As a short-lived race, death has always been a shadow that no human civilization can erase.

Youth and vitality will one day turn into sluggishness and decay, and the veteran who once fought a hundred times will eventually die a humiliating death at the hands of an opponent who would never be defeated when he was young.

Therefore, the emperors, princes, grand dukes and nobles of the ancient Rigar all sought the way of immortality, and many of them would rather sacrifice thousands of people to touch the forbidden way than live forever.

But they don't understand that for the emotionally rich short-lived species, what seems to be a blessed immortality is actually a curse.

Because everything will eventually end up boring, and when there is no longer anything in the world that makes your heart beat faster, everything has been seen a thousand times, so everything is "whatever it is" and "it doesn't matter". What is the difference between this numb, empty, but eternal "living" and "dying"?

Perhaps as a counterexample to this concept, in Crescent Continent, where disasters are frequent and life is more transient, such a different philosophy was born, which was mainly circulated among the samurai class—life may not have to be long, but one's death should be beautiful and meaningful.

Like cherry blossoms that bloom for a short period of time and are gorgeous, the petals that are scattered in the sky in the moment of withering mean death but also beautiful.

To sublimate a short life with a "beautiful death", a meaningful death is the ultimate aesthetic pursued by the samurai rather than living in a muddy state. And the hero's heroic righteousness in the face of death is often an indispensable part of various martial arts legends.

Based on this cultural tone, among some of the imperial literati who accepted the export of Japanese culture, the samurai of Wajin were incarnated into extremely noble and fierce warriors who were not afraid of death and were extremely loyal, and they were incomparable to the romantic existence of the imperial knights who were greedy for life and afraid of death.

And how different the thinking of the people who have been trained and raised by this culture is from the people of Rigal, when the group of undead who are swaying and powerful and cannot see the end at a glance come out of the darkness, the girl of Roan is clearly aware.

"I'll stay, and everyone retreat. First of all, Narumi, who was injured in one arm, spoke, knowing that his combat power had been greatly damaged, so he gritted his teeth and made such an realization. Immediately after that, Lao Qiao next to him stopped him: "You have a greater responsibility than me, leave it to me after the break." ”

Yajiro gritted his teeth and said nothing, Miss Doctor pursed her lips and looked at the group of samurai, even Torotaro was unable to speak for a long time because of their noble sacrifice - in such a righteous and awe-inspiring atmosphere, Mira hesitated awkwardly for a few seconds, and finally decided to speak.

"That, it's beaten. "Miss Avenella, a mercenary from the bottom of the world, can't understand the aesthetics of the samurai on the other side of the ocean, as a discriminated Luoan, she has spent most of her life trying to overcome difficulties and survive so far.

So she could not understand how easily these people would abandon the pursuit of noble self-sacrifice before the situation reached its most desperate situation.

Even though they may all fight to the death, the end point of pursuit is different.

The adventurers fight to the death to cling to even the 1 in 1,000 chance of survival, while the samurai fight to write a magnificent end to themselves.

But what kind of death is really gorgeous and gorgeous, death is death, and there is nothing left.

You can no longer eat delicious food, you can't see beautiful scenery, you can't experience the sense of accomplishment of completing tasks and getting paid, you can't learn more knowledge, you can't see more people and things. I can't hear the laughter of my family and friends, and there is no possibility of making up for the regrets of the past, and all that remains is endless emptiness and loneliness.

Even if the ordinary Rigalese Luoan girl traveled with them and fought side by side, she might never be able to understand the noble samurai lord's pursuit of a noble death.

But there is another reason for this.

Her definition of despair may be far greater than even if she is older, she has been self-disciplined and hardworking, and she has practiced swordsmanship day and night, but she has always only stopped in the high-walled compound of the Qingtian family, Narumi and others.

Be a little harsher.

Exhaustion and predicament are real, and although it may not have taken more than 30 minutes from Torotaro's descent to the return and entry into the cave, the high-intensity back-to-back battles without rest were enough to distract from it.

But is this the first time this has happened?

From the time you register as an official adventurer, you can have won many battles. How many times have I been in a difficult situation, and I only gritted my teeth with perseverance to survive the difficulties.

She couldn't understand it.

He can still breathe, he can swing his sword, and although he is very tired from the continuous battles and the toxic environment, his mind is clear.

