Chapter 1046: Act 218 – Reinforcements Arrive
Why was it the Holy Sword Amber?
Brendel of course could not possibly forget this sword, the only holy sword players had a chance to encounter in the game, but how could Odrefice be Amber?
His thoughts were cut off there, because Bradley’s attack had already arrived, the wielder of the sword Bradley was known as the Flame Saint within the Temple, and this title was certainly not something anyone could obtain easily. At the very least, it indicated that the holder had mastered an extremely advanced level of fire-based elements.
Bradley was exactly like that, at the age of thirty, he became famous in one battle, after becoming a Temple Knight he was directly selected by the previous Great Throne as a candidate for the Flame Knight, but he did not take the path of the Flame Knight. Instead, he climbed his way from a priest, to a bishop, all the way to the highest echelons of power within the Temple. Varla personally appointed him as the next holder of the Flame Blade, a position equivalent to the servant of the Flame King, holding the highest honor.
Since he controlled the fire element, the same highest-level element as Gilt, rumors spread among the empire people about how Bradley was the successor of the Flame King, and that the Flame Blade Odrefice would one day reappear in the empire in his hands.
However, decades later, this prophecy had not come true. Ironically, Bradley was the one who witnessed the rebirth of Odrefice – just not in his hands.
If it were fifty years earlier, perhaps he would have been enraged by not being chosen by the path of Golden Flame, but after undergoing half a century of trials and tribulations, as someone who had been in the upper echelons of power for a long time, his faith in the path of Golden Flame was unshakable and would not easily falter.
What is faith? Faith is persistence.
This persistence could even be stubbornness, but it would never be weakness.
Bradley was absolutely a stubborn person.
Even his sword was called ‘Resolve’, it was said that it had once belonged to one of the early Flame Knights, being about one and a half arm lengths in length, it could be single-handed or double-handedly wielded. When attacking, it was as resolute as its name, forging ahead without hesitation.
The long sword was accompanied by fractal flames when it swept towards Brendel, even before it reached him, Brendel could feel a scorching heat rush towards him. This was the power from the elemental plane that consumed everything, an extreme realm ability.
But the power of the rules was instantly weakened to below rule’s pinnacle by the Lonia’s Rift, the high temperature of the flames seemed to become tolerable, let alone the fact that Brendel was holding the holy fire element sword Odrefice, a true fire-based holy sword.
He swung Odrefice once, ‘clang – ‘, the two swords collided in the darkness again, the sparks scattered like flying firebirds into the forest, immediately igniting the bushes and tree canopies.
After one exchange, the forest was already engulfed in flames, the royal guards entering the forest screamed and fled in all directions. The numerous Flame Knights in the forest and their colleagues who had come to help all assumed they could stay to assist, as they were the ones favored by fire, how could they, unlike those rabble, be afraid of such an environment?
But ideals were often far from reality, and as soon as the knights approach those burning flames, they immediately changed color, realizing that the fire burning in the forest wasn’t common flame, it was elemental flame, the power of the parched hell Babatal.
This kind of power was even higher than the flame summoned by elemental wizards, let alone could the Flame Knights withstand the magical flames easily. The Flame Blessing could allow them to resist, at most, the flames of the mundane world.
Not only them, even Chael, Andrigraphis, and Medephis in the forest had to be forced to retreat farther, a full-force combat of the extreme realm was simply something they couldn’t interfere with.
The Flame Knights stood far outside the forest, their expressions somewhat complex as they watched the young man battling Bradley. Regardless of whether he won or lost, but at least in this moment, he could be considered the youngest extreme realm master in Vaunte.
A twenty-something grand swordsaint.
And the other one wasn’t the heir of some top noble family from a great empire either. He was, after all, the descendant of the grand swordsaint Darus, but everyone knew that this young man had actually not received much from that Earth Swordsaint.
Perhaps at most, he had inherited the excellent bloodline of that family.
“Could he possibly defeat the sword-bearer,”
For some reason, at this moment, everyone’s hearts suddenly arose with such a preposterous thought.
To the outsider, Brendel’s current state was definitely not good.
Though he had warded off Bradley’s sword, the physical attack was deflected, but the fire power that remained after being weakened still penetrated the aura of conflict’s defense, heavily landing on his chest. After Lonia’s Rift weakened the last part of the attack, the remaining flame still managed to burn his coat completely.
