Chapter 10
Both Franz and Arthur were surprised watching the fight in front of them. They could see great potential for these men. They almost worked perfectly together, but there was still room for improvement.
Right now, it was mostly Emily keeping it all together by reinforcing everyone's drawbacks. She had the eyes of a leader because as soon as someone made a mistake, she appeared there to fix that one mistake.
The only problem was that there were no commands at all, and in the end, the formation also looked a bit clumsy. Everybody in the formation also made the mistake of making too many unnecessary movements, making it, so they got in each other's way, and to that end, they used too much energy too quickly.
It was obvious that they were quite tired already, and 10 minutes had barely passed by since Arthur and Franz had come. This would be fatal if they were at war, with thousands of soldiers around.
Nonetheless, neither Franz nor Arthur jumped to save them. They kept watching as their teammates got more and more wounded and exhausted. Arthur wanted to see what they were made of and what would happen when they were on the brink of death. He knew it was cruel, but when he was younger, his dad had done that to him many times through training.
Another 20 minutes went by. Many of the bandits had fallen by now, and only 15 of them were left.
There was a huge problem at this moment. Arthur's men were all deadbeat, except for Ethan and Emily. Ethan was still standing tall, sweat pouring from his face, but still calm. On the other hand, Emily did not even have a beat of sweat on her face, and she looked like she had barely fought.
Except for Emily and Ethan, all the men were collapsed on the ground at the moment. Ethan was standing in front of them all, protecting them with his body. He was holding five bandits off by himself, while Emily held off the last ten beside him.
Arthur had been pleasantly surprised by all of them at this moment. With any real battle experience, holding on for this long was quite a good feat. The one that surprised him the most was Ethan, who was willing to hold off the enemies for his teammates with his body. The power of his body had also surprised Arthur quite a bit, as he had sustained some quite serious cuts.
"Franz, go help them! I look forward to your performance!" Arthur wanted Franz to go in and take charge. He had high hopes for him.
"Yes, sir!" Franz was excited to fight. He did not want to let Arthur down.
"AAARGH" Two bandits screamed out, seemingly at the same time.
As he charged in from behind, Franz had the opportunity to kill two of the bandits with surprise attacks before they figured out someone was behind them.
"Look out. Someone is coming!" The one that looked like a leader turned around and yelled.
The leader had a massive two-handed knight's sword. It looked almost brand new, which meant that he must just have gotten it. Arthur knew that bandits were attacking people on the roads, but very few of them had these kinds of weapons available for their knights.
what surprised Arthur about this was that he had not noticed this man before. He was like their leader, but it felt like he blended in like he was a normal bandit. Another thing was that he had not seen this man make a move at any point through the whole fight. This piqued Arthur's interest, and he decided to keep an extra eye on that man. He might be a bigger threat than he had thought.
"Get him!" As soon as the leader yelled this, 5 of the men on Emily went towards Franz.
Franz was a little shocked about this, but he did not falter. All he did, was avoid the five men and join Ethan and Emily in a three-man formation. This made it, so their odds of surviving were higher.
"You finally came. How about Arthur?" Ethan started breathing a little more calmly while being attacked when he saw that Franz had come to their side. He knew Franz was the third strongest, but the difference in the top three was not big.
"Haha, don't worry, he thinks we are enough to deal with this, don't let him down!" Franz answered with a smile. His confidence was not small.
Bang!
"Good!" Ethan banged his chest and smiled ferociously. With Franz and Emily by his side, his confidence soared. After hearing that Arthur believed in him, all he could think of was not to let him down.
"Arthur … Believes … in us?" Ned lying on the ground with heavy breathing, suddenly spoke out. He had been on the ground for a few minutes now, but hearing that their leader believed in them, he woke up a little.
"Yeah!" Franz said no more than this.
"Good!" Ned said as he started to stand up on his shaking legs. "Then I have to give it my all!" He was so tired that he could barely smile, but he squeezed out a small smile after saying this.
Now four people were standing side by side, albeit one of them was very close to collapsing. Arthur was surprised by seeing Neds resolve, and so were all the bandits. They could not help but admire this man a little, but it did not mean they feared him. He could barely stand after all.
Looking at the whole situation, Arthur had complete confidence that his team could win at this point. The only thing he is thinking about is the leader. He looks dangerous and might possibly be the strongest person here, even stronger than him and Emily.
The leader of the bandits was not a fool and could easily see that his underlings were losing this completely. The problem was that he could sense another existence close by, who was about the same strength as him and possessed the ability to threaten his life.
He wanted to weaken the men in front of him to the point that Arthur would come running out. His underlings were not strong enough for that, though. At this point, he had to make a move, even if it would be a danger to him.
Realizing this, his eyes locked on Ned straight away. He was an easy target, and killing him would definately make it so the hidden person would come out from his hiding spot. With that in mind, he charged straight toward Ned, wanting to cut him in two with one slash.
To his surprise, though, his sword was blocked millimeters before it would have hit Ned's head. Emily had used all the strength she had to appear in front of Ned with her broadsword to block the strike.
She tried to use her strength to push the bandits' sword away, but now it was her time to be surprised, as she realized he was smiling coldly at her and only using one hand to keep her sword down.
She chose to bend her sword a little bit so that the bandit would slide off it and miss Ned. She had decided she would take on this opponent now.
"Ned, help the others!" Emily said in an indifferent tone. She was as focused as she could get. This would be a hard fight for her.
The bandit saw that he could not get to Ned anymore, and the man who had been hidden did not want to come forward yet. This meant he still could not use all of his power, as that would let the hidden person be able to counter it.
Thinking of this, he launched a massive barrage with his sword. Emily could barely react to all of the strikes, as one could see that small cuts slowly started to form on her otherwise perfect body.
Arthur saw this, he felt bad, but he could do absolutely nothing. He knew that Emily had already known he was there, and she knew that this was a sort of test. He didn't want to see her get hurt, but he wanted to see the extent of her ability.
A few seconds of the barrage went by before the bandit finally stopped his attacks. He could clearly see he was the winner of this fight, but he did not expect the face Emily was showing him.
Emily, at this moment, had the most beautiful smile the men at this spot had ever seen. She looked like an angel. She was the embodiment of innocence at this moment. Except for the fact she was covered in blood and a lot of small cuts, of course.
"You finally came out to protect your men?" Realizing what she was smiling at, he turned around and saw Arthur walking toward him with a grin that sent shivers down the spines of all the bandits.
"Are you ready to die?" Even though his face was grinning, the anger in his voice was quite obvious. He was in the mood to slaughter.