'It must be the guy who shouted earlier.' Abium quietly moved his gaze towards the right side woods and followed the enemy's movement.
Like a wind, the enemy warrior moved in the woods while evading the tree trunks and vines and arrived behind him in three seconds.
'He also looks stronger. From the movement speed, he must be a fifth-tier warrior. Wait, isn't Watson's movement speed also appearing quicker than before?'
While Abium was in muse, the new enemy warrior took two knives from his boots and threw them toward Abium's backside.
Swoosh! Swoosh!
Both knives imbued with a yellowish sword aura tore through the air and soon arrived behind him.
Without any delay, Abium quickly ducked his body and slashed his sword in a whirling stance.
A second later, he evaded the two knives, moved his sword tip towards his left side, and blocked the invisible knife that flew towards his abdomen.
'A wind-type illusion skill?'
He cursed secretly at the opponent and glanced back to see his face. At that moment, he managed to get a clear look at the new opponent and squinted his eyes a little.
The warrior wore shining silver armor, appeared to be around 35 years old, had long silver hair that almost covered his nape, unique silver eyes, barely visible eyebrows, olive skin, and was as tall as 2 meters.
'Isn't he the Silver knight who works under Count Tibal?! Well, I am not surprised to see him here.' Abium groaned a little and gripped his sword tighter.
As he was about to attack Watson, the earth under his foot started to loosen.
It was like quicksand. Within a second, the ground began to change from hard rock to jelly, causing his body to drown.
'Another trap? A magic spell?' He sensed a dense amount of earth-elemental energy from below and turned grim.
'It seems they had long prepared this ambush and waited for my arrival.' Abium searched for the enemy on the map and found him standing right next to him!
'But why couldn't I see him? Is he also in an invisible state?'
Although he saw a red dot on the map, he couldn't find anyone around his surroundings.
At that moment, he felt like they were playing with his mind and tried to cast a 'blink' spell to escape.
But his body didn't move an inch.
"Kekeke, futile. You can't escape from the mud trap spell that easily, elf. Even if you try to cast an escape spell, you will only waste your energy." Like a golem, another humanoid figure came out of the ground and spoke wickedly.
He wore a white-colored devil-like mask and a black robe with a skull symbol embroidered on the chest region and looked like an average human. He had brown eyes, slightly long black hair, and was around 165 cm tall.
'Necromancer? Order of the Dead member?' Abium's expression went stiff.
Before the Order of the Dead organization made a full-scale invasion all over the Estica continent, they never revealed their faces to the public.
They acted more secretively and hid from the public.
But seeing such an organization member even before the arrival of Chaos caused Abium's heart to start to beat faster.
'Why is a necromancer after my head?' He got confused inside.
But as he looked at the guy deeply, he couldn't help but take a deep breath.
'Damn it. It's the apprentice necromancer from the Order of the Dead.' Although this guy's strength was not powerful, Abium would still be thrown into a tough position if the battle continued like this.
As for Helena's and others' safety, he didn't think much about it because of Viper's presence.
'Mr. Viper is there for their backup.'
...
Meanwhile, Helena, Viper, and all the veteran soldiers unsheathed their weapons when they saw a group of silver knights running towards them from the front and prepared for the battle.
Soon, they moved co-ordinately and surrounded the women, elders, and children to protect them.
Simultaneously, Helena recited a chant in an ancient language and made a strange gesture. A second later, the green vines started slithering from the nearby woods and bound all those silver-armored knights' legs.
"W-What is this?!" "V-Vines? Who is controlling these vines?"
Confusion appeared on all those knights' faces. Before the leader of that group could control the situation, the knights moved away from the vines in anxiety and scattered in different directions.
In truth, the vines were normal ones and didn't have much strength to bind them.
But the silver-armored knights were scared by the strange power and went into disarray.
Although they had seen the mages, no one had heard of any mage who could control plants under their will until now.
