Not too long after, a caravan rolled by. It had five (5) carts, with the one in the middle looking slightly better in quality and design than the other four.
'It must be a travelling merchant.' Marie thought to herself as she remained hidden.
About 2 hours passed by and still no sign of the enemy. It started to worry her, 'what if the enemy mages detected me and took a different route? I should patrol the vicinity a little.'
As she moved around cautiously looking and staying aware of her surrounding. As she hopped from tree to tree, she felt a sudden spike in magical energy in a specific direction. It was the direction where the caravan that passed some time ago would be at the time.
The mana didn't come from a human, it seemed like the caravan had been attacked by a mana beast. For non mages or lower class mages, a mana possess a big threat to them, so if they had gotten intercepted, it would be fatal.
For a slit second there she thought to herself if she should go help those poor merchants who would be helpless before a mana beast, or should she ignore it and keep searching for the enemy mages and stay on mission.
After think about it for some seconds, she choose the first option without much contemplation, lives were on the line.
"Accelerate!" she called out as she cast a spell to increase her speed, and before long she was jumping through the branches of the forest trees in high speeds.
As she closed in on the spot where the caravan stopped, she could see a two and a halve metre tall beast with a body resembling a giant ant eater, wielding long sharp claws that could leave a body on the pages of a pamphlets in seconds, it was a beast in the class of Great Mage.
Under normal circumstances, a Great Mage Class beast would be easy to kill by someone in a higher class. The only thing is this one's claws. 'Let me just use a long ranged attack, no need to risk getting close.' Before Ashia could finish her thoughts, she saw something that threw her off.
Now she had just gotten to the scene but was still hiding well within the tree leaves, three of the guards in-charge of protecting the caravan, were fighting the beast, while the last one who also seemed to be the oldest sat on his horse picking his nose unbothered, as if the fight in front of him was not even happening.
"Come on now! You three have had enough fun, kill that thing fast! We don't have all day." The one sitting on the horse said out loud to the others, just when Marie was about to make her move.
Within a second, one of the guards fighting leaped backwards about seven metres, stretching his palms forward and then turning them to face the sky as he raised them above his head, a big spike grew from the ground and pierced the beast's chest.
This happened in less than three seconds. As the beast was struggling with the large spike through its chest, a second spike sprouted from the ground into its neck before it finally gave up its struggle and died.
'Who are these people? I can't help but think that they are the mages I'm supposed to eliminate. With magic like that, they have to be. But why would people who are coming to fight be riding carriages and moving in a caravan? Not to mention the fact that they are guards.' Marie though to herself. 'Wait, are they sneaking in through this caravan? It doesn't matter. I'll keep an eye on them for a while longer before deciding.' The whole time she stayed with the caravan that had stopped to take a break as they fixed one of their wheels, she didn't notice anything unusual.
The sun was soon setting, and it looked like the caravan had decided to camp there. It got dark quicker than she expected, and before the night grew any deeper, she received her answer.
Two of the guards who seemed to always be on each other's neck started a petty fight over which alcohol was best, eventually releasing their magic pressure after the good job they did concealing it. From their magic pressure, it was clear, these two were Grand Mages.
'Two Grand Mages as guards? Who or what are they guarding that requires grand mages as mere guards? Plus, they were able to fool me into thinking they were just ordinary men, magic spell or artefact?' She wondered.
'What's going on here, I thought these people were coming to the Kingdom as enemies? Why are they moving in a caravan? I wonder who's in that special carriage. It doesn't matter. I will, finish my mission.' She was determined to carry out her mission to the last stop. Why would Grand Mages be concealing their mana and moving in such a caravan? Either way, something wasn't right.
As at the moment, her spell that caused the fog was still in effect and she could even control the intensity of it.
She seemed to have cast another spell as black wave-like smoke that mixed with the fog flowed from her body to her sides, she vanished. Appearing behind one of the four guards who had left the others to take a leak, and with a soft touch at the back of his head he fell flat on the ground. Marie caught the body before it hit the ground.
Within an hour she was through with killing the three that fought against the beast from earlier. Now it was remaining the last and oldest of them there. It shocked her as she heard a voice say something that sounded as if it was purposefully directed towards her.
"I see you have succeeded in handling my brothers well, not bad." The last guard who was still sitting on the ground said a in an audible voice. "Why don't you come out? Don't worry, it'll be worth your time." Just then, a strong magic pressure covered the whole place which almost felt intimidating to Marie for a second.
'This, this man...' She stepped out from the fog into the small clearing, the magic immediately dispersing, there was no need to hide in the shadows anymore.
"So you are also a Grandmaster Mage, just like me? I thought you'll be the same with the other two." She said.
"Hmm."
"How about you tell me how you were able to conceal your mana that well?"