Chapter 151: Elite Armored Squad

Holding a Grade 2 spear in his hand, David slowly walked backward toward the rear, where a sharp corner stood. He positioned himself right at the turn and readied his weapon for a thrust.

On this side, a group of six armored warriors moving at high speed had already reached the corner.

From the opposite direction, about ten other armored warriors were approaching at a slightly slower pace.

Clearly, these two batches of warriors had synchronized their timing, though the discrepancy in speed likely stemmed from a gap in individual strength.

"Furness, there is an ambush on my side. Watch yourself over there!" David issued a warning to Furness while preparing for battle.

"David, are you alright? I lost the target on my end. Send me your coordinates, and I'll be right there!" Furness cried out anxiously over the comms channel.

"I'm fine. We'll talk later; I have to fight!" David transmitted his location and immediately disconnected the channel.

"David! David!" Furness shouted loudly, but there was no response. He hurriedly checked David's location and found that it was quite far from him—it would take at least a dozen minutes to get there.

This was a deliberate arrangement by the Blade of Freedom mercenary group. They knew Furness's identity, but they had no idea who David was.

Since the Transcendental Garon had not yet formally accepted David as a disciple or held a public ceremony to announce it to all factions, the Blade of Freedom dared to harbor thoughts of retaliating against David.

Otherwise, given David's status as a disciple of the Transcendental Garon, no one within the sphere of influence of Naan City would dare to openly attack him.

Even if the Blade of Freedom wanted to strike at David, they would not have summoned so many allies, because once the news of an assault on Garon's disciple leaked, governmental forces would unleash a ferocious retaliation upon the mercenary group.

Furthermore, the wrath of a Transcendental was not something easily withstood.

Furness had no idea who was attacking David at that moment; had he known, he could have directly confronted the responsible faction.

David had disconnected the comms instantly because the enemy had arrived.

The shadow servant stood just around the corner, watching six armored warriors sprint toward his position.

Even while running, they maintained a combat formation. Among the six warriors, as many as two wielded Grade 2 weapons.

"Are the Blade of Freedom mercenaries truly this wealthy?" David could not help marveling inwardly.

Little did he know that precisely because David had used a Grade 2 spear earlier, Horatio had borrowed a Grade 2 heavy shield to complement the Grade 2 heavy axe wielded by the leader of this combat squad.

To ensure absolute success, Horatio had accounted for every conceivable possibility.

He was indeed a capable man, managing to assemble every available ounce of force within a very short span of time.

This included the elite combat squad stationed within the underground network of Naan City to protect the interests of the Blade of Freedom, as well as a temporary unit formed by ordinary Blade of Freedom mercenaries and their allies, all converging on David from two directions.

Naturally, the two fleeing warriors had been completely frightened out of their wits and had never actually crossed paths with these reinforcements, leaving the newcomers entirely unaware of David's prowess as a spear master.

The shadow servant gauged the distance. The very instant the lead elite warrior poked his head around the corner, David stepped forward, his spear shooting out like lightning.

Thanks to the prolonged buildup of momentum, this thrust surpassed any strike he had ever delivered before.

At the vanguard was a warhammer warrior who held a Grade 1 warhammer horizontally across his chest, serving as the spearhead of the formation.

David's attack was so abrupt that the warrior had no time to prepare. However, his extensive combat experience prompted him to lean his body back as far as possible, knowing that right behind him stood his most reliable comrade-in-fact.

Unfortunately, although the warhammer warrior's reaction was correct, the mere instant David's spear locked onto him caused his body to stall involuntarily.

David's expression remained unchanged. His Grade 2 spear pierced straight through the warhammer warrior's chest. This time, instead of withdrawing the weapon, he used it to hoist the dead warrior's body and hurled it toward the armored warrior following closely behind on the left—the one wielding a Grade 2 heavy axe.

Simultaneously, the slumber rune he had long since inscribed within his soul was hurled toward the weakest presence in the rear: the spear-wielding warrior trailing at the very back.

Having used it previously, David had discovered that his mental slumber technique was not quite as overwhelmingly powerful as he had once imagined.

