Chapter 94 Drunken Stupor

Richie had never set foot in a tavern before, let alone guzzled down an entire bottle of liquor in one go. Doing so for the very first time, a single bottle was enough to make the whole room spin dizzyingly around him.

As he was groggily pondering where he might sleep tonight, Haigert abruptly surged to his feet, spun around, and barked a torrent of guttural curses toward a cluster of patrons huddled in a dim corner of the tavern.

Through a bleary haze of intoxication, Richie could still discern that the men in the corner were knights as well. Dressed in civilian garb, they were towering and broad-shouldered—far too burly to be native Parkingtonians.

That was understandable enough. Knights of the Parkington Holy Kingdom would never condescend to frequent a dive like this; in their eyes, patronizing such a lowbrow tavern was a disgraceful blow to their pride.

Tugging at the hem of Haigert's coat, Richie asked, "What's going on?"

"Those bastards over there are badmouthing Monstokians," Haigert spat, his jaw tight with venom. "I won't repeat the filthy drivel they're spewing, lest it sour your stomach."

Haigert gave his brief explanation.

Richie glanced back toward the Military Intelligence Department agent who had tailed them inside. Sure enough, the operative was already striding toward the corner.

Preempting any potential fracas before it escalated had now become part of the man's official duty.

The foreign knights in the corner were plainly deep in their cups, their faculties dulled by drink. Seeing the intelligence agent approaching, one of the ruffians casually swung a backhanded slap toward his face.

The operative was a trained knight himself, but his hand was tucked inside his breast pocket reaching for his identification badge; caught off guard, he failed to deflect the incoming strike.

Taking the slap across the cheek, the agent reacted purely on instinct, driving a vicious elbow hammer straight forward.

The blow packed formidable momentum. With a sickening thud, the foreign knight who had thrown the slap crumpled limp to the floorboards.

The foreign crew numbered around seven or eight. Half a dozen sat crammed around the table, while several others had been fooling around with whores near the dance floor. The instant they saw their comrade dropped, they swarmed over in fury.

Accompanied by a piercing whistle of displaced air, seven or eight heavy glass liquor bottles came hurtling directly toward Richie and Haigert.

Dull with alcohol, Richie's reflexes were sluggish. Haigert reacted swiftly enough, but he had only two hands; though he parried the projectiles thrown from the front, he could not deflect the bottles hurled from the flank by the knights who had just abandoned the whores.

One bottle cracked against Haigert's shoulder, while another smashed squarely into Richie's forehead.

The bottle shattered on impact, sloshing sour, stinging spirits all over Richie's hair and face.

Rage erupted within Haigert. Snarl on his lips, he violently hurled the small champagne bottle in his hand straight across the room.

A sharp yowl of pain answered from the other side. A knight had crossed his forearms to block the missile, but the detonating glass shards dug deep into the flesh of his palms.

The sight of blood turned the brawlers' eyes crimson with bloodlust. Three peeled off to pin down the Military Intelligence operative, while the rest surged forward in a roaring pack to tear Richie and Haigert apart.

Struck over the skull by the bottle, Richie had yelped in pain, but the cold deluge of booze shocked his drunken stupor instantly into sharp sobriety.

He was never one blessed with a docile temper, let alone a man to take a beating lying down.

Whipping his own champagne bottle through the air, he sent it straight into the path of an oncoming brawler. As the man ducked aside to evade the missile, Richie closed the distance in a flash and drove a fist straight ahead.

The punch unleashed colossal brute force, the tip of his knuckles producing a low, thunderous sonic boom through the air.

Several men were charging shoulder-to-shoulder, but one among them had exceptionally sharp combat instincts; sensing the violent air tremor, he instantly realized something was terribly amiss.

At first, he had looked down on Richie, thinking it beneath a seasoned knight to pummel an adolescent boy. Now, he dared not underestimate the youth in the slightest.

Shoving his companion aside, the brute stepped laterally across the floor and threw up an arm to intercept Richie's punch.

Fist slammed against fist, detonating inside the tavern like a clap of thunder.

The man who blocked Richie's strike stood nearly two meters tall, a walking mountain of muscle and sinew. He was unmistakable as a strength-type knight, his knuckles covered in thick, rough calluses and swollen like iron mallets. Compared to this colossus, Richie looked like an egg hurled against a boulder—yet to the astonishment of everyone present, it was the boulder that shattered.

A guttural howl of agony tore from the giant's throat. Clutching his mangled fist with his other hand, he staggered backward step after heavy step until he slammed violently against the edge of a heavy timber table.

