Seen from the skies above West Darrowmere, a black torrent was pouring out of Andorhal, at the heart of the land. Its destination was Felstone Field, northwest of Lake Darrowmere.
"Herod, establish a defensive line to the southeast! Redpath, you and Dawi are responsible for securing the evacuation route to the northeast!"
Dick shouted at the knights emerging from the collapsed ruins, supporting the weakened civilians. The knights swiftly moved to carry out his orders.
Herod wore only a crude breastplate, his powerful muscles exposed, with a red cloak over his shoulders, a loop of silver chain around his waist, and a war axe bearing simple fel runes resting on his shoulder. The imposing, brawny man strode forward and hacked into a collapsed wall, bringing the house down completely.
The other knights worked in pairs, lifting the house's beams and pillars with practiced movements and carrying them to the farm's perimeter. They lashed them to the crude fences to form stretches of barricades. These were certainly not meant to stop abominations or death knights. In fact, this was the final defensive line. Once it was breached, the knights would withdraw on their own without waiting for Dick's orders.
This was also a rule of the Stratholme Regiment: squad leaders had temporary decision-making authority on the battlefield, though they seldom exercised it under normal circumstances.
Two squads, forty knights in all, had accompanied Dick on this clearing mission. That was nowhere near enough to face the undead army already visible to the naked eye. Dick had no intention of fighting these undead to the bitter end, either, so he immediately launched a distress flare.
But the nearest knights should have been the paladins stationed at Hearthglen. It would take them at least forty minutes to arrive.
After the red distress flare shot into the sky, Dick dismounted and led the Champion Squad's twenty knights to stand in front of Felstone Field. The terrain here was flat, well suited for a battle. Redpath also joined the battle reserve with ten paladins, while Dawi had already led the civilians away.
"Leave the death knight to me! Hold off the risen and ghouls. Herod and Redpath, deal with those two abominations. Any questions?"
Dick took out a bottle of highly concentrated holy water and poured it into his mouth in one go. Smacking his lips at the bitterness filling his mouth, he turned to the knights. Meeting his gaze, they shouted,
"Victory! Victory!"
Satisfied, Dick drew the Fire of Justice from his back. Watching the undead sea draw closer and closer, he took a deep breath and drew the Holy Light into his body. The next instant, a brilliant aura drifted out of him, enveloping the thirty mounted knights.
"Retribution Aura!"
This was Dick's new skill. After he had killed Rivendare, his World Divergence had exceeded 10%, unlocking a new class template. Dick had assumed the talent template would resemble the talent trees in the game from his previous life, but when he opened it, he discovered that it contained only four options.
Auras, blessings, judgments, and holy hands.
Together, these were the paladin's four skill branches. The judgment branch needed no explanation, while blessings and holy hands were support skills. Although auras also belonged to the support category, after repeatedly weighing the current situation, Dick had still chosen auras as his first unlocked talent.
Because this was the only talent that could immediately enhance the team's combat strength.
Lesser Retribution Aura: When activated, inflicts Holy Light burn equal to 20% of all attackers' attack damage, shared among all enemies within the aura.
Put simply, this was a suit of damage-reflecting armor. The harder enemies attacked, the more reflected damage they suffered. It was also Dick's greatest trump card in daring to confront an undead sea with thirty paladins.
"Attack!"
Dick pointed his warhammer forward,
urged his horse onward, and charged out first. His target was clear: the death knight at the very front of the enemy ranks. According to the mission description, this fellow should have been Alex Barov, the current lord of the Barov Family, a failed opportunist. Behind Dick, Herod and Redpath each took out their standard-issue grappling hooks. As their armored horses charged, they whirled the hooks overhead and cast them toward the abominations in the undead sea.
The undead of Andorhal were no elite undead of Stratholme, so with their horses' superior mobility, Herod and Redpath could just about handle those two low-ranking abominations.
Clang!
The holy hammer met the runeblade. Dick's horse neighed and staggered several steps backward. Narrowing his eyes at the death knight who had not budged, Dick flexed his somewhat numb arm and urged his horse forward again.
Clang!
This time, golden Holy Light collided with black shadow energy, instantly clearing away the risen and skeletons around them. Under the pressure of the runeblade gripped in the death knight's two hands, the holy hammer in Dick's left hand was slowly forced toward his own neck. He could even see the sneer and contempt beneath Alex's vicious-looking helm.
"Grin at this, motherfucker!"
Bam!
The Holy Light Flail in his other hand smashed down onto the unsuspecting Alex's head. The surprise blow knocked Alex off his death charger and triggered the stunning attack attached to Judgment of Order. The death knight fell in a heap and was mercilessly trampled by Dick's horse.
The Holy Light Flail had not dissipated. It spun in Dick's hand as he galloped, every sweep knocking fragile risen and ghouls to the ground. The paladins followed behind him, finishing off those ghouls.
Herod's Champion Squad and Redpath's Darrowshire Squad were the two most closely coordinated units in the Stratholme Regiment. They employed the splitting tactics they had learned in the Battle of Stratholme, forming groups of five. A shield-bearing knight took the lead, three sword-bearing knights delivered the killing blows, and a final knight wielding a warhammer provided support as they galloped back and forth through the undead sea.
