The Gnoll tide was coming to a halt as the last of the forces passed through the portal, and Amie smiled as she sensed a new presence at the tents.

"Good news, Your Grace. There are mages. Rebel Mages, if I am correct. They have retreated from whatever battle they were originally assigned to, and they have come here through the portals."

Dominic smiled back at her.

"Shall we? A little detour to the camp sounds like a lovely outing."

Amie laughed at his eagerness. "No wonder you managed to land the Paladin Princess. Your eagerness to kill traitors just might be your most endearing trait."

That might not be a compliment coming from anyone else, but between Amie and Dominic, it definitely was.

She was already moving clear of the Gnoll horde so she could get to the tents.

The mages looked out at the devastation, trying to make sense of what had just happened here. Their forces had been sent back through the portal by the Elders, who insisted that the army here was under threat.

But when they extended their senses, they only found a hundred cavalrymen and a mage.

That was not enough to threaten ten thousand Gnolls.

So, they activated [Levitation] to look over the battle, and try to make sense of the death toll. Perhaps there was much more of an enemy force to start with, and only this small group of cavalry remained.

If that was the case, they could bring their force back when the fight was over, and resume the siege.

Nobody would fault them for splitting their attention. It was only natural to need to know the situation. But when the first man’s head exploded, thanks to an [Arcane Blast] infused rifle round, the others quickly began to understand that things here were not as they seemed.

Their barriers did nothing to defend them against those shots.

The spell cast on them was so strong that it broke through their [Area Barrier] with ease, and the mana bullet was intended to take out Ogres and other large monsters, not mere humans.

Another mage dropped as Amie fired, then a third from Dominic, before they managed to find the source of the threat.

Of all places, they hadn’t expected it to be the lone mage that was shooting at them. But she wasn’t alone, there was a rifleman with her that had somehow completely escaped their notice.

A rifleman that was using [Arcane Blast] on his bullets.

It didn’t take a genius to realize who he was and what was happening, but they were not Elders. None of them had an Area Barrier above level seven, and the bullets simply shattered it on contact.

"Four left, they have dropped to the ground now, and they are trying to hide in the camp." Amie announced as she moved to intercept their attempts to escape.

Amie and Dominic split up as they moved through the camp, each using their own methods to hunt the surviving mages.

Dominic wasn’t having any troubles, as the mages were so terrified that he could smell the sweat coming off them, but they also weren’t trained to move silently, and kept tripping over things as they ran.

One shot, and a mage dropped with a pistol round through his back.

Then a girlish scream, too terrified to be Amie. The other mage had seen their comrade die.

Dominic approached, and found the young man hiding under a pile of fur pelts in one of the tents.

"Seriously? That was your grand plan? Hide under a pile of furs? Now, are you going to come out, or do I just start shooting and hope to hit something vital?" He asked, then kicked the side of the pile.

Horrified by his mockery, the mage extended their hands out of the hiding space, and slid out from underneath.

"Mercy, please. I can help you. I will close the portals, anything you want." He begged.

"Why would I want the portals closed? If they can only send a horde of monsters at me a few dozen at a time, my soldiers can kill them all and get rich in the process.

Now tell me, how many did you leave behind, and which location did you pull these Gnolls from?" Dominic demanded.

"From the siege on Skiple City. We sent everything but the Ogres to this location. Even the mages have come through now, we were among the last to follow our troops." The mage stammered.

"Because it takes so long to move them through three small portals?" Dominic guessed.

The mage nodded. "That’s as big as we could make them, but we had a lot of monsters in our force."

"Understandable. Now, how many Ogres were left behind, and how many mages with them?"

"Thousands of Ogres. They collected an entire clan, and the Elders have been summoning more to fill their ranks. But it’s just the Elders left at the siege, the rest of us were all sent to the beacons here to save our reinforcements.

They said that the Cygnia army was attacking, but we didn’t see them when we got here, only your mercenaries."

Dominic nodded. "You are right. It is only my mercenaries here. The armies are too slow to respond, so we are getting fabulously wealthy off this army of monsters.

Now, about those elders and the Ogres. When are they coming? Or are they staying behind?"

The acolyte trembled in fear. "They’re not coming, nobody is coming to save us."

The mage was clearly starting to have a mental breakdown now, but Dominic wasn’t finished with his questions.

"How many mages came here, to this battlefield?" He demanded.

The mage continued to mutter about "nobody is coming" for a few seconds, so Dominic nudged him with his foot and repeated the question.

"How many of your mages are here?"

The boy blinked slowly, then counted on his fingers.

"About fifty in all. Minus the ones you killed just a moment ago. Everyone is dead. They’re all dead. I was supposed to graduate early. You know? Finish school and get a job, a real job as a mage on the town guard."

His eyes were filling with tears, and Dominic sighed.

"You know, you’re making it hard to want to kill you. Perhaps I could turn you over to the Duskblade Sect, and they could reform you? You seem young enough to see sense.

The real danger is that you say something about your Elders and explode. They’ve put curses on most of the others, killing curses to prevent betrayal." He explained.

The mage nodded. "They did it to us all. But I don’t know what will trigger it."