Toyokawa Shoko doesn't want to become a witch

They were well-equipped and uniform; even through binoculars, their magnificent armor could be clearly seen.

This is incredible.

"How luxurious!" Xiangzi muttered.

How many people do they have? Seven hundred? A few cavalrymen, maybe twenty or so? Seven hundred infantrymen plus less than twenty cavalrymen against a hundred heavily armored knights? Really?

The Tale of the Lost: The Lost Child - Chapter 337 A Mantis Trying to Stop a Chariot

"A hundred heavy cavalry, really?" Aine sat on the mountainside, a large katana on her lap, her chin resting on her hand, watching the approaching convoy from afar.

She herself wasn't that nervous. She was a magical girl, different from these natives, possessing her own unique magic. Most importantly, she was already level seven, so moving around in this crowd would be quite easy for her, at least she could guarantee her safety.

The problem is, these rebels in Santo Turia...

Hey.

Ai Yin sighed.

Heavy cavalry, the heavily armored knights who guarded the carriage, were the absolute overlords of the era of cold weapons. They were heavy tanks capable of charging. Each heavy cavalryman was fully armored, with a total weight of more than half a ton. They surrounded the carriage like an impregnable wall. Every step they took seemed to shake the earth. Even from a great distance, Aine could feel the ground trembling beneath her feet.

The Red Queen is the symbol of the empire, and the knights protecting her are the elite of the elite. Six or seven hundred refugees wanted to charge into the square formation of elite heavy cavalry.

"Is Gross trying to send them to their deaths?" Lixi walked up from behind and stood next to Aiyin. "There's still a border city not far away. If we drag this out any longer, reinforcements will inevitably come. Gross can't possibly be unaware that we'll be facing these people."

Li Xi crossed her arms and clicked her tongue.

"Xiangzi is the same; he knows something's wrong, but he doesn't have a single complaint."

"Well, who knows?" Ai Yin sighed. "Little Master must have his own reasons."

“She always has her own considerations,” Li Xi said sarcastically.

“Lixi isn’t wrong.” Aiyin pouted, picked up a twig, and drew circles on the ground. “Little Master does think much more than we do, but he’s just not willing to tell us.”

“He wouldn’t talk about what happened at home, he wouldn’t talk about being missing for more than half a year, and now he’s inexplicably reappeared and he still won’t talk about it.” Li Xi exhaled two puffs of angry hot air from his nostrils. “He won’t even give me a chance to help, he won’t even say where he went, he’s just carrying everything on his own.”

"...So this is how she used to be." Ai Yin looked at Li Xi, blinked, and murmured, "But now... how should I put it, she seems to trust the people around her quite a bit, I mean, my teacher's wife... oops, Chu Hua Hua, Mu Mu, Hai Ling and the others."

"They always seem to know what the young master wants to do and what he needs to do, and they will accompany him to accomplish those things."

Aine hugged her knees, her katana held horizontally between her stomach and thighs, watching the convoy getting closer and closer in the distance.

"On the contrary, we are like outsiders."

“…” Li Xi remained silent.

Rumbling--

The stomping of the warhorse, weighing at least half a ton, was like thunder. As they drew closer, the tremors became so loud that they drowned out their voices.

"(Prepare for battle.)" Xiangzi's voice appeared in Aine and Riki's minds. "(Follow my instructions, don't wander off, and be careful.)"

"Oh well, whatever!" Aine stood up, slung the katana behind her back, and stretched. "I'll just do whatever my little master says. Anyway, she won't hurt me. If I just clear my head and don't think about anything, maybe I'll have an easier time."

"Heh, if only life were that carefree." Li Xi grabbed the strip of cloth wrapped around the sword hilt, hoisted the Feng Yan Sword onto his shoulder, and said, "Let's go."

Woo————!

Meanwhile, somewhere on the mountainside, someone sounded a horn.

The operations in Santo Suarez never had a clear commander. The leader, Gross, was like a ghost, using letters to convey his orders to the strange people of Santo Suarez. Once the strange people gathered together for the same goal, the signal to start the operation would sound from one of them.

This time, it's the call to attack.

The deep, resounding war horn echoed through the valley, and everyone heard it clearly—including the convoys moving along the way.

