Master Swordsman

Lu Chen walked away from the village again with the two barbarians following closely beside him. 

While he was on his way, Lu Chen also thoguht about how could he track down the Evils quickly outside of the border.

Only weaklings like the human-head fireballs reveal their position in the dark night. The rest of the Evils lurk in the dark, it's impossible to even see where they are. So my focus now is not how to kill them, but how to find them.

Evils were strong and powerful creatures and most of them have no fixed forms. Right now, despite having a strong Vigor, Lu Chen was troubled by the issue of finding Evils.

He stood by the border and looked carefully into the dark night. He was trying to see if he could find any Evil in his vicinity that he could handle.

But after a few moments, Lu Chen found nothing out there in the silent night.

It's no use just looking.

He hesitated for a second and eventually decided to step out of the totem pattern's protection. But this time, there were no Evils that approached Lu Chen.

Are there no Evils in this area?

While Lu Chen was thinking to himself, the sound of a horn could be heard coming from a far distance away from him.

The sound shocked Lu Chen as he thought that there were some Evils coming at him.

But quickly, he got a hold of the situation.

No, it's not coming from an Evil, it's the village's call for help!

When Lu Chen recalled what the sound meant, his other two patrol partners had already shouted at Lu Chen in panic.

"Ah'Chen, hurry, an Evil got into the village!"

As they finished shouting, the duo turned and immediately rushed back to help.

Lu Chen also turned back without any hesitation and sprinted toward the sound of the horn.

Although his Agility was low, his high Strength empowered him with a strong explosive force. Every step he took would create a hole on the ground as he dashed out.

It didn't take long for him to overtake the two barbarians and arrive at the location of where the horn sounded.

There were already six barbarians on the spot. They were lead by a humongous barbarian in a battle against a bizarre-looking man holding an umbrella.

When Lu Chen was moving toward them, the man just stabbed the umbrella through a barbarian's body and the barbarian fell to the ground.

"Move aside!"

Lu Chen, not planning to slow down, shouted from afar for the barbarians to not stand in his way.

Then, he raised his sword and rushed in strong momentum into the face of the man. He swung his sword high and aimed it down at the man's head.

Bang—

His body as a Barbarian Blood Warrior and 29 points of Strength empowered Lu Chen's metal sword to even quiver the air around it.

Right now, Lu Chen was confident he could crush even a boulder in this one strike.

But just when Lu Chen was felt that his strike was about to land, a voice suddenly shouted from the side.

"Careful, this Evil is proficient in swordsmanship."

The comment surprised Lu Chen. He would understand if the Evils were described as eerie, strange, strong, or mysterious, but what did it mean to be proficient in swordsmanship?

But soon, Lu Chen immediately understood what the Barbarian Blood Warrior meant by that.

There was great momentum in his sword, but before it could land a hit on the man, the umbrella suddenly opened in front of him.

The surface of the umbrella formed a shield between him and the man as though it seemed like the man was trying to shield Lu Chen's attack.

Lu Chen couldn't help but smile ruthlessly.

Defend? What makes you think you can do it when I have 29 points of Strength?

Lu Chen would never be afraid and back down from a head-on clash as long as he has the Barbarian King's Bloodline in him.

Without any hesitation, Lu Chen brought the metal sword straight down toward the opened umbrella.

His plan was to crush the umbrella at the same time as killing the Evil. 

But when his sword touched the umbrella surface, he immediately knew something was off.

There wasn't any force in the umbrella. Furthermore, when Lu Chen's was brought down, the umbrella was also closed at the same time. In just seconds, the umbrella turned from a shield to a rapier.

It would normally be a good thing for Lu Chen if there was no resistance, after all, his target was the Evil, not the Evil's umbrella.

Sadly, the Evil was certainly not easy to deal with.

As it turned out, the umbrella wasn't opened to shield himself from Lu Chen's attack but Lu Chen's vision. When the umbrella was opened, the Evil had taken a step to the side.

Now, when the umbrella was closed up, Lu Chen suddenly found himself attacking nothing but just air in front of him.

On the other hand, while Lu Chen's hefty sword slammed on the ground, the black umbrella was lunged out from the side like a rapier straight for Lu Chen's heart.

Dang—

A loud metal din resounded through the battlefield.

Lu Chen's vision blurred out for a second taking the strike, but he survived. The metal plates on his leather armor saved his life.

Lu Chen was a Barbarian Blood Warrior in the first place, in addition, the leather armor he was wearing had some metal plates on it. Given the scarcity of metals in the Wilderness, the metal plates were, of course, sewed to protect the important parts of the wearer's body. 

Therefore, it was only natural to have the metal plates protecting his heart. Which was why the Evil's final blow didn't stab through his body but let out a metal din instead.

However, even when he made it through the final blow, Lu Chen still suffered badly from it.

Even when the metal plates blocked the attack, the Evil's swordsmanship mastery empowered its strike with a mysterious strength that seeped through his flesh and hit directly on his heart.

At the same time, a cold and frosty sensation started to bite on his heart.

It was as if he was rammed on his heart, he suffocated for a moment, and his vision blurred out. There was blood filling up to his throat that he needed to vomit out but he couldn't.

In the meantime, the frosty sensation was seeping deeper into his heart trying to paralyze it.

When his heart stopped beating, it would be his end.

At the same time, the Evil launched another attack; this time, it was going for Lu Chen's head.

Suffering severe wounds in his body while having to face another round of attacks, Lu Chen gritted his teeth and clenched his hand into a fist. Then, he punched himself in the chest without hesitation.

Bang—

He didn't hold back in hitting himself. The punch caused a sharp pain that filled his chest but it was still within his limits. At the same time, as the force hit his chest, he was finally able to spit out the blood that was stuck in his throat. 

Naturally, he directed to spit the blood at where the Evil was standing on.

As the Barbarian Blood Warrior's blood was a deadly weapon against Evils, it didn't dare to brace Lu Chen's blood and was forced to move away, eventually giving Lu Chen a window to regain his stance.

On the other hand, Lu Chen felt so much better after he spat out the blood while the rest of the barbarians charged at the Evil and distracted it away from Lu Chen.

However, the situation was not looking good for them.

The Evil was not overpoweringly strong, at the very least, its body was no match for the barbarians, but it was its swordsmanship mastery that made it extremely difficult to handle.

It wielded the umbrella as if it were a part of its body, deftly shifting the umbrella's state to its advantage. At one moment, the umbrella was used as a shield, in the next, it was turned into a rapier. Not only that, but it was also hiding its body and shifting positions behind the umbrella from the barbarians' visions.

 As they were unable to pinpoint its location, the barbarians were not able to land any attacks.

The situation turned even more perilous when the Evil suddenly pulled out a thin sword.

On one hand, it wielded the umbrella as a shield and a rapier, on the other, it was delivering deadly blows with a black thin sword behind the umbrella. Its attacks just turned unpredictable all of a sudden.

In just seconds, a few of the barbarians were put to the ground by the Evil.