The mercenaries put on the most typical shield wall formation.

Henry noticed that the shields they were equipped with were all round shields, which were similar to those of the Stiking pirates. The wooden shield is more than half a meter wide, made of strips of wood that are then edged with animal skins or steel, and the outer side is coated with a shield that conceals the pattern to prevent the opponent from quickly destroying the shield by attacking the gaps between the planks.

During the days of the Stins rage, the sight of these warriors from the four northern islands sailing slowly from the skyline in wooden dragon boats with these shields on both sides has long since become a sight for the ages, and then they have been deeply etched into the hearts and minds of the inhabitants of the West Coast along with many other northern cultures along with countless nightmarish and slaughter of countless people for centuries.

Looting and conquest is an excellent way to convey culture, but the Skinning shield wall is not actually the first of its kind.

Hundreds of years before piracy, the invincible Lamanite Empire had a far more defensive shield formation, and the Lamanite heavy infantry legions were almost unbeatable in terms of defense by virtue of the large square shield that could cover most of their bodies in that name - but it has become less common these days, not only because the Lamanite Empire was not able to conquer the whole world, but also because the shield was too large to be used for group infantry combat.

The smaller Spinning shield, while far inferior in defensive area, is much more mobile and agile.

That's why they're a popular choice for modern mercenaries and adventurers. In the hands of experienced people, the round shield, which has a smaller defensive area, is actually no weaker than the Raman shield.

The user is always more important than the weapon, and although countless historians who have tried to falsify history have claimed that the warriors of the four northern islands were able to conquer the West Coast because their weapons were more advanced, anyone with a discerning eye knows that the truth is not so simple to generalize.

Henry looked at them.

A common mistake made by many inexperienced novice mercenaries and even regular army soldiers is to simply raise their shields and stand with their companions when they need to make a shield wall array - which is quite stupid. Because the soldiers and soldiers who form the shield wall in this way are still independent individuals, and they can be easily defeated, so how can they be called "walls".

Bernie, on the other hand, demonstrated the absolute right thing to do, and the cooperation shown by the mercenaries at this moment was simply breathtaking.

The shields stood one after the other as if they had been rehearsed, and then a group of people stood quite close together and made a "pop" sound, snapping the edge of their shields on top of their teammates' shields. The shield and the shield overlapped edges and were pushed forward with force, and the shields formed a real "wall" under the effect of this force.

"Push. Björn and Tyr, who had been wounded in the arm, held torches instead of weapons to illuminate the team, while the shiny metal weapons in the hands of the others reflected orange light. Henry, Jericho, Evan, and a few other women stayed behind, and the group began to slowly push towards the door of the bedroom.

This sprawling bedroom has a door worthy of it, and although the body of the door has decayed over time, the huge marble frame covered in dirt remains.

The shield wall moved slowly and pushed out, and the bedroom was facing the staircase leading to the third floor, and as soon as he went out, Evan opened his bow and shot an arrow.

"Poof-woo-squeak!——-squeak," the old scout's short hunting bow and stubby arrow hit the shoulder of the sneaky ratdragon climbing down the stairs with an accurate blow, sliding down the stairs with a scream, but that wasn't the end of it, as it slipped down, Ivan opened his bow and fired another shot.

"Poof—grab!" the arrow shot through the left side of the negosaurus's face, piercing its skull, leaving it completely dead.

"Good response!" Henry said to Evan with a compliment, and the wrinkled old archer just nodded in thanks, then pulled out two more short arrows from the quiver at his waist and clamped them between his fingers.

"Rodney!" On the right was a towering staircase, and to the left, the dim and cold passage with only a little moonlight was more rooms, which had once been the servant's bedroom, the kitchen, the study, the utility room, and so on—Henry and his party had chosen the largest of the city lord's bedrooms, and now that Rodney and Lysa were nowhere to be seen, they were probably doing something about one of the remaining ones.

"Rodney!!" the situation was urgent, and Bernie shouted the name of the Humpty Dumpty mercenary, regardless of whether or not he would attract the rat dragon.

The rat dragon likes to win by numbers, and he has naturally learned that in this case, Rodney and the two will be in danger of being alone, but the team leader shouted several times in succession, but they never responded.

