Bloody Battle (2)

The heavy rewards Suleiman had promised at the camp were now exerting their most direct and brutal effect.

A Burned Men Warrior swung his spiked club, having just hammered down a Flatlander soldier who had charged too recklessly.

Before he could even catch his breath, three more Flatlander soldiers lunged at him with bloodshot eyes.

The spears, longswords, and hand axes in their hands stabbed, slashed, and swung toward his body without a moment's hesitation.

The Burned Men Warrior valiantly parried the longsword a Flatlander had brought down upon him.

Yet, he was immediately pierced in the lower abdomen by another spear, letting out a miserable cry as his movements faltered.

The third soldier's hand axe had already hacked fiercely into his neck.

The axe failed to decapitate him, lodging firmly in his neck as blood sprayed forth.

The soldier who had struck the neck shouted in excitement, "I hit him! I hit him! I killed a Wildling!"

He was immediately shoved aside by comrades rushing up from behind, as more men swarmed toward the next target.

The seven Wildling raiders were instantly submerged by soldiers who were blinded by bloodlust, fanaticism, and greed.

They might have possessed strong close-quarters combat abilities, but in a situation where seven men were being swarmed by nearly twenty times their number, regardless of the cost, they could only swing their weapons in vain before being stabbed, slashed, and hacked time and time again.

These Burned Men Wildlings could not fathom why these Flatlanders, who had always been weak and cowardly, had suddenly become so insane and bloodthirsty.

Suleiman paid no heed to the chaotic melee nearby.

The Mountain Clans Wildlings also called themselves the Free Folk.

Yet their freedom consisted of year after year, day after day, of raiding and slaughtering the Flatlanders.

They dared not confront those who wore iron skins or rode tall horses.

Instead, they preyed upon the Flatlanders who barely eked out a living by tilling the land.

They destroyed their crops, burned their villages, and seized their wives, children, and property.

They were accustomed to hiding in forests and mountain passes to launch ambushes, turning defenseless civilians into souls under their blades.

Their swords knew only the necks of the weak.

Yet, when others returned the favor in kind, they suddenly remembered to level accusations of treachery and shamelessness.

His attention was focused entirely on the last enemy, the one hidden the deepest.

He would deliver the deepest despair to the very heart of the Mountain Clans' Burned Men!

A black shadow suddenly lunged out from a patch of ground that appeared no different from the flat earth.

Like a predatory Shadow Lynx, it was silent, yet incredibly swift!

Val, Son of Nango! The most outstanding animal ambush hunter among the Mountain Clans!

The plan of Walker, Son of Nego, was simple; whether it was his tortured companions in the granary, or himself and his seven comrades, all were part of the plan—all were sacrifices!

They were bait to draw in the soldiers surrounding Suleiman, and he was the true killing blow!

Val, Son of Nango, had lurked here, waiting for the moment the Flatlander soldiers' attention was diverted.

It was in this instant, when the Flatlander commander's focus was scattered, that he would deliver a fatal strike!

Val, Son of Nango, moved with extreme speed, his short sword gripped tightly in his hand.

Just as he had done countless times when hunting and ambushing animals, he aimed straight for the throat of Suleiman, who sat atop his white horse!

He even felt he would soon see the look of astonishment on Suleiman's face.

Success!

However, the next moment, the ecstasy in Val's eyes froze.

He did not see astonishment on the young man's face.

He saw—a trace of a mocking smile.

A flash of a blade, a blink of cold light, in an instant, impossibly fast!

"Shing!" the sound of a blade leaving its scabbard rang out.

Val, Son of Nango, felt a tremendous force land on his arm.

His severed arm and short sword flew away together.

"Aaaah—!" Val, Son of Nango, let out a cry like a wailing horn.

His right arm, which had held the short sword, had been cleanly severed at the shoulder! Blood gushed out like a fountain!

Suleiman flicked the blood from his sword, his expression blank.

He made no further move.

The movements of Val, Son of Nango, were incredibly slow in his eyes.

"Hhh—hhh—" The excruciating pain nearly caused Val, Son of Nango, to faint.

He forced himself to bite the tip of his tongue, the sharp, violent pain clearing his mind for a fleeting moment.

Using his only remaining hand, he drew a short bone dagger from his waist.

With eyes flickering with madness and despair, he roared like a cornered beast and lunged at Suleiman once more!

"Die! Flatlander!"

Suleiman did not even retreat; he merely flicked his wrist.

A flash of cold light streaked by, a white glare passing before the eyes of Val, Son of Nango.

The momentum of Val, Son of Nango's charge came to an abrupt halt as his head soared high into the air, a ferocious expression still frozen upon his face.

