School Transmigration: I, Chosen as the Saint by Dragons at the Start-Chapter 201 --The Assassination Squad

As the next blade came slicing through the air, a brilliant burst of light erupted from Owen’s trident, aimed directly at Xeus.

After a series of explosive sounds, Xeus’s illusion was shattered.

Xeus, covered in blood, saw his blade broken into several pieces, the remnants falling onto the snowy ground.

Owen launched another attack, the trident inching ever closer to Xeus, who stood there with closed eyes, bloodied and indistinguishable between life and death.

The trident was merely a meter away from Xeus’s chest when suddenly, Xeus’s eyes snapped open.

"Mystic Technique: Blade Seizure!" The eastern sea man surged towards Owen.

This was Xeus’s third signature move, designed to rush into the enemy’s embrace while unarmed, seize control of the opponent’s weapon, and then, in a swift reversal, deal a fatal blow.

In the next moment, Xeus had seized Owen’s arm, and with a flick, a hole was punctured through it.

Swiftly, Xeus snatched the trident and flung Owen to the ground.

The chill of ice and snow seeped through his back, his cheek stained with blood.

Lying on the ground, Owen barely managed to raise his head, watching as Xeus stepped closer.

With a smile, Owen couldn’t help but think how much higher this eastern sea man’s level would be if he hadn’t indulged in such underhanded techniques.

The eastern sea people were truly foolish.

Xeus, however, bore a visage of ferocity, having shed all pretense to reveal his inherent savagery.

Step by step, he finally reached Owen, raising his blade.

But then, Xeus froze.

Owen saw blood begin to trickle from his waist, at first slowly, then gushing out in torrents.

The trident clattered to Owen’s feet.

Xeus, mouth agape as if to speak, could only emit beast-like howls before the upper half of his body collapsed onto Owen’s legs.

In that critical moment, Owen’s trident still struck Xeus, nearly severing his waist, leaving only a thin strip of flesh connecting the two halves.

To have endured such a grievous wound and persisted until now, Xeus could indeed be considered a first-rate expert.

Owen kicked aside one half of Xeus’s corpse, while the other half still stood upright.

He paid it no further attention.

He was out of strength.

He had won, albeit at the cost of severe injuries to himself.

Drowsily, he closed his eyes.

...

Fikell frowned deeply as he looked into the dense woods filled with the western sea legion.

The newly completed Wooden City was clearly not sufficient to rely on.

"Does the Bitterness forest also conceal a vein of minerals?" he couldn’t help but wonder, glancing towards Visto.

He was very aware that this individual from the Divine Farmer Sanctuary was their last hope.

Fikell was curious about what Visto was plotting; the man was a mystery.

Anna stood on the central tower of Wooden City, gazing out at the surroundings.

The main force of the western sea’s legion was still those monsters.

What they had repelled earlier must have been merely an advance party of monsters; the ones surrounding them now were the main invasion force of the western sea into the Bitterness Kingdom.

The people of the western sea occupy a unique existence, somewhere between humans and demons.

Unlike the empire, the Bitterness Kingdom rarely boasts powerful warriors; they lack this particular talent.

The people of the Bitterness Kingdom excel in the practice of magic arrays, possessing a distinct system unlike any other, skilled in enchantments, curses, poison formations, blessings, etc.

At the onset of war, if the front-line soldiers can hold their ground, the sorcerers in the rear can inflict continuous damage on the enemy, forcing them into a dire situation where they can neither advance nor retreat without sustaining heavy losses.

However, this war began with a meticulously planned surprise attack by the people of the western sea.

The western sea has a special assassination squad, known for their terrifying ability to conceal their presence, making them nearly impossible to detect even by sorcerers.

On the eve of their attack on the Bitterness Kingdom, this group of assassins launched simultaneous assassination attempts in major towns throughout the Bitterness Kingdom.

They faced the "Hassan warlocks," renowned assassins.

After a brutal fight, 7 of the 13 warlocks were killed, 5 were severely injured, yet they managed to accomplish their mission with a hundred percent success rate.

The Bitterness Kingdom had only 5 sorcerers, four of whom were stationed in fortresses in the north, south, east, and west, respectively.

The fifth, known as the "Hex Sorcerer," resided in the central royal city of the Bitterness Kingdom.

On the eve of the war, only the sorcerer in the north was attacked, by the contemporary Hassan of the western sea.

This Hassan’s modus operandi differed from his predecessors; no one had ever seen the face beneath his mask.

Yet, he preferred to "assassinate" openly.

Every time he executed a mission, he would silently eliminate all the guards protecting the target, as he did this time, killing all the guards of the northern fortress sorcerer.

