Guess Who’s Back?

"You bastard! Where have you been?! We've missed you!"

Sabre said with a wide smile on his face.

In response, the man also smiled and said "Sorry for being late, allow me to make amends by offering you this guy's head."

The man who arrived was none other than Battalion Commander Leif Adler.

The enemy was both angry and confused. This guy appeared out of nowhere and suddenly declared that he would kill him.

Not only that, even the battalion commander who was fighting with him suddenly stopped paying attention to him to talk with the guy who just arrived.

The general of the Samara Kingdom's hidden strike force named Morty furiously charged towards Sabre.

"Where the fuck are you looking? I shall teach you why you should never look away in the middle of a duel!"

*CLANG*

"Hey, didn't I tell you that I would be your opponent?"

Leif calmly stepped in front of Sabre and blocked Morty's attack. Sabre's eyes widened upon seeing the huge changes in Leif's attitude.

Before he left, although Leif was confident in his skills, Sabre knew that there was a hint of nervousness whenever Leif fought against an enemy who was equal to him in strength.

In addition to this, he didn't have these ice-cold indifferent eyes before. Sabre was a bit fascinated by Leif's changes and he knew that this was only the surface level.

Sabre closely watched Leif's fight because he wanted to see the extent of Leif's improvement.

*CLANG* *CLANG* *CLANG* *CLANG*

Leif calmly advanced as he dodged, blocked, and parried Morty's attacks, his eyes as indifferent as ever.

He also occasionally threw lethal counterattacks which were all aimed at Morty's vital spots.

Sabre couldn't believe what he was seeing. Each of Leif's attacks had the purpose of taking the opponent's life in a single hit!

Morty broke out in a cold sweat after narrowly avoiding just a few attacks from Leif. Leif's lethal attacks slowly chipped at Morty's confidence and courage.

However, Morty himself was an experienced general so gnashed his teeth and adjusted his attacks. He started attacking Leif's vital spots as well while narrowly avoiding his lethal attacks.

"You think I'm scared to fight this way? I'll expose your pretentious true self!"

Morty thought to himself as he tried to gather his courage but deep inside him, he was really scared to fight like a madman.

Since he was scared, he thought that Leif was also scared and that he was only pretending to be a madman. 

Little did he know that Leif fought all of his battles like this in the arena where anything goes and he had no morale, honour, or reputation to worry about, simply the purest of life-and-death battles.

After having near-death experiences almost every other day, Leif became indifferent to the sensation of fear.

*CLANG* *CLANG* *CLANG*

The two Swordmasters clashed more than twenty times before Morty finally managed to inflict a moderately deep wound on the left side of Leif's body.

"Leif!"

Sabre couldn't help but worry after seeing Leif fall into a disadvantage.

"Hahahaha! Now let's see if you're as fearless as you claim to b–?!"

Morty's eyes widened as he narrowly dodged another lethal attack aimed at his throat. He then broke out in a cold sweat again after temporarily hearing the whispers of death.

Leif's eyes were as indifferent as ever as he continued fighting like a madman with no regard for his life.

His attacks started becoming sharper and faster while Morty started to become passive, only focusing on dodging while forgetting to counterattack due to fear.

Meanwhile, Sabre was utterly dumbfounded after seeing Leif's fighting style. He was nowhere near the word madman before he left but after being gone for a year, he came back like this.

Sabre couldn't help but wonder what kind of experiences Leif had for him to be as fearless as this.

Even the soldiers stopped fighting to watch the duel between the two military leaders. The battle was reaching its climax and there was no point for the soldiers to fight right now.

They know that the result of the battle would depend on who would win this duel to the death.

The soldiers of Rougenfort Kingdom who were recently enlisted curiously asked who the man was while the veteran soldiers proudly told them the tales of their battalion commander Leif.

Some of them were even crying tears of joy because they were under Leif's direct orders before he left to focus on self-improvement.

"Commander Leif! Slay this impudent invader!!"

"Commander Leif! We're watching!!"

After seeing how emotional their comrades were after seeing Leif again, the other soldiers started to root for Leif.

Although they hadn't seen this battalion commander before, from the stories of their comrades, they learned that this battalion commander Leif was only second to Alexander and even their battalion commander Sabre hadn't won a single sparring session against this man.

Because of this, they felt excited and their morale surged through the roof. They wanted to see how strong Leif was and as if he was answering their questions, a head suddenly went flying as blood spurted through the air.

The lifeless body of General Morty fell to the ground and his men were horrified upon seeing the results of the duel.

"Commander Leif is mighty!"

"Commander Leif is mighty!"

"Commander Leif is mighty!"

Fortunately, a battalion commander under General Morty managed to quickly gather his wits and called for a retreat.

However, how could Leif and Sabre simply let them retreat after wreaking havoc on Blasridge City?

Leif and Sabre ordered the soldiers of the Rougenfort Kingdom to give chase and only after losing 90% of their total numbers did the Samara Kingdom's soldiers manage to retreat successfully.

Cheers erupted from the Rougenfortians as the soldiers celebrated upon realizing that they'd successfully defended Blasridge City. 

They thought that the city would fall once their Battalion Commander Sabre was defeated but who would've thought that a stronger battalion commander would appear out of nowhere and turn the tides of the battle?