The Deep Malice of Outpost County

Watching the cavalry charging toward them, Allen looked at Yorkshire, whose face was slick with sweat and body trembling slightly. He patted him gently on the shoulder, then shouted at the subjects gathered outside the General Affairs Hall: "What are you standing there gawking for? They're trying to assassinate me, the Second Young Master, and you're still pretending? If I lose so much as a single hair, when you get back to the royal city, I'll have my dad skin you all alive."

The knights preparing to charge were greatly startled. They reined their horses around again, warily eyeing the bewildered commoners.

Yorkshire's face lit up with surprise and anticipation.

Not far away, the old butler, who had been hanging his head in silence, looked at Allen with confusion.

Allen struck a pose as if he had everything calculated from a thousand miles away, arms crossed, calmly watching the knights.

The knights kept their guard up, staring at the commoners outside the General Affairs Hall.

The commoners stared back at their lord as if he were an idiot.

Allen was dumbfounded. He pointed at his own head and tried again: "Me! It's me! Allen, son of Grand Duke Allen?"

The commoners showed no reaction at all. They just looked at each other.

Sakre sighed and said viciously to the knights behind him: "Any of you dares to blab that I once compared myself to this idiot back at the Old Castle, and I'll cut out your tongue."

The lackey knights nodded frantically.

"My dad didn't send anyone to secretly protect me?" Allen asked Yorkshire, confused.

Yorkshire spread his hands innocently.

How the hell would I know? He's your dad, not mine. I've been in the royal city for years and never even laid eyes on the Grand Duke.

Allen turned his gaze to Dina.

"What do you mean, Second Young Master?"

Dina blinked her big eyes in confusion.

Allen looked back at the old butler.

Old Laixi covered his face helplessly.

Supported by his men, Andrew, who had more breath going out than coming in, whispered the last three words of his life: "Kill him."

The knights spurred their horses into a gallop, charging at Allen with murderous intent.

Just as dozens of tall warhorses were about to trample Allen and his group into pulp, a figure appeared on a low rooftop nearby and threw out a large net covered in barbs, dropping from the sky to entangle the front row of knights.

The horses pitched forward and fell, struggling wildly as the barbs sank deep into the knights' flesh.

A strange sound rang out. From inside a nearby low building came a grating, teeth-setting noise, and then countless high-speed spinning blades shot out from the windows, slicing several charging knights clean in half at the waist.

Dina's face went pale. Grabbing Allen and Yorkshire by the scruffs of their necks, she leaped backward.

The knights' warhorses reared up, letting out low whinnies.

A rain of blood and severed limbs scattered through the air.

Misfortune came in waves. Haftless Broken Blades flew in from a distance one after another, wrapped in battle qi, piercing through the knights' hearts as easily as stabbing through butter.

The knights clutching their chests heard a muffled thump—the sound of battle qi exploding inside their bodies.

A few tiny crossbow bolts shot out from the direction of the General Affairs Hall like shooting stars, arriving in an instant and striking several unlucky souls precisely in the throat.

The unlucky ones fell flat on their backs, kicked their legs a couple of times, and then breathed their last. Their corpses immediately took on a strange purple hue.

If the hidden attacks had already given the knights a headache, the faint sound of chanting spells being murmured completely dragged them into the abyss of hell.

The violent Fire Element in the air created a suffocating heat. Six walls of flame materialized out of nowhere, surrounding dozens of knights.

"The bolts are poisoned! Raise your shields!"

"The enemy is near the General Affairs Hall!"

"Where? There are ambushers!"

"A mage! Watch out, it's a mage!"

Knights and horses tumbled in chaos, crashing into each other like headless flies.

The commoners watching the excitement outside the General Affairs Hall showed no discomfort at the bloody scene nearby. Instead, they commented with great interest.

"That Birdwing Blade just now came from the blacksmith Matt's place, right?"

"No taste. The Birdwing Crossbow is huge. How big is his house? You'd barely have room to set up a wooden bed."

"What poison did they smear on those bolts?"

"Blue Fire Lizard Essence Blood from the Fierce Beast Forest?"

"Good lord, how much is that worth? They might as well have given me the money. I'd have gone up and killed those blind knights myself. What a waste."

"Hey, did you see that just now? Our lord's got some real strength. He swung that mace and sent that leader flying. He's dead as a doornail now."

"He eats well. The lord's a noble. He stuffs himself with black bread all day long. Of course he's got strength."

"Since when did our county have a Fire Element Mage?"

"Who knows."

Sakre watched Allen, who was looking smug in the distance. He suddenly felt that surviving this long in Outpost County as a noble was itself an impressive feat.

The knights were terrified and had lost all will to continue chasing Allen and his group. They jumped off their horses, pulled out round shields as big as their heads from behind their backs, and held them up defensively, their faces tense and uneasy.

As Guard Knights of Xiulunte, they had been through countless battles, but they had never encountered such a bizarre situation before: poisoned crossbow bolts, a Birdwing Crossbow, spiked nets meant to intercept cavalry, short blades laced with high-level battle qi, and a Wall of Flame several meters high.

They had seen these attack methods before, but they had never witnessed them erupting all at once, mindlessly yet as if rehearsed, and they hadn't found a single one of the hidden assailants.

If this had been a normal battle between two sides, with everyone fully armed and prepared long in advance, they wouldn't be in such a frantic, heavy-loss state as they were now.

Of the nearly hundred Guard Knights, their leader had been bashed to death by that young noble's club; several squad leaders were either caught in large nets covered in barbs, their faces a bloody mess, or had a hiltless short blade stuck in their hearts, a large hole in their chests spurting blood—a ghastly sight.

The worst off were a few companions hit by severe poison, mouths wide open, hands clutching their throats, dead beyond dead, their purple faces looking utterly terrifying.

More than a dozen other companions had been cut in half at the waist, and the rest weren't much better off, sporting scorched hair and twitching nervously as they looked around, trying to peer past the flames to find a figure that had never appeared.

Inside the General Affairs Hall, Sakre suddenly felt his feet planted on this ground, his heart deeply uneasy. If this group of hidden attackers were deployed to the royal city of the Duke Lotel Kingdom, they could probably cause large-scale chaos and extreme unease among the rulers.

And what shocked him even more was that the commoners not far away were watching like it was a show; one look at their expressions told him they were already long accustomed to this.

The knights trapped by the Wall of Flame were on the verge of tears.

We're innocent, you know! We just seized a few civilian houses—is this really necessary?

Before we came, we only wanted to chop off a few troublemakers' arms to get the job done. We're just Xiulunte's lackeys! If you've got the guts, go after the real culprit!

You've got mages, assassins, and killers—we won't even mention that. But to deal with us second-rate knights, is this really necessary? Dragging out siege weapons and a Birdwing Crossbow...

The knights breathed heavily, suddenly longing for the fresh air they had never cared about before. Staring at the scorching Wall of Flame, their faces showed despair.

Inside the General Affairs Hall, Asuo looked at a few inconspicuous figures among the crowd outside the door and felt the deep malice of Outpost County.

Behind him, Hels gripped his magic staff, his expression grave.