Chen Yu and Chubby One’s escape shuttle was moving at an extremely fast speed.
They drew two green arcs across the sky above the Shadow Mountains, and before the drifting shadow tentacles along the way could even lift their heads, the sword light had already swept past them from above.
But the deeper they flew, the darker the surrounding light became and the thicker the air felt.
He felt as if he had plunged into a pot of dark syrup that was slowly solidifying. The speed of their shuttle gradually matched the flying pace of a Giant Dragon.
After passing through who knows how many mountain peaks, a terrain completely different from the surrounding continuous ridges finally appeared ahead.
A low-lying valley nestled between two mountain hollows. Inside the valley lay a large number of collapsed pillars and broken columns swallowed by moss. Judging by the distribution of the remaining pillars and the iron bars that hadn’t fully rotted away, this place had once been a cemetery of considerable scale.
And inside the relatively intact stone church ruins of this cemetery, Chen Yu finally locked onto the positions of Arthur and Count Bran again.
However, the turn of events was not what he had imagined before.
....
Fallen tombstones were wrapped in dark green moss, forming blurry, lumpy shapes. Decayed railings leaned haphazardly in the soil, crawling with dark vines.
Arthur sat astride his skeletal warhorse, standing silently in the middle of the path facing the cemetery gate.
The gel disguise on him had long since completely vanished, revealing his undead true form.
His posture was as unwavering as ever, his spine straight, his bone spear resting horizontally across the saddle, and the two wisps of deep blue Soulfire in his eye sockets calmly staring ahead.
On the moss-covered grass outside the cemetery, countless shadow creatures were closing in from all directions.
They were all shadow knights wielding long spears or straight swords. Their armor styles varied—some wore ancient pointed helmets, some bore tattered cloaks—but every single one advanced in silence.
In the very center of this legion of shadow knights, a burly figure, a full half taller than the other knights, stepped out slowly with resounding footfalls.
This was a centaur-formed spirit.
His face was not blurry and chaotic like that of ordinary shadow creatures; his features were clear and distinguishable, his contours rough and rugged, and deep within his eyes burned two balls of dark, cold light.
This centaur stared behind Arthur and spoke in a low voice.
“Count Bran, I didn’t expect you would still dare to return here.”
From the moment he stepped out of the formation, his gaze had been firmly locked onto the crow perched on the roof of the dilapidated chapel.
Seeing that his trick of disguising himself as an ordinary crow had been exposed just like that, Count Bran decided to stop pretending. He flapped his wings, flew down from the eaves, and landed on Arthur’s shoulder guard.
He folded his wings, his claws tightly gripping Arthur’s shoulder guard, the feathers on his neck slightly puffed up, his tone carrying obvious guilt, but his beak still wouldn’t let up.
“Caw! What ‘Black Lance Knight’? You call yourself a spirit? So petty!”
“I’ve said it many times before—that incident back then was the work of the Shadow Scions! It had nothing to do with me!”
“Insidious and cunning, just like a crow,” the Black Lance Knight said, ignoring his rambling and merely giving a flat evaluation.
Hearing this, Count Bran immediately lost his temper, squawking furiously and yelling back at the towering centaur spirit: “What did crows ever do to you! I’ve never eaten your bugs!”
“You, with a head full of wood, that’s right, you brainless fool!”
Arthur instinctively turned his head, and Bran immediately used his wing to pat his helmet: “Not you, not you.”
“Oh.” Arthur turned back, tightened his grip on his bone spear, already prepared for battle.
Seeing that his retainer had entered the zone, Count Bran proudly puffed out his chest: “You ugly spirits without even a single feather, watch closely.”
“I am no longer the same count I was a hundred years ago! Behind me lies a massive Magical Creature Empire, spanning swamps and ice fields. Even Legendary demons were beaten into ash in The Abyss by His Majesty!”
“We are not on the same path as you wild creatures!”
He flapped his wing, the tip pointing straight at the shadow knights ahead: “Retainer! I command you to destroy these ignorant fools who can’t tell right from wrong!”
“Yes, Count.” The Soulfire in Arthur’s eye sockets suddenly expanded. The deep blue flames spread along his bones, enveloping the entire bone spear in deathfire.
The Black Lance Knight said nothing more, simply raising his left arm.
The front ranks of shadow knights spurred their horses and charged first. The iron hooves of dozens of warhorses slammed into the soil simultaneously, shaking the remaining foundations of the cemetery.
Just as Arthur, man and horse, were about to be engulfed by the entire charging formation, the skeletal warhorse let out a neigh that tore through the darkness, rearing its front hooves high and smashing them heavily onto the moss.
Then, carrying Arthur, it charged straight into the encirclement of shadow knights.
The deathfire surrounding Arthur surged several times in magnitude the instant he accelerated his charge. The deep blue light rolled outward violently, and wherever it passed, the front-most shadow knights that first collided with it had both man and shadow burned straight through by the flames.
