Capítulo 1103: Swarmed

The earth shook furiously with every strike of the champion hunter, some of them threatening to throw Vijudius off-balance, but the living could not let this happen, a single moment of weakness was all that was needed for this fight to end in his death.

If he dared to blink for one second too long, he would be dead, rendered to nothing more than a pile of bloody meat and broken joints, even a sliver of hesitation would mean absolute defeat here.

So he let his fighting coursed unimpeded, pouring everything he had into enhancing every aspect of being, be it the strength of his body, his reaction time, or even the rate at which his body could evacuate heat, nothing was left as it usually was, and like this, he was not only surviving, but was even finding opportunities to strike back.

Twisting his body around as he narrowly avoiding the massive striking head of the flail, hearing the sharp edges momentarily scrape against the side of his armour, he tightened his grip on the halberd as he surged forward, stomping the ground powerfully as he lashed forward the spear-tip of his weapon, hitting the undead straight the chest.

The dull sound of iron striking around rang out, Vijudius felt tremors travel from his weapon, his arms, his entire body trembling as though he was just a few meters away from a ringing church bell, in fact, the sound his attack produced was oddly reminiscent of that.

Or rather, for some reason, the armour worn by the hunter beneath his robes produced that sound for an unknown reason.

The knight rapidly backed off, having to pour more of his fighting spirit to nullify the momentary paralysis caused by the ringing, jumping backward into the air, narrowly avoiding the flail’s striking head as it was forcefully dragged back.

The heavy weapon was easily stopped by the hero hunter’s hand, his dark mask staring right through the living, Vijudius stared back, it was undeniable, merely meeting the gaze of this being filled with a deep-rooted terror, but fear was not enough to trump his determination.

‘Let’s see how many hits your armour can take’ the living moved forward once more.

In the meantime, the other elite knights were facing off against the elite dirt-bloods, the humans had more numbers, but the boost Litrakq was providing to her soldiers was through the roof, and the giant she was standing upon in particular seemed to be utterly indestructible.

No strikes could pierce his skin, nothing could leave even a dent in him, meanwhile, he attacked like a madman, trying to grab hold of the knights, naturally, none of them were allowing for this to happen, doing everything they could to evade the creature.

Curiously, no champion hunters were descending upon them, though they could see many trails of smog falling down from the sky, clearly, all hell had broken loose in other areas as well.

Things were looking grim, but as long as they could defeat the dirt-bloods in front of them, then they could turn around and help their leader, at least allow for him to get out of the fight with life.

But as the knights felt hopeful, one of them was suddenly struck, an arrow landing straight into the small slit for one of his eyes, a minuscule weak point in the helm having been precisely exploited, and in the next instant, a conjoined abomination of fighting spirit and mana surged outward from the arrows, slamming and wrapping around nearby knights, leaving them vulnerable to attacks from the elite monsters.

In a mere ten seconds, many bodies littered the ground, of both knights and monsters, but the humans were clearly on the losing side, they gathered together and made some distance from the enemies, right as Litrakq gracefully descended from the shoulder of the giant, landing with a foul splosh into a carpet of guts bathing in fresh blood.

Her bow was resting on her back for now, her hands on the sheath and handle of her sword, ready to draw it out as she slightly tilted her head and gave the most charming smile she could muster, meaning that it was half-charming, and half-disgusting to the point of puking.

“Surrender, perhaps? I treat knights very- Very well, I am sure you’ll be loving it” she wiggled her brows at them, or rather, her brow as the one on the right side was buried beneath flaps of flesh.

“I would rather die in a fire than have anything to do with you, foul she-creature!” one of the knights barked back with true disgust in his voice.

“Now, no need to be so insulting, you might hurt my fragile feelings! Just because I am a monster, it doesn’t mean that I don’t have a little heart!” her attempt at making a cute face only roused more repugnance from the knights.

“Mmh, I guess she is kinda cute, actually-”

“Shut the hell up, Garjus!” all of the knights collectively shut down their fellow with ‘interesting’ tastes, all of them raising their weapons and flaring up with fighting spirit.

Litrakq smiled.

“If you insist on fighting, then I can only oblige!” she whistled, simultaneously sending her conjoined energy outward, just like when she boosted her soldiers, only, that it was sent toward empty space, or rather, that’s what the knight thought, as all around them, abhorrent dirt-bloods suddenly popped into existence, their spines crooked, their humans faced adorned with large eyes reminiscent of that of chameleons.

Those dirt-bloods were not fighting spirit users, but super-charged by their commanders, and with their numbers all around the knights, things were looking grim for the humans.

Meanwhile, instead of laughing like a maniac and doing a little speech, Litrakq was just smiling contentedly.

“Murder them!” she commanded, feeling quite proud of herself, she had always been looking for an occasion to put those dirt-bloods to good use, but they were somewhat weak in direct combat, weren’t very fast either, and lacked the long tongue of chameleons, simply resembling scaled human with oversized eyes.

Their impressive camouflage ability was all they were good for, but with enough of them, miracles could happen.

And right now, one of such miracles was occurring, as per their commander’s order, they swarmed the knights without hesitation, their normally frail physiques were enhanced by several folds thanks to Litrakq energy boost, allowing them grab and pin down the knights before mindless bashing against their armours, caving the suits into their bodies, drawing blood as many of them were sliced apart or crushed in the beginning.

Litrakq looked at the whole scene while rubbing her chin, stealing glances at the confrontation between Vijudius and Dimios from time to time.

‘Why is Sir Dimios going easy on that guy?’ she wondered, although Litrakq would not claim to know the true extent of the Verfolger leader’s capabilities, she at least knew that this clearly was not it.

But she did not dare question his reasons, instead focusing back on her own fight.

And honestly, she was a bit disappointed in her chameleon-like troops, even with a massive numerical advantage, having the element of surprise and having the enemy surrounded from all sides, they failed to eliminate all of the knights before dying themselves.

Now, the remaining knights, even if alive, were done for, only one had the strength to rise up to his knees.

“I don’t know whether to be impressed in the humans, or thoroughly disappointed in my men” she muttered to herself as she stepped up to the knight.

Looming over him, she unsheathed her blade and pressed it in between a gap that had formed in between his pauldron and helm, the chainmail protecting his neck had broken, leaving the sensitive area exposed.

“Huh… Can… Can I still take the offer from before?” he coughed out.

Litrakq tilted her head.

“Oh, are you the Garjus guy? Do you mean that? That’s a very good choice that you are making right now!” she said, casually stepping on his weapon and sliding it away, wrapping one arm around his neck.

“I can feel that you are scared, buddy- But there is no need to be afraid, you and I are going to be having lots of fun together, from morning to moonrise! I would say that you should take some of your friends with you if you are feeling nervous” she glanced at the fallen knights all around her, even if not all dead, they would be in a few minutes at most.

“But I guess they are unavailable right now, Garjus is your name, right? Well, let me tell you, Gargar, I hope you knight’s stamina is as impressive on the battlefield as it is in the be-” a tremor cut her off, the fight between Dimios and Vijudius was still raging, but there was no point in watching it unfold, the ending would be whatever Dimios desired.

Furthermore, Litrakq still had troops to lead and a battle to win herself.

“Let’s head back”