Chapter 853: Neither Side Gives Ground

Eventually, the Subterranean River Bandits find a solution.

A group of creatures with turtle-like shells crawls up the slopes, their limbs drawn in as far as possible.

Volley after volley fails to pierce their defenses.

These calamity creatures are clearly an extraordinary species. Their back armor provides arrow deflection and even effects such as force dissipation.

They crawl slowly, but a little over ten minutes is enough to bring them close to the massed crossbowmen.

Repeated volleys achieve little. Only the most skilled shooters manage to put bolts through gaps in the shells.

As the officers struggle to find an answer, several soldiers guarding the crossbowmen turn and chop down nearby trees. Each trunk is about a bowl's width across.

A few strokes strip away the branches, leaving thick poles more than ten meters long.

The soldiers call to their comrades and head down the slopes in groups of four.

Each group has one crossbowman, two sword-and-shield soldiers, and one man carrying a trunk.

Once they are close enough, they swing the trunks and hammer the shells.

Unable to bear the pounding, a monster pokes its head out. The waiting crossbowman puts a bolt straight through its skull.

Soon, the men discover an even better method.

They slide one end of a trunk beneath a turtle-shelled creature and heave on the other, flipping it away.

The creature drops more than ten meters and hits the ground hard, stunned by the impact.

Many land amid the First Combat Battalion's ranks, where the men swiftly stab them to death.

These heavily armored creatures can stop bolts, but they cannot stop sharp armor-piercing spears.

As they fall, the sensation of weightlessness makes them instinctively poke their heads and limbs out of their shells. They have no time to react when they land.

Armor-piercing spears punch through their heads, or the crossbowmen waiting at the foot of the slopes shoot them dead.

The two sides try several more tactics, each finding ways to counter the other.

Then they return to bloody close combat.

By now, it is afternoon. Neither side can afford to delay.

The calamity bandits want to break through quickly and join their main force at the Five Forts.

The Ninth Warband cannot wait either. Daylight and the terrain are still in its favor.

Its soldiers must kill as many enemies as they can while they have the chance. When night falls, the mountain air will be rich with moisture.

Then the enemy can subject them to magical bombardment. Without sunlight to weaken them, the calamity creatures will also fight at full strength.

The Ninth Warband is good at fighting in the dark, but only compared with other humans. Against calamity creatures, its soldiers would still be at a disadvantage.

Neither side can afford to hold back. They meet head-on in a bloody fight.

Pabos charges into the enemy ranks again. He is not trying to play the hero. In an encounter on ground like this, a commander can do little more through tactical direction.

Leading the fight from the front does far more for morale.

Besides, he needs to push himself as hard as he can during the Calamity War.

He must reach Grand Knight Rank soon. Every other warband commander is already a Grand Knight. Only Pabos needs his equipment to match that strength.

He is only eighteen. Henwell told him not to rush; his father was eighteen too when he reached Grand Knight Rank.

Extraordinary properties are growing sharply stronger during the Calamity War, yet Pabos's talent still puts him among the very best prodigies.

But he dares not ease up, and he is not satisfied.

He knows very well that he was born with a silver spoon in his mouth.

His father's talent is far beyond his own. There is simply no comparison.

Before he turned seven, Henwell was an ordinary boy. He had secretly learned a knight conditioning method, but had never followed a systematic training program.

He had not received extraordinary supplements from early childhood either. His first experience with a body-strengthening potion came through Fabio, when he was eight.

Pabos did not awaken extraordinary power before the age of ten, but he already had a firm foundation.

His upbringing had given him endless extraordinary materials, rare potions, and lessons from the continent's finest combat masters.

Countless gold coins and resources have gone into making him a prodigy.

His father, Pabos knows, fought his way up from an ordinary man to a prodigy, one step at a time.

Others call him an exceptional genius for reaching peak Battle Knight Rank already.

That is true for an ordinary family. But he is Henwell's son: the son of the continent's strongest professional, and heir to its most formidable power.

If he let such a small achievement go to his head, he really would be a fool.

He has a young man's pride. He refuses to be a professional whose strength was bought with gold.

Like Henwell, he wants to fight his way to the top through one bloody battle after another.

No one admires Henwell more than Pabos. His greatest wish is to stand at his father's side.

Pabos's combat techniques are superb. Henwell taught him, after all.

He learned the techniques Henwell had honed through bloodshed and one life-or-death battle after another.

Only now does he appreciate how well those plain, unflashy techniques his father taught him work.

In this melee, it is as if he has all-around awareness. He never faces more than two enemies at once.

His blood-flame fighting spirit grows denser. The calamity creatures nearby realize they cannot let him keep slaughtering their ordinary soldiers.

The same naga warrior charges at him again, swinging two heavy weapons. They lock in combat.

Pabos does not cultivate the power of both locks, yet his strength is astonishing all the same.

He is Henwell's son. Certain qualities associated with the Gene Lock have passed down to him.

His superhuman gifts give him powerful defenses and strength beyond others of his rank.

His opponent is far larger and of a higher rank, but Pabos still fights fiercely.

At last, as the sun sets and shadows fill the valley, Pabos lifts the naga's enormous severed head.

He hurls it into the broken ranks of the Lobster Cavalry, then accepts a medical kit from the advancing soldiers.

He takes out a hemostatic potion, crushes the vial, and spills its contents over his shoulder.

The naga's blade struck him there during the fight. It broke through his armor, fractured his collarbone, and left a hideous wound.

"General, fall back and have that wound treated," a centurion urges.

Pabos crushes another vial and pours the potion over his wounded shoulder.

He removes his metal gauntlet, unfastens his pauldron, and reaches up to set the broken collarbone.

The high-grade potion, combined with his considerable self-healing ability, is just enough to join the bone.

He still needs time and rest to recover.

On a battlefield, that will have to do for now.

He shakes his head and looks at the centurion. "Pull back and rest. Have the fourth hundred-man unit take over!"

"Everyone, catch your breath. In five minutes, keep pushing forward. Drive them out of the valley!"