Arthur made no unnecessary movements. Each sweep of his long spear landed precisely on the flanks and saddle-sides of the shadow knights where they were most defenseless during the gaps in their charge.
The terrifying momentum sent both riders and horses flying, crashing to the ground where they were trampled further by the warhorses.
The remaining shadow knights quickly adjusted their formation, using their numerical advantage to flank and encircle from the sides.
Long spears stabbed simultaneously from various angles toward the center. Arthur used one hand to yank the reins, turning his horse sideways to avoid the most concentrated thrusts.
But there were too many spear tips. A few still grazed his breastplate and the straps of his shoulder guard, piercing through and tearing a small section of his cloak from the back.
Count Bran screamed in fright, shrinking his entire body into Arthur’s helmet: “Retainer! Counterattack! Counterattack now!”
Arthur still remained silent, simply extending his left hand.
[Withering Aura]
A gray-green ripple swept across the shadow knights charging in the innermost circle. Their movements, in an instant, seemed weighted down with lead—their horses’ hooves grew heavier, the momentum of their spear thrusts dulled.
Then his bone spear swept outward. The riding spear carved a deep blue moon arc through the slowed formation of shadow knights.
The four nearest shadow knights were swept directly off their saddles. The moment the bone spear pierced their shadowy bodies, they began to dissipate, turning into pure dark mist that faded away with the wind.
And in the afterimages of their complete dissolution, a few faint specks of pale golden light separated from the black mist, silently merging into the Little Flower growing inside Arthur’s breastplate.
The Black Lance Knight gave him no time. His spear swung down from above, the shaft making almost no sound as it cut through the air.
Arthur raised his spear to parry. The moment the shafts collided, an explosion erupted—a deep, heavy boom that made all the surviving tombstones nearby tremble simultaneously.
The ground cracked beneath his feet. The skeletal warhorse let out a mournful whinny, its four hooves stumbling backward in the muddy pit, each step leaving a deep hoofprint in the soil.
“Retainer, be careful! This guy was a 12th-rank Extraordinary knight when he was alive!” Count Bran screamed in warning from inside the helmet.
Then he dismounted, casually thrusting his bone spear into a nearby half-collapsed tombstone, and pulled the knightly straight sword, which looked utterly unremarkable, from his waist.
Seeing him abandon his warhorse, Count Bran flew out in panic, flapping his wings wildly at him and whispering, “Caw! Arthur! Are you stupid!”
“If we can’t beat them later and we have no horse, how are we supposed to run? You don’t have four legs to outrun this big horse!”
Arthur looked up, his Soulfire burning steadily, and said seriously, “No need for a horse. He is no match for me.”
As he finished speaking, the Black Lance Knight had already charged again.
“Arrogant!”
His voice echoed through the valley. His front hooves rose and stomped down, but Arthur dodged them with a nimble sidestep. Just as the hooves hit the ground and splashed mud, the lance thrust toward his left shoulder.
Arthur raised his sword to parry. The blade scraped against the spear tip, creating a series of deep blue sparks.
He didn’t resist forcefully but instead shifted his weight to the left, letting the power slide off. The lance scraped past his shoulder guard and stabbed into empty air.
While deflecting, he swung his sword backhanded, slashing forward along the Black Lance Knight’s horse-body. The sword tip left a gash burning with deep blue flames on the shadowy armor.
Count Bran, however, was not so lucky. After leaving Arthur, he was chased by several knights trying to stab him, forcing him to squawk in terror through the air.
“Caw! Arthur, save me! Save me, now!”
Arthur parried the incoming lance from the Black Lance Knight and stood his straight sword upright before his chest, as if praying to nature. The Little Flower wrapped around his chest bloomed with light.
[Life’s Protection]
?
Count Bran suddenly found himself enveloped in light. Even when a spear stabbed him, it didn’t hurt anymore.
“Caw ha ha ha! It’s a nature shield!”
“Retainer, why didn’t you say earlier that you knew this move!”
Count Bran’s courage instantly swelled. He dove down and clawed at the shadow knight that was chasing him.
“Chase me, will you! Chase me! Scratch you! Scratch you to death!”
It dealt little damage but was extremely insulting.
Count Bran’s actions lured most of the shadow knights away, leaving only the Black Lance Knight and Arthur in the center of the battlefield.
The two clashed again. The Black Lance Knight raised his spear to knock the sword aside, then, using the advantage of his centaur height, stabbed down four times in quick succession from above.
Each thrust was dodged or parried by Arthur, but every missed spear tip slammed into the surroundings upon landing.
Mud flew everywhere, tombstones collapsed, and the original shape of the cemetery was no longer discernible.
Taking advantage of the moment before the Black Lance Knight could withdraw his fourth thrust, Arthur closed in, stepping into the centaur’s front, and slashed his sword across the opponent’s chest at close range.
The blade left a not-too-deep, fiery mark on the shadowy surface. It seemed ordinary in power, even weaker than the fighting display of an Elite Professional, yet it made the Black Lance Knight’s brow twitch.
