Chapter 91: The Chocobo Riders

The leader of the mountain bandits, Beardy, looked at the two young boys swinging at his chocobo’s head with their long swords and gave a devious smile.

He could tell that these two brave little kids didn’t have any experience clashing with mounted troops.

When faced with a chocobo swarm, true veterans would always target the chocobo’s legs first, since most military used chocobos had protective gear on the chocobo’s head and chest, and it was hard to hit the bird’s neck as it was retracted in its thick feathered cut.

If you tried attacking a rampaging chocobo’s head, you would either get knocked flying from a chocobo headbutt, or get trampled to death by the stampede, there wasn’t a third option.

But then the impossible happened.

The young man’s long sword came down hard on the chocobo’s helmet, the sound of clashing metal rang out loudly, but it wasn’t the clear sound of the long sword shattering, it was deeper than that, like the thunking sound of a hammer beating down on heated iron.

With a single strike, the chocobo’s helmet was deeply dented, for a moment Beardy even thought that he had misjudged the boy’s weapon, could it have been a war hammer shaped to look like a long sword?

Beardy’s mount let out a blood-curdling screech, splatters of crimson red spewing forth from the chocobo’s eyes and beak.

The boy had stopped the chocobo’s charge with just one blow, it was almost defying the laws of physics!

Because of the combination of level difference + weak point attack + power charging, the chocobo’s was hit with massive damage and was instantly one-shotted. With the bird’s head as a pivot point, Beardy’s dead mount’s corpse did flips through the air and crashed hard into the snow-covered ground, sending up clouds of white and brown as he did and leaving a sizable dent into the frozen earth!

The chocobo’s rider was flung off from the momentum as well, face-planting into the ground. If it weren’t for the snow acting as a shock absorber, that fall could have cost him his neck.

Beardy hauled himself off the ground and looked in horror as the sword-wielding boy batted the chocobo’s corpse as if hitting a baseball, sending it flying in the direction of the rest of the stampede.

Although chocobo’s had immense running power, as a drawback, it was very difficult for large groups in the middle of a stampede to make coordinated movements to dodge incoming obstacles.

So the rest of the chocobo riders fell like bowling pins, one crashing onto another as the whole herd fell into chaos.

At the speeds that they were going, nevermind the riders, those chocobo’s were as good as useless, even if they managed to survive, their legs would certainly be no more good for running.

Some of the chocobo riders managed to dodge Beardy’s mount, avoiding the fate of their brethren, but they sacrificed a lot of speed in the process. Even a chocobo charging at full speed came to a screeching halt after a single attack from the kid, after losing their momentum they would be no match for the youngster’s attack, they would have to rely on their agility to avoid being instantly taken out.

This wouldn’t do…

Beardy was getting worried, using all of his strength to get out of the snow pile he had formed. The few lucky chocobo riders were being taken out by the boy one by one, an already weakened enemy like him was basically a sitting duck.

He had to do something.

A flash of determination crossed Beardy’s eyes. He knew that he couldn’t take on the warrior-god-like teen, he guessed that the kid was most likely one of the Blessed from some church, possessing supernatural abilities at such a young age.

His gaze fell onto the boy standing behind him.

The sword-wielding kid was already on the thin side, but the boy in the white robe was even smaller. He held a scepter-like staff in his hands, with a cross about the size of a wooden ball sitting atop it—a lot of churches had cross-related elements in their insignias, Beardy couldn’t identify which church they belonged to based on that alone.

But he was certain of one thing, Beardy squinted his eyes, he was sure that the robed kid was giving the warrior kid endless healing and divine buffs.

The warrior kid was visibly getting tired from his intense battles, but with a white glow coming from the robed kid’s palms, he perked up once again.

The kid was something like a battle priest. Beardy planned out his strategy in his head, players with healing and buffing abilities were the gems of their respective churches, but at the same time most of them weren’t battle-savvy, that’s why they would usually have a protector by their side, and it was obvious that the warrior kid was this one’s protector.

That meant that as long as he got rid of this kid first, the remaining chocobo riders could slowly whittle down the stamina of that warrior kid…

In doing so he was basically waging war against the kid’s church, but if he didn’t act now he could die, there wasn’t time to worry about these details!

Beardy steeled himself, he picked up the cavalry sword to his side and rushed towards the robed kid!

Most priests were trained by their churches from a young age, they would flee as soon as situations go south. He had to use all his force right from the get-go to ensure that his target didn’t have time to escape!

The young robed priest seemed to have been stunned, frozen as he watched Beardy advance towards him.

“Die!!!” Beardy had a crazed expression as he charged forward, his cavalry sword could almost reach the boy, but he suddenly noticed that something was off—he was already within striking distance, so why wasn’t the robed kid showing any signs of fear, and he was…laughing?

“Skyward Slash!” The robed kid swung his crossed scepter, sending Beardy into the air with the latter left in utter disbelief, he didn’t understand what was happening.

How could a tiny child shorter than his shoulders with thighs even smaller than his arms send him flying?

He would never get to find out.

“Spear of Victory!”

Golden light gathered into a dazzling spear, cutting through Beardy’s breastplate as easily as a hot knife through butter, skewering him completely!

From the perspective of the casting Jom, his enemy with the title “Mountain Bandit” floating above his head lost his entire health bar in an instant.

“Hey, you said that you’d leave these bad guys for me!” Terry complained to Jom while still fighting off a small herd of chocobo riders.

“You were too slow, he attacked me first, I couldn’t just run away now could I?” Jom sighed. “Hurry up and get rid of the rest or else I’m going to get rid of them for you.”

The riders knew that they were doomed, but it was too late for them to run.

“Divine Earthsplit Blade!”

The second after Terry used his ability, sword beams split the earth in two, even the few bandits who still wanted to take the bloodthirsty kid on were cleanly sliced in half!