Hassan entered the sorcerer’s sanctum through the main gate at dusk, wielding his great sword.

With each stroke, he left the sanctum littered with the bodies of guards.

The sorcerer’s curses couldn’t penetrate his armor, and he too met a grim fate under Hassan’s sword.

After the deed was done, Hassan left through the north gate.

The soldiers in the city felt the true meaning of death upon his dark blade and fled.

Thus, the most important fortress in the northern Bitterness Kingdom collapsed.

With the loss of the sorcerers, the stronger forces of the Bitterness Kingdom, the kingdom fell into a steady retreat.

The remaining few high-level sorcerers also struggled to stem the tide of defeat.

The sorcerers of the east and west managed to hold off the western sea legion for a time.

The human contingent of the western sea’s forces had few experts; their main strength was the demon legion.

The sorcerers’ poison fog managed to kill off a small portion of the soldiers.

However, when the demon legion, splitting into two factions, surged forth overwhelmingly, the sorcerers were powerless to turn the tide, and both perished in battle.

Subsequently, the Hex Sorcerer, who was stationed in the capital, engaged in a brutal final battle against the western sea legions but went missing after a confrontation with the demon legion’s commander.

The capital fell soon after.

The Bitterness Kingdom’s royal family was slaughtered to the last.

Now, the only remaining sorcerer of the Bitterness Kingdom is the one in the southern Bitterness forest.

He now leads the people of the Bitterness Kingdom, standing beside Anna and watching the movements of the western sea legion.

He had already led the people of the Bitterness Kingdom in resisting the western sea invaders until the vanguard of the western sea’s demon legion arrived and encircled them.

The unexpected arrival of Anna and her group inadvertently broke the siege, leading him to lean towards forming an alliance with these people from the empire during negotiations.

The enemy of an enemy is a friend, and under the current circumstances, any demands from the empire’s people would not be excessive.

This old sorcerer, known as Glan, only hoped to preserve Bitterness forest, the birthplace of the Bitterness Kingdom.

Glan chattered away to Anna, who nodded and watched him descend the tower.

Below the high tower, the old sorcerer laid out strange artifacts and began chanting spells continuously.

A clear light barrier enveloped the entire Wooden City, blessing the soldiers with Light Blessing.

Anna’s gaze wandered around Wooden City, searching for someone.

After a while, she finally spotted Visto on the wooden wall to the north.

Visto was standing with his back to Anna, facing out towards the city, a rare moment without Gael by his side.

Anna couldn’t see Visto’s face, nor could she discern what he was thinking at that moment.

During the battle at Myriad Stones Mountain, Anna had inadvertently revealed her knowledge of the western sea monsters’ weaknesses in a moment of crisis.

It was Visto who spoke on her behalf, saying what needed to be said, and later helped her cover her tracks.

Fikell wasn’t a fool; a teenage girl possessing such deep knowledge of the western sea monsters thousands of miles away would certainly arouse his suspicion, potentially leading him to investigate Anna’s secret.

In truth, it wouldn’t matter much if Fikell learned her secret, but Anna didn’t want anyone to know.

She didn’t want anyone touching the pain in her heart.

So far, only Visto might have some understanding of Anna’s secret, possibly due to his expertise as a doctor from the Divine Farmer Sanctuary.

However, to what extent he knew, Anna was unsure.

This uncertainty made Anna uncomfortable.

Her attitude towards Visto had never been warm, despite his overt and covert efforts to protect her.

Anna knew Visto had secrets, secrets that weren’t merely about his identity as someone from the Divine Farmer Sanctuary, possibly even greater than her own.

Yet, his demeanor always seemed open and honest, which only added to her curiosity.

Sometimes, she wondered if she was too fixated on him.

As Anna was pondering this, Visto suddenly turned and smiled at her.

Anna immediately glared at him and looked away.

It wasn’t the time for such thoughts.

Anna saw that the enemy in the woods was beginning to advance towards Wooden City.

The human contingent of the western sea began launching tentative arrows towards Wooden City, while the main force of the demon army had yet to make a move, save for a few titans lumbering ahead of the infantry, dragging wooden clubs.

Another siege was on the horizon.

The encirclement of Wooden City by the western sea legion tightened, shrinking to a mere thirty meters from the walls.

It was then that the old sorcerer Glan’s magic array took effect.

Poison gas erupted from the ground, and rows of the western sea’s regular troops fell instantly, bleeding from all orifices and dying where they stood.

Seeing such a horrifying scene, many soldiers in the back ranks broke ranks and fled.

However, those fleeing at the forefront were swiftly turned into dried husks by vampires rushing forward, instilling such fear that the western sea infantry regrouped their formation in terror.