Chapter 790: A Mock Battle

Jier's gaze tightened, and his mouth beneath the steel face mask broke into a smile: "Alright then, bring it on."

He swung his long sword in a circle, then rested it lightly on the upper edge of the shield held in his left hand; he stood sideways, legs apart, his rear right leg bent, ready to exert force for an attack or to cushion an impact at any moment.

The white light on the Hunting Sword flickered with Jier's breathing, just like a glowing white snake coiled around the blade, flicking its tongue, bringing a sense of extreme danger to the bandit leader opposite him.

"A coward relying on a powerful weapon in his hand."

This bandit leader, Bamian, muttered, as if speaking to the Knight before him, or perhaps to his fellow bandits surrounding them.

But Jier remained unmoved; a warrior's weapon is an essential part of a fight, and unless one is toying with an opponent, there is no reason not to use a weapon one is comfortable with.

"And this coward is even wearing heavy metal armor, haha, just like a turtle or a crab in the river."

Bamian pointed at Jier with the cleaver in his hand, spouting trash talk; as bandits, verbal skills were also a part of their combat.

"Although your skills aren't much, you've killed quite a few of our men by relying on your warhorse, your armor, and your powerful weapon. Hmph, are all so-called Knights this shameless?"

Jier rolled his eyes; he suddenly felt that encountering this guy in his dreams at night wouldn't be something he couldn't stand.

"Why so much nonsense? Are you going to fight? Or is all that talk just to cover up the fear in your heart?"

Faced with Jier's retort, the bandit leader Bamian's expression tightened, his mouth twitched slightly, and the next moment he crouched and jumped sideways; the moment his feet touched the ground, he exerted force to charge forward.

The two men in the duel were no more than four or five meters apart; for the tall bandit leader, closing the distance was just a matter of taking two or three quick steps.

Swish—

The steel cleaver snatched from a fellow bandit swung out horizontally with a fierce, full-force blow, seemingly carrying extra momentum from his movement.

But Jier, maintaining his shield-bearing combat stance, did not fall for it; this was merely a feint.

Sure enough, Jier only slightly turned the orientation of his shield to catch the heavy swing of the opponent's cleaver; the sharp, tough edge of the cleaver scraped a spark across the surface of the shield. It looked intense, but the sensation in his arm told Jier clearly that the opponent had not put his full strength into this strike.

This was indeed a feint.

The real threat came from the long sword held in the opponent's right hand.

Yet, as if seeing that his feint had been easily seen through by the Knight, the long sword thrust that should have followed did not actually come.

The bandit leader used the impact of the cleaver hitting the Knight's shield to successfully ease his forward momentum, then tapped his feet to retreat quickly, returning to a position three meters away from Jier.

He raised the cleaver in his left hand to take a look and found that the blade of the makeshift steel cleaver had quite a bit of dulling and wear; clearly, the metal shield in the Knight's hand, with its mottled surface, was not some ordinary object either.

At the very least, the material was sturdier than steel.

"Pah—wealthy Knight, the world is truly unfair; any random thing you have is better than the weapons in my brothers' hands."

Bamian grumbled, gnashing his teeth as he cursed: "If I had this equipment, my fame would have spread throughout the surrounding noble counties long ago." As for words about being subordinate to others, he only thought about them in his mind and didn't actually say them in front of the other bandits.

The surrounding onlookers, the bandits, also felt that leader Bamian made sense; these shameless, wealthy Knights always used better weapons and equipment, bringing more soldiers and militia to repeatedly hunt them down and suppress them.

"Brother Bamian, show us your real skills! Beat this Knight to death!"

"How about we all go together? Charge up and pin this guy down, grab his hands and feet; no matter how thick his armor is, there must be some weak points, right?"

"Bullshit, does our leader need others to intervene when he's dealing with an enemy? Watch closely, that was just a probe; he'll defeat this young Knight who only relies on his equipment to show off in a moment!"

Then these bandits began to shout and cheer in low voices; they shouted in unison, then stomped their left feet hard on the ground, creating rhythmic shouts and ground-shaking vibrations.

Jier found it somewhat interesting; did these people really think they had him cornered?

Not to mention that he was only playing with these people, he had also brought twenty Armed Civilians with him. There were only about twenty-three or twenty-four bandits ambushing him here, and he had already beaten and injured some of them in the previous fight; even adding the archer bandits who had fled over, the total number was only about twenty now.