In that case, why should we think about who should be left behind to sacrifice after the break - "It's naivety that lacks vision and a big picture" Maybe if she opened her mouth to say these doubts, Narumi would have retorted like this - but as an expert, aren't the martial arts skills and military knowledge that you have learned to turn "naïve ideas" into "reality"?

Why they don't seem to be ready to give up after a desperate fight.

She couldn't understand that even if it was a companion, because of the different cultures from which they came from, the first thoughts of the two sides when facing this situation could still be very different.

And she wasn't convincing enough, even if Mira said she could win, Narumi and Old Joe were still silent.

She was just a young girl after all, and in the crescent moon warrior society, where all the force was controlled by men, although she proved her fighting ability, she still couldn't avoid being despised against.

"We've eaten more salt than you've ever eaten rice," although he didn't say it directly, the common idea of thinking that he was all right when he was old was still conveyed through silence.

Correctness is not the most important thing for those in high positions, authority is unquestionable, and age is usually linked to authority and seniority in addition to status. This is a rule that exists in any profession, even if young people are more talented and powerful, they need to bow their heads and climb to a high position before speaking.

Mira knew this, so even if she couldn't understand it, she just stopped there.

Thankfully, the awkward time-wasting atmosphere didn't last long.

Because Henry is here.

"Behind, the sound of claws grinding the ground, is the same beast as before, two. Joshua, who had superior hearing, once again caught the sound of his paws rubbing against the ground, and he directly reported the key message in simple words. And when Aya heard this detail, it seemed that she wanted to relieve the embarrassment in the team, and it was also like a sudden flash of inspiration, and she immediately took out her notebook: "Ahhh ”

"Although rock tigers are cats and good at rock climbing, they actually need to hunt due to their claws, and most of the time they use the parts of the meat pads to pick up the walls. The claws are retracted to keep them sharp - but the strange beast can climb the claws but can't recover them, so it causes severe wear and tear, more like a bear or a dog—"

She recounted at a high speed: "Considering the various other characteristics and the appearance of most of the normal creatures encountered along the way. It can be assumed that the chimera of multiple organisms will have contradictory organs due to different ecology-"

Aya finished speaking in less than 7 seconds, while the others dispelled some awkward conceptual antagonisms from before, and immediately formed a formation around the few Mithril weapons that could not be picked up, and guarded the enemies coming on both sides.

"I don't understand, is there anything related to our current situation?" said Mira, and Aya thought for a moment, "Can you support the ground with your hands and hold the weapon with your feet?"

"Uh-" Miss Luo An was stunned for a moment, then thought seriously for a while, "I can try." ”

"That's not what it meant. Miss Doctor immediately shook her head: "It's like if you want to smash armor with a hammer, and cut things with a sharp weapon." The various parts of living things also have their own definite uses. Forcibly putting these things together can lead to contradictions. ”

"Like a thin man who chooses a heavy weapon, and a man in heavy armor who tries to wield an agile bayonet?" the white-haired girl understood Aya's meaning in her own way.

"That's probably it, ready-made organisms have their own perfect coordination, unlike patchwork individuals whose parts may repel each other, this unreasonable thing-"

"It's there, staggering over. Narumi looked at the undead who were slowly approaching.

"Yes, but this kind of unreasonable thing is better than the tangram locks that can't be fit—" Aya continued to explain, her overly academic explanations were a little difficult to understand and became more and more anxious—and Henry next to her duly continued, "You can only force them together by brute force." ”

"Black blood—" Mira suddenly thought of something, and almost every time something related to these things appeared, the sky would glow with a faint black snow.

And a long, long time ago, there was a great magister who said that it was the magic of materialization.

"I don't have the ability to maintain normal activities, and I am held together by a powerful magic. Henry summed it up in concise language: "In other words—"

"When these things are thrown up, it means that the thing in this cave, whatever it is, has been driven to a dead end. ”

The idea suddenly became clear, and it was clear that the kind of beast that resembled the combination of multiple fierce beasts was more powerful, but after one attack, it was replaced by a normal rock tiger. Some of the attacking creatures were flesh and blood, and they were normal beasts except for some behavior, while some were bleeding black blood and had abnormal size and physical characteristics.

Hole cards and elites need to be used with mana. Maybe it's because the cost of maintenance is too great, so I tried to use other things to stop the group before, but now that the Earth Spider, Hundred-legged, Human-faced Bird, and Rock Tiger have all been killed, the target has no choice but to forcibly invest in the elite combat power that has been depleted before, and even resurrect the samurai who died here in the past.

