Chapter 70: Encounter Battle
The fall of the veteran beside him made Ion's eyes flare with fury.
But there was nothing he could do, because the moment he blocked that arrow aimed at himself, he had already realized that the attacker was a Bloodline Knight!
And the arrow that struck the veteran beside him, while perhaps not shot by a Bloodline Knight, was still executed with formidable archery skills.
However, the truly troublesome problem was that the enemy had no fewer than fifty archers!
The dense rain of arrows immediately brought severe suffering to the soldiers behind Ion.
The veterans, upon hearing the cry of "Enemy attack!", instinctively performed defensive maneuvers: they quickly crouched and searched for cover, trying to avoid exposing their bodies to the enemy’s line of sight before starting to observe the situation around them.
It was simply misfortune that the veteran beside Ion was mistaken for a deputy or similar, and thus became a targeted victim, dying on the spot.
In contrast to the instinctive tactical responses of the veterans, the villagers of Mountain Ridge Village were thrown into chaos.
This was, firstly, due to mental fatigue, which caused their reaction time to lag significantly.
After more than a dozen of them were struck down, and the surrounding veterans had already taken cover, the villagers finally grasped the danger and began running towards the veterans, looking for a place to hide.
But during this process, they were once again targeted, resulting in another ten or so casualties.
This time, the cause of their losses was physical exhaustion.
The veterans knew how to conserve energy and adjust their state; but these villagers, who had just come out of a frenzy-driven revenge battle, lacked the veterans’ psychological stability and combat experience.
Therefore, under double exhaustion, they were utterly unprepared to handle an encounter battle and were quickly mowed down by the enemy.
In just one ambush, nearly forty men on Ion’s side had fallen!
More than half of them died on the spot, and the remainder were seriously wounded.
"Free combat!"
Ion clearly realized that if things continued this way, it was only a matter of time before they all perished here.
Thus, after issuing the command for free combat without tactical interference, he immediately charged towards the ambushing archers.
The black flames were already burning upon his body.
The casually donned clothes he had thrown on after the battle in Mountain Ridge Village were once again consumed by the black flames, revealing Ion’s sturdy upper body.
"Whoosh—"
Another arrow tore through the air.
Ion swung his hand to deflect it.
With a crisp sound of impact, the arrow aimed at Ion was knocked down.
Without slowing his pace, Ion charged forward.
In the air, the gentle hum of two bowstrings trembled once more.
Yet Ion still chose not to dodge, instead swiftly striking with his sword, aided by his combat experience and the bodily enhancement granted by his current Bloodline ability, he could clearly track the trajectory of the arrows.
Therefore, deflecting them with his sword was not as difficult as it seemed.
What’s more, Ion was very aware that the enemy was trying to force him to dodge.
The arrows currently fired at him were not from the Bloodline User archer earlier.
That opponent’s true killing blow was hidden behind these distraction arrows, if Ion dared to dodge, then the deadliest arrow would undoubtedly target his exposed weakness.
Therefore, as long as he refrained from evasive maneuvers, the Bloodline User archer would either have to engage him directly in close combat, or resort to ordering the archers to launch a dense, covering barrage.
Either of these responses would count as a victory for Ion.
If it was the former, it meant the enemy revealed their position.
And once a Bloodline User who specialized in ranged attacks exposed their location, their threat level drastically diminished.
If Ion managed to close the distance, the unlucky one might end up being the enemy instead.
As for the latter, it meant abandoning the suppression of the veterans following Ion.
Once that suppression was lifted, the veterans, rich in combat experience, could shift to an offensive formation, at that point, the tide of victory could tilt in any direction.
Therefore, from the moment Ion launched his attack against the archers, it had already become a contest of courage and patience.
Whoever retreated or changed tactics first would be the loser!
And soon enough, the arrows targeting Ion began to increase gradually.
Three arrows.
Five arrows.
Ten arrows.
It was clear that the enemy had fully realized how troublesome Ion was, yet they clearly didn’t believe Ion could advance under pressure and reach them.
As such, the archers still focused primarily on suppressing the veterans, only diverting a small number to target Ion.
But even deploying ten archers couldn’t stop Ion’s charge.
They couldn’t even slow him down by a fraction.
The distance between both sides closed in almost instantly to less than thirty meters.
Ion could already see the expressions on those archers’ faces clearly.
Twenty meters.
The number of archers attacking Ion had already risen to twenty.
The veterans who had been suppressed all this time felt the sudden easing of pressure for the first time.
The slightly bolder ones even burst from their hiding spots and began charging toward the formation of archers, following behind Ion.
However, they didn’t have Ion’s combat skills, so they still needed to rely on obstacles to shield themselves, hide, and evade. As a result, their speed wasn’t very fast.
