Swords, magic, and martial arts

A group of five soldiers in armor engraved with mysterious runes emerged from the woods and stopped Rhodes, who was carrying Aya as he ran.

"Who are you?" one of the oldest soldiers asked.

Upon seeing the group of soldiers, Rhode remembered that there seemed to be many adventurers and soldiers searching for the location of that tomb in the forest.

"We just came out of that tomb, and the monster sealed inside also escaped. Everyone who went in except us is dead, and it's still chasing us," Rhodes replied. "You'd better come with me to Ebony City."

The soldier thought for a moment and said, "There are so many of us here. Even if that monster comes over, we can take it down. Don't worry, if you're scared, just stay here and we'll protect you."

Rhodes was stopped and he felt the oppressive aura getting closer and closer. He was very anxious. "You are no match for it. It has already killed many soldiers like you and a knight."

The older soldier paused for a moment after hearing this: "You must be terrified. Even an ancient vampire that has survived since time immemorial cannot kill so many of our brothers at the same time, unless it is proficient in powerful magic, and none of us have sensed any powerful magical aura."

A soldier with red eyes spoke up: "You must be mistaken. We're not the ordinary soldiers you encountered before. Kid, look, our armor is different. We're exorcists trained specifically to deal with powerful non-human magical creatures, not the ordinary soldiers you saw before."

Rhodes examined their armor and found it to be different from the soldiers he had encountered before. The silver armor had faint gold patterns on it, completely unlike the soldiers who wore black chainmail. He had initially thought they were soldiers from different families under Lord Forth.

This was the first time he'd ever heard of a demon slayer. He opened his mouth to ask more questions, but was interrupted by the red-eyed soldier, "Tell us what that monster looks like?"

"It was about three meters tall, with black scales all over its body and wings. Its face looked somewhat like a lizard, and it had a pair of horns on its head," Rod recalled.

The soldiers blurted out, "Dragon People."

"What is a dragonman?" Rod asked.

"Some dragons are so powerful that their blood can even corrupt other animals, making them similar to them in both body and mind. Dragonmen are humans corrupted by dragon blood, but we don't know which generation they are," the eldest demon slayer explained.

"I just killed it once, I even cut off its head, but it seems to have come back to life." Rhodes even took the head out of his backpack.

"What! Why didn't you say so sooner?" The red-eyed demon slayer's eyes widened. "A dragonman capable of resurrection is a match for us all combined."

"It's already been killed, so why don't we just kill it again?" said a demon slayer carrying a giant bow. "I happen to have an armor-piercing arrow that the head instructor gave me."

"A pure-blooded dragon can even resurrect itself by constructing a body from dust as long as its dragon soul remains. This dragon-man can also be resurrected; it's definitely not something we can handle with just a few of us. Stop daydreaming, let's all run!" said the eldest demon slayer.

"But it was just killed once, wasn't it? If we join forces, we can definitely kill it again," the demon slayer carrying the giant bow insisted.

"It's not as easy as you think. I guess that dragonman was just sealed for too long and forgot how to fight, which is why he was killed. Now that he has adapted for a while, all of us combined are definitely no match for him," said the older demon slayer.

Rhodes was speechless. He had thought that these people who called themselves demon breakers could deal with the dragonman, but in the end they still had to run away, which wasted a lot of his time.

"Let's split up and run," said one of the demon slayers wielding a two-handed sword. "Otherwise, we'll all be killed."

"I'm the fastest, so I'll run straight to Ebony City and warn the guards to be wary of that dragonman." The red-eyed demon slayer said before running off.

Rhode ran in the direction the red-eyed demon breaker had fled.

He was heartbroken, having wasted a lot of time trying to escape for no reason. He could feel the dragonman getting closer and closer to them.

He felt that everyone except the demon slayer with the giant bow deserved the nickname "coward." They were thinking of running away before even fighting, and despite all the boasting they'd given, they ended up...

To be honest, after killing that dragonman once, Rhodes didn't think that dragonman was that powerful, except that it was slightly stronger and faster than him. If he were given a packet of Ten-Fragrance Tendon-Softening Powder or something similar, he believed that he could easily kill it again.

Rhodes didn't see a single wild beast along the way, probably scared away by the dragonman's aura. He wondered why no one else besides him and the animals could feel the dragonman's aura.

By the afternoon, he felt that the dragonmen were about to catch up with him again, and he had already run to King's Road, but few people went back to this road.

Are we going to have to fight it again?

Rhodes put Aya down from his back, put on the Bright Armor, and took the golden shell that was left after the Peacock Feather was fired.

The dragon-man flew to Rhodes, warily eyeing the peacock feather in his hand, fearing that it might unleash another powerful attack.

What should I do?

"Have you had breakfast yet?" Rod asked, bewildered by the awkward silence, for some reason blurting out such a traditional greeting.

The dragon-man's golden eyes stared at him, trying to read Rhodes' thoughts. It thought Rhodes wanted to deliberately provoke it, so that it would rush forward and be severely injured again by the strange thing in his hand.

Rhodes was puzzled as to why this dragonman could revive after he had cut off its head and dismembered it, and why its head, which it had left behind after its death, was still in his backpack.

Rod held the empty peacock feather and stood facing it, neither making the first move.

However, Rhode could feel the pressure emanating from the dragonman slowly increasing. It had just come out of the seal and its power had not yet fully recovered. It was recovering its power now.

Thinking of this, Rhodes put away the peacock feather, took out the Shengxie sword, and slowly walked forward. The dragonman flapped his wings and floated in place, watching him.

Once he was close enough to the dragonman, Rhodes suddenly raised Shengxie and charged. The dragonman easily dodged Rhodes' first sword, but was struck by Rhodes' skillful second sword, leaving a bloody and mangled wound.

Its speed wasn't as fast as before, and its scales weren't as hard, Rhodes realized.

Does it lose some of its power every time it revives? Or does its power slowly recover?

He continued to attack the dragon man with the Shengxie sword. With each attack, he could clearly feel that the dragon man's dodging speed was getting faster and faster, and it had changed from simply dodging at the beginning to now being able to exchange blows.

Using the technique of Shengxie, Luo De felt his mind becoming increasingly chaotic, with many evil thoughts constantly arising in his heart.

No, this can't go on. Even if I can kill it before it becomes powerful enough, I'll be driven mad by Shengxie's influence.

Even so, Rhodes did not dare to take Shengxie back, because the dragon people were very wary of Shengxie, which was why he was able to suppress it in the previous battle and even inflict considerable damage on it.

As the battle progressed, Rhodes felt increasingly strained. The dragonmen had begun to suppress him, and from their initial frenzied attacks, he could now only passively defend using the White Rainbow Sword Technique.

The dragonman swung his claw at Rhodes, who didn't have time to deflect the force with his sword. He could only hold his sword horizontally in front of his chest to block the attack. Even though Shengxie blocked it, the impact still made Rhodes's wrist go numb.

In a few minutes I will be completely unable to withstand its attack. I must think of a way. However, influenced by the evil thoughts brought by Sheng Xie, his mind has begun to become somewhat unclear.

He felt a pang of regret; he should have stayed with the dragonman's corpse instead of just taking its head.

With bloodshot eyes and a dazed expression, Rhodes looked at the backpack behind him and a strange idea popped into his head.

When it died, I had a urge to eat its corpse. Now that it's alive, what would happen if I ate its former head...?