Attack! Attack! Attacks were striking from all directions!
Sword blades cleaved from the left, spears thrust from the right, battle axes swept across his feet, and stray arrows skimmed the ground right over his head. Ming's vision was entirely filled with enemies; every pair of eyes stared fixedly at him, as if wanting to swallow him alive.
He desperately tried to distinguish which attacks he could take head-on, which he had to dodge, and which he needed to block.
But it was too chaotic. So chaotic that he simply had no time to think. Amidst the melee, several spells consecutively hit his back and waist.
Although he endured it relying on various resistances, and skills like [Regeneration] were continuously repairing his body, his injuries were still gradually accumulating.
What was even more fatal was Mana.
Repairing the body required mana. Possessing [Magic Storage LV10] bestowed by the Boss, even though he couldn't cast spells, he had a mana reserve far exceeding that of an ordinary mage. However, in such an intense battle, his mana was still being hollowed out little by little.
Ming deeply regretted it now. He hadn't listened to Senior Norris's words and had charged too far ahead.
A real war was completely different from his previous arena gladiator fights.
In the arena, he only needed to put his head down, charge into the enemy formation, and brave injuries to slaughter the most threatening mage first.
Even if both sides suffered heavily, his [Physical Immunity] would allow him to have the last laugh.
But here, it was different.
On the battlefield, mages weren't just one or two individuals; they were scattered everywhere across the entire front line. He couldn't possibly kill them all in such a short time.
Especially now, after he had succeeded a few times, getting close to those mages again was incomparably difficult.
He could only be besieged in place, like a wild beast that had fallen into a trap, slowly ground to death by hunters surging from all directions.
A surge of fear suddenly welled up in Ming's heart.
Not fear of death.
It was the fear of disappointing the Boss.
Just as Ming's thoughts were in a dizzying state of chaos, the military formation in front of him suddenly split open.
The crowd gave way to both sides, forming a narrow path. A heavily armored war beast charged fiercely out from within!
On the war beast's back, Renard leaned forward, lowering his posture. The blood-colored long spear in his hand pointed diagonally forward, its tip trailing a scarlet afterimage under the daylight.
Before Ming could even react, the spear tip crashed solidly into his chest.
The massive impact lifted his entire person off the ground, tossing him high into the midair. The sky and the frozen tundra spun rapidly in alternating flashes before his eyes.
Then, Ming plunged into a snowdrift in the distance.
...
Looking at the shattered spear tip, Renard realized the opponent might still be alive.
But he didn't immediately rush up to deal the finishing blow; instead, he issued a loud command: "Reform the formation! Focus on resisting the assault!"
Although Ming's recklessness had trapped him in a heavy siege, it wasn't completely useless to the battle situation.
During the time Ming had been rampaging wildly in the rear just now, the entire back formation of the right wing had turned into a pot of chaotic porridge. The result was that those front-line infantrymen carrying shields and desperately holding off the Puchi impact had lost more than half of their ranged support.
If he didn't reorganize the troops in time, even if he chopped off that Demon-kin's head right now, the right wing's defensive line would thoroughly collapse.
After the orders were passed down, the reserve troops quickly filled the gaps caused by the chaos. Mages were yanked back to their positions by their respective squad leaders, and archers finally stopped running around chaotically chasing after things.
Several rounds of arrow volleys and spells fell, and the pressure on the front line instantly eased significantly. That crumbling shield wall finally stabilized once again.
Only then did Renard cast his gaze back towards the distant snowdrift.
Inside there, Ming had actually already climbed up, not looking at all like a guy who had just been launched tens of meters away.
At the spot on his chest pierced by the long spear, there was a hole broken through the armor, but the skin underneath only showed a shallow trace of corrosion from poisonous blood, and it was fading at a speed visible to the naked eye.
The corner of Renard's eye twitched slightly as he muttered in a low voice: "Where did this monster come from?"
Immediately, with a flick of his wrist, the surrounding fresh blood reconverged into the spear tip.
He didn't turn his head, merely turning his face slightly to instruct his personal guards beside him: "Don't let the formation be disrupted again. I will handle this kid."
Watching Renard charge over again, Ming, now free from the interference of other soldiers, was not to be outdone. He pushed off the ground fiercely!
The permafrost burst into a web of cracks the moment he stepped on it, and fragments mixed with ice shards splashed backward.
