As long as he is not a non-human being, the lord is still worthy, and he has also deliberately shortened the distance between the two parties.
But in fact, there are obvious differences between the arenas in the northern countries such as Lion, Raven, and Fieltzwe, and the slave arena of the Bacchus Empire.
The highlight of the Northern Arena is the athletic competition. Most of the participants are knights or children of nobles. They must at least be qualified to use the swallow-tailed flag, just like Li Ang originally did in Mistveil City. At least he must be a child of a knight.
Those who have made a name for themselves in competitive tournaments are usually recruited by superior nobles. Therefore, competitive tournaments in the north are often the entry point for aristocratic children.
If you are an ordinary free citizen or a slave warrior raised in the arena, no matter how good your skills are, you can only participate in the True Sword Combat competition at most and cannot participate in the competitive competition.
But Bax's arena is just the opposite. No nobles will participate in the arena. Those who fight in the arena are either slaves or beasts such as lions, tigers, and crocodiles...
Occasionally, there would be half-slaves and half-free people, who basically broke the law and voluntarily came to atone for their sins by fighting.
This is a special law of Bax. When a person commits some minor crimes that do not meet the serious standards for being sentenced to death by hanging or being demoted to slavery, they will be imprisoned or sent to do hard labor.
If you don't want to go to jail, you can apply to enter the arena to entertain the audience to atone for your sins.
Winning the stipulated competition will regain your freedom and be recorded as a reserve soldier.
This can also be regarded as encouraging a martial arts culture, allowing Bax to continue to have ready combat power to be recruited.
But everything has advantages and disadvantages. Judging from the current situation of Bax, most of the preparatory combat forces may have been involved in rebellions and uprisings. As a result, the scale of the rebels and insurgents has become ridiculously large...
Especially this kind of rebel army led by gladiators.
Since Bacchus Empire gladiators come from many sources, including slaves, prisoners of war, criminals, etc., and gladiatorial competitions have formed a multi-level league system with layered selection, therefore, the skills of these gladiators from Siyuan City are indeed very strong.
Of course there will be no weak players who can participate in the Champions League.
Although Castro is dead, even the runner-up in this rebel army does not seem to be easy to deal with.
"Count Li Ang? I've heard of you... you want us to obey you? But we have to know first, since you are Bacchus Empire's enemy, why should you rescue Erudition City? If you had not attacked us, we would have captured Erudition City now!"
A tall gladiator stood up. He was a middle-aged man wearing black armor. He looked a bit like the Vanskery pirate. He seemed to have heard of the reputation of Li Ang, but this gladiator did not directly mention words like devil.
This guy doesn't seem like a brainless fool.
"Capture Erudition City? Yes, you can indeed capture this city, but what happens after you capture this city? Do you know how to deal with Red Death? If you capture Erudition City, the only consequence is that many of you will be infected with Red Death, and then bring this terrible plague to every corner of the continent..."
Li Ang looked at the scaffolding made of wood on the city wall and shook his head. "I am not here to save Erudition City, nor to save you, I am here to save all the civilians in the north! To prevent Pande Continent people from being devoured by Snake Worship Cult! For a peaceful life!"
"Peaceful life? I hope so... We didn't want to attack the city originally, but Erudition City's army took the initiative to attack us, and we have no food... We also know how terrible Red Death is. In fact, we just want to seize the food in the noble warehouses this time..."
I don't know if this sentence of saving the civilians in the north had an effect. The gladiator's attitude became much gentler, and his words no longer seemed extreme.
"Once you invade the city, the chaotic Erudition City will not be able to control the nobles who are infected with Red Death but plan to escape..."
Alina added next to it.
"When people are hungry and desperate, who cares what disease they contract?"
The gladiator did not quibble, but told the truth.
"You're right, you don't care about anything when you're hungry... So, I brought a lot of food! Enough to feed all of you for two months! But you have to bring your troops to be loyal to me!"
The lord pointed to the carriages. "You will become Commoner Knights under my command. There are no slaves in my territory!"
There were more than 600 carriages, and each carriage was filled with grain.
"Commoner Knights... I haven't heard anyone say that in years... But, do you really plan to win the respect of warriors using gladiatorial methods, Lord Li Ang?"