In terms of numbers, the two sides were evenly matched.

However, considering that the bandits who seemed to have some skill were in the majority, he was actually at a slight disadvantage if a real fight broke out.

If he wanted to let his Armed Civilians kill these bandits in his stead, it seemed he would have to use some tricks during the fight.

"Use whatever skills you have; I've seen plenty of bandits like you. Out of ten parts of skill, seven or eight are just bragging to each other. It's truly a waste for you to be bandits; you should go to a tavern and become Bards, I guarantee you'd earn more and live longer. Haha."

As soon as Jier said this, the bandit leader opposite, who was preparing to launch a formal offensive, exploded; his eyes widened, and the beard on the lower half of his face felt as if every hair was standing on end.

"You're courting death!"

"You're the one who is!"

The bandit roared, and Jier retorted immediately following his words.

Just as their voices faded, the next moment the bandit leader Bamian crouched low and charged over; this man's moves were quite insidious, his cleaver and long sword acting like scissors, attacking Jier's lower legs from both sides, intending to cut off the Knight's legs first.

But Jier was not some ordinary person without combat experience; as the opponent slashed left and right close to the ground, Jier stepped back quickly, and after retreating a few steps, he used the trunk of a large tree behind him to block the bandit leader's attack space.

When the opponent couldn't stop a slash and hit the tree trunk, making it difficult to pull back, Jier immediately counterattacked.

The opponent's body was in a low position, but his head was right at Jier's mid-level; the long sword resting on the edge of the shield tilted slightly, falling naturally with gravity, while his footwork and the thrust of his right arm launched simultaneously.

Whoosh—

A sword thrust as fast as lightning, but perhaps the bandit leader realized what the Knight's counterattack might be, so the moment the Knight moved, he tilted his head to avoid a potential thrust.

At the same time, he also counter-thrust the long sword in his own hand.

Jier's sword missed, then moved downward to entangle with the sword the bandit had thrust out. He twisted his wrist, and relying on the fact that his weapon was heavier than the opponent's, he forcibly led the opponent's long sword to rotate in the direction of his own twist.

The metal blades of the two long swords ground and collided intensely; the bandit leader also knew that if he couldn't hold onto his sword at this moment, his weapon would be knocked out of his hand, and he would be finished.

So he used all his strength in his right hand to resist.

Clack-clack—snap, clack-clack—snap.

Although the long sword in Bamian's hand was a fine steel sword he had seized from a Caravan leader, at this very moment, compared to Jier's Hunting Sword, which had been reforged with Magic Material, it was more than a notch inferior.

"Damn it! I shouldn't have clashed head-on with him!"

Hearing the cracking and wailing of his weapon in his ears, the bandit leader realized things were bad.

He wanted to pull his sword back and retreat, but the Knight accelerated the rotation of his wrist, causing the two entangled swords to wind tightly together.

If he retreated now, he would have to abandon his weapon.

"Despicable!"

The bandit leader chose to let go; as soon as his hand loosened, he jumped backward and sideways to dodge and retreat.

Jier, wearing his helmet, could not be seen clearly, but his voice was exceptionally relaxed: "Are you announcing your own name? Oh, so your name is Despicable!"

With his long sword spinning, Jier suddenly stopped and lifted his right hand; the bandit leader's steel sword was flung into the air, piercing straight into a thick branch of the large tree beside him. The vibration of the sword hitting the branch caused the tree to drop quite a few leaves and dust, and even shook down some tree nuts hidden by a long-tailed Squirrel at the top of the tree.

The Bandit leader Bamian gritted his teeth, retreated to the side of his Bandit companions, and shook his right hand vigorously, looking unconvinced: "Insidious Knight, isn't it just that your strength is a bit greater than us ordinary people? Wooden-head, lend me your iron hammer."

A dull-witted Bandit next to Bamian, who looked not very bright, scratched his head after hearing this, then handed the large wooden-handled Iron Hammer he was holding in his hand to the leader Bamian. He was still a bit worried, so he added a sentence when handing over the weapon: "You, you don't break it."

"If it breaks, I'll pay you back with another one."

Bamian took the Iron Hammer in one go, weighed it in his hand with satisfaction, and seemed to feel that with this thing, the Shield and Armor in the Knight's hands would not be able to withstand a few strikes from the hammer.

"But I only have this one; it's good for smashing people's heads."

