A sword glow flashed as brightly as the stars in the darkness and approached at blinding speed. From Loristâs point of view, the hastily created blades of light seemed to form a large net that sealed off all his surroundings.
The figure that rushed towards Lorist was the annoyed junior assailant. His strikes were lethal and aimed to take his life, despite what the senior assailant said to only take his arm.
Lorist let out a cold snort and drew his sword without backing down. The moment Loristâs sword struck out, the countless light blade attacks that flew towards Lorist dissipated without a trace.
âWhaâŚâ The opponent was caught off guard by Loristâs successful attempt at deflecting the light blades. Not only that, Lorist instantly took the initiative and lashed out at the assailant without sparing a single moment. In but an instant, the assailant took a defensive stance as he struggled to block Loristâs flurry of attacks.
The opponent tried to use brute force and take advantage of the disparity in power between a Gold rank and an Iron rank to break Loristâs stance. However, Loristâs swordsmanship was too unpredictable and managed to suppress the enemyâs move before it was even able to be unleashed and followed up with a flurry of incessant attacks like a rush of floodwater which forces its way through any gap, however small. The constant flow of strikes forced the opponent into a situation where he could only defend without being able to counterattack. Loristâs swings also changed trajectory often before it landed and aimed for the attackerâs openings, forcing the attacker to gradually move backwards.
The enemy was already sweating all over. Had it not been for Loristâs constant pressuring that didnât allow him to catch any breath, he wouldâve already called for help from his senior apprentice brother long ago. Not even while dreaming could he ever imagine fighting against someone with swordsmanship as fearsome as this that rendered the difference in raw power between a Gold rank and an Iron rank nonexistent. At this moment, Loristâs performance wasnât like that of an Iron rankâs at all. The assailant has only felt pressured like this when he sparred against his other Blademaster senior apprentice brother.
Behind Lorist, loud constant sounds of swords clashing rang out and stopped. Only Potterfangâs ragged breathing and the other assailantâs cry of despair could be heard.
âUgh⌠Agh! It hurts⌠You madman! Ugh⌠It hurts as hell⌠Junior, how are you holding up? Quickly settle that bastard and come help me out! This Silver rank is a total madman I tell you! UghâŚâ The senior assailant actually got a large cut and groaned away in agony.
Potterfang laughed softly before saying, âCome on. This was how I took care of Gold ranks on the battlefield. I take two of your strikes to deal one back. Three for one if I have to. Letâs see who can take more attacks before collapsingâŚâ
That senior assailant no longer dared to attack Potterfang head on and only gritted his teeth as he circled around Potterfang while unleashing ranged light blade attacks as he called out for his junior to help out. He even berated his junior nonstop for taking so long to kill a mere Iron rank.
Little did the senior assailant know about the juniorâs woes. Hearing that Potterfang got injured, Lorist increased the ferocity of his attacks and didnât give too much heed to technique and forcefully struck towards the opponentâs chest. The junior assailant hastily took a few steps back while deflecting several waves of attacks with much fear in his eyes. Initially, he was happy that Lorist took the offensive against him and thought that he would be able to break Loristâs longsword with his higher ranked Battle Force. Even if the sword didnât break, he would still manage to make Lorist suffer a huge lost based on the pure difference in power.
Before, the assailant found it hard to parry Loristâs swift and careful strikes. Currently, Lorist no longer cared much for finesse and technique and attacked with brute force. The junior assailant gladly brought his sword to meet Loristâs only to discover that what he had expected to transpire didnât happen and instead, he felt a strong wave of force passing through his own sword that caused him to loosen his grip on his weapon. The longsword was knocked out of the junior assailantâs hands and he instantly scrambled backwards in fear and somehow still managed to escape certain death.
Lorist was incredibly frustrated. Before, he had thought his opponent would take quite an effort on his part to defeat given how much he had boasted before. But now, all the assailant did was defend and dodge all over the place without any intention of counterattacking. No matter how formidable Loristâs swordsmanship was, it wouldnât be of much use against an opponent who didnât dare to take a single one of his strikes.
This wonât do, thought Lorist as the junior assailant flocked around the place after picking his sword up like a frightened little bird. It seems that I must come up with some other way to take care of him.
Slowly advancing towards his enemy, Lorist swung his sword in an elegant manner like a peacock dancing under the lights of the lamps around him to attract the opponentâs attention. Without any giveaway, he slowly raised his left arm. Twang! A soft sound of a spring decompressing could be heard as a thin projectile flew out from Loristâs left sleeve without a noise towards its target.
The junior assailant let out cold sweat when Loristâs attacks intensified. The cries and curses of his senior apprentice brother from afar only served to increase his anxiety. As he prepared to take on the attacks from the approaching Lorist, he felt an urge to scream out loud in frustration. It was like the roles of a Gold rank and an Iron rank had reversed between them!
