School Transmigration: I, Chosen as the Saint by Dragons at the Start-Chapter 204 --The Forest Ordeal

As they drew closer to their destination, Woody became increasingly reticent.

When they reached the juncture between the Great Green Mountain and the Lesser Green Mountain, preparing to ascend, Blight noticed his companion’s unusual state.

Woody’s silence had not previously concerned Blight, considering it was in line with his character, but upon preparing to enter the mountains after lunch, Blight saw Woody’s pale face, cold sweat still clinging to it.

Blight immediately declared they would rest at the mountain’s base and proceed the following morning.

He helped Woody sit down and handed him a flask of water, watching as he drank deeply.

"Feeling better?"

"Much better," Woody replied.

Blight wiped the cold sweat from Woody’s face, and Woody offered a shy smile.

"Thanks, big brother."

"If something’s bothering you, talk to me."

Blight sensed this wasn’t a sudden illness but perhaps related to Woody’s past experiences.

"I’ve been here before, the Great Green Mountain, the Lesser Green Mountain," Woody said, clutching his head in discomfort.

"Are you sure?"

"I think so... No, I don’t know."

"Stop thinking about it for now. Rest. We’ll have a good meal tonight, and tomorrow we’ll explore the mountains and see what we find."

"I’m scared..." Woody hesitated, clearly troubled.

"We’re going anyway!" Blight stated firmly.

"You might recover some memories there. Besides, this is a direct order from Generalissimo King."

"Alright." Despite his fears, Woody agreed.

During dinner, Woody seemed to return to normal, consuming a considerable amount of food.

After the meal, he went straight to sleep, seemingly in preparation for the next day.

However, as the troop set off into the mountains early the next morning, Blight noticed Woody’s particularly dark under-eye circles.

Despite this, Blight resolutely pushed Woody to lead the way.

The area where the Great and Lesser Green Mountains converged appeared to be the most lush, with abundant trees, flowers, and the sounds of birds and insects creating a seemingly paradisiacal environment.

Blight led his team deeper into the mountains, aiming to reach the highest point for a better view.

The further they went, the more intense the fragrance of the flora became, yet the presence of animals and insects diminished, instilling a growing unease in Blight, who gripped his iron sword tightly.

Advancing further, Blight faintly heard the sounds of a skirmish and ordered his team to silence their movements and cautiously approach.

The fight seemed to be occurring near a giant tree, where Blight observed about a dozen men attacking a woman, with three other men spectating.

His focus entirely on the altercation, he failed to notice Woody’s worsening condition.

Woody’s face was paler than the day before, his hands clutching his head as he tried to endure the intense pain, but it became unbearable.

"No, we must not get close to that tree!" Woody shouted, colliding with a nearby tree and falling unconscious.

The distant group noticed Blight’s team; two of the three onlookers attacked the woman, while the dozen who had been assaulting her, led by another, charged towards Blight’s group.

Instinctively sensing danger, Blight quickly issued an order: "Prepare for battle."

The sound of dozens of swords being drawn rang out.

"Charge!" Blight yelled.

A savage melee had broken out, with Blight confronting the leader of the opposition, an assassin clad in black.

The weapon wielded by this figure was also a sword, yet Blight could neither feel the presence of righteousness nor the piercing sharpness of a killer’s intent from it.

It was purely a sword for taking lives, modest and unassuming, crafted solely for the purpose of murder.

Blight sensed an immense force behind the blade, as if the bearer had concentrated all their power into the steel of the sword itself.

After a moment of contemplation, Blight too decided to focus all his strength into his iron sword, engaging in a direct and forceful contest of swordplay with his opponent.

A quarter of an hour into the fight, the tide of battle seemed to become clearer.

Nearly half of Blight’s soldiers had fallen, and several of the promising young warriors he had high hopes for had perished.

Woody was still lying on the ground, showing no signs of awakening.

All of the opposing assassins, a dozen or so in number, had been slain without uttering a single sound even in their final moments.

Blight’s hands were beginning to numb, and he had sustained several sword wounds.

The assassin leader he was battling was not faring much better, though his bloodshot eyes gleamed with excitement.

On the side of the fight involving a woman, one assassin lay dead, but the woman too had been injured and had fallen to the ground.

Another assassin, this one dressed in white, slowly approached to deliver the killing blow.

"Killing a woman, and outnumbering her too.

You really bring honor to yourselves," Blight exclaimed involuntarily.

However, he immediately regretted his outcry.

The assassin seemed to pay him no heed, but Blight’s shout had incited several of the young men behind him to charge towards the woman.

