Sword of Dawnbreaker

Chapter 129: Hidden Weapon of Justice

For Gawain who was clear about his ability, pretending that his combat capabilities were failing was far easier than pretending to be in his prime 700 years ago.

As expected, while he intentionally displayed a lack of physical strength and a decline in his body’s coordination, the figure shrouded in black robes moved concurrently.

There was the revelation of an aura, an aura where he had finally confirmed his will to fight and to step in for a head-on battle. Through his peripheral vision, Gawain saw the heretic cult believer’s black robes jerk. The arm hidden under it lifted in his direction. — An evident surge of fluctuations of magical power then gathered in his hand.

Gawain had been awaiting this moment long ago, but he did not attack. Instead, he pretended to have his balance thrown off by the decomposed treants, taking a few steps towards the heretic cult believer in a stagger. He closed the distance, but to his opponent, this was an act of sending himself into the striking range of his magic.

The mutated and obscure druid spell instantly took form, and a grayish-green ball of light containing decay forces flew out from beneath the heretic cult believer’s long robes. Gawain had completely locked on to the trajectory of this ball of light. He did not dodge at all and instead put up his knight protective aura the moment the ball of light struck him while activating Knight Charge at the same time.

‘Corrosion magic ball’ drew a silent trajectory across the air and landed firmly on Gawain’s shoulder armor. However, a translucent energy fluctuation rippled on the shoulder armor at the same time, dissolving all the power of the magic ball into nothingness. Meanwhile, in the blink of an eye, Gawain transformed into a streak of white light and raised his sword, aiming to slice off the heretic cult believer’s head.

The heretic cult believer evidently faltered for a moment. However, he had already fallen into this trap. — Just like any other spellcasting profession, there was a delay in magical power after a druid spell was cast. After his previous magic became invalid, his consciousness was currently in ceaseless turbulence. Facing the knight that was charging at him at this very moment, he was unable to cast even the simplest shielding spell.

But just as Gawain thought this heretic cult believer would use the protective article that he carried on him to forcefully resist this slash of his, he saw the fellow do a stunning maneuver that he’d never expected——

This figure in black robes abruptly took half a step back to dodge the downward strike and then arched backward, barely avoiding Gawain’s horizontal sweep that followed after. Next, he rolled on the ground with not a hair’s breadth in between, spun about, and got to his feet with a handle propped on the ground. At the same time, his other hand moved to his waist and drew out a gleaming single-handed sword with a swoosh. Clang! He blocked Gawain’s third attack!

At this moment, Gawain’s eyeballs were about to fall out with how wide his eyes were.

But he had no time to be in doubt because this heretic cult believer had dodged the most dangerous attacks. He was currently reforming his state, and once he allowed this fellow skilled in both magic and combat to successfully do so, he might no longer be easy to handle.

Therefore, Gawain directly infused his knight aura into the Sword of Pioneers. The edge of his blade burned at a high temperature of close to a thousand degrees Celsius, while both his hands pressed down with force. Although the heretic cult believer’s blocking had been impressive, the gap in their grades was really too big after all; he persevered for merely two seconds before he had to risk injuring his left arm, to tumble and avoid that scorching hot edge of the blade that had almost set him aflame.

Gawain gave chase; the Sword of Pioneers continuously hacked like a blood-red smooth knife, leaving warped heated arcs in the air one after another, while the heretic cult believer barely held in there as he wielded the single-handed sword. Then, something that left Gawain even more shocked happened — this fellow fully dressed in black had forcefully come to a temporary tie with him using extreme and ingenious sword techniques.

What exactly was this thing’s background?! What happened to the agreed fact of him being only a grade-five heretic cult believer? What happened to the agreed fact that Oblivion Association consisted of all druid mages?!

The heretic cult believer’s single-handed sword technique was so superb that it was unbelievable. Moreover, Gawain quickly realized that this was truly pure sword technique; not one bit of supernatural powers belonging to a knight or warrior existed. Every strike of his was perfect and well-controlled whether it was in defense or offense. He completely relied on skilled techniques and fighting experience to resist Gawain’s attacks. There was no protective aura, nor was there infused magical power or supernatural abilities. He had held out till now with simply the skill of his sword techniques!

There actually existed a swordsman in this world who used no supernatural powers and purely polished his skill to accumulate experience? Then what was with this fellow’s druid spells? Or was it that the Oblivion Association had some other profession that was unknown to the world?

Gawain had a mind full of question marks, but the heretic cult believer pitched against him was already miserable. Despite persisting for such a long time with his superb sword techniques, the gap in their grades was difficult to neglect. In fact, if this figure in black robes had been holding an ordinary steel sword instead of a single-handed sword that had been blessed, he probably would’ve been hacked into two by Gawain in the first few bouts, man and sword together.

With several successive attacks, Gawain drove his opponent into a corner. He decided to stop pondering what was going on with the other party’s sword technique. Rather, he directly utilized the magical power in his body, raising the Sword of Pioneers high up at the same time, releasing ‘Unbreakable Storm’ that only high-level knights could grasp.

As the dark red blade swung down, a glaring light exploded in the air. Amidst the radiance, the blade suddenly divided into countless blades. A sea of shining reflections of the blades came showering down like torrential rain, and every blade carried a powerful impulse wave. In the middle of the blazing ‘Unbreakable Storm’, the castle’s solid floor was crushed like fine sand, rolled up, wrapped in the impulse waves, and swept towards the heretic cult believer who had completely lost his chance to cast a spell or to block this attack.