Lorist instantly leaped towards the junior assailant with his sword letting out a loud swishing sound as the light of the lamps reflected off its cold metal edge. Preparing to evade the flurry of attacks with no intention of parrying any whatsover, the junior assailant suddenly felt a blinding pain coming from his left foot. He quickly lowered his head to look at his leg only to discover that a thin, long black dart had buried itself into his foot and nailed him to the ground.
Terrified beyond his wits as he looked at Loristâs approaching form, the junior assailant quickly begged for mercy to no avail. Loristâs longsword hit his target and broke through the Gold ranked Battle Force auraâs defense with little to no resistance and with the sound of flesh being cut, the longsword dug itself deep into the assailantâs body.
âYou⌠Ugh⌠Sh-shameless bastardâŚâ groaned the junior assailant with all the energy left within his body while rolling both his eyes.
Not ashamed at all for using the hidden dart, Lorist said sincerely, âThanks for the compliment.â
As Lorist pulled out his longsword, the body of his dying opponent slumped down to the ground like a sandbag that was leaking sand. Lorist turned to his back and moved towards the grumbling and shouting senior assailant as fresh blood slowly dripped all over the floor from the tip of his sword, creating a trail of crimson in the wake of Loristâs passage.
The senior assailant had taken a slash to his inner thigh. While it wasnât a lethal strike in itself, it sent waves of pain to the senior assailant and effectively decreased his mobility. That strike caused the senior assailant to stop taking Potterfang head on and circle around him instead while he waited for his junior apprentice brother to come back him up. This only served to worsen the wound as every step he took sent torrents of pain down his nerves. It wasnât surprising that he would be grumbling and cursing from all that suffering.
However, Potterfang didnât look like he held up well either as his left shoulder blade and right lower abdomen looked rather bloody. However, the former injury wasnât as bad as it seemed as the cut wasnât that deep. It was a different story for his right lower abdomen however as the injury was created from a piercing attack rather than a slash. It would be bad if that strike had pierced any of his internal organs. The senior assailant also sent one light blade attack after another which caused Potterfang to parry each of them; an action that further intensified the bleeding from his right abdomen.
The senior assailant stopped moving around and launched a few more ranged attacks before looking down to the injury on his thigh. He had already wrapped it with a makeshift bandage made from the cloth from his garments. Blood still leaked out from the bandage nevertheless. The assailant pulled on the bandage lightly and grimaced in pain.
As Lorist slowly approached him, the senior assailant was under the impression that his younger apprentice brother had come. With his head looking downwards, he complained, âWhat the hell is wrong with you for taking so long to take care of a mere Iron rank? Gosh! This fucking hurts! That Silver rank is a total madman. Watch out when you attack him as heâll take your attacks with his body to land a hit on you! Donât fall forâ Ah! Ah! AHHH!!!!â
Upon raising his head, the senior assailant discovered that the figure approaching him was Lorist instead and his face paled in an instant. After stammering unintelligibly for quite a while, he finally exclaimed, âWhy! Why is it you?! W-w-w-whereâs my junior apprentice brother?!â
Lorist pointed to the back with his sword and said, âHeâs lying on the ground over there. He really did end up paying his life for attempting to take my arm. Well, he failed at it anyway. Itâs your turn now.â
The footsteps continued without stopping.
âYou⌠Donât come any closerâŚâ said the senior assailant as he pointed his sword towards Lorist and scrambled backwards in fear. Having heard of the death of his junior, his mind was already in a chaotic state. Loristâs form slowly morphed into that of a demon king in his vision.
The senior assailant retreated to the flower patch behind him before stopping and looking around. He threw his sword towards Lorist and circulated his Battle Force before stomping down to the ground and leaped, enduring the excruciating pain as he made his escape.
A sharp sound reverberated through the plaza as a longsword flew through the air like a javelin and penetrated the senior assailantâs back and reemerged from his front chest. The assailant let out a deafening cry as he crashed towards the flower patch in mid-jump before struggling to get up and finally exhaling his final breath. The longsword was actually Potterfangâs. When he saw that the senior assailant intended to escape, he flung his longsword without thinking and collapsed on the ground afterwards.
Lorist knocked the senior assailantâs airborne sword away and thought that that the assailant had successfully escaped. He was surprised to discover that Potterfang had thrown his own sword and taken the senior assailantâs life.
âThat sword was very well launched. It was really impressive,â praised Lorist as he made his way towards Potterfang quickly.
Potterfang let out an unenergetic laugh as he said, âItâs nothing special. I learned back when I was in the military. Even so, I still couldnât match up to you. Even though we both fought against Gold ranks, you actually emerged unscathed and helped me fend off my enemy whereas I got a few injuries myself and only got the kill when the enemy was frightened into escaping by you.â
Lorist helped Potterfang up and carefully placed him on the bench before inspecting his injuries. The slash on the left shoulder blade wasnât that detrimental, however seriousness of the jab to his right lower abdomen couldnât really be determined under the poor lighting of the street lamps.
