Chapter 20: Divine Archery

Victor stood on the slope at one side of the valley, gazing down at the carnage below.

Driven by the primal instinct to survive, the cunning and savage gnoll creatures unleashed astonishing power. They ran, leapt, crashed into obstacles, and let out furious howls, launching ferocious attacks against anything blocking their escape—including their own kind.

Yet all of this was in vain.

Human bodies might not possess the strength of gnolls, but superior equipment and tight coordination transformed these well-trained soldiers into terrifying machines of slaughter. Archers and crossbowmen sent powerful bolts into any gnoll that strayed alone. Spearmen, working in groups of three, finished off wounded gnolls with precise thrusts. Meanwhile, infantry clad in chain mail and bearing shields kept a wary eye on the surrounding grass, ready to respond to any threat. When gnolls threatened those soldiers less skilled in close combat, these elite warriors showed the monsters the meaning of despair.

Against the might of the knights, even the strongest gnolls fell like scarecrows, utterly helpless.

Victor saw the apprentice knight, Carvin, under Bruce’s command, split a gnoll from shoulder to hip with a single sweep of his longsword. The force of the blade bent the surrounding tall grass outward, leaving a circle two meters wide flattened on the ground.

“There are thirty-nine gnolls, six earth wolves, forty-two goblins, and twenty-three kobolds. Eleven gnolls have already been killed,” Victor murmured softly, reporting the precise figures within his sight, aided by X-3.

“Remarkable, my lord! You see everything so clearly!” Gru, the one-eyed, flattered him nearby, though he had no idea whether Victor’s numbers were accurate.

Gru, along with several powerful guards, formed a protective circle around Victor, charged with ensuring their lord’s safety. Master Edwin, at Bruce’s request, remained back at the castle. Nicole, originally assigned to protect the White Tower scholar, now stood at Victor’s side.

The beautiful apprentice knight wore a silvery suit of female-scaled armor. With a longsword at her hip and a round shield slung across her arm, her hair was simply tied behind her head, giving her a spirited and heroic appearance.

“Gru, bring me a heavy crossbow,” Victor demanded. He could not join the battle against the gnolls directly, but he refused to remain a mere spectator.

Gru glanced uncertainly at Nicole, who quickly tried to dissuade Victor with gentle words. “Victor, our soldiers are everywhere on the battlefield, and heavy crossbows are difficult to handle. If you accidentally wound one of our own, it would be unfortunate, don’t you think?”

“Don’t worry, I will never shoot where our people are. Besides, you’ll guide me, won’t you?” Victor smiled at Nicole.

The ethereal bearing and graceful poise granted by his elven blood held a powerful allure for Nicole, making her reluctant to refuse Victor’s request.

“Alright, but you must shoot under my guidance.”

A military-grade heavy crossbow was brought over—an impressive weapon capable of sending bolts three hundred meters, and at one hundred meters, it could pierce even chain mail. Yet its weight made accurate shooting difficult for most people.

Gru used a winch to load a pure steel bolt into the firing groove, then handed the heavy crossbow to Victor. Nicole pressed closely against Victor, supporting his arm and aiming the bolt at a gnoll isolated from its fellows. This intimate posture sent the young lady knight’s heart racing and cheeks flushing.

Overlimit mode activated: wind speed, distance, the gnoll’s movement and trajectory—all these details appeared before Victor’s eyes, constantly refreshing. At Nicole’s signal, Victor released the bolt.

The sharp arrow pierced right through the gnoll’s shoulder, and the powerful force sent it tumbling head over heels. Still, driven by its desperate urge to survive, the beast ignored the bolt lodged in its shoulder and scrambled onward.

“Beautiful shot!” Gru seized the moment to praise loudly.

Victor, however, shook his head in dissatisfaction. He had aimed for the creature’s head, but unfamiliarity with the crossbow’s performance—as well as Nicole’s interference—had skewed his first shot.

