Chapter 308: Plundering the "Invaders"(2)

A knightly charge was often simple and straightforward. The two horses crossed paths in an instant.

Annie Rui felt a tremendous force crash into him. When he snapped back to his senses in shock, he discovered that his lance had been knocked completely out of his hands.

"As expected, you’ve made a pact with a demon."

Annie Rui glared furiously at Phield. Unfortunately, both of them were wearing closed helmets, making any meaningful eye contact impossible.

Seizing the opportunity, Phield swung his lance toward Annie Rui’s shoulder armor, intending to knock him straight off his horse.

Sensing the howling wind of the incoming strike, Annie Rui demonstrated his superb horsemanship. At an unbelievable angle, he dodged the lance. At the same time, his right hand shot out and grabbed hold of Phield’s weapon.

"Die!"

Drawing his family’s inherited second tier longsword, Annie Rui slashed out. The sharp blade traced a dazzling arc of light through the air.

"Young man, that’s hardly sporting."

Since his lance had been seized, Phield simply abandoned it. Drawing his refined steel longsword, he met Annie Rui head-on.

They exchanged more than a dozen rounds.

Although Phield held the advantage in raw strength, he could not match Annie Rui’s exquisite swordsmanship.

The original owner of this body had been a complete weakling, a naïve saintly fool who had never cared about martial arts. He had left behind no useful swordsmanship techniques.

Everything Phield knew had been forged through bloody battles. His style focused on killing and survival, but lacked elegance and technical finesse.

Annie Rui was different.

Born into a frontier cavalry family, he had been trained in martial skills from the moment he could walk.

Phield was completely outclassed in technique.

"Heh. Being able to last this long against me is already impressive."

Annie Rui’s confidence swelled. His voice echoed from inside his helmet.

"But unfortunately, I’ve only been using fifty percent of my strength."

The members of the convoy dismounted to watch.

"As expected of Baron Annie Rui. Fifty percent is all he needs. Defeat him!"

The knights cheered loudly.

"He’s so handsome. I want to marry him."

Annie Rui’s maids looked at him with stars in their eyes, gazing at him with admiration.

"Your exile was inevitable. With swordsmanship like that, your family probably never even hired you a sword instructor."

Filled with momentum, Annie Rui knocked Phield’s blade aside and swept his sword across.

"My lord, be careful!"

Phield’s two Divine Chosen nearly jumped out of their skin.

Barely avoiding the blade, Phield’s voice turned cold.

"I originally intended to capture you alive. You’re a lot more arrogant than I expected."

During the lance charge earlier, he had deliberately aimed for Annie Rui’s shoulder armor rather than a lethal spot.

He had shown restraint.

"Stop pretending."

Annie Rui sneered.

"Your swordsmanship is far inferior to mine. Your weapon is nowhere near the quality of my second tier longsword. What exactly are you planning to win with?"

He paused before continuing.

"In that case, I’ll capture you alive too. That way you won’t have any excuses."

"Good. Very good."

"So that’s how you want to play it."

"And here you are showing off your weapon."

Phield raised a hand. A cold smile appeared on his lips.

A terrifying black ring flashed briefly before merging into his wrist.

"You have technique. I’ve got stats."

"Let me show you what a true stat monster looks like."

"The Ring of Sin!"

The divine artifact enhanced all physical attributes by thirty percent, granting an absurd boost to his combat power.

"What was that?"

Annie Rui only caught a glimpse of black light. He hadn’t even seen what happened.

"A second tier longsword, huh?"

"You really think that’s impressive?"

Phield swung his sword in a simple, straightforward strike.

Annie Rui suddenly felt his wrist go numb.

His longsword was knocked clean out of his hand and sent spinning far into the distance.

"Huh?"

Annie Rui froze.

The spectators were equally stunned.

In the blink of an eye, Phield had seized the upper hand.

"I was only trying to improve my technique."

"But you got carried away."

"I wanted to interact with you as an ordinary person. Yet you insisted on forcing me to use cheats."

"Why make things difficult for yourself?"

Phield sheathed his sword and threw a simple punch.

However, empowered by mana and a divine artifact, the punch carried the force of a warhammer and an overwhelming killing intent.

Boom!

Annie Rui had barely recovered when he crossed his arms to block.

The punch smashed into him and blasted him straight off his horse.

"My lord is amazing!"

Ashina cheered.

"As expected, my lord never does anything without confidence."

Tisiana wiped away a cold sweat and sighed in relief.

"The lord really doesn’t need to fight duels personally. It’s honestly terrifying."

"Still talking tough?"

Phield jumped off his horse.

"You..."

Annie Rui’s face turned purple with humiliation as he struggled to stand.

"You actually played me, you piece of shit."

With that much strength, he hadn’t used it earlier.

So he had really been using Annie Rui as swordsmanship practice.

"You want to keep insulting me?"

Phield laughed in disbelief.

"Exiled failure."

"Shame of the Ross family."

"Traitor to humanity."

Annie Rui shouted defiantly.

"Good. Very good."

Phield pounced like a wolf.

His fists flew from both sides.

Heavy punches rained down mercilessly.

Screams immediately echoed through the sky.

"What are you standing around for? Save Baron Annie Rui!"

"Let go of our lord!"

Only after Annie Rui had been beaten into a swollen pig’s head did the knights finally react and rush forward to rescue him.

"Who dares?"

"Cross this line and die."

Tisiana dropped the act.

Her magnificent Wings of Sacred Embrace unfolded behind her.

With a sweep of her wings, a row of elegant feathers stabbed into the ground, drawing a perfectly straight line.

Ashina raised a hand.

The enormous Drakewolf crashed to the earth, kicking up clouds of dust.

Dragonfire surged wildly in every direction, nearly causing several people to wet themselves.

"Divine Chosen?"

"And there are two of them?!"

Everyone was horrified.

The knights who had been preparing to charge instantly lost their courage.

If there had only been one Divine Chosen, they might have stood a chance.

Two?

There was absolutely no hope.

Especially since their lord had already been captured.

"Mmph... mmph..."

Annie Rui sat up.

His face had swollen to twice its original size.

He muttered something unintelligible, his expression filled with shock and despair.

Unable to accept reality, his eyes rolled back and he fainted on the spot.

"I know what you were trying to say."

It was probably:

"Damn it, you have Divine Chosen and you still dueled me?"

Phield wiped the blood from his hands, tied Annie Rui up with rope, mounted his horse again, and waved a hand.

"Give up."

"You’ve already been captured."

"Don’t get any foolish ideas. My army is nearby."

"If anyone has objections, you’re free to die immediately."

"Of course, your lord will die before you do."

Everyone looked at one another.

No one dared resist.

With helpless expressions, they threw down their weapons.

"We surrender."

"Please don’t harm Baron Annie Rui."

"Excellent."

"Come with me."

Phield was very pleased by their cooperation.

"Ashina, if anyone tries to escape, kill ten people at once."

The prisoners were terrified by his murderous tone.

Their faces turned pale as they worried about what awaited them.

On the way back, they stopped by the Iron Mine Outpost and loaded all the mined ore.

Ashina escorted the convoy all the way back to Starnight City before reluctantly returning to the Iron Mine Outpost.

Meanwhile, Ophelia returned to Turnip Village to continue monitoring the situation there.

At the same time, she planned to gather whatever useful scraps she could find and further strengthen her undead army.