In an instant, countless images flashed through the mind of Val, Son of Nango—the time he had only dared to sear off his own right pinky toe during his coming-of-age rite.

The mockery of his tribesmen, and the disappointed gazes of his parents.

He had always yearned to prove himself, to become a true Champion.

He had wanted to sear off his own eyes, his own ears, too.

But every time he picked up the red-hot iron, his body's instinct and fear would make him shrink away.

Yet, because he craved recognition, he honed his hunting skills every single day.

He could lie motionless in the snow for a day and a night just to ambush a single piece of prey.

None of his tribesmen could do that!

But no matter how much game he caught, or how dangerous the prey, his father, mother, and kin still looked down on him; they believed that only those who raided the Flatlanders and stole their wives and daughters were real men.

Yet he did not understand why they had to raid the Flatlanders who tilled the earth.

They simply worked the land, trading sweat for harvests, building houses to shelter against the wind and snow.

They threatened no one, provoked no one. They were just—living there.

They dug food from the barren soil with their own hands, just as he had hidden in the snow for a day and a night.

Why raid them for such a hard-won way of life?

In the end, he thought, perhaps, right now, he had become the Champion his parents and tribesmen spoke of.

But he did not want to be a Champion anymore; he wanted to return to the high mountains.

To live alone, to hunt alone.

To leave the tribe and become a true Free Folk.

But now, it was all over.

His body stumbled forward three paces before collapsing lifelessly to the ground.

At the same time, the sounds of slaughter from the direction of the farmstead began to gradually subside.

Walker, Son of Nego, stood drenched in blood, staring at Suleiman's position in disbelief.

He had never expected this, nor had he ever even considered such a possibility.

This young man, who looked so small and possessed the weakest physique even by the standards of his own tribe, was actually this strong—and so fast, so fast that in the blink of an eye, it was all over.

If he had been caught off guard, he feared he too would have been cut down by that sword!

The one ambushing prey on this battlefield was not Val, Son of Nango.

It was this Flatlander!

Those Flatlander soldiers were acting like madmen, even shoving one another to claim the corpses of his tribesmen.

A flicker of sorrow for his kin crossed the eyes of Walker, Son of Nego, only to be replaced by endless rage.

"Kill!" "Kill!" "Kill!"

He let out a bestial roar, raised his battle-axe high, and led the few remaining tribesmen at his side in a desperate, suicidal charge toward Suleiman!

They were wolves of the high mountains; they would rather die in battle than ever surrender!

Suleiman watched them approach with indifference.

Lushen had already led the soldiers to circle around from the farmstead, converging with the troops at Suleiman's side.

"Form ranks!" "Spearmen, form ranks!" "Protect Master Suleiman!" Lushen raised his blood-stained right fist and shouted his orders.

The soldiers quickly aligned into several rows, standing before Suleiman, their spear wall standing firm like an impenetrable fortress.

Walker, Son of Nego, saw that the young Flatlander had even begun to calmly wipe his longsword clean.

His gaze remained fixed on his blade, as if there were nothing else on the battlefield worth noting.

The Wildlings of the Burned Men were fierce and fearless, each fighting three men at once, undeterred by death.

However, what they faced was a pack of "Bloody Mad Dogs" whose ferocity had been thoroughly ignited by ambition, greed, and desire!

A Wildling of the Burned Men had just smashed a soldier's skull with his hammer when two spears immediately thrust into his body from below.

He roared, trying to snap the spear shaft and strike back, but an arrow slammed fiercely into his eye, piercing straight through!

Walker, Son of Nego, swung his battle-axe with all his might, yet his tribesmen around him fell one after another.

He saw a young tribesman tackled to the ground by three or four Flatlanders, who fought over his corpse until they hacked it to pieces in a frenzy.

He saw another tribesman clamp his teeth onto a soldier's arm, only to have his skull shattered from behind by another soldier's hand-axe.

In that moment, Walker, Son of Nego, suddenly understood.

They were indeed wolves of the high mountains, fierce and powerful.

But these Flatlanders, these creatures they had viewed as sheep.

Were, in truth, a vast pack of fearless, swarming hunting hounds!

No matter how fierce the mountain wolf, it could not fight off a pack of hounds.

"Squelch!"

A longsword pierced through his chest from behind.

Walker, Son of Nego, lowered his head with great difficulty, staring at the sword tip protruding from his chest.

He felt his strength fading rapidly, his body growing colder and colder.

The figures of countless Flatlander soldiers lunged forward, drowning out his final field of vision.

He felt as if he were being crushed under the weight of a countless throng.

Their weapons hacked and slashed at him incessantly.

He did not know what point there was in them doing this.

Until he heard it.

The final words he would ever perceive.

"I got the head! Toman got the head!"

The voice was filled with ecstatic joy.