Chapter 154: The Tin Knight and The City of Scales (14)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 154: The Tin Knight and The City of Scales (14)
“Hahaha! I’m alive! I’m alive!”
“I'm innocent! Please, believe me!”
“Fuck, move! I'm first!”
The situation inside Justitia was utter chaos.
Those who received a 'not guilty' verdict were moved to tears by the halo of light that appeared above their heads, while those who hadn't clamored to obtain their own token as quickly as possible.
Of course, not everyone was swept up in the situation.
“Everyone, snap out of it! Can't you see those bastards are playing tricks on us?”
“They pass judgment on us as they please, then toss out pardons as if it's some act of mercy! Do you really think this is right?”
“In the end, isn't this just another scheme to extort money from us?”
“Stop being suckers! How many people are in this city? If we all rush them together, what can the lord or his guards possibly do?!”
There were certainly people who, angered by Justitia's coercive and one-sided actions, tried to fight back.
However, their voices were drowned out.
Slice!
“Kuhk!”
“Oh, great scale, pass judgment on the one who refused to be judged.”
Once an emerald trajectory embroidered the air and red blood spurted forth, all sounds of complaint were bound to vanish.
Because all who did otherwise were beheaded.
“This is too much…”
Seeing this, Adelaide was at a loss for words.
She had seen her fair share of simple fights and bloodshed, but what was unfolding before her eyes was less a struggle and more a massacre.
All resistance that tried to meet the guards with force was utterly crushed before the emerald energy.
Just as Adel, unable to watch any longer, gripped her sword and prepared to step forward, people wearing masks similar to hers approached her side.
“I know how you feel, but not now. Wait.”
Adel, who had been about to inadvertently call out Maris's name, hastily shut her mouth after seeing the warning glances from those around her.
She had been warned several times not to use real names during the operation, but the shock of what was happening in front of her had made her momentarily forget.
Maris, as if understanding, lightly patted Adel's shoulder and spoke.
“The plan's a failure. I was too naive. If I'd known it would be like this, I never should have gotten you involved.”
Adel shook her head.
“No, I wasn't just dragged into this. I joined because I wanted the reward, too.”
“Hmm.”
Maris hesitated.
Though her expression was hidden by the mask, her reaction was a strange mix of what seemed to be admiration and a hint of disappointment.
The usual Adel would have panicked, wondering if she had offended the other person, but not now.
Adel looked at Maris and the others gathered around and said, “Tell me what I need to do.”
“…Can't treat you like a kid anymore. We're going to strike the lord. I wanted to avoid a direct confrontation if possible, but since they've come at us like this, we have to hit back.”
“Are you going to kill him?”
“The primary goal is to subdue him and make him spit out information about this situation, but that won't be easy. If things get difficult, just do it.”
To minimize unnecessary conflict, they moved toward the square via the rooftops.
Leaping between the buildings, which were all of different heights and shapes and separated by wide gaps, was no easy task, but as they were the elites of Lennart, not a single person fell behind.
And finally, the square in the city center came into view.
Contrary to their expectation that it would be incredibly crowded, the square was surprisingly quiet.
To be more precise, the area around the square was teeming with people, but they couldn't get any closer because of the soldiers standing guard, encircling the emerald scale.
The lord stood before the scale, his face unbelievably serene for someone who had orchestrated such a crisis.
Thump!
Leaping over the heads of the crowd, which was gathered like the rim of a donut, ten shadows burst into the square.
“Stop them! Intruders!”
The soldiers guarding the square moved to block the Lennart members.
Emerald energy soared high, and as if in response, the weapons of the Lion Duke's bloodline shimmered with golden mana.
Shwing!
Flashes of light crossed, and the Lennart swords unilaterally cut down the guards.
It was inevitable. The ten members of the execution team were outstanding elites from within the family.
It would be a disgrace if their attacks were blocked by the weapons of mere domain guards.
The golden sword strikes sliced through the soldiers' necks without a single exception.
The problem was…
Kaaaaang!
Despite clearly striking their necks with their blades, instead of blood gushing out, the swords simply bounced off.
Disbelief and doubt filled the eyes of the bloodline members, while in contrast, the guards' eyes filled with conviction and faith.
Basanio, a guard of Justitia, surrendered himself to the sense of omnipotence boiling up from deep within his body and shouted.
“Ooooh, Great One in the heavens!”
His fellow guards, their morale soaring, responded to Basanio.
“He grants us His blessing!”
“Strike down the wicked villains!”
“For the holy land of Justitia!”
“Keoheok!”
“…?”
As something strange interrupted the narcissistic lines they were all shouting, Basanio's gaze slid sideways.
There, a fellow soldier was rolling on the ground, his body bent into a > shape.
And next to him, a masked figure of unusually small stature, gripping a large two-handed sword and charging straight for him—
—Thwaaaack!
With an impact so heavy it could be felt through the air, Basanio's body flew through the sky.
At the sight of him being hit like he'd been struck by a carriage at full speed, the guards' gazes wavered.
It was an opening they should never have shown in the middle of a battle, especially not in front of the Lion Duke's bloodline.
No matter how intensely they were protected by this power, the basic structure of the human body doesn't change.
Shaking the brain through the jaw, striking the back of the knee to break their balance, using the force of a counterattack to throw them to the ground—faced with countless techniques, the guards were sent tumbling.
“N-no! Stop them!”
“Protect the lord!”
After that, a fierce melee unfolded.
The number of guards protecting the square was about fifty.
A five-to-one numerical disadvantage wouldn't normally have been a problem for the Lion Duke's bloodline, but the issue was the emerald light surrounding the guards' bodies.
