"Launch a counterattack?" Captain Guan was caught off guard. At that very moment, a thunderous boom rang out from the direction of the square, followed by a towering column of fire and billowing bck smoke — a massive explosion had clearly gone off in the central square.

  Rulu's voice came through: "Now — all units, hit the Sanctuary's forces with everything you've got. Push toward the square."

  The Rebels were momentarily stunned, unsure how to respond. Captain Guan was the first to snap back to his senses. "Stop the retreat!" he bellowed. "Attack! Full assault!"

  Kallen and the other gray armored soldiers halted their withdrawal and charged at the Sanctuary's armored soldiers. At the same time, the rest of the Rebels raised their weapons and opened fire on the Sanctuary's troops. The Sanctuary's forces met the assault head-on, and both sides were locked in combat once again.

  "Lord Jason, we're under attack — our forces at the square are under attack!" Just as the Rebels unched their offensive, Jason received a distress call from his chief of staff.

  "What? You're being attacked?!" Jason was stunned. He shouted into the communicator, "How many are there? What are we dealing with?"

  "Two. Only two of them — one in a bck cloak and mask, and the other some kind of lion-bodied, human-faced creature."

  "Just two?! You have a hundred men over there — you can't handle two people?"

  "We can't. They're too strong. We're no match for them. Please send reinforcements now, or — or else — AAAAAHHH—!!"

  The chief of staff let out a horrifying scream, and the transmission cut off. No matter how many times Jason tried to hail him, there was no response.

  "Damn it — what is going on?!" Jason's mind was in chaos. His troops were currently engaged with the Rebels and couldn't possibly get back to the square in time, and yet he couldn't afford to ignore what was happening there either.

  In the end, Jason made his decision. He handed command of the battle to someone else, broke away from the fighting, and flew alone back toward the square. His speed was extraordinary — in under a minute, he was hovering above it.

  "What… what is this?!" Jason stared in disbelief. The square, which had been intact just moments ago, was now a sea of fire. Enormous orange-red fmes swept like a storm across the Sanctuary's soldiers, engulfing rge numbers of them in an instant.

  Many of the Sanctuary's soldiers in the square had been caught in the inferno. They burned where they fell, thrashing wildly on the ground and wailing in agony.

  "Damn it — who did this? Who is doing this to me?!" Jason's face contorted with fury as he scanned the square below. He spotted a rge fuel tanker truck parked at the center, and beside it on the ground stood the bck-cloaked Masked figure — helmeted, caped, and holding a silver metal staff. Beside the Masked figure stood a creature that appeared to be a winged sphinx, lion-bodied with the face of a human and wings on its back.

  "These two?!" Jason fixed a hate-filled gre on the bck-cloaked Masked figure, drew his dagger, and plunged into a steep dive, hurtling straight toward the Masked figure by the tanker truck.

  The Sphinx seemed to sense Jason's approach. It raised its head toward him, then snapped open the great wings on its back. Instantly, a violent storm erupted around Jason, battering him from all sides.

  Slowed by the furious gale, Jason's flight speed dropped to little more than a jog. The Masked figure had noticed him too. With a sweep of the silver metal staff, a torrent of fuel sprayed from the tanker's outlet valve and ignited into a tongue of orange-red fme over a hundred meters long, shing upward through the air toward Jason. He couldn't dodge in time — the fme caught him and set his body alight.

  "Ahhh — it burns!" Jason cried out in arm. Fighting through the searing pain, he flew away from the Masked figure at full speed, using the intense rush of air around him to smother the fmes consuming his body.

  Jason then circled rapidly through the air above the square, looking for an opening to close in on the Masked figure below. But the Sphinx never took its eyes off him — the moment Jason drew near, it summoned a powerful storm to batter him and slow his approach, after which the Masked figure would unleash a firestorm to strike at him from below.

  The effective range of the Masked figure and the creature's abilities was immense. Even at over a hundred meters away, they could still call down strong winds and tongues of fme to attack Jason. He made several attempts to advance, and every one of them failed. Not only could he not get close to the Masked figure, he kept getting scorched and battered in the process.

  "Damn them," Jason muttered darkly, hovering high in the air. He could feel that this pair was beyond him. He wanted to call the armored soldiers back to deal with the Masked figure and the creature, but then remembered they were still engaged with the Rebels — there was no way to recall them in time.

  The Masked figure kept summoning firestorms to incinerate the Sanctuary's soldiers across the square. Under that relentless assault, the Sanctuary's troops either burned or fled. In just five or six minutes, the entire hundred-soldier garrison had been reduced to ash — virtually annihited.