Chapter 213: An Overwhelming Battle (2) |
To the beastmen still riding their Riding Wolves farther in the rear, it looked as though a row of earth spikes had suddenly appeared out of nowhere ahead of them, blocking the road.
Before they could react and urge their Riding Wolves to avoid the spikes, the earth spikes before their eyes suddenly exploded.
A powerful field of wind crashed toward the beastmen, carrying with it chunks of the spikes that had been sliced into several sections.
Ordinarily, even if a large chunk of stone spike smashed directly into a beastman’s head, it would not necessarily cause much damage.
But these shattered spike fragments were different.
The gale came with them.
When one of the fragments struck the beastman charging at the very front, he suddenly tasted something metallic and sweet in his throat.
Instinctively, he reached for his neck, only to touch a warm liquid that felt strangely hot in this freezing place.
But it was his own blood, which made that warmth impossible to take comfort in.
A beastman’s large physique naturally meant that the arteries in his body were stronger and thicker. Once his tough skin split open, blood almost burst out from his neck.
The beastman behind him saw only that the one in front had paused for a moment after being struck by a rock.
Then blood suddenly sprayed from his neck, and his entire body collapsed straight to the ground.
That sight dealt a tremendous shock to his understanding of the world. He had never imagined that one of his companions could die so quickly.
Although the neck was still a fatal weak point for them if cut open, for all First-Tier Professionals, it was both a weakness and not a weakness.
Once someone became a First-Tier Professional, the toughness of the body rose tremendously.
If one First-Tier Professional slashed another across the neck with an ordinary iron sword, it would likely cause only a large wound, not a fatal one.
And yet now, he had just seen a First-Tier Professional have his neck torn open and be killed on the spot.
That made him even more confused and horrified. They were beastmen. Under normal circumstances, the defensive strength of their skin should have surpassed that of an ordinary First-Tier Professional...
While his thoughts were flying in all directions, an attack born of the wind pierced straight through the Riding Wolf beneath him.
He suddenly felt the wolf’s body go rigid beneath him, and then both of them toppled to the ground under the force of their own momentum.
Before he could react, the gale pierced through his arm first, carving a long bloody gash along the side of it so deep that the bone within could faintly be seen.
He hurriedly curled up on the ground and protected his vital points, using his outer skin to resist the gale’s attack.
Shielding his eyes and ears, he could only hear through his palms the sound of things being cut apart, along with the heavy thuds of something weighty dropping to the ground.
A few icy-cold streams of liquid flowed near his body, and he could tell that it was blood.
A few moments later, he was still alive, but he could no longer hear any sound around him, including the wind rushing past him and the screams of his companions.
When he opened his eyes, he saw the miserable state of the Riding Wolf beneath him.
Its entire forelimb had been sliced open by a powerful attack, and half of its head had been cut away along with it. Blood streamed from the smooth cross-section.
And when he tried to rise and assess the situation, he discovered in despair that his thigh and waist had both been torn open in several gruesome places, blood pouring out in streams.
A few beastmen had been flung away by the earth spikes and had fortunately escaped the gale’s attack.
They scrambled to their feet, picked up the weapons scattered on the ground, and charged at Fran.
Fran gripped her silver longsword, the blade slanting down toward the ground at her side, and waited for them to arrive.
One beastman at the front charged with bloodshot eyes, clutching a giant axe. His footsteps landed heavily on the ground, and the axe whistled through the air as it chopped down at Fran with mountain-like weight.
A red glow rose along Fran’s longsword, and she thrust upward directly along the path of the descending axe.
The red light passed through the giant axe rushing toward her, leaving behind a charred black mark.
The charging beastman suddenly felt his giant axe grow lighter, and the force of his own momentum carried his body into that streak of red light.
But at that moment, another slash ripped through the air with a sharp explosive crack. A greatsword swept horizontally toward Fran.
Fran changed her stance, drew the red light behind her, then planted one foot on the ground and leapt high into the air, avoiding the heavy horizontal strike.
Then, as her body rose upward, the red glow on the sword behind her dimmed, and a streak of white light lit up across it, followed by the image of an angel appearing on the blade.
A burst of light exploded beneath her. The two beastmen, who had just looked up in confusion as they searched for Fran’s figure, saw only a beam of light illuminate their world.
That instantly robbed them of all ability to judge the battlefield. They could only wildly swing their weapons, hoping to defend themselves against Fran’s attack.
The skin they had once relied on, hard enough to block even the strikes of heavy axes, now filled them with extreme unease, as though nothing more than a thin gauze covered their bodies, ready to be pierced through with the slightest touch.
A searing sensation swept across the bodies of the two beastmen. Their eyes widened enormously.
Still not recovered from the flash of light, the last thing they saw was the white radiance, Fran’s blurred figure, and that flickering streak of red.
On Fran’s other side, another beastman swung a steel club down at her viciously, utterly unaffected by the deaths of his companions.
Fran sidestepped with ease. The red glow on her sword faded, but no white light appeared this time. Instead, the image of an elephant emerged upon the blade.
Fran activated the rune 【Elephant of the Mountains】 on the sword at tremendous speed and brought it down toward the beastman with terrifying weight.
The instant the longsword touched flesh, the flesh was crushed into ruin beneath the weight of a mountain.
Following the sword’s path, a single slash split the beastman’s body apart, cleaving him into two halves. Blood burst open before Fran, leaving behind two mangled heaps of flesh.
Only one beastman remained standing.
He had only just managed to get up, having been pinned beneath his Riding Wolf and therefore unable to rise as quickly as the others.
But the moment he got to his feet, he saw this horrifying scene.
He swept his gaze around him.
All of his former companions had become corpses strewn across the ground.
“Don’t... kill me!!!”
A fear he could not fight surged into his mind. His hot blood turned cold. He dropped his weapon and fled desperately toward the outside.
Fran’s other hand clenched into a fist, and a powerful fluctuation of magic abruptly appeared around his body.
That beastman fused into the earth itself. His longsword and even the clothes covering his body were all merged into his flesh.
This was 【Forced Fusion】 enhanced by Fran’s mental power.
What remained of that beastman was nothing more than a lump of something unrecognizable.