Chapter 83 — The Origin of the Monsters
Blade of Dawn · Page 2 of 3
Oh—low, whispering murmurs.
"One, two, three... four," came a warm breath by his ear, Amber's hushed voice from behind him. "Looks like these are the ones the serfs ran into. Doesn't seem they've spotted us yet. You go first—I'll run once you're out of sight."
Gao Yang paid no mind to this daily dose of the elf's shameful, asking-to-get-hit remarks. His eyes were fixed on the belly of one of the aberrations, where a twisted, deformed, utterly decayed gray-black object was plainly visible. To anyone else it might have been unrecognizable, but after studying it carefully, Gao Yang made out the truth: it was a weapon of Gondor Imperial pattern!
He drew back his gaze, focused his senses on the surroundings, and confirmed there were no more monsters nearby. Only then did he answer Amber: "I'll charge them head-on. You sneak around and backstab the last one, then keep one of the others occupied. Once I've finished the other two, we'll join up and end the fight."
Amber blinked and nodded readily. "Got it. Wait for your move."
For all her deliberate clowning and nonsense earlier, it was clear that when it came to serious business, she was not one to falter.
The two serfs who had led them here were by now frozen stiff with fright, yet they had at least scraped together the last of their courage to clap their hands over their mouths—no panicked screaming, no bolting. For them, that was already a fine showing. Gao Yang nodded to the two of them, signaling them to stay quiet and wait, then raised the Pioneer's Sword.
Mana poured into the blade, and searing light burst forth from its edge. A pale white sheen spread over Gao Yang's armor as well, and in the next instant he leaped, clearing a distance of dozens of meters in a single bound, and came down from the sky in a slash at the monster that had just begun to react.
At the same moment he sprang forth, a hazy shadow flickered through the air, and the last of the four monsters convulsed violently—it had just had its attention drawn by Gao Yang and was throwing back its head to loose a chaotic roar when it was struck in its vitals; a single critical blow, and it went down.
Amber emerged from the shadows and began darting swiftly around another monster that had just reacted. Her small dagger had no effect at all when it struck anywhere but a monster's weak point, producing only scattered flecks of red mud or sparks, so from the very start of the fight she was shouting: "Boss, help!"
Gao Yang's longsword had already come down, sending the first aberration staggering. Without pursuing, he wheeled and lunged straight for the monster with the ancient sword planted in its belly. Just as he had expected: though a sword in the gut was not a fatal wound for such a freak, it did hinder its movement. Against Gao Yang's ferocious assault it blocked only twice before being cleaved cleanly in two.
If you had the strength to cut an enemy in half with one stroke, then whether you struck a weak point hardly mattered.
The aberration before him let out a chaotic, unnameable howl; its death-murmurs carried a power that could unsettle the mind, but Gao Yang paid no heed to the momentary daze in his head. Using his momentum to twist his body, his blade came down upon the enemy he had wounded with his first strike.
Then, amid Amber's disgraceful wailing and yowling, the last enemy was smoothly cut down.
As the giant of flesh and mud crashed heavily to the ground and rapidly decomposed in the air into chaotic elements, Amber collapsed onto her backside as well: "Oh my god... I'm dead tired... Guess I still need to work on my escape skills..."
Gao Yang, examining the monster remains on the ground without even looking up, replied: "Isn't the normal line of thinking to work on your frontal combat ability instead?"
"I'll have you know, my frontal combat ability is already at my personal peak. I'm a person who knows my own limi—hey, what are you studying there?"