Chapter 334
"Is there even a reason to stop them from fighting?" Lily asked.
"No reason, really," Rachel said. "But it'll be better if we do. Less likely to come back and bite me later."
"If the United Knights bite your butt," Gale said, "I'll bite their butts too. Seven times stronger."
"That's not what I mean..."
"I wanna see that," Kyle said.
"Me too," Clyde said.
"Shut up, idiots," Lily said.
"The biting can wait," Erin said, floating to the top of the fence. "We must move."
The group jumped over the fence and ran through the forest area. Tendrils extended outwards to watch for any interceptions, though, it looked like everyone that wasn't them were focused on the fight up ahead.
The sounds of battle grew louder as they closed in on the rift portal. Shouts in Mandarin and English became audible as they closed in.
Bursting through a wall of bushes, they saw the chaos happening. In front of them were 6 United Knights and 12 Jiuling swordsmen. The clearing had been torn up with sword marks and craters everywhere. Trees had fallen over while blood coated the battlefield.
The knights formed a circle, backs to each other, raising their shields with their maces in their other hand.
A Jiuling swordsman threw a wave that looked like a sharp blade of blood against the shields of the knights. One of the knights stumbled, allowing one of the swordsmen to take a stab from below.
Blade met the knight's flesh on his thigh.
"Shit!" The knight backed away immediately.
"In nomine regis, scutum lucis!" another knight shouted.
A shield of light appeared in front of them.
6 more waves of blood splattered against the shield. With each wave, the light of the spell faded significantly.
In other words, Gale saw that the United Knights were losing. They didn't have any of the initiative. All they could do was turtle and be prey to the more numerous side.
Two knights were already on the ground. One was crawling away from the fight, dragging a leg that bent the wrong way. The other wasn't moving at all, a pool of red spreading beneath his body.
The remaining four were covered in cuts. Shallow wounds mostly, but there were a lot of them. Blood ran down their arms, dripped from their chins, soaked through the gaps in their tactical knight armour.
One of the knights raised his free hand toward a gash on his forearm. Green light flickered at his fingertips as he spoke through gritted teeth.
"In nomine regis, benedic vulnera haec." The light pulsed softly, encapsulating the wound on his arm. However, the blood on his arm refused to close as a murky kind of Qi prevented the wound from closing.
"You bastards!" the same knight shouted.
"Hypocrite knights. Die!" a Jiuling swordsman sent a large wave of blood towards the knight that tried to heal.
The Jiuling swordsmen pressed their advantage. One of them lodged their blades in between the shields, his sword coated with dark bloody Qi. As he tried to pry open the defense, other Jiuling swordsmen hit them at multiple angles with constant waves.
It was 4 functional knights against 12 swordsmen. The math wasn't mathing for the knights, and they were about to all die.
One of the Jiuling operatives spotted Gale's group at the treeline. In a single motion, he nocked an arrow, loosed it, and sent the bloody Qi coated arrowhead at Gale's neck.
Gale casually raised his hammer, blocking the arrow out of the air. The shaft shattered as the sharp edge left no mark on Erebus.
One flick of Kyle's dagger, he blinked, reappearing behind the man. In the same breath, the swordsman's throat sprayed blood.
On his side, Gale launched himself at the bowman on a branch. The man tried to reach for another arrow, but the giant hammer had already come down on his skull.
[Attuned Jiuling Swordsman felled.]
[Extracting Origin from Prey...]
The Origin System didn't even give him the swordsman's name nor his description. Gale stopped himself from laughing at the implication.
An explosion scattered the Jiuling swordsmen and the knights at the centre of the battlefield. Bodies tumbled from the air away from each other. At the same time, a blue dome appeared on the knights before the explosion even happened.
Rachel had scattered the group to prevent any more casualties on the knights' side while Lily prevented the knights from taking damage from the explosion.
A loud boom of a sniper rifle cracked throughout the vicinity, exploding a Jiuling swordsman's left lung from his body.
All of this happened in less than a single second after Gale blocked the single arrow that came his way.
The remaining eight swordsmen scrambled to their feet, not bothering to look back as they all ran to keep their lives intact. There was no attempt to help their wounded.
Lily whispered under her breath. Blue light gathered at the tip of her deagle's barrel. A lance of blue shot out from her gun, thundering towards the slowest Jiuling swordsman, hitting him right at the back of the head.