[Acceleration LV10]
[Assault Catapult LV10]
Ming's figure dragged out a blurred afterimage in the air. Like an artillery shell, his entire person shot straight towards Renard on the war beast's back!
"So fast!" The general also hadn't expected Ming to suddenly erupt with this kind of speed. He hadn't personally witnessed the scene of Ming charging through a thousand troops to kill mages earlier, and was caught off guard at this moment.
Renard didn't want to take it head-on. He could only pull the reins hard, forcibly raising the front hooves of that armored war beast!
The war beast neighed and reared up on its hind legs, its massive body lying horizontally between Ming and Renard.
Under that collision, the war beast's head directly exploded. Flesh and shattered bone sprayed out in a fan shape, dyeing the snow within a radius of several meters red.
That massive headless body swayed for a moment, then crashed heavily sideways, kicking up a cloud of snow dust.
Ming landed under the reaction force of the impact, his feet plowing two shallow trenches in the permafrost. Before he could even stand firm, a blood-colored long spear had already pierced through the air and arrived!
The blood spear shattered upon his chest, turning into a massive bloom of crimson blood mist that permeated the surroundings.
And he was once again thrown backward by the impact, sliding several meters across the snow, only coming to a halt when his back slammed into a raised mound of permafrost.
"Truly hard," Renard flipped off his mount and landed, staring at the figure climbing up from the snowdrift. "[Physical Resistance LV10]? The magic crest of the Demon-kin... truly an enviable talent."
He shook his wrist, and a weapon formed of fresh blood condensed in his palm once again. This time, it was a double-bladed battle axe.
Ming didn't answer; he charged up once more. But he quickly discovered that no matter how fast he charged, Renard could always rely on his combat experience to turn sideways, slide, or retreat at the very last second, making his collisions miss entirely.
Fortunately, when Renard's blood weapons struck Ming, they similarly failed to cause any damage, shattering into a sky full of blood mist every single time.
Yet Renard didn't seem to care. He persistently condensed, swung, and shattered the weapons over and over again.
The blood mist grew thicker and thicker.
Ming's vision began to blur, and his nose was completely filled with the smell of rust.
He vaguely felt something was wrong, but every time he wanted to stop and observe, Renard would take the initiative to close in, forcing him to continue responding.
Soon, the area where the two were battling had been thoroughly enveloped by the thick blood mist.
"Max-level [Physical Resistance], plus some kind of high-speed regeneration ability." Renard's voice came from deep within the blood mist. "No wonder a kid like you could stir things up in the military formation for so long."
Ming's footsteps paused. He looked toward the source of the sound, but could only see a vague silhouette in the mist.
"However, things like resistance ultimately have an upper limit."
Renard flipped his palm.
The blood mist permeating the surroundings suddenly condensed all at once!
In the next second, hundreds of meters-long blood crystal needles emerged from the mist, densely suspended in the air. The tip of every single one pointed directly at Ming's position in the center.
"Pierce!" Renard's palm clenched abruptly.
Countless sounds of tearing through the air merged into a shrill shriek. Those long needles shot simultaneously from all directions, thoroughly blanketing the area where Ming stood.
After a series of dense crashing sounds, only a densely packed, crisscrossing forest of bright red needles remained on the spot, completely submerging Ming's figure.
Renard slowly exhaled a breath of stale air, but a sudden warning from a personal guard came from the distance:
"My Lord, careful behind you!"
Renard whipped his head around.
At some unknown time, that four-meter-tall new type of enemy had bypassed the front lines and quietly crept around the flank to the edge of their combat zone.
And the Resonance Cannon on the Ji-da's back—the weapon that made him wary—had its muzzle aimed right at him, the blazing white light of magic already converging within.
Renard's pupils shrank slightly.
But this time, he had plenty of time to evade; he just needed to turn his body sideways...
Crack-crack-crack—
A harsh sound of shattering came from behind him.
Before Renard had time to turn his head back, Ming's palm had already clamped firmly around his neck. Accompanied by a massive impact force, he was pushed flying straight toward the direction of the Ji-da.
In sheer disbelief, Renard even saw splattering blood needles strike Ming's supposedly fragile eyeball, only to be directly shattered and bounced off, as if they had hit something harder than refined steel.
Even [Physical Resistance LV10] shouldn't be able to reach this degree, right?
"What... monster..." The last few syllables squeezed out of Renard's throat.
Boom——!
(End of Chapter)
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