In the end, their ingrained obedience to authority and the false confidence of superior numbers led the slaves to make the wrong choice.
The promise of "freedom" only made the Half-Drow more blindly fanatical. It worked even better than a lash of the whip, and the slave warriors charged toward Renato in a daze.
He could not help feeling a little wistful. Even if they had not resisted, even if they had simply done nothing and fled, they might actually have gained their freedom.
After tonight, the Duwa Family would be erased from Sammoril's register of noble houses. A scattered band of fleeing slaves had a chance of slipping into the Gray Zone amid the chaos and evading the slave catchers.
Unfortunately, the slaves had chosen to take up arms against an opponent they could never defeat.
"Help! Aaaah!"
The Black Blade cut into the last Half-Drow's collarbone and emerged beneath her ribs on the other side. A torrent of blood gushed from the severed cross section of her torso, splashing onto the stone steps outside the chapel.
Blood and foul-smelling entrails splattered everywhere. Renato pulled a length of intestine off his Pauldrons and casually tossed it onto the ground, where it mingled with chunks of bodies whose owners could no longer be identified.
The fight ended in less than thirty seconds.
The twenty-odd slaves were like meat delivering itself to his door. The Silent Lady could shatter these Half-Drow's bones and tendons with effortless ease.
Renato did not even need to aim deliberately. He only had to turn his body with the momentum of his sword, and gravity and inertia would carry the Black Blade through two or three tightly clustered slaves in a single killing stroke.
It was easier than slaughtering livestock. After all, cattle and sheep would