The Third Son of a Medieval Knight Family Chapter 31 - Knight of the Principality (17)

A lone horseman charging into battle.

From ancient times, long before the old empire split in two and one half fell, legendary heroes were known to charge alone, sweeping away enemies and demonstrating their overwhelming might.

But to those living in modern times, the incredible strength of such heroes in those stories seemed like nothing more than exaggerated myths.

A human cannot defeat a collective alone.

It was an extremely obvious statement.

Just as there are things that cannot be achieved even with magic and sorcery, there are limitations to what human hands can accomplish.

Anything beyond that was surely dependent on God’s will alone—at least, that’s what the Count had long believed.

And at this very moment, the Count could clearly feel God’s presence.

****

CRASH!

The charge could only be described as explosive.

Viktor’s substantial weight, combined with his warhorse Podaga trained for battle, plus the weight of the armor covering them both.

The impact force erupting from this overwhelming mass was beyond imagination.

As Viktor—wielding a mace in one hand and a two-handed battle axe in the other—collided with them, several barbarians at that point instantly went flying through the air.

In this clash of power between an individual charge and a group charge, Viktor emerged victorious.

It was an unbelievable sight.

Even more unbelievably, despite the collision, Viktor continued riding at full speed, beginning to cut across the group horizontally.

Deviating slightly from the direction where the barbarian warriors had been charging in formation, Viktor’s body moved as if slicing through their relatively soft flank.

“What the hell!”

“Whoa! Calm down! Calm down!”

As he charged in the opposite direction, wildly swinging the weapons in both hands, barbarian warriors began falling from their horses one by one.

‘If I stop, I’m dead!’

Viktor instinctively knew.

If his charging speed decreased, he would only be trapped and killed!

He tried to maintain his speed as much as possible, weaving between the barbarians and swinging his weapons.

Viktor’s weapon-handling technique wasn’t particularly impressive, but his inhuman strength compensated for everything.

As the battle axe bent sharply, defying gravity, a barbarian warrior who had hurriedly raised his weapon was torn apart along with his weapon.

“Argggh!”

Simultaneously, the mace struck another’s horse’s head, causing the horse to collapse frothing blood, and its rider to fall.

A barbarian warrior rushing from behind tried urgently to pull his reins to avoid this, but it was too sudden to evade.

The dismounted rider was trampled under the hooves of his comrades.

‘As brutally as possible, terribly enough that they cannot maintain their spirit!’

Fear was the greatest weapon.

No matter how much Viktor rampaged alone, there would eventually be limits.

The key was to prevent the enemy from noticing those limits.

With a merciless heart, Viktor beheaded an approaching warrior and then thoroughly mutilated him.

Blood fountained up, and he could feel the surrounding people panicking.

‘Even more brutally!’

The enemy was barbarians.

People who knew better than anyone how to utilize fear.

To subdue the spirits of such people, one had to act even more fiercely.

Amid the battlefield noisy with hoofbeats and screams, Viktor’s shout rang out with unbelievable clarity.

“Who dares block my path! I’ll cut you in half and kill you!”

Typically on a noisy battlefield, no matter how much one shouted, they often couldn’t be heard well.

The reason barbarians could move almost as one body was because they had long practiced hand signals, not because they could converse with each other.

That was essentially impossible.

However, Viktor’s chilling voice was clearly heard by everyone on the battlefield.

It wasn’t magic or sorcery.

Simply, Viktor’s voice was loud enough to overwhelm the noise of the battlefield.

“Crazy monster bastard…”

“These lunatics must have lain with demons! They aren’t human!”

The warriors began to waver.

But they couldn’t stop.

A group charge couldn’t be halted just because individuals wanted to stop.

Standing still would only cause them to tangle with comrades from the rear ranks, inevitably resulting in a major accident.

As the barbarians approached with fearful expressions, having no choice, Viktor responded by burying his axe blade in them.

Blood splattered, and human arms, legs, and necks flew in all directions.

And finally, no one appeared before his eyes.

He had broken through the barbarian warriors’ charge alone, reaching the opposite side.

Viktor frowned as he turned his horse around.

Though he hadn’t realized it while rampaging, he was quite wounded.

It felt as if he had been struck by blind blades quite a few times, with various parts of his body aching and blood seeping out.

