Riches and Bitches: I have a gate to an isekai and leveling-up system!-Chapter 176: Soldier’s fate (part 7)

'Too slow!'

In the end, even an elite soldier like Ophar struggled when fighting against two opponents who were individually stronger than him. But with the addition of that massive, house-sized bull that continued to charge him over and over again, it was only a matter of time before Ophar would slip.

And right now, he dodged the bull's charge again, thanking the high heavens for the monster slowing considerably down…

Only to realize that it slowed for a reason.

'Shit!'

Thump!

Right on the last step of its charge, the monster bull dug its hooves into the ground and swung its back to the side, striking Ophar out into the air with the full brunt of the kinetic force of its dash.

'Ugh…'

Blood filled Ophar's mouth.

No matter how much experience he had or how physically powerful he was, a strike like that…

A blunt attack of this sort was the perfect counter for his skin-tight barrier. And while the bull never actually touched the man, the flexible shield perfectly transmitted the force of the attack, sending Ophar soaring.

'Wait, this is good!'

Forcing himself to look for positives, Ophar twisted in the air and took a look around, making use of the elevated point of view to gauge the situation.

And it was quickly getting worse.

Some kind of human charged right into the gap that appeared in the center of both lines. And with some sort of magic, he cleared out entire swats of Ophar's soldiers, now standing with a stupid grin in the very middle of the bloody carnage on a scale much greater than anywhere else on the battlefield.

Ophar's face tensed up, his eyes squinted and his fists tightened.

Then, his body rolled in the air. Falling towards the ground face-first, Ophar dropped his saber and reached out with his hands, accepting the full brunt of the fall with them… Only to roll forward, redirecting his momentum instead of trying to absorb it throughout his body.

After rolling, Ophar jumped up to his knees, grabbing a stray axe dropped by one of his soldiers. And as he raised his eyes…

He looked straight at the crazed-looking man. And by doing so, he inevitably attracted the man's gaze.

'It's him!'

Ophar's blood boiled but his face remained still.

'It's one of those damn mages!'

At first, Ophar desired nothing else but to follow his instincts and rush ahead. After all, for a mage capable of raining hellfire from some ungodly distance, close-quarters combat should be their obvious weakness!

And yet, with Major's eyes scanning all the numerous corpses left in the man's wake when he looked again into the crazed eyes of the young and strangely average man in front of him…

'This has to be a trap!'

There was no other way. For how could that young man with a physique below the Golden Legion standards and with hardly any significant aura be responsible for all this death and destruction?

'So this is either an illusion…' Ophar squinted his eyes even further. 'Or he is trying to hide his…'

Ophar didn't get the chance to finish his thought. The young man raised his arm and the weird object looked like a crossbow without arms. Resting the butt of whatever he was holding, he stood in a position of a shooter with the dark circle at the end of his weird tool aiming straight for Ophar's head…

'Shit!'

Following the revolting feeling in his gut, Ophar mobilized all the aura he could into his hands and then clasped them together. The memory of the barrier's structure engraved upon his palms activated, creating a new bubble of shielding air on top of the skin-tight barrier he already wore.

PRRRRRRRRR

A rain of hell's drops swept across the arc the young man painted with his strange weapon.

Feeling his rapidly exhausting aura, Ophar spat a mouthful of blood. And as he cleared his mouth and raised his eyes…

He saw hundreds upon hundreds of minuscule, iron spikes powerlessly falling down just a few inches in front of his feet.

'What the hell was…'

"AAARGH!"

Somewhere behind, a seemingly hundred voices cried out in unison.

Ophar's eyes widened even further.

His barriers were of a much better grade than those of the ordinary soldiers. Even Golden Legion and its cavalry couldn't afford to equip regular soldiers with these state-of-the-art memories.

Doing so would upset the delicate balance of power the imperial family did its best to establish. A balance of power that kept the massive empire more or less cohesive.

And from the looks of things, while Ophar's barriers held… The same couldn't be said about the barriers of the men who stood behind him.

'That's a fucking weapon?!'

Gritting his teeth to overcome the exhaustion caused by his aura depleting at a worrying rate, Ophar waited without even the tiniest twitch for the man to move, to avert his eyes, even if only for a second.

And blinded by the confidence given to him by the powerful weapon in his hands, the young man looked away. Then, the rest of his body followed, along with the front of the gun that he now started to aim elsewhere.

'You are…' Ophar's eyes widened even further, adrenaline bursting in his veins.

For a moment, Major forgot about all the small injuries and wounds he sustained. He forgot about all the exhaustion, both the physical one of getting into battle right after a day and a half of a night of forced march and the mental one of riding for the last few minutes under a constant barrage of deadly spells.

In this one moment, none of that mattered. Yet, the very moment he rose up from his knees and leaned forth, ready to leap over the distance that separated him from this evil of evils…

BOOM!

Ophar's outer barrier scattered on the spot, his flow of mana unable to suffuse it with enough energy to keep it from shattering. And even before it could do that, whatever struck him exploded, filling the insides of his outer barrier with a hail of raging flames and sharp shards of red-hot metal.