Volume One: Forest Knight, Chapter 84: Just Do It

Berion sprang from his chair, shifting nimbly aside just as the religious knight lunged, and the attack swept past harmlessly.

At once the other nobles, seeing that the two knights were about to come to blows, hurried to put some distance between themselves and the pair, seeking safer ground from which to watch, lest they be caught in the fray.

When Count Gray saw how lawlessly the religious knight had behaved, brazenly disturbing his banquet, he slammed the golden goblet set with sapphires down upon the table and was about to summon the guards to arrest him.

But the bishop seated beside him, the blue-robed high cleric known as Bishop Yann Veksh, laid a hand upon him and said softly to Count Gray, "Why so hasty? Do you not wish to see whether the religious knight is the stronger, or the secular knight? Besides, Sister Myura represents the woman from Wallen Castle; to stop her now would be to insult her openly. Better to let the two of them finish. Whichever wins, you simply stand on his side."

Count Gray had to admit that the bishop's words made excellent sense, and so he abandoned any thought of calling the guards, choosing instead to sit quietly and watch the two men fight.

In truth, the bishop himself did not care which of them was stronger; two days earlier he had met Sister Myura, and had accepted her gifts and request.

Miss Jesses ground her teeth in fury at the sight of that hateful blue-robed bishop, who was acting just as he had in the jousting grounds, but she restrained herself and did not rush forward to denounce this shameless elder of hers as she had before.

At this moment, Miss Jesses also had confidence in Berion. After seeing him defeat Sir Sog, she believed his martial skill to be unmatched beneath heaven, and she had faith that he was more than capable of defeating that dull-witted-looking religious knight.

Berion, too, noticed that Count Gray had not spoken up to stop the knight's outrageous rudeness. Glancing sideways and seeing the blue-robed bishop gripping the count's arm, he understood at once what was afoot.

So today there would be no avoiding a fight after all. Truly, the more one wished to avoid a thing, the more it came. Since this hulking fool had dared to come looking for trouble with Sister Myura, then Berion saw no need to be polite. He would simply deal with him.

Neither man had a weapon; they faced each other barehanded. Berion knew this was surely the scheme Sister Myura had devised after listening to the advice of that vile fellow Sog, the Bear-Slayer.

Because Berion was skilled with the sword, they assumed that without a blade he could not defeat a man as large as this.

Yes, that might have been true of the old Berion. He had hardly trained at all in close combat, and in a fight he would certainly have suffered badly.

But this Berion was no longer the same. He was a spearpoint who had undergone systematic training in a modern army, and his hand-to-hand combat abilities were formidable. The techniques he knew were all lethal strikes designed to end a fight in a single blow, savage methods that could cripple a man outright.

For this religious knight to rely on his size and strength in order to deal with him was sheer fantasy. Today he was certain to strike iron with his head.

Seeing that Count Gray did not stop his impudent conduct, the towering religious knight knew that Sister Myura had given him this opportunity. He smiled cruelly, rolled his neck, and fixed his gaze on Berion as though watching prey.

Berion was not far from him. Seeing that arrogant smile, he was tempted to taunt him with a few words, to enrage him if possible; for when a man is angry and loses control of himself, that is when he makes the most mistakes.

So Berion lowered his voice and said, "You obey old Myura so faithfully. Is she your mother? Did your father spend one night of pleasure with her, abandon her, and then she gave birth to you in the monastery?

"I think that must be it. How pitiful. If that's truly the case, then let me be your father. I can give you the paternal love you never had, good son!"

At Berion's words, the proud religious knight was so enraged that his lungs nearly burst. He snatched up a chair beside him and swung it at Berion.

The force was immense. Berion darted aside, and the chair smashed into the table, shattering the dishes and candelabra upon it; the chair itself burst apart into splinters.

"I'll kill you! I'll tear apart that filthy, venomous mouth of yours!" Seeing his blow fail, the towering religious knight hurled away the table leg in his hand and roared as he charged Berion.

His three-hundred-pound mass came crashing forward like an out-of-control tank, battering the tables and chairs before him askew. In an instant the banquet hall descended into chaos, with dishes and utensils clattering and breaking across the floor.

Dodging as he went, Berion kept mocking him and laughing, every now and then flinging at him whatever he could grab to hinder the chase.

As he dodged, Berion shouted at the top of his voice, "In the name of the God of Fire, if you continue making a scene in Count Gray's banquet hall, you shameless fool, I swear I'll beat you senseless!"

Count Gray, hearing Berion's shout, blushed despite his age. As host, he had failed to stop the religious knight's discourtesy, which was already a slight to Berion, the guest he himself had invited.

And now Berion was even trying to preserve his face. That made Count Gray feel somewhat ashamed.

Yet this had also been Berion's purpose in saying those words just now. He had framed the coming fight with the religious knight before everyone as an effort to defend Count Gray's honor.