Blight had intended to stop them, yet the assassin before him engaged him once again.

In a brief respite from his engagement with the assassin clad in black, Blight yelled, "Fall back!"

The young men, previously fueled by a rash desire to play the hero, now lay strewn across the ground.

Events had unfolded too swiftly, leaving Blight no chance to intervene, nor did he possess the spare strength to do so.

He hadn’t even managed to discern what kind of hidden weapons had struck the youths.

The murderous aura of the assassin before him was dense and restrained.

As their swords clashed, Blight came to understand the essence of death itself.

It wasn’t that his opponent’s skills vastly surpassed his own; rather, the assassin’s sword aura was suffused with a pure, unadulterated scent of death, as if the wielder’s sole desire was for death, be it his own or another’s.

How could he win? How could he survive? Suddenly, these questions bubbled up in Blight’s mind.

He had once believed the word "fear" was absent from his vocabulary, yet now his thumb trembled slightly.

He had miscalculated their respective strengths; the man before him was his equal in combat, yet capable of killing him at this moment because, mentally, Blight had already lost.

On the other side, the other assassin was even more of a demon, clearly outmatching the woman.

Now, there was only one way to win.

"Quick, wake Woody up." "Y-Yes!" The remaining soldiers in Blight’s unit rushed to Woody, who was still unconscious, while Blight launched a counterattack against the black-clad assassin.

He thought that if they could just hold on until Woody awoke, they might still stand a chance.

But just then, more than ten transparent darts flew towards the few remaining soldiers.

"Dodge!" Blight roared, his gaze shifting from his adversary to the direction of Woody.

The silvery needles sped towards the remaining soldiers with a velocity no ordinary soldier could evade.

One by one, the soldiers fell, not even having the chance to utter a cry of anguish.

"Looking somewhere else, are you? Hahaha!"

For the first time, the assassin in black spoke, his voice hoarse and sinister.

Blight turned back just as the assassin took advantage of his momentary distraction to close in, his sword piercing into Blight’s left side.

Anger overcame fear in Blight’s heart; he stepped forward, allowing the blade to penetrate his body further.

With his left hand, he seized the assassin’s right wrist, channeling arcanergy instantaneously into his grip.

With a thunderous roar, the black-clad assassin screamed in agony, fear flashing in his eyes.

A massive surge of arcanergy burst forth from Blight’s left hand, exploding outwards.

The assassin’s entire arm was blown away, leaving Blight’s left hand reduced to a skeletal frame.

Now, Blight appeared as a demonic deity, lifting his iron sword to thrust it through the throat of the black-clad assassin, ending his life.

Blight glanced at Woody, though the explosion and the tremendous noise failed to awaken him.

"This is as far as it goes," Blight muttered to himself, feeling on the verge of collapse.

The only ones left alive in the forest were himself, the unconscious Woody, the woman, and the assassin in white.

That white-clad assassin was beyond Blight’s current capacity to confront, even at his peak, he had no certainty of victory.

The assassin’s gaze had remained unchanged throughout, as if they were not even among the living.

"Cover me," the woman said, somehow moving beside Blight.

He caught a whiff of her scent, a mixture of perfume and the smell of blood.

"Alright, let me give it a try," Blight said, facing the white-clad assassin with a mind somewhat adrift.

The woman helped Woody up, gently touching the uneven surface of his head, and sighed, "Poor brother."

Then, she kissed Woody on the lips, her fresh blood staining his chin red.

Woody’s eyes fluttered open, and the first thing he saw was several "frost spikes" hitting Blight, causing him to fall backward to the ground.

"Big brother!"

Woody howled as he pushed the woman beside him aside and rushed to catch Blight, whose breathing seemed to have ceased.

Woody glared furiously at the white-clothed assassin, abandoning his sword and unleashing a barrage of punch shadows crazily.

The white-clothed assassin, although taken aback by the sudden strong opponent, managed to parry each attack calmly.

Secretly, he drew several frost needles with his right hand and shot them fiercely towards Woody’s face.

The air was filled with a series of crisp clangs as the frost needles were blocked by real frost spikes, which not only shattered the frost needles but also shot towards the white-clothed assassin, forcing him to leap backward to avoid them.

The woman jumped to Woody’s side, causing him to pause in surprise.

It was then he realized that she was the sister he had encountered in the palace of the Snow King.

Plum Blossom, also known as Crimson Plum Blossom, who had slain Mingate’s seven centurions more than a decade ago, shouted towards the white-clothed assassin, "Jade-faced asura, you can probably tell the level of cultivation my brother possesses."