The man dropped to the ground without a head.
The rest of the Jiuling disappeared into the darkness. Their signatures faded as they put distance between themselves and the battlefield, growing dimmer and dimmer until Gale's tendrils could barely sense them anymore.
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Seven Jiuling operatives had escaped. Five lay dead in the clearing. The Blood Blade Sect had lost half their force in less than thirty seconds.
The four standing knights turned their shields to the group. Each of their eyes looked on with fierceness that Gale thought should have disappeared after getting their butts bitten by the Jiuling.
Lily's shield sigil faded, blue dome that protected the knights disappeared.
"Pussies," Kyle said.
Clyde pulled out a twinkie as he moved closer to the centre of the battlefield along with Lily and Erin.
"So they were really Blood Blade, huh?" Rachel said.
Looking at the United Knights, they still hadn't lowered their guards.
"State your affiliation and purpose or you will be arrested in the name of Global Aur Laws."
"Global what?" Gale asked.
"Imaginary laws made by United Knights," Kyle said.
Presence Between stretched outward, scanning the vicinity. A squad of United Knights was headed their way, incoming in 5 minutes. One of them was Mid-Harmonic.
"6 knights incoming from the southeast! One Harmonic!" Gale shouted.
"Call off your men!" Rachel shouted. "We just saved your asses!"
"In the name of the law, stop resisting!" a knight shouted.
"We're not enemies!" Gale shouted.
"Should've left you there to die!" Kyle yelled at the knights. "This is how you treat people who save your asses?!"
"Ungrateful bastards!" Clyde added.
The knight who had been shouting earlier raised his shield higher. "Anything you say or do will be used against you in the court of law. You are hereby detained under the authority of the United Knights."
"Shut up!" Lily hissed at Kyle and Clyde. "Don't make this worse!"
Gale's tendrils stretched outward. The squad of six knights was approaching fast. They'd be here in less than two minutes. If they got surrounded, this situation would go from bad to worse.
There had to be a solution to this. Maybe a hostage? That could probably work.
Fuck it. Gale launched himself at the knight who was stupid and shouting orders. If he could just take him, they could convince the incoming Harmonic to back off.
The knight saw him coming. His free hand shot up, golden light gathering at his fingertips. "In nomine regis, scutum lucis!"
A shield of light materialized between them. Gale's body slammed into it and bounced off, his momentum completely stopped by the barrier.
Landing on his feet, he raised the giant Erebus hammer. One swing, and the hammer came down on the shield with the full brunt of bambam strength.
The ground shook. Cracks spiderwebbed across the golden shield's surface. In one more swing, the shield shattered like glass, fragments of light scattering across the clearing before fading into nothing.
Gale lunged forward, palm out for the knight's collar. But before he could, an incantation echoed across the clearing.
"In nomine regis, sanctus velocitas!"
The incantation came from behind him. Turning his head, a fully armoured bulldozer of a knight was already in motion, moving at a speed much faster than he could grab the knight.
Mid-Harmonic. The familiar spell was the burst of speed that David used against him.
A blade glinted his way as the knight's sword aimed for his chest. Everything slowed down as he saw the blade touch the tip of his tactical gear where his lungs would be. Bracing himself, it was aimed just 2 cm away from where his heart was, but this would still really hurt.
Just as it dug into his vest, Erin's signature flared outward like a tidal wave, pressing down on everyone, including their group. The wounded knights gasped from their positions.
Two fingers held the knight's blade, stopping it dead cold. Metal bent where her finger met the blade.
"Hold off your killing intent," Erin said. "Lest you incur my wrath."
The knight's helmet obscured his face, but his body language said everything. He tried pushing the blade harder and harder, yet the blade didn't budge.
"Anything you do or say will be used against you in the court of Neutral Grounds Law," the knight said through gritted teeth, still trying to pry his sword from her fingers. "Stop resisting."
Erin's eyes blankly stared. "The court of law will be against you, not us."
"You attacked officers of the United Knights. Any attack against law enforcement shall be punished in the UK court!"
"Shall you take us to court," Erin said, then pointed to Gale's GoPro, "the child's recording device shall act as proof that your knights were saved by our intervention. Unless you believe that you are the law itself, in which case I will gladly decide that the law is me and smite you where you stand."