Thus, even if Berion killed this religious knight later, Count Gray would not be able to say it had nothing to do with him. He would have to share in the burden of that responsibility and enmity.

By now, after chasing Berion in a fury for quite some time, the religious knight's stamina was plainly no longer what it had been at the start, and he also realized he could not keep this up. Not only was it rude, it was also wasting his strength for nothing.

Berion saw the knight's pursuit falter and knew it was time to face him properly, head-on. They had been running long enough already; if he kept it up, the onlookers would begin to mock him.

So Berion stopped as well and instead advanced a few steps toward the knight, staring at him coldly, saying nothing.

At such close range, the knight no longer had to worry that Berion would slip away again. With a snarl, he lowered his voice and said, "In a moment, I'll smash your skull and rip out your heart."

"Heh heh!" Berion chuckled, equally low. "Good, my obedient son. Since you care so little for your father, then hurry up and make your move!

"Let's see whether I beat the daylights out of you first, you unruly wretch, or whether you can truly defeat this old father of yours."

The religious knight's eyes tightened. He knew he could not outtalk Berion; sparring with words would only cost him more and anger him further.

So he threw a fist at Berion with all his might. The blow was heavy, and the instant it was launched Berion could feel the wind of it.

Berion stepped back swiftly, shifting his body aside, then turned his hips and drove a knee upward, kicking at the knight's lower ribs. The strike was fast, precise, and fierce, landing squarely beneath his rib cage.

Though the towering religious knight was thick-skinned and robust, that domineering side kick struck like a heavy hammer against his ribs. In that instant he could clearly hear the sound of bone cracking.

The broken ribs brought immediate, searing pain. His vision lurched, and he nearly collapsed on the spot, but he still clenched his teeth and forced himself to remain upright.

Seeing that the religious knight had taken his full-force side kick and was still standing, Berion was somewhat surprised.

After all, a side kick like that was not only fast, but powerful as well.

An ordinary man, after taking such a blow and having his ribs broken, would lose all ability to resist on the spot. Berion had originally intended to end things in a single move, but he had not expected this hulking religious knight to be so tough. Could he be some kind of bioengineered monster?

Berion set the thought aside. If one blow would not bring him down, then another would. In any case, he had already inflicted severe damage, and that gave him a considerable advantage in the fight to come.

He surged forward, lifting his leg as though to kick again. Seeing Berion close in and prepare to strike once more, the religious knight instantly raised his right hand, trying to block the coming kick.

Berion drew his leg back, then swiftly raised his left hand to seize the man's outstretched right hand. At the very same moment, Berion snapped his right elbow upward in a fierce side strike to the left side of the knight's jaw.

An elbow is a hard weapon indeed. When driven with full force into an opponent, it is like a knife blade; upon high-speed impact, all of that power is magnified, and the damage needs no explanation.

The religious knight took such a heavy blow that several of his teeth were knocked out, and he was left dazed. But this was only the beginning of the nightmare.

No sooner had Berion's first elbow strike ended than the right elbow came whipping back in the opposite direction, slamming into the knight's right jaw with the same brutal force. The impact was no weaker than the first, and the wound it caused was even greater.

Berion's side-elbow technique did not merely deal double damage; it also left an opponent reeling and disoriented in a very short time after receiving such a blow to the head.

Berion stopped and looked at the religious knight. One side of the man's face was already swollen red, and blood continued to pour from his mouth.

Beyond that, the bridge of his nose had been struck by Berion's second elbow, crushed by the passing forearm at once and now bleeding without stop. Blood ran down his swollen face and fell onto the banquet hall's floor of white marble.

Bright red blood upon white marble, splashing into little red blossoms of gore—such a sight stunned the onlookers.

They could scarcely believe that this nineteen-year-old knight possessed such extraordinary skill; without a sword in his hand, he seemed even more formidable than when armed.

The religious knight, so much larger and more heavily built than Berion, had not even managed to get close. In only two moves he had been beaten into this miserable state, and it was clear there was no point in continuing.

By now Sister Myura, already pale-skinned, had gone even whiter, frighteningly so. She had not expected that the religious knight, whom she had brought at the cost of offending both Count Gray and his wife and who had been born with prodigious strength, would be reduced by Berion to this sorry state in only a few moves.

Now Sister Myura felt as though she had swallowed a fly: sickened, yet unable to spit it out. That kind of bitterness, compounded by the feeling of having brought disaster upon herself, left her in immense pain, and yet there was nothing she could do.

As for the bishop sitting beside Count Gray, his face showed no change, but inwardly he had cursed the pair a hundred thousand times over. Useless, utterly useless! Not merely useless, but irredeemable fools. They had dragged him into offending Count Gray and Berion, and for what? For such a disgraceful result.