Chapter 273: 273 "Xia" (Requesting Monthly Tickets! Requesting Subscriptions!)
Solok only noticed the anomaly about three minutes later.
"Why is it noisy outside?" Solok furrowed his brows and questioned the Knight beside him, "Has someone come?"
Solok could hear a series of somewhat noisy sounds from outside the building, and he could even faintly make out some dull thuds.
"Perhaps someone accidentally approached this area?" The Knight, with his head down, reported, "Although this place is secluded, it’s not completely deserted on regular days. Plus, with the absence of people around, even the slightest sound will be amplified very clearly. So sometimes, it will inexplicably get noisy."
Hearing this, the frown on Solok’s face did not ease.
He always felt that something was not quite right.
Now it was deep into the night; who would pass by such a secluded place?
"Please rest assured, Your Highness," the Knight said immediately upon seeing that Solok was not reassured, "For the sake of concealment, this estate does not have any magic defense systems set up. However, our people are on guard and surveillance twenty-four hours a day. Should anything abnormal occur, we will sound the alarm for us at the earliest opportunity."
In other words, if the alarm hasn’t gone off, then there’s nothing wrong.
Therefore, the Knight did not feel that there was anything amiss.
Rather, since Solok had used this place as a hideout and training ground for his private soldiers, years had gone by without anything noteworthy happening.
Usually, not to mention an attack, even the passage of people only happened sporadically over time.
Thus, the location had always been peaceful. If it weren’t for the fact that the people here were somewhat unsavory, even standing guard and surveillance wouldn’t have been necessary.
This led to none of the Knights present reacting to the current situation, and no one noticed anything unusual. Each of them appeared relaxed.
Only Solok’s pupils gradually narrowed.
He couldn’t help it.
He had already heard some screams.
"You useless fools!"
Solok kicked the Knight kneeling beside him and roared angrily at everyone present.
"This is an enemy attack! Draw your swords!"
As these words had just started to ring out, the attack had already arrived.
"Bang!"
It was the sound of glass shattering.
A dark figure smashed through the glass in one corner of the hall and leapt in from outside, entering the hall.
"Bang!" "Bang!" "Bang!" "Bang!" "Bang!"...
Like a chain reaction, window glasses were smashed one after another, allowing series of shadows to leap inside.
In the blink of an eye, countless dark figures emerged and without a second word, they attacked the Knight closest to them.
"What...!?"
A Knight who was among the first to face the assault changed color, barely having drawn his sword when the shadow who had pounced towards him struck with the blade’s light.
"Splash!"
Accompanying the sound of cloth tearing, blood began to spray.
"Ah!"
The Knight was immediately chopped down, a hideous gash appearing from his shoulder to his side, oozing out copious amounts of blood.
The shadow, after chopping down the Knight, immediately lunged at another Knight, slashing his sword at him.
The same scene unfolded in every corner of the hall.
Each shadow that had broken through the glass now rushed at the nearest Knight, slashing with their blades, either felling the Knights or becoming entangled in combat with them.
The hall instantly became a chaotic battlefield, filled with the continuous cries, roars, and frantic shouts of countless Knights.
"Who are you...!?"
Solok too faced an assault from a dark figure. After timely drawing his sword to block the attacker’s slash, he twisted his expression and growled fiercely, questioning.
Upon closer inspection, all these shadows were wearing black robes and masks, concealing their entire bodies and faces, extending only a pair of knives from the sleeves of their robes, with the cold arc of the blades flickering in the hall.
They were like emotionless Executioners, grim reapers existing solely to harvest lives, never speaking and moving mechanically with flawless actions, the aura they exuded was not like that of living beings, but of cold steel.
Yet, these attackers were each highly skilled, their swordsmanship not mediocre; although not on par with true Swordsmen, they were nevertheless excellent Swordsmen not far below that level.
This cadre of excellent Swordsmen, numbering approximately a hundred or so, could match a small-scale Knight’s order.
"Speak! Who are you!?"
Solok felt both shock and fury.
Especially seeing the soldiers he had secretly kept for several years crumble like dominoes under the attack of the enemy, with many of them chopped down, and those not felled barely coping and in a sorry state, that made Solok’s anger unstoppable.
His inner brutality and savagery were ignited at that moment, causing him to roar and slash out with a dazzlingly fast and brilliant stroke of his sword at the black-clothed Swordsman in front of him.
