Chapter 224 – The Final Blow
Maru also saw these people. Although they wore mercenary garbs, their movements were very neat. At a glance, it could be seen that they had good coordination and weren’t your average mercenaries. They should have received regular military training.
Zhao Hai watched the mercenaries. The number of people that had jumped over the wall numbered several hundred. When they entered the courtyard, they didn’t immediately attack Zhao Hai. Instead, they stood in place and changed their positions slightly to form ranks. Although they used up a bit of time, they had already lined up properly and into formation. After that, they charged at him.
On the other hand, Zhao Hai wasn’t worried. He himself was surrounded by many undead and at this time, he’d only used the human-shaped undead. Those beast-shaped undead hadn’t yet been mobilized.
Zhao Hai counted the knights attacking Faith Mansion from the front and came up with 18. These 18 knights had very good coordination with one another and were Rank Six experts.
Soon enough, no matter if it was Maru or the white-clothed bishops, they realized the abnormality of the situation. Those undead were really too special as they didn’t fear the attacks of the Radiance Knights.
One must understand that the weapons and equipment of the Radiance Knights had been blessed with light elemental magic. In addition, those knights themselves had very high battle strength. Zhao Hai, however, had only sent a hundred undead to withstand the attacks of the Radiance Knights. This was simply inconceivable.
Knights and warriors were different. The general understanding of the populace was that knights were a more advanced profession than warriors. Knights could be called the aristocrats of warriors.
An ordinary warrior wore leather armor at best and were equipped with a poor quality weapon. If a warrior wore armor and had a good weapon, then they wouldn’t simply be called a warrior.
A knight on the other hand must have a horse and wear full body armor. Their weapons weren’t like of warriors who only used a single type of weapon. Knights must have a knight spear along with a tower shield and a heavy sword[1]. Once they had those items, they could be called a knight[2].
Warrior, however, only needed to take care of themselves. Even if their weapon was damaged, they could just replace it. The cost also wouldn’t very high.
Knights, aside from looking after themselves, needed to take care of their mounts. Their knight spears was a weapon that could be easily damaged, so they needed to replace it if it was damaged. The price of a knight spear, however, was simply too expensive when compared to ordinary weapons[3]. Due to these reasons, from an ordinary warrior’s point of view, knights might be powerful but was an occupation that burned a lot of money[4]. If one wasn’t an aristocrat or a rich person, then there was no way to become a knight.
Also, due to the fact that knights were so rich, many of them would have a knight attendant. The knight attendant would usually take care of the day to day life of the knight, such as looking after their mounts. When the knight goes into battle, they would be beside the knight[5].
The battle strength of a knight was, without a doubt, formidable. Their strength was directly related to their mounts. If the mount was formidable, then the knight would be formidable. Naturally, if they wanted a formidable mount, then they would need to spend a considerable amount of money.
These Radiance Knights had uniform mounts. Each of them had a Rank Five magic beast, a unicorn[6]. Unicorns were Rank Five light element magic beasts and there were rumors that the Rank Nine saint beast of the elf race had a blood relationship with the unicorns. They had a very high battle strength and could carry heavy loads. These were very good mounts.
The knights of Radiance Church mostly used these kinds of unicorns as their mounts. This wasn’t only because of their battle strength, but also because it looked very strong.
When fighting against a hundred ordinary warriors, an eighteen member squad of knights would be more than a match for them. A single mounted knight’s strength could easily tear apart a warrior’s formation with ease. After a few assaults, they could easily kill those hundred warriors.
Unfortunately, this time the knights were not facing ordinary warriors, but undead as strong as a Rank Seven warrior. The knight charge didn’t go smoothly and they didn’t have a method to tear down these undead. This was truly a very rare matter for them[7].
Dealing with common undead was a very simply problem for these Radiance Knights since their weapons were all blessed with light element magic. So long as they encountered undead, they could inflict great damage to them. The problem was these undead weren’t normal, common undead. These undead were not afraid of light element magic.
Maru stared as he watched the situation. What he saw today was something he’d seen in the past: a battle between Radiance Knights and undead. Today, however, the battle had gone beyond his cognition. The undead and Radiance Knights both resisted the other greatly and didn’t fall to the wind. This, in his opinion, was a fantastical scene.
The undead surrounded by those mercenaries blocked their attacks continuously. Zhao Hai just sat there like one of the old gods. It was as if he truly was watching a play before him instead of a live battle.
Maru didn’t know what Zhao Hai was thinking. He suspected Zhao Hai wasn’t just a madman. A madman wouldn’t be able to do such a thing. Maru didn’t know whether it was right or wrong to invite such a super madman into the Black Magician Alliance.
At this time, Laura looked at the people outside and said to Zhao Hai, “Brother Hai, don’t drag this out for too long. It’ll be bad if you do this and have to give a confession to the Grand Duke.”
Zhao Hai nodded and waved his hand. Suddenly, a lot of undead magic beasts appeared within Faith Mansion. The characteristic of these undead was that they were all very large. Each undead was at least two to three meters in height. Some were even five to six meters tall. Moreover, their skeletal bodies were dark green in color and had spikes protruding from their bones. They didn’t look like something one should mess around with.