Viktor carefully looked down to check Podaga’s condition.

Fortunately, the horse armor seemed worth it, as his horse appeared unharmed.

Fearlessly, Podaga snorted repeatedly and pranced about, making Viktor smile quietly.

“That’s right, Podaga! We can still do this!”

This level of injury was nothing.

Viktor roared.

“You barbarian bastards! If you don’t retreat, I’ll kill every last one of you!!”

His body, having turned around, began accelerating again.

His blade, having pierced their flank, was now targeting the rear of the group.

****

“Who the hell is that crazy bastard?!”

Ibuti, the warrior leader who had been leading the charge, shouted in disbelief.

As the knight who had charged alone and then rushed into their flank finally broke through the group, the warriors’ murmuring was palpable.

‘To think our charge was stopped by just one man…’

The speed had already decreased considerably.

The barbarian warriors, not heavily armored like the knights of the principality, couldn’t maintain sufficient breakthrough power without acceleration.

As the vanguard signaled and slowly reduced speed, the warriors’ charge eventually halted.

Even though their prey was right in front of them, gaping at them, there was nothing they could do about it.

If they clashed clumsily, there was a high risk of being counterattacked by the armored knights.

Ibuti gnashed his teeth and shouted.

“Damn it! How is this possible! You stupid idiotic bastards! How can you fail to kill one man and end up like this!”

Furious to the point of bursting, Ibuti shouted, and surrounding warriors approached to calm him down.

“Warrior leader, calm yourself. He is just one man. His charge was shocking, but there wasn’t actually much damage.”

“Though it’s shameful to be disrupted by a mere man like that… he must be one of the principality’s most treasured knights! If we capture him and pierce his nose with a ring, it would be worth seeing the expressions of those principality dogs!”

At their words, Ibuti, though still seething, looked at the opponent with an intrigued expression.

He could see the knight, who had stood as firm as steel, charging toward them again.

Though slightly intimidated by that figure approaching with near-madness, Ibuti had to admit his subordinates had a point.

In truth, those who had died or been seriously injured by Viktor’s charge numbered less than a dozen or so.

While the impact had certainly been tremendous, there were limits to what a single individual could accomplish.

‘Indeed, there wouldn’t be many knights like him in the principality… capturing and killing him would be quite a loss for them.’

Ibuti nodded.

‘He’s impressive… but this is the end!’

“Warriors, listen! Though he’s strong, he’s alone! If we hunt him like a beast, even he will have no recourse! Isn’t hunting our specialty, my fellows!”

“The warrior leader is right! Hey, wake up, you fools!”

“Aren’t you ashamed of the name warrior! Let’s go, it’s hunting time!”

What Viktor had actually damaged was not the enemies’ bodies, but their souls.

Once pushed back in momentum, with morale dropping, fear taking over, they would simply flee.

However, as Ibuti skillfully managed his warriors, those who had been shocked began to regain their senses one by one.

They completely reversed course, ignoring those behind them, and began rushing toward Viktor.

And at the forefront was the warrior leader, Ibuti, charging ferociously.

‘I must lead from the front here. If morale breaks, it’s over!’

The sight of barbarian warriors skillfully guiding their horses and instantly gaining speed was magnificent.

Though it was merely hundreds of them charging at a single person, they felt no shame whatsoever.

Rather, hunting powerful prey as a group was considered a great honor.

And at least from their perspective, Viktor was prey worth capturing, incomparably more so than the trivial individuals behind him.

As if denying their injured pride, they reddened their eyes and shouted against Viktor.

“Uraaaa!!”

“Uraaaa!!”

They were undoubtedly formidable opponents.

****

Though Viktor’s expression remained solid, inwardly he was gradually sighing.

As a result of his life-risking charge, he had succeeded in drawing their attention and breaking their spirit, but the barbarians were indeed not easy opponents.

As their leader took the vanguard and all of them reversed course to charge at him, their momentum was ominous.

‘Still, I’m alone… are they really all coming at me?’

It wasn’t what this knight, who had achieved an unbelievably devastating charge, had intended, but the situation wasn’t favorable.

If surrounded by them, unless Viktor grew wings, it would be difficult to escape.

He bit his lip firmly.

‘No choice. I have to do this.’

