Leon had no time to attend to the nobleman's gaze.
All his attention was focused on the monster pouncing before him.
After several futile slashes, he gave up the idea of a one-hit kill and instead began looking for the monster's flaws and weaknesses.
Earlier, Gillian had used his combat experience to order the guards to attack the monsters' joints. The men also fought hard to strike at those spots, but even when injured there, the monsters remained exceptionally fierce and their speed undiminished.
Leon had a sudden inspiration; he stopped aiming for the joints and instead locked onto the monster's relatively fragile head.
Another monster pounced, its foul stench nearly spraying onto his face.
With a roar, Leon stopped slashing. Instead, he channeled all his strength into his arms and thrust his steel sword fiercely into the center of those eerie green vertical pupils.
Squelch!
The dull sound of the blade entering flesh was accompanied by a shrill cry. The tip of the sword accurately pierced the monster's eyeball, sinking deep into the skull. Thick, black, foul blood sprayed from the eye socket, splashing Leon's face and making him gag.
The monster twisted and convulsed frantically, its hooked claws scratching wildly.
Leon gripped the hilt tightly, his body stumbling as he was pulled along.
But he gritted his teeth, using all his might to press down fiercely while cutting horizontally.
Most of the monster's neck was sliced open by the sharp steel sword. Its hideous head slumped to one side, held on by only a sliver of flesh, before finally severing completely under the force of gravity and rolling into the ashes.
The headless torso twitched a few times before collapsing with a thud.
This bloody and shocking scene caused the rhythm of the entire battlefield to stall for a moment.
Everyone saw a slave slay a monster.
"Attack the eyes! The eyes are their weak point!"
Gillian Lannister's roar instantly snapped the struggling guards back to their senses.
He set an example himself, spotting an opening and using the steel bracer on his left arm to forcibly parry a lethal claw strike.
Ignoring the violent tremors in his arm, he lunged forward, thrusting the tip of his longsword precisely into the monster's eye. Brain matter and fluid erupted from the skull, and it fell dead.
This scene undoubtedly boosted the guards' morale.
They began to coordinate intentionally, creating opportunities for their companions to stab at the eyes.
Soon, several more monsters were killed under precise combined attacks, falling dead on the ground.
However, the scales of victory had not fully tipped.
The number of monsters was still overwhelmingly superior. More lethally, the slaves and sailors were almost entirely wiped out; lacking weapons and armor, they were like lambs to the slaughter before the monsters.
Piercing screams and the sound of tearing flesh rang out continuously, the heavy scent of blood nearly suffocating.
"My Lord!"
A guard, his face splattered with black blood, roared at Gillian during a gap in his parrying, his voice urgent:
"Give the extra swords to those slaves! Let them help, or we'll all be worn down to death here!"
He was referring to the weapons left behind by the fallen guards on the ground.
Gillian's movements didn't pause for a second. He swung his sword to force back a monster, but his blue-green eyes precisely locked onto the black-haired slave, Leon, who was struggling to pull a weapon from another monster's corpse.
Seeing the abnormal calmness flickering in his eyes, Gillian felt a chill in his heart.
An Eastern slave who possessed such strength, held a sharp blade, and had witnessed the entire process of how he dealt with the sick crewmen and Lenned's men—how would he treat him next?
He instantly recalled some unpleasant things.
"No!"
Gillian's voice left no room for doubt: "These maggots are just a burden if kept; they'll only cause trouble. Kill these beasts, our own men are enough!"
Before his words had even faded, he had already lunged back into the swarm of monsters, demonstrating his resolve through action.
The guards looked at each other, a trace of struggle flashing across their faces.
But long-term training and harsh class suppression led them to choose obedience.
However, not everyone could completely suppress that faint spark of compassion.
In the chaotic slaughter, during the moment Gillian was entangled by two monsters and his vision was obscured, several guards quickly threw spare daggers from their waists or scavenged longswords to the feet of the nearest slaves or sailors.
"Pick them up and fight these monsters with us!"
The instinct for survival overwhelmed fear.
A few near-death slaves and sailors burst with their final strength, scrambling toward the weapons on the ground.
As cold steel met their hands, a faint glimmer of hope ignited in their despairing eyes.
They roared, wielding their unfamiliar weapons as they lunged at the nearby monsters like cornered beasts, using their lives to relieve a bit of pressure for the guards.
Leon, at this moment, had fallen into a strange state of focus.
The process of slaying three monsters by hand had not only given him a more practical understanding of the power bestowed by the dragon blood but also brought a strange 'feedback.'
Every time a monster died and fell, a dragon spirit would quietly merge into his body.
This aura was like a trickling stream, flowing into the 'lake' deep within his consciousness that represented his mana limit.
0.08%... The numbers in his consciousness ticked clearly.
He had killed three, and Gillian and the others had killed five.
Eight monsters provided a 0.08% increase in bloodline purity and an 800-point increase in mana limit.
If a monster could provide a dragon spirit, the energy it contained was actually ten times that of the disgusting red maggots from last night.
This discovery delighted Leon.
If he could continue hunting these monsters, his bloodline purity would increase rapidly.
Just as he was calculating in his mind, a sudden change occurred!
"Screee—!!!"
A sharp screech suddenly erupted from deep within the forest.
This sound was distinctly different from the monsters' previous chaotic roars; it was like a horn blast.
All the monsters currently attacking frantically stiffened in unison.
A trace of bewilderment flashed in their eerie green eyes, and then, without hesitation, they turned and retreated into the Withered Woods even faster than they had come, vanishing in the blink of an eye and leaving behind only a mess of corpses.
Leon leaned on his sword, panting heavily. He stared warily in the direction where the monsters had disappeared, his heart racing.
That sound was definitely some kind of command.
Was there something behind these monsters directing them?
A more powerful monster?
Or some unknown entity?
A ridiculous thought that made his spine tingle surfaced.
Could it be a person?
However, he didn't have time to delve into the monsters' secrets.
Almost the instant the last monster's tail disappeared into the woods, Gillian Lannister's cold voice rang out.
"Surround these bastards!"
Clang!
The sound of metal grinding was perfectly synchronized.
The remaining twelve guards, though all wounded, displayed astonishing discipline the moment the order was given.
They moved quickly, forming a tight perimeter, their sharp sword tips glinting with a cold light as they pointed at the only survivors in the center of the battlefield.
Including Leon, only five people remained.
Three slaves who could barely stand, and two sailors covered in blood.
They all held the weapons they had just picked up, their hands trembling uncontrollably.
They stood back-to-back, looking despairingly at this group of Lannister guards who had just been fighting alongside them but were now radiating killing intent.
Gillian stood outside the circle, his gaze cold.
His green eyes slowly swept across his squad of guards.
"Which of you defied my orders and threw swords to that scum? Step forward."
The four guards who had secretly thrown their weapons instantly turned pale.
They glanced at each other, their eyes full of fear and struggle.
Under the pressure of Gillian's cold gaze, which seemed capable of piercing their very souls, they finally lowered their heads and stepped out of the formation one by one, standing on the inner side of the circle.
"Take up your weapons and kill those who accepted your mercy!"