"There's... killing intent!"
Alicia's body tensed, her face full of alertness as she quickly spoke to Leon.
Leon never doubted Alicia's combat instincts.
He immediately raised his hand, ordering all the Falcon warriors to pull their reins and stop the horned horses.
"Young Master?"
Ratahn turned his horse and asked.
"Alicia says there's killing intent; someone is lying in ambush nearby," Leon said, his gaze sweeping across the roadside as he directly lit a Light Prayer Orb.
"An ambush?"
The Falcon warriors' expressions changed, and they all gripped their weapons, warily watching every direction.
Ratahn held his black spear, pointing it at the stunned Zachary in front of him. "Don't move!"
Zachary quickly raised his hands. "I didn't know! I don't know anything! I didn't set this up!"
"I'm not sure if it was you, but until the ambush is dealt with, please refrain from any suspicious movements, Mr. Zachary," Ratahn said coldly, without relaxing.
Hearing this, Zachary didn't dare move an inch.
Leon looked away from Zachary. In the current situation, he had no way of knowing if Zachary was being framed or was a willing participant.
However, detaining Zachary for now and remaining vigilant was certainly the right call.
Leon looked at the intersection ahead. On both sides of the corner stood magic-mutated wheat at least a meter and a half tall, more than enough to hide a dozen large men.
"Come out, I see you,"
Leon said with a cold face, shouting toward the wheat fields.
"Heh heh heh, as expected of a scion from a great family like Douglas. Your vigilance is indeed high."
Three figures slowly walked out from the wheat, and two more figures stepped out from behind Leon's group.
Seeing the three swords pinned to their collars, Zachary's expression changed. "The Three Sword Guild!"
Beside Leon, a Falcon warrior also recognized the emblem and said to Leon, "Young Master, they're from the Three Sword Guild!"
"The Three Sword Guild is a notorious assassin guild. As long as someone pays enough, they'd even dare to assassinate a Duke of the Heron Empire!"
Leon's mind flashed with information about the Three Sword Guild.
The guild had branches in the Heron Empire, the Nightmare Empire, the World Tree Forest, and the Kingdom of Mountains, but its headquarters remained unknown to the world.
It was founded a hundred and thirty years ago by a legendary three-sword style bloodline warrior.
Since its founding, the Three Sword Guild never recruited arcane thieves, only bloodline warriors.
Their method of assassination was also completely different from other assassin organizations.
While other organizations meticulously scouted and waited for the target's weakest moment to deliver a fatal blow, the Three Sword Guild operated like bandits. They found the right time to approach and primarily focused on completely wiping out the target and their guards.
They would kill everyone and retreat quickly before the outside world noticed, hiding their tracks.
"It seems Young Master Leon has heard of our Three Sword Guild's reputation."
Seeing the expression on Leon's face, the leader of the group—a man with a burly build and so much muscle on his head that it had become pointy—laughed again.
"Your Three Sword Guild is quite bold, daring to assassinate the son of the current Imperial Prime Minister," Leon said coldly, his gaze sweeping over the pointy-headed bloodline warrior leader.
"Heh! The guild's motto—as long as the gold coins are enough, the guild will kill even a Legend rank expert for you!"
Pointy Head lifted a giant hammer larger than a bathtub and looked at Leon. "And as it happens, someone placed a bounty on your head in the guild for a full ten thousand gold coins!"
"What?" Leon's face darkened instantly.
The Three Sword Guild took a mission to kill him for a mere ten thousand gold coins?
Divided among these five assassins, and after the guild's internal commission, each would get less than two thousand gold coins!
He, Leon Douglas, was worth less than two thousand gold coins per person?!
This was outrageous!
"Don't you know I just completed a punitive expedition against the Mad Shark King?" Leon said with a cold face.
"I even successfully defeated and killed the Mad Shark King, a peak Gold rank expert."
"And you... five Silver rank assassins dare to take a mission to assassinate me for a mere two thousand gold coins?"
Pointy Head replied, "It's precisely because we knew you defeated the Mad Shark King that I teamed up with my four brothers to kill you."
"Otherwise, a priest who isn't even at the peak Silver rank, along with a pink-haired girl who just reached the Silver rank and a few Bronze rank bloodline warriors, wouldn't have required so many of us to work together."
"Pink-haired... girl!" Alicia's hair practically stood on end when she heard Pointy Head's nickname for her.
She hadn't even finished adjusting to her hair turning from black to pink. Being called that reminded her of the experience of waking up to find her hair color changed against her will, and her face instantly filled with rage.
"It's fine, the pink hair looks good too."
Leon rubbed Alicia's head a few times to comfort her, then looked up at Pointy Head.
"So it really is just the five of you, Silver rank bloodline warriors. I thought some Gold rank figure might show up to give my Divine Arts a good level-up..."
Knowing there were no other experts hidden behind these five, Leon's interest vanished instantly.
"If it's just you, then just die."
As his voice fell, Leon's mental power surged like a tide, manifesting a massive silver-white longbow behind him.
Behind the longbow, two arms crackling with thunder and lightning emerged—one holding the bow, the other pulling the string.
In the next instant, a glowing Hammer of Sacred Light lit up on the longbow. Under the charging power of the Hand of Thunder, it boomed toward Pointy Head!
"Move!"
Pointy Head wasn't idle either. The moment Leon manifested the Radiance Longbow, he gave the order and led the other four in a charge toward Leon.
Pointy Head gripped the handle of his bathtub-sized hammer, and powerful Battle Qi flared up around him.
Facing the Hammer of Sacred Light shot from the Radiance Longbow, Pointy Head had no intention of dodging. Instead, he grinned and met it with disdain.
"Such a small hammer is but a single strike's worth of an opponent before my fire-steel giant hammer!"
Pointy Head wrapped his Battle Qi around the fire-steel giant hammer and swung it down with fury, meeting the flying Hammer of Sacred Light head-on—
Clang!
The sound of metal clashing exploded in the air with a sharp, ear-piercing hum, making Zachary's and all the Falcon warriors' heads ring, leaving them in a temporary state of deafness.
A terrifying shockwave erupted from the point of contact between the two hammers, sending earth and stones flying and dust swirling!
The surrounding magic-mutated wheat was battered as if by a gale, flattened against the ground by the shockwave like they were kneeling in worship.
As the dust partially cleared, a two-meter-deep pit was revealed.
Pointy Head stood in the center of the pit, horrified. He hadn't expected that a hammer which didn't look aerodynamic at all could burst forth with such terrifying power.
However, on the surface, he gritted his teeth and used his Battle Qi to force his trembling hands to be still. He grinned. "Ha! Hahaha! A small hammer! Is that all?!"
Before he could finish, the small hammer that he had barely intercepted with his fire-steel hammer—which had lost its momentum—suddenly ignited with a blue arc of lightning.
In Pointy Head's wide-eyed gaze, a Hand of Thunder suddenly manifested from the void and grabbed the handle of the hammer.
Then.
Under the control of the Hand of Thunder, the hammerhead, crackling with blue lightning, suddenly rose and pointed at Pointy Head.
It was as if it were saying:
"Are you ready?"
"The linkage between your Hand of Divine Art and Uncle Hammer of Sacred Light is about to start kicking in."
Rate on N.U.
