Chapter 57 Exhilaration

“Jingle-jingle-jingle!”

The alarm bells rang wildly through the night.

A wooden bowl hit the ground, splashing half-finished orange-red stew across the grass.

“Shing!”

Steel hissed free of its sheath.

A streak of iron-gray light flashed once in the darkness.

By the next instant, the Decapitating Longsword was already in Xia Nan’s hands.

Alton reacted just as quickly.

A second earlier, the halfling had been grinning as he shared yet another story about his hometown.

The moment the bells rang, his smile vanished.

His short legs blurred.

With a few nimble steps and a quick leap, Alton landed on top of a wagon beside the road.

By the time he turned toward the sound, an exquisitely crafted miniature lute had already appeared in his hands.

Halflings were cheerful, friendly, and energetic.

That did not make them helpless fools.

Their strong sense of responsibility meant that when their families, friends, or villages were threatened, these little folk often displayed courage and determination far greater than their size suggested.

Their compact, agile bodies also made them naturally more nimble than ordinary people, with an aptitude for stealth and concealment not unlike that of rogues.

In fact, Alton’s presence here already said plenty about his abilities.

A lightfoot halfling would not normally be allowed to leave the enormous family community he belonged to and wander the world as an adventurer unless he could take care of himself.

The other adventurers reacted almost as fast.

Pots, bowls, and utensils clattered to the ground.

Within seconds, every guard had a weapon in hand and had moved into the formation arranged beforehand.

Only after the adventurers had finished preparing for battle did chaos finally break out in the caravan’s main camp.

“Twenty-three goblins. No variants.”

Standing atop the wagon, Alton adjusted the strings of his lute with quick, practiced movements while calmly reporting what he had spotted.

The tension around Xia Nan immediately eased.

“Thank goodness. Just goblins.”

That reaction made sense.

This close to a town, the only monsters stupid enough to attack a human caravan were either creatures so starved that hunger had overwhelmed their sense of danger…

Or brainless green-skinned bastards like these.

“Kree! Wilson! Get ready!”

The adventurer who seemed to be in charge shouted toward two men carrying longbows.

Neither wasted time.

Their movements were smooth and familiar, suggesting they had worked together more than once.

The two archers quickly climbed onto wagon compartments positioned beside the road in advance and secured the high ground.

From there, they aimed into the darkness.

Dozens of indistinct figures were racing toward the caravan.

Draw.

Nock.

Release.

“Whoosh!”

Two fletched arrows became narrow blurs and vanished into the night.

Two shadows dropped.

“Again!”

The leader shouted.

Another volley cut through the dark.

This time, several caravan grooms joined in.

Their clothes were disheveled, and a few still had mud and grass stuck to them. From the looks of it, they had taken a tumble while scrambling over.

Each carried a bow or crossbow.

They squinted toward the approaching shapes and fired.

Three more goblins fell.

Unfortunately, none of those kills belonged to the grooms.

Both trained archers had struck again, and one of the arrows had punched straight through the chests of two green-skinned rats in a row.

Visibility at night was terrible.

Ordinary people with no real combat experience simply could not match adventurers who regularly fought in the Misty Forest, whether in power or accuracy.

Shrill howls rose from the darkness.

The pounding footsteps were growing louder.

The adventurer commanding the defense glanced at the cargo stacked on the wagons behind him.

He hesitated.

Then his gaze shifted to Jeff, who stood nearby gripping a long spear with both hands.

That seemed to settle it.

The leader raised his one-handed sword high.

“Don’t let these beasts reach the caravan!”

His voice rang across the camp.

“Brothers, with me!”

As one of the front-line fighters, Xia Nan had no intention of hanging around at the rear.

He charged.

At the same time, his gaze swept across both sides of the road.

No movement.

No sign of an ambush.

And his teammates behind him were already covering the rear and watching the flanks.

Only then did Xia Nan relax slightly.

“Thrum!”

A bright, stirring note suddenly rolled across the battlefield.

The tense night seemed to tremble with it.

The melody was not complex.

It sounded almost like a string of high notes woven together and repeated over and over.

Yet there was something peculiar in that rhythm.

Something that made it difficult not to listen.

Xia Nan’s muscles did not suddenly swell with greater strength.

His thoughts did not become unnaturally sharp.

Instead, the music seemed to seep into him through the air itself, slipping through his skin and into his flesh and bones.

It created a strange sensation.

His body felt lighter.

His arms felt fuller with strength.

Nothing had visibly changed, yet fighting suddenly seemed just a little easier.

Xia Nan’s speed increased.

A thought flashed through his mind.

The lute in Alton’s hands.

That light, colorful clothing.

[A bard?]

Then he reached the front line.

Shouts erupted around him.

Metal struck metal.

Xia Nan shut it all out.

Straight ahead, four goblins were charging toward him, clubs raised and mouths twisted into vicious snarls.

The tip of his sword dipped toward the ground.

After absorbing the dewdrop, Xia Nan’s constitution had risen to 8.

He no longer needed to worry about a combat technique placing too much strain on his body.

So he stepped forward.

Hard.

His leather boot sank into the soft earth beneath the meadow.

Mud swallowed his heel.

But at that same instant, it felt as though the ground itself had answered him, sending a burst of force upward through his leg.

Power surged from the sole of his foot.

It raced through his body, gathering every bit of strength hidden in his flesh before concentrating it into a single point.

That force reached his palm.

Then the hilt.

Countless repetitions had long since burned the motion into muscle memory.

His body moved.

The blade followed.

[Spinning Slash]

“Whoosh!”

An iron-gray arc ripped through the firelit darkness.

Four faint jolts of resistance traveled through Xia Nan’s sword.

That was all.

Flesh might as well have been paper.

Tendons and bones might as well have been dry twigs.

Driven by that overwhelming force, the blade tore through all four goblins before any of them could even scream.

Filthy blood erupted like a fountain.

Severed limbs and pieces of organs flew into the air.

The blood coating the blade scattered across the ground as the remaining momentum carried the sword through its arc.

Loose strands of hair whipped across Xia Nan’s forehead.

The thick stench of blood rushed into his nose with his next breath, making him frown.

Yet beneath the disgust, something else surged up.

Relief.

No.

Exhilaration.

The bugbear.

The basilisk.

Even that enormous snake whose hide he still could not pierce after it was already dead.

One encounter after another had left a pressure building quietly inside him.

A suffocating reminder of just how weak he still was.

Now, as four green-skinned bastards collapsed around him, that pressure suddenly burst.

It was almost like a butcher cutting apart pork on a chopping block.

Clean.

Easy.

Satisfying.

At that moment, Xia Nan had only one thought.

[That felt amazing!]