Bear School Astartes-Chapter 888 - 871: From Foot Soldier to Cavalry (3000)
Archbishop Louis temporarily set aside his observations of the abnormal phenomenon, but Lann had to admit that these Church Knights were indeed quite skilled.
They were indeed worthy of being awarded King Ausloes’s personal crest.
The Subterranean Bishops who were within the area covered by the falling giant seemed as fragile as eggs beneath a stone.
Those who ran fast could escape the crushing range.
But those who ran slower could only hear the muffled sound of their bones being crushed in the giant’s body, followed by the ’squelch’ of broken bones piercing through flesh and spraying blood as they were crushed to the extreme.
In this world, giants held the status of slaves. Due to years of labor and grime, they seemed to have developed a thick, bluish layer of dead skin.
After being knocked down by Lann, the giant’s entire back was stained a deep, almost black blood-red.
But what about those Church Knights who were originally climbing up the giant?
"Thud."
The massive, solid body was lifted unconsciously by the Church Knights underneath it.
The knights, like iron towers, silently raised the giant’s limbs pressing on them and walked out from underneath.
These Church Knights generally had two types of standard equipment.
One type was the Shield Hammer Knight, equipped with a massive tower shield larger than an average person and a Hundred-page Hammer with a head as big as a human head and a length of one and a half meters.
If placed in the hands of a common person, merely lifting the hammer would likely exhaust all their strength.
But in the hands of the Church Knights, it was a perfect one-handed war hammer.
The other type was the Great Sword Knight.
These Church Knights perhaps followed the same combat philosophy as Lann once did: to crush their targets with explosive heavy weapons.
They bore a Greatsword on their shoulders, with no other armament.
The Greatsword was fifty centimeters wide, with an overall length roughly level with the knights’ chins.
Given their similar physique to Lann’s, it should be over two meters long.
And at this moment, these silent and towering knights were emerging from beneath the giant’s corpse.
Then they climbed back up, approaching the Demon Hunter atop the giant’s head!
[Muddy Stream·Destruction] was drawn out of the giant’s skull.
The sword, belonging to the Extinct Dragon, was reluctant to part with the nourishing flesh and blood from the corpse, with the black mist-like Dragon Attribute Energy lingering like a tenuous thread connected to the massive wound on the corpse’s head.
It was as if a tiger was licking the remains off a bone.
The friction between the mail and plate armor turned rapid, as the leading Great Sword Church Knight’s armor clattered due to the hasty steps before engaging.
In this world, knights were accustomed to fighting in silence.
Even if corrupted and distorted by Profound belief, the Church Knights entered the deadly battlefield without a word.
The first Great Sword Church Knight to close in swung his Greatsword from the right shoulder down to the left waist.
This was a diagonal slash targeting a low stance, executed in a very standard manner, even to the point of being rigid.
Facing an opponent of similar size, opening with such a tactic made Lann suspect these knights hadn’t fought much against similarly sized opponents.
The Demon Hunter merely took a light step back, lifting his leading right foot, allowing the diagonal slash to pass beneath.
With Lann’s current swordsmanship skills, he almost never made any inefficient moves in a sword duel.
Evasion practically became the prelude to an attack.
As he lifted his front leg, [Muddy Stream·Destruction] was also raised above his head.
Using a stomp to enhance the downward strike’s power was a characteristic of the Iwami Style·One-Character Slash technique.
It fits perfectly now!
"Boom!"
First, the impressive stomp resounded!
The solid stone ground caved under Lann’s stomp, forming a cobweb-like depression!
The sword blade followed immediately!
"Clang~"
The unique structure inside the Greatsword made the collision sound of [Muddy Stream·Destruction] distinctively recognizable.
But this time, the collision was unexpectedly less imposing than the previous stomp.
Lann widened his eyes slightly in surprise, looking at the Church Knight in front of him.
This knight... was interesting.
Lann’s sword was larger and more powerful than the Church Knight’s.
The Greatsword of the Church Knight reached only chin height, but if Lann wanted to hold his Greatsword upright, his hand would have to be raised above his head.
Just as Lann was about to strike down with [Muddy Stream·Destruction], he noticed that the Church Knight had already adjusted his stance in response to his own slash’s inertia.
Positioning himself sideways, with his shoulder facing Lann.
Immediately using a shoulder charge to close the distance with the Demon Hunter and disrupt his striking stance.
The quick and smooth transition from the sword swing to the shoulder charge was remarkably challenging.
This knight hadn’t improvised this counterattack on the spot... this was his planned tactic from the start!
The slash was a feint, the shoulder charge was to disrupt the opponent’s posture and close the distance. If the shoulder charge succeeded, the next would be a deadly follow-up slash!
