The spearhead pierced the plate armor, plunging into Montagu's chest and sinking in by half its length.
After being struck like that, a normal person would have been done for, losing all combat ability and collapsing. There's no way they could survive.
Yet, Montagu remained standing. He didn't fall.
At the sa ti, a crimson light suddenly erupted from Montagu's body.
Fang Zhen was very close. To his surprise, he discovered that what he had thought was a bloody light was actually blood erupting from Montagu's body!
The blood sprayed out from Montagu's body under imnse pressure, forming a mist. But this blood mist was bound by a strange, invisible force, preventing it from scattering. Instead, a bizarre attractive force pulled it back into Montagu's body.
The blood mist was sucked back in through the gaps in his plate armor and visor, as if drawn by a vacuum.
Montagu, who had been at a disadvantage, was suddenly full of life again, as if he'd been injected with a stimulant.
His frenzied aura was even stronger than before.
Ignoring the spearhead in his body, Montagu swung his war sword in an upward arc, aiming to disembowel Fang Zhen!
Fang Zhen watched, his brow furrowed.
He retreated, dragging his spear. He kept the spearhead on the ground, ready to block at any mont, defending against the spade-shaped barb on Montagu's strange war sword hooking at his hamstrings.
After retreating two body-lengths, he kept his brow furrowed as he stared at Montagu.
'Montagu isn't normal.'
'If he were a normal human, he'd be dead on the ground by now.'
'What kind of person can burst into a spray of blood and then just suck it back in?'
Fang Zhen recalled the sight of Montagu, shrouded in a bloody light, leaping out of the horse trap he had fallen into.
He also rembered the boss notification from when he entered the instance.
'The Fallen Knights in this instance have all sacrificed a part of themselves to obtain strange abilities.'
'This Montagu's stamina, strength, and resilience are far beyond those of an ordinary person. These abilities shouldn't exist in this world.'
'Did Montagu sacrifice sothing?'
'His blood, for example?'
Fang Zhen's brow relaxed slightly. 'I think I've grasped the key.'
'If Montagu sacrificed his blood for the Evil Descent Ceremony, then it would make sense.'
'And it would explain so other things, too.'
'Like how Montagu fell from his warhorse without injury, his superhuman stamina that lets him run in heavy plate armor, and his willingness to trade blows with —a completely reckless fighting style. It would all have a reasonable explanation.'
Fang Zhen reasoned that Montagu had sacrificed his blood for the Evil Descent Ceremony. The abilities he gained were extraordinary strength and stamina, and possibly another bizarre power: the ability to use his sacrificed blood to recover from grievous injuries.
'That's all I can see for now.'
'I can even speculate that this strange ability of Montagu's might have other flaws or weaknesses.'
'Montagu is tyrannical, slaughtering people at the slightest displeasure. That's also a bit unreasonable. After all, the population is sparse in this era, and people themselves are a resource. It's one thing for a conqueror to kill his enemies, but why kill civilians?'
'Perhaps it's a cover for sothing.'
'For example, after sacrificing his blood, does Montagu need to recharge with human blood? Or perform so kind of blood sacrifice?'
'The massacres are just a diversion. Is the real reason to obtain the civilians' blood?'
'Thinking about it this way, it all seems to add up.'
These thoughts flashed through Fang Zhen's mind in an instant.
His focus snapped back to the battle.
Fang Zhen put so distance between himself and Montagu.
Montagu swung his war sword relentlessly.
It wasn't that Montagu's combat techniques were bad, but they were being applied in the wrong context.
The Duke of Evil Fall's techniques were all battlefield killing arts—wide, sweeping movents suitable for charging through enemy lines or reaping lives from horseback. They were highly efficient for that.
But on foot, in a one-on-one duel like a Martial Artist's, Montagu's techniques seed crude. He was no match for Fang Zhen, who had mastered basic spear arts and a number of Traditional Martial Arts Long Spear Techniques.
Montagu was relying entirely on his vicious ferocity and imnse strength.
Montagu swung his war sword—charging slashes, spinning cuts, lunging thrusts—but Fang Zhen dodged them all.
Fang Zhen held the centerline with his long spear. Although the war sword was powerful and heavy, every ti it knocked the spear aside, a twisting force would bring the spear right back to the center. The war sword simply couldn't break through.
It wasn't that Fang Zhen couldn't counterattack. He was just waiting, avoiding the brunt of Montagu's assault, letting his opponent's montum peak, wane, and finally exhaust itself.
After three wide, sweeping attacks failed to hit Fang Zhen, Montagu tried another spinning slash.
Fang Zhen took a step back to his left, his footing extrely stable, the point of leverage for his spear never leaving his waist.
CRACK!
The war sword sliced through a small forest tree, but it didn't touch a hair on Fang Zhen.
Montagu was finally nearing exhaustion.
The speed of his sword strikes slowed, and it didn't look like an act. His footsteps beca unsteady.
'That blood recovery has side effects!' Fang Zhen instantly perceived Montagu's abnormality.
'Montagu can use his blood ability to heal fatal wounds. Such a power is heaven-defying. And after recalling his blood, he gets a short burst of power that sends his combat strength soaring.'
'This is so unscientific.'
'Even if this world doesn't follow science, it should at least follow the conservation of energy, right? If he could use this indefinitely, wouldn't it be a perpetual motion machine?'
'Besides, this blood Secret Technique looks very sinister. It's unlikely for a sinister power to be long-lasting and sustainable; that just doesn't fit its nature.'
