In the darkness, a flash of swordlight erupted—brilliant as a starfield, swift as lightning. In
The figure lunging at Lorist appeared to be that impatient junior brother, striking with ruthless abandon. This was nothing like the earlier claim of merely wanting one of Lorist's arms—the blade aimed straight for vital points, and the attacker couldn't have cared less whether Lorist lived or died.
Lorist gave a cold snort and, instead of retreating, surged forward. He drew his sword and charged to meet the attack, arriving first despite drawing second.
The instant blade met blade, Lorist's longsword roared with wind and thunder, and the skyful of sword-gleam vanished without a trace.
"Ah—" The attacker had never expected Lorist's counter to be so devastating. Not only had it shattered his sword technique and seized the initiative, but Lorist pressed forward without yielding a single step, launching a full counterattack. In the span of a heartbeat, the attacker went from aggressor to defender, parrying and blocking in a frantic scramble, hard-pressed on every side.
The attacker tried to meet force with force, relying on his Golden-rank
The attacker was already drenched in sweat from the sheer effort of parrying. If Lorist hadn't pressed so hard that he couldn't even catch his breath, he would have cried out for help long ago. Never in his wildest dreams had he imagined encountering swordsmanship this terrifying. The gap between Golden-rank and
Behind him rang out a rapid series of clangs—clang, clang, clang—followed by Bodefinger's grunts and the eldest brother's shriek of pain.
"Oww... hiss... that hurts! You lunatic—you're a complete lunatic! Oww... it hurts like hell! Junior brother, aren't you done yet? Finish that kid off and come help me! This Silver-ranked one is a straight-up lunatic, hiss—" The eldest brother had clearly taken a nasty hit. Wounded and in agony, he was hollering from the rear.
Bodefinger's hissing laughter rang out: "Come on, then! This is how I take down Golden-rankers—two sword strikes for one, three for one if you like. Let's see who drops first..."
The eldest brother didn't dare close in on Bodefinger for a decisive exchange. He merely circled warily around him, sending out blades of light to keep him pinned while urging his junior brother to hurry over and help. He kept complaining the whole time—how his junior brother always acted so tough but couldn't even handle a Black Iron swordsman, must have practiced his swordsmanship by stuffing it down a dog's belly...
What the eldest brother didn't know was that his junior brother was suffering in silence. Lorist had heard the commotion behind him and realized Bodefinger was wounded. He intensified his assault, several times smashing straight through the center with brute force, driving for the junior brother's chest and abdomen. The junior brother had to retreat and dodge frantically just to barely escape those surges of swordwork, his heart gripped by ever-deeper terror. He had actually been secretly pleased when Lorist chose to clash head-on—after all, with his Golden-rank longsword's blade-light, he should have been able to snap Lorist's blade easily. Even if it didn't break, it should have dealt Lorist a serious blow. After all, his opponent was only Black Iron.
Earlier, Lorist's swordwork had been too fast for the junior brother to even block. Now that Lorist was coming at him directly, the junior brother had no reason to hold back. He put everything into a head-on collision of blades—but the result he'd been hoping for, the opponent's sword shattering, never came. Instead, a jolting force surged through Lorist's longsword and nearly knocked the weapon from his grip. His blade was sent flying wide, leaving his torso completely exposed. The junior brother was terrified out of his wits, scrambling backward on hands and knees just to escape with his life.
Lorist was exasperated. He had originally thought this opponent was a ruthless character—the way the man had spoken, so smug and cold, Lorist had assumed taking him down would cost him something. But aside from that opening strike, the rest had been nothing but scrambling, dodging, and desperately blocking, with not a single decent counterattack. No matter how superb one's swordsmanship was, it was useless against an enemy who refused to engage and did nothing but flee.
Sure enough, before Lorist even advanced, the junior brother was already crouched like a startled bird, retreating in tiny, deliberate steps with every ounce of his concentration. It seemed Lorist would need a different approach to finish him off.
Lorist advanced slowly toward his opponent, his right hand holding his longsword at an angle, reflecting the dim yellow glow of the distant streetlamp as he traced peacock-like arcs of brilliant sword-shadows in the air to draw his opponent's attention. His left hand quietly rose, and with a soft click of a catch, a thin black sleeve-bolt flew silently from the launcher strapped to his left arm, shooting straight toward its target.
Cold sweat poured down the junior brother's forehead. The pressure Lorist exerted on him was so overwhelming that he'd become completely deaf to his eldest brother's endless cursing and urging from the distance. Seeing Lorist closing in once more, he retreated in small steps while steeling himself for the incoming attack. Inwardly, he was choked with frustration—he wanted to scream and vent all the resentment building inside him. Who exactly was the Golden-rank swordsman here and who was the Black Iron? Shouldn't it be the other way around?