Fifteen meters!
The expression on Ion’s face started to calm.
His eyes swept swiftly across the archers' faces and movements like a hawk.
And in the very next moment, Ion realized, the Bloodline User archer was not among them!
Almost the instant that realization hit, Ion halted his charge.
His right foot stomped down hard.
Under the powerful force, a shallow pit was stamped into the ground.
“It’s a trap!”
Ion roared without hesitation.
An overt trap!
Using the archers’ suppression and killing power to force them into attacking this archer formation, if they didn’t attack, the archers could simply narrow Ion’s maneuvering space with their arrows and complete the kill.
But if they attacked the archer formation, they would fall into the enemy’s plan: an encirclement!
“Tch.” A sound of dissatisfaction clicked.
In the next instant, a sharp whistle split the air!
Even without parrying, Ion could tell this arrow was fired by the Bloodline Knight who used a bow!
Looking toward the direction from which the sharp arrow came, Ion immediately spotted a graceful woman crouching on a small mound about a hundred meters to his right, she wore highly camouflaged brown-green leather armor, her face painted in earth-yellow and green hues.
Even her longbow was disguised with a decorative cover. If she hadn’t fired and exposed the airflow of her arrow, one might easily mistake her for a low bush.
Faced with this arrow, Ion did not choose to endure it.
Because that earlier, clearly displeased click of the tongue wasn’t from this woman.
Another Bloodline Knight was hidden nearby!
“Kill!”
A roar filled with authority exploded.
Immediately afterward, a figure that had been lying low among the archers suddenly leapt into action!
Thirteen meters away, almost a blink of an eye for him.
At nearly the same moment his shout ended, he was already upon Ion with both hands gripping daggers.
Ion felt some regret that he hadn’t devoted enough effort to studying the Bloodline Codex.
His general knowledge of bloodlines wasn’t even as good as his son's.
Like now, Ion couldn’t recognize what kind of bloodline this Bloodline Knight, who crossed thirteen meters in a single breath, had awakened.
Likewise, he couldn’t identify the bloodline of the female archer.
But based on experience, he could tell that the female archer’s bloodline had nothing to do with “wind,” whereas the dagger-wielding man before him definitely had a bloodline related to “wind.”
“Clang—”
Ion’s longsword blocked the man’s right dagger at the part near the guard.
Then, with a subtle twist of his hand—
The contact point between sword and dagger slid, and in a flash, the middle of the sword’s blade intercepted one dagger, while the part near the guard deflected the other.
"Clang—"
The second sound rang out.
At that moment, the sharp arrow aimed at Ion finally swept past him, Ion slightly tilted his head back, and the arrow brushed past just one centimeter from the tip of his nose.
"Screw you!"
Ion's crude curse rang out immediately after the arrow flew past.
Then, with no semblance of knightly decorum, he swung up his left hand and punched the man squarely in the face.
Several teeth, mixed with blood, flew from the man's mouth.
He clearly hadn’t expected Ion to use such a crude and shameless attack method.
This was completely devoid of knightly elegance!
Let alone nobility!
After the punch disrupted the opponent’s balance, his original parrying motion naturally fell apart.
Ion seized the initiative and withdrew his sword, he knew clearly that, in terms of weapon advantage, he was currently at a disadvantage.
After all, at such close range, the knight sword in his hand, over a meter in length, couldn’t be used effectively for a thrust.
On the contrary, the opponent’s daggers held greater killing power at this distance.
After withdrawing the sword, Ion simultaneously stepped back at a large pace.
Then, in the midst of the man's stunned expression, he thrust the longsword toward him.
He clearly understood what that look meant: How could you abandon knightly etiquette like this?
Are you still a Bloodline Noble?
But did Ion care?
As a scout who had fought in the border army for so many years, and later as a deputy commander of a mercenary group, years of battle experience had taught Ion one thing: looking good and having style meant nothing!
On the battlefield, if a tactic could kill the enemy, no matter how ugly or despicable it was, that was the best tactic!
Only—
"Clang—"
A surge of powerful force struck Ion’s longsword, causing the blade that should have pierced the man to deflect, stabbing only into his shoulder.
And due to the force and angle deviation, the stab into the man’s right shoulder didn’t even go deep, let alone pierce through him.
Having already realized that Ion was not like the opponents he had faced before, the man, though his expression was conflicted, understood that a battlefield was no place for knightly ideals.
So he endured the pain, stepped back, and forcibly pulled the sword out from his own flesh.
But even though he believed he had already overestimated his opponent’s judgment, he had still underestimated him.
"Ptui!"
Ion spat a thick glob of phlegm directly onto the man’s face, hitting one of his eyes dead center.
In the next moment, he kicked the man square in the chest, sending him flying.