Now that Montagu was showing an opening, Fang Zhen could see it clearly. The Secret Technique was similar to the Celestial Demon Dissolving Technique—incredibly potent when activated, but followed by a rapid decline.
Not only was Montagu's berserk effect fading, but his base strength was also waning.
With a flick of his long spear, Fang Zhen imdiately launched a fierce assault.
He remained cautious, wary that Montagu might be acting.
The war sword slashed down again. Fang Zhen lifted his spear, entangled the sword, and with a sharp, shattering force, flicked it away.
His long spear had an alloy shaft. It had more than enough rigidity but lacked flexibility, making so techniques for waxwood pole spears impossible. But every drawback has its advantage; other force-generation techniques were actually enhanced.
Montagu's war sword was flung aside by the spear. As Fang Zhen's spear vibrated in the air, he brought it down in a chop, smashing it toward Montagu's head.
Golden Rooster Nods.
Montagu tried to raise his sword to block, but he wasn't as fast as Fang Zhen. The iron helt on his head was struck.
The force Fang Zhen used was imnse. The downward chop was powerful and heavy, and when it smashed into Montagu's helt, the tal deford and caved in.
Montagu was stunned for a mont and instinctively stumbled back two steps.
Fang Zhen pressed forward. With his right hand, he drew back the shaft of the spear, which moved like a spirit serpent. The entire shaft pulled back until the spearhead was by his loosely gripped left hand.
He generated power from his waist and stance, explosively thrusting the spear forward. The force from his hips, legs, and the entire spear shaft channeled into the tip.
The thrust was incredibly swift. It struck Montagu in the chest, precisely hitting the hole already torn in his plate armor.
Unimpeded by the armor, the spear's force drove directly into Montagu's chest, piercing through his thick body. The power of the thrust carried the spearhead through him and even punched an inch or so through the backplate of his armor.
Montagu let out a wretched scream.
So Montagu could still feel pain.
However, the Duke of Evil Fall suddenly pulled back his left hand to grab Fang Zhen's spear shaft. At the sa ti, he drew back the war sword in his right hand. The distance was too short for a full swing, but the trajectory of the retracting blade was aid to slice across Fang Zhen's neck.
If it connected, Fang Zhen's carotid artery would be severed. Not even the gods could save him then.
Faced with such danger, Fang Zhen didn't panic. He neither dodged nor retreated. Instead, he released his left hand from the spear, ford a "sword" with his index and middle fingers, and jabbed them toward the spot between Montagu's eyebrows.
"Kun Sha!" Fang Zhen shouted.
An invisible wave of Spirit-ual energy rushed toward Montagu.
Montagu's movents froze instantly. His body went rigid and swayed. He could no longer hold his war sword; the backward slice stopped, and the blade wobbled in his grasp.
It was the Kun Sha Seal.
Fang Zhen used the Kun Sha Seal to immobilize Montagu. He violently yanked his spear back, spun around, and lowered his body as if sitting cross-legged. Using the montum from the spin, he thrust the spear upward.
The spearhead pierced up from under Montagu's helt, through his jaw and mouth, and into his brain.
A long spear technique,
Python Flips Its Body!
The spear ran him through. Fang Zhen could feel it piercing Montagu's brain.
'Even if Montagu has a boss template, his physical body is still limited by the world. The strength of his bones is still at the level of the Naless World, just much better than an ordinary person's.'
A spear through the brain... even a Fallen Knight couldn't withstand that kind of damage.
Fang Zhen spun, pulling his spear free as he stood up.
In response, Montagu fell straight backward.
BOOM!
Montagu's massive body crashed to the ground. Blood stread out from his helt, and he appeared to have stopped breathing.
Spear in hand, Fang Zhen walked over and, just to be sure, stabbed him again in the heart.
A white light flashed on the spear. Fang Zhen had used the Power Mountain Seal, easily breaking through the plate armor and piercing the heart.
But he still wasn't reassured.
'Fallen Knights, a hard-difficulty instance... Even if the world setting is sowhat ordinary—the Naless World—I still have to give a hard-difficulty instance the respect it deserves.'
Fang Zhen used his spear to pry off Montagu's mask.
He wasn't sure if Montagu was truly dead and wanted to remove the mask to confirm.
The helt was pried off, and the visor fell away.
Fang Zhen saw Montagu's head and face.
A look of surprise appeared on Fang Zhen's face.
Beneath the mask, Montagu had no skin on his face and no hair on his head. All that could be seen was exposed muscle and pathologically developed blood vessels.
There wasn't a single inch of skin on Montagu's entire head. It seed the rest of his body was skinless as well, just exposed muscle. The color of the muscle was unnatural—not fresh red, but a dark brown.
Furthermore, the muscles were covered in blood vessels. Their distribution was different from a normal person's, like a 'rewired' robot, completely defying the normal rules of human anatomy.
Several of the largest vessels were half as thick as Fang Zhen's wrist.
If this weren't the Naless World, Fang Zhen might have even guessed that Montagu was a cyborg or so kind of biological weapon.
The other blood vessels, like earthworms, were spread across the exposed muscle. They frequently erged from the muscle, ran along the dark brown flesh for a stretch, and then burrowed back in.
And inside them, blood was still flowing, and in no small amount. They pulsed rhythmically.
From the looks of it, Montagu had not yet completely lost all signs of life.
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