Chapter 484 267: Exposed! Battle Erupts

"If not you, then who else?" The Red-armored Knight sneered. "Refusing to confess only adds to your crimes!"

'Just as I thought. This guy is trying to get me killed.'

Baron decided to drop the act. "I think perhaps it was the two guards beside you. They had swords at their waists when they left, but their swords were gone when they returned..."

He trailed off, leaving the rest unsaid. The implication was left for the surrounding guests to decipher.

Who would have thought the Red-armored Knight would just narrow his eyes, draw his longsword, and snarl, "Are you questioning a Templar Knight? Slandering a Templar Knight is an unforgivable crime! For the glory of the Holy Hall, I must behead you, you insolent whelp!"

With that, he charged at Baron amidst a backdrop of the guests' shocked cries. The guards beside him followed suit.

In the auction hall, surrounded by members of the Old Blood Nobility, a wide-area attack like the [Promise of the Griffin Feather] was completely unusable. But for a Contract Knight, as long as they were fast enough, a formation of blades could be just as effective as a Promise.

'What a pain.'

Baron sighed. He used neither his Spear Sword nor his Dragon Spear. Instead, in the split second before their blades struck, he used his supreme physical control to leap into the air. In a single spin, he landed on the tip of one of the Knight's lunging swords, dodging the oncoming storm of attacks.

The Knight whose sword had been stepped on was caught completely off guard, the longsword vibrating uncontrollably in his hand. But in the next instant, he felt the blade go light. The enemy performed a Webster backflip, landing behind him. At the same time, his wrist went numb, and his longsword fell into his foe's grasp.

Then came the sensation of flight—he was kicked into the air. Although his breastplate absorbed much of the force, he still felt his insides churn as he sailed through the hall.

Baron then used the Knight's sword to instantly parry a blade from another attacker. The battles of the Old Race weren't a series of turn-based exchanges, but a relentless, rotating brawl.

At the same time, he grabbed the Knight by the collar of his armor and swung him to his side, using him to block the Red-armored Knight's Spiritual Power-infused thrust.

Caught by surprise, the Red-armored Knight instinctively tried to redirect his blade, but a ruthless glint flashed in his eyes. Looking into the other Knight's widening eyes, he viciously plunged his sword into the man's abdomen, pushing forward as if to skewer Baron through the body of his own man.

At the same time, the Red-armored Knight shouted, "V!"

This wasn't a reference to some legend of Night City, but a special Knight formation. The tactic was inspired by orca pods hunting seals in the Antarctic Ocean.

The seals are surrounded in a "V" shape by the orcas and swim toward the open gap ahead. Only when they are exhausted do they realize that another orca has already been set as an ambush in that very gap.

Without a moment's hesitation, five or six Griffin Knights closed in from all directions. They formed a "V" around Baron, their swords chopping down from above, giving him no chance to leap into the air as before. The gap left behind him was filled by the Red-armored Knight's sword, which was still piercing through his own man.

The light of their blades formed a sealed sphere with Baron at its center. He had already lost any chance of escape. The only thing he could do was pull back his sword to block, which would at least reduce the number of wounds on his body, lest his relatives and friends be unable to have an open-casket viewing at his funeral.

But Baron didn't pull back his sword. Instead, he raised it, and with a flick of his wrist, his entire aura seemed to change. It was like a sudden gust of wind through a bamboo forest, or a ripple abruptly disturbing a clear spring.

Baron swung the sword in his right hand. Infused with Spiritual Power, the blade seemed to grow three inches longer in his grasp. Moving with incredible speed, it clashed with the surrounding Knights' swords, creating a shower of dense sparks. Viewed from above, it formed a "V" that shifted from orange to red, then to white, before expanding outward.

This was followed by a crisp CRACK—the sword in Baron's right hand had shattered.

The orange and red were the colors of the blooming and dying sparks. The white was the trail of Baron's sword. The expanding "V" was caused by the Knights stumbling back, unable to withstand the immense force transmitted through their own blades in that single instant.

