Chapter 74 - 70: Knight vs. Beetle (Part 1)
Chapter 74: Chapter 70: Knight vs. Beetle (Part 1)
Ola slung the massive battle-axe off his shoulder and slammed its tip into the dirt.
He surveyed the thirty Knights at his side.
"Smell that?" he roared in a gruff voice. "I smell it! The sweet smell of Gold Coins! And aged ale!"
"That pretty boy on the horse, who does he think he is? Thinks keeping a few oversized insects will protect his treasury? Bullshit!"
The Knights erupted in scornful laughter.
"I’ll tell you what war is!"
Ola pointed his axe toward Newly Town. "War is my axe smashing open their gates! It’s your horses’ hooves trampling their streets flat! It’s us, snatching their purses and drinking their liquor dry! It’s making them get on their knees and lick our muddy boots!"
"Everything that pretty boy has is ours! Now, follow me and let’s claim our spoils!"
"For Gold Coins and ale!" he bellowed, raising the battle-axe over his head.
"Charge!"
He gave the order and spurred his warhorse on, launching himself forward like a cannonball.
Behind him, the iron torrent of thirty Heavy Armor Knights surged into motion.
The ground began to tremble violently.
It was a destructive force capable of crushing any military formation.
Faced with this torrent, the black beetle phalanx showed no sign of retreat.
They simply lowered the menacing horns atop their heads in unison, aiming them at the charging Knights.
Like a silent, deadly thicket of steel thorns.
The distance closed rapidly.
Three hundred meters.
Two hundred meters.
One hundred meters.
Ola could clearly see his own frenzied reflection in the monsters’ compound eyes.
"HA!"
He let out an excited roar as the Spiritual Power within him exploded forth.
"Stoneguard!"
A visible gray aura erupted from Ola, spreading out to instantly envelop the entire charging formation.
Each Knight and every warhorse was encased in a solid, rock-like luminescence.
This was the signature skill that had made him famous.
This was the source of the Rock Breaker Knight Order’s courage, the reason they dared to charge any Demon Beast Legion!
The next second, they collided.
SKREEEEEEE—!
A scalp-numbing cacophony of scraping metal and snapping chitin echoed continuously.
The glow of Stoneguard flickered violently, like glass being struck by countless iron chisels.
The Knights in the front rank felt as if they hadn’t crashed into a swarm of insects, but into a living wall of countless spikes!
Their momentum was violently checked for an instant.
Several Knights’ warhorses reared up from the violent recoil, nearly unseating their riders.
"Steady!" Ola roared. He brought his axe down in a vicious swing, cleaving a giant insect’s head and half its torso clean off. Green ichor splattered across his face.
He didn’t bother wiping it away, laughing with even greater excitement, "Haha! Is that all you’ve got? Grind them underfoot!"
The Rock Breaker Knight Order proved their elite status. Bolstered by the Baron’s aura, they tore a brutal path straight through the insect formation.
Countless fragments of black carapace and foul-smelling green ichor burst before the Knight Order’s charge.
The corpses of the insects and their shattered carapaces were cast aside like earth before a plow.
"HAHAHAHAHA!"
Ola’s mad laughter echoed across the battlefield, filled with the glee of a conqueror.
’Pathetic!’
’Aside from their scary looks, these monsters are just a bunch of moving targets!’
Charging at the forefront, Ola’s gaze passed over the sundered insect formation and locked onto the young man on horseback, a hundred meters away.
Velin.
That pretty boy hadn’t even moved.
He hadn’t moved. He wasn’t even looking at his "army" as it was being slaughtered. He just sat silently atop his horse.
Then, Ola saw something that made him burn with fury.
The pretty boy actually raised a hand and, with an excruciatingly slow and elegant motion, adjusted his collar.
It was as if he wasn’t on a battlefield, but waiting for an opera to begin.
’That isn’t shock. It isn’t fear.’
’It’s... utter disregard!’
’It’s utter, bone-deep contempt!’
"PRETTY BOY!" Ola felt like his lungs would burst with rage—this was more humiliating than defeat itself.
Ola spurred his warhorse, ready to chop that arrogant head from its shoulders himself.
"Boy! Your little tricks are over!"
Ola bellowed, his voice dripping with condescending mockery.
Just as Ola closed to within fifty meters of Velin, he saw that same hand—the one that had just adjusted the collar—rise gently.
Then, as if brushing away a speck of dust, it flicked downward.
It was the simplest of gestures.
The next instant, the warhorse beneath Ola let out a despairing shriek.
It wasn’t a tremor. The entire ground—the very battlefield beneath him—felt as though an invisible, giant hand had ripped a section of it out from under them!
A feeling of weightlessness seized them all.
The iron torrent that had been unstoppable moments before was suddenly like a stream of iron beads pouring into a funnel.
They tumbled chaotically into the chasm that had suddenly appeared.
As he fell, only one thought ran through Ola’s mind: ’Earth Sinking Skill? No! The range couldn’t possibly be this large!’
Ola landed hard in the pit. He shoved aside the stunned warhorse that had fallen on top of him and staggered to his feet.
It was a massive pit, at least two meters deep, and its edges showed clear signs of having been worked. ’It was dug beforehand!’
He snapped his head up.
At the edge of the pit, the young man was still on horseback, looking down at him.
The sun, shining from behind Velin, obscured his expression, leaving Ola to see only a silhouette.
Then, the black beetles they had scattered began to regroup at the pit’s edge, their movements precise and orderly.
They were densely packed, rank upon rank, like a city wall growing ever thicker, blocking out all the sunlight.
In an instant, the pit became a tomb.
Ola’s mind went blank, a buzzing emptiness.
He finally understood.
’Why didn’t the insects dodge? Why was their formation so rigid?’
’They weren’t a shield... they were a measuring stick! A ruler to precisely gauge the distance of our charge!’
’They weren’t a defensive line... they were a tripwire! A tripwire meant to slow us down, to ensure the entire Knight Order entered the kill zone!’
’Our so-called "bloody battle," my prideful charge... from start to finish, we were just cooperating with their measurements, following the path they’d drawn for us, and walking right into our own tomb!’
Humiliation and rage surged through him, and Ola felt the blood rush to his head.
"You..."
He summoned all his strength, pointed at the silhouette above, and let out a roar of defiance.
"You... don’t think you can hold me!"
With that, a vast well of Spiritual Power erupted from his body.
He let out a great cry, and with a single, powerful squat, he actually leaped out of the pit!