Starting from Zero

Chapter 28

Book 3, Chapter 28
Phantom Knights

    "They"re Phantom Knights, and theirlevel is even higher than myself. They fell under my command because these guysdon"t have Commander skills. Still, they"re too good to be willing to listen tome. Giving them orders is like wasting my breath, the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds just won"t follow. Theywill also affect the teamwork of the entire battalion, so they didn"t add upour strength at all, it"s the opposite!"

    "How many?"

    "Ten. Isthat too many for you?"

    "Just right. I can summon exactly 10 Servants."

    "Perfect. They"re just a handful to me. They willsurely take a hundred or two years off my lifespan if I keep up with them. Nowfollow me."

    Domergor led me around the camp and headed to thebackside. They don"t even live inside the camp area?

    We walked for a gooddistance before I finally saw a row of tents lined up near a cave. Brotherwalked to the middle of the tents and shouted: "Fall in!"

    Then he ranback towards me. 

     I heard noises like metal piercing the air, then I saw a series ofspears nailed themselves into the ground, along the path Domergor just ranthrough. The arms of the deadly weapons are still shaking.

    Ten figures wearing full black heavy metal armors walked out of the tents. Each one of them is carrying two spears behindtheir backs, crossed. A b.a.s.t.a.r.d sword hangs on the waist. I can see thick shieldsattached to their arms too. Typical knight design.

    They came and picked up their ownspears (they carry three of them). One of them that looks like their leader, spoke toDomergor: "What do you want?"

    "I came to introduce someone to you today. Comehere buddy." He dragged me in front of him. "This one here is my sworn brother. NowI officially a.s.sign you as his Servants."

    "Not a chance." That leader refused veryflatly.

    "Now don"t give me that. I"m the boss of thisplace after all!"

    "Boss? You, huh? You can"t even defeat us. Listen, ifyou can even best one of us, we"re all yours. Otherwise go back to wherever youcame."

    "You heard the man." Another knight cut in."We don"t listen to weaklings."

    "Tell me the rules then." I walked up, angered.They"re too arrogant!

    "Oh, nice one. You got guts, I"ll give you that. I"lltry to make it fair for you. The weakest one of us, shall have a 1-on-1 duelwith you, without using his horse. You can use your companions and skills anditems all you like. You win the fight if you can chip off half of his HP. Don"tget c.o.c.ky. I"d bet you will be knocked out in one hit."

    "Alright!" It doesn"t really look good sincethey made it a lot easier for me. But I"m pretty sure I"d be dead in a blink ofan eye if they didn"t.

    Brother took us to an open ground. He even gave me hisarmor to prevent me from getting one-shot easily. It got some impressive defense, justa tad too heavy so it may slow me down. I chose to wear it though.

    As they said, their "weakest one" stood infront of me. However I can feel his actual strength is still out of my reach.

    Isummoned all of my companions at the very first moment, which surprised myopponent a little bit. Looks like he wasn"t expecting to face so many targets.

    Since there"s only one enemy I didn"t ask Phantom toMerge, but ordered him to disturb the knight instead. The charging knightsuddenly fell onto the ground face-first. Ouch.

    Lucky took the free chance andswiped his tail downward at the enemy"s head.

    The knight rolled aside, dodging it. I slashed at wherethe knight is about to end up, without success -- he bounced up rightbefore he"s about to reach my sword and cut at me. I immediately ducked whilePhantom interfered and made his sword stray upward a bit.

    Shoosh! Some of myhair went off.

    I stepped back to avoid his following a.s.sault whileLucky charged at him. Lucky should be able to hold himself in up-front conflict.

    Loong"er completed her spell matrix from nearby. A giant eight-diagram appearedbelow the knight"s feet. I wonder if ancient Chinese spell would work against awestern knight.

    The outcome is comforting enough. Our enemy stumbled and almostfell down again. He stood up soon, however.

    Loong"er explained: "This is aGravity Matrix I learned from my father. He is now placed under double gravityand will be slowed. Attack him using your speed advantage!"

    Slowed huh? Aha! He won"t be hitting me if he can"teven catch up! "Phiona! Use your fire and don"t stop!"

    She cast hersignature dark flames around the knight. No matter how much defense he got, he"llbe dead sooner or later.

    "Night Shade! Lightnings!"

    That"s two magic damagers plus Lucky"s physical attacks.Should be enough.

    Before I can feel a.s.sured though, the knight drew one of hisspears and threw it at Loong"er like a javelin. It hit Loong"er right in thecenter despite of Phantom"s interference. With a painful howl, Loong"er diedand revived where she was. Shoot, that damage is no joke!

