Lower Water Month.
March 29th
The demi-human troops, led by the Beast General Hector Vestil, began clearing the numerous undead from the battlefield.
The human side was located at the center of the battlefield, watching the demi-humans' every move vigilantly, like injured lions licking their wounds.
The bodies of 51 Holy Knights were quietly laid out before everyone, among which 10 bodies had already turned into undead and had to be killed again.
Enri sat with her knees hugged near the bodies.
The Verdant Witch and Kuro stood quietly to the side, and a female priest was kneeling opposite Enri, seemingly comforting her.
This female priest was the one Enri had given a handkerchief to earlier.
Minori came before an injured Holy Knight, raised his palm, and released a soft, holy light from his hand:
"Major Wound Healing"!
The Holy Knight's injuries began to recover, and his suppressed painful breathing gradually became smoother.
"Thank you."
The Holy Knight expressed his gratitude to Minori.
Minori nodded slightly, then walked towards another Holy Knight, continuing to repeatedly cast healing magic.
Casting a third-tier spell through "Experience Value Casting" required consuming 150,000 experience points each time, and his level finally dropped.
[Overall Level: 52Lv → 51Lv]
[Sword Saint: 7Lv → 6Lv]
[Experience Slot: 1 / 630000]
As the experience in the experience slot was emptied, only one point of experience would be retained with each level drop, meaning that using magic casually would cause a level drop.
As long as the experience consumed did not exceed the current depth of the experience slot, only 1 level would be lost; exceeding the current depth of the experience slot would cause a loss of 2 levels.
The subsequent level drops became rapid!
Every time Minori used a healing spell, his level immediately dropped by one.
[Overall Level: 51Lv → 50Lv]
[Sword Saint: 6Lv → 5Lv]
[Experience Slot: 1 / 560000]
[Overall Level: 46Lv → 45Lv]
[Sword Saint: 1Lv → 0Lv]
In just a moment.
Minori's level had already dropped from the previous 52 to 45, and the [Sword Saint] profession also disappeared from his stats panel.
"Thank you." The Holy Knight spoke gratefully to Minori beside him.
"You're welcome."
Minori responded softly and stood up, his face suddenly turning a little pale, and he took a step back.
"Are you alright, Leader Minori?"
"Do you need to rest?" The Holy Knight, seeing Minori's appearance, thought he had consumed too much magic power and asked nervously.
Currently, the entire Holy Knight Order felt goodwill towards "Free Will". This was not only because of the powerful Minori, but also because of Enri, an ordinary young girl, who bravely brought back their companions' bodies.
"I'm fine."
The paleness on Minori's face instantly faded, he stood firm, and waved his hand with a slight smile, indicating that he was alright.
What was that just now?
A hint of surprise flickered in Minori's eyes.
The consecutive rapid level drops just now clearly made him feel a brief weakness brought about by the disappearance of some kind of power in his body.
"It's not just weakness."
Minori slightly focused his mind, sensing his physical condition, feeling as if his life level had also decreased accordingly:
"My physical changes weren't that intense when leveling up, and I've dropped levels before, but it wasn't as noticeable as it is now."
"Could it be that after exceeding level 50, there's an invisible improvement in life level?"
That abnormal feeling just now.
It reminded Minori of the feeling when he first took on the special profession [Valkyrie].
"Captain!"
"Sister!"
An anxious voice came from not far away.
All members of the Holy Knight Order turned their heads to look, their eyes full of worry, yet they dared not leave their positions.
They needed to watch the demi-humans' movements!
Remedios was sitting on the ground with one leg crossed, her holy sword stuck in front of her, her well-defined face extremely pale, and her originally rosy lips had also become very white.
This was a sign of excessive blood loss!
"Drip!"
"Drip!"
Drops of red blood continuously flowed from the wound, dripping onto the ground along the grooves in her armor.
Several priests and Kelart, the chief priest, surrounded Remedios, continuously casting recovery magic.
However.
Although Remedios's complexion had slightly improved, there was no sign of the wound healing at all, and the blood continued to flow.
Massive blood loss!
It made Remedios's aura become increasingly weak. If the bleeding couldn't be stopped quickly, no matter how much healing magic was cast, it would not be effective.
"How could this happen!" Kelart was somewhat incredulous, and a panicked expression appeared on her usually calm face for the first time.
"Corrupted Sword—"
Remedios's pale lips parted slightly.
"What?" Kelart didn't hear clearly.
