Chapter 214: Fog (1)
The man’s contemptuous expression made the veins on Leogen’s forehead protrude. The circumstances in which his subordinates were watching, the fear that the ruling structure would be disrupted, the humiliation he had only experienced a few times in his life, and his deadly purpose toward the man were all intricately linked.
“Die, you bastard!”
Within a day of his territory being destroyed, a knight’s thinking and behaviors that he had modified in order to be ordained were returned. Leogen stomped the floor roughly, as if to echo his powerful curses.
The magically charged kick caused the floor to cave in. His massive frame and armor propelled him forward like an arrow. By the time the bandits around them blink, Leogen has already swung his greatsword from top to bottom, right to left.
Despite the intense anguish that made him feel like he was dying, the magic power he had barely polished and accumulated circulated through his magic circuit in sync with his beating heartbeat.
The magical power rushed into the greatsword held in both hands, forming a blue blade. The greatsword’s enormous blade was more than a meter long.
Seeing the magic energy, the man raised his own dark-colored greatsword to meet it head-on.
‘You stupid! If you wield a sword without putting in any magic power, you’ll be cut immediately━’
Bang!
The two greatswords clashed, making a sound similar to rocks clashing. Leogen’s greatsword had a blue blade generated by magical force, leaving a gap of around 5 cm from the genuine blade, whereas the man’s obsidian greatsword had nothing.
Nonetheless, the obsidian greatsword remained unscathed.
“What the……?”
Leogen was taken aback, but his body continued to perform the next action, honed by years of training.
Leogen poured out the swordsmanship he had practiced his entire life without hesitation. He wielded his sword so forcefully that even he became selfless.
His right and left hands holding the hilt of the sword moved constantly, as did his right and left feet, never staying in one place.
His bent and bouncing knees and twisted waist unleashed a centrifugal force onslaught that twisted and stretched towards Russell.
It was the swordsmanship of a well-trained knight. It was unfortunate that it was in the possession of its owner. The man thought as he watched the sword slice at him with dozens of blades. In other words, he had the time to think about something else.
Bang!
The greatswords clashed again. Leogen’s feet, unable to withstand his own strength, dug into the ground, forming a trench as he pushed, while Russell stayed in the same location where he had started.
“Ugh, Aaaargh!”
Leogen, whose face was dripping with sweat, screamed.
Unlike his scream, Leogen truly drained the strength he had been putting into his hands, arms, and shoulders. Naturally, the man’s sword, which had been in a power struggle, pushed forward even further.
He altered his equilibrium and twisted his body, dropping his sword and sliding his foot diagonally to the left.
His arms and greatsword, which had gone over his head, smashed down on the man’s head.
Despite the fact that his neck was about to be severed, the man remained motionless. Even a prisoner with his neck on the chopping block would have made more savage motions.
Leogen thought that his surprise attack might have worked. As his greatsword neared the man’s neck, he felt an unbearable pressure, as if his eyeballs were about to burst, because he was so focused.
So, when Leogen’s greatsword severed the man’s neck, he unintentionally let out a shout of joy.
“Uhahahaha…! Huh?”
At that point, the man’s head, which he believed he had severed, and the body beneath it vanished like an illusion. So his applause concluded with a question mark.
He thought he had killed the man, but it was a mistake. Leogen turned back like lightning. Or so he thought.
Leogen didn’t see it, but the thieves surrounding them saw a brief flash. Some of the thieves might have seen afterimages of Leogen’s movement, but no one saw the man move.
Something sharp sped through the air, cutting into it. It struck Leogen’s left shoulder. Leogen rolled on the floor as a result of the surprise impact and the force required to turn around. Leogen examined his left shoulder.
The shoulder was present, but there was nothing beneath it. His dismembered arm tumbled through the air with his gauntlet, landing belatedly. Leogen heard his own arm fall for the first time.
“Hu, huuuu……”
Leogen couldn’t believe he’d let out such a scream. Surprisingly, he felt no pain. His heart was racing, and sweat was running down his entire body like rain.
The sensation he felt in his shoulder was incredibly strange. It was a bit cool, and a sense of loss. Leogen tried to grab his left shoulder, but found his right arm and the greatsword in his hand.
He lifted his head. He had handled a greatsword that most would not dare touch with one hand, but the guy in front of him wielded a greatsword that even he questioned his ability to lift.
A question popped out of his mouth without him realizing it.
“Who are you?”
The man spoke.
“I am Russell.”
As Russell raised his obsidian greatsword, the blood drips that had been clinging to the blade trickled down and formed concentric circles on the dirt floor.
“I am not interested in your banditry. And I am not interested in capturing and enslaving people. However, if you point your blade straight at me, the situation changes.
His greatsword swung. As previously, the air was ripped apart, and with the headless half-knight kneeling on the ground, Leogen’s neck flew up, neatly severed.
Leogen’s head, having lost its support, bounced in the air, spinning several times. Leogen was still conscious, and he felt a faint dizziness as his vision spun. But he didn’t feel like vomiting.
The bandits’ gazes, which had been following Leogen’s head as it spun reflexively, fell to the floor. The head, which had been rolling on the dirt floor, opened its eyes numerous times. Some of the bandits who noticed the blinking covered their mouths and vomited.
