Chapter 56 - Paris (6)
"Reimond!" Nigelle's almost hysterical cry fell after time seemed to stop for a moment.
Blinded by rage, he unleashed arrow after arrow toward Leonel. In his anger, his arrows violently expanded, becoming roaring flood dragons that snaked through the skies.
Leonel didn't foolishly meet these strikes head-on. Clearly, Nigelle had forgotten about the overall situation when he attacked, lost in his emotions just now.
With swift movements, Leonel took several winding steps, dodging the powerful arrows with ease. Another person wouldn't be able to dodge the attacks such a great archer had launched from now even 30 meters away, but Leonel was different. He wasn't judging the trajectories of the arrows while they were in the air, he had already calculated where they would land the instant Nigelle released his bowstring.
The moment Leonel passed by the dragonic rain of arrows, a chorus of muffled booms and cries of pain sounded. He didn't need to look back to know that Nigelle's rash actions had affected Joan's men, even taking out two of them.
Leonel chose to trust Aina. If he could quickly take out a second one of them, then the two could focus on taking down Joan without worries. At this point, the normal soldiers hadn't even dared to try and take part in a battle of this caliber. So, Leonel felt that he could directly ignore them, at least for now.
Unfortunately, while he was on a tear toward Nigelle, the remnants of Reimond's knights stepped forward, their gazes red as they swung their weapons toward him. It was clear that they too cared for the man deeply.
There was a part of Leonel's heart that felt guilt. However, he could only push it down. He had already resolved himself to be part of this new world order. Killing and being the root cause of the pain of others was something he couldn't avoid. As long as he had a clear conscience toward his actions, he would continue to move forward.
Leonel's gaze grew firm, holding his left arm as tightly against his body as he could, his spear snaked forward once more. Though he didn't use his Force, the power and speed behind his strikes wasn't something these normal human men could deal with. He was too fast, too agile, too strong.
His gaze flickered toward the distance and toward Nigelle's paling visage. It was clear that that last attack had taken a lot out of him.
The sound of spurting blood was almost akin to the gushing water of a pressurized hose. In the blink of an eye, Leonel had taken down three more, using the opening it created to shoot off toward Nigelle.
Joan obviously didn't want such a thing to happen, but she didn't dare have her men turn their backs toward Aina who was currently holding eight of them back all on her own. The main issue was that as an archer, Nigelle had to be at a distance and was far from them from the very beginning. With them taking the vanguard and blocking the way, they had never considered the fact that he could ever be in danger.
"Form up!" Nigelle roared.
Regardless, there were still hundreds of Englishmen between Leonel and him. This was more than enough to allow him to recover. He realized he had been too rash just now, even being the reason two of Joan's eight knights had fallen, a number that would have been greater if not for Joan's action, even more of them would have been wiped out.
The Englishmen shook in fear at this command. It was clearly just throwing away their lives to get involved in a war between gods, but they didn't dare disobey. What would happen to them if they enraged this god?
Leonel's brow furrowed, if he really had to go through so many, not only would it defeat the purpose of why he chose to involve himself so early on, it would also give that archer far too much time.
His gaze flickered as he noticed a piece of the inner gate Aina had blasted apart with a kick earlier.
Without hesitation, he flicked the piece upward with a kick before snaking his spear forward in a familiar motion and allowing the broken piece of wood to fly forward and into the defensive line of Englishmen.
The English knights screamed out in terror and dodged to the sides, not daring to meet this attack head-on. Many even closed their eyes and fell to their knees in prayer, knowing they didn't have enough time to move out of the way.
By the time those knights realized that something was wrong, a strong wind had blown by them and Leonel had already left them behind.
Nigelle watched on in shock. Even when Leonel had appeared upon his archery tower and sliced his head from his neck, the grievance was clear in his eyes. He had really died due to such a petty trick.
It was simply impossible for Leonel to draw a Force Art so quickly. Force Arts needed a steady hand and precise movements. It was impossible to draw one on a plank of wood that was kicked up into the air. However, Leonel didn't need to. He just needed the English to believe he could.
Leonel didn't pause for even a moment. Taking advantage of the wooden tower he stood in, he shot his spear downward and quickly etched out several Force Arts.
He didn't wait before jumping down, the tower behind him combusting into a meteoric rain of fire that forced the English to run in all directions. They didn't even have the chance to believe that maybe Leonel couldn't create those heaven defying fireballs any longer before he directly cut off that line of thought.
'I'm reaching my limit.' Leonel thought, his jaw clenched tightly as he took advantage of the situation to rush back toward Aina.
Drawing Force Art needed Force too. It was just that the amount was minuscule comparatively speaking, if your control was good, that is. With his obscenely high spirit stat, practically no one in the same range of abilities had better Force control than Leonel. This was why he could still draw them despite the situation of his left arm.
However, even if it was a small amount, it was still an amount. If he tapped into his reserves anymore, he wouldn't have the strength he needed to suppress the chains any longer.
Leonel didn't realize at this moment that the most dangerous of them hadn't been Reimond at all.