Lorist lunged forward, his longsword erupting with the sound of wind and thunder. Accompanied by a chilling gleam, it flashed toward the junior brother like lightning. The junior brother's courage had long since shattered—he didn't dare meet the attack head-on and simply wanted to fall back and evade. But just as he tried to move, a searing pain erupted from his left foot. He looked down to discover a thin black sleeve-bolt pinned through the top of his foot, pinning it to the ground...
It was already too late. Wherever Lorist's longsword reached, the Golden-rank Combat Force shielding the opponent's body melted away like snow before the blade, offering no resistance at all. With a wet thrust, the longsword pierced clean through.
"Uh... des... despicable..." The junior brother hung impaled on Lorist's sword, rolling his eyes upward like a dying fish as he forced out two words.
Lorist knew the man was referring to his use of a hidden bolt, but he felt not the slightest shred of embarrassment. Instead, he nodded with genuine sincerity: "Thank you for the compliment."
He withdrew his longsword, and the dying opponent crumpled to the ground like a punctured sack. Lorist turned and walked, one step at a time, toward the eldest brother who was still quacking away like a duck. Blood dripped from the spine of his blade onto the ground, quickly forming a crimson line.
The eldest brother had taken a sword-wound on the inner side of his left thigh. While the injury wasn't life-threatening, it brought not only searing pain but also made movement extremely difficult. Especially since, after being wounded, the eldest brother hadn't dared press forward to fight to the death. Instead, he'd adopted a strategy of skirmishing—intending to wait for his junior brother to finish off his opponent and then join forces against Bodefinger. The result was nothing but suffering upon himself. Every step tugged at the wound, making him grimace and shudder. No wonder he kept cursing without pause.
Bodefinger wasn't in great shape either. His right ribs and left shoulder were slick with blood. The wound on his left shoulder looked gruesome but was probably not cut deep. The situation with his right ribs was far worse—that was a stab wound, and if it had pierced an internal organ, things would be dire. On top of that, the eldest brother kept launching light-blades at him periodically, and every time Bodefinger swung his sword to deflect them, the wound on his right ribs bled anew.
The eldest brother had stopped advancing. He lazily fired a few light-blades toward Bodefinger, then bent down to examine the wound on his thigh. He'd already wrapped it haphazardly with torn strips of cloth, and blood was seeping through the bandages. He prodded the dressing, then cursed through gritted teeth as pain lanced through him.
Lorist approached slowly. The eldest brother assumed it was his junior brother returning, and without looking up, complained: "What took you so long? How did it take you this long to deal with a Black Iron brat? Hiss! It hurts like hell. That Silver-ranked one is a lunatic—watch out for him, he'll trade his life for yours. Don't let yourself—ah! Ah! Ahh..."
When he raised his head and saw that the figure emerging from the darkness was Lorist, the eldest brother's face went white. After stuttering for several seconds, he finally managed a complete sentence: "W-what—how is it you? Wh-where's my junior brother?"
Lorist flicked his sword to the side. "Over there, lying on the ground. He really did pay with his life for my arm—too bad he didn't get his wish. Now it's your turn."
He continued to close in, step by step.
"Y-you... d-don't come any closer..." The eldest brother pointed his sword at Lorist, retreating in panicked steps. Hearing that his junior brother was dead had thrown him into complete disarray, and Lorist's slowly approaching figure had become a demon of death in his eyes.
He stumbled back several steps until he hit the flowerbed behind him, then stopped. Glancing around, an idea came to him. He hurled his longsword at Lorist, then spun, channeled his Combat Force into his feet, and launched himself off the ground with a cry of pain, trying to leap over the flowerbed and flee without his weapon.
A whistling sound cut through the air—a longsword soaring through the void like a thrown spear. It pierced the eldest brother's back and erupted from his chest. The man flailed in midair with a single wretched scream before thudding down into the middle of the flowerbed, where he struggled a few times and then went still. It was Bodefinger who had thrown the sword. Seeing the eldest brother attempting to flee, he'd hurled his weapon without a second thought—but after throwing it, his whole body slumped.
Lorist knocked aside the eldest brother's thrown sword with a deft parry, but he was still six or seven meters away. Seeing the man leap to escape, he knew he couldn't catch up in time. He'd thought the eldest brother would get away, but Bodefinger had delivered a perfect throwing strike, killing the man in midair with a single throw.
"Now that was a fine throw, old friend—excellent technique!" Lorist called out in praise, striding quickly toward Bodefinger.
Bodefinger smiled weakly: "That's just basic military combat technique, nothing special. But I can't compare with you—two Golden-rankers, and you're completely unharmed, killing the enemy ahead of me. Meanwhile, I got stabbed and had to rely on you scaring the enemy off just to find an opening. I'm ashamed."