"Dammit, watch out! The brat trains in hard-body disciplines!"

The giant roared in the guttural tongue of the Rosotto language, flexing his trembling fingers with a grimace. Clashing head-on with Richie had felt like smashing his fist into a solid blacksmith's anvil; the searing agony nearly made him black out, and he was not even certain if his metacarpals were fractured.

Richie was notoriously swift in close combat, every strike chaining seamlessly into the next. Flush with liquor, he had zero sense of restraint. The instant he repelled the frontline juggernaut, his follow-up fist whipped out toward the adjacent knight.

At that very moment, a knight flanking him hoisted a heavy wooden chair and swung it downward like a club toward Richie's head.

With a deafening splintering crash, the chair shattered into countless jagged wooden shards. Though Richie's drunken reflexes were half a beat slow, his raised arm absorbed the blow without a scratch. Behind him, Haigert grabbed two heavy chairs of his own, whirling them like twin battle flails in a tempest of smashing wood and splintering furniture.

The other tavern patrons had long since smelled danger in the air and stampeded out the doorway in a frantic flock, while the bartender had scurried down into the cellar to save his own skin.

Suddenly cleared of bystanders, the cavernous tavern became the private arena for these two warring factions.

A brawl between trained knights was a world apart from an ordinary tavern scuffle; the glass bottles flying across the room carried lethal kinetic force. Smashing against the plaster and timber walls, they detonated into sprays of shrapnel, razor-sharp shards burrowing deep into the wood like throwing knives.

Once the liquor bottles were exhausted, the battle escalated into sheer carnage. Both sides seized solid tables, benches, and barstools, hurling them across the room and swinging them into one another as broken timber rained through the air.

In such a confined melee, Richie held an overwhelming advantage. Cultivating the Vajra divine art had rendered his body impervious to blades and bludgeons alike. Where ordinary men would be left bleeding profusely from flying bottles, to Richie, the impacts felt like playful taps, and even flying shards of razor glass failed to nick his skin.

After an indeterminate flurry of brawling, a chorus of shrill police whistles pierced through the air outside.

Richie halted his assault and glanced at Haigert; the general had lowered his makeshift weapons as well.

Across the wreckage, the foreign rowdies likewise ceased their attacks.

As if bound by a tacit understanding among veterans, both sides moved to make a run for it at the exact same instant.

Yet knights retreating was fundamentally different from ordinary men: they never bothered with doorways.

The burly giant who had clashed fists with Richie lowered his massive shoulder and rammed straight through the side wall. The partition burst into a gaping crater of brick and timber, and his comrades poured through the breach behind him.

Richie followed suit without hesitation. He did not even need to charge: pressing both palms against the opposite wall, he released a localized concussive vibration. With a dull muffled pop, a huge opening blew outward through the masonry.

Directly adjacent to the tavern was a restaurant. During the violent clatter and smashing next door, the diners and staff had all rushed outside to gawk at the spectacle, leaving the dining room nearly deserted.

The moment they realized they had breached a restaurant, Richie and Haigert breathed a sigh of relief.

The crucial distinction between a tavern and a restaurant was simple: restaurants had kitchens, and kitchens inevitably had service doors at the back.

Slipping through the grease-stained kitchen and out the rear exit, the pair vanished swiftly into the bustling evening throng outside. By now, the air was shrill with continuous whistles as squads of city police converged on the area.

Nor was it merely municipal police; military gendarmes and Provost Knights were arriving in force. In wartime, joint enforcement was standard protocol, and since the initial emergency report had specifically cited brawling knights, all three armed branches had mobilized in unison.

Richie and Haigert had slipped out purely for a drink, harboring no desire to spend the night in a holding cell; even if high-ranking patrons pulled strings to bail them out, being hauled in was an unbearable indignity.

The police, gendarmes, and Provost Knights combined numbered thirty or forty at most—nowhere near enough to cordon off an entire commercial plaza. Gaps riddled the perimeter, allowing Richie and Haigert to dart toward a shadowy alley and slip clean through the net.

"Over here! Two of them just sprinted this way!"

Among the Provost Knights were sharp-eyed veterans; swift as Richie and Haigert were, their silhouettes were caught in the lantern light.

Several Provost Knights broke into a sprint, clinging doggedly to their heels in relentless pursuit.

