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Chapter 16: Rout
A single horizontal slash, and ten thousand soldiers could not withstand it.
What kind of presence was this?
Not only Black Knight Sasal but also the distant militiamen and mercenaries were dumbfounded. Was this still a man? Even the legendary Knight Templars of old couldn’t compare. The human forces, already in the rhythm of their assault, erupted into cheers, their morale skyrocketing. For a moment, their combat effectiveness seemed to multiply threefold or more as they pushed the undead back with overwhelming force.
Sasal knew then that all was lost. Yet the dark, proud blood coursing through his veins forbade surrender. What kind of army was this? By their appearance, they were nothing more than a ragtag militia—barely even that, just a makeshift force of frightened refugees. And yet, they possessed an impressive core of leaders and commanders. Who were these people? Where did they come from?
Eruin was nothing but a decaying kingdom, a relic of history. How could the rising power of Madara suffer defeat at the hands of such a nation, let alone at the hands of this motley crew? Even its own citizens had long lost the will to fight for this land. Sasal refused to accept defeat at their hands.
The Black Knight drew his sword, his soulfire burning fiercely within him. He turned sharply, seizing a higher-ranked skeletal wizard beside him and pointing toward Brandon’s position. With a loud command, he ordered the wizard to unleash a Mind Pierce at the enemy.
Then he patted the neck of his horse, urging it into a trot. Accompanied by three Black Warrior bodyguards, he pushed through the sea of skeletons toward his opponent. Sasal believed that even in a losing battle, a desperate charge might still allow him to slay the enemy commander amidst the chaos—to reclaim his honor.
This was the pride of Madara, the pride of the dark nobility.
But Brandon noticed the situation at the same time. He immediately pointed toward Chael, who responded by firing a bolt of white light at the skeletal wizard casting its spell. However, Chael hadn’t anticipated that his magic would glance off the wizard’s ribcage and dissipate into nothingness.
Chael’s level was too low.
Brandon recognized this instantly upon seeing the resistance effect triggered after the spell hit. He frowned slightly. As he was busy slicing off the heads of several skeleton soldiers to his side, there was no time to withdraw his sword. But Brandon reacted swiftly, raising his left hand—a bright azure triangular magic array forming in his palm.
The skeletal wizard’s Mind Pierce had already been unleashed, but Brandon injected three wind elemental crystals into his Elemental Pool and activated his wind elemental Fate Card—Energy Drain.
The azure card represented the power of wind: flexible, unpredictable, and capable of turning the tide in an instant. The transparent, serrated wave of psychic energy shot forth like a blade from the wizard’s forehead, crossing half the battlefield in an instant toward Brandon’s group. But then, bizarrely, it froze mid-air—as if time itself had paused for a moment—before refracting back like a storm, emitting a series of muffled explosions along the way. Countless undead creatures’ desiccated skulls exploded in succession.
The skeletal wizard, now headless, swayed on its skeletal steed before collapsing to the ground.
A master of both magic and swordsmanship!
The less experienced mercenaries were awestruck, but Retto, Mano, Barthom, and Voltaron nearly dropped their weapons in shock. To them, Brandon was already a prodigy: a young man under twenty with mid-tier iron rank strength, an exceptional commander, and a learned scholar. Such a figure was rare enough.
But now they saw that he was also a wizard, capable of matching even a mid- to low-tier skeletal wizard.
Could he be one of the fabled Enlightened Ones?
Sasal felt a chill run through him—not fear, for the undead could not truly feel fear—but doubt crept in. Who was this young man, wielding an elven blade, possessing unparalleled martial skill, and commanding with calm precision? How could someone like him remain unknown in Eruin?
In that moment of hesitation, two of the Black Warriors accompanying Sasal charged ahead to meet Brandon, who advanced relentlessly. The young man showed no change in expression, effortlessly batting away the first Black Warrior’s greatsword as though its five-unit strength stat were a mere illusion.
He raised his sword high and brought it down on the junction between the Black Warrior’s shoulder armor and neck. The elven blade descended like a vertical silver line, slamming both rider and horse into the ground with a thunderous crash.
Brandon turned, deflecting the second Black Warrior’s massive sword with a punch, then spurred his horse forward, grabbing the enemy’s sword hilt with one hand while thrusting his blade through its heart. He dragged the undead creature off its mount, leaving a trail of destruction behind.