"We can't take care of it, the shield wall separates, and we push down in pairs, and we have to protect the horses. Bernie made a decisive decision, and the mercenaries who received the order immediately untied the shield wall with great skill and trotted down the stairs. The walls reverberated with the sound of a clang, and the unknown number of rattosaurs was impossible to determine and the huge empty room that made everyone shudder.

Henry inserted the sword back into the strap, the environment of the corridor was not suitable for him to play, the sage held a torch in one hand and protected Mira and the others quickly came to the place downstairs.

A few rays of silver-white moonlight shone in through the unblocked gaps, and everyone was relieved that the horses were safe and sound in the dim light, but then they found that the horses were squeezing in a little nervously.

"Beware—— pop-" The shouts and the release of the bowstring almost overlapped, and the stubby, powerful arrow struck the ratosaurus that had pounced on Tyr first, the first to reach the first floor, and it fell to the ground, convulsing and bleeding from its mouth and nose and immediately dead.

"God and Holy Maiden are above......" Til seems to be a follower of the White Holy Sect, he makes a prayer gesture, and Henry behind him has a strange expression on his face for some reason.

"What's wrong?" said Mira, clutching the corner of his coat and looking up at Henry. "It's nothing," the sage shook his head, shook off the shadow that he remembered in his heart, and quickly pulled the girl into the group.

"Squeak squeak—"

The group sprinted down the stairs and across the middle of the hall, behind them a crowd of horses, and in the darkness ahead were a stumbling rat dragon. "Hula-" Bernie shone the torch in front of him, and more than thirty rats had gathered in a corner of the first floor.

"Knock out the rocks that are blocking the windows. Henry turned his head to Bernie and said this, and the team leader was stunned for a moment and then instantly agreed with his idea - the rat dragon had already entered, and the dim environment was good for them but not for their own side, so it was better to knock off the stone and let the moonlight shine in to improve visibility.

"Get ready, shield wall!" the two mercenaries quickly removed the stones and let the silver-white moonlight spill into the first floor, and Henry, Evan, and Jericho went to the left and right flanks of the shield wall and drew their weapons.

"Kill!" Without any foreshadowing, Bernie simply shouted a word, and the entire shield wall was pushed towards the opposite side in a neat and orderly manner.

"Squeak-" The rats frated around, the mercenaries making loud noises and terrifying spirits that made the mentally retarded creatures nervous, and they scurried around, but were slowly cornered as the shield wall advanced.

The so-called rat will bite when it is in a hurry, and the rat dragon is basically no different from the mouse, and the same is naturally true. Realizing that there was no way out, these big, dirty dog-like creatures with pale complexions swooped down on the crowd in a mess but rather quickly, but faster than them were Evan and Jericho's arrows.

"Boom, boom, boom—" The young archer had the ability to not lose to old Evan, but it was obvious that the old man was better at judging the situation, and several of the fastest rushing rat dragons were shot in the head by Evan's arrow, which made their already chaotic momentum stagnant, and Bernie, who was familiar with his old subordinates, could not let go of this opportunity.

"Concave formation, outflank!" The beast's low intelligence was played with in the face of human tactics, and the well-trained mercenaries quickly divided into three parts under Bernie's command to form an encirclement formation with the left and right flanks protruding forward, and the rat dragons who were forced together scurried around in confusion and disorder, and then Bernie gave the third and final order.

"Shield wall, open!"

"Click-" The mercenaries started in the same way, and the scattered shield wall was immediately slammed forward by the shield bearer with the strength of his entire shoulder, causing the rats to be even more confused with a heavy shield blow, and the various weapons that had already been drawn immediately after him gave the dazed ratdragons a fatal mending.

Blood splattered, and the last thing Henry and Evan and Jericho had to do was kill some of the rattoons who had escaped from the encirclement.

Steadily repeating the slashing, defending, and advancing, these rat dragons who were forced into a corner turned into a cold corpse lying on the ground as the entire encirclement gradually shrank.

"Phew, disgusting thing. Covered in blood on his shield and clothes, Til slumped at the hand that had been overexerted again before the wound had healed, and spat at the rattosaurus that was still twitching on the ground.

