However, the force of the impact had traveled all the way up his arm, and for a moment, he could not move his fingers properly.
Lian was about to move forward, but at that exact moment, the escort commander’s voice came from below.
"All selected candidates, stay back! Support units, cover the others!"
He glanced down briefly.
The central area of the convoy was still vulnerable, two guards were lying on the ground, several selected candidates had only just escaped their enclosures, and the main defensive formation had also been disabled.
On the other hand, it was unclear what other traps the masked figures might have prepared along their escape route.
Besides, even if he captured them, he would gain nothing. The Black Vultures sent on missions were not given any information about the reasons behind those missions.
They were also trained to kill themselves if they were captured, so it was unlikely that he could get any information from them.
Lian watched the retreating attacker for a moment, then decided not to move any farther away from the convoy. With a single movement of his wings, he returned to the road.
At the same time, the leader of the Black Vultures reviewed the final situation on the battlefield.
The formation had been destroyed, all ten targets had been freed, and the escort forces were forming their defensive formation again.
And at least three of the selected candidates had shown far greater strength than the initial estimates suggested.
His gaze rested on Roderick for a moment, then moved to Noah, and finally to Lian.
The young man had two black wings spread behind him and had destroyed one of his men’s weapons with a single punch.
He narrowed his eyes. The information they had was incomplete. They knew that Lian Vorhelm had obtained the Pendragon Ancestral Mark.
However, the details of his new abilities were not available in public reports. On the other hand, the energy he had used to destroy the formation had a very unusual nature.
If the operation continued, its cost would probably become much higher than they had planned.
More importantly, the mission was to capture ten hostages alive in the shortest possible time, not to fight until every last man was dead.
The leader raised his right hand.
"The operation is canceled."
One of his companions, who was still fighting Roderick, turned his head.
"But we still—"
"I said retreat."
The man’s tone had not changed, but that was enough. The two ground attackers immediately moved away.
The person responsible for the formation gathered his remaining equipment and moved along the upper path between the rocks.
The long-range attacker also abandoned his broken weapon and retreated after the others.
Noah did not try to chase the man in front of him. Instead, he first looked at the injured guard behind him and made sure there was no immediate danger threatening him.
Roderick did not lower his fist either, but he did not leave the protected area without the commander’s order.
Farther away, the leader of the Black Vultures stopped for a moment before retreating, his gaze fixed on Lian.
"The information we had about you was outdated."
Lian looked at him calmly, and the masked man continued.
"We won’t make the same mistake next time."
"Then you’d better make sure there is a next time." The young Vorhelm spoke calmly.
Silence followed for a moment, then the leader turned away without answering, and the five attackers retreated along the rocky paths they had prepared in advance
Lian didn’t pursue them, but that didn’t mean he intended to let them leave alive.
He preferred to keep the abilities of his cores a secret from these bastards.
Black energy of the End appeared at his fingertips, which he shaped into thin lines of light, each line had a corresponding reflection on the body of one of the vultures.
He adjusted them so that the moment they disappeared from sight, they would immediately meet their end.
The energy of the End would erase their existence in an instant, leaving behind no evidence whatsoever.
None of the escort forces were allowed to pursue them without an order, and after checking the injured, the commander decided that securing the convoy had to come before everything else.
The battle was over.
But its consequences were far more serious than a simple victory might suggest.
A few minutes after the Black Vultures retreated, the convoy was still on high alert.
The escort commander did not allow the guards to leave their positions immediately.
First, the scouting teams checked the surrounding high ground. Then the mages examined the remains of the Inverted Reflection Array to see whether any other active nodes remained.
This was the same formation that had turned the protective enclosures into a prison.
Only after they were reasonably certain that the danger had passed did they receive orders to treat the injured.
Lian landed near one of the damaged carriages. His Wings of God disappeared behind him, and he walked toward the guards lying on the ground.
One of them was still conscious.
The man gritted his teeth as he tried to endure the pressure on his injured leg. His armor had been torn open around the knee, and blood was flowing down between the metal pieces.
A healer was kneeling beside him, trying to stop the bleeding, but another guard who had been standing near the mages was no longer moving.
The attacker’s projectile had passed directly through a gap in his neck armor. Even the healers’ quick response had not been enough to save him.