Although his mental application techniques had inherited the legacy of the brain-controlling worm, reaching a mastery level of 99 in mental slumber, the vast disparity in pure mental capacity meant the intensity of this mental assault fell countless times short of a genuine brain-controlling worm.

Therefore, he had targeted the weakest warrior for this strike. The combat strength of this elite squad far exceeded his expectations; under the shadow servant's perception, there were at least two peak-level armored warriors, while the rest were all intermediate-level and above.

David's chain of attacks had not yet ended. From within the sapling in his soul fortress, a mental arrow was simultaneously discharged.

Like the slumber rune, the mental arrow was invisible, formless, and silent as it struck the heavy-axe warrior on the far right.

The heavy-axe warrior shuddered violently. It felt as though a long sword had stabbed directly into his soul and twisted fiercely, causing him to instantly lose control of his body.

All of this happened in the blink of an eye. Despite being an elite squad of six, they had been ambushed by a single person in the span of a single breath.

Ordinarily, when two parties could not see each other, such a targeted ambush should have been impossible.

Furthermore, for a single armored warrior to charge at an elite squad of six was tantamount to suicide.

Yet David's offensive methods were endlessly versatile: first, he killed the front-most warhammer warrior with a single blow; then, he used the corpse to shield himself from the squad's strongest wielder of a Grade 2 heavy axe; next, he disrupted the rear-guard spearman with the slumber rune; and finally, he struck the right-side heavy axe warrior with a mental arrow.

Out of the entire elite squad, only two warriors remained completely unaffected: one was the heavy shield warrior wielding a Grade 2 spear—wait, a Grade 2 shield—and the other was the second warhammer warrior directly behind him.

The configuration of the elite squad was well-rounded: one heavy shield warrior, one spearman, two warhammer warriors, and two heavy axe warriors.

However, the two unaffected warriors were momentarily unable to retaliate against David's sudden assault. Because the heavy shield warrior possessed the lowest direct offensive capability, his immediate priority was not to charge David with his Grade 2 heavy shield.

Instead, the heavy shield warrior chose to protect the heavy axe warrior whose soul had just been battered by the mental arrow, using his Grade 2 heavy shield to shelter the completely limp body.

The remaining unaffected warhammer warrior had the heavy shield and heavy axe warriors blocking his path, requiring a few moments to maneuver around them before he could attack David.

David did not press his advantage rashly. He stepped back two paces, widening the distance once more.

"Number Two, how is Number Five?" the warrior wielding the Grade 2 heavy axe asked in a deep voice over the squad comms channel.

The brief chaos within the elite squad had forced him to hold off on attacking. Number Four, the warhammer warrior, was already dead, and Number Five, the heavy axe warrior, was in an unknown state of life or death. David's methods had made him extremely wary.

"Captain, Number Five's exoskeleton armor reports that his consciousness is out of control, but it's stabilizing. It will take about a minute!" the heavy shield warrior, designated as Number Two, replied in a low voice through the channel.

"What kind of method was used to strike Number Five? Can you identify it?" The squad captain was profoundly shaken by David's silent and invisible means of attack; it even surpassed David's terrifying mastery of the spear.

"I've never seen this type of attack before. It feels a bit like a mental assault," Number Two replied uncertainly.

Even as he spoke, Number Two kept a cautious grip on his Grade 2 heavy shield, guarding against another sudden strike from David.

To their surprise, David did not immediately press the attack. Instead, he simply stood there watching them.

Naturally, David would not squander an opportunity for no reason; he was waiting—waiting for a chance to deliver a fatal blow.

Although his initial, flawless ambush had yielded the most ideal results, the strength of the opposing elite squad could not be underestimated, as both warriors wielding Grade 2 weapons were peak-grade experts.

In a one-on-one scenario, David could definitely suppress either of them relying on his master-level spear techniques, and might even find a way to kill them.

Yet in a one-versus-many situation, he had no confidence in his ability to withstand the coordinated assault of this entire elite squad.

A brief hush settled over the battlefield. Both sides maintained a standoff, neither daring to strike first.