In the village filled with bloodshed and despair, the old butler, Delson, fixed his gaze on that tall and lanky figure from afar. It was a man who had deeply engraved a mark of shame in his memory - he had forcefully extorted 150 gold coins from him backstage at the Saree Circus in Meyer City. At this moment, the old butler's heart was filled with remorse and anger. He pounded his chest fiercely as if doing so could dispel this sudden nightmare.
Originally, the village was in the joy of a wedding, and the grand scene of the whole village celebrating together was like a profusion of flowers blooming under the warm spring sun. However, all of this was ruthlessly crushed by the arrival of the horse bandits. Now, the strong smell of blood permeated every corner, and the screams never ceased. The former peace and joy had been replaced by death and fear.
The young master, who was a bit simple-minded, was completely unaware of the tragic scene before him. He was still eating pies and drinking mead on his own, looking as if he were watching a farce that had nothing to do with him, just staring at the fight between the guards blocking the door and the horse bandits.
The old butler looked at his young master, tears welling up in his cloudy old eyes. He gritted his teeth and slowly shook his head, his heart filled with a mixture of emotions. Hatred, remorse, helplessness, and sadness, like surging tides, intertwined and converged on his aged face. It seemed that he had thousands of words to pour out, but in the end, it only turned into a desolate sigh to the extreme. "Young master, young master, if you were even a little bit normal, how could this disaster have befallen us today?"
Listening to the roars and the clashing sounds of the guards' fighting, the clear sound of metal hitting metal rang in the old butler's ears, and his heart sank completely into the abyss of despair.
"Hold on! Hold on!" The voice of the guard captain was as loud as a bell. He held his sword high in one hand and tightly grasped a purple battle flag in the other. On that battle flag, it seemed that the of ice and snow and the flames of war from the past frontier battlefields still lingered. It was a symbol of the glory of the frontier battle regiment and also a sacred object to boost morale at this moment. "We are the elite veterans of the imperial frontier battle regiment! Thousands of fierce barbarians have been defeated by us. What are these local bandits to be afraid of? Hold the line! Fight to the death without retreating!"
As veterans of the frontier army, they had already forged extraordinary courage during their military careers in the ice and snow and amid the clashing of steel. Even though they were now retired and became mercenaries, and even though they were facing a much larger number of bandits at this moment, there was still not a trace of fear in their eyes.
"Fight to the death without retreating!" The dozen or so guards roared in unison, their voices rolling like waves, full of momentum. They were clad in fine chain mail and wore sturdy helmets, looking like war gods forged of steel. The several shield soldiers in the front row were like majestic city walls, firmly holding their huge shields in front of them. Their faces were flushed red, veins bulging, their eyes wide open like copper bells, teeth clenched tightly, as if they were going to pour all their strength into these shields. Their feet were as if rooted to the ground, and they even made small pits in the ground beneath them.
Behind the shield soldiers were the long-spearmen who were the main attackers. Their long spears were like a forest of thorns, gleaming with a cold light.
The bandits outside rushed towards the courtyard walls and the house gates like a tide. They were either waving their swords and hacking madly at the large shields or using their shields to ram each other, with no tactics at all, just relying on their large numbers and brute courage. Most of these people were thugs from the Saree Circus. They were used to street fights in the city on a daily basis and had no experience in this kind of small-scale formal battle.
The guard captain seized the opportunity and gave the order: "Open!" Instantly, the shields opened up a few gaps. Immediately after that, clusters of bright spear tips thrust out like venomous snakes spitting their tongues. Among the bandits crowded in front of the gate, several screams were heard immediately, and several people fell to the ground dead. In this way, opening and closing the shields in a cycle, this seemingly simple tactic played a huge role at this time. It not only wore down the patience of the bandits who were full of momentum at the beginning but also continuously inflicted casualties, making the bandits gradually have the idea of retreating.
Seeing that it was difficult to break into the courtyard through the gate, several bandits attempted to climb over the wall. They stepped on each other's shoulders and quickly climbed onto the courtyard wall. However, as soon as their figures emerged, arrows flew towards them like meteors chasing the moon. It turned out that the guards with bows had been waiting there for a long time. In an instant, several screams pierced the sky, and the few bandits who had just shown their heads were shot down like kites with broken strings. The guards who had come from the frontier army were excellent marksmen. Once their heads showed, they were dead. Naturally, no one dared to climb the courtyard wall easily anymore.