“Once more,” Victor ordered Gru.

The crossbow was reloaded. Before Nicole could take his hand, Victor squeezed the trigger.

The pure steel bolt spanned a hundred meters and pierced the gnoll’s skull, killing it instantly as it collapsed to the earth.

The godlike shot left everyone stunned. Even Gru forgot to heap praise on Victor.

If that shot had been mere luck, Victor’s subsequent shooting quickly dispelled any such notion. Every powerful bolt he fired claimed the life of a gnoll, each struck cleanly in the head. Had Nicole and the guards been nearer, they would have been even more amazed to discover that many of these bolts passed directly through the creatures’ eyes or ears.

The soldiers fighting below felt the impact most acutely.

George, a seasoned infantryman under Baron Esrick, was tasked with protecting the archers and spearmen. The tall reeds made this a difficult job; he had to constantly keep watch for movement around his comrades, which left him distracted from his own safety.

A robust gnoll lurking in the grass seized the opportunity and pounced at George. The sudden attack rattled him, but his training kicked in: as he was knocked down, he blocked the gnoll’s claws with his shield and drove his short spear hard into its flank.

Such a wound was not enough to kill a strong gnoll outright, but the pain sent the beast into a frenzy. It opened its maw, filled with sharp fangs, aiming to bite George’s face. The fetid breath made George smell death itself.

Yet the expected pain never came. When his comrades dragged him out from beneath the gnoll, they were stunned to find a long crossbow bolt had pierced the creature’s skull through its ear canal—it was dead.

That single shot made everyone around Victor involuntarily open their mouths in amazement, Nicole included. It also sent a chill through the heart of Broken Tooth, lurking in the grass.

As a berserk gnoll, Broken Tooth was far cleverer than his kin.

Once the battle began, Broken Tooth dived into the thick grass amidst the chaos. The wind curled around his body, letting him move silently and swiftly toward the slope at one side of the valley.

Many gnolls thought of running uphill, crossing the hillside to escape the humans’ encirclement. But as soon as they left the cover of the grass, the human archers showered them with arrows, proving how foolish such a notion was.

Broken Tooth, however, cared little. Climbing slowed the gnolls’ speed, but it posed no challenge for him. His affinity with wind elements made him agile and quick, and gave him a keener sense—he could dodge arrows before they struck.

Even if he couldn’t avoid every shot, the swirling breeze weakened incoming arrows. As long as he avoided vital areas, he could survive this siege. He might suffer some wounds, but nothing fatal; with his exceptional physique and astonishing speed, escape was entirely possible—so he believed.

But the marksman on the slope dashed all hope.

Broken Tooth might withstand ordinary bows and crossbows, but not military-grade heavy crossbows. He watched as a bolt from the slope pierced a hapless gnoll’s skull, the force flinging the three-hundred-pound creature a meter through the air, then pinning its head to the ground with steel.

If Victor were the only shooter, Broken Tooth would not be worried. But with such terrifying accuracy amidst a hail of arrows, he could not defend against it.

He resolved to skirt Victor’s line of sight and escape from a safe direction, but the tightening circle of the encirclement foiled his plan.

So Broken Tooth decided to take a risk.

Since he could not escape the marksman’s deadly reach from any direction, the only option was to approach the shooter and find a chance to kill or cripple him. Otherwise, even if he managed to slip away over the slope, his back would be exposed to this fearsome opponent. Victor had to be eliminated.

Broken Tooth observed the guards around Victor, including a formidable iron-armored one, but the other was only a human female.

In Broken Tooth’s experience, human females were always weak and helpless. When they saw gnolls, they screamed in terror and fled in panic, which always roused the gnolls’ appetite.

This cognitive bias gave Broken Tooth confidence—though in truth, he had no choice.

He crept cautiously through the grass toward Victor’s slope and lay in wait in a patch below, silently watching.

He waited for a chance—a chance that Hog would create for him.

Then he would fight for his life.