Chapter 7

When he gripped the longsword and charged at the grotesque and bizarre monster, Gao Wen’s heart was no longer filled with tension, hesitation, or fear. If there was anything, it was probably just a bit of daze and a sense of unreality.

He still vividly remembered the moment his plane crashed.

He still vividly remembered the tens of thousands of years he had spent hanging in the sky of this world.

He had yet to fully adapt to the identity of Gao Wen Cecil, who had fallen from the sky.

But at this moment, he was gripping an ancient family longsword, charging fiercely at a bizarre monster that was either a demon or an undead.

Bang!

A massive impact came from the sword, and all the杂念 in his mind instantly vanished.

Reacting almost instinctively, he dodged the monster’s sweeping claws, twisting his upper body slightly. The sword blade swept through the air, leaving a trail of light, and he fiercely slashed at the monster’s shoulder. As he did so, he tried to mobilize the strength hidden in this body and guide it to the longsword in his hand.

A faint red glow at the base of the sword blade blossomed into a brilliant red light, spreading like a flame along the blade. The intense heat distorted the surrounding air.

The three-meter-tall monster, sensing the threat from the sword’s heat, suddenly leaned back with a speed that didn’t match its massive size. As a result, Gao Wen’s slash narrowly missed.

This was the first time Gao Wen had released such a supernatural power, which felt almost like magic. The brief excitement and thrill made him lose the rhythm of his first attack. However, he quickly adjusted his mindset and channeled more strength into the sword.

The skills and knowledge from Gao Wen Cecil’s memory were indeed usable, and this body hadn’t deteriorated to the point where it couldn’t exert any strength. Although he didn’t know how much of his full potential he could unleash, Gao Wen now felt a significant boost in confidence.

He began to immerse himself in the battle, trying to convert the combat experience in his mind into usable skills as quickly as possible.

On the other side, Byron was already in a tough fight.

This mid-rank knight was one of the best in the Cecil territory, and his combat experience before serving the Cecil family was also considerable. However, he had already expended a lot of energy during the monster’s attack on the castle, and the strange magic of the monster had further eroded his strength, reducing his combat effectiveness to about 40-50%.

Facing the monster’s relentless attacks, he could only grip his sword and try to maintain a defensive stance, conserving his strength while looking for an opening.

Rebecca gathered her magic, and a head-sized fiery ball shot out from the tip of her staff, colliding with the shadow arrow from the distant spell-casting monster. The impact caused a deafening explosion. She then caught her breath and immediately noticed Byron’s dangerous situation, shouting to the nearby soldiers, “You three, go help Byron!”

One of the soldiers hesitated, “But, my lord...”

Rebecca, while forming a new fireball, called out, “We’re fine for now— but if Byron falls, it’s over! I order you to go as your lord!”

The three soldiers had no choice but to obey, joining Byron in the fight against the terrifying monster.

Gao Wen gradually immersed himself in the battle, and the memories and experiences that didn’t belong to him were rapidly converting into his own, enhancing his control over his new body. This process gave him a great sense of accomplishment. When he finally came out of this immersive state, he found that the monster in front of him was already on the defensive.

The monster’s deformed body, which was covered in “slime,” was not invulnerable. It would still be injured when cut, and if cut enough, it would die. Despite its immense strength and size, as long as the right methods were used, human bodies could still defeat it.

This was the experience left from seven hundred years ago.

The monster’s claws swept over his head, and Gao Wen ducked, thrusting his sword into the monster’s thigh. The monster finally let out a hoarse roar and lost control, falling to the side. Seizing this opportunity, Gao Wen shouted to Byron, “Aim for their abdomen and lower limbs, not the chest; these things don’t have hearts!”

He then took advantage of his opponent’s loss of balance, twisting around to the side and rear, raising his sword to stab the monster’s lower back. “Besides the abdomen, their other weak point is the lower back!”

Hearing the guidance from the ancestor of the Cecil family, Byron’s spirits were lifted. With the help of the three soldiers, he quickly restrained the monster’s movements, and at the cost of his shoulder armor being pierced by the monster’s claws, he drilled under the monster and struck a vital point with a reverse slash.

Just as Byron was about to finish off the enemy, the monster in front of Gao Wen also fell heavily to the ground.

