Chapter 527: The Death of the Shield Warrior, Storming the Church

Jier looked at a Warrior beside him with a look of pity.

Priest Bata'er had already rushed over, his mouth chanting prayers as rapidly as if reciting scripture, while he pressed his hands, which were emitting a faint Divine Power, firmly onto the Warrior's torso.

But it was useless.

An unexpected Heavy Crossbow Bolt from the enemy had pierced directly through the house, and then penetrated the Shield Warrior who happened to be standing there. It was also carelessness; the Warrior thought the house was blocking the front, so he hadn't raised the Shield in his hand, but instead held it and propped it on the ground.

As it turned out, it was just that coincidental; the enemy's weapon pierced through the center of his torso entirely, creating a fist-sized hole, shattering his stomach, part of his liver, and his spine, before finally burying itself into the soil.

When Jier saw the fist-sized wound on the Warrior that allowed one to see through his body, he knew the man was finished. But the Priest did not give up; while the Warrior was vomiting blood, he kept trying to use Zhiyue Prayer Divine Art to delay the Warrior's life.

"Stop it, Bataer. Stop it, why not try to listen to this Warrior's last wish, and we'll find a way to fulfill it?" Jier advised, and many of the surrounding Warriors nodded, because no matter how one looked at it, the injury the Warrior had sustained was not something a single Priest like Bataer could manage to heal; even delaying death was a very difficult task.

Various Churches were not incapable of handling such injuries, but it would require several Priests to hold a ceremony together and use higher-level healing Divine Art; it wasn't that a single Priest couldn't do it, but the young Priest Bataer clearly lacked this skill and ability.

Hearing the words of the warrior Jier, Priest Bataer's movements paused for a moment, then one hand continued to release Divine Power onto the wound, striving to reduce blood loss, while the other hand wiped the Shield Warrior's mouth, cleaning away the fresh blood he was vomiting.

"Hurry and say it, what else do you have to say." With a tragic tone in his voice, Priest Bataer tried hard to ask for the Warrior's last wish and words.

The Warrior struggled for a moment, and said with great effort: "I... at home there are still... parents, brothers... sisters, tell them, hoo—hoo—I, I died in battle... go to White Stone Pass, find them, find the Liweide family, tell..."

Before he could finish his words, the Warrior's eyes dimmed, his chest stopped heaving, and the Divine Power released by Priest Bataer, having no object to receive it, flowed back into the Priest's palms.

Taking a deep breath, Priest Bataer announced painfully: "He is dead."

Jier nodded, went up to smooth the Warrior's eyes with his hand, picked up the Soldier Shield he hadn't used, stood up, and said to the other Warriors who were looking over: "It is a pity, but that is what battle is like. Today, we have killed many Defeated Soldiers, but battle always has its back and forth; the enemy will die, and we ourselves will also die."

"Sometimes we will be inferior to the enemy in skill during battle, and be defeated and killed."

"Sometimes we will also be killed by an enemy's sudden arrow like this, without any warning or sign."

"Sometimes we will struggle for a long time in pain due to illness, and finally die because no one can cure us."

"Sometimes we will even be like those Defeated Soldiers today, gradually annihilated by enemies who are more powerful, more united, and have more initiative."

"Even I myself might be at the front of everyone, the first to be killed by the enemy. Heh, or rather, I have died more than once."

Jier's last sentence seemed like self-mockery, and no one understood it, but Jier himself understood; counting the time he borrowed a corpse to return to life, he had already died twice. The second time he was even killed by a werewolf in a desperate pursuit; if it weren't for the Lady having a connection with him and needing him to handle things, he would have long since become a pile of dry bones on the Weizhi Huangyuan of Kendall County.

"Everyone has heard this Warrior's last words; we will tell his family his final words, and although you are all my subordinates now, and we haven't discussed specific wages and pensions, I will still take out a sum of money and find a way to give it to his family."

Hearing this, the surrounding Warriors nodded one after another; who didn't have family? Oh, Weier seemed to have none. Although dying in battle was regrettable, as long as Knight Jier was willing to give the pension to their families after they died, it wasn't a bad thing.

What they feared was dying without anyone knowing, and just dying so simply, without last words, without pension, without notification, and without anyone feeling grief for it.

Just like the Defeated Soldiers they killed today.

Dying here, and dying here in such an inglorious way, who would go out of their way to listen to their last words?

Who would pay that considerable pension?

Who would specifically find someone to notify their families of their death?

And dying silently in this foreign land, who would feel grief for the deaths of these Defeated Soldiers?

No one.

So these Defeated Soldiers chose the wrong path; they shouldn't have come here, shouldn't have committed such a great crime against Changmai Village, and shouldn't have entrenched themselves here until they were wiped out with no one caring.

