195: Chapter 195 Assault

Chapter 195: Raid

The deep snow covered the Iron Thorn Territory Branch in a holy white coat, making it seem as if it had turned into a world of snow.

A massive snow-clearing team set off from the magistrate's office, clearing the snow-filled main street all the way to the town exit.

The task of clearing the snow in Blackwood Town was not led by Lister and his team; they were mainly responsible for clearing the roads leading from Blackwood Town to important areas inside and outside the territory.

The snow-clearing work for the small streets within the town was organized spontaneously by the Serfs after Lister issued the notice for snow-clearing work.

The sounds of shoveling snow, shouting, and horse hooves echoed continuously across the land, bringing infinite vitality back to the town that had been silent for more than ten days.

"The Lord is actually shoveling snow with us?"

A Serf who had been newly incorporated into the territory not long ago looked at Lister, who was shoveling snow not far away, with deep shock in his eyes.

A Serf who had been in the territory for a long time smiled and said to him: "Don't be so surprised. Our Lord has always been like this. His care and consideration for us are absolutely unique in the entire kingdom."

"Yes, being the Lord's Serfs can be said to be our greatest honor," another elderly Serf echoed.

The new Serf nodded heavily in agreement, a thick warmth welling up from the bottom of his heart, and the chill penetrating through his high-quality linen coat seemed to vanish completely.

Such conversations were common among the snow-clearing team, and Lister's magnificent image instantly deeply impressed the newly incorporated Serfs.

Lister only stopped his snow-clearing work at noon after working personally.

"Odinton, you can arrange the subsequent work."

After giving instructions to Odinton, he rode back to Blackwood Town under the admiring gazes of the Serfs.

The Serfs did not feel anything inappropriate about his departure; after all, the Lord had many official duties to handle, and it was already rare in the world that he could work with them.

Not to mention that he worked earnestly with them until noon, and it was such hard labor.

Being treated so considerately by the Lord, what else did they have to be dissatisfied with?

On the other side.

Returning to the Lord's residence, Lister quickly finished the lunch carefully prepared by Thomas and Flora.

Afterwards, he rode quickly to the main square of the military camp, where the Knight Squad, composed of more than a dozen knights of Bronze Rank 5 or higher, was already ready to go under Red's assembly.

Among them, Spartacus, Sejin, and Aier were also at the very front of the team.

Seeing Lister arrive, everyone's gazes gathered on him.

Even as the biting cold wind brushed across their faces, they did not show any signs of discomfort, and there was only the sound of their heavy breathing in the air as they quietly waited for Lister's orders.

Sweeping his gaze over everyone's stern faces, Lister nodded with appreciation, then waved his hand without wasting words.

"Everyone, move out!"

The sun slanted westward, and the orange-Red sunset dyed the entire sky.

After an afternoon of forced march, Lister finally led the team to the northern edge of Pioneering Lord Primo's territory.

Looking around, the land was covered in boundless white snow, and small, withered, and bare woods stood here.

With a slight glance, a small wood on higher ground a hundred meters away caught Lister's attention.

"Everyone, follow me."

After giving the order, he galloped toward the small wood first, followed closely by the imposing Knight Squad.

Standing in the small wood, after carefully examining the surrounding environment and the field of vision, he nodded with satisfaction.

Then, he turned his horse to face everyone and ordered: "Spartacus, you take three people to the east side of the woods to pick the best observation point and keep a close eye on anyone who might come from the Coridinglo direction in the east."

"Sejin and Aier, you two also take two people each, one to the south side of the woods and one to the north side. The tasks are the same as Spartacus's."

"If you find any suspicious persons, don't act rashly. Send someone to notify us immediately, and we will act together after we are in position."

"Understood, Lord Lister." The three replied respectfully, then left quickly with their men.

From beginning to end, they did not ask what Lister was going to do, but their loyalty and trust in him told them that they just needed to firmly obey his orders.

Watching their backs disappear into the woods, Lister called Red and the remaining knights to stand by.

