Hearing Lucien’s words, somehow Natasha felt like making a joke, "I’m sorry that you have to face this dangerous fighting because of me. After all, you have never even touched a girl’s hand! If we can survive tonight, I’ll introduce you to a decent young lady."
Lucien released a sigh, "Your Grace…" At the same time, Lucien was glad to see that Natasha was still in a joking mood. Since she was the only level five grand knight on their side, the princess herself was the key factor determining whether they would have at least a bit of hope to survive tonight.
"Then, Knight Cacharel, Daniel, and Borscht, why?" Natasha turned to the three knights who decided to stay.
"My heart is beating firmly right now." Cacharel pointed at his chest, "This is the heart of a knight, not a coward."
Daniel was a middle-aged knight, who looked intimidating and cold. "I was a pauper, and now I’m a knight. I did many bad things, but my will to fight against the forces of evil never changes." Then he crossed himself, "Maybe I’ll die tonight, and before that I want to show my repentance for the horrible things I did before."
Borscht had recently become a knight, and he still looked pretty young. Scratching his head a bit, his green eyes were shining with the light of determination, "This is my first fight as a knight, and I don’t want to be a deserter in my first fight, or Vivian would be laughing at me."
Mentioning his Vivian, Borscht looked affectionate and shy.
Natasha nodded to them and then turned to the two knight squires, "Bright, Tiana… The other squires and soldiers are all gone. Why did you choose to stay?"
"Your Grace… You, you remember my name!" Bright was very excited. "That’s enough reason for me to fight for you, Your Grace!"
In contrast, Tiana, a half-elf and half-human girl, looked a bit hesitant, "Your Grace… my, my reason is not that lofty. I… I just feel that he would kill the people who surrendered anyway."
The reason that Verdi did not launch his attack right away was that he was waiting for the radiant knight and the senior-rank mage to come and join him after they killed Camil. After all, as a level five grand knight, Natasha’s power could not be underestimated.
Hearing what Tiana just said, Verdi retorted, "If I want to kill the people who know about all my plan, I would have to kill all the knights, squires and soldiers following me right now. That’s impossible, and more importantly, there is absolutely no reason for me to kill them. There won’t be any hard evidence proving that I had ever colluded with Argent Horn and the sorcerers, and what I am doing now is under the acquiescence of most of the big families in the duchy. As for the Church, they’re even happy to see that we nobles can have some civil wars from time to time in order to counterbalance our power. And when I become the next grand duke, all people following me will be rewarded."
Natasha listened to Verdi quietly. After he listed all those reasons trying to justify his behavior and assure his people that Tiana’s words would never be true, Natasha slightly shook her head and smiled, "My dear cousin, have you ever wondered why the Congress of Magic wanted me dead so desperately that they even took the risk to seek your help? If you never thought about it, you wouldn’t understand how much special attention the Church paid to me. And, by the way, even if you killed me, you wouldn’t be the only legitimate heir to the grand duke title within the Violet family."
When Verdi remained silent within his confusion, Natasha turned around and said lowly to her people with great determination, "My knights, my warriors, although they outnumber us, they have to disperse their people to encircle us. And that means the number of the enemies in front of us is actually only a bit more than us."
"So we still have a chance?!" The knights’ and squires’ eyes lit up.
"As long as we can defeat the enemies in front of us before more of them start to attack us from behind." Natasha nodded with great determination.
This would be a quick attack. The speed would determine their life or death.
Sitting on her Dragon Scale horse named Agatha, Natasha turned around and stared at Verdi, who had two level five grand knights and four other knights behind him.
Then, curling the corner of her lips, Natasha smiled, as if something she had been dreaming for was finally realized tonight. Her eyes were shining with great excitement, shining because of her heroic dream.
Although Verdi did not hear what Natasha told her people, from Natasha’s posture sitting on her horse, Verdi could tell that she was ready for the fight. There was no time for him to wait any longer.
Securing her long lance named "Slayer" under her armpit, Natasha’s pulled out her knight sword named "Natasha’s Thunder".
"March forward! Forward forever! In the name of Violet!" shouted the princess.
"Violet! Violet!" The knights and squires following Natasha got excited as well.
Lucien was very surprised and impressed, since he never expected that Natasha would choose this attitude to face the extreme danger. What he was watching was the true spirit of a knight.
"For the glory of Violet! Charge!" Natasha shouted aloud again and shot forward like an arrow to lead the charge.
"For the glory of Violet!" Cacharel, Lucien and Wyon, as well as Daniel, Tiana, Bright and Borscht all followed Natasha close and charged toward their enemies with their proud war cry.
Among them all, Lucien was the only one who remained relatively calm. After all, he was a sorcerer, not a knight. Holding his sword Alert, Lucien was ready to activate Sun’s Corona at any time.