Kang!
It was absurd; they would strike bare flesh, not armor, with a mana-infused sword, only for the blade to be repelled.
By putting their full momentum behind it and honing their sword energy to the extreme, it was possible to cut through flesh and blood, but even that was no easy feat.
A big attack requires a big motion, and a big motion creates a big opening.
It might have been different if the opponents were stationary scarecrows, but continuously landing 'all-out attacks' while surrounded by multiple enemies trying to kill them with swords was an incredibly difficult task.
What's more, the opponents weren't just tough.
“Heup!”
A soldier, thrown off balance by the Lennart members' skillful swordsmanship, thrust his spear even as his posture crumbled.
A strike from an awkward stance, lacking both proper power and speed.
Pshuk!
But the moment that attack touched the thigh of a bloodline member, the flesh split open and blood spurted out.
This happened despite their leather armor and a magical defense on top of it.
The wounded member immediately regained their posture and struck the opponent's wrist, forcing them to drop the spear, but the wound they'd received did not disappear.
Maris von Lennart frowned.
In terms of combat technique, the guards were no match for them.
Weapon skills, physical abilities, mana manipulation, teamwork with allies—the Lennart side was superior in every aspect.
The problem was that light.
That emerald energy was complicating everything.
Because of it, they had to unleash multiple all-out attacks against guards who could normally be subdued in a single blow, and they had to be prepared for a fatal wound from a mere graze by an opponent's attack they could have otherwise easily parried.
‘The skill of the Justitia guards is, at best, mid- to high-tier by Imperial Army standards. And they've been strengthened to the point where they can scuffle with our bloodline?’
It was a fact that went beyond strange, sending a chill down her spine.
If this was possible without any conditions or limits, it meant the Kingdom of Heaven could transform even a nearby band of bandits into a top-tier army.
But. Even so, the name Lennart was not an empty one.
Even while facing overwhelming offensive and defensive power, they cut down the guards one by one, opening a path to the lord.
Thwack!
Among them, Adel's performance was unparalleled.
It wasn't because she was exceptionally stronger than the other members...
In fact, in terms of pure technique, she was somewhat lacking compared to the others gathered here.
Nevertheless, there were two reasons she could be so effective.
One was the overwhelming superhuman strength granted by the Belt of Amaryllis.
The defensive power provided by the emerald light was certainly formidable, but the force of Adel's every blow was even more brutal.
And the other was her astonishing evasion ability.
The way she avoided every attack amidst a relentless barrage from multiple opponents, without even looking, was like watching a dance.
While they felt reassured having Adel as an ally, the Lennart members couldn't help but wonder inwardly.
That was a skill that couldn't be developed without experiencing real combat against overwhelming numbers, or brutal training that mimicked it. Just where could she have learned it, they wondered.
“Keoheuk!”
After what felt like a very long time, but was in reality less than a few minutes, the guards' formation began to crumble.
Just as it seemed a path to the lord would open if they pushed just a little more, the lord, who had been silent all this time, stepped forward.
“To try and deny a fair and just verdict... your sins are heavy indeed.”
A faint white light began to emanate from the lord.
At first, the light merely enveloped the lord's body, but when he infused it into the scale, a dramatic reaction occurred.
Paaaaah!
The lord's holy power and the scale's emerald energy mingled, amplifying their magnitude several dozen times over.
“O executioners. The righteous law of the heavens is with you, so do not be afraid.”
As the energy spread out like a ripple and touched their bodies, the guards' wounds healed rapidly.
Not only those who were still fighting, but even the soldiers who had fallen to the ground began to rise one by one.
“Oh, ooooh!”
“What the hell…!”
The guards' faces were filled with cheers, while the faces of the bloodline members, hidden behind their masks, twisted as if they'd bitten into a bug.
They had struggled so hard to whittle down the enemy's forces, only to be sent right back to square one. Their reaction was only natural.
Agony flickered in Maris's eyes.
‘Should we retreat?’
The bloodline members still had strength left.
Though they had minor injuries, not one of them had fallen, and they still had stamina and mana.
The problem was that if the enemy continued to heal their soldiers like this, they had no answer.
They wanted to ignore the soldiers and aim directly for the lord, but even that was impossible as the guards, with madness glittering in their eyes, blocked the way with their bodies.
A war of attrition where they didn't know the enemy's limits.
They could still retreat now, but later, even that might not be an option.
‘Is it right to keep charging into a fight with no clear chance of victory? Shouldn't we retreat while we still have the strength and reassess the situation?’
‘But if we retreat now, is there any other solution? If we can't get the lord, we'll just be trapped in this city and picked off one by one.’
It was then, as Maris agonized between these two conflicting propositions…
“Huh?”
Adelaide, who had been fighting so well until now, suddenly froze, her gaze fixed blankly on some random spot.
A guard seized the opening and charged.
The instant the other bloodline members moved to protect Adel, something fell into the square.
No, it plummeted.
Splaaaaaaat!
A sound like the gruesome rupture of a fatal fall, amplified several times over, echoed through the square.
A large sack, the kind used for holding grain, rolled across the ground and then went limp.
As everyone stood frozen by the sudden, bizarre event…
The sack twitched and squirmed, and then something poked out from inside.
A pure white.
A hand so white it seemed to have no blood in it.
Next came a head of green hair, followed by simple but revealing clothes that did little to hide a sensational figure.
And finally.
The woman who had fully emerged glanced around at the people staring at her with shocked eyes and spoke.
“Oh my, everyone's gathered here. Is there some kind of party?”