Lian looked at the motionless man’s body for several seconds, then turned his gaze toward the remains of the broken defensive structure.
The battle had lasted only a few minutes.
But those few minutes had been enough for one guard to lose his life and several others to suffer serious injuries.
He knew very well that if the Black Vultures had succeeded in capturing the ten selected candidates, the number of victims would probably have been much higher.
However, the failure of their plan did not mean the victory had come without a cost. In another part of the battlefield, Noah was sitting beside an injured guard.
He had placed his metal umbrella on the ground and was helping a healer who was trying to keep the man’s broken arm in place.
"Easy. You don’t need to move it." Noah said gently as he took the medicine container from the healer’s hand.
The guard struggled to breathe.
"I thought... it was over."
Noah gave him a brief smile.
"But you’re still here."
The man wanted to say something, but the pain in his arm made him wince.
Without continuing the conversation, Noah returned the container to the healer and helped the man move into a more suitable position.
After finishing, he looked at his own hands for a moment.
The blood on his fingers had dried, and his smile slowly faded.
He remained silent for a few seconds, then stood up and walked toward the next injured person.
Lian watched the scene from a distance. Over the past few days, he had noticed that Noah was friendly and sociable.
But now, he was seeing another side of his personality. The young Frenchman was not simply trying to get other people’s attention.
Even after the danger had passed, he preferred to help the injured as much as he could.
He glanced briefly at the folded umbrella beside him.
And apparently, he was also a very good fighter.
At the same time, Rindo was examining one of the metal panels left behind by the formation with the escort commander.
Most of the structure had been destroyed, but one section that stored information was still intact, and lines of mana were moving across its surface.
And the names of the ten people were recorded among those lines.
Lian.
Rindo.
Roderick.
And the names of the other seven selected candidates.
Beside each name, there was also information about the academy or guild that person represented.
The escort commander remained silent for a moment, then spoke in a low voice.
"So they really knew who would be inside the convoy beforehand."
"It wasn’t just the names. The movements of this convoy and its members weren’t secret, but look at this." Rindo shook his head and pointed toward another section of the panel.
"Look at the recorded positions."
The commander followed his gaze. Several small markers were displayed beside the names, and they almost perfectly matched the positions assigned to the selected candidates inside the central protected area.
The commander’s expression grew more serious.
Rindo continued.
"They also had information about the convoy’s defensive formation. They knew which area the selected candidates would be moved to when an alert was announced."
"Then the deployment information was leaked."
Rindo paused for a moment.
"That’s highly likely, but we still don’t know how."
The commander nodded. This distinction was important. Someone among the officials responsible for the deployment might have sold the information.
However, the theft of documents, infiltration of communication networks, or indirect access to security procedures were also possible.
Without more evidence, accusing a specific person or organization would not be the right decision.
Lian, who had approached the group, looked at the list for a moment.
Ten names, ten targets, and an operation designed to capture these exact people.
He gave a very faint smile.
"So we’re worth a lot more to some people than I thought."
Of course, this was not particularly surprising.
If the Black Vultures had succeeded in kidnapping even a few of these ten selected candidates, they could have made huge demands of the great families and ancient guilds.
However, from Lian’s point of view, the quality of the plan was a more important issue.
The attackers had not simply taken advantage of the commander’s mistake. In fact, they had counted on him making the right decision.
This made Lian consider the Black Vultures far more dangerous than a group of powerful bandits.
Even so, he still felt that something was wrong. If the Black Vultures wanted to make sure the operation succeeded, they should have sent more than five people.
Why had they sent such a small group? Was their real goal truly what it appeared to be?
At the same time, the investigation team finally reached the fake carriages.
When they brought back their initial report, the commander realized that the scene had been even more carefully planned than he had imagined.
The body of the person who had supposedly been injured beside a wheel did not belong to a living, injured person at all.
It was a human-shaped dummy covered in realistic clothing and fake blood, with limited head and shoulder movements controlled by a hidden mechanism inside the carriage.
From a distance of two hundred meters, it was difficult to tell the difference between it and a real human. However, the dummy’s main purpose was not to trick the guards into approaching.
It was only supposed to look real enough to force the commander to stop and investigate the situation.
And the rest of the scene? It deliberately contained flaws that experienced people could identify.