Chapter 129 — The Righteous Projectile
Blade of Dawn · Page 2 of 4
Gao Yang pursued, the Pathfinder's Sword hacking and slashing like a blood-red blade of light, leaving one twisting arc of scorching heat after another in the air, while the cultist swung his one-handed sword in a desperate defense. And then something that dropped Gao Yang's jaw even further happened—this man dressed all in black, purely by virtue of exceedingly exquisite swordsmanship, was actually holding his own against him for the time being!
Just what the hell was this guy?! Wasn't this supposed to be a mere level-five cultist? Weren't the All-Things-End Society all supposed to be spellcasting druids?!
The black-robed cultist's one-handed swordsmanship was unbelievably masterful, and Gao Yang soon realized it was truly pure swordsmanship—not a trace of knightly or warrior transcendence about it. Every strike was perfectly placed, every advance and retreat measured, relying entirely on practiced skill and combat experience to withstand Gao Song's assault. No protective aura, no mana infusion, no transcendent techniques—he had held out this long on swordsmanship alone!
In this world, there were still warriors who eschewed transcendent power and simply honed their craft and accumulated experience? Then what was the story with this fellow's druidic spells? Or did the All-Things-End Society have some class system no outsider knew about?
Gao Yang's skull was swimming with question marks, but the cultist facing him was already in utter misery: despite holding out this long on superb swordsmanship, the gap in rank was impossible to ignore. In fact, had this black-robed man not been gripping a blessed one-handed sword but merely an ordinary steel blade, he probably would have been chopped apart, man and sword both, by Gao Cen within a few exchanges.
After several successive aggressive strikes, Gao Yang drove his opponent into a corner. He decided to stop puzzling over the man's swordsmanship and instead directly roused the mana within him, raising the Pathfinder's Sword high to unleash "Iron Storm," a technique only high-tier knights could command.
The black-red blade swung down and burst into a blaze of light in midair, within which the blade seemed to suddenly split into countless copies—a storm of sword-light came crashing down like a deluge of steel, and each blade carried a powerful shockwave. Amid the blazing "Iron Storm," the castle's sturdy floor was pulverized and swept up like dust, caught by the shockwaves and hurled together toward the cultist, who had now lost all chance to cast and all chance to block.
The black-robed figure seemed to have given up resisting as well. He stood there rigidly, until the blades and shockwaves of Iron Storm churned him and the surrounding stone into fragments, and on swept the undiminished shockwave toward the wall of the council hall.
With a thunderous crash of shattering rock, a great hole was torn in the castle's massive stone wall, and the shockwave hurtled on into the night outside before finally dissipating.
Moments later, the few corrupted treants still standing in the hall halted one after another, their arms dropping stiffly like robots that had lost their commands. Then they swayed a few times, the dark red glowing cores within them winked out, and the long-dead withered branches and rotting leaves came rustling down to the floor: these twisted things that had risen in defiance of nature's laws were reverted to what they had originally been.
Amber leaped out of her shadow form and plopped down on the ground, panting hard. "Huff... huff... I'm absolutely dead on my feet..."
Sir Philip was panting too. Those corrupted treants catalyzed by magic were no easier to deal with than ordinary low-tier knights, but he could not bring himself to do anything as undignified as Amber, so he merely propped himself up on his sword and looked at Gao Yang with admiration. "My lord, the Shadow Cultist has been slain by your hand."