"Go on!"

"kill--!"

"For Lord Gross!"

"Charge for a bloodless world!"

......

People dressed in linen monks' and nuns' robes rushed down from the mountainside, six or seven hundred of them, raising a cloud of dust. Their figures became indistinguishable in the twilight and dust.

Driven by their adoration for Gross and their fervent devotion to the epic "The World Without Blood," they transformed into the most devout fanatics. Even when faced with hundreds of heavily armored knights, and knowing that their six or seven hundred men were like a mantis trying to stop a chariot, not a single one of them considered retreating.

"Enemy attack——!"

The attacked convoy reacted almost immediately and sounded the battle horn. Their formation quickly changed, and before the dust reached the foot of the mountain and even made contact with them, the well-trained knights had already formed a formation to deal with the impact.

They couldn't see clearly who the enemy, shrouded in smoke and dust, was, but with their impenetrable heavy armor and large shields, these knights were confident they could withstand the attackers' onslaught.

Yes, the knights were absolutely right. Although they couldn't see the experience bar and didn't know their own level, each of these hundred people was indeed at level six. With their equipment, each knight could single-handedly defeat ten enemies one level below them.

Those who are about to come into contact with them are, to put it nicely, a group of brave, fighting people from the lower class; to put it bluntly, they are a group of oddballs who have never fought a war, have no real combat experience, are only slightly better than ordinary people, and are generally at the level of three or four.

They retain some of the abilities they had when they were monsters, but they are unlikely to pose a significant threat.

The strange men knew this themselves, that they could never stand up to the heavily armored knights protecting the carriage, but after rushing down the mountain, instead of slowing down, they charged towards the heavily armored knights' formation with even greater ferocity.

Because these people were chosen by Gross, fanatics from the Saint Hughes.

Even if it's like a mantis trying to stop a chariot, they still believe that their leader, whom they've never met, can find a way to win this almost impossible victory.

Finally, the two sides made their first contact.

When a mere six or seven hundred strange men and heavily armored knights collided, it was like a block of tofu being forcefully thrown against a wall; they shattered into pieces with a loud crack.

Paji.

Paji.

Paji.

Those in front crashed into the shields and were pierced by the spears; those behind pushed forward, squeezing them and crashing into those in front.

The knights were surprised by how weak the attacking enemy was.

The fanatics rushed forward like madmen.

Occasionally, a few minor spells would fly out from the crowd, but they were blocked by the heavy armor and shields. This was a battle that was incomparable, it was simply a one-sided massacre... or was it?

——!

Finally, a strange scream came from the shattered crowd, and flowing black pus enveloped those around them. A huge, twisted, limp monster, like a mollusk, was born out of thin air from the crowd.

The Tale of the Lost: The Lost Child - Chapter 338 The Meteor (Part 2)

After the bugle sounded, Xiangzi instructed everyone in his dictation not to rush to the front, but to follow in the middle or even at the rear to seize an opportunity. Their target was the Red Queen, not the knights who protected her.

Based on Xiangzi's understanding of his own side, all six or seven hundred people were just expendable resources, sacrifices, and a smokescreen; only the few people on his side were the real trump card.

However, she always felt that it wasn't that simple.

She had a strong feeling that she was also a consumable, so strong that it felt like the sharp claws of a feline gently scratching her back.

It was very itchy and a little painful, and I was afraid that the claws would scratch me hard at any moment, leaving several hideous bloody marks on my body.

Tsk.

It's definitely not a pleasant feeling to be manipulated.

Xiangzi mingled in the crowd, watching the fanatics around him launch a desperate charge against the knights' formation.

——!

A scream that nearly pierced eardrums erupted from the crowd ahead, followed by a gigantic monster rising from the ground.

"I see......"

Xiangzi stopped and murmured as he looked at the monster that had sprung up from the ground.

"...Is this Gross's backup plan?"

As mentioned before, a large part of the reason why eccentric people are discriminated against is because of the view that "people who have made mistakes will make the same mistakes again."

In fact, it is quite easy for a monster who has been a monster to transform back into a monster.

The core of the attack is not a weak monster at all; what Sanctuary really needs is to create an opportunity for them to turn into monsters once again.