As his most trusted confidant who had followed him the longest, although he did not explain it clearly, from his few words just now, Red had roughly guessed what he was going to do, so there was more expectation in his heart.

And the others were not stupid, and their guesses were similar to Red's.

For this matter, Lister did not intentionally not tell them. Although there were reasons that were hard to explain, it was mostly because he felt it was not worth wasting so much breath.

After all, their purpose in coming out this time was very simple: just to ambush the Black Witch Church's Great Deacon, Glan Ferguson, who was coming from the kingdom's direction.

With their overall strength, there was no need to plan so much in advance to fight a Silver-level wizard.

Besides the main purpose of ambush and assassination, another important purpose was to exercise the knights' combat ability against wizards.

Especially the newly recruited knights; they had never had the experience of fighting wizards, and this opponent could just serve as their touchstone.

Although the wind and snow had stopped, the biting cold wind was still raging and howling.

Without extra words, everyone casually found a stone to sit on, quietly waiting for the transmission from the three squads.

Meanwhile, in the buffer zone of the Pioneer Territory, thousands of meters away from Lister's group.

Accompanied by the hurried and powerful sound of horse hooves, five people completely covered by black robes, whose faces could not be seen clearly, were riding toward the southwest.

On the rugged ground, covered by endless white snow behind them, the speed of the horses they were riding was greatly reduced.

"If it weren't for the snow caused by the blizzard some time ago, we should have arrived at the tribal sphere of influence by now."

A complaining male voice suddenly came from under the robe of a black-robed person riding an all-black horse among the five.

Hearing this, a black-robed person beside him echoed: "Yes, the weather in the West in previous years was not as bad as this year, making me almost think I was in the North."

Although the other two black-robed people did not speak, they also nodded in agreement. The winter climate in the West this year was indeed unusual.

At this time, the group moved to a section of uneven road, and the speed of their horses slowed down a bit more.

The black-robed person who spoke at the beginning continued: "Fortunately, the snow stopped today, otherwise our traveling speed would be even slower."

"I just hope it can stay like this later, otherwise it will affect our mission."

The leading black-robed person who exuded a strong sense of oppression trembled slightly under his robe, and then a middle-aged male voice like a bell came out.

"There is no need to talk too much about this matter. The Bishop has already noticed it and reported it to the high-level officials of the church."

"According to the information I know, this should not be a normal weather change; it seems to be related to something behind it."

"The church has already made a rough judgment on the location of the source of the wind and snow, so this time, in addition to our original mission, we have an additional mission, which is to investigate the specific location of the source."

Additional mission?

The few people were slightly startled. The Great Deacon had not mentioned this to them before, but he did not expect to tell them suddenly today.

For this kind of sudden extra task, they naturally did not like it very much.

However, since it was the order of the church's high-level officials, they dared not have any complaints.

I saw that under their slightly trembling black robes, as if they had agreed in advance, they exhaled a white breath, which was their helplessness for the sudden increase in work.

"We will obey the church's orders and will definitely assist you, Great Deacon Glan, in completing the mission."

The leading black-robed person nodded slightly, feeling quite satisfied with their attitude.

Under the obstruction of the snow, the group traveled for about half an hour and finally arrived at the northern edge of Pioneering Lord Primo's territory.

"According to the markings on the map, after passing through the territory of this Pedan Kingdom's Pioneering Lord, we will reach the scope of the tribal forces."

A black-robed person said, and the others nodded upon hearing this, without saying much.

Just as they were struggling to travel, in the small woods a hundred meters ahead of them, more than a dozen pairs of eyes were staring at them firmly.

That sharp gaze seemed to see not people, but the prey they had been waiting for for a long time.

"Lord Lister, are they our targets? They don't look like good people."

Hearing Spartacus's inquiry beside him, Lister nodded: "That's right. After they get close, you, Red, Sejin, and Aier, you four take the lead."

"Your target only needs to be fixed on the black-robed person at the very front. The other black-robed people will be dealt with by me and my men."

