Attack! Attack! Attacks coming in from every direction!

Blades chopped in from the left, spears thrust from the right, a battle-axe swept low across his feet, and stray arrows skimmed past just above his head. Ming’s field of vision was filled with enemies; every pair of eyes was locked on him, like they wanted to rip him apart and swallow him whole.

He desperately tried to distinguish which attacks he could tank, which he had to dodge, and which he needed to block.

But it was too chaotic, so chaotic he had no time to think at all. In the melee, several spells slammed into his back and side in quick succession.

Even though he endured them with various resistances, and Skills like [Regeneration] were constantly repairing his body, his injuries were still steadily stacking up.

The real killer was his Magic Power.

Repairing his body needed Magic Power. With the [Magic Storage Level 10] granted by the boss, even without any Casting, he still had a Magic Power reserve far beyond that of ordinary Mages, but in such an intense battle, his Magic Power was still being hollowed out bit by bit.

Right now Ming really regretted not listening to senior Norris, and charging too deep.

Real war was completely different from the gladiator fights he used to know.

In the arena, he just needed to put his head down and crash into the enemy formation, slaughtering the most dangerous Mages first even if he got hurt doing it.

Even if both sides ended up badly wounded, that [Physical Immunity] of his would still let him laugh last.

But it wasn’t like that here.

On a battlefield, the Mages weren’t just one or two; they were scattered all along the entire line. He couldn’t possibly kill them all in such a short time.

Especially now, after he’d gotten the drop on them a few times, trying to get close to those Mages again had become nearly impossible.

He could only be pinned in place, like a wild beast fallen into a trap, being slowly worn down by hunters converging from all sides.

A surge of fear suddenly welled up in Ming’s heart.

Not fear of death.

Fear that the boss would be disappointed in him.

Just as Ming’s thoughts were in chaos and his head was spinning, the battle formation in front of him suddenly split open.

The crowd parted to both sides, leaving a narrow path, and a War Beast in heavy Armor burst out from within!

On the War Beast’s back, Leonard leaned forward low over the saddle, the blood-red spear in his hand angled straight ahead, its tip dragging a scarlet afterimage through the pale sky.

Before Ming could react, that spear tip had already slammed squarely into his chest.

The tremendous impact tore him up from the ground, flinging him high into the air. The sky and the frozen plain before his eyes spun in rapid alternation.

Then, Ming crashed down into a distant snowdrift.

...

Leonard looked at the shattered spear tip and realized the opponent might still be alive.

But he didn’t rush in to finish him off. Instead he bellowed an order: "Reform the line! Focus on holding the enemy back!"

Ming’s recklessness had indeed left him surrounded, but it hadn’t been completely useless to the overall battle.

During the time Ming had been rampaging through the rear, the entire rear ranks of the right wing had turned into a complete mess. The result was that the front-line infantry holding their shields and bracing against Puki’s charge had lost more than half of their ranged support.

If he didn’t regroup in time, then even if he chopped off that Demon Race’s head right now, the right wing’s line would still collapse completely.

After the orders went out, the reserve units quickly filled the gaps caused by the chaos. The Mages were dragged back to their positions by their respective squad leaders, and the archers finally stopped chasing after random targets in a noisy rabble.

After a few volleys of arrows and Magic, the pressure on the front line immediately eased a lot. That tottering shield wall finally stabilized again.

Only then did Leonard turn his gaze back toward the distant snowdrift.

Inside it, Ming had actually already gotten back up, nothing like someone who’d just been sent flying dozens of meters.

On his chest where the spear had hit, his Armor had a hole in it, but the skin beneath showed only a shallow trace of corrosion from the poisonous blood, and even that was fading at a speed visible to the naked eye.

Leonard’s eye twitched slightly as he muttered under his breath, "What kind of monster is this."

Then he flicked his wrist, and the surrounding blood once again gathered to form the spear’s tip.

He didn’t look back. He only turned his face slightly and instructed the trusted aide beside him, "Don’t let the formation get disrupted again. This kid, I’ll handle."

Seeing Leonard charge in again, Ming, now free of interference from the soldiers, refused to back down. He suddenly kicked off the ground!

The permafrost exploded into a web of cracks where he stepped, chunks of earth mixed with ice shards spraying backward.