When these undead appeared, the sharp spikes on their bodies flew out fiercely like a brutal arrow being shot. They flew towards the mercenaries and shot down many of them.
After the spikes flew, the magic beasts quickly overran them. Maru, however, noted that behind those mercenaries were many undead. Those undead were like death as they mainly used assassination tactics. They were silently getting rid of the mercenaries at the back. Many of the mercenaries now had nobody at their back and were easily killed.
This disaster had come too fast. The mercenaries didn’t have enough time to react before they were killed. Those that hadn’t been killed yet were now caught in a circle of undead and weren’t able to escape.
To deal with these mercenaries, only a few undead had been used. Most of the undead were instead surrounding the Radiance Knights and the white-clothed bishops.
Maru didn’t know what to say. He never would have expected Zhao Hai to have so many undead. Moreover, the battle strength of these undead was very high. This time around, the Radiance Church would eat a loss.
Those five white-clothed bishops had also realized that things were not looking good. They didn’t expect Zhao Hai to have such unexpected strength. Slowly, they began to grow desperate. They knew that today, they had to do everything they could to desperately stay alive and fight.
Zhao Hai stood at this time and watched the five white-clothed bishops. He knew that these were the leaders. Others could run, but these five couldn’t.
He secretly gave Cai’er an order. So long as the white-clothed bishops made any movement, she was to immediately move against them.
The reason Zhao Hai ordered Cai’er to prepare was because of a single bishop’s calmness. When he released the magic beast undead earlier, all four of the white-clothed bishops’ facial color changed. All except for one. This was the one Zhao Hai was talking about, the one bishop he thought was very calm and might be planning something.
This bishop was very calm, and his calm didn’t seem to be due to his own strength. The might of this bishop was average when compared to the other four. He was, however, extremely calm, as if he didn’t have any fear.
Such a person must be hiding something in their hands. This kind of person with a deep background must certainly have a last card to play. Moreover, no one knew what card he had. As such, Zhao Hai paid special attention to him. This was why he ordered Cai’er to deal with him.
Laura and the others had observed the same scene. They looked at the white-clothed bishops and knew they couldn’t run away.
Maru didn’t know, but the rest understood that they had two Rank Nine experts on their side. At a moment’s notice, the Rank Nine experts would follow the command and get rid of their opponents. Even if the opposing party had an ancient magic tool, like a non-directional transfer scroll, they still wouldn’t be able to escape.
Battle was full of chances. So long as one was ready, all accidents could be inevitably avoided. Zhao Hai, this time around, was ready. He was waiting for all of his enemies to arrive. If the enemies didn’t come, then there was no problem. If they did, then they wouldn’t be able to escape.
The mercenaries went down one after another, and the battlefield didn’t give off any suspense anymore. Both the Radiance Church and Boric’s plans had been completely defeated.
Just then, three shadows appeared from the white-clothed bishop’s’ carriage. Three white-clothed bishops weren’t able to react before three piercing swords claimed their lives.
Although the white-clothed bishops used a light element protective shield, they weren’t able to block the attack of those piercing swords. As such, the three white-clothed bishops died in the blink of an eye.
At this time, Zhao Hai was still paying attention to the calm bishop and saw his facial expression finally change as he gritted his teeth. He looked maliciously at Zhao Hai as he extended a hand to his breast. Just as he was about to touch it, vines erupted from the ground and thrust towards the chest of the two remaining white-clothed bishops. When the vines came, a flash of white light appeared and tried to block the vines, but failed. The white-clothed bishop was killed on the scene, his eyes full of disbelief as he died.
Notes:
-This chapter was MTL’ed. Please leave a comment for constructive criticisms and advice. Thanks.
-Please support the author if you love this novel.
-Please check out the Editor’s footnotes, thanks.
Footnotes:
[1] 重剑 – Zhòng jiàn. This is a bit weird since the MTL says Epee, but the literal characters say Weight/Heavy (重) Sword (剑). I don’t see knights using epees—those dueling swords used in fencing—so Heavy Sword was fine. ↩
[2] Who cares about skill and ability. Wallet Warriors ftw! ↩
[3] So they just look cool and have no real value as a weapon? Cause something so fragile sounds like it has a 1-hit use. ↩
[4] A bit odd since they don’t have paper money back then, right? How do you burn gold? Might as well say you toss money down a well or something. It’ll just sink to the bottom. ↩
[5] Knights sound incredibly disappointing… They can’t even fight well by themselves… ↩
[6] 独角马 – Dú jiǎo mǎ. Interestingly, the 角马 can mean wildebeest/gnu… So my imagination now makes fun of knights. ↩
[7] So, ummm, eighteen knights haven’t instantly died after charging a hundred Rank Seven undead? I can’t deal with this math. Other than good mounts and good equipment, what exactly are their positives? Rank Six stays Rank Six and equipment can only do so much. With their blessed equipment having no effect, I’m wondering why they haven’t been pulled down and killed yet. I understand the light magicians being able to repel the greater number of black magicians due to the magic themselves not really changing (Light > Dark), but these are just Rank Six Knights… Sure, maybe a good lower ranked person can beat someone a rank higher, but these are one damned hundred undead. At least kill one knight…