"Hmph, since you lent it to me, let me use it to smash this Knight's head!"

After dealing with his companion, the Bandit leader stepped forward again. He had just realized that although his martial arts were decent, compared to a Knight with astonishing strength, those martial arts did not seem to be able to bring him the power to secure victory.

He still had to break the Knight's turtle shell.

"Ha! Taste this!"

He shouted, and while charging forward, he gripped the end of the Iron Hammer's wooden handle with both hands, rotating his whole body to swing the weapon, determined to use a heavy blow to completely knock away the Shield in the Knight's hand, or smash the Knight's Helmet with one hammer blow.

Jier looked at this person strangely, not knowing what this guy was daydreaming about.

This kind of heavy weapon is almost impossible to defeat an opponent in a one-on-one fight.

Just like the dull-witted Bandit who used this Iron Hammer before, it can only be an important means of breaking Armor when there are many people, assisting in the fighting of other Bandits.

Used alone like this Bandit leader, it has almost no effect.

Jier hesitated for a moment; he did not know whether he should take this person's life, because this was truly an excellent time to kill him.

Fortunately, his ears twitched at this moment, and in the middle of the fight, he heard the direction behind the Bandits—the direction he had come from—where many footsteps were approaching. It was his subordinates who had arrived.

Since that was the case, he did not need to play house with this Bandit to stall for time.

"You guy, let's meet in our nightmares!"

Facing the heavy Iron Hammer swinging toward him, Jier stepped back and said this with his mouth.

The Bandit leader Bamian was a bit surprised at this moment; he did not understand why this Knight would say such a thing.

But the next moment, after the Knight stepped back just right to dodge the heavy hammer swing, he flicked his Long Sword, facing Bamian and the many Bandits looking over from behind him.

"Blinding!"

With a short shout, the white light that had been wrapped around the Long Sword's blade—which, in the eyes of the Bandits, looked good and provided only a little bit of illumination—suddenly burst forth following the Knight's spoken command.

The Armed Civilians hurried along and finally caught up, following the sounds of fighting and shouting.

"It's right ahead, everyone charge! Assist the Knight!"

The Armed Squad Captain, who was barely leading the team, rushed to the front, waving his sword and shouting.

At this moment, behind a pile of fallen leaves more than half a meter high, the white light that had been guiding them in the dark Forest obscured by the Shulin suddenly burst into a massive amount of white light.

At this moment, not only the twenty-plus Bandits Jier was facing, but even the supporting Armed Civilians rushing toward this side were blinded by the white light.

However, there was a huge difference in the impact between the enemy and us.

The Armed Civilians were like someone who had stared directly at the sun for a while at noon; although their eyes were sore and blinded, they could recover quickly.

But the Bandits were not; their eyes were a vast expanse of white, and their ears were filled with the terrified roars of themselves and their companions, which was extremely chaotic. Some people were worried that the Knight would rush over to hack and kill them, so regardless of whether those around them were their own people, they swung the weapons in their hands continuously.

It was the instinct of a Bandit who cares nothing for the lives of others and only looks out for their own safety.

Therefore, Jier hadn't even gone up to deal with them yet, and these people started fighting among themselves.

The reckless Bandits kept swinging their weapons, while the clever Bandits lay directly on the ground; although they couldn't avoid being stepped on, being stepped on wouldn't kill them in a short time.

These Bandits who were watching the duel from behind were all like this, let alone the Bandit leader Bamian in front of Jier.

After this guy was blinded by the burst of white light, he was stunned for a moment, and then, relying on his fighting instinct, he stood in place and swung the large Iron Hammer in his hand vigorously like a windmill.

Whoosh, whoosh.

The huge Iron Hammer was swung in a circle, and it seemed it wouldn't be easy to get close to him.

"Haha, how is it? Is fighting a very interesting thing?"

Jier even put away his sword, leaned back against the trunk of a large tree, and said this to the Bandit leader who was using all his strength to protect himself.

"%%%￥￥￥, %%￥%￥￥!!!"

Bamian still had the energy to curse back while spinning, which made Jier feel that his ears were dirtied.

"Forget it, see you tonight."

After saying this listlessly, Jier used his foot to flick up a Throwing Spear that had been blocked by his Shield and landed on the ground earlier. After reaching out and grabbing it, he threw it casually.

Swish—thwack.

It hit the chest of the Bandit leader who was spinning in place swinging the hammer.

