Chapter 59: [059] Clash
Floki and his men found some Blackstone horses loitering around the vicinity of the village. They mounted them, which made their journey a lot faster.
Floki led in front with the white horse that once belonged to the elder, who was now bound behind him. He was still riding his horse, but not as a master anymore, but as a captive.
Anton and Jabba took the brown horses. Their huge figure, combined with the horses, gave them a pose that almost made them resemble knights from movies.
It had been about almost four hours since their journey began.
It was still nighttime, but the sky had already begun to gain some semblance of blue, indicating the arrival of morning.
"Hey, you..."
Anton knocked the soldier bound to his horse and woke him up from his tired slumber.
"How much time do we have before we arrive?"
The soldier grumbled and cursed under his breath, yet he responded, afraid he would be hit again.
"Three hours or more... I hope you die," he muttered, lowering his voice as he spoke the last part.
"What did you say?"
"N-nothing."
The soldier fell silent once more, staring at the ground.
"Two hours more. We would arrive there very early into the morning," Floki said.
"Yes, Chief."
"Yes, Chief."
Floki and Jabba answered uniformly.
Both of them had switched from referring to him as ’young chief’ to ’chief’ after his impossible feat.
Floki was not one for formalities, but he didn’t complain. After all, he was a lord.
He faced the bushy path ahead of them.
The bushes stretched vastly on both sides. Some of the flowers from these plants had a gentle glow of different colors that emitted gentle magical powers into the atmosphere. It was clear some of them could either be used to make poisons or potions.
’I hope to raise some potion makers in the future. All I need is design quest in that path and hand them potion making skills as rewards. Who knows maybe when the shop upgrades I might be able to purchase talents.’ He thought to himself at that moment.
Their journey continued.
The day became brighter and brighter as time went by.
Thanks to the horses, none of them were exhausted despite the long hours.
Nonetheless as they drew closer to Blackstone.
Floki eyes picked on movements within the bushes.
There were a group of people moving within the bushes. On both sides.
With the slowness and carefulness of their steps, it was obvious they had no good intentions.
’Bandits in this world? How cliche.’ he thought.
They were weak so he didn’t pay mind to them.
But the people within the bush did not consider the strength of their opponents.
With a shout from one of them, the remaining ones stomped out of the bush chanting loudly as they wielded their weapons and swarm the horses.
The horses neighed, stressed by the sudden conflict.
Floki remained calm and tried his best to keep his mount calm.
Jabba and Anton spotted the men and their eyes turned serious instantly.
They stylishly dismounted their troubled horses and attacked.
Nonetheless before they clashed.
"Cale?"
Jabba recognize their leader.
With his loud voice which the other men seem to recognize, all violent were halted.
"It is really you, cale."
A wild smile appeared on Jabba face as he strode forward confidently and stood in front of Cale.
"Jabba.."
Cale called out, confused.
He stared at the armored man in front of him from head to toe.
It was the same Jabba he knew. The bigger brother of his best friend who was a menace when they were growing up.
But why was he in such a clean leather armor? The quality were even better than that of Blackstone army.
The other men dropped their weapons, relieved.
They began to great Jabba and Anton, ignoring Floki who was standing a few meters away and observing them.
’Who are they?’ Floki wondered.
With no specific inspection skill, he could not tell who is who. He could only observe, listen and wait for a clue that would reveal who they are.
And from what was taking place. One thing was clear.
These guys are his people. The ones who had been captured by Blackstone.
But why were they laying ambush, awaiting them?
"Man.. we gave up. We thought no one from Ironside would ever come to rescue us." The youngest amongst Cale group sighed and let out, relief clear in his tone.
The others backed him up.
"If it weren’t for Cale bravery, we would still be locked in the dungeon of a room." Another added.
Soon, Cale praises was heard.
Floki recognize who Cale was among them.
He is the tallest. About half an inch taller than Jabba and Anton. His muscles were not so refined as the two brothers, but he was bigger and muscular compared to the men around him.
