The gullible fool certainly had not expected the Conquistador’s attack. All the ranged monsters opened fire with their blasts, all aimed towards his body. At the same time, some of the melee focused soldiers rushed forward with their weapons, prepared to strike and beat down the opponent.

The poor idiot had been so enthralled by his charm that he had let his guard down completely. At that, the overwhelming power of his soul came crashing down, getting the man to keep over from the pure pressure.

But that was where all the advantage went. In that single instance, they roared as their resistance burst to the fullest potential, nearly making him lift his power from sheer will. However, thanks to the actions of his soldiers made the bastard change their attention from resisting his soul to defending against the physical attacks.

As their club was on the ground, they could use that for defense against the incoming energy blasts. However, they still had that strange bottle in their hand, which they then proceeded to slam right into the ground.

That caused the entire area around them to explode in a giant plume of black smoke. At that, all of his soldiers began to back away from the cloud. None of them were willing to rush in and deal with this strange substance, as this was something that could possibly be dangerous.

Their target was no longer visible and with that, the game had changed. He whistled and ordered all of his men to move backwards in position. Within a few seconds, they were all back into an organized form.

The melee warriors were out in a triangle, all surrounding the ranged troops. He himself was in between these two rows, with his eye on the smoke cloud. They waited, having their ears primed for any sounds of escape or any attempts to launch another attack.

At this time, he could only hope that the bastard had been struck by one of those energy projectiles and got killed then and there. Unfortunately, the world decided things were not going to go his way as the bastard walked out of the black cloud.

Whatever that substance was, it certainly stuck to the bastard. There were swathes of smoke that wafted off of their body, oozing from every crevice of their armor. Their head lifted to glare right at the Conquistador and at that moment, a bright blue gleam burst from where their eyehole would be.

“You’ll bleed for that, bastard.”

“Oh, I don’t think I will.” With that, he whistled. At once, all of his melee troops ducked down as his ranged soldiers shot their blasts forward, before rushing in.

He expected the warrior to use their club to swipe at all of those projectiles, destroying them and providing an opening for his men to land some attacks. He expected their attention to be focused elsewhere so that he could use his divine blessing once more to make them submit. Of all the things to happen, he certainly had not expected them to grab hold of the black smoke coming off their body and swiping at the incoming blasts.

All of those blasts evaporated into nothing. Each of his soldiers that came into contact with the mysterious clouds proceeded to screech in pain as they seemed to melt. The armor, the weapons, everything that came into contact with that fog all melted into a pure liquid. Some of his soldiers died at that moment, which he proceeded to use as a distraction to focus his divine blessing onto the bastard once more.

This time, he found even more resistance than before. The sensation was similar to wading through deep mud, something that was throwing him off quite a bit. What was this? Was this because the enemy had activated their divine power as well? Or was this a symptom of the usage of that strange smoke? Either way, this was bad. He needed to find a way to counter this, and fast.

Melee wouldn’t work. Ranged wouldn’t be sufficient. His divine blessing wasn’t going to do anything at all anymore.

He needed to distract the bastard, get them to stop using their divine blessing. But how? What kind of method would work–

Wait. He had an option, a chance! A way to get out of this dim and dark place!

“Hurry! Shove all the wagons towards this bastard right now! The rest of you, blast him to oblivion!”

All of his troops moved according to his will. The ranged monsters opened fire, and all the remaining melee monsters rushed and began to shove the nearest wagon towards the bastard. To their credit, they did not stand around to let him get away with all this. They dashed forward, using their smoke to get rid of all the incoming projectiles.

However, that was as far as they went. The Conquistador took a deep breath, before consuming all of his attention on the bastard. This time, instead of focusing his pressure on taking over their soul, he changed it to a simple projectile based attack. Similar to the one he delivered to the foreign woman back at the village, but modified to be significantly weaker. After all, he didn’t want to put so much power into a test.

Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

This proved to be sufficient. Despite everything telling him that such an action shouldn’t be successful, he was able to achieve his goal. The attack went through as the bastard kneeled down slightly, the strike hitting the base of his right knee. The smoke and the armor did nothing to help, although it certainly wasn’t any serious damage. If anything, all that did was act as a minor distraction, but long enough to get the wagon going.

His troops did their job and with that, the wagon rolled towards the bastard at high speeds. They growled and coalesced all the available smoke in front of them in defense, but the overwhelming size and weight of the incoming vehicle was far too much. The wooden wagon slammed right into them, going through all the smoke and knocking them back quite a bit away.

