A soldier in full plate armor ran at Marietta. She swung at his neck, and he might as well have been wearing a simple leather armor. Her sword easily cut through the soldier’s gorget and then half of his neck.

Other than rippled steel, which was at the same time lighter, sharper, and more resistant than regular steel, metals became heavier the better quality they were. Marleya’s sword and suit of armor were good examples of that. As such, any armor capable of resisting a Paladin’s attack was too heavy for a Crusader to fight in.

Having made short work of the first soldier, she then proceeded to hunt down at the edges of the battlefield for any stragglers she could find.

Most of Vasilis’ rebels had already been dealt with, but now they had a bigger problem on their hands.

Where the fuck are the Paladins? John wondered to himself, alarmed. Jacke was the only one he had seen this whole time. At this rate, we’ll be picked off one by one.

“Form up!” John yelled, trying to fill in the void left by Jacke’s defeat. The soldiers hadn’t dispersed too much, so most of them were able to hear him, or at least notice their companions' movements. Those who didn’t were quickly picked off by Marietta.

The combat paused after Marietta dealt with the last straggler. Clashes of sword and anguished cries could still be heard in the distance, but those in the immediate vicinity made no sounds other than panting for breath.

Battle raged atop the small hill at the center of the camp, the only other place John was able to see. Destroyed tents, burning carts, and the encircling enemies blocked his vision of everything else.

Around John, there were less than thirty soldiers left alive, little more than half of what they had before the combat started. The enemies’ numbers seemed to have thinned even more. They still had a Paladin on their side, though.

Even worse, gathered in a tight circle, the soldiers were now in the same situation as before the second wave of crystals came flying. Just one more crystal. A new explosion would force them to scramble again. Scattered, they would become easy prey to Marietta and her followers.

No one moved. Seconds seemed to stretch forever as both sides remained rooted in place.

A soldier to John’s right flinched as Marietta finally moved. She took three steps forward. “You’ve been defeated,” she declared. “Put down your weapons or be killed.”

“They have no honor, don’t listen to her!” John cried out. “We all know of the fate that befell lord Edgarth Tascer. Surrender means death. Our only chance is to fight.”

Marietta brought one hand to a brown pouch at her hip by the side of the sheath. She fished out something from within, closed her hand in a fist, and pulled it back as if to make a throw. “This is your last chance.”

Soldiers shifted on their feet, preparing to scatter at the first sign of attack.

One second passed painfully slow. Then a second and a third. “So be it,” she said before hurling a dark crystal towards the center of the group.

Everyone scattered on reflex.

John caught a glimpse of its black color as it came flying in his direction. “It’s triotium again!” he cried out without being sure. Mana crystalized by umbramancers also had a dark coloration, so he had no way of know for certain without a better look.

Marietta rushed in immediately after, just as her projectile swished by John’s head and clanked against the armor of a soldier immediately behind. He didn’t turn to check what it was. If it was another crystal, then the explosion would consume him the next instant, and nothing would save him. Otherwise, he still had the Paladin to worry about.

He rushed forward. One step. Two. No explosion. The realization brought him little relief as Marietta had already chopped a soldier’s leg off. Rather than attacking from the edges like before, this time she went straight towards their midst where she could cause the most amount of damage, but also put herself at greater risk. If they hoped to take her down, it would have to be right then.

“Focus on her!” John ordered. “She can’t fight us all at once.”

Marietta probably heard him as she continued to advance towards him, hoping to deal with the last person of authority after Jacke. Some of the soldiers moved away from her but, fortunately, others didn’t otherwise she would easily kill John.

Still, Marietta’s target didn’t change. Two soldiers stood between her and John. She brought her sword down on the one to the left, who immediately tried to jump back. Instead, his foot slipped on the muddy ground from all the spilled blood and that was his saving grace. The tip of her sword cut a thin line through the man’s breastplate, but it wasn’t deep enough to hit his body.

She was caught by surprise and took a moment too long to recover. Recognizing it as the only chance he would get, John stabbed forward at her body just as the other soldier slashed towards her exposed face.

While it did take her a moment to recover, her agility as a Paladin more than made up for it. With a hasty swing of her sword, she knocked John’s stab to the side and came close to forcing the weapon out of his hands. The other soldier’s slash found nothing but air as Marietta bent her head forward.

