Chapter 73: Boundless Bandit (Two)
Chapter 73: Boundless Bandit (Two)
Upon hearing the name Boundless bandits, every mercenary’s face fell.
“Boundless Bandits!” Jian Chen’s eyebrows furrowed together. He wasn’t very familiar with this bandit group. When he had read the books in both Changyang Mansion and Kargath Library, the only thing he was able to learn about the Boundless Bandits was that they were a very strong bandit group that had existed for 200 years already.
The Boundless Bandits were a strong group from the very beginning. They wandered about the borders of several kingdoms and were any caravan’s worst nightmare. The Boundless Bandits were ruthless and whenever they robbed merchants, they never left any survivors. Countless mercenaries died due to the Boundless Bandits, and the Boundless Bandits had occasionally attacked many villages and even some minor cities. In the past, two Class 3 cities had been plundered by them, and a Class 2 city had suffered tremendous damage from them. With every village they massacred, it further enhanced their reign of terror and caused merchants to fear traveling to faraway places. This in turn incurred great losses for some of the major kingdoms.
At that time, the Four Great Kingdoms: the Gesun Kingdom, the Blue Moon Kingdom, the Blue Wind Kingdom, and the Var Kingdom had finally discovered the main hideout of the Boundless Bandits, and sent their soldiers to annihilate them. Unfortunately, the Boundless Bandits had power beyond what was anticipated, and although the Four Great Kingdoms had succeeded in the end, they had suffered disastrous casualties.
After a few unsuccessful attempts, the Four Great Kingdoms each sent their strongest expert to fight the Boundless Bandits at their main base–Boundless Mountain. Those four experts came to Boundless Mountain and fought so hard that the entire mountain shook and split open. The explosions of battle lasted for one day and one night before gradually stopping. Sometime during the battle, the six peaks of the mountain had caved in.
When the experts from the Four Great Kingdom had returned, their faces were not a pretty sight. They didn’t say anything and left quickly; soon after, the commander of the mission to annihilate the Boundless Bandits had immediately received an order from the king for all the troops to retreat from Boundless Mountain.
Although no one had personally seen what the experts from the Four Great Kingdoms had done inside the mountain, even those without a brain could guess what events had transpired. This result was something the mercenaries and merchants had a hard time accepting, and so as a result, the Boundless Bandit’s reputation skyrocketed. To some mercenaries and merchants, the Boundless Bandits had become a mythical figure that was feared by quite a few of the neighboring kingdoms.
However, there was still one good thing; after the experts had fought them on Boundless Mountain, the Boundless Bandits’ activities decreased drastically. Even though many merchants and mercenaries still died by their hand every year, it didn’t happen as often as in the past. It only occurred once every two months and their methods weren’t as violent as before. This gave the merchants plenty of opportunities. The only downside was that they couldn’t predict the times when the Boundless Bandits would attack. Thus, even if some of the caravans wanted to travel at specific times in order to avoid the bandits, it was an impossible task.
“Motherf*cker, the Boundless Bandits aren’t anything, this one will chop them down like grass.” A mercenary cried out with hatred as he charged towards the Boundless Bandits without a trace of fear in his eyes.
Aside from him, all the other mercenaries had looked at the incoming Boundless Bandits with looks of extreme hatred as well. The Boundless Bandits had killed numerous mercenaries and merchants, and even some of their family members and close friends had been murdered by these bandits. So in their hearts, the mercenaries’ initial fears had been overtaken by their intense hatred.
As travelers who depended on their strengths in order to survive as mercenaries, their murderous nature overtook their normally upright morality, and made them into men who feared nothing, not even death.
“10 years ago, my own father was killed by the hands of the Boundless Bandits. Today, I will take revenge for my father.” A 20 year old mercenary glared at the incoming bandits with blood red eyes. Grief and rage had consumed him along with hatred.
Another older man around the age of ** looked at them with fierce killing intent as he said through his teeth, “The Boundless Bandits killed my brother 5 years ago. Even if I sacrifice my life today, I’ll take the life of at least one of them to serve as the funerary mat in revenge for my brother!”
The black streaks of light continued to come at them without pause. Even now, a few of the mercenary archers were still falling prey to the strange ray of light. While a few of the mercenaries tried to take cover, the others continued to fire arrows at the incoming bandits.
As the bandits got closer and closer, many of the mercenaries became more frantic. The amount of bandits rushing at them had a major influence on the mercenaries, and scared many of them into retreating. Their rebellious spirit was gone, since not everyone was willing to fight back — there were some that were more cowardly in the mercenary ranks.
