Bear School Astartes

It was a uniquely shaped short dagger.

Its length was similar to the Greek short swords available in the market, with a golden handle engraved with non-slip patterns, and the iron-gray blade had a bit of golden pattern near the base.

You could tell from the appearance that it was specialized in slashing.

It was as if the tip of a single-edged knife was forcibly bent, with the tip of the approximately twenty centimeters long blade bent into an abrupt blunted angle.

This structure made the center of gravity of the blade shift forward dramatically, thereby enhancing its slashing power.

[Shimmer] An You, originally headed for Megaliss, which was the point of conflict between Sparta and Athens.

The intense conflict was a good environment for mercenaries to earn money.

The commanders of either side could pair some difficult tasks with enough drachmas and then distribute them to these mercenaries who could die without a second thought.

But she happened to pass by Cephalonia during a ride with a ship and was initially thinking of picking up some small deals to accumulate startup capital for her bigger jobs in the future.

Unexpectedly, the ship owner offered her three times the pay in no time.

Thus, the originally small deal instantly became a big deal worth taking seriously.

An You indeed lived up to her reputation.

Based on the client’s information, she lingered around the edge of this plague-afflicted town for about two days.

And today, after her lynx detected someone coming out, she immediately began her performance.

In fact, she had a poisoned wine flask right beside her, and if Lann had approached her for a chat, she would have pretended to be a sad but kind-hearted character, offering Lann a drink to quench his thirst.

Without even the need to use her dagger, she could have earned a substantial amount of drachmas.

Glorious battles, fighting to the death... she knew her own strengths and weaknesses, so she left such romantic matters to those ’great heroes’ and ’demigods’ after all.

She just didn’t expect... it seemed her target this time was indeed a ’great hero’, just like in the legends!

”Kates! Malaka!”

Shouting out the name of her pet in anger, An You seemed infuriated by the death of her lynx.

The short curved saber with the golden handle burst into flames with a ”bang”.

The intensity of the flames was far more than simply coating the blade with fire oil and igniting it.

As far as common sense goes, not even a torch wrapped with oily cloth could burn with such large flames!

But the phenomenon against all common sense didn’t create the slightest hesitation in Lann.

Firstly, he used his left hand to block his side waist, precisely where An You’s short curved saber was about to strike, the Valerian steel on his armguard giving him the confidence to block the blade directly.

However, seemingly pondering more deeply, Lann decided not to let such an obviously abnormal flame touch his body directly, so he clenched his left hand, which was initially intended to block the blade, into a magic seal.

Quen!

A golden-yellow magic shield was generated in the blink of an eye.

The most lethal tip of the opponent’s short curved saber struck the shield, creating a ”crackling” sound like shattering glass.

The golden-yellow magic shield overloaded and shattered with that single strike.

’This woman... what immense strength! Far stronger than the crossbow arrow!’

The Demon Hunter was slightly surprised; with his current chaos magic power, the Quen Rune could generally withstand the continuous fire of five or six crossbows.

And now, the opponent broke his magic seal with a single blow!

The lynx’s corpse, split in half, had already hit the ground, together with the fragments of the shattered golden shield.

Lann’s turn, caused by wielding his sword, was pulled back to the front.

The pair of amber cat eyes carefully observed the opponent at that moment.

Under the tattered cloak, the female mercenary wore a leather breastplate, with a triangular scarf tied around her neck.

Metal bracers and greaves, paired with leather sandals.

At first glance, she looked like a seasoned female hunter.

And just as Lann was preparing to counter An You’s next attack, the mercenary, previously full of anger and with wide-slashing motion, suddenly released her grip.

The short curved saber spun and flew towards the Demon Hunter’s face.

Lann warded it off with a flourish of the Lady of the Lake’s Sword, causing the blazing short dagger to be deflected away, but undeniably, this created an opening for An You.

As Lann blocked the flying short dagger, she began to roll backward.

With extremely fluid movements, as she distanced herself by rolling, the mercenary was already standing upright with a bow and arrow in hand.

The anger over her pet’s death seemed to have never existed on her face.

Who would want to engage in close combat with someone who just came out of a plague-rampant village? You think I’m crazy?

Initially, she intended for Lann to drink the poisoned wine, but Lann didn’t expose her scheme until he got close, and her withdrawing the dagger was merely to create an opportunity.

On the bowstring, a straight arrow was already set, with the arrowhead spewing a misty green smoke.

”Goodbye, ’bounty’.”

Apparently quite confident in her arrow, An You smiled as she released the bowstring.

The arrow, with a visible drop curve, shot towards Lann.

The target seemingly wasn’t Lann’s body at all, but the ground he stood on.

”Sizzle~”

A sound like strong acid corroding the ground was heard.

As the arrow hit the ground, a large cloud of pus-green mist exploded from the impact point, with a radius of about one meter.

Seemingly considering that wasn’t enough, An You quickly shot three more arrows with green smoke into the dense fog.

”Sizzle~ Sizzle~”

Two more clouds of mist exploded, and the lynx’s half body, which was still struggling on the ground, gradually stopped moving in the fog, with the blood it was leaking turning black.

With such a large area of toxic mist, even if someone entered and immediately exited, they would be half dead at the least.

An You lowered the bow, slowly resetting the drawn string without an empty shot.

That big guy looked heavy and slow, whether his stature or armor, such a guy only looked intimidating, killing wasn’t really difficult. She had done plenty of this kind of thing already.

By the time he came out, he probably couldn’t even bear the weight of his armor anymore, right?

The female mercenary looked at the large cloud of green mist five or six meters away, pondering in her heart.

But inexplicably, she felt a bit uneasy. Moreover, with the complete silence from that cloud of mist, without even the slightest sound of struggling, her unease grew stronger.

Wait! I shot three arrows, why did only two explode?!

Almost simultaneously with An You’s thoughts, a supersonic projectile shot out from the pus-green mist, creating a spiral-shaped hole through the fog with the resulting shockwave.

An You had no chance to react as her left flank was directly hit!

”Ugh!”

The leather breastplate was torn apart like it didn’t exist.

However, her body didn’t end up with a large gash from the waist, instead it seemed as if she was wearing a bulletproof vest, merely having a bruise rapidly enlarging and darkening.

The sudden heavy strike to her kidney caused the female mercenary to kneel directly, gasping for air she couldn’t catch, eyes bulging like a dead fish.

And even then, she was in disbelief at what she saw next.

Out from that green poisonous mist, a tall and sturdy figure walked out slowly.

He even deliberately took a deep breath as he was about to exit the weapon’s range.

Two thin strands of green toxic gas were sucked into his nostrils.

And the result was merely that Lann’s eye sockets had black venous veins become more pronounced.

”Tsk, that’s potent.”