Morale suddenly returned. Aya's explanation in just a few tens of seconds Although many people did not understand it thoroughly, Henry's final summary they understood was understood.

They were exhausted, but their opponents were equally dead.

Next, it is back to the familiar part of the samurai - the brave wins when they meet on a narrow road.

The sage crouched down, and everyone watched as he reached out and grabbed the Mithril spear, which even Galeva couldn't shake with all her strength.

Then it was forcibly lifted.

"......" Yajiro, who had tried to get started, watched this scene a little speechlessly, but he didn't think too much about it, just clenched his knife.

A faint light began to flicker, and even if it was forcibly held, the sage who was not a dwarf could not obtain the approval of the weapon—it began to resist the object that was intended to forcibly use itself, and thus condensed the only remaining magic of the centuries-old rune—

— and that's exactly what Henry wants.

- He had no intention of using these weapons for normal use.

"Shhh

will make the weapon lose in the fight.

"Woo ——!" Henry threw out the rune spear in his hand, it plunged straight into the pile of undead, and in the next second, all the remaining rune magic exploded in an instant, blasting the entire Mithril spear in two while also opening a big hole in the middle of the samurai's remains.

"Bang-——!!boom" The shock wave set off in the cave blew the group a little unable to open their eyes, but the group came back to their senses and found that this was not a substantial explosion - the explosion of magic power was not as big as they thought, and for a moment there was just something like an air flow passing through their bodies, but this was only the perception of the outside world by the magic in the human body, not the air flow that really acted on the skin.

- It's just that when facing the undead, the results are better than expected.

Without muscle connections, only bones are left with common sense, and it is almost impossible to stand and move by common sense, and the only reason why these centuries-old remains can stand up is because magic has replaced the original ligaments and tendons of the human body to connect them.

Just like pulling the strings of a puppet, Henry's own magic wavelength did not match that of the original owner of the rune weapon, and the conflicting magic power created by the sage broke through the stability threshold of the rune, and the damaged rune leaked the magic contained in Mithril and caused an impact.

Directly broke the puppet thread that pulled the undead together.

But that's not the end of it.

"How?" said Miss Doctor's eyes, her eyes lit up, and she was keenly aware that the sage was aware of the nature of the undead to do so, but now was not a good time to explain.

"Press it up and divide the troops, don't let these bones merge. The reason for such casualties is that the forces are dispersed. But as the more undead are shattered, the strength of the opposite side will become stronger and stronger. Henry didn't elaborate, but quickly gave the order.

"Understood. Narumi and the others gripped their weapons, and Lulu was silent after throwing the stone through a rib of a rising undead after throwing it with a sling, and picked up an extra spear.

"Idiot follow me, slap with a shield!" Mira shouted without hesitation, and the various broken bones on the ground fell to the ground with a "click" sound, and the skeletons of these remains had dried up and brittle over the centuries, and they were far less difficult than they seemed to be. Hurriedly slashed at it, originally just wanting to make a feint, and then combined with the slower-footed Galeva to cover and kill again, Mira smashed a skeleton in tattered armor in one blow.

"Uh-" Even she herself was surprised by the result, her brittle bones were forced to move by magic, but they were far inferior to flesh-and-blood humans in terms of attraction to each other and their own strength.

The tall Galeva was the most hurtful of the group after rushing through the thick oak door, which weighed at least 7 kilograms, and his single sprint was enough to make several skeletons fall apart - but the sage who tacitly met Joshua behind him to meet the strange beast with a single higher combat power reminded them without looking back: "Crush the skull to end, and you will get up, don't go deep!"

He shouted a reminder and swung his sword at the same time, but the beast connected to the consciousness of the cave master was very jealous of the tall man and immediately distanced himself before he could enter the attack range.

"It's moving again!" Yajiro shouted, and many of the skeleton warriors who had been scattered had not completely broken their bodies before moving again after a while, and the group that had easily crushed the opposing line because they were too weak immediately found themselves trapped in the encirclement. Fortunately, Henry's timely reminder made them understand what to do, the knife slashed the shield, the dagger stabbed, and Lulu even took out the stone collected as a catapult ammunition and smashed it directly.