"Bang-huh-" Bernie stabbed the other rat dragon to death with a sword slash, and then he looked up and looked around left and right.

"Don't let your guard down, there could be more. I, the wounded Bjorn and Till, and Henry, and the rest in pairs, we're going to search the whole building, and if we come across these damn things, shout out to our companions nearby, and we can easily kill these brainless beasts as long as we have a numerical advantage. The mercenary leader said this, and the men under him immediately turned around and walked towards the stairs.

"Whew—" Bernie let out a long exhale, and next to him Til took the soft leather kettle handed by the woman in her twenties - it was filled with wine, and the blonde mercenary gritted his teeth and asked the other party to help unwrap the bandage from the wound, then tilted his neck and took a long sip of the wine, and then poured it over the wound.

"Uh-huh—" The one-handed swordsman frowned, his wounded arm muscles bulging and bruising, and the woman removed the bandage and threw it away, took out a new bandage from the horse's bag, carefully tied it for Tyr, and walked over to Bjorn, who was more lightly wounded.

Henry and Mira watched in silence, the sound of walking above them echoed, and it took several minutes for a few rattosaurus screams, and then a loud cacophony of scolding and laughter came clearly from above.

Immediately after that, Rodney and Lysa, whose hair and clothes were messy, walked over, and looked at Bernie's poor color, and the short and fat mercenary also apologized again and again, but in the end, nothing went wrong with the two of them.

There was nothing to say about the night, all the vents were blocked, and after Henry himself confirmed that there was no problem, they returned to the bedroom, and spent a comfortable night on the cold marble floor of autumn.

And when you wake up in the morning, it's a new day.

It had already been decided that the destination would be Vavasika, west of Avenella, and it was only natural that they would set off, and after exerting a great deal of effort to pull the stones that blocked the door, the group ran out again.

During the day, most of the raresaurs hide in dark sewers or something, but even if they spend another night, Henry doesn't think they'll be attacked again.

The group walked slowly back to the entrance of the castle undisturbed, and the experienced old scout nodded as he went out to investigate and make sure there was no sign of the West Valiers, and as the group slowly walked out of the castle where they had spent the long night, Henry stood at the end, looking in from a distance through the gate that was still dark in the morning.

The young rat dragons who were supposed to live at this exit were gone, and the sage knew where they were going.

The creature of the rat dragon is extremely territorial conscious, and the reason why there were only so many thirty rat dragons last night was because the remaining adult rat dragons entrenched in the safe area of the center of the castle were caught in the territory battle with the young rat dragon.

All this was expected by Henry. The idea of young rattosaurs wanting to fight for territory has always existed, but they can't do it all because adult rattosaurs are more powerful. But the presence of Henry and these outsiders gave these timid and cautious creatures a glimmer of opportunity.

In fact, those young rat dragons in the outer area had been following Henry's group from a distance from the beginning, and the sage didn't know whether they wanted to prey on his group or how, but he knew very well that when this group of rat dragons encountered those adult rat dragons entrenched here, the two sides would inevitably have a bloody conflict.

Therefore, even if he knew that they were following, he did not inform Bernie that they were going to attack, but only brought the two sides together and sat on the mountain and watched the tiger fight.

Without saying a word, Henry defused what would have happened when they were surrounded by a hundred or so ratdragons, making them feel less stressed last night. But who will be the owner of this abandoned castle after this day, he couldn't help but think as he stood at the entrance and breathed in the cool morning air.

The castle once built by humans and given its name and meaning has been reduced to a lair of wild beasts after the demise of their masters, whose long-standing territorial class was disrupted by the intrusion of their own group last night.

"Nothing lasts forever...... Everything is sometimes. As if remembering something, Henry whispered.

“？”

Someone tugged at the corner of his coat, and Henry turned his head to see Mira looking up at him with her big, sparkling eyes.

"What are you thinking, let's go. The girl said this, and the sage smiled, turned around, and re-embarked with her.

The sea breeze from the Moeby gas Inland Sea still passes through the Protasia Forest, and the change of power that took place in the old abandoned castle is just as much as where the wind will eventually blow.

Nobody knows.