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Chapter 17: Gatefront, Annihilated
With his left hand on Torrent's reins, Bai Shi swung his straight sword in a graceful arc.
The first soldier to charge forward was immediately decapitated, his body slumping to its knees.
“This is what I call a fight!”
Torrent was incredibly fast, the wind pressure pushing against Bai Shi’s face.
The jarring ride did nothing to disrupt Bai Shi's attacks.
Aided by Torrent's superior mobility, Bai Shi picked off the foot soldiers one by one.
Every swing of his sword drew blood.
When one raised a greatshield, he struck down at the helmet from above.
When one raised a spear, he pulled away to sever its shaft.
When they tried to surround him, he leaped out of the encirclement and charged back in.
Before long, the Gatefront had become a hellscape of flying gore and scattered limbs.
In little more than ten minutes, only one enemy remained standing.
His attire was clearly different from the other soldiers. He wore a heavy helm with only a narrow, cross-shaped slit for vision, topped with a long, gray plume.
Over a two-toned surcoat similar to what the soldiers wore, his pauldrons and vambraces were much heavier.
A massive, shield-like metal emblem bearing the image of a two-headed battle-axe was fixed to his left breast.
The men he had killed were mere soldiers; now, Bai Shi faced a true, ordained knight.
In the Lands Between, feudal rank was synonymous with strength.
And while knights were the lowest rung of the nobility, their power was incomparable to that of common soldiers.
During the battle, whenever Bai Shi had tried to attack him, the man had always managed to block with a slight shift of his greatshield.hrust—it would pierce his foe!
But Bai Shi wasn’t flustered in the slightest. Instead, a dangerous smile played on his lips.
Bai Shi simply dropped the sword from his left hand, allowing mud to sully the sacred blade.
He swung his left arm around and clamped the spear under his armpit. Ignoring the spearhead as it tore through his glove and the chainmail beneath, he slid his hand along the shaft and grabbed the knight’s hand.
“Got you.”
Bai Shi planted his right foot firmly on the knight’s extended right foot and yanked hard with his left hand, pulling the man right out from behind his shield.
The Godrick Knight spun halfway around before being pulled down onto his back at Bai Shi’s feet.
The blade in his right hand plunged down, mercilessly stabbing through the helm’s eye slit.
The Godrick Knight’s body went rigid. He convulsed twice, then moved no more.
Bai Shi pulled the still-glowing ceremonial straight sword from the knight’s skull as gracefully as a young king drawing his sacred sword from a stone, though the blood dripping from the blade spoiled the pristine image.
He casually flicked off the lingering brain matter and blood, then sighed in relief. Everything had gone according to plan.
The Godrick Knight was certain to seize the opening Bai Shi presented.
It was an opening Bai Shi had deliberately created; he was trading injury for the kill.
When switching from defense to offense, a spear wielder must step forward with the same-side foot, making it their center of gravity, and lean their body into the thrust. This is the only way to achieve both reach and power.
But with that foot pinned by Bai Shi and his body already leaning forward, the Godrick Knight was completely unable to regain his balance and was easily toppled.
And with that, every enemy at the Gatefront had been eliminated. All that remained was the pleasant task of looting.