Lorist went to Bodefinger's side and helped him lean carefully against a long bench, then began examining his injuries. The wound on his left shoulder was nothing serious, but the stab wound on his right ribs was hard to inspect properly in the dim streetlamp light.
Seeing Lorist fussing over his injuries, Bodefinger was quite moved. He smiled faintly: "It's fine, I know what I'm doing. When the sword came, I was already bracing for it—there shouldn't be any damage to the internal organs. A month or two of rest and I'll recover. Back in the military, I took hits worse than this and pulled through just fine."
Lorist stripped off his linen undershirt, tore it into strips, and bandaged both of Bodefinger's wounds. Then he went to the two corpses to search them, finding only two coin purses, two longswords, and two Gold One-Star Combat Force badges.
"Strange—these two swords are ordinary enough, but these Gold Combat Force badges don't look like any style from the Commercial Alliance. Quite unusual," Lorist said.
Bodefinger couldn't identify them either and shook his head.
The two coin purses contained roughly twenty gold Forde coins and about thirty large silver coins. Lorist put the gold coins in one purse and the silver in another, then took the silver purse and said: "Bodefinger, old friend—these are our spoils of war. One purse each. I won't be polite; I'll take the one with more in it."
Bodefinger blinked, a look of gratitude in his eyes: "Mr.
Lorist waved to cut him off: "Call me Lock. The moment you drew your sword and stood beside me against the enemy, you became my friend. Between friends, there's no need for pleasantries."
"...Alright," Bodefinger smiled. "Fine then, Lock. You can call me Bode—that's what all my comrades-in-arms called me."
"Got it, Bode," Lorist said.
From the distance came the rumbling of a galloping carriage—it was Reidi driving it back. The roof and the rear luggage rack were packed with people. Before the carriage had even come to a complete stop, the passengers were leaping off and came rushing over in a clamor. Earle and
"Where are the attackers? Did you beat them off?" Fatty Shi asked, still panting.
"Over there—and in the flowerbed. Both are lying down," Lorist pointed in the directions, then asked Fatty Shi: "Do you have any wound medicine?"
"Yes, yes..." Fatty Shi hurried to pull medicine from his person.
Earle waved and led
Lorist unwrapped Bodefinger's bandaging to reapply medicine.
"Dad, Dad!" A boy and a girl came rushing over, grabbing Bodefinger's hands and beginning to cry. These were Bodefinger's children—Seward and Alisha. They had woken up on the carriage terrified—strange carriage, strange people, and Dad was gone. If Fatty Shi hadn't explained they were on their way to pick up their father, who knew what state the two children would have been in. But now that they'd found Dad only to see him wounded, both children broke into wailing sobs.
"Don't cry, don't cry. Seward, you're a boy—you need to learn to be strong. When you grow up, you'll protect your sister. Boys don't cry over nothing. Dad's fine—just a little cut, a bit of blood. Nothing serious." Bodefinger stroked Alisha's hair as he spoke to his son.
Garrilando came hobbling over: "I recognize these two. Tonight was their first time at the Red Crow Tavern—they sat in a corner drinking the whole time, barely talking. I watched them for a while and it seemed like they were waiting for someone. Since they were so quiet, I didn't think much of it. But later, when young Lock came back from the yard after checking the carriage and went to the counter to settle up and leave, these two left first. It was Louise who collected the payment."
Fatty Shi looked thoughtful: "Could they have gone to the Red Crow Tavern just to wait for Lock? And left early specifically to set up an ambush on the road ahead? Did you find anything on them, Lock?"
"All they had besides their coin purses were these Combat Force badges—nothing else. Oh, and these two swords." Lorist handed over the two badges.
Fatty Shi turned them over and over in his hands: "The design is rather distinctive, but I can't recall where these badges are from."
He passed them to Earle, who was cursing under his breath as he returned: "This is your territory. It's a good thing nothing happened to young Lock—otherwise, how would you explain it to everyone? These belong to the two dead ones. Take them and see if you can find any leads."
Earle took the badges and looked: "Wow, these really are Gold One-Star. When Reidi ran to the tavern saying two Gold One-Stars had ambushed you, we didn't quite believe it. And here you are without a scratch while both of them are dead. Damn it, Lock—you're a damn monster!"
"Can't you see Bode took a hit? If he hadn't stepped in, I'd have been in real trouble. Cut the chatter—everyone lend a hand and get Bode onto the carriage. His family will stay at my place for now. Oh—where's Instructor Marlin?" Lorist asked.
Fatty Shi said: "Still on the carriage... sleeping like a log..."