Dessa was seemingly not doing anything suspicious.
She was merely placing one of her burned webbed hand against the side of Wagon Eighteen to steady herself.
However, Simon could see that a thin stream of water was leaving her fingertips.
The thin stream of water slipped through a crack in the wood, travelled beneath the cargo inside the wagon, and then it entered the formation lines that were protecting the cargo.
Simon narrowed his eyes the moment he saw this, but he didn’t react immediately.
There were formations protecting the cargo, and Simon could see that the formations were being deactivated as Dessa channeled water into the wagon.
’Is she one of the seven nails?’
Before he could ponder on this thought, his instincts flared warning signals at him.
Simon’s eyes flashed with a cold light and he quickly took a step to the side.
Whoosh!
A fire ball missed him by a few inches and landed on two unfortunate demons.
The two demons screamed in pain but Simon completely ignored them.
He looked at the source of the fireball and he saw that it was one of the Black Banner rebels.
’A Greater Demon.’
The attacker was a Two-horned Greater Demon, and Simon immediately knew why he was being attacked by this Greater Demon.
He had been standing in the air and overlooking the battlefield below with a calm and fearless gaze.
With the current state of things, the air was meant for Greater Demons.
Not for Archfiends.
"You dodged that?" The two-horned rebel said while tilting his head slightly.
Simon looked at the demon from head to toe before his gaze remained fixed on the two horns of the rebel.
Two-horned demons were demons with a royal bloodline. They were born with at least a Minor Royal bloodline.
And when one compared it to one-horned demons whose bloodline was not even a Common Bloodline, one could not help but ask while the difference was so vast.
Simon was not certain, and at the moment, he didn’t really care about the answer or answers to this question.
But one thing he knew was that fighting this two-horned demon would not be a wise thing to do at the moment.
’He’s only a Minor Greater Demon. I should be able to kill him, but doing so would cause a lot of troubles.’
Simon shook his head, then he plummeted to the ground just as the Greater Demon was about to speak.
The two-horned demon frowned and was about to follow after Simon, but his expression drastically changed and he quickly dodged to the side.
A fireball flew past him and crashed into a portion of the ridge where the Crag Hounds were located.
"Your opponent is me!"
The Prime Greater Demon who Simon saw holding the wagon in place flew toward the rebel with fury in his eyes.
The rebel’s expression became solemn but he didn’t back down.
A few seconds later, a battle between two Greater Demons occurred in the sky.
Meanwhile, on the ground was a completely different scene.
Crag Hounds flooded the road between the wagons.
The soldiers closest to Wagon Eighteen tried to form a line, but three wounded beasts pulling nearby wagons panicked and dragged their handlers through the formation.
Simon landed beside Sonya.
"Keep the ground beneath the wagon stable."
Sonya grinned and pressed both palms against the road.
"No problem."
The stone beneath Wagon Eighteen hardened. Cracks stopped spreading around its wheels, while thick pillars rose beneath the tilted side and forced it upright.
Akaza met the first Crag Hound head-on.
The Dread Beast opened its split jaws, but Akaza caught the upper and lower halves with both hands. His tattoos darkened.
BANG!
He slammed the beast into the ground and crushed its skull beneath his knee.
Another came from his left.
Akaza turned toward it with cold yet bright eyes filled with battle intent, but Simon’s voice cut through the chaos.
"Do not chase them. Stay near the wagon."
Akaza’s jaw tightened. For a moment, it looked as though he would ignore the order. Then he stepped back and punched the air.
A wave of gravitational force struck the second beast and hurled it into two rebels descending from the ridge.
Their bodies disappeared beneath snapping jaws.
Simon shifted his gaze toward Dessa.
The stream of water was still flowing through the crack in Wagon Eighteen, and two sections of the cargo formation had already gone dark.
A third was flickering.
However, a small warning rune beneath the wagon had started glowing. If it fully awakened, every Black Horn officer near the centre would know that the formation was being disturbed from within.
Dessa noticed it too.
Her pupil-less eyes narrowed, and the water around her fingers trembled.
A black crossbow bolt descended from the ridge toward Wagon Seventeen.
Simon subtly raised one hand and controlled the wind. The wind caught the bolt in mid-air and changed its direction.
It struck the metal plate beneath Wagon Eighteen.
BOOM!
The plate shattered. The wagon shook violently, and the warning rune vanished with it.
To everyone watching, an enemy attack had damaged the formation. Only Simon and Dessa knew that the formation had already been dying.
Dessa looked around in confusion, trying to figure out who was responsible for the destruction of the warning rune. However, Simon was no longer in his previous position.
Then a roar shook the road.
One of the Prime Calamity Crag Hounds climbed onto the left ridge. It was almost three times the size of the others, and the stone plates covering its body were streaked with glowing red cracks.
Its bloodshot eyes were fixed on Wagon Eighteen.
The beast jumped.
"MOVE!" a guard screamed.
At that exact moment, the final section of Wagon Eighteen’s protective formation went dark as something clicked beneath the covered cargo.
The rear compartment slowly opened.
Inside the darkness were two narrow black cases marked with three pale lines. and behind them rested a round case bearing the mark of a broken circle.