Seeing how the mercenaries were slowly losing control of the situation, a middle aged man began to worry and shouted, “Do not panic! These are only a small portion of the Boundless Bandits, they’re no stronger than us. As long as we work together, we can defeat them. Otherwise, we will all die together. Brothers, for our lives, we must come together!”
Hearing the middle aged man, even the most cowardly mercenaries had felt some courage return to their hearts. If they wanted to survive, they would need to fight. Their fierce desire to survive forced them to abandon their cowardly nature, and they were now prepared to risk their lives.
The mercenaries tried to think of any possible ways to dodge the dark streaks of light while continuing to shoot at the bandits. After a good hundred bandits were killed, the Boundless Bandits finally arrived in front of the mercenaries. By this point, each mercenary had already fired their last arrow, and so they dropped their bows and summoned their Saint Weapons to engage the Boundless Bandits in close combat.
“Ah!”
“Ah!”
The two sides began to roar, their cries piercing the heavens as their weapons collided against each other. But the mercenaries were still not able to see behind the bandits, and the streaks of black lights were still able to precisely strike at each mercenary without fail. Within a few moments, a dozen mercenaries had fallen.
“The captain is being stalled by the bandit experts. Charles, Ge Sen Er and Mel, you three follow me. We’ll definitely find the hiding spots of the archers.” An armored mercenary cried out over the chaos of the moment. Straight after saying that, he leapt over the body of a bandit and charged towards the source of the black streaks.
As the armored mercenary charged, the three other mercenaries mentioned leapt to follow him. Using the heads of the bandits to block the streaks of black light, they continued onwards.
The four mercenaries leapt over the fallen bandits; the other bandits standing had no chance against them. Although the Boundless Bandits were strong enough as a whole to rival kingdoms, this small portion wasn’t enough. Moreover, their elite members were already blocked by a few experts during the initial charge, so there weren’t any strong bandits remaining to block the four mercenaries.
Another three streaks of light came flying out at the four mercenaries. Clearly, the hidden dark attributed archers had figured out the intentions of the mercenaries.
Straight after the first three streaks were shot, another three black streaks came flying straight behind, making it a total of six streaks that silently approached the four mercenaries.
The four mercenaries weren’t weak and were actually far stronger than the mercenaries on patrol. Each one of them summoned their Saint Weapons and smashed against the streaks of light with them. When the two collided, the black lights directly dissipated. The mercenaries’ paces didn’t falter in the slightest as they continued to charge towards the bandit archers. All four of them knew that if they didn’t resolve the issues with the archers, then their mercenary group would continue to take on heavy losses.
Although the three mercenary groups had several hundred people, their strengths in the mercenary world were all lower ranked ones. The mercenaries were generally at the level of a Saint. Those who were a Great Saint were very few. There were only a few Great Saint Masters in this group: the three Mercenary Captains and the vice captain. However, the four of them were currently engaged in battle with the experts on the bandit side, and did not have time to find the archers.
The moment the four mercenaries escaped from view, the streaks of black light stopped as well. Whether or not they had taken care of the archers, they at the very least had gained some precious time for the mercenaries. After all, the black streaks of light were detrimental to the mercenaries, since they couldn’t be easily seen under the night. Their travel speeds were also extremely fast, and so the weaker mercenaries would have no way of spotting the lights.
With the hidden danger gone, the mercenaries no longer had to protect themselves from any long ranged attacks. They could now fight against the bandits with 100% of their power and tear them apart.
By this point, every single mercenary threw away all fear they had for the Boundless Bandits. For the sake of surviving, all of them were using their utmost efforts to kill the bandits, only hoping to end up victorious.
The battle rose to an ear deafening point as Saint Weapons clashed against each other and blood splashed everywhere throughout the battlefield. As the war went on, dozens of people from both sides fell victim to the other side.
Jian Chen had also entered the battle, despite using only his Saint power. However, his formidable fighting strength was definitely enough to shock anyone. They could only see Jian Chen’s use his Profound Steps to evade the attacks coming from every direction. In his hand, he had only a silver sword that was 1.3 meters long and 2 fingers wide. It constantly flashed in his hand at lightning fast speeds. His pierces were so fast that only a thin ribbon of silver light would flicker across as he moved; there was no way the naked eye could catch a glimpse of the sword’s material form.
Jian Chen’s sword was not only fast but it was also one that nobody could defend against. Moreover, his swordplay was extremely precise. Every time his sword pierced outwards, he could accurately stab the enemy in the throat, killing the enemy in one attack. There were very few people at the same level of strength as him that could evade Jian Chen’s lightning-fast sword.