Knight: Becoming King of the World

Mace Hoyland nodded blankly. He knew very little about the world of the nobility, as he hadn’t been raised from a young age to inherit the title of Count.

Mace only knew that nobles needed to maintain their dignity, so he couldn’t understand why Fass and the others would throw matches.

Fass stabbed another Gnoll to death, but unfortunately, the spearhead got stuck in its body. Fass had no choice but to abandon the long spear and retreat behind the Shield Array. 𝘧𝓇𝑒𝑒𝑤ℯ𝑏𝓃𝘰𝑣ℯ𝘭.𝘤ℴ𝘮

"Let me put it this way: of all my seniors, there isn’t a single one who hasn’t thrown a match. Some of them got such a bad reputation for it among the Free People in Baltahan that they just ran off to Tiyaer to pull their scams there."

Fass raised his shield and said, "Stop thinking about useless things. Follow Henry, break through the Half-Beastmen’s formation, tear open the left flank, and rendezvous with the Seventh and Eleventh Legions!"

By now, the serfs had sacrificed their lives to tear open a gap. The Skilled Spearmen set their long spears, effortlessly creating a lethal clear zone with the sheer volume of their weapons.

Any Gnolls or Kobolds who tried to push forward would have to bat aside the spears or be stabbed and pierced through, especially since this zone was formed by the layered spears of four to six men deep.

Once all the elite troops were gathered, they instantly broke through the Half-Beastman line and began a bloody slaughter.

Sunlight pierced through the sparse clouds, shining down on the Tianyin Plains. Several arrows from the Fox People were sticking out of Henry’s armor, and his warhammer glinted coldly in the sun.

"Caladia!!" he roared, his voice echoing across the left flank of the battlefield.

"Kill!"

Sparked by Henry’s cry, the human soldiers let out a collective war cry, and the Half-Beastmen began to stir uneasily.

They couldn’t understand the human tongue, but they had just witnessed how ferocious this human was and how elite his army was. A sliver of fear crept into their hearts.

Once fear takes hold in the face of an enemy, it is the beginning of defeat.

Henry’s warhammer was long gone, lost somewhere on the battlefield. Now, he wielded a steel blade in each hand, every swing kicking up a spray of blood.

"The Half-Beastmen are routing!"

Henry faintly heard Bain’s shout. He casually cut down a terrified Kobold and withdrew from the battlefield under the cover of the Supervision Team.

Henry vaulted onto his horse and switched to his Yanyue Saber. The rear of the Half-Beastman forces on the left flank had begun to rout; Bain’s Cavalry had already scattered them.

"For our glory! For Caladia’s fortune! Warriors! Charge!"

Seeing his soldiers fighting with adrenalized fury, exhausting every last bit of their strength, Henry felt reassured. He wheeled his horse around and, with Bain, led the Cavalry deep into the Half-Beastman rear to link up with the Seventh and Eleventh Legions.

"My lord, seven Centaurs and twenty-three Fox People. How about that? I didn’t disappoint, did I?"

Henry looked at Bain, who wore an expression that was practically begging for praise, and chuckled. "You didn’t disappoint. You’re a qualified Knight now, though you’re still a ways off from my classmates."

’Never mind the others, Fass himself charged into the infantry meat grinder and killed at least fifty Half-Beastmen.’

Just then, a dense, dark mass of Elite Armored Cavalry, carrying the Empire’s royal banner, appeared in the distance.

A smile spread across Henry’s face. The proactive attack by the Eighth and Ninth Legions had drawn away more than half of the Half-Beastman main force. The two legions had finally seized their chance to break through the heavy encirclement!

"Look, it’s the warriors of the Eleventh Legion!" Bain shouted, his voice filled with excitement.

Henry led his troops forward to meet them. He asked the officer of the approaching unit, "What’s the situation?"

"Sir, we’ve broken through the Half-Beastman lines! Those Half-Beastmen have already withdrawn—the ones here have been abandoned by their own! The Legion’s main infantry force is right behind us!"

"Good! Let’s encircle these Half-Beastmen and give them a taste of how sharp our Empire’s blades are!"

’It was a pity to let thirty or forty thousand Half-Beastmen escape,’ Henry thought, ’but being able to trap their main force made it well worth it.’

’The Half-Beastmen wouldn’t be able to recover from this for at least a decade. As for the Empire ten years from now... Henry didn’t dare to imagine how strong its border forces would become.’

About ten minutes later, the two forces quickly merged, forming a powerful combat group.

Starting from the left flank, they gradually pushed toward the center of the Half-Beastman army, forming a huge encirclement.

The Legion was unstoppable!

The Half-Beastman forces on the left flank, already at a disadvantage, immediately collapsed and surrendered upon the arrival of the human reinforcements. They would rather be sent to the mines than die here for nothing, their heads ending up as decorations for these nobles.

That’s how war is. Once one part of the line breaks, it triggers an avalanche.

When one side’s morale shatters, you can even see serfs chasing down Gnolls!

It was a glorious victory!

When the fifty-thousand-plus men of Henry’s left-flank army and their reinforcements—arrayed in over forty large, deep formations—pressed onto the main battlefield, the fight was already over.

The Half-Beastman army’s defeat was a total landslide!

War isn’t a game where one side has to be completely wiped out for it to end. When one side is at a clear disadvantage and its elite forces are demoralized, surrender is the normal course of action.

Armies that would fight to the last man without retreating are so few you could count them on one hand.

By the time the battle ended, the sun had set. The only sounds on the battlefield were the cheers of the Imperial soldiers and the agonized wails of the Half-Beastmen.

Henry sat on his horse, looking out over the plain covered in a thick layer of corpses, his heart as calm as still water.

This victory would be recorded in the annals of Caladia, remembered by all future generations.

"Henry, we’ve actually been fighting all afternoon. My god, I feel like I can’t even control my own chest and right arm anymore. I need to rest."

Henry gave a tired smile. Looking at Fass, who was practically draped over his horse, he said, "To be honest, I need to rest too. No one can fight in close quarters for four hours and still be sharp."

Fass nodded, gazing at the battlefield where the stench of blood was so thick it was nauseating. It was hard to fathom the sheer scale of death a single battle could cause.

"I’ve already sent Mace, my Attendant, your Attendant, and our Quartermaster to clean up the battlefield and secure the spoils.

We’re going to make a fortune this time. When I get back, I plan on renovating my stronghold and building it into an Earl’s Mansion, just like Count John’s.

The profits from this one battle are higher than throwing ten matches."

Henry pulled the arrows from his armor and casually tossed them aside, not too bothered by the damage. He turned his horse and began to ride slowly toward the rear with Fass.

"True. I remember our senior, Berdy Neville, was the one who threw the most matches. He leveraged his reputation as the three-time consecutive tournament champion in the Royal Capital and started throwing matches as soon as he got to Zeondika.

He swindled the commoners of four or five major cities. If the Dean hadn’t written him a letter, I bet he would’ve scammed his way all the way to the desert."

’Only the scions of noble families without titles or fiefs, and the Free People, actually cared about the honor of the tournaments.’

’They were just tools for making money off degenerate commoner gamblers. The only one that held any real prestige was the Royal Capital’s tournament.’

Fass laughed heartily. "Haha, so you see, never gamble!"