The simple Soldier Armor that this guy was wearing, which he had gotten from who knows where, was of no use at all and was pierced through by the Throwing Spear. The Bandit leader Bamian lost his strength all at once, and the hammer slipped from his hand, instead knocking over a Bandit who was also swinging his weapon blindly because he couldn't see.

The Throwing Spear pierced through his chest; this clown-like guy first gasped for air, and then pink bubbles and blood spilled from his mouth and nose with his breathing.

Lying on the ground, he fumbled around his body in a daze, but when his hand touched the wooden handle of the Throwing Spear piercing through his chest, he finally gave up.

Jier walked away a few steps, bypassing the Bandits who were going crazy trying to protect themselves, and waved to the Armed Civilians chasing from the direction he had come: "Come, help me deal with these blind Bandits, haha, hack them all to pieces!"

After the Armed Civilians' eyes were blinded and then recovered, they could see things again very quickly, so they soon restored order. At this time, when Knight Jier summoned them again, these Armed Civilians obediently responded, strode over the pile of fallen leaves that was blocking the way, and saw the Bandits who had also been blinded by the mysterious power on the Knight's Long Sword.

These guys were still in a mess; although they were frantically swinging their weapons in all directions, trying to protect themselves, facing an equal number of Armed Civilians, they were already completely defeated, blinded and fighting on their own.

"Charge! Hack them!"

The Armed Squad Captain leading the team shouted, enduring the soreness in his eyes and the tears overflowing from his eye sockets due to the pain, and was the first to rush over with his sword.

Jier stood to the side watching this one-sided massacre, his expression neither satisfied nor dissatisfied.

To be honest, if he hadn't blinded these Bandits, it would be hard to say who would beat whom if these Bandits fought his subordinates at this time.

In this kind of small-scale battle with a total of less than one hundred people, the Bandits, who were individually more valiant, clearly had more experience and combat power. Of course, once the number of people increased, just like when he followed Knight Kela to suppress the Thieves of Luodai Cave last year, those people clearly had one or two hundred, but facing an equal number of Militia, the Bandits could never win.

The valor and cruelty they were proud of seemed to have no effect in the face of neat Crossbow Bolt volleys, no effect in front of neatly thrusting spears, and no effect in front of rows of Shields.

Jier twisted his neck, feeling that these so-called subordinates in front of him were still far from enough.

As for exactly where they were lacking, he couldn't say for a moment.

Listening to the miserable wails of his companions dying in his ears, Bamian, who could not stop vomiting pink blood from his mouth, gave a miserable laugh.

Seemingly attracted by his laughter, a pair of heavy footsteps walked slowly over.

Immediately, a mocking young voice rang out: "Yo, yo, yo, isn't this the Bandit leader whose skills are seventy percent in his mouth? What was your name again? I can't even remember, forget it, no need to remember anyway, we'll be seeing each other again tonight."

Bamian spat out a mouthful of blood, wanting to spit it in the direction the voice came from; he had to at least soil the other person's shoes.

He did not understand what this Knight was talking about, what "see you tonight," %%￥%, he was about to die, and it did not look like this Knight would kindly treat a guy like him.

Perhaps, this Knight was crazy?

I might have been entangled with a madman all this time, and then got defeated by this madman.

"Knight... don't think, don't think you've won."

Bamian said intermittently, vomiting blood from his mouth as he spoke.

Too much blood had flowed out, and he felt his body growing cold.

The Knight's voice rang out; the person seemed to be standing right beside him.

"Threats and a Curse before death? Ah, it doesn't matter. If you were like me, you probably wouldn't care about these useless words either. The real, unavoidable wave is tonight, %!"

"Heh... heh, it's not, not a threat. Ha... haha, hoho, soon you will, will know. The leader will, avenge us. One life, for one life, ho... ho, one life... perhaps, more than one life. Ha, haha, hahaha..."

Laughing until the end, Bamian's mouth was full of blood surging from his lungs; he could not catch his breath, and his throat and trachea were filled with overflowing blood, leaving no room for air to pass through.

Subsequently, this guy was suffocated to death by his own blood.

Jier stood right beside this person's corpse, watching this person die.

At this moment, Jier suddenly realized one thing: considering the previous casualties, only about a quarter to a third of the hundred-strong Bandit group had appeared here.

Then where were the remaining Bandits at this time?

What were they doing?

"Damn it! It's a trap!"

Jier cried out involuntarily.