Just as the commotion flared, another cluster of figures bolted from the opposite corner of the commercial plaza. These were none other than the Rosotto knights who had fought Richie and Haigert; with their larger headcount, they had not dared to break cover first, deliberately waiting for the two Monstokians to draw off the pursuing Provost Knights before making their own escape.

The remaining Provost Knights hesitated to pursue. Only ten knights had arrived on the scene; six had already dashed off after the first pair, and the four left behind knew they were hopelessly outmatched against a pack of seasoned foreign combatants.

Only after sprinting well beyond sight of the commercial plaza did the Rosotto knights finally come to a halt. The group was spearheaded by the very giant who had clashed fists with Richie.

Glancing back over his broad shoulder, the brute spat onto the cobblestones and growled, "Rotten luck! Can't even enjoy a decent swig of ale in peace."

Suddenly remembering the instigators of the brawl, he rounded on his subordinates and began smacking them across the head with thunderous clouts: "All because of you goddamn idiots! We're soldiers, not politicians—what business do you have gossiping and running your filthy mouths about foreign affairs?"

The men yelped and shielded their skulls from the blows, offering not a word of protest; among knights, fists were the sole arbiters of truth.

"Boss, that's the first time I've ever seen you come out on the losing end of a head-on punch. What discipline does that brat practice?"

One rogue who had taken two heavy slaps across the ear refused to let the matter drop, subtly trying to stoke the giant's appetite for vengeance through clever insinuation.

The giant was impervious to such clumsy provocation and glared daggers at the speaker, yet beneath his stern exterior, he was genuinely turning the puzzle over in his mind.

He himself specialized in hard-body cultivation, mastering the renowned art known as Iron Bones and Steel Sinews. A veteran of countless brawls, relying on his iron knuckles and an unyielding tolerance for punishment, he could hold his ground even against an Honor Knight in hand-to-hand combat. Never in his wildest dreams had he expected to capsize in such a shallow ditch today.

For him to suffer such a crushing blow, only two explanations existed.

Either the adolescent boy had achieved a higher tier of cultivation than himself—a possibility he dismissed out of hand, for hard-body disciplines were notoriously grueling to master, far more arduous than basic Aura refinement.

Or the youth practiced a hard-body art of a vastly superior echelon. And the only discipline acknowledged as superior to Iron Bones and Steel Sinews was the mythical divine art: Vajra.

Yet compared to the first possibility, the second was something he dared not even contemplate.

"That was an artificial limb," the giant blustered, fabricating an excuse for himself. "There's no point in taking a cripple seriously. Besides, he's just a green boy—I'm not having folk say I bully children."

He provided himself a face-saving pretext, though deep down he knew perfectly well that hand was no prosthetic: it was not merely diamond-hard, but supple, agile, and warm with life.

"Who said it was a fake hand?"

A rustle stirred the adjacent grove of roadside trees, and two figures stepped out from the shadows.

Tempered by the baptism of recent brutal warfare, Richie and Haigert were seasoned masters of evasion. The moment they slipped clear of the commercial plaza, they had doubled back through obscure alleys, never expecting to run straight into their brawling adversaries.

The voice belonged to Haigert.

"Brother, if you don't fancy spending the night in a holding cell, let's both take a step back,"

the giant conceded, lowering his haughty posture now that he knew he was dealing with hard nuts to crack. Moreover, he had zero desire to dwell on the embarrassing topic of his battered hand; he could not afford the humiliation.

Haigert stepped fully from the gloom, his eyes cold as flint. "Keep a civil tongue in your heads from now on. The Monstoke government may have surrendered, but the Monstokian people have not."

"Are you done yet?"

The giant gestured toward his subordinates behind him. "You saw it yourself just now: I knocked some sense into these bastards."

Though Richie could not comprehend a word of the foreign tongue they were exchanging, he sensed the bristling tension. Careless of right and wrong, he had already begun rolling up his sleeves, eager for another round.

The sight of Richie pushing up his sleeves made every foreign knight's head throb. Having just clashed, they knew full well that although the Monstokians were only two, they were unyielding iron spikes. The giant had lied about Richie wielding a prosthetic limb, and his men knew he had fabricated the tale, tactfully keeping their mouths shut.

Just as the two groups locked in a tense standoff, another shrill blast of whistles shattered the silence. Without a word, both packs broke into a frantic sprint side by side.

Unsure where to turn in the labyrinthine city, Richie and Haigert inexplicably fell in step behind the fleeing Rosotto knights, bolting through streets and byways for an unknown span of time until several brawlers were wheezing for breath before the mob finally slowed to a jog.

