บท 13: Knightsmith

Luca was staring right at his opponents, the knights red armor shining from the sun's rays. The two peak power expansion knights faced Sergio's direction. The other 4 at peak mind consolidation are facing his direction. Luca noticed that the four looked slightly different, they had white stripes on their shoulders and arms. While the ones facing Sergio's had gold stripes, he then heard Damien speaking in his mind.

"This is going to be a challenge, this is your first time fighting something that isn't a beast. The good thing is that there are only normal cultivators, so you should be able to take them. But from the way they're facing you, in a diamond formation, it means that they are familiar with each other and have teamwork. Don't fight fair, only fools fight fair. Focus and clear your mind of any useless thoughts. " Damien spoke with confidence.

Damien's voice eased Luca, who was nervous but was now focused and ready to fight. He used the shadow claw spell that covered his claws in shadows which made it look like he had gloves on. He also used the spell, spark step, and his legs started to spark. His animal sense where pushed to the limit as he was ready to use the demon fox fighting style.

While Luca was getting ready to fight, he saw from the corner of his eyes that Sergio led the two red knights away from where he was and the girl followed them. She looked excited, with a face that people showed when they watched a good play being performed.

Lucas's opponents are in a diamond formation with their left arm lifted in front of their upper chest and then bent into a 90-degree angle. With that arm almost covering the width of their chest. Their swords were placed in their right arms and rested on top of their bent left arm, looking like a crossbow. Their helmets covered their whole face with only their eyes visible. He saw that one of the knights on the far back was casting a shadow behind him. He knew it was risky, but he could get the drop on them if he used the shadow walking spell to teleport behind them.

He decided that it was worth the risk and sent primordial energy into his eyes and feet and looked towards the shadow. Lucky for him, the distance was less than 15 meters. He felt the ground beneath his feet changing. He teleported. He was right behind knight. But his body was bent at an angle. Before his body landed on the floor he extended his claws into sharp blades as he quickly stabbed the knight in the back of the neck! He pulled them out just as fast to try and balance his landing, but he soon noticed that with his animal senses he could balance his body better when teleporting! His tail moved on instinct as it balanced him out and let him land on his feet. His body now facing the enemy

Dark crimson blood came gushing out of the knight that he stabbed in the throat. The knight dropped his sword as he made an awful slurping noise that came from his throat. He fell to his knees as he grabbed his throat trying to stop the blood that was coming out. A small pool of blood formed at his feet. His comrades turned around quickly in shock as one of the knights yelled, "what!?" and another said, "how?!" They quickly rushed to cover the knights in a triangle. The one on the left had his armored hand glow light green.

"That knight with the glowing green hand is trying to heal his ally, now's your chance to attack," said Damien.

With Luca being in his beast form and using spark step he ran towards the tow knight two knights. They attacked him, one stabbed towards his chest and the other swung his sword towards his head. He blocked both attacks with his claws. Sounds of metal being hit rang out. He countered with a fierce style of attack, aiming for any weak spots he found. His use of attacking with unpredictable angles was causing the two knights to be unable to fight back, as they kept blocking, Luca's strength and speed were hard for the two to keep up. Luca was trying to find an opening, where he could use the shadow claw ability to stretch his claws.

He pretended to lose his balance and slightly missed an attack with his right arm. This left the right side of his body exposed at an angle. The knight on the right saw an opportunity and lifted his sword high with both hands and slashed towards his ribs, but what the knight didn't notice was that Lucas's right hand was bent towards the Knights armpit. He extended his claws, and they were faster than the knights swing. The claws went through the knight's armpit and shoulder, poking out of his body. This stopped the Knights' swing as he lost control of his left arm as it hung from his side looking like it was about to fall off.

The other knight wasn't just watching, but Luca blocked his attack with his left hand earlier. His shadow claws let him grab on to the knight's sword without having to risk having his hand cut off. Which gave him enough time to pull that risky move that only lasted two seconds. He shortened his claws that were inside the knight's armpit. The knight that had his sword grabbed closed the distance and kicked Luca in the chest, causing him to let go and stumble back.

It hurt but he looked back and saw that the knight he stabbed in the throat was barely alive as he was healed by the third knight, but he was on one knee and was having trouble moving, after losing so much blood. The third knight that healed him got up and stepped forward with the one that kicked Luca. He had to fight two fully healthy knights and a third that only had one usable hand.

The three knights looked at each other and nodded. The one with a broken hand stepped forward while the other two stepped behind him and stabbed their swords into the ground. Then they both moved their hands and arms towards the ground. They were casting a spell! It was only two seconds before the earth in front of them vibrated and then four human-sized statues came out of the ground. The statues looked like the red knights except that they were wielding 2-meter-long glaives. They came to life and formed a wall. They marched towards Luca in an orderly manner. Luca had never faced an enemy's spell before. Especially one as strange as this one. He wasn't sure how to face this, but lucky for him Damien spoke to him.

"I haven't seen the Golem soldier spell used in so long! Brings back memories! Anyways, this spell creates golems to fight for you. But these golems are only at the early mind consolidation stage but don't underestimate them because their bodies are as strong as a high-bloods body, like yours. But these take a lot of energy to create, and at your opponent's level, they should be out of primordial energy. Don't waste your time fighting these things, if you kill the caster then the golems will return to the earth."

