When Asher returned to the camp, he gathered the hundred soldiers before him and accepted the system’s notification.
Swoosh!
A brilliant light enveloped the group and when it faded, Asher’s eyes narrowed as the scene before him. Each soldier now wore a basic set of gear: a metal helmet with a fan-shaped crest, a layer of scales over their leather vests, vambraces and knee guards. The upgrade was as minimal as it could ever be.
Asher was a bit puzzled. These were supposed to be diamond-ranked soldiers. Was this truly their limit?
Levi stepped and clenched his fist. With two powerful strides, he leaped over ten meters into the air, his hair fluttering until he landed right before Asher.
Seeing this Asher blinked in surprise. He recalled that after becoming a diamond-ranked knight, Alex could only manage a seven-meter jump. But Levi had jumped an entire three meters more!
“White hair,” Levi said with a smirk, confidence evident on his face. “Care for a challenge?”
Asher raised an eyebrow. “Let me see what you have learned.”
Levi let out a loud laugh and brandished his spear. This time, he didn’t rely on any impressive skills like the spinning he did last time. Rather, he went straight for Asher’s thigh!
‘Attacking where I least expect. Smart.’
Asher evaded it with a sidestep but then noticed the spear’s shaft tilting as Levi performed an outstanding sweep, followed by a flurry of relentless thrusts that sliced through the air.
After dodging the attacks for a while, Asher suddenly lowered his body and shot forward with explosive speed. Before Levi could even realize it, Asher delivered an upward punch and lifted Levi off the ground.
The surrounding soldiers gasped because from the beginning to the end, Asher had kept his hand firmly wrapped around Euodias’ handle, meaning he had used just one hand in the entire fight. Yet he had defeated Levi without breaking a sweat.
Those nurturing the thoughts of challenging Asher evaporated in an instant.
Asher scanned the remaining 99 soldiers, excluding Levi, who was nursing his aching jaws and smiled a little bit. Clad in black scale leather vests, brown pants, and brown boots lined with fur, they looked even weaker than the new recruits in the Winter Stronghold.
But a look at their refined, toned muscles—honed by the system after rigorous training—told a different story.
With round shields in one hand and tall spears in the other, all the soldiers excluded a raw, undermined valiance.
Asher exhaled, ready to address them, but before he could speak, Simon rushed into the camp on horseback, urgency in his voice.
“My lord! The beastmen—they’re on their way!”
Asher’s eyes flashed.
“I see.”
_____
After a short while, 103 men watched the wide unpaved path while perched atop a hill—the only route leading to Winter Stronghold.
On horseback, the journey to the stronghold would take an hour. For a carriage, it would take longer. And for those on foot, much longer.
The hundred basic-level paladins were on one knee with their spears and shields on each side, ready to spring into action at their captain’s command, willing to dash down the hill and hurtle toward their enemies.
According to Simon’s report, the convoy included 50 Obsidian order knights from Edom—rat beastmen that had been trained from childhood to fight. Both their minds and bodies had been thoroughly forged along with relentless discipline before they donned Edom’s most profound armor: Legion!
While his men remained crouched, using the hill as a cover according to his orders, Asher stood like a spear. His light cloak fluttered gently in the breeze as his sharp gaze tracked the convoy approaching from the distance.
At first, they appeared as tiny figures. But as they drew closer, their shapes became distinct and bigger.
Upon seeing the Obsidian Order knights, Asher frowned. All of them were fully clad head-to-toe in metal plates as black as onyx and even their faces were covered behind fanged masks. Mounted on sturdy brown horses, they exuded an imposing aura.
The mounts made them even more dangerous.
As they got close, the Obsidian Order knights turned their cold gazes toward him.
“Halt!” barked their captain, his force containing a certain weight that Asher could vividly feel in his chest.
The captain’s crimson eyes locked onto Asher’s golden ones.
“Human. Come over here,” he ordered.
Asher raised an eyebrow. ‘Is this how arrogant they have gotten after wiping out many human strongholds and watching humans flee?’
His lips curled into a faint smirk as the convoy came to a halt.
“What is the hold-up?!” a pink-horned rat shouted, poking its head out of the carriage window.
At that very moment, Asher raised his hand.
The hundred soldiers armed with their spears and shields broke from their positions and sprinted toward the cliff. One by one, they hurled themselves over the edge and jumped without a shred of hesitation.
The pink-horned rat gawked as soldiers landed atop several knights, and some even threw their spears at the Obsidian Order knights before they could land.
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Thud! Thud!
As they landed, weapons clashed, erupting into chaos. Levi lunged and thrust his spear at a rat knight with incredible speed and force, so much that though it failed to penetrate the knight’s armor, it sent the enemy tumbling off his mount. Without pausing, Levi threw his shield at the knight with precision.
His shield slammed into the fallen knight’s chest plate, forcing the rat to fall back to the ground, which gave Levi the opportunity to close the gap and he quickly drove his spear through the knight’s neck in a swift, decisive motion.
“Levi!”
A yell pulled him from his focus and forced him to turn only to see a mounted knight charging toward him, the sword in its hand poised to strike him. Levi reacted instantly and kicked the edge of his concave shield, sending it spinning into the air.
He grabbed the shield just in time to block the incoming blade.
Clang!
The sword slammed the shield hard, its impact sending Levi flying. He landed roughly but gritted his teeth and rose to his feet only to see the knight coming at him once again.
Levi clenched his jaw and surged forward. Just as they were a few steps away from the collision, he leaped into the air, his knee smashing into the knight’s mask with brutal force. The rat knight was flung from the horse and twitched several times before lying still.
Levi staggered, pain shooting through his knee. The hardness of Legion, the armor the rat knights wore was too much. He struggled to move his knee without feeling pain. Looking around, he saw a few of the knights were struggling to fight back but eventually died under the spears of his comrades.
Although they had won and most of them only had bruises or injuries caused by the knights’ blades, the result of the battle made Asher more apprehensive of Legion.
They had the number advantage and his men had been training the entire week and had also received an upgrade yet they had sustained injuries against the rat knights.
The reason was Legion.
Most thrusts his soldiers had put their efforts into had turned useless because of the study armor.
Swoosh!
Asher leaped and landed on the ground.
Thud! Thud!
Simon and Moses landed beside him.
As he stepped forward, a certain pulse spread outward and the pink-horned rat came out from its carriage. Ten of the paladins found themselves suspended mid-air, choking as their faces swelled and their eyes turned bloodshot.
“Who are you?!” the pink-horned rat, who this time was a man, demanded.
“I have a message for you to deliver and…” Asher said coldly.
Swish!
An ice spike erupted from the ground, pressing against the rat’s neck, almost touching the skin. The chill spread through the rat’s body, causing its pupils to tremble in terror and questions filling its large eyes.
“… you are my messenger,” Asher finished, his voice soft and chilling.
He smiled faintly, a sight that was more frightening than any battle the noble rat had seen in decades.