Bound by the shared trial of evading the law, the previous animosity vanished without a trace.

The giant suddenly turned around and addressed Richie with a rapid string of guttural syllables.

Richie blinked blankly, uncomprehending. Beside him, however, Haigert gasped in profound astonishment: "You mastered 'Vajra'?"

"Yeah, didn't anyone tell you? On my way to Stein, I gave 'Vajra' a shot on a whim, and before I knew it, I broke right through! Though I've only cultivated it to the second tier so far—still miles away from preliminary mastery."

Richie had originally intended to keep the divine art tucked away as an ace up his sleeve, but having it deduced time and again, he saw no point in continuing the charade.

"Fuck... spending too much time around you will ruin a man's confidence forever,"

Haigert spat a raw curse. It was no jest: prior to meeting Richie, he had harbored absolute confidence in his personal martial genius, relentlessly striving toward the rank of Honor Knight; after getting to know Richie, however, he had resolutely decided to steer his ambitions toward command and strategy instead.

As the two Monstokians muttered among themselves, the foreign giant grew impatient: "Drop the arrogant posturing, will you?"

"This fellow doesn't understand a single word you're saying,"

Haigert replied, gesturing toward Richie.

"Doesn't understand?"

The giant caught on remarkably fast. "Don't tell me this lad is one of those late-awakened types who never received formal, orthodox knight tutoring?"

"You guessed right."

Haigert felt a flicker of respect; beneath his crude, hulking exterior, the man possessed an extraordinarily sharp mind.

"Then he is..."

The giant hesitated, uncertain whether the other party would willingly disclose the truth.

"You guessed right about that as well."

Haigert had his own calculations: the greater the personal prowess Richie demonstrated now, the heavier his political weight and the more unshakeable his position became. Concealing his abilities served no useful purpose at this juncture.

Even though the giant had deduced the truth, his mind still reeled in disbelief.

It was then that a recent, earth-shaking event flashed through his memory.

"He is Richie Robert? The one who stole all the glory at the Festival of Heaven?"

"Clever fellow. You keep guessing right,"

Haigert quipped dryly.

A collective wave of relief washed over the foreign knights, restoring their wounded pride. A moment earlier, they had felt mortified that their gang had outnumbered a youngster only to end up battered and on the back foot.

But compared to hundreds of elite prodigies from across the continent being carved up and mowed down like cabbage by this single monster at the Festival of Heaven, their minor scuffle was nothing to be ashamed of.

"No friendship without a brawl! We belong to the Fourth Expeditionary Army of the Rosotto Empire."

The giant extended his broad right hand: "My name is Horn, Commander of the First Battalion, Third Corps."

A Battalion Commander! Both Haigert and Richie were momentarily taken aback, but quickly realized it made perfect sense: without sufficient military rank, leaving the fortified military encampment would have been utterly impossible.

Haigert grasped the offered hand; since the man was so forthright, he had no objection to befriending the contingent.

"Our official identities aren't suitable for public disclosure,"

Haigert added. He was not being deliberately secretive; rather, Richie's political status was simply too delicate. If they had the wits to ferret it out, they were welcome to try. "And the fellow you knocked flat back there was an operative from the Military Intelligence Department assigned to shadow him."

Haigert had not forgotten the incident, curious to see whether these foreign officers possessed the clout to smooth over such a messy complication.

"What do you plan on doing next?"

Horn seemed wholly indifferent to the fact that his men had floored a domestic intelligence agent; his sole preoccupation was forging ties with these two figures.

Knowing their identities, he immediately deduced that they could not possibly reside in such a seedy satellite town; they had undoubtedly sneaked out from the City of Heaven itself.

Just as he had proclaimed, friendship was born of battle. He was more than eager to seize this chance to ingratiate himself with these two prominent personages.

Setting all else aside, purely on account of that magitech armor that had rampaged unchecked across the arena at the Festival of Heaven, he burned with desire to know Richie, this peerless eccentric among knights.

His rank had not qualified him to attend the Festival of Heaven in person; he had only gleaned the day's events through rampant hearsay.

Rumor held that the machine was peerless and tyrannical—swift as the wind, sudden as lightning, its defense an impregnable bastion of bronze and iron, its onslaught like a catastrophic tidal deluge.

To other knights, such an armor was overwhelmingly ferocious, but to Horn, it was the quintessential dream machine he had yearned for his entire life, perfectly mirroring his own crushing combat doctrine.

"Find another place to drink,"

Haigert answered; he had barely wet his palate, and besides, neither he nor Richie could return to their quarters right now.