Of course, having achieved his primary objective, he could retreat for a while without issue, but there would inevitably be a difference in horse speed.

There was unavoidably a gap between the lightly armored barbarians and the heavily armored Viktor.

‘I’ll break through one more time and then get out.’

Feeling the enemy’s vanguard getting closer, Viktor pulled out another javelin that he had tucked into his saddle.

He could clearly see some of the enemies aiming bows at him from horseback.

‘Ignore them.’

As he had experienced before, the draw strength of their bows was pathetic.

With his helmet on, the possibility of being hit in the face by a stray arrow was minimal.

As Viktor applied force, his arm muscles bulged prominently.

The muscle power, visible even over his armor, transferred to the spear shaft, which began to bend as if about to break.

His target was the one who appeared to be the enemy leader, adorned with elaborate decorations!

The spear began to fly like a projectile from Viktor’s hand.

Whoosh!

As the javelin flew through the air with a ripping sound, Ibuti panicked and performed a technique of rolling his body under his horse’s belly.

The spear passed precisely through where he had been, piercing through an unfortunate warrior behind him.

“Gaaagh!”

The warrior, unable to withstand the force of the spear shaft, flew backward, colliding with the line and causing quite a few others to tangle up.

‘Insane… no different from monsters of the steppe! Is he really human?!’

Having regained his posture, Ibuti stared at the front with trembling eyes.

The knight, who seemed to be licking his lips in disappointment, now appeared as nothing less than a monster.

The killing intent emanating from his body was suffocatingly close, and Ibuti unconsciously hesitated.

Realizing this fact, Ibuti’s eyes also blazed with fire.

“Surround him! Encircle and stab him!”

From behind, warriors split into two streams as if bouncing out, beginning to target Viktor.

As Viktor also didn’t reduce his speed at all, the spearheads collided in an instant.

CRASH!

The one who met Viktor’s battle axe collapsed spewing blood, and behind him, another warrior skillfully drew close and swung a dagger in an instant.

CLANG!

Blocking the dagger with his forearm and swinging his mace, the man was knocked away, but by then, enemies had surrounded him on all sides.

Viktor gripped Podaga’s reins and began ramming forward with all his might.

THUD!

Simultaneously swinging his battle axe widely, two or three men fell from their horses, and the enemies temporarily widened the distance, looking for an opportunity.

Viktor took a deep breath.

It was the greatest crisis since his rebirth, but his head remained cool, and his heart was beating madly to supply blood.

“Are you frightened? If you call yourselves warriors of the steppe, then come at me. Hurry!”

His voice was so loud that those nearby could be seen suffering from it.

Not missing that gap, Viktor was about to charge when Ibuti, who had approached from a distance, shouted at him.

“Knight of the principality! You are surrounded! Stop your nonsense and surrender, and I’ll give you an easy death!”

“You call that an offer?”

“No matter how much you resist, can you handle all these warriors? If you don’t surrender obediently, I’ll skin your face and dismember you, then hang you on a pole! Don’t ignore my mercy!”

As Ibuti sneered and rambled, the surrounding warriors began beating their weapons together with fierce shouts.

Viktor, not budging an inch, suddenly smiled.

“It seems my words aren’t clear enough, so I’ll say it kindly in your way.”

“…?”

“Go eat a dick!”

Ibuti’s face turned crimson.

With the enemy surrounded, there was virtually no possibility for him to escape this situation.

He had tried to show mercy…!

Ibuti shouted loudly.

“Capture him! Whoever captures him gets the first opportunity to pierce his nose with a ring!”

The warriors roared and charged in.

Viktor also began to swing his mace and battle axe savagely.

“Argggh!”

“Aaaagh!”

“W-what is this…!”

And suddenly, warriors hit in the ribs by a shower of arrows began to collapse, leaving Ibuti bewildered.

“Save the knight! Keep shooting!”

As Georgi, who had occupied a high position slightly to the side of where Viktor and the barbarians were entangled, shouted, the mercenaries pulled their crossbows in unison once more.

Arrows flew with a chilling sound, and warriors hit at close range screamed without any resistance.

While Viktor was buying time, Georgi, who had somehow approached, had appropriately struck from the flank.

“Charge!”

As soon as the crossbow shower ended, the mercenaries gripped their swords firmly and began to rush in.