Chapter 148: Forest Battle

The cries from ahead spread through the forest, striking every ear in the column.

The group of more than twenty, composed of soldiers, city guards, and two knightly retainers, stretched loosely through the trees, with head and tail separated by thirty paces. The slanting vegetation formed layered filters of information; only the nearest retainers had seen what passed.

The city guards behind hadn't even clearly heard that screeching metallic sound; the word "ambush" circled several times in minds long unused to war before they realized something impossible had happened—yet in the dense woods, they could not tell where the attackers had come from.

The warning failed to serve its purpose and instead caused greater chaos in the disorganized command structure; most who had trained but never faced battle frantically drew their weapons, then stood helplessly.

They had never imagined encountering resistance within Westmin territory—this land should not harbor armed forces bold enough to confront the ruling power.

Every direction was dense, emerald-green forest; twisted, fungus-covered tree shadows seemed to shift in the background, while tangled undergrowth and wild vines tripped their frantic steps toward companions. Someone stumbled and fell; those around, already like birds startled by arrows, scattered in panic, the formation growing even more disordered.

Diego saw none of this; he instinctively scanned his surroundings, searching for the source of the arrows.

The second attack came—arrows sliced past the retainer who had rushed to shield him, struck the raised ridge of his shoulder armor, and the snapped wooden shaft whipped against his helmet, making his ears ring.

After a brief shock, he was consumed by unbearable rage—at the audacity of the attackers, at their cowardly ambush threatening a knight's life, and most infuriatingly, at how close they had come to succeeding.

This revealed the attackers' position and reminded Diego what he must do now. He raised his arm, shielding his face with his vambrace, then lowered his visor, covering his only vulnerability.

Then, through the slotted vision of his helm, he locked onto the direction the arrows had come from and charged toward it. The figure crouched in the distant undergrowth had not moved, shifting as if preparing another shot.

Many might have felt a flicker of fear at this moment—but Diego was not among them. His armor was a symbol of his station, and the very reason he dared charge headlong into any battle.

Judging by the force of the two prior hits, whether from bow or the unlikely crossbow, even at close range, the arrows could at most leave a dent on his armor.

The fully armored iron man ran forward, snapping thin branches, crushing undergrowth, and pulverizing clusters of fungi beneath his feet; the slippery sensation let him imagine those revolting things turning into nauseating, mottled puddles.

His flexible joints allowed him to sprint short distances nearly as swiftly as light infantry, without worrying about frontal attacks. The prior two arrows' accuracy had relied on closing distance—he could now clearly see the shooter's weapon: an old-fashioned hand-crossbow, retrieved from some unknown source. The man was just finishing drawing the string, facing the charging knight.

Diego couldn't fathom the man's confidence or purpose—risking death to fire one more meaningless shot?

The shooter nocked an arrow and aimed—this time, Diego made no defensive move, drawing his sword and leaping over the final fallen log blocking his path. But the arrow did not fly toward him—it aimed elsewhere, shooting behind him.

A cry, unfamiliar and not from either retainer, rang out. Diego had reached the shooter. In the shadowed blind spot of his helmet's vision, two figures lunged at him from the side—this was the attackers' hidden advantage, the reason they dared fire three shots in place.

The first lunged forward with a roar, slamming into the knight's side, trying to unbalance him.

But he grossly underestimated the weight difference; the armor, like a sack filled with sand, merely rocked backward a few steps before halting his charge—while he himself was flung backward and fell, still dazed from the back of his head striking a bare root, when a stabbing pain in his abdomen sent a terrified scream from his lips.

Diego gave the man no chance to struggle; he spun his sword half a circle and wrenched it free, feeling at the same time someone clamp a noose around his neck, shoving a thin iron blade into the gap between his helmet and breastplate, driving it in fiercely.

This decisive, unhesitating brutality was no amateur bandit's work—it belonged to a desperate killer with both courage and killing experience.

The blade scraped across the linked iron rings, its force utterly insufficient to pierce this unexpected layer of defense—or the quilted cotton armor beneath. He had no second chance. Diego's armored left elbow slammed into the attacker's side abdomen; a long, fragile bone, loosely suspended against the abdominal wall, snapped under impact, its broken end driven deeper inward.

The constriction around his neck loosened; the knight broke free, whipped his sword backward under his armpit, and drove it through the weakened body with excessive force.

This forced Diego to spend a moment pulling his blade free. The arrowhead striking his armpit armor revealed the shooter's incomprehensible combat will—he had not taken the chance to retreat, but instead closed in for a direct shot at an imagined weak point.

When he realized his crossbow was useless, he drew a short sword, screaming in a voice warped like a martyr's prayer in flames, swinging wildly at the enemy who had easily slain two of his comrades.