"Then come with us. The taverns in this satellite city are off-limits now; we'll have to head to another city."

Horn grinned. "We've got wheels."

The group indeed had a vehicle: an oversized, elongated motorized transporter reminiscent of a massive scooter, barely large enough to cram fifteen men aboard.

It was Richie's first time laying eyes on such a bizarre contraption, but fortunately Haigert stood beside him to explain.

"Half the year in Rosotto is severe winter," Haigert murmured. "The terrain is buried beneath sheets of deep snow. Even during the remaining six months, thawing ice turns the ground into an impassable swamp of mud for six weeks. Marching on foot is impossible in the Rosotto Empire, so military mobilizations rely entirely on these contraptions."

"The Rosottians must redeploy their forces with incredible speed, then,"

Richie remarked, instantly discerning the strategic virtue.

"Quite right. Regrettably, other nations cannot replicate it."

Haigert's tone was heavy with profound regret.

Richie understood his meaning completely.

The wheels on these transporters were tiny; across deep snow or thick mire, they skated directly upon the broad runners of the undercarriage, and only when traversing smooth, paved surfaces did the small wheels come into play.

The Rosotto Empire was frozen over for half the year and maintained an immaculate highway network, which alone made such transport viable.

The roads surrounding the City of Heaven were likewise exquisitely engineered and paved like polished stone; on ordinary rustic roads elsewhere, however, potholes and ruts were inevitable, rendering such vehicles utterly useless.

Roller-blades shared these exact strengths and limitations, except that being strapped beneath one's boots, they offered infinitely superior maneuverability, allowing a knight to leap cleanly over ruts and potholes.

A spark of engineering curiosity flickered in Richie's mind. If this contraption could be overhauled and refined, it might yield tactical dividends in the coming war. Yet on second thought, the notion held little practical value: when knights deployed to the front, they fought encased in magitech armor, making individual roller-blades far more effective.

"Where do you gentlemen want to head?"

Horn asked casually.

"Are there any taverns in Swan City?"

Richie only knew the names of two satellite cities: Swan City and the one they were currently standing in.

"Swan City?"

Horn paused with a trace of hesitation. That was a premier satellite city with strict social standing; while it certainly had taverns, they were hardly suited to rough-and-tumble carousing. Still, Richie held the highest status among them, so Horn deferred without argument: "Swan City it is, then."

Piling onto the bizarre little transporter, the troop hurtled toward Swan City. The vehicle moved with impressive velocity, delivering them to their destination in the blink of an eye.

The foreign soldiers seemed intimately familiar with every satellite borough around the capital. Entering the perimeter, they navigated several twists and turns before pulling up beside a bustling commercial quarter.

Richie was certain this was not the lavish city center he had previously visited; the quarter was modest, spanning merely two or three blocks.

Horn ushered them into a sprawling tavern.

Unlike the dingy dive from earlier, this was a massive club featuring an expansive dance floor bathed in dim, sultry illumination. Pairs of men and women swayed entangled in close embraces; while couples near the periphery were indeed dancing, those closer to the shadowy interior were pressed flush against one another, their panting breaths and muffled whimpers barely smothered beneath the thrumming music.

"Aren't there any other taverns?"

Haigert asked, somewhat perplexed by Horn's choice of venue. He hardly believed Richie's lusty reputation had spread so widely.

"There are," Horn replied, "but there are only two breeds of taverns in this town. One is the kind before your eyes, built for blowing off steam—you can drown yourself in booze or pick up women. The other sort is for quiet chatter and killing time, which I figure is suited strictly for old geezers and grandmothers."

Naturally, Horn refrained from admitting that the upscale establishments were vastly more exclusive, exorbitant, and specialized in fleecing foreign clientele like themselves.

Haigert had no real desire to seek out another tavern anyway; he had simply wanted to satisfy his curiosity.

The club was packed to the gills, scarcely an empty seat in sight. Yet Horn's men were brawny and numerous, effortlessly muscling patrons aside to commandeer a spacious booth in the corner. Though bouncers maintained order in the hall, they possessed sharp eyes and recognized these thugs as knights, wisely opting not to meddle.

"I'll fetch the drinks,"

Horn announced. Eager to cement ties with Richie and Haigert, he resolved to be generous and pick up the tab.

He wedged his way through the press of bodies, returning a moment later hoisting an entire wooden crate, its partitioned slots packed with bottles.

Richie took one look, and his complexion turned pale.

Those were no light sparkling wines; they were bottles of hard whisky.