The skills that the samurai had worked so did not show much in front of their inhuman opponents, and at this time it had become a home for instinct and reaction speed. They gasped and used whatever means available to them pushed the skeleton away from themselves and their allies, shattering the skull and allowing the remaining magic within.

But the hanging of the lottery was still inevitable, and the broken weapons held by these samurai skeletons were still sharp enough, even if they were rusty. In the case of their lack of armor rate, many of them had scratches, and the young master even cut his hand on the edge of the broken armor when he grabbed the skeleton samurai's cuirass and tried to push it away.

Blood was falling "ticking", and most of the physical strength that had already been consumed was rapidly passing after rushing into the battle, causing almost everyone to gasp for breath. The hot environment and the body temperature rising due to exercise made the sweat wet with the blood, the armor and clothing, and even the handle of the knife, Yajiro, who was injured in the palm, almost couldn't hold the knife because of the sweat slippage, so he "tore" and tore off a piece of cloth with a "tear", and quickly wrapped the right hand holding the knife, tying the palm and the handle together.

The samurai's ceremonial duel ideas finally disappeared at this moment, and all the rules and regulations, the swordsmanship and footwork that were not as good as the violent instinct at the moment.

But their eyes were shining.

Without distraction, he does not stick to the form and surface, and departs from the routine steps of the technique, but on the contrary, he integrates the technique more into himself.

"Shh——!!h

"Click-Click-Click-——!Click-T

stripped of all kinds of superficial ceremonial shows, stripped of all kinds of exquisite and exquisite combat skills that had to be divided into several steps to collect a knife.

But their eyes were shining.

What is the true meaning of martial arts.

Defeat your opponents and survive.

It is full of surging life force, and it is placed in a desperate situation, completely stripped of all superfluous thoughts, and abandoned baggage.

Only the purity of one goal remains.

"Fight to the end!" the usually calm samurai leader shouted out this sentence rarely.

"Ahh

The battle between the two parts of the battle is different, the battle against the skeleton is fierce and anxious, and the two beasts encountered by the elite sage and the blind swordsman here are always in a state of avoidance.

"Tsk-" Joshua let out a snap of his tongue as he and Henry weren't slow, but the two beasts, who had the advantage of the cave, managed to avoid most of their attacks.

"Boom-" And Henry's attack with the throwing knife only caused some minor injuries due to its lack of weight - the vitality of these beasts had been experienced before, and the only way to ensure a kill was still to rely on a large sword and long knife.

"Joshua, back to the defense—" "Boom-" The Sage stopped, and Joshua realized at the same time the fact that the two of them had been lured into disconnecting from the rest of the skeletons behind them, as well as the incapable Aya and Torotaro.

Although it is doubtful that the Lord of the Cave possesses this wisdom, caution is still important.

"Roar ——!" and the two of them stepped back slightly, and the strong and agile beast immediately turned back to attack.

"Tsk, that's what you guessed. Joshua's keen sense of hearing became a more efficient sense than sight inside the poorly lit cavern, and Henry's slightly restored night vision from the magic of the rune weapon allowed him to quickly catch the two beasts running wildly - and the tentacles that were prostrate on the ground and quietly approaching the nervous watchers.

"Woo ——! snatch!!" the sage threw out the last throwing knife without hesitation, hitting the tentacle accurately, "Ah————!" The terrible scream immediately rang out, and Aya was startled, and sat on the ground while the sage turned around and lowered the tip of his great sword to face the attacking beast, and Joshua tacitly staggered and rushed to Miss Doctor's side.

At the same time that the one-meter-five long sword of "Ha ——!" was swung out with a wide range of horizontal slashes, the blind swordsman also raised his sword high at the end of the sprint charge, and took a punch with a steady and completely vertical posture.

"Whew-" The great sword slashed open a savage beast, and then the tip of the sword slammed into the shoulder blade of the other end, and Henry, knowing that the attack distance had reached its limit, forcibly twisted the hilt of the sword, causing the blade to bend again, and slap the blade on the beast's body with the blade.

If the cut would only be a scratch, but the incorrect tendon would have caused more slap-like damage to make the beast's action pause—and that was all Henry needed, as Joshua sliced the tentacle into two parts with one sword, and then slashed the robe into pieces three times in succession, the sage strode to the beast's side, which had slowed down by the attack, and kicked it directly in the stomach.

"Roar—" "Boom—" The beast that had been kicked directly against the wall was wounded one after another, but it was still able to move, but two successive impacts allowed it to break away from its high-speed state, giving the sage the time it needed to wield his greatsword.

