"Relax. I'm not going to eat you." The beast suddenly spoke in human language with a muddy voice, which almost horrified him enough to shriek.

He was astounded again when seeing a girl jump off the beast's back. She walked towards Bronzehill, turned him over and checked him out. She said to the beast, "He's alive. Maggie, send him to Nana."

"Ow!" The beast seemed to understand what she said. It grabbed Bronzehill with its claws and flew up again. The flapping of its wings stirred up the air, producing strong winds, which made Ayt unable to open his eyes. When the wind and snow finally stopped, he squinted at the city wall but saw nothing at all—as if everything that had happened was just a dream.

"No, it's not a dream... That girl is still here!" he thought.

He vaguely saw the girl's figure in the darkness. There was apparently no light around, but her pupils were emitting weird golden lights, like stars in the night.

"You... you're..."

"I came to help you." The girl's reply left him dumbfounded.

"Wh-what?" Ayt felt this was more implausible than a dream. "You're here to help me?"

"Yes. His Highness Roland sent me here." She squatted down, dug out a long sword from the flattened corpses and swung it, completely disregarding the fact that the sword was covered with flesh and blood.

Ayt was overcome by a feeling of sickness. He retched twice but vomited nothing except bile. Just then, outside the city wall, a battle cry resounded again. The beast had just terrified the enemies一but now that they saw it had left, and they had no idea what had happened up there on top of the city wall, they began to stir again.

"By 'His Highness'... you mean the prince of Border Town?" He wiped his mouth and gasped.

"Is there another Roland besides him?" the black-haired girl asked, as she started to dig another weapon from a corpse. Ayt immediately turned his head away from her.

"But it takes at least three days to get here from Border Town... How did His Highness know about the n.o.ble's rebellion so quickly?" Ayt swallowed hard and continued, "and the beast just now..."

"It's not a beast, but a witch that came here to save you." Her voice turned cold. "I don't have time to answer all your questions. Just keep quiet."

As there was no flintlock blocking them this time, the enemies easily came up on top of the city wall. When torches lit the place up again, they were surprised to find only a girl standing in front of them.

Malicious laughter soon broke the silence.

Ayt immediately knew what they meant by the laughter.

"Stay alert. Don't give them any chance to play any dirty tricks on us."

"Don't worry, my lord. We'll take care of it, but later..."

"When I'm done, I'll leave her to you."

"Hey... fine with me."

"Qui-quickly come back here to me!" Ayt struggled to stand up, but what happened next made him stare in amazement.

A silver light chopped down and the laughter died abruptly.

The leader of the enemies was chopped into two pieces by the long sword. His s.h.i.+eld and armor could not stop it at all. In fact, he didn't even see the girl strike.

When the two pieces of his body fell down with blood spurting out from the wounds, everyone's smile froze on their face.

However, this was just the beginning.

The black-haired girl took one step forward and swept her sword. Before Ayt could clearly see her movements, he heard the sound of flesh sc.r.a.ping and bones breakings.

The three men had no time to react as they were ripped open in their stomachs.

Their intestines fell out mixed with blood and spilled all over the ground.

"You..." Ayt opened his mouth a little but didn't know what to say.

The girl looked back at him and said, "Go find your surviving battle companions and gather on top of the wall. Someone will come to fetch you later." With these words, she jumped directly off the city wall.

"The city wall here was thirty feet tall!" He endured all the pains in his body, fumbled to climb close to the edge of the wall and looked down. He saw the crowd down there turning into a meat grinder. The girl killed wherever she went. She freely dashed among the crowd, with her weapon moving around smoothly in her hand. She easily cut down the entire enemy who dared to stand in front of her, like the reaping of wheat.

In less than a quarter of an hour, the enemy collapsed.

They'd never seen such a fierce opponent, who was faster than a snow wolf and stronger than a grizzly bear. Facing her sword, n.o.body could react, dodge, or fight. The n.o.blemen hurriedly retreated and the siege was extinguished, merely by one person.

She followed the escaping crowd all the way, leaving a trail of blood behind her. At this sight, Ayt dropped to the ground and cold sweat soaked his spine.

That's a witch?

Well. whatever... I survived!

*******************

The Stronghold castle was tightly besieged by the four families' armies. A dozen bonfires around the castle brightly lit the place up.

After a day and night of fighting, the second floor of the castle had already been conquered. The Honeysuckles now shrunk back to the very top of it and must be suffering from both hunger and fear up there.

Jacques Medde looked at this towering lord's castle and began to feel excited.

After his father died, he traveled all the way back to the territory from the King's City just to inherit the Earl's t.i.tle, but now he had an even better chance.

Timothy mentioned in the secret letter that if he could take hold of Longsong Stronghold for the King's City, the king's army would come here when the snow melted to conquer the rebel king, Roland Wimbledon. Once the rebel king was eliminated, Timothy would probably let him govern the Western Region.

Together with the territory of Earl Honeysuckle, Jacques would have both the land and t.i.tle of a duke.

Duke Medde. What a wonderful name!

This castle would also become my residence.

"My lord, the sixth platoon has come back down," a knight came and reported, "and they said they heard a lot less flintlock sounds from the enemy. Is it time to send iron armor platoons up there?"

Jacques Medde nodded and said, "Go and arrange it."

Iron armor platoons were specially developed to fight against flintlocks. During the fighting, three or four soldiers formed a team—two of them held s.h.i.+elds made of wood with several layers of iron coating, which could cover them all up, and had holes for aiming and firing. In order to make more s.h.i.+elds like this, he made the tough decision to tear down a dozen knight's armors. Of course, those thick iron-coated s.h.i.+elds had a weakness, too. As it was hard to carry and the whole team had to move slowly, they would easily become targets for their enemies.

"Luckily, the Honeysuckles can't hold out any longer." Jacques sneered silently. "They reacted unexpectedly quickly and withdrew part of their soldiers and knights back into the castle before the four families' armies arrived, and they had just only nearly a hundred men. It's impossible for them to fight a long, hard battle.

It'll probably take several days before Prince Roland receives the news.

If I send Petrov's head as a gift to Roland Wimbledon, how will he look like?