He felt this flame was burning his soul, as if it were naturally designed to counter him.
The surrounding shadows began to churn as if boiling.
The Black Lance Knight forced Arthur back with a single thrust, pivoted his horse half a turn on the spot, and launched another round of flanking charges.
He merged his entire being with the spear, using the advantage of his massive weight and speed to swing the shaft horizontally at Arthur’s waist.
Arthur tried to stretch out his arms to grab the spear, but was dragged backward by the impact, plowing two deep furrows through the moss with his legs, furrows that were immediately filled with mud.
The Black Lance Knight pushed him out of the cemetery, through the decayed fence, and into the dark forest. Along the way, trees were snapped in two by the impact of their bodies, the sound of trunks breaking like a string of low, rapidly ignited bombs.
By the time the tremendous force of the charge was finally stopped by Arthur, the Black Lance Knight realized that the front end of his spear had somehow been frozen to the ground by a layer of gray-white frost.
He instinctively pulled hard, shattering the ice. The spear was still intact, but in that split-second gap, Arthur’s straight sword blade had already reignited with deep blue deathfire.
The flame looked sparse and ordinary, quietly swaying in the wind with the slight motion of the blade.
The Black Lance Knight’s face, illuminated by the mass of deep blue flame, flashed with instinctive wariness.
This was no ordinary flame. This fire was cold—so cold that even the remnants of a spirit’s soul instinctively wanted to flee from it.
[Death’s Sentence]
The straight sword slashed down.
The arc carved by the blade was not long. From gathering to falling, the entire process occurred within a single flicker of flame.
But it struck.
The Black Lance Knight’s right arm, which held the spear, was severed cleanly by the blow. The explosive black mist that scattered had barely drifted away before it transformed into specks of light and melted into Arthur’s body.
The spirit saw firsthand that the Soulfire in this undead knight’s eye sockets seemed to have grown even brighter.
The Black Lance Knight raised his front hooves and kicked Arthur flying.
Arthur’s entire body was smashed into the mountain rock like a stone shot from a catapult. A large, spiderweb-like pattern of cracks spread from the point of impact on the rock face, upward.
But just seconds later, he stepped back out of the mountain rock, his gait still steady, without a trace of stumbling or hesitation.
The Black Lance Knight stared at the pitch-black figure re-emerging from the shattered rock and remained silent for a long time. In the end, he did not launch a charge.
The undead knight he was facing was no simple foe.
This undead knight was also only one step away from Legendary.
That flame seemed ordinary, lacking the earth-shattering power of a mage’s spell, but it carried an icy temperature that even death dared not approach, as if it could plunder his very soul and make it a part of its own strength.
This centaur spirit was not willing to completely sacrifice his existence to a sword that could devour souls.
So he merely stood there, looking at Arthur for a moment, then withdrew his spear and retreated.
The shadow knights uniformly lowered their spears, followed him at a slow trot out of the cemetery, and retreated like a dark tide along the edge of the forest back into the denser darkness.
Seeing the knight legion begin to retreat, Count Bran flapped his wings and flew up, so excited that his feathers puffed up a full size larger.
He even chased after the retreating shadow knights, clawing at one’s shadowy body with his claws. Then, before the other knight could turn around, he flew quickly backward and, craning his neck, let out a triumphant screech at the backs of the retreating legion.
“Caw! Now you know how formidable I am! Lucky for you, you ran fast!”
After flying a full circle, he suddenly remembered something, flew back to Arthur, folded his wings, and landed on his shoulder guard. Tilting his head, he looked at him.
“Retainer, are you alright? The kick that big horse gave you just now sounded louder than a dwarf blowing up rocks.”
Arthur thrust his straight sword back into its scabbard at his waist and shook his head. “He is no match for me.”
His voice was calm, as if he were simply stating a fact.
Count Bran used his claw to nudge Arthur’s shoulder guard. “Humble, humble! Retainer, remember to uphold a knight’s virtue.”
This guy was somehow managing to boast about himself with a humble expression.
He was now seriously suspecting that his retainer had picked up a bad habit of arrogance. Ever since entering the Shadow Mountains, he would say every enemy he met was no match for him. But if you said he was bragging, he always managed to solve the trouble somehow.
Arthur was truly something, saying a 12th-rank spirit was no match for him. Could it be he could even cut down a Legendary?
Caw ha ha ha! That was as ridiculous as the idea that he, Count Bran, could dig up a thousand bugs in one go from the King.
“The Count is right,” Arthur replied, though it was unclear whether he had actually taken it to heart. He walked toward his horse, treading on the damp soil.
“?” Count Bran suddenly tilted his head. “Arthur, did you see that? How come there are two green things on the back of your warhorse?”
Ever since he had spent some time following His Majesty in the swamp, he had become extremely alert to this green color, able to spot it even from a great distance.
Arthur looked over and hesitated. “It should be slimes.”
“Caw! Slimes?!”
Count Bran got excited.