[Acceleration Level 10]

[Assault Ejection Level 10]

Ming’s figure drew a blurred afterimage through the air, his whole body like a cannonball as he shot straight toward Leonard on the back of the war beast!

"So fast!" The general hadn’t expected Ming to suddenly erupt with this kind of speed; he hadn’t personally witnessed Ming’s earlier charge through the army to kill the Mages, and now he was caught completely off guard.

Leonard didn’t want to take it head‑on, so he yanked hard on the reins, forcing the armored War Beast’s forelegs up!

The War Beast neighed shrilly as it reared up, its massive body blocking the space between Ming and Leonard.

The War Beast’s head exploded outright from that impact, blood and shattered bone spraying out in a fan, dyeing the snow within several meters bright red.

The huge, headless body swayed once, then crashed sideways to the ground, kicking up a cloud of snow and dust.

Driven back by the recoil of the collision, Ming landed, his feet plowing two shallow furrows in the frozen earth. Before he could steady himself, a blood‑red spear was already screaming through the air toward him!

The Blood Spear shattered against his chest, bursting into a great cloud of crimson blood mist that billowed out in all directions.

He was once again hurled away by the impact, skimming several meters over the snow before his back slammed into a raised lump of frozen soil and finally stopped.

"That body is tough." Leonard flipped down from the saddle, eyes fixed on the figure climbing out of the snowdrift. "Physical Resistance Level 10? Demon Pattern of the Demon Race... a Talent anyone would envy."

He flicked his wrist, and a weapon of congealed blood formed in his palm once more—this time, a double‑bladed battle axe.

Ming didn’t respond; he charged again. But he quickly realized that no matter how fast he rushed, Leonard could always rely on his combat experience to sidestep, slide, or retreat at the last instant, making his collision miss.

Fortunately, Leonard’s blood weapons likewise failed to hurt Ming when they struck, shattering each time into clouds of blood mist.

Yet Leonard didn’t seem to care, stubbornly condensing, swinging, and shattering them again and again.

The blood mist grew thicker and thicker.

Ming’s vision began to blur, his nose filled with that metallic rust smell.

He vaguely felt something was wrong, but every time he tried to stop and observe, Leonard would press in on his own, forcing Ming to keep responding.

Soon, the area where they were fighting was completely shrouded in dense, viscous blood mist.

"Full Level Physical Resistance, plus some kind of high‑speed Regeneration." Leonard’s voice came from deep within the mist. "No wonder you could stir things up in the formation for so long, kid."

Ming’s footsteps faltered. He turned toward the sound, but could only make out vague silhouettes in the fog.

"But resistance always has a ceiling."

Leonard turned his palm over.

The blood mist billowing all around suddenly condensed again in unison!

The next second, over a hundred blood crystal long needles, each several meters long, surfaced from the mist, densely floating in midair, every tip aimed at Ming in the center.

"Pierce!" Leonard’s hand clenched tight.

Countless sonic booms merged into a shrill wail as the long needles fired from all directions at once, completely saturating the space where Ming stood.

After a rapid barrage of impacts, there remained only a dense thicket of crimson needles crisscrossing and stabbed into the ground, completely burying Ming’s figure.

Leonard slowly exhaled a long breath, but from the distance came a warning from a trusted aide:

"My lord, behind you!"

Leonard whipped around.

At some unknown point, that new four‑meter‑tall enemy had looped around the front lines and silently crept up to the edge of their battlefield from the flank.

On Jida’s back, the Resonance Cannon that he dreaded was aimed straight at him, its barrel already gathering a blazing white radiance of Magic Power inside.

Leonard’s pupils narrowed slightly.

But this time, he had ample time for Evasion; all he had to do was sidestep...

Crack‑crack‑crack—

A harsh, splintering sound came from behind him.

Leonard had no time to look back before Ming’s hand clamped like a vice around his neck, followed by a massive impact that drove him forward, forcing him into Jida’s line of fire.

In disbelief, Leonard even saw the flying blood needles slam into what should have been Ming’s vulnerable eyeballs, only to shatter and ricochet away, as if they’d hit something harder than Fine Steel.

Physical Resistance Level 10 doesn’t reach this level, does it?

"What... monster..." Leonard forced out the last few syllables from his throat.

BOOM——!

(There’s always a lot going on during Spring Festival. It’ll be single Chapters for these two days; regular updates resume tomorrow.)