The musicians blasted their instruments, making the bandits grab their ears out of surprise. Immediately, the first thought in their minds was that the musicians were trying to alert the guards in the fort through their music. So, this made the bandits try to rush the engineers even more, wanting to finish the fight before reinforcements came.
Crab himself decided to move. His scissors glowed with blue light as water manifested around him, creating large crab-like pincers made out of Water mana.
He rushed towards Kong, the perceived leader of the Rebornian civilians.
His water pincers grew ever larger as more water manifested out of the magic circle in his wrists. It looked like it could cut a human in half without a problem.
"[Cancerous Bullrush]!" Crab shouted, using a 5-star spell. The water pincers rushed towards Kong, intending to sever him in half.
Kong's hard hat glowed with a reddish light, signaling his use of the Mithril Artifact.
"Kakaka! That's not going to be enough," Crab warned him. He was surprised that Engineers like them could summon such strong magic through their mystical tools, but that still wasn't enough to deal with a 6-star fighter like himself.
By Crab's estimation, a simple 5-star spell would be enough to defeat him.
His water pincers closed in on Kong.
In response, Kong raised his hand and summoned a magic circle. Mana started pouring out of his palms and reaching down into the ground, pulling it up and eventually creating a large structure to defend against the water pincers.
"Pincer maneuver!"
Crab clamped his pincers onto the earthen wall, expecting it to crumble under his power.
But as it clasped onto the wall, Crab felt an insanely strong wall that he could not budge. His water pincers were able to tear through metal itself, yet it was now unable to tear through a simple wall made out of soil!
"How is this possible?!"
As Crab looked around, he realized that he was not the only one having this problem. The other bandits beside him were getting thrown back as the engineers and construction workers used simple Earth spells to defend against their onslaught.
Three Yellow HobMankey used [Microwave Air], creating an intense heat wave towards the bandits coming towards him.
"Kugh! Hot!"
"I can't….I can't fight it!"
Four construction workers used [Concrete Mixer], manifesting a huge ball of water and trapping the bandits inside them. The bandits used their own 4-star knife spells to try and get out of this water, to no avail. They ended up experiencing what the construction workers would call a 'washing machine'.
These 4-star bandits found it almost impossible to counter these non-fighting spells.
Somehow, these Rebornian civilians were fighting back! And the bandits found themselves struggling just to defend themselves.
"How is this possible?! Where do you get the power?!" Crab screamed at Kong.
They knew that those mystical tools that they used endowed them with some kind of power. By Crab's estimation, they were able to advance one star realm higher than their normal cultivation.
It was how these 2-star civilians were somehow able to defend against the onslaught of their 4-star bandits. They achieved a 3-star realm whenever their tools glowed a prismatic color.
But now, these Rebornians weren't just defending against them. They were attacking the bandits! And somehow, they were winning!
Their spells had not just reached the 3-star level, but they had gone over to the 4-star realm as well! This was impossible.
"How?!" Crab screamed, trying to crunch Kong's Earthen wall with his water pincers. But still, to no avail.
BANG..DUG DUG…BANG BANG…
TRING….TRING TRING…..TRING….
TUU…TU….TUTU TUTUU….
It was then that Crab noticed those rhythmic sounds coming from the musicians. He finally noticed the change in the atmosphere because of them. The flow of mana had somehow increased inside the Rebornians because of those musical notes!
The biggest indicator was the fact that the musicians' instruments were also glowing with the same mystical power as the ones used by the construction workers.
Those musicians were somehow able to give a one-star realm increase in a human person!
This discovery stunned Crab. It gave him goosebumps once he realized that the Reborn company was hiding an immensely strong potential for warfare.
"We must finish this immediately! Attack them with everything you've got!" he commanded the bandits.
Right now, they still had the advantage of numbers. They were twice as many as them. If they could overwhelm these inexperienced fighters into a close quarters combat, then they would eventually win despite the difference in strength.
"RAAAHHH!"
The bandits, realizing that they had severely underestimated these 'civilians', finally chose to go all out and surround the Rebornians from all sides.
Their knives glowed with power, choosing not to defend themselves, but to simply just attack mindlessly.
Crab himself opened his water pincers and continued to chip away at Kong's Earthen wall. With each snip of his scissors, a small chunk of soil would be pulverized.
Finally, Kong felt the pressure. He looked at his other comrades and saw them struggling to keep the rabid bandits at bay.
"Brothers! Consume your chocolates now!"
Upon his instruction, each Rebornian took out a chocolate pellet from their pockets and swallowed it whole.
Immediately, the magic circles they manifested turned brighter.
The bandits felt the change, feeling the Earth and Water spells they used became harder and harder to penetrate.
Crab was speechless as he witnessed this change once again. Just when they were making progress, the Rebornians would once again pull out something from their pockets and level the playing field. It was a cheat.
But it seemed that it didn't end there.
Kong looked back at the musicians. "Use your chocolates too!" he said to them.
Taking a brief break from using their instruments, these musicians swallowed their own chocolate pellets. As soon as they strummed, drummed, or blew their first note, the resulting sound created a strong resonance in the air that seemed to penetrate deep into everyone's soul.
Once again, the bandits felt the pressure from these non-fighting spells increase by a large margin, completely trumping their own power by almost two star realms!
Crab was speechless as he saw his fellow bandits being launched into the air by simple [Water Ball] spells.
This gave Kong the chance to deliver a counter attack.
"[Concrete Planning]!" he shouted as a magic circle appeared hovering in front of him.
Suddenly, the large collection of liquid cement rose up from the cement mixers like a tsunami.
Cement almost covered the whole skyline.
This was the combined power of a Mithril Artifact, [Sugar Rush], and Musicians.
Kong struggled with the power, but he successfully brought down this wave of cement down into the ground, swallowing every bandit it touched.
They were helpless as their lower body got submerged into thick, viscous liquid cement that quickly hardened into rock once the Engineers and the construction workers used their spells to fasten the process.
The only one still fighting was Crab, who used his 6-star water pincer spell to cut any cement that came his way.
But unfortunately for him, he was the only one left from the bandits.
Kong and the other Rebornian civilians cast [Automatic Drive] onto the trucks, cement mixers, and concrete rollers to surround Crab.
These large metal vehicles threatened to crush the bandit, finally getting him to surrender.
"Are you all…really just civilians?!"