Arthur's senses returned to him as if dragged through mud; he staggered, and was disoriented. First the coppery smell of blood hit his nose, he also heard some distant roar of shouting, and the ground beneath him trembled. Before he could even open his eyes fully, a voice tore through the chaos.
"Duck!"
His body moved instinctively, his instincts acting faster than confusion, and something whistled through the air above him. He felt the rush of displaced wind graze his hair. An instance later, he rolled forward across rough dirt and scrambled to his feet, turning back just in time to see the man who had nearly taken his head off.
The attacker wore armor composed of leather and chain, stained by grime and blood. A longsword rested in his hands, already coming down again in a brutal overhead strike meant to cleave through his skull and spine alike.
Arthur stepped sideways, letting the sword pass by him just an inch away from his nose, the sword then crashed into the ground beside him.
For a brief moment, his mind tried to catch up with reality.
He was unarmed and nor could he feel his supernatural strength or Aether. All he could feel was an ordinary mortal body.
The absence was so stark it was almost suffocating, like losing a limb he had grown used to relying on. He could feel it immediately his movements were slower, unable to cope up with his mind, bound by natural limits of his body.
If this trial had stripped him of power, then it was forcing him to rely only on his experience. Even though he didn't have all the strength he acquired throughout his life, it didn't mean he forgot how to fight.
A lot of thought was going through his mind when a voice echoed faintly in the back of his mind, it was mechanical and distant.
Before he could deduce the objective of the second trial the soldier lunged at him again, this time with a horizontal slash meant to open Arthur from ribs to hip. He stepped inside the arc of the swing rather than away from it, closing the distance before the man could adjust.
Then his knee drove upward into the soldier's gut.
"Guk…!"
The man doubled over, air escaping from his lungs. Arthur followed immediately with a straight punch to the nose. Bone crunched beneath his knuckles, as the soldier reeled backward in shock, Arthur's hand dropped to the dagger hanging at the man's belt and snatched it.
He tore it free in one smooth motion, and before the soldier could even comprehend what had happened, Arthur stepped past him and drew the blade across his throat.
Warm blood spilled over Arthur's fingers. The man staggered, his eyes wide with disbelief, clutching at the wound as though he could force life back into himself. He collapsed moments later, twitching a few times before going still.
Swinging a heavy and long sword in a close quarter combat against Arthur was the last mistake the man made before he died.
Arthur stood there for half a second, breathing hard, then looked around and saw hundreds of men clashing against each other across a muddy plain beneath a smoke-choked sky. Armor clanged, steel clashed against steel, and horses neighed somewhere in the distance.
One side wore the same leather armor as the man he just killed and the other side, Arthur glanced down at himself, wore armor similar to him marked with a faded blue crest. He was inside a battlefield and one that looked like it was from a medieval age.
Another attacker rushed at him, shouting something Arthur didn't understand. He parried instinctively with the dagger, redirected the man's momentum, and drove his shoulder into the soldier's chest before finishing him with a short thrust beneath the ribs.
He moved without hesitation.
This was the second trial of the pagoda, and the voice spoke about killing the Tyrant King and there was no other explanation given.
…
Hours later, the battle stopped.
The two armies disengaged as the sun dipped low to gather and take count of their soldiers, neither side able to claim dominance. Trumpets sounded from distant ridges, and commands were shouting orders.
Arthur followed the soldiers around him as they withdrew toward a crudely made encampment.
Over the next several days, the pattern repeated. There were skirmishes at dawn, full blown clashes by midday and they withdrew by evening. Neither side gained decisive ground, but Arthur quickly realized something far more important, they were losing.
Through careful questioning, never enough to arouse suspicion he pieced together the situation.
They belonged to the Haixiguo Kingdom, a coastal nation built on trade and shipping routes. And their enemy was the Da Xu Kingdom, a larger, landlocked power hungry for control of those routes.
The war had been going on for a few months and Da Xu's soldiers had already arrived before their royal capital where their king was.