Seeing that no one dared to climb the courtyard wall, the guard captain made a prompt decision and withdrew the few sappers who were guarding the courtyard wall. These men understood and quickly rushed to the second and third floors of Castina's house. Standing at a high place, they shot arrows downwards. At this time, the bandits crowded at the courtyard gate were in chaos, pushing and shoving each other. Such a scene was an excellent target for the archers. They could almost hit the target with their eyes closed. One by one, the archers drew their bows and released the strings, and arrows flew out like rain, almost hitting the target every time. Although most of these arrow wounds were not fatal, but being at a high position, once hit, it was usually in the head, and those who were hit were bound to die.
Under such attacks, the bandits pushed and shoved but could never break in. There were still archers on the upper floors shooting arrows continuously. Once the initial brute courage passed, the fear in their hearts grew like wild grass. Finally, the bandits could no longer hold on and scattered and retreated.
Seeing the bandits retreat, everyone finally breathed a sigh of relief. In the situation where manpower was tight just now, Castina and her father were naturally not idle either. They were assigned the task of temporarily serving as crossbowmen.
At this time, with the bandits retreating, the situation was temporarily relieved. Castina held a crossbow in her hand and walked downstairs with a somewhat dazed step. Her long wine-red hair was soaked with sweat, and a few strands of hair were stuck to her fair cheeks. There was a complex look of being still in shock on her face, with a blush, sweaty, her red lips slightly parted, and she was panting slightly.
The uneasiness brought by the unrest, the anger brought by the massacre of familiar neighbors, all kinds of emotions intertwined and wound around in her heart. When she was shooting with the crossbow, she herself was quite surprised. She was from another world, grew up under the influence of a society ruled by law, and had never experienced such a battle, not even a fight. However, just now, she was able to aim and shoot calmly, and each scream brought a little bit of satisfaction to her heart. She looked at the crossbow in her hand, shook her head slightly, and let out a long sigh.
Just as she walked downstairs, she saw her father, who was also holding a crossbow and coming out of the house, and the old butler, Delson, with a look of guilt on his face. The old butler shook his head and said in a hoarse voice, "Miss Castina, I'm sorry for you. I'm sorry for Marquis Hall. All of this is my fault. It was I who brought this huge disaster." He took out a small bottle from his pocket with a difficult look on his face. The bottle seemed to contain some kind of potion. He handed the bottle to Castina, bowed his head, and said heavily, "If... if the situation eventually develops to the worst. Miss Castina, you should know what you will face. This is poison. If the guards can't hold on and the place is lost, drink it. It will save you from suffering too much."
Castina took the small black bottle with a solemn look on her face, her heart filled with a mixture of emotions. She knew very well what kind of misfortune she would suffer if she, a woman, fell into the hands of these bandits. Just thinking about it made her shudder. If it really came to that point, drinking poison to commit suicide might indeed be much better than being molested to death. However, how reluctant she was in her heart!
She thought of her past life. At that time, she had racked her brains to get one more point in exams when she was at school. After graduating, she had just unloaded the burden of studies and immediately shouldered the heavy burden of work. At the age of twenty-six, she died suddenly from overwork. The life in her past life was too rushed, too sloppy. Love, hobbies, happiness, she hadn't had time to experience any of them before she died so hastily, and it was such an unjust death.
When she was given this second life, all the regrets of her past life turned into expectations for this life. So, she didn't care about being a woman, didn't care about those worldly distractions, but just tried to live her life, only hoping to live longer, only hoping to make up for the regrets of her past life in this life.
At this moment, her heart was full of reluctance, a mixture of emotions, and her feelings were extremely complex. For a moment, her brows were tightly furrowed, and her originally beautiful face was extremely gloomy at this moment. Her eyes were filled with reluctance and resentment, staring fixedly at the black bottle in her hand. Her fair white hands tightly gripped the bottle, trembling slightly, as if she wanted to vent all her anger and resentment on this bottle.
Suddenly, with a light snap, the black small bottle was crushed in her hand. The black potion flowed down her fingers, and her face became even gloomier.
Dreyfus was in an extremely bad mood at this moment. He had originally thought that he could personally kill those "fat sheep" and present the gold coins to Noel, the young leader of the horse thieves, so as to obtain a higher position in the gang. But he never expected that those guards would be so tenacious. His dozens of men launched a fierce attack but failed to succeed, and instead, more than thirty of his brothers were lost. Now, he could only resign himself to bad luck and go to find Noel, the young leader of the horse thieves, asking him to bring a dozen or so elite horse thieves to take action personally.
