Chapter 308: Surrender

Tristan's action of killing the marshal took the people present aback. Some of the space knights rushed to attack, but without their suits protecting them, Tristan's blood sword quickly slashed through them.

Jenkins was enraged. "Arrgggh, you bastard!!! we have already surrendered!!?"

His reaction was to be expected. However, Tristan had to look ahead

Tristan nonchalantly replied, "Sorry, but I can't let your marshal stay alive. However, you should calm your men down... else they give me a reason to kill all of them."

Jenkins gritted his teeth. His clenched fists were trembling from the rage, but he could not do anything. He was sure that if he were to do anything that could be used as a reason for Tristan to kill all his men, Tristan would use it without hesitation. If he wanted his men to stay alive, he had to be careful of not only what he did, but also what he said.

Not to mention, with the binding bracelet restraining his combat ability right now, there was practically nothing he could do to save them.

Just as he was about to say something, a voice whispered to him,

"My king... they have already surrendered! This is not how we do things, and this is not right!"

The whisper was from the anxious Tobias.

"Tobias," Tristan spoke in a low tone. "The marshal will only pose a threat to us. He is an unnecessary risk.

"You'll thank me later."

Hearing Tristan's words, Tobias fell silent. Although Tobias did not agree with Tristan's way of doing things, he could not disagree with his reasoning. After all, how could he not understand the troubles these intruders could bring? They did not know what other tricks these people had up their sleeves, so it was better to be safe.

It could be said that Tristan knew about the space knights to an extent thanks to Chieng and Siegfried. These people were hard to deal with, and coupled with their implants, it was quite likely that they would give him a lot of trouble in the future. For all he knew, the implants could be a way for them to communicate, a tracking device, or maybe some kind of weapon. 

More importantly, he knew Jenkins' weakness and was able to control him by putting his men on the line, but the marshal was different. Without something to restrain him, he would surely make things difficult for him, one way or another.

Now that he had gotten rid of the marshal, the threat of these space knights was pretty much already taken care of. Even so, he could not help but feel slightly disappointed when he saw the Arcadian knights moving to restrain the captives.

Especially after he uses the [blood extraction] ability and receives thousands of blood essence.

Capture or killing, When it came to these two options, he would always prefer immediately eliminating his enemies over keeping them as prisoners. To him, it was much better to just get rid of the root of the problem.

However, in the current situation, it would be much more beneficial for him to use these guys as bargaining chips in case enemy backup actually came. After all, an armada with 10 times the force they had seen from these people was not something he would be able to hold up against on his own. Not with what he currently had, at least.

Of course, that was not the only reason. He had another main objective he wanted to achieve by accepting their surrender.

Tristan looked toward the unbroken suits the space knights had previously taken off. There were about 30 of them, and he was happy to see that they were all in good condition.

After admiring the suits, he had to proceed to his next objectives

"Tobias," he called while turning around to face the old wizard. "Bring some people and look for the other ship's debris. Find the one they called Major and bring him to me, preferably alive." While pointing toward the place the debris from the other plane crashed.

"Yes, my king." Tobias did not dare hesitate. 

Tristan believed that the man who ran away with the ship was someone important. With that in mind, he assumed that the man had capabilities at least similar to Captain Jenkins and had most likely survived the crash, so to make sure that the man would be caught successfully, he sent Tobias.

In the meantime, he instructed Faros to keep an eye on the captives with the thousand Arcadian knights and mages present. As for Tristan himself, he brought the rank 5 magician Commander Cecilia as well as the Kingsblade fighters with him to search the inside of the ship.

His main objective was on the lookout for useful things on the ship. Of course he was also hoping to find the three companions that came with him to be safe.

Thus, with that in mind, Tristan, Commander Cecilia, and three dozen Kingsblade fighters went into the ship.

Tristan and the group quickly searched through the huge ship. The ship had a few decks in it. Around them, they could see a few corpses, most likely because of the impact. The inside of the ship was such a mess that Tristan could only hope that some parts of it could still be salvaged.

They also found a few wounded and alive space troopers and the Kingsblade fighters who came with him quickly apprehended them.

And last but not least, they arrived at the most important place for the ship, the command center; the bridge, Tristan also hoped to find Siegfried and the others here.

When they arrived near the door to the bridge, they were surprised to hear the sounds of shooting. When they rushed to the bridge entrance, they could see Siegfried and Reyna, each taking cover from the people inside the bridge with the open doors. It seemed that like some of the other doors, the doors to the bridge were also jammed open due to the crash.

"Siegfried!" Tristan called. "What's going on?"

Hearing Tristan's voice, both Siegfried and Reyna immediately looked back. In response to Tristan's call, Siegfried greeted, "My king.

"We were planning to take control of the ship, but these officers were already inside when we got here."

"How many?"

"So far, we've only seen four of them," Siegfried answered.

Looking inside, he could see that there were indeed four officers, each holding a staff that seemed to be their weapon. Two of them held their staff weapons as guns, while the other two each had a blade on one edge of their staff.

As they spotted Tristan, they quickly shot some kind of energy blast from their staff weapon.

Unfortunately for them, their shots were immediately blocked by Tristan's shield of blood, allowing Tristan's side to stay unscathed.

"You…!" one of the officers shortly exclaimed. Although they expected that backup from one of their sides would arrive, they did not expect that it would be Tristan's side, a large group of the enemy that came so soon.

In turn, Tristan calmly walked toward the four officers with his [Blood Synthesis] ready. It was obvious who had the advantage now.

"Your captain and his subordinates have surrendered. Surrender and we'll let you live," Tristan said to the four remaining officers.

Hearing his words, the four officers halted.

The officers were doubtful, but the fact that Tristan was in front of them instead of Jenkins spoke volumes; Jenkins had lost. Not even their captain could win against him, much less only four of them.

"Either you surrender or die here. Make your choice." said Tritsan giving no room to negotiate

The officers were reluctant, but they were not stupid. Over half of them had already died. There would be no merit in uselessly dying. 

Although the officers did not talk to each other, they were in tacit understanding. They might be able to do something as long as they were alive. In the end, the officer who asked if Tristan was telling the truth stepped forward.

"We surrender."

Tristan simply said in response, "Good choice. Now,  Drop your weapons."

Following Tristan's command, all four officers dropped their weapons, and a dozen of the Kingsblade fighters escorted them out of the ship.

Turning to the rest of the Kingsblade fighters, Tristan commanded a dozen of them to retrieve the officers' dropped weapons and the other dozen to continue searching the ship.

Tristan then orders the kingsblade to search the remaining part of the ship not to leave anyone hidden. 

Tristan then walked out of the ship ready to bring back the prisoners back to the palace when  a member of the Arcadian Mages rushed into the ship and toward Tristan.

"My king!" the mage exclaimed hurriedly.

"What's the matter?"

"We received a message from Master Tobias, they found traces of a survivor from the crash and have given chase!"

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Written by Avans, Published exclusively by W.e.b.n.o.v.e.l,