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The voice, as if echoing from a fungal-clogged tree hollow, recited words Diego vaguely recognized—but twisted now by this madman's mouth into something else: a grotesque perversion, like animal speech wearing human lips, or a heresy crowned in mockery, as if a familiar shell had been forcibly stretched over another thing, imitating yet disturbingly similar.

Through the slotted visor, the face—twisted by fear yet propelled forward by some unknown force—combined with the off-key chanting to make even the soul protected by thick plate armor shudder for an instant.

He parried the slashing short sword; in the violent clang of metal, a stray thought recalled the origin of the man's manic cries—a line from a holy scripture, used to inspire warriors who died bravely, promising them passage into the afterlife realm.

This triggered a fear he refused to admit; his intended disarm maneuver changed. He slammed his gauntlet into the man's screaming mouth, then thrust his blade straight into the man's left chest.

Only when the fanatic—or madman—fell did Diego regain a sliver of peace. The meaningless shouts and clashing steel behind him left no time to ponder his sudden impulse: he had chosen to kill rather than capture.

With the knight's reinforcements, the attackers—who had been few and briefly held advantage through surprise—quickly fell into disadvantage, and no other ranged weapon appeared.

They were poorly equipped, dressed no different from commoners, lacking armor, roughly between thugs and low-grade caravan guards; their extraordinary combat will might terrify most underground gangs, but it could not bridge the gap in skill and equipment.

Not all possessed the will to die together; after Diego struck down another man who chanted distorted scripture lines, the remaining few quickly followed the routine of amateur and semi-professional fighters: they broke and fled, inadvertently guiding their pursuers.

"Where's that guy?" Diego realized everyone had joined the melee—including the retainer who should have been dragging the guide prisoner—now kicking down a foe trying to rise and driving his sword through him.

"Dead. Shot dead." The retainer wiped blood from his blade, smearing the last drops onto the corpse's clothing.

"These damn rats and sewer slugs even know to silence witnesses!" With no time to regroup his scattered forces, Diego led his retainer and the soldiers he could still gather, chasing the fleeing enemies.

He was certain something lay behind this—a secret that could free him from his current state, even if unrelated to the missing person case. But only if he caught the remnants, not lost the guide while losing the current trail in this forest.

Without hesitation, their recent victory had given them full confidence; the target was right ahead, and the soldiers believed their generous commander would reward them afterward—the victory bonus awaited them.

The spirited group, including Diego, chased after the fleeing figures ahead; the fugitives seemed utterly unaware of the true implications of their actions, running in unison toward a specific direction, their familiarity with the terrain preventing them from being slowed by the slippery, fungus-like patches as they maintained a steady distance.

Diego gasped for breath; the armor that saved his life now dragged him down. The humid weather soaked his quilted lining with sweat; a link in his chainmail had broken open during combat, its jagged edge scraping his neck skin. Inside his helmet, he smelled salt—sweat stinging the raw patches.

There was also an indescribable stench, itching his nasal passages, forcing him to sneeze—breaking his breathing rhythm, leaving his throat sweet.

He had to admit: there truly was a smell, similar to… dust, like when he first put on this long-unused helmet, the fine particles clinging everywhere.

Breathless, oxygen-starved, his head reeling; sweat he couldn't wipe crossed his eyelashes, blurring his vision with jagged, painful edges. The lavish colors growing on the ground swam and shimmered around his eyes like liquid, reminding him of past training sessions—when he'd endured such discomfort facing sparring partners, always the one who blinked first and got caught.

But now no one was there to torment Knight Diego. He dodged a tree trunk, blinked, squeezed the sweat from his eyes—his vision cleared slightly.

Yet the spreading colors did not fade; they now filled his vision in vast patches—various, many rarely seen vibrant fungal species clustered densely, present above, below, all around, far denser than before, yet showing no trace of cultivation.

The thought made even him feel absurd—how could anyone cultivate mushrooms like wheat? And yet these fungi had already surpassed imagination; Diego even feared that if they grew further, they could fill the entire forest, occupying every inch, squeezing into his armor.

The bizarre, nauseating image lasted only a moment—but left a foul taste on his tongue, as if he had truly inhaled the fungi choking the world.

"Damn rats, sewer snails!" Diego roared as he ran, redirecting his fury onto the amateur armed criminals who had brought him to this awful place—this mental shift let him focus.

Ahead, the fungal forest finally ended. On a dark harbor waterscape, dotted with oily, floating patches of light, they finally cornered the group.

The pursued fled toward a crude dock built of blackened driftwood, thick with fungal clusters, where only a waterlogged skiff waited—and a contact, hidden beneath a hooded robe, had painted a rigid, out-of-place circular emblem on his front with dirty white dye.