After all, druids were more secretive than mages and never showed their presence outside the Elven Kingdom itself.
If not for Abium's past knowledge, even he would be in a clueless state about the druids.
Helena and others didn't wait for those knights to regroup and dashed forward to attack.
Helena was the vicious one among the group as she sprinted towards a third-tier warrior and thrust her sword into his heart. She didn't even flinch at the other two knights, who angrily roared at her while aiming their swords at her neck, and calmly rolled down to evade their attacks.
Meanwhile, a strange dark-aura-coated short sword appeared behind them and decapitated the knights' heads swiftly. A second later, a middle-aged man with long gray hair appeared behind the headless bodies and turned into a cloud of black smoke.
The next instant, he reappeared behind another silver-armored knight and plunged his black sword into his head before killing him.
"Thank you, sir." Helena panted lightly and gave a thankful bow to Viper.
"It's my job." Viper retracted his short sword from the silver-armored knight's head and replied with a smile.
"Is he going to be okay, sir?" Helena looked ahead at Abium and asked in a worried tone.
"Don't worry about him. Although that elf may look weak on the outside, he is as strong as the current 'me.'" Viper's calm reply made her eyes widen a little.
At that moment, a question appeared in her mind.
Although they were still on the battlefield, she felt it was necessary to clear her doubt first.
"How strong are you, Mr. Viper?" She asked.
Meanwhile, Viper calmly turned his left hand into a cloud of black smoke as the nearby silver knight slashed his sword at Viper's hand and evaded the sword attack.
Then, he made a side step, closed the distance between him and the silver knight in a moment, and plunged his black sword into the opponent's right eye.
A scream came out of the silver knight's mouth as the sword went deep into his head and killed him on the spot.
Viper then calmly retracted his weapon and responded to Helena's question.
"When I left the Holy See, my strength was around eighth-tier warrior strength. But due to the light curse, I can only have the power to battle against a sixth-tier warrior."
"Sixth-Tier Warrior strength?" Helena muttered in shock and slowly turned her gaze towards the front.
She knew that Abium had become stronger than before but didn't expect that he had the strength to even battle against a sixth-tier warrior!
"But don't get too attached to this power level, lass. Even an ant can kill a mighty elephant if an opportunity arises. Also, being a warrior isn't a great thing." Viper paused for a moment, slowly turned his gaze towards Abium, and then added.
"Follow his path. One day, you might find yourself standing on the top of the world itself."
His words surprised Helena.
"What do you mean by that?" She suddenly paused as she realized two more silver knights were coming toward her and shook her head.
'Now is not the right time to discuss this matter.'
Muttering, she controlled her newly gotten nature power and used it towards other silver-armored knights.
Like snakes, more green vines came from the surrounding woods, slithered towards those knights, and began to coil around their legs.
...
Meanwhile, Abium was completely imprisoned by the mud trap spell and looked grimly at the devil-masked man.
Dark clouds had already blocked the sunlight, causing an unsettling feeling in his heart. Blue bolts of lightning flashed from time to time and created rumbling thundering noises up in the sky.
At that moment, the apprentice necromancer let out a wicked laugh and spoke.
"Hehehe, Nice to meet you, elf. How did you break your bloodline shackle? Did you have an artifact? Or did you use a potion?" He narrowed his eyes in suspicion and started to observe him with keen interest.
'But how did he possess such wealth to get a Dawn Shackle Elven potion?' He had heard in the past that the potion was very expensive even in the Arcane Empire and felt that this elf might be hiding more secrets!
At that moment, he felt an irresistible urge to open his skull and find out the truth.
No, he would capture his soul and search his memory using the Soul Search spell.
Meanwhile, Watson was confused by the apprentice necromancer's strange questions and asked with a frown.
"What are you talking about, Mr. Bilet?"
"Nothing. This time, I will capture this Baron and search more about his origin." Bilet licked his lips while revealing his pitch blackened tongue and walked near to Abium.