Their wrists burned with pain, but what burned even more was their pride. No matter how you looked at it, it was utterly humiliating for so many Knights to fail to take down a single Attendant.

While the Griffin Knights were still reeling in shame, Baron tossed aside the broken sword and stomped on the ground. His ankle twisted at an inconceivable angle—a movement no ordinary human could make, especially while still carrying the inertia from his swing.

It was like a sports car traveling at two hundred kilometers per hour suddenly reversing without braking. The instantaneous torque could tear an elephant apart. It was a feat completely unimaginable even to the world's top engineers and mechanists.

Yet, what even the strongest state-of-the-art titanium alloy could not accomplish, Baron did.

As his ankle twisted, it let out a loud BANG, like an engine recalibrating itself. With his pivot foot as the epicenter, the marble floor cracked and spread in all directions. The crisp cracking sound and rapidly spreading fissures made the surrounding guests wonder if he was standing not on marble, but on some kind of acrylic sheet masquerading as it.

He then spun around to face the Red-armored Knight, who was thrusting past the "Knight's Shield." Using the rotation of his upper body for a short burst of acceleration, he threw the longsword he had taken from the "Knight's Shield" with his left hand.

It flew straight for the Red-armored Knight's head. At the same time, Baron was left with no weapon in his hands.

But a vicious gleam flashed in the Red-armored Knight's eyes. The moment Baron turned and threw the sword, he stomped his foot, halting his advance. The impaled Knight on his blade lurched backward from the inertia as he simultaneously withdrew his sword, sending a clean spray of blood into the air.

Using the spray of blood as cover, the Red-armored Knight raised his sword again. In the blink of an eye, he was before Baron, his longsword chopping down with a vicious look in his eyes.

Meanwhile, the sword Baron had thrown was about to pierce that Knight's chest.

Seeing this bloody scene, some of the more soft-hearted ladies instinctively closed their eyes, screams perched on their lips, just waiting for the spray of blood to give them their cue.

TING.

Other than that, they heard nothing. It was as if even their breathing had been silenced.

When the ladies opened their eyes, they saw the most incredible scene of their lives.

The unremarkable Attendant had vanished from beneath the Red-armored Knight's sword and reappeared in front of the "Knight's Shield," his hand grasping the very sword that had been about to pierce the man's chest.

The TING was the sound of Baron using that same sword to block the Red-armored Knight's attack.

The Attendant flicked his blade to the side, his gaze calm as he watched the Red-armored Knight. Every hair on the Red-armored Knight's body stood on end. He felt as if he were being stared down by a ferocious tiger and quickly retreated, putting a relatively safe distance between them.

Baron silently watched the "Knight's Shield," who had been grievously wounded in the abdomen by the Red-armored Knight, collapse weakly to the ground. Then he turned to the stunned young noblewoman at the side and said:

"If I remember correctly, you're a Wizard, aren't you?"

"Y-yes... an Intern Wizard. I'm not yet Entry Tier, and I don't have a Lawbook," Claire Hestia said cautiously.

In truth, given her personality and her usual disdain for Attendants, her most likely response would have been: "What right does a lowly Attendant like you have to speak to me, an Old Race of the Hestia Family, in such a tone? Even your master, Freyja Lancelot, is my peer."

But after witnessing the Attendant's earlier performance, and especially with him standing right in front of her now, she somehow couldn't summon her usual bossy arrogance.

Especially when she looked into his eyes, the absurd thought, 'His eyes are so beautiful,' even surfaced in her mind.

"Save him." After saying this, the Attendant raised his longsword and charged toward the Red-armored Knight.

Claire, who had been about to say, "What right does an Attendant like you have to order me around?" stared blankly. Then, amidst the whispers of the other ladies around her—"Who is that guy, daring to order Miss Claire around like that?"—she fumbled to pull a Magic Card from her Storage Stone and tap it with her Magic Staff, beginning to heal the pale Griffin Knight who was bleeding out.