The tall mare named Agatha snorted loudly as it was running with great speed. There was black smoke coming out of her nostrils, and her dragon-like scales bulged greatly. As its hooves hit the floor there was loud and thunderous noises and the earth trembled slightly, as if a real dragon was coming for its enemies.
Lucien was riding on a dark red horse left by the knight who surrendered to follow the princess. Cacharel was on his left, and Wyon was on his right. Although there were only eight people on their side, they were charging toward their enemies as if they were a great army!
As they were charging faster and faster, the sharp tip of Slayer changed the air flow and created a big shield covering Natasha and all her knights and knight squires.
Verdi was well prepared. Raising up his left hand, he frowned his eyebrows and then made a gesture. Instantly, hundreds of arrows were shot out targeting the princess and the seven people following her.
However, the shield created by Natasha’s lance perfectly protected them from being hurt by the arrows. All of the arrows were broken and fell down to the ground as soon as they touched the air flow.
Verdi was not very surprised. As he waved his hand again, the knight squires who were waiting for his command instantly started to approach the people following Natasha. At the same time, Verdi rushed at Natasha with a huge black iron shield in his left hand, and a fire sword in his right hand.
Another level five grand knight on Verdi’s side named Tod also charged toward them. With his Blessing "Iron Blood", Tod was very confident that they could crush them within ten seconds.
Natasha’s purple eyes turned into a completely silver color. Staring at Verdi and Tod, her eyes became colder and colder.
Tod’s silver lance grazed Natasha’s Slayer. Being protected by Verdi’s huge shield, Tod focused all his strength on attacking. The shield Verdi was using was called "The Shield of Truth".
Natasha did not try to defend at all, instead, she made a direct thrust at Verdi’s shield. As her speed increased, her long lance was surrounded by some visible black lines, coming straight from Natasha’s own Blessing, whose name was "Cleaving", or more commonly known as "The Sword of Truth".
This was a fight between the Sword and the Shield.
The whole world seemed to pause for a bit, as everything happened very fast. Verdi heard a tiny sound of crack from his shield a moment after the impact.
When Verdi fully activated his Blessing in order to repair the Shield of Truth, Tod’s lance directly pierced through Natasha’s abdomen!
Even Tod himself was very surprised. He was expecting was that, facing his attack, Natasha would use her knight sword to defend herself and at the same time change her direction of charging. After all, the purpose of his attack was to disturb Natasha’s fighting pace.
At the same time, a bunch of silver arrows pierced her body. Since the armor called Dragon Blood that Natasha was wearing was badly damaged already, it could not protect Natasha properly.
Although Natasha’s facial expression showed that she was in pain, her gray pupils were still cold and calm. She used neither her lance nor her sword, but with her bare left hand she grabbed Tod’s lance and pushed him backward forcefully with great strength.
She did not stop. Grabbing the lance, Natasha was still charging forward.
Her face looked over-excited, almost crazy.
Then, with a crispy "crack", Natasha’s Slayer directly pierced through Verdi’s Shield of Truth this time, with her even greater momentum! The shield rapidly broke into pieces.
Verdi could not believe what he just saw. Suddenly, he realized that Natasha actually had a kind of mutant power based on her Blessing, since the Blessing called the Sword of Truth was a combination of the power of the two greatest families over the continent, the Violet and the Holm families. Her mutant power worked simply: the more serious she was injured, the more powerful she would be!
Verdi was not a rookie on the battlefield. Facing the lance coming directly toward him, he activated his magic item without any hesitance. Suddenly, he disappeared from where he was, and in the next second he showed up again, around twenty meters away.
"Is she really gonna make it?" A ridiculous idea flashed across Verdi’s mind for a second.
Natasha did not stop. Carrying her Slayer under her armpit, and tightly grabbing Tod’s lance which pierced through her abdomen with her hand, Natasha pushed Tod back and they were rushing at Verdi at the same time.
While Natasha was fighting with great momentum, the people following her were not in a very good condition because of the attack from both sides.
Although those knights and squires were nothing for Wyon, who was a level four grand knight, Cacharel was facing a knight of the same level as him. As Cacharel was using all his power to fight against the knight, he was badly injured by the the spears of the knight squires.
After hearing two short and sharp screams from Bright and Tiana, Lucien never heard them again. He could hear Borscht’s heavy breaths behind him, and Daniel’s few muffled groans.
When Lucien was helping Cacharel with his Alert, he saw countless silver arrows coming toward them like rain drops.
Without any hesitance, Lucien activated Star Shield. If they survived, Lucien might still have a chance to find some excuses to explain, but if they died there, every effort he made would be pointless.
Covering Lucien and the other people, the Star Shield was shining brightly at night. Multiple arrows hit the cover and fell down on the ground without doing any damage to it.
On the other side, Tod discarded his lance and an iron shield appeared in his left hand, conjured by his Blessing. Wielding his longsword in his right hand, Tod started to fight back. The other grand knights on Verdi’s side who were encircling Natasha and her people were now only half the original distance away from them!
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