Chapter 143: Encounter

"Die."

The bloodied Holy Sword was already swinging, its holy light nearly exhausted.

Compared to the past, Li En, without infinite holy power, consumed his own strength with every Evil-Cleaving Slash.

Compared to before, he had to adjust his tactics and conserve his strength.

For the first time, he realized the weakness of Sul's sword art secret: it was, after all, an enhanced Evil-Cleaving Slash, meaning it consumed even more holy power!

The panting paladin had been driven into a corner; the dimming holy light revealed his weakness.

Slave warriors wielding fine weapons surged forward, ready to send him to the heavens.

"ELDER (Forge Fire!)"

But unlike other surrounded paladins, Li En had another mana pool!

Flame, falling from the sky.

The Forge Fire expanded before his eyes, directly burning out a pool of magma.

The approaching gray dwarves and beastmen slaves crashed right into it, immediately covered by the sea of fire.

"Aaaah!"

Amidst the screams, Li En gained precious time to catch his breath.

The sea of fire separated him from the other attackers, allowing him to adjust his body and mind.

Li En grew even more grateful for Kuk's gift; Dragon Speech magic was truly useful.

Especially in terms of instant casting and armor-piercing, it was a practical combat magic truly designed for the battlefield.

The extinguishing flames gave him time to breathe, but through the sea of fire, the Mind Flayer's dark eyes still stared fixedly at him.

That monster kept waving the tentacles on its face.

It seemed to say, "I'll just wait for the fire to die out, then drown you with a human wave tactic."

But Li En laughed. He drew his thumb across his throat, making a gesture any intelligent creature would understand.

"Kill him!" A silent roar echoed across the battlefield; the Mind Flayer couldn't wait to enjoy the paladin's brain!

This paladin actually managed a sneak attack! Definitely a rare mutant!

And while it whipped its slaves with psychic power, forcing them to advance through the fire...

"Boom!"

Its army formation was attacked from behind.

The six-armed paladin swung her magic sword, charging at the front, while behind her, the caster's whispers echoed.

"Fireball!" Accompanied by a delicate shout, an orange-red fireball floated over.

"Boom!" An explosion like a mortar, flames spreading like an incendiary bomb.

More than a dozen slaves were blown straight away, and the unlucky ones on the periphery were forced back.

This area-of-effect spell, seen as a symbol of mages, worked as well in actual combat as ever, but...

"Do we have any mages of the third circle or higher in our group? Is it Vitoria?" Li En was somewhat surprised; in his impression, alchemists weren't very good at combat magic.

The next moment, Li En saw the flames dissipating from Miss Shaliman's hands.

Li En also noticed the confusion in her pupils and sighed.

This kid is sick, and probably incurable.

But now wasn't the time to think about that; Li En took a deep breath and charged directly at that somewhat panicked Mind Flayer!

"Die, abomination with tentacles on your face."

Attacking from front and back is good civilization; enjoy it, brain-eater!

"Evil-Cleaving Slash!" This time, the squeezed-out holy power was his final Evil-Cleaving Slash.

Five minutes later, only the suddenly dead slaves and the beheaded corpse of the Mind Flayer remained on the ground.

Li En sat aside, letting Larry help bandage his wounds; she was quite skilled in that regard.

Li En also checked the situation of others; the candidates for Heroic Souls were in good condition, but all showed signs of fatigue.

"The second sneak attack failed, right? Let's stop here."

Purple Miss Zi Qiangwei smiled and offered the senior's advice.

Clearly, she had been holding back.

She was both hiding her existence from troublesome opponents and giving newcomers experience to grow.

"Hmm." Li En lowered his blade, looking at his own hands, lost in thought.

He felt something within his body was about to burst forth.

"About to advance? Your oath should be related to eradicating evil, right?"

"No... wait."

Li En closed his eyes and recalled; when he slew those Mind Flayers, he indeed felt the feedback of his oath.

Eradicating evil is the paladin's duty; fulfilling it grants stable rewards on this path, but Li En's feedback clearly exceeded the normal situation.

Especially after beheading the Mind Flayer, the holy power actually showed a significant increase; the advancement on the Knight's Path seemed a bit excessive.

【I Oath: To fight to the death for humanity and the bottom line of human nature!】 It seemed only the third oath was taking effect.