As he narrowed his eyes, he saw the damage indicator float above the fallen Black Warrior: -72. He couldn’t help but marvel at how devastating Lustrous Stinger was against dark creatures. Though the numbers projected onto his retina felt strange, he sometimes wondered if someone had installed a microcomputer in his brain when he came to this world. Of course, that was just a joke.
Brandon tossed aside the burning remains of the Black Warrior and straightened up just in time to face Sasal’s third bodyguard. They exchanged a single blow, and then Brandon cut the enemy down from his horse with a single stroke.
With a sharp sound, a silvery-gray necklace flew into the air as the Black Warrior fell. Reacting quickly, Brandon grabbed it and was delighted to find it was a Ghoul Necklace granting +0.3 Strength.
Even now, Brandon found it odd. In the game, minor magic artifacts were supposed to be as common as plain equipment. Even captain-level NPCs should have at least one each, yet so far he’d only seen Roma’s Spider Ring, Swift Dagger, and this Ghoul Necklace.
In the game, magic items were categorized by their rarity. The lowest tier, iron-grade, was labeled Alchemy and referred to minor magic artifacts. Above that, bronze-grade items were called Glimmer, representing lesser magical artifacts. Moving up, brass-grade items earned the label Magic—these were true magical artifacts, such as Brandon’s Ring of the Wind Sovereign or Freya’s Ring of Flame, which possessed at least one activatable magical power. Silver-grade items, known as Ancient, were rare and powerful enough to alter the balance of strength, like the infamous Lustrous Stinger. Gold-grade artifacts, labeled Fantasy, were legendary items celebrated in bardic tales, though few existed outside of tales. At the pinnacle stood dark-gold-grade items, designated Myth—true rarities symbolizing immense status, often wielded by core members of major guilds.
As for divine artifacts, aside from the Mercury Scepter and a handful of ancient relics, most were held by legendary figures—either rulers of nations or gods themselves. Examples included Saint Orlso’s national treasure, the Ring of the Wind Sovereign, or the Sacred Spear of Azure Dragon, Cerulean Sky.
Yet despite these extraordinary examples, minor magic and lesser magic artifacts were still quite common in the game. In Vonder, a high-magic world, magic wasn’t as mysterious as people imagined, especially in prosperous regions.
But since arriving in this world, Brandon had encountered surprisingly few magical items after several battles with Madara. Not even defeating a Golden Tree boss had yielded an Ancient-grade item. If not for the treasures recovered from Jared’s Tomb, he might have suspected a difference between reality and the game.
Still, the Ghoul Necklace dropped by the Black Warrior brought some relief. Perhaps Goran-Elsun was simply too remote.
Lost in thought, Brandon was startled when a dark sword slashed toward him. Instinctively sidestepping, he saw the Black Knight charging toward him on horseback.
The young man glanced around. The enemy was already defeated, his bodyguards dead or dying. Yet Sasal neither retreated nor surrendered, instead challenging him directly.
Brandon was taken aback.
……….
Freya pressed her hand against the wound on her side, wincing. Yet the ponytailed maiden felt strangely more upset about the damage to her Half-Body Armor of the Wind Sovereign. She reasoned it was because the armor was so valuable. The militia was herding the routed skeleton soldiers into a valley, following Brandon’s order to leave no undead alive. In truth, the terrified townsfolk and soldiers needed no encouragement—they were more than eager to comply.
Freya rode ahead, helping maintain order during the pursuit to prevent chaos from harming their own side.
Passing a rocky beach, she spotted a one-legged skeleton soldier struggling to rise. Just as she prepared to strike it down, a figure rushed past like the wind, cutting the skeleton down with a single blow.
It was Su, clad in a leather skirt. “Su?”
The bronze-skinned girl approached on horseback, concern in her eyes. “Freya, are you hurt?”
“I’m fine. Have you seen Brandon?” Freya asked, realizing she and the militia had chased the enemy to the other side of the canyon.
“Him? That coward who wouldn’t even accept a knight’s challenge. Why do you care so much?” Su replied thoughtfully.
“A knight’s challenge?” Freya’s long ponytail stilled.
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