Lord of Rot

”Flying in the sky?”

Protected by his soldiers, La Bill stared up at the figure riding an eagle-headed Flying Horse across the sky.

His expression instantly turned ugly.

He still remembered seeing Leech Clarence the year before last, when the man would have been overjoyed by a few Jinri.

Just a country Baron he had never given a second thought to.

In less than two years, not only had he become the lord of Iron Valley, but he had also won the undying loyalty of La Bill’s own bastard brother, allowing him to secretly take complete control of Longship Castle.

Now, his sudden appearance cleared up all of La Bill’s lingering questions.

Any lingering uncertainties didn’t stop La from pinning it all on Leech.

In short, he wanted Leech dead!

”Crossbowmen, shoot him down!”

A group of crossbowmen looked up and took aim at Leech.

SWOOSH—!

A chaotic volley of arrows rained down on them.

A dozen arrows nearly struck Rocket, who dodged frantically in the air.

”SCREE—!”

Enraged, Rocket wanted to dive down.

”Fly up!” Leech slapped Rocket on the head. ”If we charge down there alone now, we’ll be flying right into a trap!”

”Coo!” Rocket reluctantly gained altitude.

It was used to playing pranks, its favorite being to fly over people’s heads and knock them over with the gust of wind.

It hadn’t expected to almost get wrecked today.

Leech comforted him. ”Don’t worry, you’ll get your chance to show off. Let’s head back first!”

”Coo!”

The rain of arrows didn’t stop, but as Rocket continued to climb, the projectiles reached their apex well below him before gravity pulled them back toward the ground.

Rocket shrieked in triumph.

”SCREE—!”

Flying over the Monkey Soldiers’ encampment, Leech returned to the front of his own troops and landed.

His soldiers had already formed up.

Two rows of soldiers in the front formed a simple shield wall, with three rows of gunners behind them.

Three hundred men, sixty to a row, stood in a relatively loose formation.

”My Lord!” The noble cavalrymen approached Leech. They had witnessed the gunners training and knew how terrifying these iron-tube weapons were.

They had a longer range than arrows, were faster to reload, required less stamina, and packed a huge punch!

”In a moment, you will lead the gunner cavalry to charge and pursue the enemy.”

”Yes, sir!” The noble cavalrymen were eager for action.

In the distance, 200 cavalrymen were heading their way. The four-gait charge was the most effective method for a cavalry assault.

The Monkey Cavalry closed the distance at a walk. In their eyes, 300 Porcupine Soldiers were practically made of paper. As long as they could get close, a single charge would end the battle.

This was an era ruled by cavalry.

Behind the shields, the gunners had already loaded their powder. They watched intently as the dark mass of 200 cavalrymen charged toward them.

They had absolute confidence in their weapons.

The cavalry began the second gait: the trot.

Their formation began to shift, smoothly splitting into four rows of fifty men each.

There was a set distance between each row, meant to maintain formation and avoid collisions.

The sound of iron hooves was a thunderous roar.

The distance closed rapidly.

”Ready!”

Leech drew the saw-sword from his waist and raised it high.

The Porcupine Soldiers took a deep breath, and the front row of gunners immediately began to aim.

’A little closer, just a little closer!’ Leech counted silently.

Closer and closer.

The Monkey Cavalry had entered the third gait: the canter.

The dust they kicked up obscured the view.

They were in range.

Leech thrust his longsword forward. ”Fire!”

”BANG!”

The instant one of the gunners heard Leech’s command, he instinctively pulled the trigger.

The flint struck, and a spark ignited the powder.

BANG!

The barrel vibrated.

Thick smoke billowed out.

A cavalryman at the very front of the charge suddenly felt a sharp pain in his chest.

He felt dizzy, the strength draining rapidly from his body.

’What happened?’

He instinctively glanced down at his chest. There was a hole in his armor, right over his heart. With every stride of his cantering horse, blood gushed out.

He fell limply from his horse.

The iron hooves of his comrades behind him offered no special treatment, trampling down mercilessly.

”BANG! BANG! BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG!!”

A continuous series of deafening blasts erupted from the Porcupine Soldiers’ formation, and white smoke completely shrouded their ranks.

Compared to the sound of hooves, the terrifying explosions were more like the angry thunder of a storm.

From the first volley, twenty to thirty of the fifty men in the front row of cavalry fell, massively disrupting the charge for those behind them. The assault formation was thrown into chaos.

Horses collided with one another.

Pain-filled whinnies rose from all sides.

But the gunfire didn’t stop.

Leech was replicating the classic three-rank volley tactic.

After the first row of soldiers fired, they quickly fell back to reload while the second row stepped forward to fire.

By the time the third row had fired and fallen back, the first row was already reloaded.

This continuous fire effectively compensated for the slow reload speed of the muskets.

The more men involved, the more devastating its power.

In the eyes of the Longship Castle soldiers watching from afar, they saw the Monkey Cavalry, who had been charging Leech’s line with an unstoppable aura, suddenly start to fall in droves. Some men would suddenly go rigid and topple, while other times it was their horses that collapsed.

”By the Four Gods, what’s happening?”

”Are they... could it be Magic?”

”That’s thunder, and the white smoke... it must be storm clouds!”