With his meager tolerance for alcohol, chugging down a single bottle would leave him crawling out on all fours.

Not only Richie, but even Haigert blanched slightly. He had just remembered that winters in Rosotto were lethally frigid; liquor was used to ward off the biting cold, making Rosotto men and women formidable drinkers and boasting the highest concentration of alcoholics on the continent.

Tolerance for liquor bore zero correlation to martial prowess; an ordinary Rosotto peasant could easily drink a foreign knight under the table.

Seeing the foreign knights boldly snagging full bottles of whisky from the crate, Haigert had no choice but to bite the bullet and match them blow for blow.

"I'll go grab a glass,"

Richie muttered. He was not the sort to play the martyr for foolish pride.

Procuring a tumbler from the bar counter, he poured off a generous measure from Haigert's bottle into his glass—a maneuver that preserved his own sanity while relieving some burden from Haigert.

"Fuck, that ain't how a real man drinks!"

one of the Rosotto knights jeered.

Richie shoved his sleeves back and roared back, "If you're such a real man, put your arm down and let's wrestle!"

"Excellent! Put some gold on it, and let's gather the whole tavern for an arm-wrestling tourney!"

Haigert egged them on from the side.

The jeering knight immediately shrank back into his seat. Knowing full well that Richie practiced the Vajra art, who would be stupid enough to challenge him?

All hard-body arts bolstered physical strength as a secondary benefit; Horn was already celebrated throughout his corps as an unstoppable titan, yet that was merely a side-effect. Vajra, however, was a peerless martial canon containing the specialized art of Vajra Might designed expressly to amplify brute force. Arm-wrestling such a freak was outright suicide.

Horn swiped a backhand across his subordinate's skull, cursing him with disdain: "Paltry skills, yet your head is full of cheap tricks! The mark of a true man isn't how much poison he can guzzle, it's this!"

He brandished his massive fist.

"Drink, drink! Meeting today is fate!"

Haigert chimed in smoothly to defuse the tension. "The fact that both our groups chose that same dive earlier proves we share a common spirit."

His words resonated deeply with the Rosotto soldiers; their sole desire in picking such unpretentious joints was to drink without suffocating etiquette.

The gulf between the two factions vanished instantly.

Laying aside the earlier brawl, they launched into boastful camaraderie. Haigert blended seamlessly with the foreigners, spinning vivid tales of recent frontline campaigns. Among the Rosottians, only Horn had tasted genuine battle, and his exposure was nowhere near as profound as Haigert's harrowing experiences, leaving the listeners thoroughly entranced.

Knights were creatures born for war. In no time, the passions of the Rosotto soldiers were swept along by Haigert's impassioned cadence: they joined him in solemn silence for fallen comrades, bellowed curses at the cowardly politicians in high office, roared in triumph over hard-won victories, and seethed with righteous fury over Monstoke's shameful surrender.

Bottle after bottle was uncorked from the crate. Haigert had exercised some restraint at first, but as his emotions surged, prudence was cast to the winds. At points of grief, he would throw his head back and take a deep swig to drown his sorrow; at moments of fiery fervor, he would likewise gulp down mouthfuls of the burning amber liquor.

Richie was badgered into downing several tumblers as well. Surrounded by the boisterous clamor of Haigert and the Rosotto knights, refusal was futile. Fortunately, he did not lose control as completely as the general; feeling the ceiling tilt and the world spin on its axis, he dug his heels in and refused another drop. Swaying groggily to his feet, he slurred, "You... keep drinking... I'll... take a stroll around... My place... is right here in town... I'll head back... on my own later."

The table was lost in the throes of their drunken revelry, paying no heed to his words.

Seeing no objections, Richie wobbled unsteadily away from the booth.

"Hey, handsome, how about a dance?"

An alluring woman in her late twenties sashayed over, speaking in the smooth dialect of Monstoke.

When recounting his war stories, Haigert had used Rosotto to accommodate the soldiers, but had occasionally thrown a few remarks to Richie in their mother tongue.

Lingering nearby, the woman had overheard their exchange; she recognized the company as high-ranking knights and realized that the handsome youth only understood the language of Monstoke.

Richie patted his empty pockets, putting on an impoverished front. In truth, he carried plenty of coin, but surrounded by gorgeous consorts every night, he had zero need for a streetwalker.

The woman's finely arched brows instantly knit in annoyance: "I'm not that kind of woman! I'm just looking for a bit of fun."