This slash, even a true Swordsman might not manage to react to unless they were a veteran Swordsman. Otherwise, there was generally only one outcome: to be split open.
The black-clothed Swordsman, being an attacker, naturally lacked the ability to block this stroke and didn’t even have the chance to react.
But as Solok’s slash landed on the dark figure, an astonishing situation occurred.
"Clang!"
Amidst the clear sound of metal clashing, Solok’s sword struck the body of the black-clothed Swordsman and bounced back as if it had hit steel.
The recoil shocked Solok into stumbling back two or three steps. His face first registered shock, then it darkened.
"These guys aren’t human."
Solok had finally realized this.
"They are controlled puppets."
"The attacker here wasn’t a Swordsman, but a Magician."
"A Magician skilled in manipulation magic."
This guess was half right and half wrong.
The correct part was that these black-robed Swordsmen were indeed not human, but puppets, more accurately, combat automatons.
The wrong part, however, was that the person controlling them wasn’t just any Magician, but also a bona fide Swordsman.
"————"
Out of nowhere, a mist suddenly enveloped the scene.
A thin, faint mist appeared abruptly and swiftly.
"What is this?"
Solok abruptly leapt away, avoiding the thin mist.
Obviously, he was worried that something was amiss with the mist, suspecting it was Magic unleashed by the attacker, or perhaps that it was poisonous.
But he worried unnecessarily.
The mist was only meant for concealment.
The proof of this came after the mist blew past like a wind, and in front of Solok, where a second before there had been nothing, a figure suddenly appeared the next.
It was a figure like the other puppets around, cloaked in black, from one sleeve of which a blade extended.
The other party seemed not to be wearing a mask, but because of the slight downward tilt of their head and the hood covering their face, Solok could not make out their features either.
Yet from this person, Solok felt a fatal threat.
"This person is very strong."
And not just ordinarily strong.
Solok subconsciously realized this.
This realization made him grip his sword tightly, his focus no longer on his surroundings but rather fixed intensely on the Swordsman who had appeared with the mist, as alarm bells rang in his mind.
The other party didn’t look at Solok immediately, instead glancing at a corner of the wall.
"What, what’s happening!?"
"Someone save us!"
"I, I’ve had enough!"
The three members of the Brilliant family were huddled there, clutching their heads, squatting on the ground, trembling violently and crying out helplessly.
"......"
Watching the Brilliants in their plight, the Swordsman in the mist remained silent, only turning back to Solok after a few seconds.
"———!?"
It was at that moment, with a chilling premonition exploding in his mind, that Solok instinctively leapt backward.
Almost simultaneously, the black-robed Swordsman, carrying a whiff of the mist, concealed themselves within it, and with a sliding motion, rapidly closed the distance to Solok.
"Mist Breathing Fourth Form: Level Flow Slash."
A low murmur, audible only to the Swordsman, resonated across the battlefield.
In an instant, a flash of blade light emerged from the mist, striking with astonishing speed and hitting Solok.
"Pu-chi!"
A spurt of blood burst from Solok’s chest.
He had been cut.
Even though he had leapt back with all his might, avoiding an instant death by being cleaved in half, his chest had still been struck, leaving a gash.
"Hmph!"
Solok grunted, retreating backwards while fishing out a vial of potion from his chest and without thinking, gulping it down.
Then, the wound on Solok’s chest emitted a faint glow, visibly healing at a rapid pace.
"Oh?" The Swordsman in the mist seemed a bit surprised, and perhaps mocking as well, as they said, "Befitting a Prince indeed, carrying a Magic potion that heals wounds so quickly—quite the fortune you possess."
Solok, however, felt not the slightest bit pleased; instead, his expression soured to the extreme, and he glared furiously at the other party, speaking word by word.
"Who·are·you·exactly!"
The grinding of his teeth left no doubt that Solok wanted nothing more than to tear apart the heart of the attacker before him.
This was only natural.
Had he not reacted swiftly earlier, he might already be dead.
Had he not carried a healing Magic potion, he would be gravely wounded, if not dead.
This person had come to kill him.
Aware of this, Solok’s heart burned with extraordinary rage.
Unfortunately, his anger was completely worthless to the person before him.
"Me?"
The other party gave a detached smile and spoke indifferently.
"You can call me..."
"Mist."