Leogen’s lips moved as if he wanted to say something, but soon stopped moving. His dilated pupils no longer trembled.
Russell, who had hacked off his neck in an instant, spoke as he shook off the blood from his blade.
“Let’s go quickly. Running away will make it even more unpleasant. It’s easier for me and you if you do everything at once.”
The bandits’ cheeks paled as they grasped what his words meant. It was a declaration that he would kill everyone present.
Russell approached the bandits, who had yet to grasp Leogen’s death. He took only one step, as if he were walking slowly, and then he appeared before them as if he had teleported.
When one of the bandits watched Russell materialize right in front of him, he panicked and thrust the spear he was holding forward. It was not a deliberate action, but rather a reflex.
Russell simply stopped the spear with his left hand. The bandits who had stabbed the spear felt a shock in his shoulder, as if he had struck a wall with it. Before he could groan, Russell’s greatsword sliced through his chest.
Blood spurted from the bandit’s body, which had lost both arms and its jaw, and splashed upon the bandits behind him. The bandits shouted and hid their heads or bent down as blood fell on them.
The blood of their fallen companions was warm. The blood seemed even warmer as it hit their skin due to the near-freezing temperatures.
“Ugh, uaaah!”
“Get away, get away!”
The bandits drew away, shivers rising from the hot drops of blood flowing down their skin.
Faced with death, the bandits were confused and didn’t know what to do. The idea of all charging at once and killing him was lost as the bandits scattered in all directions.
They discarded the swords, spears, daggers, and shields they had been carrying to lighten their bodies. The bandits, who had dropped their baggage, furiously kicked their legs, hoping Russell would not come after them.
But Russell truly wanted to kill all of the bandits here.
Bang!
Russell’s form, which had been standing gently, vanished, leaving behind only the exploded dirt floor. Russell arrived in front of the fleeing robber, and the bandit with a bushy beard widened his eyes.
Thwack!
One of the bandits died with his waist slashed in half in a single strike. The other bandits clinched their teeth and fled, their breath steaming as they watched the collapsing body and the blood flowing out. But Russell’s moves were faster than they had anticipated.
With each breath, one or two people died. No one was able to escape, and all died with their necks severed or big holes punctured in their chests.
“Slash!”
“Thwack!”
“Gasp!”
A feast of final words. Pleas for mercy and curses of damnation were both ineffective.
He moved from one end to the other in the blink of an eye, as if he were teleporting. Russell harvested the bandits’ necks like a farmer harvesting grain during the harvest.
A bandit with his jaw blown off slumped, leaving his lower teeth exposed. A man with the back of his head blasted off collapsed face down, and a man with a hole in his face draped over him.
Corpses, widows, and singletons were all mass-produced.
Russell kept his word. Any thief who charged at him died with a single strike. It was an almost suicidal attack, or perhaps a suicide, but Russell respected their method.
The bandits with wounded throats and hearts perished with little knowledge of what had happened. The bandits who dropped their swords, spears, and weapons and fled were distinct.
The bodies with their limbs severed died, bleeding from the cut ends of their limbs. From their intact mouths came pleas for mercy, cries of pain for their lost arms and legs, and murmurs of nonsense, but even that soon ceased.
The spilled blood formed puddles. The puddles grew wider and wider, merging with the puddles of the other dead, growing even larger.
As scores of bandits were killed, the villagers who had been peeking out of various places in the village went out quietly.
There was no gratitude or thankfulness. Most felt fear, terror, and anxiety toward Russell. And there was anger toward the dead bandits, but it wasn’t very strong.
It is impossible to be angry in the presence of a body that has died miserably.
Exhaling white smoke from the bodies of dozens of bandits, Russell sheathed his greatsword in his coat and turned around. Even if he killed a hundred bandits here, another thousand would rise somewhere else, and ten thousand would be suffering.
Russell had learned to think simply in this world. If the other side tried to kill him, he would kill them too. There was no grand reason for it. That was all.
The snow fell again. The higher he went, the colder the temperature became, and the more snow fell.
The muddy dirt floor froze again, and the corpses lying on it fell asleep under the snow blanket, never to wake up.
Russell buttoned up his coat and walked towards the inn where he was staying. He wasn’t the only one who had come out to face the bandits who had stormed the place.
Lexi walked from the other side, swinging her two sickles around. Every time she did this, multiple lines of blood appeared on the floor.
“Is it over?”
“Yeah. What about you?”
“Me too, sort of.”
Lexi smiled with a bloodied face. It was a scary smile on the face of a gorgeous dark elf, but it had become familiar over the course of a few days.
As they entered the inn in the center of the village, the conversation stopped abruptly. There were few men in the first place, mostly weak old people and merchants who had paid the bandits.
Jess, who had spotted Russell and Lexi at a table in the corner, lifted his buttocks from the chair he was about to sit on and greeted them.
“Oh, are you done? We’re almost done too.”
“There were no bodies outside.”
“We put them in the backyard. Mr. Pekot helped us.”
Jess pointed to a man wiping the sweat from his forehead. He was a man with a sharp face, but with many scars all over his face.
Russell could tell at a glance that he was a former mercenary or soldier from his walk and his stiff arm.
“What about you, Russell-nim? Well, you said you’d go to whoever had the most magic, so did it go well?”
“I killed everyone. Did you order food?”
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