    Her Gravity Matrix broke without her support and she nolonger has the time to prepare again so she began to use Skill Counter Matrix, whichwill reflect 25% of the enemy"s skill damage back to himself. It doesn"t workagainst normal attacks but is enough to make sure he doesn"t use his deadlyskills very often.

    "Watch out!"

    That was from Phiona. I duckedmy head in time, another spear pierced my hair again.

    "Phiona! Switch to focused fire!"

    "On it!"

    A giant flame pillar erupted fromunder the knight. He hopped around to avoid it but the pillar kept following. It"sa special skill only known to Phoenixes, which is quite powerful and easy to hit. Theonly problem is the caster cannot move or use other skills during the process, orit will be interrupted.

    The knight rushed here and there without breaking outof our encirclement. He soon realized he needs to take me out first and ranstraight at me, ignoring everyone else.

    Well of course I"mnot standing here and let you hit me! I hopped onto Night Shade. There"s no wayyou can outrun a Nightmare.

    He didn"t. He just threw his last spear at us. Itdidn"t hit me but skillfully pierced Night Shade, killing him. Now it"s my turnto crash onto the ground headlong.

    I heard the sound of wind as I crawled back up. Iturned to see the knight getting knocked flying by Lucky"s timely tail swipe.

     He maneuveredhis body in mid-air and performed a perfect landing, before charging at meagain. I jumped onto Night Shade again (who just revived). Gotta RUN!

    Phiona gave upher flame pillar and swooped down. The knight dodged her claws with a nice landslide, and jumped out of Lucky"s claws with another front-flip. Loong"er joinedthem trying to stop him as well, but didn"t hold very long before she wasfinished off, with her low HP after revival. I won"t be summoning her any timesoon.

    I jumped down from Night Shade and ordered Phantom tomerge. Which means the knight will recover his full speed and dexterity. But atleast I can [Blink] away from his attacks now.

     I performed ajump slash and instantly [Blink]"d to his back to avoid his attack. Yet he didn"thesitate one bit before he wielded his sword in a half circle, aimed at me. Thisis not good. He"ll definitely kill me if I keep dodging around.

    Oh right, I can go invisible!

    I [Blink]"d behind himagain and activated my cloak"s effect. Ha, let"s see how you hit something youcan"t even see.

    Losing his target, the knight looked around for a while andstood still. Night Shade charged and headb.u.t.ted at him, forcing him to give uphis plan to hear my location out using his senses. When I go invisible, otherplayers can still see my red name. But an NPC cannot.

    Now I"ll just get away from his a.s.sault and let mycompanions finish the job. Lucky is the only one who can engage in close combatwithout getting maimed. His level is too low though, after all the fight his HPbar is almost empty. The good side is Phiona and Night Shade"s supportiveattacks are pretty effective. Since I"m safe myself, I asked Phantom to disturbhis movement again. Now this is my favorite tactic when I want to annoysomeone.

    The fight continued on for another 20 minutes withoutany notable result.

    The enemy suddenly roared, and his armor scattered on theground. A black bat creature fluttered out of the armor, circled around andthen charged at me.

    Oh c.r.a.p. Bats locate their enemies with their ultrasonic. My cloakwon"t work now!

    But knowing that fact will not help with my situation. Luckycame fast behind and bit at the bat, who just swiftly avoided Lucky"s maw, butwas still scratched by a following claw attack. It landed on the ground andturned into a wicked looking woman who"s wearing a loose robe.

    Wait, woman??

    I"mstill confused at this "batwoman" when she cut me using herdagger. Arrrgh! That damage is no lower than the b.a.s.t.a.r.d sword, it emptied my HPbar again!

   Seeing me getting attacked, Lucky and Phiona quickly arrived. Almostat the same time as I was hurt, Lucky managed to sink his fangs into the woman"sbody. Phiona"s flame hit her too, just one second later.

    With my team"s current health I"m sure we"re a wipe. She didn"t finish me off though, she just turned back into a bat and flew away instead. 

    "I lost."

    "Huh?" Now I"m more confused.

    "My health is below half now. You won." Withoutsaying anything else, she moved back to collect her armor.

    "What was with that bat just now?" I askedher.  
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I think I confused "knight" "rider" and "cavalry", since they can be represented with the same Chinese word.
The phantom knights are just a group wearing heavy knight armors who ride horses into combat. So I guess Knight would be good enough.
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