That gave the go ahead for his ranged monsters to blast off once more, while the Conquistador focused their divine blessing once more, this time aiming to strike them in the club arm. With that, two of his monsters rushed forward with their weapons, ready to do some real damage for once.

Of course, they still had that smoke covering their body, but that didn’t mean anything with all the incoming distractions. They were on the ground, and they didn’t have any time to use the club for defense. Thus, they were forced to move this time. However, they didn’t get away unscathed.

The divine blast he had sent out earlier did its job. With that, they were unable to defend the incoming projectiles to the best of their ability. One of those blasts slammed right into their club arm, which meant only one thing.

They were now in a ticking clock to death. They would suffer a horrific death for sure, and that would be the end of all his problems. He couldn’t help but feel a bit cheerful at that. Though, all of that disappeared the moment the bastard grabbed their arm and yanked. They ripped off their limb in a single second, before throwing it at one of the rushing monsters.

What happened next was something far beyond his expectations. No, more than that, it was absolute bullshit. The arm seemed to twist and turn before bursting out as all the insides were turned out. At that, the shower of blood splattered all over the soldier’s faces, making one of them stop out of pure confusion while the other kept on charging blindly. Unfortunately, because of their condition, that soldier missed their target completely, allowing the bastard to secure clench a fist and slam it right into their face.

Their entire head caved in. The helmet did nothing, only digging more metal shards into its skull and brain. Teeth and blood burst out from the impact zone, before all dissolving into dust, leaving behind a skeleton and a pulverized skull.

What the fuck was this. Excuse me? Did that bastard seriously kill one of my men with a single fist? How did that make any sense?!

He blinked, before squinting at the mess, just in time for him to witness them throwing a strike at the other monster’s chest.

At that, their rib cage caved in. A giant heave and a burst of blood rushed out of the soldier’s mouth, at least until the bastard slammed their elbow to their throat. The monster’s windpipe snapped in two, making a complete right angle, before succumbing to their wounds and dying.

Oh, great. This was even worse than he expected. Even though the bastard was literally going out on one arm, they still had enough strength to completely one shot each of his soldiers?

If it wasn’t for the fact that he really couldn’t use his divine blessings to convert them, he would be rather happy. Unfortunately, this was something rather problematic. While he could certainly launch wagon after wagon, some of these had important goods in them that he simply could not risk getting destroyed. The backlash of using his divinity willy-nilly was beginning to weigh down on him now, and he had to admit one thing.

The best option here and now was to retreat. Head back to the settlement, where he had far more troops at hand for utilization. Then, they could swarm the bastard and take them out that way. Yes, that was sounding rather good.

Though, there was once again another problem: with all the damage they had taken, there was zero chance they’d let him escape. Not only that, but doing so would require them to leave behind all of their goods for whatever filthy scavengers laid in wait around here. No, the best option was to subdue the bastard now, before it was too late.

He couldn’t help but sigh wearily. Great, he had to make some sacrifices. This was a shame, he really didn’t want to get rid of so many of his soldiers. But alas, this was for the greater good. Even if they lost the advance force, all of this would be necessary for future developments.

“All of you, fire! Don’t stop under any situation! The rest, charge in! Let’s get this bastard here and now!”

At his command, they all obeyed. Every single one of his ranged soldiers launched another projectile, while every single last melee troop rushed in. Despite all the carnage they had witnessed, all the deaths, they still went in. After all, they had been converted and had no way of denying his demands.

Though, this time, there was a difference, he followed right behind them, focusing his divine blessing towards the other arm. The one shot they had was disarming the bastard here and now, which meant using a combination of all ranged attacks to achieve this goal.

One by one, his soldiers died. However, each death made a step forward. The bastard had to focus on two things at once now: the charging melee troops and the ranged monsters. Those metallic blades were sharp and dangerous, and although they probably couldn’t cut through the armor, they certainly could do enough damage to make him die a death of a thousand cuts.

They had no club. They had their smoke, which could act as an armor against the melee or the ranged, with a single arm to either defend against the close-ranged or to block the projectiles. The footwork was being put under scrutiny by the other troops.

They were distracted. Their mind was in disarray. All of that led to the perfect moment for him to act.

And so he did. This time, instead of launching a blow to finally disarm the bastard once and for all, he focused on the soul once more. This time, the resistance was minimal, and he found himself overwhelming his opponent.

Screams of pain and rage erupted into the air for a long while. Then, all came quiet. The black smoke faded away from the bastard and all his troops stopped attacking and began celebrating.

The Conquistador couldn’t help but take a deep breath, before smiling. After all, he had done his job.

The bastard had been converted.