"Corrupted Sword · Crocodabal." Remedios spoke weakly.
"One of the Four Demonic Swords of the Thirteen Heroes' Black Knight, that 'Corrupted Sword' which has the ability to cause unhealable wounds."
Kelart's pupils contracted, her voice trembling.
If that was the case, then it explained why the healing magic had no effect on Remedios's injuries at all.
But Kelart looked at her sister's increasingly weak aura, her eyes turning red. She had never seen her sister look so weak.
Could she only watch helplessly as her sister died from excessive bleeding?
"Perhaps I have a way."
A calm voice came with the sound of footsteps.
Kelart quickly turned her head and looked over, her light blue eyes showing excitement, and she saw that it was Minori.
"Leader Minori, is what you said true? These are injuries caused by the 'Corrupted Sword'."
Kelart was somewhat doubtful yet hopeful.
"I can't be certain, but we can try."
Minori stepped forward and looked at Remedios, who could completely be described as battered and dying at this moment. He reached into the magic pouch at his waist and took out a potion:
"This is undiluted 'Regeneration Potion'. Drink it first."
Minori handed the potion to Remedios.
Remedios weakly opened her eyes, looked at the serious-faced Minori with black short hair in front of her, and turned her head away: "Don't."
The two had had several disagreements before, and each time Minori had acted indifferently, which made Remedios feel somewhat annoyed internally.
What truly angered her was Minori's attitude towards demi-humans.
Whether it was the female demi-human in the opposing team or his friendly interactions with Go Gin, a demi-human, Remedios found it displeasing.
He was an adventurer and a person from the Re-Estize Kingdom. She had no right to interfere with Minori's attitude towards demi-humans.
But—
The Holy Kingdom and the demi-humans had a century-long hatred.
Remedios disliked, even detested, people like Minori who were close to demi-humans from the bottom of her heart.
Now.
To let the other party save her, what was this!
"Sister."
Kelart didn't care about her sister's inner thoughts. Seeing her refuse, she grabbed the potion from Minori's hand, reached out, pinched Remedios's mouth open, and poured it all in.
"Cough, cough."
Remedios couldn't help but cough, saying angrily and weakly: "What are you—""—doing."
In the space of a few breaths.
The surrounding priests suddenly said with pleasant surprise: "It's working, the rate of blood flow has slowed down!"
Kelart could also notice this, but she wasn't overly surprised. Although the blood flow had decreased,
it hadn't completely stopped.
"One bottle of Regeneration Potion seems insufficient."
Minori observed Remedios's injuries for a few moments, thinking to himself: 'As expected, it's the power of a curse.'
"Your Excellency Kelart, if you don't mind, we need to remove Captain Remedios's armor."
Kelart nodded, without any hesitation: "No problem!"
With Kelart's signal, several chief priests quickly removed Remedios's Holy Knight armor despite the weak Remedios's resistance.
After wearing full body armor, Remedios wasn't wearing any complex clothing, but a pure white inner shirt and pants.
Her slender, fair neck and deeply sunken collarbone were visible.
The material of the clothes was somewhat smooth, looking like pajamas, but also slightly tight, similar to combat attire, with the prominent curve clearly visible.
Blood had stained the white inner shirt completely red, making it somewhat translucent, allowing a faint view of Remedios's taut skin from years of training.
"I'm going to gouge out your eyes!"
Remedios, sensing Minori's gaze, said angrily and fiercely.
She had never been looked at like this by a man!
"Don't overthink it."
Minori said calmly, his gaze moving away from the exaggerated curve and looking at the festering wound on her clothes:
"You're older than me."
"Besides, you're a Holy Knight. Repaying kindness with enmity is against the Holy Knight's code."
As he spoke.
Minori took out several more bottles of "Regeneration Potion", handed them to the priests nearby, and said softly: "Pour these onto these wounds, don't pour it all at once."
"While using the potion for healing, also use healing magic to dispel the negative energy on it."
"You—"
Remedios's eyes widened fiercely when she heard the term "older".
Minori ignored her and nodded slightly to Kelart: "There shouldn't be any problems now."
After speaking.
Minori turned and left.
The effect of the "Regeneration Potion" could provide some healing for injuries caused by curses. He had used this potion to heal Leinas's festering face before.
Although the result was a failure.
However, the root cause was not the healing potion, but the continuous influence of the [Cursed Knight] profession.
Remedios's injuries were simply curse damage. Without the replenishment of curse power, consuming the curse would allow for complete recovery.