She spoke the truth: the social hierarchy of the Parkington Holy Kingdom was rigid and unforgiving, and professional prostitutes were barred from residing in the high-class satellite boroughs; citizens wishing to frequent brothels had to travel to the outer rim cities.

Dragging Richie toward the crowded center of the dance floor, she pressed her lips against his ear and purred, "I've always heard knights are ferocious in bed, so I wanted to see for myself."

As she spoke, her deft fingers reached down and began unbuttoning his trousers.

Reaching inside, she drew out his thick, imposing shaft; her eyes widened to saucers, caught between exhilaration and sheer terror.

Hesitating for several frantic heartbeats, she gritted her teeth and muttered to herself, "Fuck it, death it is! Good thing I picked a young lad—if I'd grabbed one of those full-grown brutes, wouldn't I be split in two?"

Gently hitching up her skirts, she pulled her damp undergarment aside, revealing her slick, glistening portal.

While the woman was utterly brazen, Richie felt a twinge of apprehension and glanced around the floor.

All around them, men and women were pressed together in intimate embrace. Most were standing on their own feet, but quite a few women had wrapped their legs around their partners' waists, leaving the men to bear their entire weight. For the men, this was a display of physical strength and endurance, and those executing the feat wore expressions of smug triumph.

Seeing that this was customary practice here, Richie's hesitation vanished.

The woman wasted no ceremony. Knowing Richie was a knight, she looped her arms around his neck and hopped up, wrapping her smooth thighs firmly around his hips. With one arm securing her hold, she reached down with her free hand to grip his massive shaft, guiding its engorged head against her sodden slit.

The instant she sank her hips downward, a choked whimper tore from her throat—a sound mingled equally of unbearable bliss and sharp, stretching agony.

She lifted her pelvis slightly, allowing the thick intruder to slip out an inch before breathing a little easier. Nestling her flushed face against Richie's neck, she whispered breathlessly, "You nearly impaled right through me!"

"Didn't you... want... to have fun?"

Richie slurred, pressing down gently on her hips.

"Ahhh...!"

Her slender body snapped rigid as a bowstring, sensation searing so hot she felt as if her soul were being torn from her flesh.

Fortunately, Richie had only exerted a fraction of pressure to demonstrate the peak of carnal intensity. Yet he had not anticipated that the instant he relaxed his grip, the woman would gasp for air and immediately sink her teeth savagely into his shoulder.

It was already the second time tonight someone had bitten him, and Richie could not have cared less.

Sure enough, a sharp cry of dismay rang in his ear.

Yet to Richie's surprise, the woman was nothing if not stubborn. Having nearly shattered her incisors against the iron sinews of his shoulder, she refused to yield, pivoting to clamp her molars onto his earlobe instead.

An earlobe was pure soft cartilage and tender flesh; even with the divine art of Vajra shielding his frame, it could not transform tender skin into solid granite, and Richie felt a sharp twinge of pain.

"Are you... quite... finished?"

Richie growled, irritation sparking through his drunken haze.

"You nearly killed me just now!"

the woman snapped angrily. "I know what you're up to! You men only ever think about subjugation! Do you think every woman likes being crushed like that? And even if we do, does it have to be like that every single time? Don't you ever get sick of it?"

Perhaps softened by the alcohol, Richie lacked his customary domineering edge. "What... do you... want, then?" "I came here seeking pleasure, looking for pure enjoyment—not a husband to tether myself to!"

Tracing lazy circles across Richie's chest, she murmured, "If you can make me feel truly divine, I might consider keeping company with you often."

"That's... easy enough."

Richie rested his broad palms upon the curvature of her buttocks. He possessed the power to torment women until they wished for death, but he could just as easily elevate them to dizzying heights of ecstasy; the underlying technique was identical, requiring only the delicate calibration of force.

As his hands kneaded and rhythmically caressed her flesh, low moans began slipping from her lips once more. At first, she still struggled to accommodate him; even without malice on Richie's part, her tight canal could scarcely contain his colossal girth. Yet gradually her body relaxed and yielded, slipping deeper into exquisite harmony.

In a pleasant mood, Richie indulged her desires. His movements became deliberate, steady, and unhurried, coaxing sensation from shallow caresses to deep, penetrating warmth. Rather than relentlessly battering her sensitive zones as he was wont to do, he stroked them gently, paused to let her catch her breath, and shifted his attention to kindle another pleasure point across her skin.

