Kobolds Attack

"You sure sleep soundly, kid!"

Roland was not yet fully awake when a low, stern voice rang beside his ears.

He looked up blankly and saw Uncle Peyton dragging his bloodstained body toward him.

Under the bright moonlight, Peyton was drenched in blood, with even dark-red beads congealing on his beard.

He casually wiped his face, only smearing the blood across it and making himself look even more ferocious.

"Stop dawdling. Pick up your weapon!"

Roland quickly got to his feet and caught the pack Peyton tossed over. He drew the iron sword from it and gripped it in his hand.

"Uncle Peyton, what happened?"

"What else could it be?"

Peyton spat and swung the iron sword fiercely, carving a glaring bloodstain across the ground.

"Those monsters from Dawn Territory are attacking. Damn bastards."

The moment he finished speaking, a crisp crack suddenly came from beyond the fence.

Three hunched figures vaulted over the barrier, their yellow slit pupils gleaming eerily in the night.

They stood about half a man tall. Their bodies were covered in coarse brown fur, while above their necks were snarling dog heads.

"Kobolds!"

Looking at the monsters with human bodies and dog faces before him, Roland's heart suddenly began to race.

Although he had heard countless rumors about these monsters from others since transmigrating, this was his first time encountering one in person.

"Kid, take the one on the right. I'll handle the two on the left!"

Before Peyton had even finished speaking, he shot forward like an arrow loosed from a bow.

Seeing this, Roland drew a deep breath. He kept his eyes fixed on the kobold before him, slowly shifting his feet while maintaining a safe distance.

He raised the sword tip slightly and assumed the standard opening stance of Lionheart Swordsmanship.

The kobold hunched its back and gripped a rusty hatchet in its coarse claws. It tilted its head, staring at the strange movements of the human before it.

Then it suddenly let out a furious roar and lunged, bringing the hatchet down with a whistle.

Seeing this, Roland deftly turned sideways and blocked.

The instant the iron sword collided with the axe blade, his webbed hand shook violently, and he nearly lost his grip on the hilt.

"What terrifying brute strength!"

Roland was deeply startled. He immediately retreated half a step and opened up some distance.

But the kobold pressed its advantage, bringing its hatchet down three times in succession.

Roland fought while retreating. During the third block, he deliberately weakened his force, then used the recoil to leap lightly backward.

"This guy..."

After noticing that the kobold had to adjust its breathing after every swing and moved especially clumsily when turning, Roland's eyes flashed.

"Plenty of strength, but lacking agility."

Having noticed the kobold's weakness, Roland immediately changed his strategy.

When the next axe blade came at him, he no longer met it head-on. Instead, he ducked aside and simultaneously flicked his sword upward, leaving a bloody mark along the kobold's ribs.

The pain made the kobold roar madly. Its attacks grew fiercer, but also increasingly disordered.

Roland, meanwhile, circled and maneuvered like a bullfighter. In his hands, the killing art of Lionheart Swordsmanship unfolded to its fullest. There were no flashy moves; every strike went straight for a vital point.

When the kobold's next full-force chop missed, he seized the opening and surged forward, driving the blade into its throat like a venomous snake.

As hot blood sprayed across his face, a line of golden text appeared before his eyes at the same time.

[While fighting an enemy, your relevant comprehension has improved. Lion Swordplay has gained three experience points.]

"So this is the effect of the extra enhancement, Theory and Practice?"

The thought flashed through Roland's mind and vanished. He hurriedly looked to the side.

Peyton was being driven back step by step under the assault of two kobolds, facing danger at every turn.

Seeing this, Roland drew a deep breath and strode over.

One of the kobolds sensed the movement. The moment it turned around, Roland struck it across the shoulder with a diagonal slash.

The kobold let out a shrill howl. Its companion immediately abandoned Peyton and charged at Roland, swinging a mace.

With the experience he had just gained fighting a kobold, Roland nimbly slipped past the heavy mace, and his sword edge precisely sliced across the kobold's knee.

As the kobold staggered and fell to its knees, he followed through with a backslash, the sharp blade cleaving straight through its throat.

The injured kobold from earlier tried to launch a sneak attack, but Peyton, having caught his breath, stabbed it through the heart from behind.