Brendel grunted, the Earl’s coat which had already been pierced into a rag outfit by the Flawless Spear finally met its end, exposing the golden gray armor and the close-fitted battle attire underneath.
But in fact, he hadn’t sustained much injury from this blow, at most some heat burns, this was mainly due to the defense of the temple knights being absurd, plus the ancient artifact Lonia’s Rift being up to the task.
Brendel took a quick glance at his status panel, seeing that it was still good, and immediately took a step forward, switching from one-handed to two-handed sword handling, the holy sword Odrefice that had been struck aside by ‘Resolve’ spun half a circle in the air, naturally chopping down towards Bradley.
Bradley had only made one mistake here, that was, though Brendel at this moment only had the strength of the high peak rule, his actual strength in a head-on battle was not weaker than him.
Therefore, after one strike, he wrongly estimated Brendel’s ability to counterattack.
When the golden flame trailed sword approached Bradley, this flame swordsaint suddenly realized his mistake, but as a seasoned old swordsaint, he immediately took a half-step back and raised his sword to block.
“An opening – !”
Brendel’s thoughts were as swift as lightning, a determined light instantly flashed in his eyes.
And the fully concentrated flame swordsaint Bradley just happened to capture this brief flash, his heart couldn’t help but stir with overwhelming waves. As a seasoned warrior, he of course understood what that flash meant.
That was the decisiveness for an opportunity –
In Vaunte, in the duel of swordsmen, the gap in personal qualities and realm strength often determined everything when under the Gold rank, but after the visualization of elements, the gap in both sides’ swordsmanship would rise to a very high level.
And the title of swordsaint, came from exactly this reason.
But if one were to ask what determined the victory between the top swordsaints or even the extreme swordsaints, some would say psychological quality, state of the field, or even momentum, these seemingly vague elements.
But as a true battle-hardened old swordsage, as one of the few in Vaunte who could reach the edge of the extreme realm, Bradley understood that all these factors could be summed up in one sentence:
Experience.
In fact, very few people realized that Brendel’s greatest reliance wasn’t his superb swordsmanship, nor was it his disheartening strength at his age, but the game’s experience of hundreds of years in this world, countless battles, numerous brushes with death, the accumulated lessons from countless people, turned into an instinct-like formidable combat experience.
Or combat intuition.
In the life-and-death moments of combat, which decisions are wrong and which are right can mean the difference between being alive or not before the next strike.
This is precisely why many beginners often find that experiences gained on the brink of life and death are invaluable, but how many people could have such experiences? And those who are more likely to have such experiences are often those who are easier to become a cold corpse lying on the ground.
But Brendel was different.
To this world, his experience was like that of a monster, even for old swordsaints like Bradley, realistically speaking, unless it was a difference in realm, the others would not even be considered in his eyes.
‘Because of the scenery I’ve seen, it’s something you’ve never even imagined’
This was why Bradley was so shocked, because in such a young swordsaint, he saw the decisiveness that was only possible in the most experienced warriors.
And at the moment he made a mistake, one sword from Brendel had already been unleashed.
Thorns of the crown fully opened, the soul crystal, including the zeal talent opened before, plus the unimaginably high force addition of the holy sword Odrefice, erupted completely at this moment.
Brendel’s long sword extended forward, even drawing the red fire falling from the sky towards the front, beneath the clouds a dazzling light, this single sword stroke generated the momentum of sweeping through thousands of troops.
The opportunity left for Bradley was essentially none, because Brendel had almost perfectly seized this mistake he made, he could only rely on his strength in the extreme realm to barely withstand this attack.
He almost didn’t hesitate to unfold the Plain of Extremes.
But just at this moment –
The ‘Resolve’ in this Flame Swordsaint’s hand snapped with a sound resembling a feeble wooden sword, effortlessly cut into two by the fragment version of the holy sword Odrefice in Brendel’s hand.
Bradley was greatly startled, though it wasn’t difficult to find praises in various records within the Temple about this holy sword used by the Flame King, even common words like “glorious”, “sacred”, “supreme” were used repeatedly in these recorded parchments. But what drove him crazy was that the monks of previous generations seemed to have coincidentally neglected to mention one fact – they had never described how sharp this sword was.
So at this moment, he had no choice but to prove personally, that a holy sword was definitely not just an empty praise.
A sword was fundamentally a deadly weapon, no matter how glorious the words used on it were, it couldn’t change its nature in current battle.