As he played, a revelation suddenly dawned upon him. Every woman possessed countless erogenous zones across her body—indeed, one could say a woman was sensitive from crown to toe—yet these points were categorized into primary and secondary nexuses. In the past, he had concentrated his efforts exclusively on the primary nodes for maximum efficiency. What might happen if he adopted an alternative approach?

Action followed thought. Supporting her weight with one arm beneath her hips, Richie let his other hand wander across the woman's skin, infusing his fingertips with a faint, shimmering thread of Aura.

His touch was nothing short of bewitching, holding an intoxicating, fatal magnetism for any woman.

He had barely completed half of his caress when the woman's strength melted away entirely. She clung to him like a limp poultice, her breathless whimpers rising in plaintive, musical sobs of unutterable ecstasy.

Richie was well acquainted with such a reaction. Back when he had coupled with Aisha in that subterranean cavern, he had behaved in this exact gentle manner, and the outcome of that tenderness had been Aisha being drained far more completely than any other woman.

Among all his consorts, only Aisha had received such "special treatment," primarily because her constitution was slightly more delicate than the others. He had never paid it much heed then, but seeing the result now, he realized this gentle approach was infinitely more devastating than brute conquest.

He recalled the old parable of boiling a frog in tepid water: this technique worked on that very principle, bleeding a woman of her vitality and will until she was drained dry without ever realizing she had succumbed.

He remembered the fable was meant to illustrate how insidious, gradual dominion was vastly more potent than harsh, tyrannical coercion.

Perhaps that philosophy held equally true when applied to the conquest of women.

As he unleashed his layered repertoire, the woman's cries rose and fell in undulating cadences, harmonizing with the thrumming bass of the tavern's music.

Imperceptibly, Richie's thrusts synchronized with the pounding rhythm. In his drunken stupor, he felt as though his consciousness were merging into the surrounding space, as if he had become the dance floor itself, embodying every soul gyrating in the hall.

Even the Aura circulating within his meridians began to dance to the melody. Where his internal energy usually flowed in a steady, unbroken stream, it now surged in sweeping ocean waves, cresting and breaking in relentless, rhythmic tides.

The poor woman suffered the consequences. If Richie was a boundless ocean, she was a frail skiff tossed upon its surface. The sea had begun calm and placid, but slowly the gale arose, the swells mounting higher and fiercer until the expanse churned into a raging tempest whose mountainous breakers obliterated the fragile craft without mercy.

When the song drew to a close, Richie drifted back from his trance. The woman draped over him was limp as melted tallow, as though every bone had been drawn from her flesh.

A twinge of panic seized Richie. He reached down and felt for her pulse; faint as it was, her life was in no danger, allowing him to exhale in relief.

Tucking his member back into his trousers and fastening the buttons, Richie looked down with a wry grimace. The front of his pants was completely soaked; anyone looking would assume he had pissed himself.

It was all the flood of arousal the woman had wept, overflowing in scandalous abundance. Yet he had no right to complain, for he had wrought the deluge with his own hands.

Suddenly, Richie's nostrils twitched. He caught a sharp scent of alcohol rising directly from the damp fabric.

His alcohol-soaked mind grew more bewildered than ever.

He had not noticed the woman drinking heavily. Even had she been intoxicated, the nectar issuing from that intimate passage could never carry the scent of spirits; after all, there was no direct conduit connecting her stomach to her womb.

At that moment, he noticed that his own palms were dripping wet.

Lifting his hands to his nose, he took a sniff: sure enough, a potent reek of alcohol clung to his skin, mingled with the distinct musk of female intimacy.

Sniffing along his wrists and forearms, Richie finally realized that alcohol was seeping outward from his entire body. Pulling open his collar, a pungent vapor billowed forth—a rank cocktail of alcohol and sweat.

In his drunken daze, understanding dawned: the liquor had been expelled through every pore in his flesh, though by what mysterious physiological alchemy, he could not fathom.

With the woman still boneless and insensible, Richie located an empty booth, gathered her limp form, and laid her curled comfortably against the cushions.

That task finished, he glanced back toward the booth occupied by Haigert and the foreigners.

The soldiers were still bellowing boastful tales and chugging whisky without pause.

Cloudy as his thoughts were, Richie knew that walking back into that trap was pure folly. He resolved to make his exit.

Stepping through the front doors of the tavern, the cobblestones beneath his boots felt spongy as a swamp, every stride floating and buoyant.

Looking up, he beheld a canopy of glittering stars framing a half-crescent moon suspended high above. Richie let out a foolish, boyish grin.

And swaying to and fro, he ambled merrily into the night.