Extermination

A burly man wielding a broadsword stood before Duke. He paid little attention to Duke charging at him and did not take the young man seriously.

The burly man was powerfully built, with exceptionally developed arm muscles. He raised his long blade and brought it down viciously, intending to cleave Duke and his sword in two.

Yet the strike hit nothing. The man before him suddenly vanished.

The burly man's heart skipped a beat, and he immediately sensed that something was wrong.

Just as he tried to pull back his blade and raise it in front of himself to block, a longsword had already pierced his throat.

Duke had not unleashed his full strength or speed from the start. He had kept his speed at the level of an ordinary adult man.

The instant the burly man's arm muscles moved, Duke's extensive combat experience told him several of the man's likely next moves.

Combined with the subsequent motion of raising his hand and so on, Duke had already determined the approximate direction and position of the strike.

At the instant before the broadsword reached him, he burst forth with his full speed and dodged aside.

Then, borrowing the momentum, he drove his sword through the man's throat.

In a battle of life and death, victory and defeat were decided in an instant.

Duke also realized that no matter what kind of enemy he faced in the future, he must never underestimate them.

Even a lion used its full strength when hunting a rabbit.

This burly man was likely even stronger than Duke. In a normal duel, they definitely would not have been able to determine a victor anytime soon.

But the man had let his guard down, seeing Duke as nothing more than an inexperienced brat, and so he had fallen.

Life was not a game. He had no second chance.

The others who witnessed Duke's move were all startled.

Some had already been on their way over. When they saw the burly man's strike, they had thought Duke would be unable to take it, but Duke's movements were incredibly nimble. With a light drift, he evaded it.

Duke's sword thrust had been exceptionally decisive and precise, and his timing was brilliant. He did not look like a newcomer at all.

Although Wood was also killing enemies, he did so with ease and still had the attention to spare for the others, especially the newcomers.

First, he wanted to look after the four newcomers and keep them from dying here. Second, he wanted to observe their performance.

Wood's violent method of killing that man at the beginning had actually been a test for the four newcomers, meant to help them adapt.

Being afraid and terrified was normal. It was the reaction of an ordinary person, and it was understandable.

But he had not expected Duke's adaptability to be so strong. Duke had merely frowned.

What was more, Duke's follow-up strike surprised Wood even further.

That had actually been nothing more than an ordinary thrust from basic swordsmanship, but Duke had used it with such mastery that the entire sequence flowed as smoothly as clouds and water.

Drawing his sword, piercing the enemy's throat, withdrawing his sword—every movement had been standard and fluid, like an action repeated over and over on a training ground.

More importantly, Wood had been watching Duke's expression the entire time. From beginning to end, Duke's expression had barely changed, and his emotions had shown no fluctuation.

Duke's hand holding the sword was remarkably steady. It did not tremble.

If Wood had not known Duke's background so well, he would have suspected that Duke was a battle-hardened veteran. He was far too experienced.

Wood could only conclude that Duke had been born with extraordinary combat talent and a far stronger mind than ordinary people.

Wood had seen many people like that before, especially during wartime. Such people often stood out in the army.

If Duke had been born in an era of war, he would probably have achieved remarkable things.

The battle continued. After killing the burly man with one stroke, Duke immediately engaged another opponent.

This man also used a sword. He was lean, and his movements were extremely agile.

He had seen what had just happened and was immensely wary of Duke. His movements were cautious, revealing no obvious openings.

Duke was temporarily locked in a difficult fight with him as well. Both sides were cautious, and their longswords repeatedly clashed with metallic rings.

After several minutes of deadlock, Duke had already figured out the other man's capabilities.

He knew that it would be difficult to achieve a result anytime soon if this continued. With the other man refusing to give him an opening, it would be hard for him to defeat him quickly.

Duke glanced at his single free attribute point and stopped hesitating.

"Skill Tree, allocate point!"

Duke added the point to Strength. His Strength rose from 5.9 to 6.9, nearly two points higher than an ordinary person's.

In cold-weapon combat, strength was the foundation, while technique was built upon strength.

As long as one was strong enough, brute force could overcome all techniques.

After Duke increased his Strength, his body did not change much in appearance, but his muscles and bones became more compact.

This sort of change was even more significant. It felt as though endless strength had surged up from deep within his bones.

Duke gripped his iron sword and slashed again, the blade carrying tremendous force.

The lean man's sword hand was jolted numb by the powerful recoil. He nearly lost his grip on the sword altogether.

He was instantly shocked, unable to understand why this person's strength had suddenly become so great.

Duke gave him no chance to catch his breath, following up with a ferocious, storm-like barrage of attacks.

The lean man had to grip his sword with both hands just to block the attacks with great difficulty. He could no longer even hold the sword with one hand.

Only a few minutes later, the lean man made one careless mistake, and Duke sliced off more than half of his shoulder. His neck was nearly severed as well.

Duke discovered that the improvement brought by this single point of Strength far exceeded his expectations. It seemed to be much greater than the previous increase of one point of Strength.

After killing the lean man, the battle here was more or less over.

Under Wood's leadership, the militia squad slaughtered the group and sent them into complete disarray.

When they counted afterward, the group had contained twenty-seven people, with quite a few more inside the mine.

However, none of them were Knight-level powerhouses. They were simply incapable of contending with Wood, and their complete annihilation was only a matter of time.

Duke had heard that on the battlefield, it generally took a squad of twenty or thirty men working together with tacit coordination to have a chance of taking down a Knight-level powerhouse.

Caught by surprise, this group had no time to organize any effective resistance before Wood and the others smashed through them.

In the end, only five were left alive. That was also the number the militia squad could effectively control; any more could easily cause problems.

Interrogation revealed that these people belonged to the Wild Wolf Bandit Group.

The Wild Wolf Bandit Group was a major bandit group within Jade Province. Its members often roamed from place to place, burning, killing, looting, and committing every kind of evil.

This group was merely a small detachment from the larger bandit group. Passing by this mine, they had been tempted by greed, killed the guards, and taken control of the mine.

In this era, iron ore was a strategic resource and extremely valuable. They had intended to take as much as they could before Count Hardy's side could react.

They had originally planned to kill the miners and leave, but their greed made them think they could keep mining for another two days.