30: Chapter 30 The Followers

Upon hearing Cecilia's warning, Black Cat was the first to react.

She immediately reloaded her hand crossbow, slid against the rock wall into the shadows of the cave entrance, and held her dagger in her mouth.

Richard raised his halberd, barring the cave entrance, and everyone prepared for defense.

The first arrow shot down from the heights across the canyon, its tip tearing through the air, heading straight for Richard's chest with a sharp whistling sound.

The arrow was fast and the angle was tricky; Richard had no time to dodge it completely.

But the arrow tip was swatted away horizontally by the flat of a blade less than a palm's width from his chest.

The sound of metal clashing exploded in the canyon. The arrow veered off course and embedded itself into the nearby rock wall, its white fletching still trembling violently.

Cecilia stood by his side, holding her sword horizontally, her blood-red eyes beneath her veil locked onto the direction from which the arrow had been fired.

The second and third arrows followed closely, but Richard had already dodged to the side.

Black Cat locked onto the shooter's position. She raised her crossbow and fired at the pile of rocks on the high ground opposite, forcing the opponent to relocate, then warned those beside her: "At least four to five people. There's an Archer up there, and a few more people are approaching from below!"

Emerging from the canyon corner was a fully equipped adventurer squad.

Walking at the very front was a tall and sturdy human Swordsman Captain, around thirty years old, wearing a set of worn chainmail, holding a wide-bladed longsword, with an old scar running across his face from his brow bone to his jaw.

On his left and right were two Rogues in light armor, their steps uneven yet perfectly coordinated; it was clearly not their first time working together.

Walking slowly at the back of the group was a young woman wearing dark gray priest robes embroidered with strange gray patterns.

The top of the staff in her hand was embedded with a black agate stone, inside which something was slowly flowing, looking like a mass of wriggling blood.

Everyone had their weapons drawn, and their formation had already spread out while approaching the cave.

The Swordsman Captain stopped about fifteen paces from Richard, leaning on the hilt of his sword with both hands, his tone as casual as if he were chatting with an acquaintance about the weather: "Leave the egg, the Petrified Lizard corpses, and anything valuable on you, and you can leave... A fair trade, how about it?"

"My people are full of energy, and you just finished fighting two Petrified Lizards, so your condition must be very poor."

Jinbao quickly shoved the Petrified Lizard egg into the bottom of his toolkit, then blocked it with his body, squeezing a fake smile onto his round face: "What egg? We didn't find any egg! You can take the lizard corpses if you want them; I don't care for them."

"Don't play dumb. Hand over the stuff now!" A Rogue sneered and took a step forward, spinning a short blade between their fingers.

The Swordsman Captain raised a hand to signal the Rogue to stop, then fixed his gaze back on Richard and Cecilia.

He saw clearly that the biggest threats in this group, besides the young warrior holding the halberd and the fully armored female swordsman, were not a problem at all.

"I don't want to kill anyone today; there's no need to make things ugly. Hand over the egg and the valuables, and I'll let you leave." The Swordsman Captain proposed once more.

Richard looked at him, the corners of his mouth slowly curling up, his expression looking like a bloodthirsty beast.

"You think you're pretty smart for coming to scavenge right after we finished fighting monsters, don't you? What kind of thing do you think you are?"

Upon hearing Richard's words, the Swordsman Captain's expression changed.

His hand moved from the hilt to above the hilt, fingers tightening, and his chainmail emitted a soft metallic friction sound during the movement.

He said: "Heh, kid, in this line of adventuring, 'smart' and 'stupid' are defined by the results."

As his sword left its sheath, the second wave of arrows shot down from the high platform opposite.

But this time, Richard was prepared.

His attention had not been entirely on the swordsman from the beginning; his peripheral vision had been locked onto the hiding spot of that marksman on the high platform opposite.

The moment the arrows left the strings, he had already performed a dodging maneuver, the arrowheads brushing past his shoulder armor and leaving a shallow mark on the hardened leather.

At the same time, after the first round of probing shots, both sides launched a Charge almost simultaneously.

Jinbao's reaction was as fast as ever; his short body crouched down, and he pulled two metal pellets the size of pigeon eggs from the side pocket of his toolkit.

He muttered a curse word that Richard didn't catch, then smashed the pellets hard onto the ground in front of him.

The pellets didn't explode into smoke, but a pungent, grayish-white dust that spread rapidly in the air, turning the entire open space outside the cave entrance into a chaotic area with visibility of less than two meters.

Through the dust, one could vaguely see the figure of Jinbao dragging his toolkit as he ran desperately backward, as well as Morpheus's silhouette, swaying in panic amidst the dust.

Richard cursed inwardly: "Jinbao, you really are a bit of a burden to your teammates!"

However, he didn't stay in the dust, instead circling out from the side and heading straight for the Swordsman Captain's face.

The halberd and the wide-bladed sword collided, sparks flying everywhere, the sound of metal clashing causing loose rocks on the nearby stone wall to fall with a rustling sound.

The Swordsman Captain's strength was not weak; judging by his physique and the muscle contours under his chainmail, he was surely a seasoned adventurer.

But Richard's strength was no longer what it used to be.

Less than two moves into the fight, the Swordsman Captain realized something was wrong.

The opponent's strength completely exceeded his estimation for a young warrior; every slash of the halberd felt like being swiped by an adult grizzly bear, numbing the web of his hand and causing the muscles in his arms to tremble uncontrollably.

He had originally thought that this group had just finished fighting two Petrified Lizards, so their condition must be very poor.

But looking at the strength and speed of this young man's attacks, where was there any sign of being injured?

He looked down at the web of his hand, which had already started to bleed.

And Richard's Bloodthirsty Brand was silently taking effect.

Every time the edge of the halberd grazed the Swordsman Captain's body, even if it only broke the skin, he could feel a surge of warm life force being drawn from the wound and flowing into his own body.

The side of his waist, which had been injured by the male lizard's tail during the previous battle, was healing at a visible rate; the bruising faded, and his muscles returned to their optimal state.

Conversely, the wounds on the Swordsman Captain increased, and Richard used the Mortal Strike skill from time to time; although it didn't trigger the lethal effect, it reduced the opponent's ability to recover and heal.

"You, what exactly are you?"

The Swordsman Captain gritted his teeth and squeezed out these words. He found that the longsword in his hand was starting to slow down because his arm was becoming weaker and weaker.

His shoulder under the chainmail was slashed open by the axe blade of Richard's halberd, and blood flowed down his arm, congealing into a wet red film on the fingers holding his sword.

He wanted to reach for the healing potion hanging at his waist, but Richard didn't give him the chance at all.

"Too much talk. Die!" Richard let out a cold laugh.