Being a knight is not easy

Chapter 378 Bait

Fifteen shadows, tearing through the darkness, activated simultaneously like the most precise killing machine springs!
They shot out from all directions, from the innermost layer of the camp's defensive perimeter—within the camp walls, behind the stables, and even beside the main tent!
That was no ordinary sneak attack!
That was the moment when darkness and dawn met, the ultimate hunter who had been perfectly lurking under the enemy's nose for who knows how long!
Ten of them rushed straight to the group of resting soldiers who were most concentrated around the campfire and outside the officers' tents!

The three of them flashed toward the command center at the heart of the camp like ghosts! And the remaining two... their target was Count Sotra's own main tent, which was heavily guarded by his personal guards and brightly lit!

puff! puff! puff! puff!
The sound of a ripe watermelon being cracked by a blunt object rang out in rapid succession, accompanied by a few short screams that were cut off as soon as they were uttered!
Beside the campfire, several soldiers on the outermost edge collapsed to the ground almost without any reaction, their necks twisted into bizarre angles!

The shadows that followed were like razors in water, slicing wildly through the still-developing state of terror and chaos!

"Enemy attack—!" The shrill whistle was finally forced out of the throat by a sentry who had just reacted due to an adrenaline rush!

Like throwing cold water into a pot of boiling oil!
"Kill! Protect the Earl!!" The captain of the personal guards roared, his eyes wide with rage, drawing his sword and trying to rally his newly awakened comrades! But before he could finish speaking—

call out!call out!call out!
A dozen or so crossbow bolts, painted with an eerie, ghostly blue color and piercing the air silently, were like poisoned bees, precisely embedding themselves in the exposed throats, arms, or shoulders of the dozen or so strongest personal guards surrounding Count Sotra's main tent!
The terrifying paralyzing poison took effect instantly!

The soldier who was hit seemed to have his bones suddenly removed; his eyes bulged out, he made a hissing sound, and he could no longer hold his heavy weapon, falling straight to the ground!
"Knights, assemble!" Count Sotra, a veteran of countless battles, drew his sword instantly, his powerful life force erupting to form a formidable protective barrier! But the chaotic scene before him terrified him—a chaotic military camp!

Soldiers fell like wheat being harvested! And two death gods, so fast they were just shadows, pounced on us from the darkness in an instant!
What made his scalp tingle even more were those two faces—not hideous monsters, but... completely unfamiliar, ordinary, yet carrying the chilling killing intent of a demon from hell!

Unfamiliar! Not one of those notorious bandit leaders in black robes!
They were completely unfamiliar faces! So young!
Yet it possesses such terrifying malevolent energy and power!
This is no ordinary rebellion!

*Thud!* The cold blade sliced ​​into the tough leather like a hot knife!

Count Sotra's proud protective life force barrier was as flimsy as paper in front of the elite assassin personally trained by Robin!
The sword tip pierced through his chest, and the immense force sent his heavy body crashing backward, shattering the table behind him!

His heavy body crashed to the ground! The excruciating pain and the chilling sense of death overwhelmed him like a tidal wave! Through his blurred vision, he stared intently at the assassin pulling the longsword from his chest—at the end of the blood-stained hilt of that longsword, there was a small, inconspicuous, yet incredibly striking dark bone emblem that made his pupils shrink to pinpoints!
That is……

"Pfft..." He vomited a mouthful of scalding blood, and his consciousness plunged into eternal cold darkness.

Even in death, his face, frozen with horror and a strange sense of understanding, bore an indescribable despair, as if crushed by an invisible hand.

He understood. The ease with which those men in black robes were defeated... it was all... bait!

"Target cleared!" The young assassin's voice was completely calm. As he confirmed the count's death, he swung his sword and pinned a nearby officer who was trying to get up to the ground!
"Time!" The ghost general's voice, as if from the deepest hell, resounded across the blood-soaked battlefield!

"Nine minutes and twenty-three seconds!" Chaos erupted like a plague within the camp!

The soldiers screamed and ran around like headless flies!
Darkness, explosions, enemies emerging from unbelievable corners... utterly crush them!

The more fatal collapse stemmed from the immense fear deep within their hearts—the Count was dead!
They were killed instantly! This wasn't war! It was a massacre! It was a trap!

"Harvest!" The cold command was given! In the dense forest outside the camp, the real "black-robed men" were like a pack of wolves that had smelled blood! In the instant that the first light of dawn cut the sky and earth into blurry outlines, they let out a deafening roar full of bloodlust and destructive desire!

Like a turbid torrent bursting its banks, it crashed wildly into the noble coalition camp, which was already wide open and completely plunged into an abyss of fear!

"kill--!!!"

The chaotic remnants of the army attempted to put up a weak resistance, but under the triple crushing force of their completely destroyed central command, utterly collapsed morale, and the frenzied onslaught of the roaring "Serfs' Wrath" on the outside, they were shattered like ice shards hitting a giant rock!
"Time's up!" The cold voice fell like a guillotine! "Withdraw!"

Ten figures, harvesting souls like mowing grass, vanished from the heart of the battlefield in an instant, like images played in reverse, disappearing into the still-dense night in the distance like the receding tide.

All that remained were severed limbs, burning tents, and a utterly collapsed, wailing military camp!
The entire process was like the precise movement of the most accurate clock, with perfect accuracy!

Robin's figure remained atop the treetop, as if he had never moved an inch.

A cold wind ruffled the edge of his hood, revealing a small section of his perfectly sculpted jawline.

His gaze was calm and unwavering as it swept over the camp below, which had been transformed into a living hell, over the noble soldiers who were trampling each other in terror as they fled, and over the black-robed soldiers who had rushed into the camp and were tearing and looting like a primitive tribal carnival.

This... is his "muddy waters." And the "fish" he needs to catch... is "the next one."

A chilling voice rang in the Ghost General's ears. "Fifty miles southeast, 'White Oak Castle,' the Paris family's garrison. Target: Viscount William Norton and his three baron followers. As usual, at dawn."

A cruel smile flickered across the ghost general's perpetually cold face.

Another baited hook has sunk into the newly stirred mud.

They are like the most exquisite clocks, precisely pointing to the next node on the map of blood and fire that will inevitably collapse in the chaos of dawn.

The destruction of Count Sotra's allied forces was merely the prelude to a series of death knells.

The black-robed man's wild rage was ignited and driven, while the one who drove him remained silently hidden in the darkness, using blood as ink to draw the road signs leading to the final hunting ground.

The next day, Robin quietly tallied up the previous night's haul: one Power Fruit, twenty-one Legendary Fruits, and seventy-nine Great Knight Fruits.

Now, ordinary knights are no longer worth his time.

(End of this chapter)