As soon as Alex spoke, smoke began to emit from his mantle. This smoke, however, was bloody red in color, contrary to the previous ones.
The smoke gathered into a large cloud, and in front of the stunned expressions of those around, it began to take shape—transforming into a giant construct standing five meters tall. The construct bore the characteristics of a heavily armored knight.
After the appearance of this first construct, a second one formed, then a third, a fourth, and finally a fifth. It was only then that the creation of the smoke knights ceased.
Each of the knights firmly held a sword in one hand and a shield in the other.
'Now let's see how effective they can be,' Alex thought to himself as he directed the smoke knights to charge forward.
With a speed that defied expectations for beings of their size, the smoke knights crossed the distance between the city and the beast tide in mere seconds. In the blink of an eye, they were upon the enemy, their massive swords raised high before slashing down toward the first beasts they encountered.
Everyone watching braced themselves for a brutal and spectacular display of power from the smoke knights, already imagining the beasts' heads flying and their bodies crumpling under the force of the strikes. But to their shock, the exact opposite happened.
The beasts tore through the smoke constructs effortlessly, shattering them on impact before the knights even had the chance to bring their swords down.
"...."
"...."
"...."
Gazes flickered between the battlefield and Arcanor, eyes filled with confusion and disappointment. While no one said it out loud, everyone at that moment was like "That's it?"
This wasn't Maya's case though.
"What was that? You teased me all for your constructs to get destroyed upon contact?" she said, raising an eyebrow, both annoyed and unimpressed.
"Patience," was the only thing Alex answered, his focused gaze still on the beast tide below, right where his smoke knights had been shattered and where the red smoke that made them could be seen drifting towards the beasts in the first line.
The red smoke engulfed the beasts, a part of it being inhaled by the beasts while another part coalesced into the smoke knights, directly behind the first line of beasts.
Beasts had senses far more developed than most humans, so they immediately noticed the reappearance of the constructs behind them, but just as they wanted to turn around, cries and howls of pain left their mouths and they collapsed, groaning and writhing violently on the ground.
Seizing the opportunity, the knights swiftly slashed the necks of the agonizing beasts, killing them on the spot.
They had barely finished off the beasts on the ground when the knights were destroyed once more by the other beasts in the tide, but just like the previous time, right after having destroyed the smoke constructs, those beasts too collapsed to the ground, grunting and seemingly contorting in pain as if their very insides were being torn apart.
The same thing kept happening again and again until it became clear to everyone paying attention to the smoke constructs that something was going on. And they would be right to think so, because the smoke the knights were made from carried the attribute of poison. This was the very same poison Alex had used against his cousin when the latter disrespected his wife, Anna. The poison wasn't lethal—it had been specifically designed to inflict pain and suffering on anyone exposed to it.
Truthfully, Alex hadn't even been certain that this poison would work on beasts, but now that he knew it worked just as well—if not even better—than on humans, given how quickly the beasts collapsed after exposure, he adjusted his strategy accordingly.
Suddenly, the smoke knights exploded. But unlike before, it wasn't because they had been destroyed by beasts—it was Alex who triggered the explosions himself.
'Freya said not to blow them to pieces, but she never said anything about poisoning them,' he thought, as the red smoke that had formed the knights merged into a dense, malicious-looking wave. It surged toward the beasts like a sentient, ominous mist, engulfing dozens of them at once.
Seconds later, the cloud of smoke reformed into the knights, and those watching from the walls felt a chill run down their spines as they saw dozens of beasts writhing on the ground, clawing at the earth in agony, overcome by the venomous effects of the smoke.
Without wasting time, the smoke knights sprang into action and swiftly finished off every beast on the ground.
'I think I might have been overlooking the most dangerous aspect of the smoke element,' Alex realized, as he watched his knights move from one fallen beast to another, executing them efficiently.
Lately, he had been focusing solely on developing new techniques and increasing his control over the smoke element. That had made him forget that one of the most fearsome traits of smoke was its ability to carry multiple attributes. While most people could only control a limited number of smoke types, Alex had the unique ability to manipulate any kind—regardless of its property—which was what made the element so exceptionally dangerous in his hands.
'I should start prioritizing the collection of more smoke attributes,' Alex decided, as he continued directing his constructs to clean up the battlefield.
However, he soon noticed that the poison didn't work on all beasts.
'It works well on level 1 and 2 beasts, has a reduced effect on level 3 ones, and almost no effect on level 4s. As for level 5 beasts, it would be a complete waste to try,' he thought, observing carefully.
He could enhance the potency of the poison, but that would require a much greater expenditure of mana, and he wasn't willing to take that risk. If whoever was behind this beast tide had something more dangerous prepared for later, he needed to preserve his energy—to protect himself, Freya, and Maya.
In the end, since the poison was ineffective on higher-level beasts, he focused on taking out the weaker ones—who made up the majority of the horde—while leaving the stronger ones to the members of the Drazen family.
He occasionally released white and yellow smoke to support the fighting soldiers, healing their wounds and replenishing their stamina. But even with that help, the defenders were slowly being pushed back toward the city walls—especially those stationed on the opposite side, who couldn't benefit from Alex's support immediately.
Quite frankly, the situation looked more and more dire with each passing minute, and Freya began to consider her options. She could either send out the grand knights—something she was clearly reluctant to do—or she could ask Alex to annihilate the tide in one massive explosion.
'While I don't want to send out the grand knights, asking Alex to blow up the tide means that we just wasted our time battling the beasts all along,' Freya thought, a subtle frown on her face, 'plus, with the beasts so close to the city, if he caused an explosion as big as yesterday, chances are the city would also suffer from it.'
There was also another thing that Freya failed to consider.
The explosion caused by detonating Alex's smoke could certainly get rid of the majority of the beasts, but not those at level 5. These ones were different from the others and could actually come out unscathed from such an explosion. That was how durable beasts at level 5 were.
Just as she was about to give the order for the grand knights to make their apparition, something strange happened.
All the beasts in the tide suddenly stopped charging forward, turned around and began to run in the opposite direction.
"....!"
Everyone was stumped. The beasts, despite their overwhelming numbers and sheer ferocity, were actually running away? It didn't make any sense!
There was never an occurrence of beasts in a tide running away. Every time they were either all dealt with or they would run through whatever was in their path.
"If we had any doubts that the beasts were controlled by someone else, then I guess we have the confirmation here," Alex commented after the beasts had disappeared inside the forest around the city, "now what?"