After defeating the enemy, Gao Wen immediately looked up at the monster that was still dueling with Rebecca’s fireballs. But just as he was about to charge, the monster suddenly let out a shrill roar and convulsed, falling to the ground.

Amber appeared behind the monster, twirling two poisoned steel daggers in her hands. “I’m good at this.”

Rebecca put down her staff, her cheeks slightly flushed from continuous spellcasting. She took a few deep breaths to calm down and then corrected, “The ancestor said the lower back.”

Amber quickly spun the daggers in her hands and hid them somewhere, then walked over, crossing the monster’s corpse and pouting, “Tsk, no sense of humor.”

After the monsters died, they began to rapidly disintegrate. The mud-like substance on their bodies stopped flowing, gradually dried up, and formed a crust with numerous fine cracks. As this “flesh” decayed and fell off, they would quickly turn into large, twisted, blood-red skeletons.

Gao Wen stood next to the monster he had killed, looking down at the process, as if talking to himself, “So these are the things that attacked the Cecil territory...”

Hetti looked at him curiously, “Ancestor, do you know the origin of these monsters?”

Gao Wen had already shown a deep understanding of these monsters during the battle, even guiding Byron on how to fight them, so there was no way to hide this. He didn’t intend to hide it either.

“We might encounter them again if we stay here. Let’s go into the secret passage first. There’s something in there that suppresses these monsters; they won’t easily enter. I’ll explain the details on the way.”

After entering the ancient underground passage and walking for a while, Gao Wen broke the silence, “I did indeed fight them back then— in fact, we mainly fought those things. You should know about the collapse of the Gondor Empire and the Second Expansion, right?”

“Of course,” Rebecca immediately nodded. This history was a required course for her as a noble’s child. “Seven hundred years ago, the continent of Loren had only one human nation, the Gondor Empire, located in the center of the continent. Historical records state that it was the most powerful empire on the continent, even the Silver Empire of the elves in the southern part of the continent dared not easily provoke it. However, the ether sea surrounding the world became turbulent, causing a disaster known as the ‘Dark Magic Tide’ on the Loren continent. The epicenter of the disaster was in the heart of the Gondor Empire— almost overnight, the capital and one-third of the empire’s territory were swallowed by the magic tide and disintegrated by surging elemental forces.”

“It didn’t happen overnight; the process actually lasted nearly a month. The court mages of Gondor didn’t just stand by in the face of the magic tide,” Gao Wen interrupted, then gestured for her to continue, “But the result was similar. Go on.”

“Oh... oh,” Rebecca blushed, speaking more cautiously, as if being checked by a parent, “After that, the magic tide in the heart of the Gondor Empire continued to spread, ultimately destroying the entire nation. This was the collapse of the Gondor Empire. After that, as the ether sea gradually calmed, the power of the magic tide began to weaken. The surviving Gondor citizens began to rebuild civilization. Since the central region of the continent was already devastated and no longer suitable for human habitation, they left the ruined empire and expanded in four directions— east, south, west, and north. This is known as the Second Expansion. You, Ancestor, were one of the most famous expansion knights of that time.”

“Hmm, not bad history,” Gao Wen praised casually, “So you should also know that even after the magic tide ended, the ruins of the Gondor Empire were still infested with a large number of monsters born from the magic tide. These monsters were one of the greatest threats humans faced during the Second Expansion.”

Hetti’s eyes widened, “You mean...”

“Exactly, what we fought back then were those things,” Gao Wen sighed, “They were born from the magic tide, had a human-like shape, but were definitely not human. After the collapse of the Gondor Empire, a large number of these monsters emerged from the ruins, spreading in all directions, hunting the survivors. So the first half of the Second Expansion was more of a flight than an expansion. Even after we left the ruins and established new nations on the edges of the continent, these monsters didn’t stop. They continued to surge from the direction of the ruins, frequently attacking the defenses of the civilized world... In the first ten years after the founding of Ansu, I was almost dealing with them every day.”

Rebecca’s eyes widened, seemingly captivated by these ancient and legendary stories, “Ah, so after ten years of Ansu’s founding, those monsters no longer appeared?”

Gao Wen smiled, patting the girl’s head with a silly smile, “Silly girl, after that, your ancestor was already dead...”

Rebecca: “...”