Chương 272: Smoke and Mirrors

As Worldstriders started to swarm out of their camp, my two illusions started to flee. A few moments later, they dove behind cover. In a moment of inspiration, I then had one of the illusions 'teleport' away. I knew from Anise's textbook that Zelyrian teleportation existed. It had very limited range, but it was a spell that better mages could use. Since that was the case, one of my illusions was now going to be proficient in the spell. I wanted the worldstriders to feel threatened by my illusions.

My illusions watched the Worldstrider camp as more of them started to swarm the area. My non-teleporting illusion waited a few breaths, for the worldstriders to clump together. Then, he raised a hand, and tossed a fireball at the densest cluster of worldstriders. The worldstriders seemed shocked as the illusory fireball flew towards them. I heard one of them curse.

"They are Zelyrian! Kill them!" It shrieked, as it started to fly away from the fireball. All hell broke loose. Over a hundred worldstriders started firing spells at my illusion. I made the illusion start dodging and weaving around. It was hard for me to track so many different attacks and 'dodge' them all. However, it needed to be done to sell the idea of a Zelyrian attack. At the same time, the 'fireball' started homing in on the fleeing worldstrider.

It tried to flee up, down, and then zigzag around the illusory projectile... but I wasn't having it. With a burst of speed, the fireball zoomed forward, and hit its target. The 'fireball' exploded in a flash of light. At the exact same time, Anise launched a real fireball, which I teleported right into the worldstrider. The fireball expanded outwards with a loud bang, and four worldstriders turned into charcoal. I added to the attack by extinguishing a few more worldstriders who touched the edge of the fireball.

However, my teleportation shenanigan wasn't without cost. While I had been distracted, a worldstrider finally hit my illusion. I made the illusion yell in pain, and then duck behind cover as he nursed his now-bleeding arm. Trying to manage so many different things at once was very difficult. There were too many projectiles to keep track of. So I decided to change things up a bit. I had my illusion use a 'healing spell' to heal up his arm. He popped back out of cover, and smiled at the worldstriders.

Then, he pretended to use a flying spell, before lifting into the air and fleeing.

"He can fly!" Yelled one of the worldstriders. The group started chasing after him as they launched more essence at him. With my illusion airborne, it was much easier for him to 'dodge' attacks. I spared a bit more of my attention to watch the worldstriders themselves. Unlike previous fights, this time the worldstriders weren't thinning themselves out. Since my illusion had used a fireball, they were more worried about compacting their bodies. That would make it easier to avoid a large projectile...

but it also made them very vulnerable to extinguishes. I started throwing my next wave of attacks onto the battlefield. Six worldstriders were extinguished before the worldstriders realized someone else was attacking them.

"The female mage is missing!" yelled one of the Worldstriders. A group of them broke off from chasing my illusion, and started flying higher. They began scanning the area for my teleporting illusion, and also started thinning out their bodies. The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. Anise started tearing them apart, and within seconds, another six Worldstriders died. Finally, the Worldstriders spotted my 'teleporting' illusion. The swarm of worldstriders divided in two.

Half of them kept chasing my flier, while the other half focused on my teleporter. My teleporter gave the worldstriders a cheery smile, and then disappeared again. I set her up just behind a few trees, where she continued throwing fake spells at the creatures. Meanwhile, Anise and I continued to snipe the worldstriders from the distance. My flying illusion proved to be the more difficult one to manage. There were just too many projectiles to dodge, and my concentration wasn't perfect.

Another ball of black essence hit him in the head, and I realized that there was no way he could survive. The 'flying mage' shrieked and dropped out of the sky. I debated how my other illusion should react, before I settled on making her smirk. Plenty of allies didn't like each other on the battlefield. Then, she teleported closer to the worldstrider who had struck the finishing blow, and shot a bolt of silver force at it. Before the worldstrider could react, it was hit.

I followed the illusory attack up with an extinguish, and the creature died. Before the other worldstriders could react, she blinked away. However, I made sure that she reappeared near the same spot. I didn't want the worldstriders to look too closely at their surroundings. If they found Anise and I, the jig would be up. It only took a few seconds for the other worldstriders to notice her again, and then they started firing at her.

With the excuse of 'teleporting,' it was much easier to keep this second illusion from touching projectiles. Furthermore, I spruced up her movements with constant dodging and weaving. Since the flying mage was dead, Anise and I stopped using fireball spells... but extinguish and mage hand were deadly enough. After two minutes of fighting, almost thirty worldstriders died. But by that time, I was starting to get worn out. Keeping my illusion from getting hit was difficult. There were just too many enemies to track.

<Starting to lose focus. Let's retreat, > I told Anise. She nodded. We had already accomplished our first objective during the fight. There was no need to stick around. My illusion teleported to the 'body' of her companion, gathered it up, and then blinked away. Then, she started running. The worldstriders quickly located her and started chasing after her. Her teleportation and dodging skills made her very hard to hit, though. Anytime the worldstriders got too close to her, she vanished into thin air.

Anytime only a few worldstriders were firing at her, she dodged their blows. The female illusion kept well ahead of the pack. Meanwhile, Anise and I prepared our next trick. The worldstriders were immune to most attacks. However, that was because most attacks were on the wrong layer of reality. Combined with their exceptional dodging abilities, they were very hard to kill. But Anise and I had a way to fix that. We took out a barrel of dynamite and the bolts of lightning we had stolen from the Vernese.

I wanted the worldstriders to think that the natives of the continent had effective weapons against them, after all. The best way to do that was to use real Vernese knockoff technology, and just fix its effectiveness. Then, my illusion turned to the worldstriders and giggled. She waved at them, and then blew them a kiss... before she tossed a match at the barrel of gunpowder. She blinked away several times in quick succession, putting as much distance between her and the gunpowder as possible.

At the same time, Anise cast a fireball spell, which I teleported inside of the gunpowder barrel. A thunderous boom shook the area. I saw bits of lightning and gunpowder mix together into something far more explosive than I had expected. Even though Anise and I were standing pretty far away, I still felt the shockwave. About twenty worldstriders died on the spot, and I could see that several more of them were injured. Their bodies weren't destroyed, but they were missing a lot of mass.

My illusion turned around, and fired a few more spells at the worldstriders before they could recover. Many of the wounded Worldstriders went down. Three more worldstriders died before they managed to reorganize themselves. I decided it was time to completely end the raid. My illusion drank a potion, and then started running ridiculously fast. She sped into the distance so quickly that even a horse would struggle to follow her. I had no idea whether or not this world actually had any sort of 'haste' potion…

but I was betting the worldstriders wouldn't know, either. The worldstriders shrieked and yelled in frustration as my illusion sped away, holding the corpse of her dead companion. However, they simply couldn't keep up with her speed. After all, the woman had zero mass or physical components to her. Soon, she vanished from the battlefield, and Anise and I also started sneaking away. We had finished our first raid against the Zelyrians. Now, we just needed to keep it up for a few days.