"Beautiful counterattack!"

Although Peyton shouted his praise, the shock in his eyes was impossible to hide.

The sixteen-year-old boy before him had not only mastered Lionheart Swordsmanship in a short time and applied it in actual combat, but also remained remarkably calm when facing vicious monsters.

Compared with him, Peyton felt as though he had wasted the past several decades of his life.

Gazing at Roland's tall, straight figure, Peyton gave a bitter laugh inwardly before offering some instruction.

"However, you could have attacked its armpit just now. That would have temporarily robbed it of its ability to move."

Hearing this, Roland reviewed the battle from moments ago and nodded lightly.

After awakening his skills, his various attributes and enhancements could help him quickly grasp the essentials of a craft, but they could not give him actual combat experience against enemies.

Therefore, although he completely understood every essence of Lionheart Swordsmanship in his mind, his techniques still lacked some nimble variation and adaptability in battle.

After driving a final sword into each of the three kobolds and confirming that they were all dead, Roland finally walked over.

Facing the moonlight, he noticed that Peyton's left arm bore a wound deep enough to expose the bone. Blood had already soaked through half his sleeve.

"You're injured?"

"I got scratched by those bastards earlier. It's nothing."

Peyton spat and was about to say more when several more howls like barking came from the distance.

At the sound, Peyton's expression changed dramatically. He pulled Roland into the house.

Gary had already packed his belongings and was standing guard behind the door with a hunting bow in hand. When he saw the two enter, he immediately barred the door and said anxiously,

"The eastern granary is on fire. At least twenty kobolds are looting the market."

"Far more than that."

Peyton tore off a strip of cloth and hastily bandaged his wound.

"These bastards are clearly organized. There has to be something big directing them from behind."

Roland looked outside through the gap in the window, and his stomach immediately lurched.

The entire village had fallen into a sea of flames, with more than a dozen fires staining the night sky blood-red.

In the streets, kobolds broke into houses in groups of three or five. An old man who had fallen behind was tackled by three monsters, and his screams soon became a horrifying sound of chewing.

Farther away, several strong young villagers were desperately resisting with pitchforks. Then a kobold wielding a weapon charged into the crowd with a rusty iron sword. After several dull thuds, the defenders fell one after another into pools of blood.

"Damn it!"

After seeing the scene outside, Gary cursed and suddenly flipped up the bed board, dragging an old wooden chest out of a compartment beneath it.

He deftly pried open the lock and took out two gleaming hunting knives, fastening them around his waist.

"The back door is safe for now. What do we do next?"

"We go to the village entrance and escape toward the estate!"

Before Peyton could speak, Roland withdrew his gaze from the window and spoke first.

"There must be stationed guards remaining at the estate. With its high walls, the kobolds have no chance of breaking through!"

Roland had studied at the estate, so he knew the surroundings there like the back of his hand.

Rather than an estate, it was more like a small fortress.

Tall stone walls, staggered watchtowers, and tight defensive fortifications all displayed its easy-to-defend, hard-to-attack nature.

With the kobolds' crude weapons and disorganized assault, trying to break through a defensive line guarded by well-trained regular soldiers was simply a fool's dream.

"We'll do as the kid says!"

Peyton panted heavily and nodded at Gary.

After reaching an agreement, the three quietly slipped out of the house.

Seeing the several kobold corpses in front of the house, Roland understood where the wound on Peyton's arm had come from.

Amid the billowing smoke, the three used it as cover, keeping close to the walls as they moved quickly.

Whenever they encountered kobolds along the way, Roland and Peyton worked together in perfect understanding and killed them as a team.

During the continuous real battles, the special effect of Practice and Theory gradually appeared.

The Lionheart Swordsmanship in Roland's hands shed its initial awkwardness. His moves connected more smoothly, and every strike became more precise and fierce.

After turning two street corners, Roland suddenly grabbed the other two.

Seven or eight corpses lay across the intersection ahead, villagers and kobolds mixed together among them.

Not far away, several regular soldiers in chainmail charged at an unusually tall kobold, blades in hand.

Under the bright moonlight, Roland clearly noticed how different this kobold was.

Its entire body was covered in blood-red scales, each one gleaming with an eerie chill beneath the moonlight.