In his own way, Leech was proving one thing to this world: cavalry was not invincible.

Gunners could easily counter cavalry.

By the time the Monkey Cavalry had charged to within fifty paces, fewer than fifty of them were still able to continue the assault!

The ground was littered with dead horses and cavalrymen who had been shot and lost their ability to fight.

”What is that?” La Bill’s face hadn’t looked good since Leech appeared.

He looked at the people behind him. Standing there were six individuals in varied attire, both men and women.

”I don’t know. It must be some kind of Alchemy Creation.”

”An Alchemy Creation? One that can be used by 300 men at once?” La almost laughed in fury. ’Do these clueless idiots have any idea how precious an Alchemy Creation is?’

A young man who bore some resemblance to La said, ”La, our cavalry has been utterly defeated. We should have the infantry advance with shields up to close the distance. We have one to two thousand men. If we move in slowly behind a shield wall, they won’t be able to do anything to us.”

La nodded. ”You’re right!”

”Infantry, shield wall, advance!” he immediately commanded. ”Recall the cavalry!”

Although fewer than fifty remained, each cavalryman was a huge asset. La couldn’t just let them go to their deaths.

As long as they could close the distance, La didn’t believe the enemy could still use that strange method of attack in a melee.

La looked at the six people behind him. ”Once the infantry charges, you are to eliminate Baron Porcupine immediately!”

A slender-waisted woman with a bare midriff stuck out her long tongue. ”He looks so strong. I’d like to try him.”

The other five had strange expressions on their faces. Even La felt a bit disgusted.

Because that bastard wasn’t a woman at all!

He had approached La before, and La had been excitedly making out with him for a while, only for the other person to suddenly say: ”Why don’t you go down on me.”

If he weren’t a Transcendent, La would have definitely killed him.

But with Leech being the one to suffer it, La’s expression turned gleeful. He was suddenly very interested.

”I’m interested in his Flying Horse,” a stout, bald man said in a rumbling voice. ”I’ve never eaten that kind of horse meat before.”

None of them had any objection to La’s arrangement.

「In the distance.」

The cavalrymen, who had been just shy of reaching the Porcupine Soldiers’ faces, breathed a collective sigh of relief upon hearing the signal to retreat.

The chances of the remaining fifty men breaking the ranks of the Porcupine Soldiers, who were clearly also an elite force, were low.

It was better to retreat now.

The cavalry reined in their horses and turned to leave.

Leech raised his sword again.

”Cease fire!”

The ceasefire was not as orderly as the command to open fire. Some soldiers’ ears were ringing from the gunshots, and they only knew to stop when a comrade next to them slapped their shoulder.

Ten noble cavalrymen, along with thirty gunner cavalry, immediately gave chase.

Horses have poor stamina. After that long charge, the mounts of the Monkey Cavalry were at their most exhausted. In contrast, Leech’s cavalry were well-rested and in peak condition.

Furthermore, with Rocket flying alongside to spur them on, the horses broke into a full-speed charge from the very beginning.

The fleeing Monkey Cavalry suddenly heard the urgent thundering of hooves behind them. A glance back made their faces change drastically.

They were actually catching up!

And the distance between them was closing fast!

The superbly equipped noble cavalry, in their first charge, easily tore through the ranks of the Monkey Cavalry, who were fleeing in a tight bunch.

A few unlucky souls were knocked right off their horses.

”Counter-attack!” a Monkey Cavalryman shouted, drawing his longsword.

He had his pride as a cavalryman. Cavalry should take pride in the charge, not in fleeing!

But when he saw the weapon in the hands of the soldier who charged up beside him, his sense of glorious sacrifice vanished without a trace.

To turn the tables and kill an enemy, even in death, was glorious.

The problem was... this group of cavalrymen chasing them were also holding those strange iron tubes.

Five feet away.

The Monkey Cavalryman couldn’t reach his opponent with a swing of his weapon, but his enemy raised the iron tube and aimed it at his head.

The hair on the Monkey Cavalryman’s body stood on end.

”BANG!”

After one shot, the gunner cavalryman turned and fell back without hesitation.

The Monkey Cavalryman, shot at point-blank range, fell from his horse.

Each man fired, taking out one enemy.

No one lingered in the fight.

Until the skirmish was over, not one of Leech’s gunner cavalry had entered the firing range of the Monkey crossbowmen.

Of the 200 Monkey Cavalry who had charged, fewer than twenty managed to escape.

On Leech’s side... not a single casualty!

The drawbridge of Longship Castle was lowered, and the garrison soldiers poured out.

”They’re courting death!” La spat when he saw the soldiers from Longship Castle daring to charge out.

Then he said to the six people beside him, ”Guy and Rabbit are Transcendents. Who wants to go?”

”The two of us will go,” a pair of twin sisters volunteered.

”Yes, you two are the most suitable,” La nodded.

The twin sisters were telepathically linked. Fighting together, their combined combat prowess was enough to take on three Transcendents and hold the absolute upper hand!

”We’ll go too,” the remaining four said. ”That Baron Porcupine looks like he’s about to make a move, and there’s a four-armed one next to him.”

La nodded. ”Bring me back his head!”