, they would have been in real trouble.

Still, he took the ring, while Amie checked the Acolytes for valuables. Then, they both returned their attention to the Goblin horde, which was currently attempting to take down the group of Trolls.

It was almost laughable. The massive creatures had cuts all over their legs, which were healing at a visible pace, and Goblins were flying in every direction as the Trolls smashed their way through the tide.

Dominic returned to hurling mortars into the Goblins, as it was faster than casting Fireballs, with a nearly equivalent blast radius. That let the Trolls knock the Goblins away from their legs for a moment, and get back to fighting only in front of them, instead of being swarmed.

Dominic heard shouting in the distance.

"Clear the tide, push forward to the Duke!" General Alator was calling as he led a militia unit forward with spears.

They were getting closer, so Dominic switched from mortars back to magic. He couldn’t risk the shrapnel wounding his own people, and the blast radius of a mortar was much less defined than that of a Fireball.

"Trolls, meet up with the locals. We can fight in one big group."