The gladiator nodded, took off his helmet and placed it on the ground, then bowed to the lord.
There was a big sword on the ground in front of him, which should have been his original weapon, but he did not reach out to take it.
This action of putting down the helmet is Raven Territory Highland Warriors's habit when having friendly discussions, which means that the point is over.
"Of course, this is the simplest way, isn't it? I will respect your way of following the strong... But you don't look like a slave. Are you a Raven or Fieltzwe people, a gladiator? What's your name?"
The lord saw the two-handed sword, and then looked at the gladiator - this guy looked like a descendant of the Vanskery pirates, but behaved like a Crow Highlander.
"I am not a slave, nor a gladiator, but I agree with the way gladiators follow the strong... My name is Sigismund·Sinclair, a homeless man without a home. Come on Lord Li Ang, defeat me, and I will make them your loyal warriors!"
The middle-aged man who called himself Sigismund lowered his head to Li Ang, stretched out his hand to gesture to the sword on the ground. "Since it is you who initiated the challenge, I choose to use a weapon... Do you mind letting me use a two-handed sword?"
When one party challenges, the other party has the right to choose whether to compete with bare hands or weapons. This is the practice among gladiators during competitions.
"Sigismund? The name means 'protect with victory', right?... It's quite appropriate for the occasion. I would like to know why you are in Bax instead of Raven Territory... But let's talk about it after the fight!"
Li Ang laughed, turned over and dismounted, and handed the Sword of the Orator back to his recovered right hand.
Sigismund picked up the big sword on the ground, slapped his breastplate with the sword spine, then placed the sword sideways on his shoulder and nodded towards the lord.
Sure enough, it's Raven Territory Highland Warriors's style.
It was a fair fight, with both sides using only swords.
However, Sigismund uses a two-handed sword, which is actually a slight advantage.
At this moment, Sigismund is taking advantage of the length of the sword to launch an attack.
This is a very powerful warrior. If compared with people who also use big swords, he is roughly on the same level as Meitengheim and Frederi.
But unlike Meitengheim people, whose swordsmanship is great, Sigismund's swordsmanship doesn't look gorgeous at all, and most of its movements don't look very reasonable. It's obvious that he has not received formal instruction and is probably self-taught.
Not only were his movements unreasonable, but he seemed not to defend at all and was always attacking.
But Sigismund's strange swordsmanship is very difficult to deal with, much more difficult to deal with than Meitengheim people.
Because his sword is very fast, very fast.
When the speed of the sword reaches a certain level, there is really no need to defend...
Li Ang I have never seen this kind of fighting method that can make a two-handed sword faster than a one-handed stabbing sword.
At the moment, Sigismund is leaning sideways, holding a distance of about two meters and constantly drawing out his sword. Each sword movement is not large, which makes Li Ang completely unable to get close.
Li Ang's sword is a lot shorter, so he can't close the distance and can only defend passively.
Since the one he was holding was Sword of the Orator, which was not as handy as Griffin Sword, Li Ang had no intention of forcibly slashing the opponent's sword to close the distance.
In fact, it's not easy to cut now. Sigismund didn't perform any slashing. He mostly used his big sword to perform very special thrusts.
He does not hold the hilt of the sword with both hands, but holds the hilt with his right hand, using his left hand as a shelf to push the blade out from the back of his left hand.
There is a black metal gauntlet on his left arm. The surface of the gauntlet has been polished by friction. It seems that he often uses this special trick.
Such an action is difficult to block, because it is using a big sword as a spear, and it is more concealed than a spear. The hilt of the sword is completely covered in the back hand, making it difficult to distinguish the true from the false.
This action seems to sacrifice some flexibility and shorten the attack distance, but the length of the sword he uses may be 1.7 meters. Even if the distance is shortened, it is still larger than the attack range of Li Ang.
Due to the shielding and support of the left arm armor, this action can make it difficult for the opponent to tell the direction of the sword - his left hand can turn the half-struck sword at any time.
If you block and intercept rashly, intending to block the sword to the side, then Sigismund is likely to follow the direction of the block after thrusting the sword, hold the sword hilt with your left hand, and use both hands to swing in reverse.
The initiative is in the hands of the opponent, which makes Li Ang have to carefully avoid it, and even have to take the initiative to distance itself and constantly circle around to find opportunities.