Arthur sat near a fire one night, chewing on tough jerky, staring into the flames while soldiers around him muttered anxiously about dwindling supplies and broken defenses.
The trial given by the pagoda was almost impossible, Arthur currently didn't possess any of his supernatural strength, he wasn't even residing his real body in this trial but a nameless soldier. And he somehow had to kill the 'Tyrant King' which he believed was the king of Da Xu Kingdom while clearly being on the losing side.
The last few days he was trying to come up with a strategy to assassinate the king but he has not seen the king on the main battlefield. He was always at the back of the formation and always protected by multiple soldiers as he watched the battlefield from the back.
The only way he felt was feasible was to sneak out during night but there were most likely heavy guards even at that time. He even thought about sneaking in the enemy ranks but felt a new face would be easily identified.
Arthur clicked his tongue quietly. "This thing really doesn't believe in fairness," he muttered under his breath.
The only thing he could come up with was to disguise as a high ranking officer during the victory procession as he could feel the Haixiguo were already desperate and at their last leg. He had pinpointed some enemy commanders and for the last few days he had been targeting them, but he was unable to approach them due to the number of soldiers surrounding them.
…
He spent days studying the enemy's command structure, watching which commander occupied which part of the battlefield.
The final assault began at dawn. Da Xu forces launched an all-out push toward the capital, committing their remaining commanders to crush resistance completely. Arthur's unit was thrown directly into the collision point as enemy commanders personally led charges meant to decapitate Haixiguo's commanders.
And finally an opportunity arrived before him when a Da Xu commander cut through the battlefield and headed straight for the commander of his squad, leader of a hundred men.
Arthur's pulse steadied, this was it.
As the commanders engaged in combat, he tried to slowly inch towards them while defending against a foot soldier. The enemy commander finally drove his blade through Arthur's squad leader, and before the soldier he was fighting against could react he sliced his throat and threw the dagger at the commander's neck.
The blade struck the commander in the throat before the man even realized it and fell down with widened eyes while thinking how a footsoldier was that skilled, but he died before getting the answer.
The battle continued and most were unable to pay attention to how a foot soldier killed a commander during the intense fight. Only his squad members noticed it but Arthur was already on the move and due to more enemies coming after them they were unable to question him.
Arthur remembered where the fallen commander's body was. And continued to fight while trying not to draw attention towards him.
Finally when it was nearing evening the enemy side breached the gates bypassing the remaining Haixiguo soldier on the battlefield.
With a splintering crack that echoed across the battlefield, the battered defenses of Haixiguo finally gave way under the relentless assault of Da Xu's assault.
There were only a few hundred soldiers remaining and Arthur felt it was now or never so he shouted, "Retreat!" and no one knew who shouted that but everyone was already moving back towards the broken gate.
Arthur did not waste time, he ran towards the fallen commander's body and dragged it away from the battlefield, ignoring the shouted orders and panicked cries around him. The surviving soldiers were already retreating in disarray, too focused on survival to question one more blood-covered figure hauling a corpse toward the inner barracks.
Inside, the air was stale and thick with the scent of blood. Bodies lay where they had fallen earlier in the siege; some were older, but some were barely more than boys. Arthur shut the door behind him quickly when he heard the enemy soldiers chasing after the remaining soldiers.
He quickly stripped off the armor and uniform from the commander's body and wore them. After covering his face with mud for a makeshift camouflage he left the barrack sneaking in with the enemy soldiers that were pouring in from the broken gate.
Arthur followed the soldiers towards the palace as he could already see the king of Da Xu was already going towards it with his entourage, and no one questioned a commander walking toward the palace.
The capital burned around them. Smoke drifted through narrow streets, civilians had long since fled or hidden. The sounds of scattered fighting echoed through alleys as resistance started to collapse.
He knew he only had a single chance to complete his task, if there was even a slight mistake, he would fail the trial. So he walked among the invaders, occasionally deflecting attacks from desperate Haixiguo defenders.
He fought just enough to maintain the illusion, while trying not to draw too much attention on the way.
He would only get one chance to kill the king.
***
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