At this moment, Bradley’s heart was full of regrets, deciding that if he returned to the Temple, he would surely correct this ostentatious and unsubstantiated style.
But at this moment, he could only helplessly watch the unstoppable sword heavily cut onto the dense rules around him, which was almost the same as it cutting onto his body.
He flew off directly, drawing a golden red line in the forest, heavily colliding into the mountain behind.
But the force from Brendel’s sword had not fully erupted, a dazzling golden line extended forward with his sword tip as center, the entire mountain face in front was split into two.
Above the line, the mountain body and its vegetation were crumbled into dust.
Below the line, the neat cut covered an area of nearly a mile, smooth like a mirror.
At that moment, almost everyone fell into a long-lasting, speechless shock.
…
Bradley didn’t die, he even didn’t sustain severe injuries, but the few super realm experts remaining in the sky became somewhat restless.
Richard, Ruyer, Siban, and Willerk, they were originally prepared by the Silver Queen to deal with potential threats hidden in the dark, perhaps the Medephis and Sidney.
And the news from the East Meze battlefield indicated that this young man had under his command three extremely powerful beings that looked similar to Valkyries from appearance.
However, no matter what, four super realms against two super realms should be easy to handle, even adding a few Valkyries that were not yet at the supreme realm would still be more than sufficient.
As for the sword-bearer Bradley, he was specially chosen by the queen to deal with this young Earl, which Brendel didn’t miscalculate.
But no one expected that there was a problem right from the start of the plan.
Gray Saint Mephistopheles and the Saint Woman of the Lion Temple similar to Sidney hasn’t shown up yet, yet the Bradley who was originally thought to be overqualified suddenly lost to the young man.
Of course, perhaps who won or lost at this moment was still too early to say, but everyone could see that Brendel’s current strength was no lower than Bradley’s, and the latter not only lost his sword in that previous strike, but also received rather serious injuries. In this situation, to defeat this young Earl would definitely not be easy.
The top existences of the empire couldn’t help but glance at each other.
The question now facing them was, who should take the field?
They personally witnessed the previous battle in the sky, the strength displayed by Brendel might not be enough to crush the realm of the extreme, but it should be on par with the strongest among them, Reverse Tower Siban and Lion Sword Saint Richard.
And without a doubt, that gray swordsaint who could escape the combined attacks of two extreme realms at the peak of the rule a few years back, he probably wouldn’t be any weaker.
Not to mention that the Saint Woman said to be the strongest under the capital Vala.
At the moment, any one of them taking the field with Bradley could surely suppress Brendel, but the concern was, if Medephis and Sidney appeared later, would the remaining three still be a match for them?
After hesitating for a moment, Willerk still drew his sword.
The imperial gem in his heart knew clearly that among the remaining four people, his strength was the weakest, but the young man down below, while he could suppress Bradley, he absolutely wouldn’t be an opponent to two super realms working together, so whether the weakest or the strongest took the field wouldn’t make much of a difference.
Instead, leaving the stronger people behind when Medephis and Sidney show up would yield more chances of success.
But just as he drew his sword, a black, heavy sword point suddenly appeared without any warning in the void, as if cutting through space, followed by the unfolding of a grayish dimension.
At that moment, Willerk didn’t even react in time, helplessly allowing the sword reach right before his throat. If it weren’t for Lion Sword Saint Richard’s sudden intervention, who deflected the sword, he would have fallen prematurely in that instant.
Willerk was stunned for a moment before reacting, his face darkened as he looked at that direction.
Doubtlessly, he of course knew who had arrived, but what made him and everyone else sink a bit in their hearts was, the person’s strength was even higher than their imagination.
This was the strength of the middle super realm already—
In the intelligence, the person had just reached the supreme plain in the Faith’s Exchange a year ago, what an advancement speed this was?
Richard immediately retracted his sword and coldly opened his mouth,
“Long time no see, Mephistopheles.”
“Precisely.” A voice responded from the void: “So your opponent is me, Richard.”
“You want to save your student,” Richard sneered and laughed, “you can stop me, can you stop who else?”
But before he finished speaking, Willerk’s face had already changed dramatically, shouting out loud:
“Grand, Grand Throne?!”
…
(PS: This volume’s outline is finished, the name of the next volume is also decided. Actually, I sort of want to tidy up the protagonist’s data, but it’s a bit troublesome, who knows which chapter mentioned the protagonist’s attribute in the most recent chapter? Also, please continue to vote for the monthly ticket!)