"The black-robed person at the very front is left to us?" Spartacus was slightly stunned, and the other three were also a little surprised.

You know, under their observation just now, the strength of the black-robed person at the very front was obviously the strongest, and fighting him would definitely yield very good combat experience.

Such a good opportunity to exercise themselves was given to them by Lister, which was definitely a big bargain for them.

Hearing this, Lister looked at Spartacus and joked: "Why, you don't want to fight that black-robed person? If you don't want to, I can help you change one."

"Want to, want to, I have never fought such a good opponent before." Spartacus said quickly, his face without any solemnity of being about to fight a strong enemy.

Seeing his eager appearance, Lister shook his head with a laugh.

In fact, among these five Black Witch Church wizards, except for the Great Deacon Glan who was the strongest, the strength of the other four wizards was not weak. The magic power fluctuations on two of them were about equivalent to Silver Initial Rank.

The other two weaker wizards had at least the strength of High-Rank Bronze.

A five-person wizard team composed of such strength could already silently eliminate most of the surrounding Pioneering Lord forces one by one.

This also gave Lister a deeper understanding of the Black Witch Church's strength.

Restoring his serious expression, he solemnly ordered: "The opponent is a wizard, their melee ability is not strong, but their escape ability is not something we can compare with."

"When you make a move later, you must entangle them and attack, do not give them any possibility of escape, and do not be too violent, leave them a whole corpse."

"Understood." Everyone replied in unison, the sound controlled to only a small area around them.

In their staring eyes, Glan and the other five wizards soon arrived not far from them on horseback.

Suddenly, Glan raised his head to signal everyone to stop. The face under the black robe began to examine the surrounding environment, especially several woods covered by white snow.

"Great Deacon Glan, why did you stop?" A black-robed wizard asked suspiciously.

Glancing at the surrounding environment and finding nothing, Glan replied in a deep voice: "Maybe I felt wrong, let's continue moving."

Seeing his actions, Lister's brow in the woods tightened slightly.

Although he had already used the wizard's aura concealment technique, Glan's strong perception still surprised him.

If it weren't for the fact that his Wizardry had improved a lot recently, he might not have been able to hide from Glan's perception.

On the other side, Glan and the others had already continued to move. When they arrived at the closest ambush distance.

Lister waved his arm lightly, and Red, Spartacus, Sejin, and Aier, who had been waiting for a long time, rushed out of the woods like tigers descending a mountain.

They were not riding horses, but their speed was not slower than a good warhorse. In an instant, they appeared thirty meters away from Glan and the others.

"Not good, there is an ambush!"

The fastest-reacting Glan suddenly appeared with a magic wand in his hand. While shouting to remind, he quickly mobilized the magic power in his body to perform the wizard's defensive technique.

While speaking, four energy slashes of different colors had already struck before him.

With a "boom", the Magic Shield that had not yet fully condensed was instantly scattered by the four energy slashes, shooting straight at Glan's face.

But in the next second, without seeing any movement from Glan, a Magic Shield appeared out of thin air in front of him again, and the black light flowing on the surface had already completely solidified.

The violent explosion sounded again. The moment the two energies intersected, they exploded, and the strong shockwave energy blew the five people and their horses away.

Barely blocking the four people's attack, Glan, who bore the brunt, flew backwards violently, and only stopped after sliding for dozens of meters.

Before he could steady his figure, Red and the others' figures suddenly appeared in front of him, and the long swords with cold light in their hands attacked again like the Grim Reaper claiming a life.

"Damn it!" Spitting with an extremely ugly expression, Glan released his Wizardry to defend without any pause in his movements.

On the other side, the four wizards who had just reacted and steadied their figures were preparing to release their Wizardry to support Glan.

Suddenly, the sounds of attack from Lister and the others came from the woods behind, and their expressions changed greatly, so they had to turn back to defend.

In an instant, in the white world where the cold wind howled, a life-and-death battle between knights and wizards began — — — —