Seeing Lorist so worried about his injuries, Potterfang felt moved and said weakly, âItâs okay. Iâve already taken that into consideration when the sword came at me. It shouldnât have injured any of my internals and will recover after resting for a month or two. Iâve been hurt worse when I was in the military and still managed to survive to this day.â
Lorist removed his linen undershirt and used it to wrap up Potterfangâs injuries before going to check on the corpses of the assailants. He returned with two bags of money, two swords and two Gold ranked Battle Force badges.
âWeird, these swords are rather common but the badges have a different design compared to the ones issued by the trade union⌠Theyâre pretty rare around here,â said Lorist.
Potterfang also nodded his head helplessly, unable to recognize where the badges were from.
The two pouches of money contained more than 20 gold Fordes and 30 plus large silvers. Lorist put the gold coins and large silver coins into two different pouches and handed the one with the gold Fordes in it to Potterfang. âBrother Potterfang, letâs split the two pouches of coins among us. I wonât hold back and will be taking the one with more coins in it.â
As Lorist stuffed the bag with the gold Fordes into Potterfangâs shirt pocket, Potterfang was totally stunned as he wore an expression of immense gratitude. âMister Norton⌠YouâŚâ
Lorist interjected and said, âJust call me Locke. The moment you fought alongside me as a comrade, youâve already become my friend. And friends donât speak so formally among one another.â
âOkayâŚâ Potterfangâs face revealed a smile. âAlright, Locke. you can call me Pog. Thatâs what my comrades in the army used to call me.â
âAlright, Pog,â replied Lorist.
Sounds of horses galloping on the road could be heard. It turned out to be Reidy who drove the carriage with many people within it as well as several others holding on to the luggage racks on the roof and the back. Seven or eight people loudly rushed over with Els and Charade running at the front. They all let out a breath of relief when they saw Lorist unharmed.
âWhereâs the enemy? Did they run away?â asked Charade as he breathed raggedly.
âNo they didnât. Look, they are lying down dead within the plaza,â said Lorist as he pointed towards the dead bodies. âDo you have any medicine?â
âYes, yesâŚâ said Charade as he scrambled to take the medicines out from his pockets. Els waved for Terman and the others to go inspect the corpses.
âDaddy, daddy!â A boy and a girl rushed over and held Potterfangâs hand tightly while letting out streams of tears from their faces. This was Howard and Alisa, Potterfangâs beloved children. They had been jolted awake during the carriage ride and saw that their father was no longer around. Had it not been for Charade who told them they were on their way to rescue their father, who knew how much harder they wouldâve cried? Nevertheless, they still burst into tears upon seeing their fatherâs injured state.
âDonât cry, Howard. Youâre a boy. You must learn to be strong and protect your sister in the future. Boys canât simply let out tears like that. Daddyâs fine. Itâs only a couple of flesh wounds that arenât really anything to worry about,â said Potterfang as he stroke both his childrenâs heads.
Charlando limped over with a cane in his hands and said, âI know these two. Just this evening, they were the first to arrive at the inn and sat at a corner by themselves and drunk without talking to each other. Iâve been eyeing them for quite sometime but I stopped thinking too much about them since they didnât bother the other guests. They started to leave the moment Lorist came back in after checking the carriage out and even paid the money to Louise!â
Charade said, âDid they leave the inn early to ambush Lorist on the way? Lorist, do you have any leads from their corpses?â
âOther than the money pouches they carried, there were two of these badges and nothing else. Oh, the swords they used were pretty common too,â said Lorist as he tossed the two Battle Force badges over to Charade.
Flipping the badges around, Charade said, âThe design is indeed different from the normal ones, but I canât remember where these badges came fromâŚâ
As he passed the badges to Els, Charade grumbled, âHey, this is your territory you know. Thank goodness Locke is fine. Otherwise, letâs see how you will be able to make up for it to the rest of us. Quick, bring these two bastardsâ corpses away and try to see if we have any clues on where theyâre from.â
Els took the badges and said, âWow, theyâre indeed One Star Gold ranks. I was rather skeptical when Reidy said that two Gold ranks ambushed Lorist⌠Whatâs more surprising is that both of them ended up dead! Sol, Locke. Youâre truly a monster!â
âHey, Brother Pog here is injured you know. Had it not been for his help, I wouldnât have fared this well either. Help me bring him to the carriage first and send his children and him back to my house. By the way, whereâs Instructor Marlin?â asked Lorist.
Charade replied, âHeâs still sleeping very soundly within the carriageâŚâ