With his help, Luca was forming a plan in his mind as he retreated from the golem soldiers. He looked around and saw that on the roof a building to the right of the golems there was a flag that was casting a palm-sized shadow. He to the risk and teleported over there and was now on top of the building. For the first time, he landed on his feet! He looked over and saw the knights were behind the golem's, shoulder to shoulder in a horizontal line.

They didn't notice him as he looked over and saw that two meters behind them were the knight that he stabbed in the throat earlier. He was struggling to get up, Luca still had his backpack on and grabbed his black spear. He lined it up and threw it with as much force as he could muster, even accidentally putting some of his primordial energy into it. It flew towards the line of knights, hoping that he could at least kill one unsuspecting knight.

The spear went through the first knights head and kept going as it went through the second knights' neck and final into the third knight's left shoulder and out of his right shoulder and kept going. The spear went inside the earth until only 2 inches of the spear was left showing. Their bodies fell face forward as their golems disappeared into the earth. Luca was surprised by the results! His mouth was wide open, he struggled so much to understand how, before he was struggling to kill these guys and now, he ended their lives just like that. Even Damien was beyond surprised as he yelled inside his head.

"What the fuck! How!? You're not THIS strong!" Damien was in complete disbelief.

The wounded knight saw his comrades slaughtered and stopped moving. Then he yelled out furry and sorrow as he looked towards Luca. Luca could feel his stare and looked towards him. Luca forgot about him for a second but decided to finish him off before he figured out how he insta-killed three knights. He jumped off and walked towards the last knight as he formed his claws into a sword and extended it two meters. The knight tried to resist as he slowly moved his sword off the ground and was able to bring it up to his stomach. The sword was shaking and looked like the wind could blow it away, so fragile.

Luca was a few feet away and cut off the knight's head. The knight never got a chance to swing his sword in the end but died like a real knight as he stared at Luca in defiance. His bravery and defiance touched Lucas' heart, this was a true warrior. He gave a moment of silence for the knight before he went to the dead bodies. He looked over the bodies and then went to get his spear that was 10 meters away out of the ground.

The weird thing was the spear had white Salvon runes on it that where shining. These weren't there before!? Luca remembers that the spear was pure black so why are there now visible white Salvon runes on it? He heard an "oh" in his head, it was from Damien.

"It all makes sense now! I've seen those runes before! Luca your buddy Sergio is a knightsmith cultivator! A knightsmith is one of the very few that surpass high bloods in raw physical strength and can create legendary weapons using only their primordial energy! But they are also cursed to never be able to cast spells or have an elemental affinity! This can explain why he was able to save you and go into the forest without worry! This also explains why your spear is so strong, those runes say strength and sharpness. With the level of complexity on these runes, I'd say this is a rank 3 platinum weapon, you've hit the jackpot. The runes were activated when you accidentally poured your primordial energy into the spear." Damien said

Luca was surprised by this discovery. But before he could take it all in, he could hear an explosion that happened a few blocks away. He turned and saw that one of the knights was running away and throwing spells behind him. But he didn't get far before he had an axe go through his head. But Luca noticed that knight was holding a red sword with white runes on it like his spear! Then he saw Sergio walk up towards the body and walk over it as he saw Luca and waved.

Luca waved back awkwardly as he saw that the beautiful girl that blew their cover was being dragged on the floor by the hair. Her dress was ripped from being dragged across the floor and her ruined makeup was all over her face in a mess. She was crying and begging that he let her go. Seeing that her tears weren't working she threatened him and said that her dad would hunt him to the ends of the earth if he didn't let her go.

Sergio seemed to be annoyed as he let her hair go but he then grabbed the sword from her dead knight and used it to stab the girl in the heart. She died with an expression of disbelief. Sergio had a face like the one you make when you finally swatted an annoying fly. He walked towards Luca.

Sergio got next to Luca who still had an awkward expression and spoke/

"So how do you feel after killing another human?" He pointed at the bodies of the dead knight's

"Surprising I felt the same I do when I kill beasts in the forest," Luca said

"It's not surprising, you do have demon blood after all. But don't take that the wrong way, it's better that way, so you don't have to feel any of the negative emotions that come with killing. But then again if you do something long enough with the right mindset than you don't feel anything real." Sergio spoke as he looked into the horizon with a thoughtful expression.

Sergio then told him that it was better to leave this city before more inconveniences showed up. Luca with his ears could hear the city guards coming towards their direction. He transformed back and went with Sergio who went towards the rear city gates and knocked out the city guards. And stole some horses that they took from a merchant leaving the city. The horses weren't ordinary; they were bred with spirit beasts.

With the horses, they were able to leave the city behind. There was no longer a forest like before; instead, they were greeted by green flatlands that stretched out as far as the eye could see. After a hundred miles they got off the horses and off the main road. They made the horse go in a different direction and they went in another direction.

Sergio did this to avoid anyone who wanted revenge and wanted to track them. But they didn't notice that earlier, in the city, three spies watched everything that happened. One of the spies belonged to Sergio's father, another belonged to the dead girls' father, and the third spy belonged to an unknown third party.