At this time, Priest Bataer carefully laid the Warrior's body down and stuffed the weapons he was carrying into the Warrior's hands, making him hold them against his chest to cover the large hole shot out by the Heavy Crossbow Bolt.

He then wiped his hands and asked Jier in a low tone: "What about that enemy? Was it the enemy on the Church Bell Tower who made the move?"

Jier pointed in the direction of the Church Bell Tower: "Of course it was that person; in the whole village, only that enemy has some skill. But what are you going to do? Rush up to attract the other party's attention? Use yourself as bait to shift the enemy's target?"

"Yes, I have the Divine Power Shield of an armed Priest on me, I am not afraid of the other party's crossbow bolts; this job is something only I can do," Priest Bataer said seriously and earnestly.

Jier raised an eyebrow, then spread his hands and said to the Priest: "Then you might not get your wish, because just a moment ago, I threw two weapons one after another and have already eliminated that person through the house."

The people around opened their eyes wide upon hearing this, unable to believe it.

Priest Bataer even choked on a breath he couldn't catch, then tentatively stepped out from the cover of the front residential house, exposing himself to the line of sight and range of the opponent's Heavy Crossbow.

But he stayed in place for half a minute, and still no crossbow bolt was fired, so he had to believe that the warrior Jier really had, just like that enemy, killed the opponent through a villager's house.

"No, warrior Jier, didn't you tell me the opponent was wearing thick, heavy armor? How could they be finished off by you just like that?"

Priest Bataer couldn't believe it; just now, as soon as their Warrior was injured, Jier had thrown the Long Spear he was holding, and many people hadn't noticed this, but at that very moment, Jier had already finished off the opponent.

"Then since you had a way, why didn't you kill that enemy at the first opportunity? Why wait until this Warrior died before making a move?"

Priest Bataer questioned.

Jier waved his hand and said to everyone: "I am truly sorry; I didn't expect the opponent to have a special crossbow bolt that could pierce through a house and still kill someone. Look, it's this."

As he spoke, he came to the place where the Warrior had died, and from the ground two steps behind the Warrior, he first brushed away the somewhat uneven soil, then pulled out with effort a full-metal armor-piercing Heavy Crossbow Bolt that had some damage to the arrowhead but was otherwise largely intact.

"It's this; it was this that, after piercing through the wooden wall of the house, went on to pierce through this Shield Warrior's body, and then in one breath drilled into the soil on the ground."

Jier tossed the thing in his hand to Priest Bataer; this heavy object almost caused the Priest to fail to catch it. Weighing this thing in his hand, even with the Divine Power Shield provided by his armed Priest equipment, Priest Bataer felt a wave of panic.

If it were a weapon like this, it was hard to say whether the Divine Power Shield on him could block it.

If it couldn't block it, he would likely end up the same way as the Shield Warrior who had just died.

Seeing Priest Bataer understand, Jier explained: "If it were just the previous wooden-shaft Heavy Crossbow Bolt, the opponent wouldn't have been able to shoot through the house and hurt someone. I had everyone approach through the houses with this idea in mind. The fact is that this is very useful, forcing the opponent to bring out their truly lethal weapon ahead of time."

"The moment the opponent made their move, I immediately launched a counterattack, but the ordinary Throwing Spear I threw first couldn't pierce through the house to hurt someone, so I used the spin of the Throwing Spear to adjust its flight trajectory, bypassing the house in an arc to attack the opponent."

"But unfortunately, I don't know if it missed, or if the Throwing Spear lacked power and was blocked by the heavy armor on the opponent's body; the opponent then fired a second metal Heavy Crossbow Bolt capable of piercing houses and killing. Fortunately, the opponent's second shot didn't hit anyone, and I immediately threw the Dwarf Long Spear in my hand; it was by relying on this heavy and powerful Dwarf Long Spear that I was able to kill the opponent through the house."

After Jier finished speaking, he walked directly out of the cover of the house and looked toward the direction of the Church's bell tower.

Sure enough, in the bell tower, apart from a chair and the crossbow bolt and fallen Heavy Crossbow that remained there, there was no sign of that enemy.

It was estimated that they had been hit by the Long Spear and carried away by the force, falling somewhere nearby.

Jier didn't pay attention to this; he shouted to the various Warriors around who were still in a dodging posture: "Look, both Priest Bataer and I are standing here, yet the enemy hasn't attacked, which means the enemy is already dead. This is a good opportunity; according to the previous plan, attack now!"

Aoni stood out and shouted: "You heard him, everyone charge!"

After saying this, he drew his Long Sword, held his Shield and sword, and strode forward, crashing through the courtyard fence and charging straight toward the Church in front.

The other Warriors also drew their weapons one after another, shouting together as if to vent all the resentment and stifled breath from dodging the enemy's crossbow bolts, and followed through the hole in the fence that Aoni had crashed through, charging out.