But every time the lord takes a step to the side, Sigismund will immediately follow half a step and continue to be stuck in position. Obviously, his grasp of pace and positioning is better than all the opponents Li Ang has encountered.
Seeing that Sigismund never showed any flaws, Li Ang frowned, and then suddenly laughed.
He suddenly felt that he had stayed with Noldo Elves for too long, and his brain seemed to have been infected and became a little rigid. Why did he have to compete in sword skills?
I am not a martial arts fanatic, nor do I intend to become the best swordsman in the world. I am just trying to win...
To win, you don't need to rely on swordsmanship at all, right?
So, the lord took two steps back and closed his eyes.
Then he turned sideways and inserted the sword into the scabbard, took off the scabbard and put it on his waist, resting his hand on the hilt of the sword, making the appearance of an expert blind swordsman listening to the sound to identify the position - and the action was also the gesture of drawing a sword.
Pande Continent probably has no one seen the sword-drawing technique, but this way of pretending to be a master with closed eyes is really quite bluffing. Sigismund was stunned when he saw it, and Wendy next to him also opened his eyes wide in disbelief.
Only Amy remained calm, just raised his eyebrows and had a smile on his face.
Now Sigismund obviously couldn't figure out the Lord's situation, so he stabbed out a tentative sword.
This sword was a pure feint, and it was withdrawn halfway through, probably to test Li Ang's reaction.
As a result, the lord did not move at all - Li Ang was very sure that Sigismund did not dare to take action with all his strength at this time. The more experienced a master is, the less likely he is to take action easily when the situation is unclear...
So Sigismund was a little panicked.
He felt that Li Ang had his eyes closed the whole time, but he could distinguish his feints and didn't even make a dodge. It seemed that he was indeed the most skilled person he had ever seen in his life, so he cautiously stopped drawing his sword.
The two faced off for three seconds, but neither of them moved.
Li Ang tilted his ears and tilted his head slightly, Sigismund jumped back a small step, but found that the lord did not move...
Sigismund sweat dropped from his head.
At this moment, the lord suddenly opened his eyes and turned his head. Sigismund was so excited that he subconsciously raised his sword in front of him.
That's it now!
This is Sigismund's instinctive reaction, but this defensive reaction should not appear at this time.
Li Ang suddenly rushed in front of the opponent, drew his sword and struck.
This action does indeed look like a sudden sword drawing technique, but Li Ang doesn't know how to do this at all...
So what the lord used was something else - he used the gesture of drawing the sword to throw the scabbard towards Sigismund, and at the same time he flew towards it.
Sigismund As soon as he raised his sword in front of him, he saw something black flying towards his head, and he quickly blocked it with his left gauntlet.
The gauntlet successfully blocked the scabbard and made a crisp sound.
But at the same time, this also blocked his own eyes.
Then, he was held by Li Ang and threw him to the ground. The left arm armor in front of him was just caught by the lord.
When the two of them were fighting each other on the ground, the sword was of no use at all...
And Sigismund obviously doesn't have any ground strangulation skills. After his left hand was twisted, he wanted to knock Li Ang away, but Li Ang turned over and passed him - now his left hand that was twisted became a backhand triangle choke...
"Admit defeat?"
"Admit defeat..."
Sigismund didn't hesitate. If he didn't admit defeat, his hand would be useless. He couldn't prevent it with a gauntlet.
Amy curled her lips and complained in a voice that only she could hear, "Sure enough, deception is much more effective than swordsmanship..."
"Then go organize your troops, Sigismund. I'll wait here for you to bring the troops over. I hope you won't disappoint me."
The lord let go of his hand, pulled Sigismund up from the ground, and then shouted to the other gladiators watching the battle, "Is anyone still dissatisfied?"
No one was dissatisfied, and the gladiators all lowered their heads to the lord while stroking their chests.
Although this victory does not seem to rely purely on force, neither does it rely purely on force in the arena. Gladiators only care about victory.
In the arena, only the victor is qualified to live.
"Since no one is dissatisfied, go and regroup your troops! Tell them that if you follow me, you will not only have food to eat, but you will never be a slave!"
Li Ang waved his hand, Noldo Guard put away his weapons and dispersed, leaving the gladiators no longer under supervision.