However, he clearly did not expect that Lann’s Greatsword Swordsmanship could be so smooth, seamlessly integrating evasion with attack.
This fluidity was different from the tactical planning fluidity; it was entirely due to genuine high-level technical skill!
Therefore, the shoulder slam originally intended to disrupt the enemy’s rhythm was now used defensively as a counterattack.
Using the shoulder slam to close the distance, avoiding the horrifying, most lethal front-end sword blade of the Muddy Stream·Destruction, and heading towards the greatly diminished power sword hilt.
At the last moment, when the bone-white blade of the Greatsword struck the Church Knight’s shoulder armor, this guy even made a gesture similar to an arrow step.
This posture seemed to possess some supernatural power, further reducing the effectiveness of Lann’s slash.
Thus, the sound of the blade collision this time was so faint.
And after Lann’s move was forced into an error, it was the Church Knight’s turn.
The Arrow Step indeed is a sword technique posture that can trigger power through movement, greatly enhancing the stability of one’s body posture in a short time.
The posture is stabilized, naturally reducing the damage that enemies can inflict.
Next came the Church Knight’s follow-up move after the Arrow Step.
After the Church Knight lunged forward with an Arrow Step, the cat eyes in Lann’s gaze slightly contracted.
Because he saw that after the enemy adopted this posture, their actions could lead to a residual image.
It wasn’t a visual deviation caused by excessive speed but rather a genuine, illusory texture of image residue.
That image residue left a slightly delayed white trail in mid-air as the Church Knight moved.
Undoubtedly, this was supernatural power.
Lann didn’t know whether this residual image itself was the effect of this currently unknown supernatural power or a characteristic of its activation.
But he didn’t want to gamble... nor did he need to.
The Magic Ring in his hand emitted a signal.
His partner had arrived!
"Neigh!"
A warhorse’s whinny, accompanied by the intense electric field of the Ancient Dragon Phantom Beast of the New Continent, appeared in the hall of the Profound Church!
The noble blue and white horse, which could traverse the primitive and peculiar terrain of the New Continent as if on flat ground, considered the organized structure of the Profound Church to be truly ’flat ground.’
"Zap!"
A roar accompanied by the thunderous sound of electricity briefly caused ear ringing for everyone in the hall.
The pure white rune silk floated in mid-air, and the Qilin flashed with lightning as it crashed through a group of Subterranean Bishops blocking the way, arriving behind Lann!
The Demon Hunter didn’t even look, familiar enough with his friend to communicate mind-to-mind.
Lann’s arm naturally reached backward and grabbed the pale mane of the Qilin.
The Ancient Dragon’s body immediately came to life.
Its speed outstripped the sword swing of the Church Knight before him!
Almost in a blink of an eye, pulling the Qilin’s mane, Lann completely escaped the Church Knight’s attack range.
No matter what kind of supernatural power effect you have, if you can’t hit, you can’t hit.
The advantage of cavalry over infantry is right here; only overcoming it qualifies you to speak.
That Church Knight’s follow-up move was indeed formidable.
After lowering his position through the Arrow Step, he swung the Greatsword horizontally in two full circles through the twist of his wrists and waist!
The illusory white residual image was just like a windmill.
The howling wind raised by the Greatsword made Lann feel that if he were still within attack range, even though he had many ways to avoid injury, he would likely be directly knocked away!
But now... after mounting the Qilin, his options were plentiful.
The Qilin’s hooves echoed in the hall as Lann retreated by pulling the mane, half standing on the ground.
And in the blink of an eye, Lann had already swung himself onto the horse.
After the Church Knight finished the two circles of the Greatsword, the Qilin used its robust and powerful Ancient Dragon body to instantly turn, accelerate, and charge forward!
This set of swift turns, even for creatures with less resilient joints in the New Continent, would ruin their ankles, requiring days of rest to recover.
But for Ancient Dragons, especially the Qilin, an adept runner, this was just a daily stroll.
Before the Church Knight could respond, Lann was seated on the Qilin’s back, the rear-dropped Greatsword already resting on his shoulder armor.
"What a pity..."
Lann clicked his tongue.
"If it were usual, I’d surely spar with you."
The Greatsword Church Knight, raised his helmet that resembled an iron bucket amidst the slight sound of armor colliding, and then...
"Boom!!"
The highly distinctive sound of impact echoed throughout the church hall, almost creating the illusion that the big church bell atop the building had fallen.
As for the Greatsword Church Knight, who had performed remarkably just now... from his shoulder diagonally down to his chest cavity.
A hideous, wide, front-to-back penetrating gap had already appeared in his towering and strong body!
The Greatsword, propelled by the Qilin’s momentum, almost sliced through half of his body!
Blood sprayed upwards from the gap like a fountain.