"Looks like Mind Flayers are regarded as enemies of 'humanity'."

Constantly devouring human brains and emotions, being regarded as "enemies of mankind" is only natural.

Slaying these Mind Flayers gave Li En's paladin path rewards that exceeded expectations.

It seemed he no longer needed to return to Radiant City for further study (usually paladins would find a church to pray and meditate, and complete certain training to help break through bottlenecks); he just needed to find a place to rest and could cross over to the next step.

It seems classical paladins have some advantages; Li En didn't really need the permission and help of deities.

Although advancement is theoretically much slower, as long as one constantly "eradicates evil," progress will also be quite stable.

"Why do I feel the Paladin's path is quite brutal? Just kill, kill, kill." Li En's words were something an ordinary Paladin would probably dare not say, after all, it was somewhat blasphemous to the faith.

"You just realized that?" Kuk had something to say; as an "evil kobold," he had once suffered greatly from it.

He couldn't even remember how many Paladins he had seen who drew their blades first and communicated later (if they couldn't win).

In his impression, Paladins were even more manic than Berserkers and Barbarians, often launching unreasonable, full-scale offensives.

But actually, this was another kind of stereotype. Ordinary Warriors and Berserkers could "coexist with evil," but Paladins and evil creatures always ended up fighting to the death.

Since a fight was inevitable, naturally, one must strike first to gain the upper hand.

"Let's rest for a bit; this tactic can no longer be used." Li En, who had become the leader at some point, made the judgment.

There was no need to test a third time; two consecutive failed ambushes followed by a strong assault meant that Li En's party's hunting method had a high probability of already being ineffective.

"It must be that the intelligence leaked. Who would randomly cast sonic spells for no reason?"

This shouldn't be within the Main Brain's range; Mind Flayers had no reason to achieve instant communication, but as long as someone brought the intelligence back to the Main Brain, the Main Brain could spread the information to every Mind Flayer as much as possible.

In a sense, every Mind Flayer was a fragment of the Main Brain, and also its signal base station.

"But this also shows that we made them hurt. Heh, among the five Mind Flayers we killed, at least two must have advanced, right? These monsters that can usually kill Great Warriors died so miserably; the Main Brain and the others must be heartbroken."

As a Paladin, Li En also had to take on the work of boosting morale.

How to boost it? Just shout "win, win, win." To maintain the team's high morale, simply keep repeating the "science of winning" before dying in battle.

And what Li En said was also the great truth; the battle results were right there, everyone had gained quite a bit of loot, and the Mind Flayers' personal items were quite valuable.

"Indeed, if we continue, we will likely suffer a great loss." Seeing that Li En's words received approval from the others, Violet Miss Zi Qiangwei smiled and confirmed.

"Based on my understanding of these octopuses, after confirming that we are hunting their lone squads, they will surely set traps to fish and encircle us. Our next ambush might encounter three to five Mind Flayers."

As she spoke, she even gestured.

"They also have means of spatial teleportation. Halfway through a fight, two or three might suddenly pop out."

Li En sucked in a cold breath; despite his hunting going so smoothly, it was all the shameless tactic of "Warriors tanking, shielding, and brutally killing the casters."

If it really turned into a positional battle, with Mind Flayers clustering together, it wouldn't be much different from casters grouping up.

By then, they would use slaves to wear you down, then use psychic abilities to interfere and weaken, occasionally launching high-level psychic powers; that would be quite fatal.

"How about we notify the other squads..."

"No, they will think you have a conspiracy, wanting to annex them and seize leadership." Victoria answered immediately, full of resentment, as if she had suffered losses before.

"Then let's rest for a bit first; is there a suitable location nearby?" Everyone also agreed; a team lacking a Priest indeed had some problems with sustained combat.

Believe it or not, after comparing the maps, there really was a suitable supply point.

"The Arachnid Village isn't far." Although the Arachnids had already returned to the surface with the main force, the remaining houses and such were still more comfortable than camping outside, and the higher terrain would cause fewer troubles at night.

But upon just arriving at the village, Li En felt a bit of regret; the village was not empty, someone had arrived first.

"Disciples of the Cult of Beasts? And Dark Elves... uh, why are they chatting together? Wasn't Mordirika putting a bounty on those Disciples?" It seemed that their arrival was not very appropriate.

(End of this chapter)