The new generation pushes the old one aside, the old one dies under shields and spears, and those squeezed in the middle may also be crushed to death.

On a battlefield where it's either you or me, the human desire to survive can be easily ignited.

Those who have been monsters before can become monsters again without even needing to come into contact with the Holy Grail fragments or make a wish; all they need is a strong enough desire.

This is also why it's easy for a strange person to turn into a monster again.

What Xiangzi is seeing now is a monster transformed from a strange man who was squeezed to the front row and was almost dead, driven by an extremely strong will to survive.

Slime (life force).

It was a monster transformed from a human; its body, except for its bones, had completely dissolved into a soft, rotten, bloody liquid made of flesh and blood.

Bones and organs floated in a translucent liquid, while vital parts of the body transformed into various weapons. These weapons originated from the deepest desire of those who had become monsters—to rebel and survive.

Human desires are endless.

To survive, they exchanged children to eat, ate raw meat and drank blood; they were capable of anything. Sometimes, humans can be even more depraved than wild beasts.

So it wasn't enough for the newborn monster to simply transform its own body into a demon. In order to satisfy its expanding desires, the newborn monster also swallowed the people around it into its own body.

The heavily armored knights had clearly seen similar situations before. The moment the monsters erupted from the crowd, they began to organize their formation and avoid the area where the monsters appeared. Meanwhile, the Sanctuary rebels gathered around were swallowed by the translucent slime, melted and decomposed in it, and became part of the monsters.

The slime opened its enormous maw, which was filled with weapons formed from its internal organs, much like its teeth. It roared as it grabbed people from its vicinity and shoved them into its mouth, charging towards the knights.

The wriggling giant body splashed slime onto the ground with every step. One unlucky fellow, who was close enough not to be grabbed and thrown in by the slime, was covered in slime.

He felt almost nothing until he fell to the ground and looked back, only to find that his body had been melted by the translucent slime.

"what......"

He's still alive.

His entire lower body was corroded by the slime, yet he was still alive.

I don't want to die.

I don't want to become food for slimes.

Gross and "The Bloodless World" faded from his mind, replaced by fear and the will to survive that dominated his consciousness.

Driven by an almost frantic will to survive, the man, like a drowning man, desperately clung to anything he could get his hands on—a horse's leg.

Those were the legs of the warhorse ridden by the heavily armored knight who had run past.

Almost instantly, the well-trained warhorse kicked him from behind.

thump.

Half of the man's head was kicked into a pulp, his tofu-like brains exposed to the air, while the familiar's distinctive black blood splattered everywhere.

but.

He's still alive.

"Ahhhhhh!" The remaining half of the head let out a piercing scream, and the man still hadn't let go of the warhorse's legs.

He grabbed the warhorse's heavy armor with his other hand and hung his battered body on the horse's rump.

The knight on horseback then realized that there was a person hanging behind him. When he turned around, he saw a monster with only an upper body and a lower head, but who was still alive.

The strange man's right arm was like twisted metal, which seemed to come alive as it climbed up the warhorse's heavy armor, fixing him firmly to it.

The knight tried to push the monster off, but the twisted metal had completely adhered to the heavy armor and was still expanding, expanding, expanding.

It even enveloped the knight himself.

——!

With another tremendous roar, the heavily armored knight who had been captured by the monster was finally completely encased in metal. His flesh, the flesh of his warhorse, and the flesh of the monster were twisted together like a pretzel, forming a ball.

The monster, made of flesh and metal, opened its hollowed-out face like a pumpkin lantern, and from within the face burst forth a chilling aura that could freeze one's blood.

Jack Frost Spirits, along with Jack Pumpkin Lanterns—one ice and one fire—are among the most common monsters on the battlefield; one of them will spawn in almost every battlefield ruin.

Jack Frost's smile, which resembles a pumpkin lantern, seems to be branded deep in people's hearts. When this smile appears, it represents countless people dying on the battlefield.

From the moment the first person turned into a monster, fear and the will to survive spread like a virus within the resistance. Within 120 seconds of contact, this happened several times almost simultaneously, with four or five different monsters emerging from the resistance in Sanctuary, even taking away several heavily armored knights.