Chapter 178: The Mischievous Child (Part 4)

When all the mastiffmen surrounding them were killed, the figure finally paused next to him, and he could finally see clearly. It was a catwoman, taller than an adult wolfman, covered in blood, yet possessing an indescribable charm for the young wolfmen.

“Meow~ Don’t get in the way here!” Liuli, discontented, tapped on his head with her paw, just as Wu Qingsong often did to her, and said loudly.

The force of the magic shield was triggered by this tap, causing ripples around Daryl’s head, which startled him, but this made him even more defiant, “Don’t look down on people!”

“Meow~ If you want to die, go ahead!” 

Liuli, now transformed, lacked a good temper and patience. Seeing that a magical artifact protected Daryl, she lost any intention to protect him. She picked up a two-handed greatsword left on the ground, leaped high, and charged directly toward the main force of the raiding brigade in the valley.

“Wait for me!” Daryl hurriedly called out.

But he could only see the formation of the raiding brigade being swept through like a tornado, suddenly thrown into complete disarray.

“Daryl!” Ram’s voice came from afar.

He looked up and saw Ram and Bernar gasping as they ran toward him. Below them in the valley, that half-elf, who he thought relied entirely on cunning tricks and deceit, and his soldiers were engaged in combat with the vanguard of the raiding brigade. Not far ahead of them, a scene of bloodshed surrounded the hybrid dogwoman, who seemed like a maid. Several unidentified objects were whirling around her, recklessly reaping lives. All around her, the raiders were crying out in panic, fleeing in all directions.

‘Is this… is this a dream?’

“Are you hurt?” Ram finally reached him, grabbed him, and asked repeatedly, checking him over.

“I’m fine,” Daryl said discontentedly. “I’m not a child anymore! I’ll have you know, I personally killed…”

At that moment, a stick viciously struck him but was blocked by the magic shield, knocking Bernar’s staff out of his hands instead.

“Uncle Bernar?” Ram and Daryl both jumped in surprise, seeing Bernar’s furious expression, a rarity for them to witness.

“You’re not a child? You killed an enemy, did you? Why don’t you look at your friends?” the old badger shouted as he grabbed Daryl and dragged him to the body of a young wolfboy pinned dead on the hillside with a sword. “Tell them! Speak to them! They died believing in you, following you! Do you think you are without guilt?”

Facing the bodies of his friends, with whom he had spent day and night, Daryl’s hands trembled slightly. 

“We did it to save the villagers! It’s our duty!”

Bernar delivered a hard slap, triggering the magical shield again. His hand bled from the impact, but he did not stop, continuously striking. Daryl, unwilling to deactivate the magical shield and unable to watch Bernar’s hand continue to smash against it, ran behind Ram.

“Take a good look at them,” Bernar yelled. “They could have been great warriors, but they died here meaninglessly because of your recklessness. They could have married, had children, and passed on their lineage. But now? They are dead because of your arrogance. Saving the villagers? Did they need your rescue? What have you actually achieved other than sending yourselves to death?”

The raiders’ screams echoed through the valley. 

In front of Ling and Liuli, these mastiff soldiers were utterly ineffective. Particularly Liuli, with a two-handed sword in her hands, turned into a veritable flesh-reaping machine. Her movements were exceedingly swift.

Although Ling was also unstoppable, raiders could at least attempt to run from her presence. However, facing Liuli, death was the only outcome for those she targeted.

In despair, some raiders roared and charged at Wu Qingsong and his companions. Compared to Ling and Liuli, these seven seemed like more reasonable opponents to the mastiffmen. But it was only upon confronting them that they realized Wu Qingsong was also an extremely efficient butcher.

Soldiers facing him always suddenly screamed, clutching their heads to expose weaknesses, and what followed was them being stabbed to death by the houndmen around him, or by him himself.

Wu Qingsong had only just realized that he could attack his enemies in this manner. Initially, he used soul shards he had purified and prepared in advance, but he soon discovered that forcibly merging unpurified soul shards into the enemies’ bodies brought about much more intense pain and backlash. The ordinary mastiff soldiers simply couldn’t withstand such attacks, and after they were killed, their soul shards became a new source of weapons.

In just a few minutes, a large number of the mastiffmen had been killed, and it was clear to anyone that their defeat was only a matter of time.

Daryl’s face turned pale.

They had of course run out upon hearing the news of the enemy attack, and with Bernar not around, no one could control them, especially since they hadn’t told anyone why they had run out.

In their view, with most of the people led away by Nina, relying on just a few individuals like Ram, Bernar, and Wu Qingsong to stop more than a hundred raiders seemed impossible. Although their strength was weak, they fully believed they could play a role.

Even if they couldn’t eliminate the raiders group, they could at least delay their actions, divert them, and give the villagers more time to escape.

Sacrifice was, of course, something they had anticipated, but these young men were full of fervor and not afraid to sacrifice themselves. Most of their fathers and brothers were heroes who had died fighting against the empire. And as descendants of heroes, how could they be afraid of sacrifice?

So they quickly took another shortcut to a necessary path of the raiders brigade and under Daryl’s command, swiftly set up a rockfall trap. Their plan was to first use bows and arrows to harass and draw the enemy’s attention, then use the rockfall trap to cause casualties, and finally lead the enemy in the opposite direction of the villagers’ escape route. With their familiarity with the surrounding environment, they fully believed that such a task would not be a big problem for them.

However, they hadn’t anticipated the elite level of the raiders brigade, which handled their volley of arrows and subsequent rockfall trap without disarray or significant casualties. Moreover, their retreat wasn’t as swift as they had imagined, especially under the enemy’s archery harassment and pursuit, causing many of their friends to panic and fail to act according to the plan they had discussed earlier.

Still, Daryl had thought they had achieved their goal. At the very least, the actions of the raider had been delayed, giving the villagers more time to escape.

But… faced with the reality of Wu Qingsong’s group overwhelmingly slaughtering the raiders, his beliefs completely collapsed.

Was everything they had done truly meaningless, even disruptive?

Were these dead and injured friends really sent to die for nothing?

A strong sense of loss and defeat suddenly overwhelmed the young man, making his nose feel sour. But he clenched his teeth tightly, refusing to let the tears come.