Breaking free from Jefferson's embrace, Miss Christine began removing the energy crystals from Jefferson's body while saying, "Take off the disc from your head. In a moment, I'll climb onto your back. You need to charge straight down the hill. Using the momentum from the descent, you should be able to break their formation. No matter what, you must engage one of them. I'll assist Monica. Once I immobilize one enemy, Monica will surely be able to finish them off quickly with her skill."
"And what about the others?" Jefferson asked. His arithmetic might be poor, but even he knew that five enemies minus one still left four. Even if he could engage one, Monica would still have three opponents.
"How would I know? I'm not a strategist. Besides, the battlefield is unpredictable. Even the best-laid plans can change halfway through," Christine replied, slightly irritated.
Jefferson understood that Christine's irritation stemmed from frustration and anxiety, partly because she herself wasn't sure what to do.
"Alright, I follow orders," Jefferson sighed, carefully placing the disc on a nearby bush.
He then moved Christine to his back. Now completely unburdened, Jefferson stealthily approached the battlefield. He stopped at a steep slope before the skirmish.
"Hold tight, I'm going down," Jefferson warned Christine.
Angling his two shields at a forty-five-degree angle in front of him, Jefferson charged down the hill.
With a series of heavy thuds, Jefferson barreled down like a tiger descending the mountain, aiming straight at the five Valerian knights. The slope was very steep, and he used his shuffle step to increase his speed further.
Even without the armor plates, his armor still weighed over a ton. The two giant shields alone weighed over six hundred kilograms. Charging down a slope from tens of meters high created immense momentum.
The battlefield below was narrow, leaving no room for evasion.
"Bang... Bang... Bang..." A series of loud crashes echoed as Jefferson collided with the enemies. At the moment of impact, he executed the hallmark technique of defensive heavy knights—"Shield Bash."
The first knight to collide with Jefferson was unlucky. Using a long spear, a weapon excellent for offense but poor for defense, he tried to meet Jefferson head-on, resulting in a predictable outcome. The Valerdin knight was sent flying like a kite with a broken string, crashing into a tree and snapping it.
Still carrying momentum, Jefferson collided with another enemy.
This was a knight wielding a double-handed giant axe. Having seen his comrade fly, he had braced himself for impact, swinging his axe at Jefferson. Though hurried and not fully powered, the axe struck Jefferson's shield, numbing his right side completely.
The massive impact from descending the slope collided Jefferson with the axe knight.
Both staggered back half a step. At that moment, with a loud bang, fire and smoke erupted from under Jefferson's shield.
The large-caliber firearm hidden under Jefferson's shield had misfired due to the impact. The walnut-sized bullet shot out, hitting the axe knight's arm.
The arm was part of the armor, not the knight inside. It had only three fingers and was used primarily to hold weapons. Apart from the eyes, the hands were the weakest part of the armor. The bullet shattered the metal, sending fragments flying, and the magical tendons in the fingers snapped. The hand was rendered useless, and so was the knight, as wielding a giant double-handed axe with one hand was impossible.
Jefferson stood stunned for a moment, but he quickly shifted his focus, running towards the knight he had initially knocked away.
Using another shield bash, Jefferson targeted the knight who was still struggling to get up. With a loud crash, the knight was knocked down again, but Jefferson also fell, hit by a hastily fired shockwave from his opponent.
Lying on the ground, Jefferson struggled to get up, feeling a tightness in his chest. The shockwave had partially penetrated his shield, hitting him directly. This was the vulnerability of lacking armor. If he had his heavy armor, the attack would have caused no harm.
As Jefferson struggled to stand, he suddenly heard the screech of metal, followed by a loud crash.
A Valerian knight had just been completely dismembered, his body inside the armor shredded into pieces.
The battlefield's tide turned almost instantly. Miss Monica's thorny guards could also function as deadly cutting wires.
Her strangulation technique had a beautiful name, "Death Thorn." Though powerful, it was slow to deploy and couldn't be used when she was outnumbered five to one. Fortunately, Officer Christine arrived just in time to deliver a mental shock to one of the knights, causing a momentary lapse, which was enough for Monica.
With one opponent dismembered, Jefferson incapacitating one and entangling another, only two enemies were left to face Monica.
Monica's attacks grew fiercer. Normally, her combat style was steady and methodical, but now she was willing to take risks for a quick victory.
Suddenly, she dashed into the inner circle, taking hits to her left arm and leg to get close to the axe-wielding knight. This knight had lost an arm and had his back to her, making him an easy target.
With a swift thrust, her left rapier pierced under his armpit. As she withdrew the blade, a fountain of blood followed.
Spinning around, Monica charged at the knight who was half-sitting on the ground. This knight quickly rolled away multiple times, escaping far from her reach. Meanwhile, the two remaining Valerian knights rushed to his aid.
One knight hurried to the fallen comrade while the other leveled a lance at Monica's back, the tip glowing a faint blue—an attack meant to kill.
At the critical moment, Monica twisted her waist, dodging the thrust and the powerful skill embedded in it. The blue light from the lance turned into a sharp shockwave, hitting the ground where Monica had been, leaving a deep, meter-wide crater.
If that attack had hit her, Monica would have been dead.
Her real goal was this most powerful enemy. After eliminating the axe knight and feigning an attack on the fallen knight, she had lured him in.
Her thorny guards extended into two five or six-meter-long strangulation wires, complementing her rapiers. She blocked all escape routes for the lance-wielding knight.
Realizing he couldn't escape unscathed, the knight threw down his lance and used his arms as shields, sacrificing them to the deadly embrace of Monica's wires.
A series of ear-piercing metal scraping sounds followed. The knight's metal arms were shredded, with weaker parts like the hands, wrists, and elbows torn apart. Metal fragments fell to the ground.
Though his arms were destroyed, the knight's life was spared, and he fled immediately.
It seemed he had signaled his comrades during his escape. The other two survivors also fled hastily: one scrambled into the woods, and the other ran down the valley.
However, the one who scrambled was slower, possibly due to damage from Jefferson's earlier collision, making his movements sluggish.
Monica leaped forward, her right sword flashing out.
The sharp tip pierced the weak spot in the lower back of the fleeing knight, rendering him immobile.
Three of the five enemies were killed, one had lost both arms, and only one remained a threat.
"Thank you both. If it weren't for you, I would have been finished. Even if I wasn't killed, being captured alive would have been worse than death," Miss Monica said, helping Jefferson up from the ground.