Noel's main purpose of this trip was to obtain food and gold coins, not simply to kill for fun. He knew very well that the places where these farmers hid their food were mostly very hidden. If he let his subordinates search on their own, it would surely take a lot of time and effort. Moreover, the transportation of a large amount of food and fodder also required manpower. In his view, killing only needed to be done to a sufficient extent to intimidate everyone so that they would not dare to resist.
At this time, Noel stopped the massacre and ordered all the farmers to go home and take out all their food, to ransack the whole village clean, and to load all the edible things onto carts. He also falsely promised that as long as the things were delivered to Meyer City, he would spare their lives. The farmers had already been scared out of their wits. How could they dare to disobey? They could only rush home to get the food under the pushing and cursing of the horse thieves and hooligans.
Seeing Dreyfus approaching, Noel casually wiped the blood on his face and laughed, "The village you found is quite nice. If it weren't for you leading the way, it would be really difficult to find this village sandwiched in the valley. The villagers are timid, and there's a lot of food. They seemed to be holding a wedding? Tsk, beer, bread, things are quite plentiful."
Dreyfus quickly nodded with a smile and replied, "Yes, young leader. Remember the really rich 'fat sheep' I told you about? His guards are all veterans who retired from the frontier. My men were no match for them at all. More than thirty were lost. They're in the big house on the west side of the village!"
Noel nodded slightly after hearing this, thinking to himself that although Dreyfus was a shrewd person, the group of people under him were really useless. So what if they were frontier soldiers? Dozens of them couldn't defeat a dozen or so. What a bunch of useless people.
Immediately, he summoned a dozen or so armored old bandits to his side and also brought along twenty or thirty bandits, and then galloped towards the big house of Castina's family.
After riding his horse to the big house of Castina's family, Noel gently held the reins and reined in his warhorse. The guards, seeing that the newcomers were all elite cavalry, naturally and quickly changed their formation. The long spears were placed in front, and the shield soldiers abandoned their shields and instead picked up short swords, preparing to deal with the battle flexibly. They knew very well that the left and right courtyard walls were high, and there must be archers on the courtyard walls for defense. If it were anyone else, even if they brought a dozen or so elite cavalry, it would be difficult to break in.
But Noel was no ordinary person. As the son of Kanoqa, the skilled mage and the leader of the mountain bandits, he was also a mage himself. In his eyes, to break down the solid formation that these veterans were holding on to was just a matter of casting a fireball spell.
He slightly narrowed his eyes, slowly raised his hand, closed his eyes, and began to chant the incantation silently in his heart. At this time, arrows were continuously shot from the second and third floors of Castina's house, attempting to interrupt his casting. However, all these arrows were blocked by the old bandits beside Noel, who held up their shields.
In a short while, flames began to flicker on his palm. Soon, an orange-red fireball the size of a fist appeared in his palm. The fireball crackled and burned, as if containing infinite destructive power. Immediately after that, he pushed his palm forward forcefully, and the fireball shot towards the door like an arrow leaving the bow.
With a loud rumble, smoke and dust filled the air. Although the guards reacted quickly and had already dodged, not being injured by the explosion, the solid formation they had carefully constructed was shattered under this powerful magic attack.
The old bandits beside Noel cooperated extremely well. Taking advantage of the chaos caused by the fireball spell, they suddenly spurred their horses and charged. They were like a torrent of steel, and in an instant, they rushed into the courtyard. Immediately after that, the foot bandits also swarmed in like a tide.
The guard captain, seeing this situation, knew in his heart that continuing to resist would only be a desperate struggle and would ultimately lead to certain death. But as a warrior who had come from the elite of the frontier, how could he surrender his weapons to the horse bandits? He gritted his teeth, waved the battle flag, and shouted to the guards, "Everyone, enter the house! Fight to the last man!"
In an instant, the dozen or so soldiers, Castina and her father, the old butler, and the young master who was a bit simple-minded all quickly entered the big house of Castina's family.
Noel, the young leader of the horse thieves, was quite surprised to see this situation. He had originally thought that these people would surrender, but he didn't expect that they would choose to continue to resist. Immediately, he waved his hand, ordering all the horse bandits to dismount and, along with the other bandits, enter the house to pursue and kill.
And he himself, together with Dreyfus, walked towards the luxurious cart parked in the courtyard where the old butler stored his gold coins.