Finally, she aimed a mighty kick at John’s torso, blowing all air from his lungs and sending him flying backward like a ragdoll. His body crashed into another soldier, hit the muddy ground, and skidded for a few meters before finally coming to a stop.

John tried to pull air back into his lungs, but something was pressing against his chest. A single kick of hers managed to cave in his breastplate. Still on the ground, he squirmed to undo the straps of his breastplate. One behind each shoulder as well as two on each side.

Asphyxiation threatened to put him down when he finally managed to undo the last strap and remove the piece of armor. Barely taking a moment to draw a breath, John rushed back to his feet. The two halves of his breastplate remained on the ground, while the sword had been lost during his short flight.

The two soldiers who had stood on Marietta’s way now lied in a collective pool of their own blood. After dealing with John, Marietta had turned to the rest of the soldiers, who now were all dispersed and also being attacked by the rest of the enemy army.

John found himself outnumbered, without a weapon, and with only a simple tunic to cover his torso. It didn’t matter. He refused to stand down. He still had one last resort, something he didn’t even think he’d need to use before today. “You hideous cunt!” he yelled towards Marietta, his hands working to remove the armor over his right thigh. “Forget the Skanler, I bet that Vasilis castrated himself just so he wouldn’t need to lay with you anymore.”

Marietta paused, her foot pressing against the head of a soldier on the ground.

John removed the armor covering his thigh, allowing him access to his pocket, all the while continuing to rain down insults at her. “You mean to tell us that lord Skanler forced himself on you? What a load of crap! You should be glad that someone would even consider looking at you that way.”

She scowled, the mention of her rape being especially effective.

Under his helmet, a grim smile took shape in John’s face, which was only intensified as his hand touched the smooth coins in his pocket. He would do whatever it took to kill Vasilis, and he hated Marietta, his wife, for association alone. “Come at me you dumb bitch! After I’m done with you I’ll shackle you in the kennels. Maybe the dogs will—”

Marietta kicked, crushing the soldier’s head beneath her foot and propelling herself forward with a vengeance. In one step she covered a third of the distance between them. John wouldn’t allow her to take another step.

The white crystal coin in John’s finger started to burn as he infused it with mana, and that was his cue to get rid of it. With all of his strength, John threw it towards the enraged Paladin’s body.

Her eyes opened up wide in grim realization, but her feet were still out of the ground and she couldn’t move away. In vain, she attempted to twist in the air to avoid the crystal, but it still hit her in the hip. The next instant, her body was enveloped in an explosion of white light as well as anything else in a two-meter radius.

For the third time today, John threw himself to the ground for protection. This time though, he felt neither fear nor alarm. There was only elation.

All combat paused, and an eerie silence took hold of the immediate surroundings. Only Marietta’s skeleton was left after the dust from the explosion settled. The loss of the Paladin worked as a huge blow to the enemies’ morale. Despite outnumbering the soldiers, none of them seemed to want to fight anymore

John’s smile broke out in a full-on laughing as he pushed himself back to his feet. “That’s right you bastards, she’s dead and you’re next!” He fished inside his pocket for the other coin and already they started to turn tail and run back towards the walls.

Some tried to run him through instead, but they were quickly cut down by the soldiers on who Marietta’s death had the opposite effect.

John infused the black coin with mana and quickly threw it towards the enemies climbing over the wall. The resulting explosion immediately killed five of them and injured many others. These were all people who followed Vasilis and, for that, they all deserved to die.

John didn’t care that he lacked a breastplate, nor that the mismatched armor on his legs would mess up his rhythm. He wanted to fight. He found himself a sword on the ground and proceeded to pursue the fleeing enemies. “Kill them all!” he cried out for any ally still in fighting condition.

Everything else was a blur as John hunted the enemies down. Some turned around to stand and fight while others had their backs to John when he struck at them.

When he came back to himself, John was on his hand and knees, exhausted, and deep inside the forest. A trail of bodies led back towards the camp. Something moved to his right and he prepared to stand and fight before noticing the plate armor.

“By Alella,” said the woman under the armor. “They are all dead.”

More people moved in their direction, plate armor making small clanking noises as they did so. Even turning around to look seemed to be too big of an effort to John at that point. “They’re dead,” he said before a deep sigh. “We’ve won.”