The roar of the beast stopped abruptly, and the huge head of a tiger, a bear, and a wolf fell to the ground with a "bang", and the body that had lost its head fell to the ground in an instant.

"Ha-ah-ah-" The little gray-faced Miss Doctor's dark blue hair pressed against her forehead, her legs trembling and unable to stand upright, and the tentacles of her severed head shrank back rapidly. "Wow-wow-wow-" The stunned Torotaro was still standing but had lost his mind, holding his weapon to no avail.

Henry, who was immediately back at the ......, glanced at the tentacles that had been cut into pieces by Joshua - similar to the previous ones, its open lips had countless teeth inside, but what attracted the sage's attention more were the burnt marks on the surface.

"It's starting to get hard—" Despite being blind, Joshua judged from the shouts and panting in front of him that his comrades had reached a stalemate in meeting the skeletons.

- Just like the previous marionette analogy, when an operator needs to manipulate dozens of objects at the same time, the accuracy of each action is definitely not as good as that of only one.

The weak skeleton warriors were quickly wiped out, but as their numbers decreased, the battle between Mira, Yajiro, Narumi, and Lao Qiao did not become easier.

On the one hand, destroying skeletons consumes their physical energy, and on the other hand, as their numbers decrease, these skeletons move more and more quickly.

The skeletons, which were unable to withstand even the swings of the Luo An Maiden, gradually began to become able to resist their attacks steadily, and the fragile bones began to radiate a faint brilliance, and finally even the skeleton's eye sockets lit up with blue flames.

After the "Knock ——!" eliminated the besieging opponents, they switched from attack to defense, with Caleva with a large shield resisting the successive attacks of the stronger skeleton warriors, while the others gradually retreated in the direction where the sage and Joshua were.

"There are 5 left—" The skeletal warriors with cyan flames in their eyes were noticeably different from the ones before them, and they approached the sweaty and panting group step by step past the broken bones and broken weapons and armor on the ground.

But after the threat on the other side was taken out, Henry and Joshua were free.

"Good work. The blind swordsman said to the samurai, and as they retreated around the incapable Torotaro and Miss Doctor, he crossed over with Henry to meet the last of the elite skeleton samurai.

The undead let out a silent roar, showing off the fighting skills of the corpses in the face of high mana condensation.

But their best resistance did not last more than 20 seconds in the face of overwhelming combat superiority, and like chopping melons and vegetables, Henry and Joshua cleanly cleaned up the last of their enemies.

"Ha-ha-" Even the red-haired swordsman began to gasp for breath at this point, and the others who had relaxed were almost all slumped on the ground, most of them hanging on their colors, their iron armor deformed and their leather armor crumbling under the blow, and the hard, lacquered shell of the leather armor crumbled under the blow.

The wound was itchy and painful under the sweat, and despite knowing that the wound had to be cleaned quickly, bandaged and regained strength, no one was able to move at the moment, including Mira.

"It's over—huh?" asked the girl as she looked at her teacher, her white hair curled together from sweat drooping as she looked at her teacher.

"There's probably the last one. ”

"When all the men are used up, it's time to go into battle. Henry said, and as soon as he finished speaking, an inhuman roar sounded from deeper into the mine.

"Roar, roar, roar—" It started with a beastly roar, but ended with a woman's cry.

For some reason, there was a sense of pathos in his voice, like the cry of a mother who had lost her child.

"Woo evil evil-" Torotaro, who was about the most well-preserved physical strength other than Aya and Henry, shuddered, and then immediately began to urge everyone sitting on the ground: "Hurry up on the hour, Ahui is still there-"

"It's been delaying for so long. The anxious and ownerless Torotaro kept urging, and many of the exhausted and almost all of them were injured frowning and showing dissatisfaction, but at the moment they didn't even have the strength and spare time to deal with him.

"Whew-" sat down for a while, cleaned the wound, drank the rest of the water, checked the armor, and made simple repairs to some broken shoulder straps and other parts, and tied the front and back cracked breastplate with a cloth strap directly around the waist in a dead knot. The damage to the weapon is not optimistic, but even the long knife full of chips can still be used, and the back and other parts that you can't reach are checked by your companions. After quickly tidying up and leaving some of the items like empty water cylinders in place and unloading the loads that could be removed, the group re-lit the torches.

Keep going.