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Of Arms and Arcane: Chapter 190
🕑 Added 2025-01-31 12:23:18 +0000 UTCAN: Here is a chapter I managed to squeze out from my time with family, I am now recovering from multiple Grandma induced food comas, we will be back to normal uploads on Monday.
Dad looked at the two knights guarding him and pointed at the two berserk knights moving toward the mage squads, shouting, “Delaying action!” Without hesitation, the two knights beside Dad flared their auras and jumped to intercept the incoming berserk knights.
Dad then turned to me and said, “Call the mages back to us. We are falling back to the keep. The mages can cast from there!” I did as instructed, and soon, the mages made an orderly retreat while keeping their mana shields up.
As the mages made their way to us along the wall while taking the occasional projectile fire, the mages’ retreat to the keep seemed to have caught the attention of the attacking enemy commander at the front gate, and he decided to send two of his berserk knights after the mages. This is what most people would describe as a shit situation all around.
Dad saw the same problem coming and knew that at the speed the berserk knights were coming at us by jumping from roof to roof, they would reach the mages before they could get into the keep. “Luke! In the keep, now!”
“But the mage squads! They are not going to make it in time! We must buy them some time!” I said as I stood my ground, but I could not refute Dad’s observation. If there was one thing mages did not excel at, it was physical fitness, which in turn greatly affected their speed.
“Not at the expense of your life!” Dad shouted at me as he forcefully turned me to face him.
“But if we lose the mage support, many others fighting below will die!” I tried to reason with Dad while we were just at the gate of the keep. That's when I knew I had to try something. “Let me try something. If those knights get on the wall, we will go in and shut the gate.” I tried to compromise with Dad.
Reluctantly, Dad agreed with a head nod, and I sprung into action and ran toward the mages while casting Wind Whisper to get my message to them faster. “Squad in the front, suppressive fire on the two knights coming from the front gate!” I shouted into the spell with as much of a commanding voice as I could muster while pointing at their target, and it turned out to be enough as the mage squad’s leader brought his mages to a stop and started raining spells on the two approaching berserk knights, allowing the slower group to overtake the first group.
After the second mage squad got some distance ahead of the first, I shouted for them to switch roles as I had just arrived at the second mage squad and started slinging my own spells to keep the two approaching berserk knights from getting anywhere near us fast.
As we leaped and bounded while raining spells on the two charging knights, we were making good progress to the keep. We by no means stopped their advance, but we sure as hell slowed them down. Just as things were going well, a body flew overhead and landed near Dad, and from the armor, I recognized it as one of the two men Dad sent to delay the berserk knights from the back gate.
When I looked over from where the body flew from, I saw the other man Dad sent to delay and one of the berserk knights on a roof, both kneeling in front of each other in a growing pool of blood. Dad’s knight was run clean through his armored chest with a sword that was not glowing anymore, but Dad’s knight had his sword through the berserk knight’s neck. He had brought down a powerful enemy at the cost of his own life.
As for the other berserk knight, I can safely assume he was the one who sent Dad’s other knight flying overhead, and with the speed and power, the berserk knight displayed, I had no illusions of him not making it to the mages before they got to the keep.
“LUKE! IN THE KEEP, NOW!” I heard Dad shout from behind me, but I had already acted before he called out as I hefted my spear, flared my aura, and dashed past the mages to put myself between the mages and the remaining berserk knight from the back gate who was charging at me.
As the berserk knight closed in on me, I started swirling around the tip of my spear in a small circle, the red tassel fluttering in its wake, and as the berserk knight came within my range, I trusted my spear for center mass of his chest.
The berserk knight recognized the obvious trajectory of my spear, and I noticed the twitch of his arms as he positioned his sword to intercept my thrust. However, at the last moment, I jerked my flexible spear, causing the tip to snake over his guard and aim for his head.
My spear struck the target and even managed to luckily enter the eye slit of the knight's armor, plunging into his right eye. But just as I thought I was in for an easy and quick win, one of the knight's hands shot up to grab the tip of my spear, preventing it from pushing deeper into his head.
Hoping to brute force the rest of my spear into his head, I pushed forward with all my strength, causing the man’s feet to drag along the ground, but my spearhead did not get any deeper into his head as he held it in place. Seeing that he was strong enough to prevent my spear from sinking any deeper while pushing him across the ground, I swerved to the side and drove his back into the parapet, and with that impact, I heard him grunt with displeasure as I felt my spear sink ever so slightly into his eyesocket.
“Well done, little knight. You have pushed me this far, but this is where you end.” the berserk knight said in a gruff voice as he raised his sword to strike me down. Naturally, I tried to disengage before he cut me and my spear in two, but as I tugged at my spear, it did not budge an inch.
I wanted to try and shock the berserk knight with a spell, but his sword was already swinging down at me, forcing me to back off. So I released my forward grip on my spear and hopped backward as my off-hand slid down the spear shaft and gripped my spear just before the butt.
Just as the berserk knight was about to follow up his missed downward chop with an upward swing that would most likely chop my spear in two, I delivered a palm strike to the butt of my spear while sneaking some lightning along the shaft with Instinctive Magic.
This sent electricity into the berserk knight, who had just removed the spear tip from his eye socket, causing him to lose control of his body, allowing my spear to be driven into his skull with the palm strike.
The berserk knight stills and then hangs limply off my spear, glowing sword still clung in his hand. I swiftly pull my spear from his helmet’s eye slit just as Dad’s voice called out to me again, “LUKE! BACK! NOW!”
I turned to his voice and saw the two squads of mages cast a barrage of spells just over my head, and a split second later, I heard a bunch of explosions behind me. When I turned around, I saw two more of those berserk knights step through the smoke and start running at me with malicious intent. So I listened to my father’s wise words and dashed toward the keeps’s doors and helped Dad push the heavy doors close.