"Oh my, oh my~"
"Even injuries caused by one of the Four Demonic Swords, the 'Corrupted Sword', can be treated. As expected of the person called the 'Black-Haired Genius Alchemist'."
Clementine hugged her arms across her chest, tilted her head, and said with a grin as she watched Minori walk over.
"Miss Clementine."
Minori looked at her: "You didn't have a single injury, yet you were entangled by an undead for so long."
"That couldn't be helped."
Clementine shrugged, her red eyes blinked, she reached for her waist, a short dagger appeared in her hand, and she played with the weapon, feigning a headache:
"What I'm good at is thrusting techniques. I can't exert my strength against monsters like skeletons."
"Is that so." Minori responded with a smile.
"That's right, that's right."
Clementine nodded, her fluffy golden hair swayed slightly, covering her eyes which were full of smiles.
Within the range of this battlefield.
Although the number of undead was large, they were quickly eliminated under the clearing of the equally numerous demi-humans.
Soon.
The demi-human troops regrouped and stopped and stationed themselves about a hundred meters away from the human troops, not approaching any further.
A moment later.
Minori, Kelart, Captain Nigun, and Go Gin, four people, met with the two demi-humans opposite them at the fifty-meter mark in between the human and demi-human sides.
These two demi-humans!
One was indeed the Beast General Hector Vestil, and the other looked not only more imposing but also more powerful, and under the sunlight, he had a dazzling seven-colored appearance.
The other party looked like a snake-bodied person among the demi-human species, but in reality, he wasn't. He was an extremely rare variant among demi-humans with two arms - a "Naga Raja"!
His appearance was similar to a Naga, but completely different.
To be precise!
This Naga Raja before them was a variant!
His entire body was covered in crystal-like scales, reflecting light as if wet, emitting dazzling seven-colored light.
He was none other than one of the Ten Demi-Human Leaders, the strongest demi-human - "Rainbow Scales" Rokesh .
Minori couldn't help but look at the other party a few more times, simply because the scales on his body were too special.
These scales, which emitted strange seven-colored light under the sunlight, were not only beautiful, but were said to possess hardness comparable to dragon scales and also high magic resistance.
This was also the first time Minori had seen this "Rainbow Scales" Rokesh .
The other party's appearance.
Made him highly suspect if he had the bloodline of the Rainbow Dragon Lord, one of the "True Dragon Lords".
Minori remembered that the Rainbow Dragon Lord seemed to be a dragon that was extremely fond of hybrid offspring, and the king of the Dragon Kingdom was a descendant of the Rainbow Dragon Lord.
Kelart and Captain Nigun's expressions were solemn. This was also the first time they had seen "Rainbow Scales" Rokesh, this demi-human, and he was far more formidable than they had imagined.
"Why did you take so long to get here?"
Go Gin spoke in a deep voice and strode forward, coming before "Beast General" Hector Vestil and "Rainbow Scales" Rokesh.
"We only just detected the undead's movements as well." "Beast General" Hector Vestil spoke in a flat voice, revealing no emotional changes.
"Thank you for coming!"
"I am Rokesh, known as 'Rainbow Scales' by the demi-humans in the hills."
"Rainbow Scales" Rokesh moved his dazzling snake body forward a step, bowed slightly, and spoke with sincerity, his voice having a unique magnetism:
"On behalf of all demi-humans in the Abelion Hills, I thank you humans for your support."
"This disaster caused by the undead is not only our enemy, but also a common enemy of humanity."
His words were full of goodwill, but the facial expressions of demi-humans were not the same as humans, so it was impossible to discern his true intentions.
Those pair of scarlet snake eyes also made people feel a little chill.
Minori and Go Gin exchanged glances but did not speak. Captain Nigun had a cold face and also had no intention of speaking.
Kelart's narrow eyes narrowed slightly, and she showed a friendly and gentle appearance on her face: "Rokesh, if it weren't for your support just now, our losses would have been even greater."
"We need to rest now. I wonder if you could take us to a safe place first."
Kelart presented a weak situation.
"Your Excellency, Human Lady."
"Indeed, after a battle, rest is needed, but I have a bold suggestion."
"Rainbow Scales" Rokesh smiled: "The enemy has also experienced battle and also needs rest. Now might be a favorable opportunity to pursue the victory."
"We have already confirmed the enemy's lair. If we attack now, the chances of victory might be higher."
As soon as these words were spoken.
The faces of Kelart and Captain Nigun suddenly turned cold.