The figure in black seemed to have given up on resisting as well. He stood blankly until the blades of Unbreakable Storm and impact waves tore him and the surrounding rocks into fragments and continued to charge toward the wall of the meeting chamber, with the impact waves showing no sign of slowing down.

Amongst the deafening blare of rocks being crushed, the castle’s solid rock wall had a big hole busted into it. The impulse waves kept pushing into the night outside before they gradually dissipated.

Moments later, the few rotten treants still standing in the hall halted in their movements. Their arms dropped like robots that had lost their instructions. Following that, they swayed a little and their cores that glowed with a dark red light extinguished. Those dead branches and rotted leaves that had long lost their lives fell down and covered the ground. These distorted things that had violated the laws of nature transformed back into their original state.

Amber leaped out of the shadow state, dropped onto her butt on the ground, and panted hard. “Hoo… Hoo… I’m dead tired…”

Sir Philip was also panting heavily. Those decayed treants that were created from magic were as difficult to deal with as ordinary novice knights, but he could not bring himself to behave as embarrassingly as Amber did. Thus, he only used his sword to support his body and looked at Gawain with an admiring gaze. “Lord, that heretic cult believer has been killed by you.”

However, Gawain didn’t look too glad. He moved to stand beside the big hole with a frown and bowed his head to examine those charred fragments left behind after the heretic cult believer was smashed to pieces. Due to the astonishing heat of the Sword of Pioneers, these remains had been severely carbonized; no traces of blood and flesh could be seen at all. “Not quite right… I have a nagging sense that the ending isn’t quite right…”

Pittman walked over, stooped down, picked up a fragment, and then slowly crushed it in his hand. Moments later, his expression darkened as expected. “This is burnt tree bark — sorcery of the fallen druids. That fellow escaped!”

…

At the same time, on a roof near the veranda of Viscount Andrew’s castle, a cluster of abnormally grown, exceptionally thriving vines started to wriggle; then a huge bundle swelled up in the middle of those vines. Accompanied by a nauseating sound that resembled the flow of sticky fluids, the bundle tore apart, and a figure in black robes wormed pathetically out of it.

This black figure was the Oblivion Association believer who narrowly escaped. His entire body gave out a charred odor, his left arm bloody and weakly hanging by his side. The robes on him were also torn and tattered; his hood was even gone, revealing the face of a thin and pale middle-aged man with messy, short brown hair.

That ‘single-handed sword’ was still held in his right hand, but this expensive super gear was only left with a small section of it.

Cursing lowly, the heretic cult believer put this small section of the broken sword away and staggered forward, intending to quickly flee this place before that terrifying opponent realized.

However, he had merely taken two steps when he suddenly lifted his head and looked at the corner not far out.

Sir Byron stood there, also happening to have raised his head and staring bewilderedly at the heretic cult believer who crawled from a cluster of vines and seemed to be gravely injured. The two stared at each other for a few moments; no one reacted.

However, the daze only lasted a twinkling of an eye. The heretic cult believer quickly came back to his senses and lifted a finger to point at this knight who had somehow survived. Fighting against the stabbing pain in his head, he forced himself to start chanting an incantation, preparing to finish off this person who stood in his way.

Meanwhile, Sir Byron had also recovered from his daze. He reached into his chest, pulled something out, fiddled with it, and tossed it to his opponent. “Take my hidden weapon of justice!”

As a dignified knight, even when throwing a hidden weapon, he had to call out.

Yet the heretic cult believer only smiled in contempt, easily catching the ‘hidden weapon’ that Byron had thrown at him. — Though he was seriously injured, he wasn’t at the point of being successfully plotted against by a grade-four knight. Besides, this grade-four knight had been hit by his sorcery curse not long ago; he was currently in a weak state too!

“You’ve thought too highly of yourself.” The heretic cult believer held the object that Byron threw over. He did not sense the slightest toxicity or magic aura working, so he wasn’t worried at all. “That’s alright too. I’ll use you to replenish my life… Hmm?”

He suddenly heard a ticking sound from his hand…

Byron saw clearly that the heretic cult believer had reacted at the last moment. The crystal grenade completely operated on mechanics before it exploded. There was indeed no magic reaction in it, but the aura magical power of the storage crystals could still be sensed if one did so carefully. An intermediate supernatural powerhouse would definitely realize that there was something with this object after being on guard, yet his reaction was still a delayed one. Despite already throwing the grenade out and the radiance of a shielding spell floating around him, the rune trigger had been pressed down, the explosive magic circle had been activated.

Flames burst in his bare hand, fireballs blowing up inches from his face; clearly highlighted were blistering red flames and flares, as well as a sense of bewilderedness.

Nevertheless, he was a supernatural powerhouse who had reached the intermediate level after all. Even if he was severely injured, the protective articles, as well as the toughness of his own body, still existed. At the moment the crystal grenade exploded, bright lights flashed in many parts of this heretic cult believer’s body. The remaining few defense articles that he had were automatically activated and warded off the most fatal damage. Eventually, his entire right arm turned to pieces in the explosion, but the rest of his body leaped out with the help of the impact and vanished in the boundless dark night in the blink of an eye.