Raiding

A first-tier Knight could solo five ordinary heavy cavalrymen, and a second-tier Knight should have no trouble stubbornly gnawing through twenty, let alone the fact that they also had squires and caravan guards; once the workers were issued crossbows, they could hold out for a while too.

Cooch's heart settled down, and he commanded with majesty: "Stop advancing, protect the goods well, and prepare for battle."

The others in the caravan possessed no battle aura and were long since frightened badly by this spectacle. Hearing these words, they hurriedly took out their weapons in a fluster, while the guards relied mainly on short spears and swords and sabers.

"I haven't fought a battle in a long time; my hands have been itching for it for ages." Gareth could no longer wait to embrace the glory of battle, squeezing his horse's flanks and charging straight up: "Come on, I hope you can last a little longer."

The squires beside him also immediately followed suit.

"Awooo~"

Just as they were about to engage, following a terrifying wolf howl, Gareth only felt the warhorse beneath him violently shudder, its charging momentum instantly slowing down. Gareth had to reach out and stroke the mane to soothe it, causing his mount to cease its nervousness.

"This is..." Gareth sensed a formidable and chilly aura.

In the span of three breaths, a giant wolf climbed up the high slope, haughtily viewing the crowd below with the posture of a king. Its whole body was densely covered in thick, dark, and glossy scales, its ferocious physique seemingly ready to eat people at every meal, and its tyrannical pupils caused the people of the caravan to shudder with a cold chill. Ashina sat atop the giant wolf wrapped in a black cloak as well; now was not the time to expose her identity, but her appearance instantly plunged Gareth into terror.

Because his battle aura was trembling.

As for the level of the Chosen One before him, it didn't matter in the slightest, because a First-Tier Chosen One, as long as they belonged to the combat class, could definitely cross ranks to slay a third-tier Battle Aura Knight.

"It's a Chosen One! Damn it, what the hell is going on here!" Even though every cell in his body was advising him to run away, and the pressure was like floodwaters from a released gate, Gareth's knightly spirit did not allow him to perform the act of fleeing. Moreover, he was still counting on escorting the caravan to make money; if he ran away once, his market value would take a discount. He immediately let out a roar: "Cooch, you stupid idiot! Make the caravan run! I can only buy time!"

"For glory!" Gareth gritted his teeth, raising his spear and spurring his horse.

"For glory!"

The five squires at his side gritted their teeth and followed as well.

"Ha! A dignified Chosen One actually wants to participate in a raid?" Gareth's roar contained potent battle aura, and the mere act of speaking made people's eardrums ache: "As long as you pledge allegiance to Baron Adrian, money, servants, and resources alike are all yours for the taking."

Gareth hoped to make the Chosen One feel ashamed and leave, because for a dignified Chosen One to come out and raid was truly a rare occurrence.

No matter where a Chosen One was in the Empire, wanting to enter a noble's castle to take up a post was simply a matter of a single word.

Yet Ashina lacked even the interest to reply, while the dragon-breed wolf slightly lowered its physique, resembling the string of a bow that was primed and ready to fire. Gareth let out a low drink, knowing in his heart that the other party did not wish to negotiate, and immediately raised his spear and spurred his horse forward to seize the initiative.

"Roar~"

The dragon-breed wolf abruptly spat out a scorching column of fire, and the destructive flames instantly scorched the surrounding land into a tract of cracked earth. With alarm bells ringing wildly in his heart, Gareth immediately grasped his long spear, wisps of white battle aura gushing out from his palms and spreading across the entire spear to wrap it within, and the spear immediately manifested a terrifying deterrence.

"Boom!"

Gareth wildly brandished the long spear in his hand, smashing it fiercely against the pillar of fire. The flames instantly scattered in all directions, but Gareth's complexion also turned pale, his viscera trembling all over.

"Is this the combat power of a Battle Aura Knight? Quite strong." Ashina's wolf ears twitched; clashing with a Battle Aura Knight for the first time felt very novel. Suddenly, her red pupils violently contracted, a sense of crisis washed over her, and Ashina casually urged the giant wolf to dodge. Although the dragon-breed wolf looked bulky and heavy, it vanished directly from where it stood in the blink of an eye.

Right at the moment of its disappearance, Gareth was fiercely blitzed and struck by white battle aura like a high-speed train, his whole body clad in heavy armor plus the warhorse's heavy barding. A thousand-jin force converged at a single point on the riding spear, violently slamming into Ashina's original position to blast out a crater and stir up countless rock fragments.

"Damn it, she actually dodged it." Gareth was vexed.

The high-end combat strengths of both sides had already exchanged blows, and the Silver Claw, captain of the Raider Cavalry, subconsciously glanced at Field watching the battle from afar, subsequently raising his spear: "Charge! Leave no one who resists alive!"

"Kill! Kill!"

These cavalrymen possessed very short training times and lacked strong skills, but they excelled at having won multiple corpse tides and harbored zero fear toward the enemy. After all, no matter how terrifying they were, they couldn't be scarier than twisted corpse ghouls. Letting loose their courage and charging fiercely toward the caravan, twenty riders forcefully thundered out the momentum of two hundred, unstoppable!

Cooch had run caravans for the Ross Family for many years, witnessing countless fierce bandits and robbers, and even the private soldiers of rogue nobles raiding; however, this was the first time he had ever seen a fucking Chosen One personally leading troops into the field, and all of them being elite fully armored cavalry participating in a raid. Cooch was startled by the scene of the cavalry charge, and burning with intense anxiety, he said: "Could it be Baron Mapleleaf leading troops to raid us? I've long heard that he is greedy by nature, but this is simply too beastly."

"Release arrows!"

The temporarily organized able-bodied men raggedly scattered a patch of arrows.

Unlike the perception in film and television works where light armor is as fragile as paper and heavy armor folds like paper, the defense of fully armored soldiers against arrows reached a terrifying degree. Hearing only the sound of "clanging" impacts, the vast majority of them acted as if nothing had happened, not reducing their speed by even a fraction. Only a single unlucky fellow took a crossbow bolt in the calf, rolling and tumbling as he fell off his horse.

There was simply no waiting for a second crossbow bolt to be loaded; the distance of a hundred meters arrived in the blink of an eye. With the momentum of their charge, the cavalrymen fiercely chiseled into the convoy. An able-bodied man holding a crossbow bore the brunt of it, being skewered to the shoulder by a cavalry spear. Instantly, his entire right arm shattered into a pulp, and the cavalry behind him rushed in, pressing on those in front, and directly and forcefully trampled him into a bloody paste.

"Ah! Run quickly!"

The able-bodied men only then reacted to the fact that they had been miserably scammed by Cooch. They were merely people helping to transport goods, making just enough for a few loaves of bread after a single trip; how on earth had they inexplicably become meat shields?

Cooch had originally intended to use cannon fodder to block the cavalry's strongest charge, but he very quickly regretted it.

The collapse of morale occurred in an instant; the able-bodied men broke and scattered at the very first contact, discarding their weapons and fleeing in all directions. This flight, conversely, threw Cooch's own guards into disorder, leaving even the guards with no heart to fight.

The wolf demihumans were born cavalrymen. Seeing the enemy mixed together in a chaotic mess, the cavalry immediately drew their sabers to hack and slash blindly in all directions or stabbed at random with long spears. Occupying the high ground as they already were, striking from high to low, a casual wave of their hands could inflict casualties.

Those unfortunate enough to fall over did not need a finishing blow at all, being instantly trampled into the soil by feet and horse hooves, turning into a bloody, mangled corpse.

"Ah! Save me! I want to go home!"

"Die! Kill them!"