Cale currently have a proud smile on his face.
"There was a third horse just now. There are only three real men in ironside. So I guess that must be Viktok."
Cale said loudly he turned towards the direction of Floki.
His words made the jovial expression of the fwo brothers faces to wipe off immediately.
Meanwhile, Cale face twisted with confusion then slowly turned to wrath.
"Y-you.."
His cold voice trailed off.
He dragged a sword out of the hands of one of his men and began approaching Floki with cold steps. His eyes glaring with hatred and an intent to kill.
’What is wrong with this guy?’
Floki expression remained unreactive despite the armed man approaching him.
"Cale.. what the heck are you doing? That is chief Floki. Chief Ragnar son. Don’t you recognize him?" Anton called out, he could not understand what was happening in Cale head.
Cale halted in the middle of action.
"You still call him chief?" He barked.
"This weakling?" He pointed at Floki with disdain.
"It is because of him that we were captured. He is nothing like his father. He is weak and pathetic. How dare you call him the son of Ragnar?"
Saying this, he continued approaching Floki.
His men stood and watched. They knew no one could actually stop Cale when he is angry.
Anton and Jabba did not act as well. But for an entirely different reason.
Because they knew how strong their chief was.
Floki let Cale close the distance.
He had already analyzed the behavior of this person. He is someone with too much pride and anger issues.
Someone like him would definitely not get a point unless it was instill to him through violence means.
And secondly, Floki does not have enough time to spare, using talk-no-jutsu to convince this guy.
"I’ll kill you!"
Cale ran faster and cried out.
Floki lifted his hand and casually flicker his finger to send a air bullet toward him.
The air bullet was rapid. It was so fast that someone as weak as Cale could not see it approaching.
He only felt the clash.
It felt like he has been punched by a bull.
His eyes widened, his nose bled as his body was shot backward by the invisible magic.
He crashed and tumbled on the ground, till his head was burried in horse poop nearby.
"Magic.."
"W-what!"
None of Cale men could believe what they have just saw.
Their weak chief who was barely an adult yet had used magic and casually defeated a respectable warrior like Cale.
Cale remained on the ground. The force of the spell had dealt a lot of damage. His body was going through a lot of pain.
The moment on the ground caused him to realize what had just happened.
He had been defeated by the chief he cursed all his life for being weak. Not physically or with effort, but easily, with magic.
Floki rode the horse past the amazed men and approached Cale.
Cale head lifted, meeting Floki cold gaze and feeling the strong presence being emitted from him.
At that moment, Cale saw someone else’s face.
The face of the man he respected and fear.
The face of an handsome middle-aged man with white hair and extremely masculine facial features.
Ragnar Ironside.
And then that face vanished, replaced by Floki’s.
This time all the resentment he had for his chief vanished.
He realized he had been assuming the wrong things all along.
He immediately bowed his head on the ground, ignoring the poop.
"I bow before you, Chief Floki!"
His voice was filled with respect. He had fallen for Floki power.
The other men did the same, kowtowed and chanted his name loudly till Floki asked them to rise.
Time was running out.
Morning was already here and it is just a few minutes before the morning sun resumes its place on the sky.
Floki made everything snappy.
He gave the angry men an opportunity to unleash their anger. He allowed then to kill the two soldiers and the older they had brought along.
He also extracted all the information he could from them.
They learnt about more inner secrets of Blackstone, some that the Blackstone soldiers did not reveal.
It was a game changer.
With no more time wastage, they continued the journey.
A few hours later.
They arrived at Blackstone.
But the scene wasn’t what they expected.
The entire army of Blackstone was waiting for them with weapons.
Two oppressive figures stood at the front of the army of about a hundred soldiers.
One had a huge muscular physique and wore a smug expression.
Another was dressed in jet-black armor and slouched lazily.
Breeze lifted his head, stared at Floki, and smiled.