4 004: The Fools

The three people who rode their war horses descended upon the canyon.

Although each of them were donned with heavy metal sheet armor, those horses were very agile, jumping from the steep angle with an adult, burly man mounted on their back.

From their demeanor only, Arthur could tell that they were mercenaries.

They looked at Arthur with a disdainful gaze upon seeing his appearance which like a slave from across the seas. Especially when they glanced at Arthur's white hair. 

There was no one in Eastaros Sub-Continent with other hair color, unless he was an unwanted child from an affair relationship. But still, white hair was very rare even in the entire Argoth Continent.

The man in the middle with a scar on his face slid down from the back of his horse. He rebuked Arthur with such taunting voices; "Hey, slave! That's my sword, give it to me!"

Arthur squinted his eyes, he gauged their cultivation level and quickly became aware that they are just 3 Star Realm Warriors.

Judging by their stature and their demeanor, they are just a bunch of spoiled brats to say the least.

"Huh?! Your sword? There is no name inscribed in this sword whatsoever, though?" Arthur replied in a foolish way while he checked the sword from the tip until the hilt.

"You! How dare a mere slave talk back to me!" The burly man infuriated and thumped his foot on the ground.

"Brother Feng, he is just a slave, finish him quickly. We need to fulfill the contract before sunset." The man with silky black long hair spoke from behind.

However, the other man with a thin face disagreed. "But, Brother Ling. I sensed a faint trace of Qi from that slave. I suggest, we take him alive and sell him on Slave House in Sparrow City he would fetch us some good money!"

"Ahh… that's a nice idea, Brother Fei! But, that depends on Brother Feng, if he would be so kind as to spare his life! Haha!"

"Enough! Both of you! I will snap this slave's neck and toss his dead body to hell by myself!"

The burly man with a scar on his face steps closer towards him. Although Arthur acted like a fool and chickened out, he was actually measuring the distance between him and Feng very carefully.

"Oh no! Please have mercy on me!" Arthur dropped the sword. His cowardice act was very convincing for Feng and made the latter want to beat the shit out of him.

Feng reached out his left hand, clenched his right hand tightly before he hit Arthur who curled on the ground.

When their distance was within his reach, Arthur grabbed the sword's hilt and swung it to Feng's feet with lightning speed. The latter couldn't fathom what had just happened. Arthur disappeared in front of his eyes in an instant and was already behind him.

When Feng tried to move, his body fell to the ground and his feet were severed. Blood burst out like a fountain under his feet.

He screamed at the top of his lungs due to the excruciating pain that he felt.

"Brother Ling! Brother Fei! Help me! Give me your Qi and heal me!"

Arthur let him flailing on the ground like a maggot in his own pool of blood. He casually perched the sword on his right shoulder.

"One down and two more to go."

The other two were taken aback, they still couldn't believe what just happened. Never they ever imagined, Feng would fall into such petty tricks and be defeated so easily like a baby who lost his candy. Even so, they didn't sense any flows of Qi from Arthur when he swung the sword.

"So, are we gonna fight or what? I'm kinda busy, you know?" said Arthur while he dredged his itchy earlobe with his pinky finger and blew the dirt from his fingertip.

Ling was so infuriated by Arthur's cocky attitude. He quickly jumped off from his horse with two daggers brandished on both of his hands.

"You are courting death, you insolent brat! I will chop off your head, right now! Brother Fei, aid me!"

While Ling ran towards him, Fei grabbed the bow from his back and pulled three arrows at the same time. The accuracy of the arrows was so deadly despite being released from mounted position.

However, Arthur deflected those arrows with just a simple weave of his sword. He quickly charged towards the archer, to neutralize Fei's annoying arrows.

Years of experience on street fighting in his previous fight served him really well. 

Many people said ``Don't bring a knife to a gunfight," however, Arthur was really keen with a sharp edged weapon. 

Nevertheless, archers were not so much different they would be rendered useless when it comes to close quarter combat.

Rain of arrows onslaught Arthur relentlessly, Fei tried his best to maintain his distance between them. But Arthur was much faster than he ought to be. Within a few seconds, he caught up with Fei's horse and cut off its foreleg. The horse stumbled frontward and sent Fei to a big rock head first.

If it wasn't for his tempered body as a 3 Star Realm Warrior, he would be dead right at that moment. Fei shook his bleeding head, his sight was all red due to the blood that covered his eyes, he looked around for his bow and sought it not far from him. He crawled his way and grabbed the bow when he heard Arthur was running towards him.

He took out one last arrow from his quiver, then aimed at Arthur.

Of course Arthur wasn't foolish enough to run straight to his prey. He jumped right and left to swindle Fei's aim. When he was close enough to Fei, he ran in a straight course and added his speed.

Fei smirked, he pulled the bowstring to the max and released his arrow till it made loud whistling noises.

"Hahaha! Drop dead you fool!"

However, that was what Arthur wanted from the beginning. He immediately jumped high, and finished the archer with a single stroke of his sword to the latter's head and splitted it in half.

"Drop dead!" Ling shrieked in midair, he held his daggers above his head to hack off Arthur's body in one move.

"You guys are so slow."

Arthur easily dodged Ling's trajectory by merely moving sideways and welcomed him with a knee on his solar plexus.

"Hooek!"

Crunchy and crispy noises from the broken ribs sounded loud. All the air inside his lungs burst out till he was about to faint.

Arthur kicked Ling's ribs cage one more time to make sure he couldn't get up and drowned his lungs with his own blood and died slowly.

"Since I need some clothes to put on. I shall spare your blood for now!"

Thus, Arthur shamelessly stripped Ling's armor and his tunic dress, but he wasn't that sleazy to put on his dirty clothes without washing them firsthand.

One piece of paper dropped from the dress's inner pocket when Arthur checked the dress' condition. Out of curiosity, he read the paper's content that was written in red ink.

=====

<Hunt the Black Iron Claw Lion. Retrieve its carcass and get the big reward.>

-Commision Rank: 3 Star

-Reward: 100 Gold Coins

-Retrieve its beast core to get additional 100 Gold Coins

Lord Liu Bu

Leader of Sparrow City Mercenaries Guild

=====

Arthur's eyes almost popped out from his skull when he finished reading the content, his upon almost dropping upon seeing the reward.

"This is absolutely money, hehehe!"

After the small skirmish, Arthur tossed their dead bodies aside and let them rot and be devoured by the slimes.

"Alright! Now it's done!" Arthur clapped his palm a few times after tidying up his work.

The Argoth sun, which was several times bigger than Earth's sun, gradually descended at western horizon.

"Ahh shit… I wasted my time here. If my body and cultivation is on its peak. I could finish them off in less than ten seconds!"

 Arthur decided to get back to his cave with the two warhorses. Although it was owned by the enemies, Arthur couldn't abandon them since those warhorses were also worth some money if he sold them to the right buyer.

Feng's warhorse was retaliating when Arthur tried to mount its back. He pulled the rein and gazed deeply into its eyes. "You come with me or be preyed upon by the beasts, your choices."

The warhorse was easily intimidated by Arthur's eyes only and lowered its head as its sign of submission.

"Good! Let's get back before it's dark,"