Kyle and Clyde whistled at the same time.
"Haven't seen her like this before," Lily muttered.
Rachel moved closer to Erin. "You okay?"
"Your question is irrelevant to the current situation."
Erin turned her attention back to the armoured knight, who was still failing to move his sword. The other knights had their maces raised, but none of them moved.
"Article 3, Section 2, Line 21 of Rift Area Laws states that fighting within 100 metres of a rift entry point is prohibited. We are currently within that radius. You initiated combat," Erin said.
"Our task was to handle unauthorized fighting within the bounds of the rift! In addition, apprehend criminals that attacked first!"
"Article 1, Section 12, Line 64 of Global Alliance Laws states that initiating a fight must have justified cause. We had not attacked you prior to your assault. You had no justified cause."
"We were responding to our brethren's emergency! You were the first suspects upon our arrival."
"Article 1, Section 12, Line 72 of Global Alliance Laws," Erin said. "If individuals are saved from a fight, the saviors are deemed innocent of any charges related to their presence at the scene. We saved your knights. We are innocent."
"Entry through an unpermitted entry point is an arrestable offense," the knight said. "Plus, knocking out guards on a blockade warrants immediate arrest for the perpetrators. Your group is guilty of both."
"The lines you have cited are located further down the legal hierarchy," Erin said. "They fall under Article 1, Section 12, Lines 200 and above. The laws I have stated take precedence under the clause that saving individuals holds higher priority than 'knocking out' a few guards."
"Even then, one right cannot overturn a wrong."
"Article 1, Section 11." Erin stared blankly. "If a wrong was committed for the purpose of responding to an emergency, the emergency takes precedence and the wrong is deemed justified."
"You only knocked out those guards to get to the rift point," the knight said. "Not because of any emergency."
"The burden of proof is on your side, not ours," Erin said. "Our group is currently classified as saviours under Article 1, Section 12, Line 72. That classification takes precedence over being suspects. You must prove that we did not act in response to an emergency. Until such proof is provided, we are innocent."
The knight stood there, sword still pressed uselessly against Erin's finger. The men injured on the ground continued to bleed as he looked like he still thought of what to say to continue this useless debate.
How can one debate with a floating bluey? She probably memorized the whole 3000 page textbook of Global Aur laws or whatever they called it. As expected of Erin, logic simply cannot win against a purer form of logic.
The armoured knight clenched his teeth so hard that Gale could hear them grinding together even through the helmet. Then he pulled his sword back and sheathed it.
"My name is Elias Harkon, Mid-Harmonic, company commander of the Order 12, specializing in non-lethal blockades. As the highest ranking of this rift outpost, please identify yourselves."
"Rachel," Lily said.
Rachel stood there, just looking at Erin.
One nudge from Kyle, and Rachel shook her head, snapping her out of her thoughts.
"Right! I have everyone's IDs on my phone," she said.
Elias held out his phone. "NFC it."
Rachel tapped a couple of buttons on her phone and pressed it against Elias's phone. A single beep from both of their phones, and the transaction was done.
Elias looked up at each one of them, starting from the twins, specifically at Clyde. "I remember you. Twinkie boy."
Before Clyde was about to pull out a twinkie, Lily nudged hard.
"Seriously?" Clyde rubbed his flank.
"Do you really wanna start this again?" Lily grunted.
"Treat this seriously!" Rachel shouted.
Gale pulled something from his pocket, a beef jerky, and extended it to the knight that was still bleeding. "Eat it. You're still bleeding."
Rachel sighed. "Elias, do you want my help?"
"Yes, please, Ann Heiress. The filthy blood blade sect and their Qi arts have been running unregistered operations for the past month," Elias said.
"Why's that?" Gale asked.
"If you wish to know, we can discuss it in the rift outpost facilities while my men are being treated."
"Sure!"
"Child, we must make haste and depart to gather materials in the rift," Erin said.
"Didn't you say you weren't here for the rift?"
"The burden of proof is yours to give. We knocked out your guards to save your guards. That is an undeniable fact."
"Fine. However, I advise you to hear out the detailed briefing of the current Blood Blade sect situation. They are also inside the rift."
"A fair assessment," Erin said.