Although the vast numbers of undead still forced them steadily backward, a closer look revealed that once the small groups spread out, the undead's numerical advantage had been greatly diminished.
Dick guided his horse into a turn amid the undead and charged once more at the death knight, who had already climbed to his feet. This time, rather than use his warhammer, Dick took the heavy Dragon Hook from his Storage Backpack, gripped it in both hands, and rapidly spun it.
Wherever this powerful sweeping attack passed, the Dragon Hook, infused with Dick's Holy Light, cleared an open path through the undead sea. Just as the death knight remounted, the howling Dragon Hook struck his neck squarely with its accumulated momentum. The Engineering claw clasp at its tip immediately tightened. Sensing trouble, the death knight reached up with both hands to pull the tightening Dragon Hook off his neck, but before he could exert his strength, Dick had already galloped past him.
Whoosh!
Although Alex Barov's cursed body possessed immense strength, enough even to rival Dick's current strength, his actual fighting skills were utterly abysmal. Pulled by the momentum of the armored horse, he was dragged straight off his death charger. Like prey being hauled along, he struggled ceaselessly on the ground but could not get up at all. The Holy Light attached to the Dragon Hook seared his mind, while the already tightened Engineering claw clasp only cinched tighter as Dick galloped on. In other words, Dick had temporarily neutralized this death knight, who posed an enormous threat to ordinary knights.
Ten minutes!
Dick dragged Alex through the undead sea for a full ten minutes. By then, the battle line had been pushed to the very edge of Felstone Field. Dick felt his horse weakening beneath him. Looking back, he saw that nearly every one of the thirty knights accompanying him was wounded. Herod and Redpath had successfully dragged the abominations down; finishing them off was only a matter of moments.
Holding the Fire of Justice in one hand, Dick smashed down three ghouls that lunged at him from the ground. Then, panting, he took another bottle of holy water from his backpack, gulped it down, and charged into Felstone Field. He also cast Consecration twice, a skill he had not used until then, temporarily holding the relentlessly advancing undead sea in place.
"Retreat! Fall back toward Hearthglen!"
Dick extended his right hand, and a massive Holy Light Flail formed in it. Swinging it, he cleared a path of retreat for the paladins. He issued the retreat order, then urged his horse toward Herod and Redpath.
"Die, evil!"
He tied the Dragon Hook to his horse's iron armor and gripped his warhammer in both hands, pouring holy power into it. Those ten minutes of charging had stacked Holy Strength to the threshold of one hundred points of strength once again. As he passed the abomination Redpath had slashed all over, his heavy holy hammer smashed into its head. Without looking back, Dick charged off toward the other side.
"Redpath, lead the knights in retreat! Toward Hearthglen!"
Redpath wasted no time. Once his opponent was killed, he urged his horse onward, swinging his warhammer as he joined the retreating paladins. On the other side, Herod leaped from his galloping horse and roared as he buried his war axe in the abomination's head, completing the first abomination kill of his life.
"Herod, come with me! We're going to finish off this death knight!"
Dick shouted. Herod hurriedly pulled his war axe from the abomination's body, mounted his horse, and followed Dick, who was dragging the death knight Alex, in another direction.
Without the death knight or the abominations, and with even the ghouls almost entirely killed or wounded, the remaining risen could no longer cause the retreating paladins any trouble.
"Commander, where are we going?"
Riding his horse, Herod glanced back at the death knight, who was still struggling on the ground but could only be dragged along by the Dragon Hook, and asked Dick,
"To Gahrron's Withering. We just cleared it yesterday. We'll kill him there!"
"Yes, sir!"
Herod answered and followed Dick, galloping due east from Felstone Field.
A little over ten minutes later, Dick reined in his horse and dismounted. Holding the Fire of Justice in his left hand, he flicked his right, releasing the claw clasp at the front of the Dragon Hook before putting it back in his backpack. Herod also took his war axe in hand. Watching Alex stand up opposite them with his runeblade, he involuntarily tightened his grip on the axe handle, looking somewhat nervous.
This was a death knight! Even during the vicious fighting in Stratholme, he had only seen one twice. Such powerful monsters, utterly beyond an ordinary knight's ability to match, were practically death incarnate.
"I'll lead the attack. You keep him occupied!"
Dick did not turn around, but Herod already understood his commander's meaning. He moved a few steps to the left. It seemed even the commander was not confident of facing this death knight alone.
It was not that Dick lacked confidence in killing Alex. He had already killed stronger foes. In the Stratholme Dungeon, he had killed Rivendare at full strength three times. But with war about to break out, he had to prepare for the bitter fighting ahead. Judging by the information fed back through his eyes, Alex was no weaker than Ramstein had been back then.
And worst of all, Alex was not a foe with extremely low agility like Ramstein. In terms of overall strength, he was even stronger than Ramstein!
That was why Dick needed Herod's help to kill Alex with as little expenditure as possible.
Clang!
Dark green and blood-red light flared on the runeblade, carrying a cold, corrosive power, while the warhammer meeting it surged with blazing Holy Light. Almost from the moment they clashed again, both unleashed their full strength.
The bitter battle had begun!