Andre suddenly bounded forward in a charge, slashing downward with his sword.
*Clang!*
Metal clashed against metal with a crisp ring.
The arm Trischka raised to parry trembled slightly. In a heavy voice, he said, "You are the duke's beloved son—how could you betray him!"
"Even if you want to reshape the Northlands, you cannot do it like this!"
Andre knocked the man's blade aside with force and stepped in close to thrust, swift as a gust of wind.
"Trischka..."
With another sharp crack, he batted away Trischka's parrying sword and raised his own blade high on the recoil.
"Can't you see?"
"The Northlands is rotten to the core from head to toe! It's beyond saving!" Andre shouted sternly.
Clear rings of steel rang out one after another. Andre's sword rained down upon Trischka's armor like a tempest, leaving him struggling desperately to cope, his body riddled with horrifying gashes.
"Even so, it shouldn't be done this way!"
Trischka gritted his teeth, barely withstanding Andre's ferocious onslaught as he retorted.
Andre remained silent. He merely clenched his left fist.
Immediately, the aura of Sacred Oath magic flared across his body. A host of attribute enhancements—Bull's Strength, Cat's Grace, Bear's Endurance—bestowed themselves upon him. His strength grew even more formidable, his movements nimbler, and his physique tougher still.
He swung his longsword once more, slashing diagonally down without mercy.
*Clang!*
Trischka raised his sword to block again, but this time the shock numbed the webbing between his thumb and forefinger. The force behind the slash far exceeded his expectations, knocking him flat on the ground as the longsword flew from his grasp.
The Sword of the Glory Knight plunged into the bloodstained snow, gleaming under the sunlight.
"No..."
Trischka scrambled up on hands and knees, trying to retrieve his weapon.
He knew that if a knight lost the blade in his hands, his end would be miserable beyond measure.
Yet how could Andre let him have his way? In just a few strides, Andre closed the distance effortlessly, planting himself and his sword right in Trischka's path.
Then came an even swifter, stormier flurry of blades.
If Trischka had been struggling to cope before, now he was simply running for his life.
Relying on sheer instinct and reflexive combat technique, he dodged one lethal slash after another; the slightest lapse would mean instant death.
Andre raised his silver sword and swept it horizontally toward Trischka's neck.
Trischka ducked in a hurry, letting the blade graze his scalp by the barest hair's breadth.
This was down to pure muscle memory, for everything was happening far too fast.
Yet halfway through the swing, Andre used raw strength to wrench the blade's trajectory, shifting the horizontal sweep into a vertical downward chop.
At the same time, light flared over the hand gripping the hilt, and magical energy coursed rapidly into the silver blade—Magic Weapon!
*Slash!*
The next moment, the silver sword, imbued with a blinding radiance, shattered Trischka's pauldron and bit deep into his shoulder.
Trischka dropped to his knees. Ignoring the blood gushing from his shoulder, he forced his head up and asked in a low voice, "Why, Andre... why on earth...?"
"You would rather submit to an evil dragon than trust your father... than trust the Principality of Bosque, which gave you birth and raised you!"
His tone shifted from muted despair to fury, bordering on heart-wrenching anguish.
Andre's expression remained calm, and he answered flatly:
"Haven't you realized it yet, Trischka?"
"My father and the northern nobility represented by the Principality of Bosque are the greatest malignant tumor hanging over the people of the Northlands, the blood-sucking leeches clinging to every person's back."
"For thousands of years, the nobles have greedily drained the blood of the common folk without stopping for a single moment. As long as they exist, so-called reform and progress are impossible. After all... who would ever oppose themselves or deny their own existence?"
Andre pressed down harder, driving the blade deeper into the wound.
"And you?"
He gave a cold chuckle.
"Heh, the noble Count Trischka, a rising political star among the northern elite."
"You probably haven't even realized it yourself, but you are no longer the high-spirited youth you once were. You've become a part of the northern aristocratic class, willing to use every conceivable means to protect your standing—even if it tears families apart and destroys countless lives."
"This so-called 'Grand Grain Requisition' must have been your handiwork, wasn't it?"
"I've read about it many times in the Kingdom Daily. I must say, my father certainly held you in high regard to entrust you with a critical task that determines the survival of the northern nobility while wringing the lifeblood out of the populace."
"Compared to those utterly rotten men on high, your only difference is that you still harbor unrealistic illusions—fantasies that progress in the Northlands could coexist with aristocratic rule."
"Yet when illusions are mercilessly shattered by reality, you are no different from them."
Trischka trembled under the searing agony and spat out a mouthful of crimson blood.
*Pfft!*
"B-but... how could that evil dragon be any better than us? Could nobles truly be greedier than a dragon?"
"Everything you see now is nothing more than his hypocritical facade! He's only doing it to seize the Northlands!"
"Once we, the northern nobility, are wiped out, that evil dragon will reveal his hideous true colors, and his greed will devour everything here—including the 'people' you care for and protect!"
His mouth drenched in blood, Trischka snarled in retort, his face contorted.
Andre drew out the glowing silver sword.
*Shing—*
With a rush of whistling wind, Trischka's head was cleanly severed, and the headless torso in battered armor pitched forward to the ground.
Even as the head hit the earth and rolled several times, the blood-spattered handsome face remained frozen in sheer disbelief.
He had never imagined that Andre would kill him so easily.
Without the slightest mercy.
Andre looked down at the head with its unclosed eyes and murmured, "Trischka, I don't know what kind of creature that dragon truly is, but at the very least, he is a more competent ruler than the northern nobles."
His grip on the silver sword tightened once more. "And if one day in the future that dragon truly reveals his so-called 'true colors,' I will risk my life to sever his head as well."
Andre spoke with resolute finality, without a trace of hesitation in his eyes.
Farther off, Tiansheng Zhankuang rubbed his bald head, his face full of vexation.
"Dammit all! Where's the justice in this? I even spent extra EXP to buy a quick respawn, and an NPC steals my kill?!"
"Hell no, I gotta make up for this, or I'm taking a huge loss!"
With that thought, Tiansheng Zhankuang turned his head and eyed the coalition soldiers and officers with ravenous aggression, as if looking at a walking mountain of contribution points and gold coins.
The coalition soldiers instantly felt the hairs all over their bodies stand on end, as though they were being watched by a ferocious predatory beast.
"Roar—!"
"Ah! A monster!"
"Damn it, what the hell is that thing?!"
"Stay back! Stay away from me, aaaaagh!"
The barbarian's furious roar, the terrified screams of the coalition soldiers, and the gruesome crunch of crushed flesh and bone intertwined, composing a bloody new movement on the battlefield.
Chapter 319