Slaughter

The deputy clutched the sheep the captain had tossed him and grinned savagely.

How did they do things in Shurima?

Shurima lacked water and food.

But the human body had both.

He lifted the trembling lamb by one leg and carried it to the center of the village as its mother bleated desperately. He planned to let the other sheep witness what became of livestock like them.

They still needed time to regroup, so they couldn't kill them all. To keep the sheep obedient, they had to make an example of them—and resort to a little trickery.

He couldn't help imagining how adorable their terror and cries would be when the lambs saw countless of their kind die, then realized that their own indifference had led them to the same fate.

So he raised his knife over the lamb, wanting to hear its mother's wail and see her weep.

Then he brought the blade down.

But it wasn't the lamb's head that fell. It was his own.

"People who want to die can do so in the blink of an eye."

Li Ke gripped his longsword and shook the blood off Yone's blade. Without a moment's hesitation, he charged into the Noxian soldiers who had taken up their weapons.

"And you'll need a little help!"

His longsword danced like the wind, and Li Ke moved like a phantom.

Amid the crowd, Li Ke quickly read the Noxians' footwork and shifted his unarmored body to match their movements.

Sweeping Blade!

Li Ke slammed into the chest of a Noxian soldier. Though he was too lean to knock the man down, he managed to keep the other Noxians from landing a direct hit with their weapons.

With a casual slash, he opened the soldier's throat. The pain left the man's limbs weak, and Li Ke seized the spear in his hands and thrust it straight at another soldier's throat.

The spear pierced the throat of the soldier who had tried to grab him. Li Ke quickly pulled away from the man whose throat he had cut, then used his chest to leap into the air.

Of course, jumping in a fight was foolish. You couldn't change direction or push off anything while airborne, so for most people, leaping was a death sentence!

But that didn't apply to those with supernatural abilities!

He channeled his energy into his blade. The instant the Noxian soldiers tried to run him through with their swords and spears, Li Ke's blade flashed past their weapons.

Swords and spears snapped, and Li Ke dropped to the ground. He spun around and struck two Noxian soldiers across the backs of their necks.

Their heavy black-iron helmets were no match for his sword empowered by Overdrive. He easily hacked through both soldiers' necks.

But in the next instant, a gust of wind swept up behind Li Ke. He dodged quickly, but a shallow gash still opened across his back.

He ducked, rolled over, and slashed upward!

Li Ke forced himself through the motions despite the pain. Sure enough, an axe swept past the spot where his head had been. He slipped out of its path and split his opponent open from the crotch up, exposing his guts to the air.

"Kill!"

With a roar, Li Ke charged again, but the Noxian soldiers had already formed a spear wall and were waiting for him. Even Li Ke couldn't cut them down in an instant like before.

If he managed to break through, the spear wall would be useless. But if they braced their shields against their spears and held formation, the blade in his hand would be of little use.

"No wonder I struggled in the simulation..."

Li Ke panted and swallowed a pill. Its bitter taste made it hard to get down, but he had no choice. Fighting drained his mind and body far too quickly.

Those moves alone had already used up nearly half his stamina. To keep moving at that peak speed, he'd need to down a whole bottle of health and mana potions.

The drawn-out fights in movies and TV shows, with characters trading blows for dozens of rounds, were purely for spectacle.

He had gone all out for just over ten seconds, and his condition was already starting to decline. It was like a sprinter: a hundred meters might look like a warm-up, but going all out for even that short distance would leave them exhausted.

Li Ke gripped his sword and waited quietly for the pill to take effect.

The Kinkou Secret Medicine worked so quickly it might as well have been magic, but it still took a little time to kick in. Li Ke held his scabbard, ready to flee at a moment's notice.

Just then, the officer who had been drinking meat soup stepped forward. Seeing the spear wall facing off against Li Ke and his men lying on the ground, his expression darkened.

He glared at his soldiers and shouted at them.

"Are you idiots? Have you forgotten how we dealt with the monks in that temple?"

Their previous target had been a temple. The warrior monks there were highly skilled; they could take down more than a dozen fully armed soldiers with their bare hands.

Like the warrior facing them now, panting slightly, they were impossible to deal with using ordinary methods.

Though their opponent seemed wary of their spear wall, one mistake would give him an opening—and then it would be the end of them.

So they had another way.

The soldiers exchanged glances. The spearmen in the rear withdrew in an orderly fashion and headed for the villagers' homes. Li Ke's expression turned grave as he stared at the commander before him.

"Ionian! You're strong, but I want to know—can you still kill so swiftly when it's your own people standing in your way?"

The officer grinned savagely. He had been the one to kill those monks. They had threatened them with the villagers' children and wives, then forced the villagers to stand in front of his soldiers. After that, they had made them use daggers to kill the monks who refused to harm the villagers.

That had turned what should have been a devastating operation into an easy one.

The officer's Ionian was atrocious, but Li Ke had no answer. He could only look furious.

He struggled to force out a few words in Noxian and cursed the officer.

"You're despicable!"

"Ha ha ha ha!"

The officer burst into laughter. An enemy's curse was the greatest reward. To a Noxian, being called despicable was the highest praise.

"Thank you for the compliment!"

His proud demeanor made his men laugh, but then he suddenly sensed something was wrong.

It was too quiet.

As soon as he realized it, he instinctively wanted to look around. But just then, Li Ke charged forward, looking furious, leaving him no time to think.