BXBX NOVEL Chapter 291 Confrontation (2)
'Breathe! Breathe! Breathe!!'
Duke Maxim felt like his ribs would be squeezed out of the air as he tried to combat the intimidation from the great General. He tried to command his body to keep calm and not allow himself to succumb to the fear.
"Urgggh!" Unlike him who had a strong aptitude with defensive magical abilities, the members of the cursed army had it worse.
Some of them were not even able to last for a second and had already spat a mouthful of blood, collapsing on the ground because they did not expect the extent of the General's power.
The dark knights were also greatly affected by the intimidation, albeit they were doing much better than Duke Maxim who was the one nearest to the General.
Facing Nathan and Joab, their movements become restrained and weaker. Das and Visam wore frustrated expressions as they were also not expecting that General Farauld would have a trump card like this.
Full of annoyance, Das and Visam signaled each other and both took out a beast caller. The noiseless whistle was able to go through the chaotic battlefield and reached the ears of a certain group of creatures that were just housed inside the Estate.
"Awoooooo!!!" It just took a few seconds for the people on the battlefield to hear an eerie howl coming from the inner portion of the Estate.
Soon there were several creatures with blazing purple eyes lurking in the shadows that were heading toward the battlefield. The Imperial Sky and Temple Knights became vigilant as to what kind of creatures the dark knights summoned.
"Ngrrrrrr…" Slowly a pack of gray wolves emerged from the shadows, each of them let out a low threatening growl as they look at the knights as if they were their prey. They stood beside the members of the cursed army clearly showing that they were on their side.
The slight disturbance created by the gray wolves enabled the cursed army to recover, Duke Maxim, Das, and Visam included. In an instant, the favor was returned on their side.
Wearing a relieved expression, Duke Maxim immediately circulated the mana in his body and took out his purple sword, which was inlaid with foreign runes, making its overall appearance more mystical.
"I must admit that you were called the strongest General with your vast experience, however, your winning streak has to end here, General Farauld…" Duke Maxim shook his sword as he assumed a battle stance to charge at General Farauld at any time.
"Prove that you are worthy of saying those words." General Farauld calmly retaliated as he casually raised his hand to parry the swift sword attack from Duke Maxim.
Clang! The sound of their swords clashing violently rang in their ears and a ruthless exchange of attacks ensued.
General Farauld was surprised at the swordsmanship Duke Maxim had exemplified, truly the Vesala Clan was one of the most prominent noble houses in the Empire with which talent was not ignored but honed to the highest levels.
He could not help but be amazed at how the Duke was able to smoothly carry himself against him who had faced all kinds of enemies on the border.
He had faced the barbarians, the ruthless bandits, highly trained assassins, and elite generals from enemy kingdoms, but Duke Maxim was able to best them all in terms of cunningness and ability.
General Farauld wondered, how was the Duke able to get fighting experience to be able to develop his fighting skills at this level. He had always thought that the Duke was a good mage, but not a good combatant.
Duke Maxim on the other hand was slowly feeling relieved that he was able to hold himself easily against the General.
While the General was wondering how the Duke was able to compete even with his inexperience, he had no idea that the Duke had compensated for his inexperience by borrowing a little bit of cursed power to covertly activate the array he had previously set up on the roof that they were standing on.
The array that he installed was something that helped him temporarily peek at the General's next movement and readily adjust himself to retaliate on his impending attack.
It was almost the same as the effect of slowing the time for the opponent however, it was only limited to the short distance that he had set for the two of them.
That was why his attacks were focused on making the General stay within the scope of the array and he hoped that the old man would not notice the meaning behind his actions.
In order to mask his intent, he used his caster abilities to speed up his movement and occasionally attack the General from his blind spots. But in reality, he was making the general stay within the bounds of the array.
Whenever he was about to go beyond the boundaries, Duke Maxim would change his attack patterns and force him to unconsciously step further into the array.
But this exchange did not last long as Duke Maxim had expected. In this fight there was another big difference between him and the Duke, it was stamina!
While he can compensate for his inexperience by peeking into the General's next move, he had already spent a lot of energy and was not even able to land a clean blow on the General.
On the other hand, while General Farauld had not noticed the array, he was getting bored of Maxim's seemingly uniform attack.
He has found the pattern in his attack and was able to determine that while he was able to initially compete with him with the swords, he was able to see that this was all he could do with the sword.
General Farauld looked at the sweating Duke Maxim, while he could not feel his body getting warmed up for a long-lasting sword battle.
"Sigh…" The General let out a disappointed sigh, it seems like he had evaluated Duke Maxim too early.
Not wasting time, he lifted his sword and exerted more power than his previous stroke.
Clash!!!
The heavy sword attack caught Duke Maxim off guard. General Farauld's attack was so heavy that he had almost lost the grip on his sword.
Without letting Duke Maxim recover, General Farauld lifted his sword again and started to bombard Duke Maxim with an overwhelming powerful sword attack.
It was an underestimation to say that the way General Farauld was delivering his blows was like how he would attack if his weapon was a war hammer instead!
'D*mn! D*mn! D*mn!' Duke Maxim was now filled with a great sense of danger as he tried to get away unscathed from General Farauld's attacks.
The General had long stepped out of the boundaries of the array and even if he was, it was useless for Duke Maxim to know his next movement because he had no way to retaliate with his heavy attacks!
'What to do, what to do! Think! Think!' He searched in his mind for the possible remedy that he could use at the moment, using the curse would need him to be vacant for at least a second, but with how fast the attacks were he had no way to pause and cast a curse attack!
He somehow needs the General to be distracted! His eyes darted in Das and Visam's direction. The two dark knights were also in a close fight with the General's son, Nathan, and one of the Vice Captains of the Temple Knights, Joab. However, compared to him, the two were still in a better situation.
It was as if the dark knights felt his desperate gaze, that they both looked in his direction and immediately used their cursed power to shake away the clingy Nathan and Joab. With a surprising curse spell, Nathan and Joab had no choice but to dodge swiftly, making the two dark knights escape from their grasp.
Das and Visam immediately leaped into the air and simultaneously executed an offensive attack against the General.
"Father!"
"General!"
Nathan and Joab immediately followed as they thought that it would be hard for the General to face three cursed users at once.
The General felt Das and Visam's presence immediately disengaged with Maxim, creating a distance, which Duke Maxim desperately needed.
"Hah!" With Das and Visam coming to his side to guard, Duke Maxim was able to finally take a breath.
Nathan and Joab also stood beside the General, guarding against the opponent's next move.
"Hahaha! Good, you people of the Emperor and the Temple! Very good!" Filled with disbelief that the forces he had initially underestimated were not easy opponents and were even able to push them to do extreme measures, the Duke let out a crazed laugh.
"I was still planning to preserve my energy in dealing with you so that I can easily take back the east but… Hahaha! I did not see you all coming at me like this!
Oh, Imperial Family and Seirende Temple! Know on this day that you will forever regret why you choose to go against our Vesala Clan!!!"
Duke Maxim seemed to have decided to go all out as his crazed voice rang on the entire battlefield.
--
Back in the eastern territory, Governor Fidel's mind could not feel at ease upon knowing the fact that he discovered Vesala's genealogy book!
How could the Vesala clan conceal this crucial part of history?!
How could their family and all of the Empire be fooled by the Vesala Clan for so long?!
Knowing that this matter was not something he could just carelessly tell over the communication stone, Governor Fidel asked his adjutant,
"For how long will our troops take to finish the wrap-up? I need to head to the capital at once! My brother needs to know the matter we discovered at once! We need to verify this before we make our next move!"