Wizards begin by accessing the Inspiration panel.

Chapter 3 The Unexpected Battle

The voice sounded familiar; it seemed to be the castle doctor's voice. Richard suddenly stood up and immediately looked down through the window on the second floor of the inner castle.

Seven or eight fully armed guards, carrying torches, hurried toward the doctor's quarters. More torches were lit up inside the castle, and in their light, it seemed that his father and brother had also been alerted, emerging fully armed from the inner fortress.

With a loud "Boom!", the wooden door of the doctor's quarters on the first floor was instantly shattered by several green vines as thick as bowls. The vines paused for a moment before shooting directly at the surrounding guards. Two guards were unable to dodge in time and were hit in the chest and abdomen by the vines. They were instantly sent flying several meters and crashed heavily into the wall next to them.

Fortunately, the guards were wearing chainmail; otherwise, that blow would most likely have pierced their abdomens and killed them on the spot.

The guards around looked at each other, unsure of the situation, and none dared to rush into the house. Humans naturally have a fear of the unknown. The fact that the guards didn't scatter and flee was already a testament to their good training.

"Thump, thump, thump," the sound of guards' footsteps came from all around.

"Raise your shields, throw the torches!" The baron's voice boomed from behind, and the guards immediately found their anchor, calmed their nerves, and began to attack according to the baron's command.

In the blink of an eye, seven or eight torches were thrown into the doctor's room. A short while later, the room was filled with thick smoke, and several humanoid creatures, each over two meters tall, staggered out of the smoke.

Because he was upstairs with a better view, Richard could vaguely make out that there were probably four monsters that came out.

What's even more surprising is that the lower half of the humanoid creature that emerged was dressed in the same royal standard leggings and greaves as the guards, while its upper half had transformed into a monster made up of dozens of green vines and tree trunks, with even its head being green.

Immediately, several exclamations rang out from the many guards surrounding the monster. It seemed that they had recognized the monster as their former captain of the guard—the seriously wounded Baras—along with three other wounded comrades.

Seeing this scene, the baron remained expressionless and shouted, "Archers, fire! Keep throwing torches!"

Seemingly scorched by the torches, or enraged by the arrows, the vine monsters roared and shot out dozens of vines from their bodies, launching separate attacks on the guards surrounding them.

The guards' swords kept cutting down the vines, but more vines wrapped around the guards, tossing them high into the air and then slamming them to the ground.

The guard who had fallen to the ground struggled to his feet, coughing up mouthfuls of blood.

The battle became fierce and bloody!

At this moment, seeing the situation about to collapse, the Baron drew his sharp knight's longsword and joined the battle. Seeing their father enter the fray, his brother Li Wei immediately brandished his longsword and charged forward as well.

As a formal knight, the baron was skilled in swordsmanship and agile in action. Although his left hand was injured before, after treatment, it did not seem to affect his combat at all. With his knight's longsword swinging wildly, he quickly charged to the monster.

Li Wei, the elder brother, wielded a sword and shield, effectively protecting the Baron from the vine attacks on one side, greatly reducing the pressure on the Baron who was in the center of the battlefield.

Seeing the Baron and the young master personally take to the field, the morale of the guards soared. More and more vines were cut down, but the vines seemed to regenerate and continued to fly everywhere, making the battle intense.

Richard, who was on the second floor, felt anxious. The situation seemed to be in his father's favor, but human strength is limited and the monster's methods are strange. The longer it dragged on, the more disadvantageous it would be.

"Vines, trees, burns!" The wounds on the monster's corpse at the city gate flashed through Richard's mind, and he quickly opened the door and ran upstairs.

He remembered clearly that there was a large crossbow and several barrels of oil on the top of the inner fortress, which were placed there specifically to defend against large birds of prey.

Sure enough, when Richard ran to the rooftop, he saw a massive twin-shot crossbow, more than a meter wide, with two huge, gleaming bolts already mounted on it.

It seems that some guards had tried to aim with crossbows, but due to the darkness and the distance, they could not hit the target. So they gave up using the crossbows and went downstairs to join the guards and fight the monster in close combat.

This made things easier for Richard, and all he had to do was turn the arrow around, light it, and pull the trigger to shoot the monster.

The hardest part, of course, is hitting those two words!

"Clang clang," as the sound of gears turning rang out, Richard, all alone, barely managed to aim the crossbow, which required two people to operate simultaneously, at the monster in the arena, and quickly used a flint to ignite the crossbow bolts coated with oil.

Just as Richard aimed at the center of the field, preparing to choose a monster to shoot, he saw through the crosshair that a monster had secretly moved to the other side of the Baron, preparing to attack.

"not good!"

Richard immediately aimed at the monster and shot an arrow at it without hesitation.

With a "whoosh," a flaming arrow more than a meter long shot rapidly toward the monster.

Unfortunately, Richard's skill with bows and crossbows was not high, and he missed!

No wonder the guards abandoned the crossbows and opted for melee combat. In the pitch-black night and at such a distance, it was indeed very difficult to hit a monster whose body was not much different in size from an ordinary person.

However, although Richard's shot did not hit the monster, but just grazed past it, it inadvertently interrupted the monster's sneak attack and alerted the Baron that there was a monster nearby trying to ambush him.

[Host detected using a crossbow. Should energy be consumed to gain inspiration for crossbow use?]

A line of text and a draggable slider suddenly appeared in Richard's eyes, which made Richard overjoyed. Upon closer inspection, the two ends of the slider were 1 and 131, which obviously meant how much energy was consumed.

The battle was raging, and Richard didn't hesitate to drag the slider to the far right, to the value 131, and selected: Yes.

In an instant, Richard found himself in a dreamlike space, possessing the body of a figure skillfully operating a crossbow. The crossbow was identical to the one on the roof of his own inner fortress. The entire space consisted of one person, one target, and one crossbow.

As the figure tirelessly fired one crossbow bolt after another, Richard, possessed by her, carefully grasped and pondered every crucial step in the actions of loading, aiming, and shooting. With each arrow fired, Richard gained some insight.

This dreamlike process of controlling the crossbow to fire lasted for about 130 times before the figure slowly stopped firing.

However, before Richard could fully react, his soul seemed to rapidly return from the dream to his body.

With a slight tremor in Richard's body, the dream ended!

"So that's how it is! So that's how this energy point is used!" Richard's clenched fists revealed his surging excitement.

(End of this chapter)