Jier tilted his head toward Priest Bataer: "Are you not going, Priest Bataer?"

Priest Bataer sighed, knelt beside the fallen Warrior, shook his head and said: "I won't go. After all, this Warrior died for the sake of the villagers of Changmai Village. I want to recite the hymns of praise to the Great Agriculture God for him, hoping that after he dies, his soul can drift toward the direction of the Church's holy land and enjoy quiet and abundance in the Divine Kingdom. He deserves to be treated this way, because he died defending the life and death of the faithful."

After finishing, he closed his eyes, pressed his hands together, and began to chant in a low voice.

"In the beginning, the farmers upon the earth had no reliance; they were pitiable, significant beings bullied by others."

"Everyone ate the grain produced by the farmers, yet they harshly oppressed them."

"They were enslaved, bowing their heads to till the fields every day, yet the grain they produced was taken away, leaving them only a tiny portion."

"They were taught that farmers should live this way, because they were not wise enough, not brave enough, and not noble enough."

"They were told that the land their ancestors had tilled did not actually belong to them."

"Only because some illegible text was written on a scroll, informing them that the land belonged to the noble and wise."

"The farmers lowered their heads, begging the noble and wise not to drive them away from the land their ancestors had tilled."

"But they were driven away nonetheless, because another group of even humbler farmers agreed to the heavier grain taxes demanded by the noble and wise."

"The landless farmers lost their land; they wandered and roamed, begging for someone to come and save them from their misery."

"They begged, they wandered, and gradually they died of hunger."

"When the very last farmer died of hunger by the roadside, our Lord, the great Nongshen."

"He finally manifested in this world for the first time because of these tragic wishes."

"And that was four thousand years ago in the distant past."

……

Jier did not finish listening to the Priest's psalm of praise for the great Nongshen; he only vaguely heard some increasingly blurred fragments before quickening his pace to catch up with the Warriors who were running fast.

Jier had secretly opened the back door of the Nongshen Church last night, so the plan was for everyone not to break in through the front door of the Church, but to rush in from the back door and catch the enemy off guard.

The plan was very successful; those lazy Defeated Soldiers indeed had not checked the back door of the Church until a moment ago.

After all, they had made a mess of the passageway at the back door, so subconsciously they would not think that the back door, which was always kept closed, would be secretly opened by someone.

Thus, when Aoni led the Warriors rushing in from here, the two remaining Defeated Soldiers in the Church hall were terrified.

They had personally tested how sturdy the long-blessed wooden doors in the Church were. When hacked with maximum force, these seemingly ordinary wooden doors would not leave a single scratch, and the same was true for burning flames.

But these architectural defenses they had placed high hopes on did not provide any obstruction at all, which made the still-resisting Squad Leader of the Defeated Soldiers shout loudly: "I knew it! Those doors could only block us, they couldn't block these people at all!"

But no one listened to him; the Warriors who poured in one after another surrounded the two who were still resisting, and without asking them to surrender, they directly attacked with Shields and weapons, forcing the two to resist stubbornly back-to-back.

Both were tall and powerful Soldiers, and for a moment, the Warriors could not take them down.

Aoni did not command; he directly roared and joined in, slightly changing the course of the battle.

But they still could not take them down for a time.

Weier was smarter; he knew that it was crowded with people at this moment and his martial arts would not be of much use, so he found the wooden ladder in the Church hall and climbed up with fast hands and feet.

And the two Defeated Soldiers could only watch Weier's movements helplessly; they did not yet know that the 'arrow tower' above had been taken out in a second by Jier with a single shot, and they were hoping the 'arrow tower' above could come down to save them.

But Weier had been up for only ten seconds or so before he came down quickly, biting two Heavy Crossbow Bolts and carrying a half-person-tall Foot-pedal Heavy Crossbow on his back.

At this, the two men could not figure out where the 'arrow tower' on the clock tower had gone, and why it had let itself be disarmed without any resistance.

Weier, who had slid down the wooden ladder, shouted: "Everyone move aside! Everyone move aside!"

But no one listened to him when he spoke; after Jier walked in and saw Weier's actions, he understood what he wanted to do, so he spoke up himself: "Everyone! Take two steps back."

The Warriors recognized Jier's voice, so they retreated two steps one after another and turned their heads to look.

Jier nodded at Weier, signaling him to act, so Weier clumsily cocked the Heavy Crossbow, placed one of the Crossbow Bolts from his mouth into the groove, and raised it to aim at the two desperate Defeated Soldiers.

"We surrender!"

"Yes! We surrender! We surrender to you!"

The two knew the power of this Heavy Crossbow; if hit at close range, a person would be directly nailed to the wall and could not possibly survive.

But Jier raised his hand and then dropped it; Weier pulled the trigger in real-time and fired the Crossbow Bolt at close range.

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