“What is this supposed to be? I thought that we could reach an agreement and this is how you repay me?”

“I…”

Zhang Dong was looking at an approaching squadron of golden knights. While he was on the cusp of making a deal with this wizard Argus the teleportation spell was used. A small group of powerful magical knights appeared out of thin air that was now charging towards the location above the castle.

“Lord Lucius please stop, this man is not our enemy!”

“Argus, have you lost your mind? Are you colluding with the enemy or under some kind of enchantment? Worry not, I Lucius Lightburn of the Golden Braves will cut down the enemies of our holy kingdom.”

With the enemies coming his way Zhang Dong decided to fly away from the round table in the sky. At first, he thought that this was a betrayal of trust but then as the conversation continued it was clear that the mage had nothing to do with it.

“Sir Gregory, was it you? Do you mistrust this old man this much to call upon the Knight Commander himself?”

Down on the ground was the knight that he saw before. It seemed that the man had called over their forces while he was having his talk with the Wizard. Argus was the strongest person here so he did not expect someone to ignore his orders. This was a rule that was prevalent in the cultivation world that he was now used to. Here on the other hand the most powerful might not even be their King.

‘What should I do… Can I take them out and still continue? Would they work together with me after I kill their powerful knights or just feel resentment instead?’

There were ten knights in shiny gold armor flying towards him. They were all riding large muscular horses with wings coming out of their backs. The one in the front looked like a legendary pegasus with a full golden barding covering its body. These magical beasts felt as strong as nascent soul masters and clearly specialized in speed.

“Argus, I see that we’ll have to talk this over some time later but my offer still stands but that depends if you can convince these idiots first.”

The old wizard’s eyes went wide as he flew to the side. It was clear that the man wanted to attempt a less bloody solution but his comrades had other ideas. Zhang Dong was unsure of the man’s position in this army but it felt to him that Argus was in some kind of strange position of a consultant. The knights would take his orders to a point but the real leader was someone like this Knight Commander coming his way.

This Lucius character stuck out from the rest. While they were all wearing heavy plate armor and covering their faces this Knight Commander was letting everyone see his face. He was quite handsome, his eyes looked like blue sapphires that were radiating light. The hair looked like golden straw that for some reason even when he charged towards him didn’t get in his face. It was as if he was a supermodel that came from a shampoo commercial. The weapon of choice was a golden halberd that was radiating holy energy.

‘Would be nice if they were lightning-based enemies…’

While Zhang Dong could absorb this type of energy there was a limit. This limit was close approaching as both his soul and golden core were practically full. Unless he took in more lightning energy to equal all three cores out then he was risking a cultivation backlash. At this point in time, he had not reached his limit but there were ten golden knights coming his way and all of them possessed holy-based attacks.

“Duke Lucius, stay thy hand! This is not the time for combat”

Argus tried to get the supermodel to stop but even he was ignored as the whole squadron of flying horses just zoomed past him. The golden halberd in Lucius’ hand started giving out a radiant glow as he was preparing to poke him with it.

‘So, they divide themselves by nobility… maybe that’s why they aren’t listening to this wizard?’

While propelling himself back he continued to gather more information. It made sense why the other soldiers didn’t like the wizard that much if he was some kind of gifted commoner. Nobility tended to distance themselves from the peasants that they considered subhuman to them.

It was a similar division to the sects and clans. Even when the other group was strong unless they had some backing or history they would see them as lesser beings. It seemed that the wizard was outside the tightly knit group of knights that would listen to Lucius over him.

Stolen novel; please report.

‘I guess that means that he can’t do anything for me which means…’

Zhang Dong glanced at his system window where his escape teleport option was already brought up. With one click he could be out of there and back in the lightning-covered lands where he saved a safe location for himself. But he decided to stall for a moment, while combat was inevitable it was a good chance to measure his enemy's strength.

The knights that he was facing were radiating might similar to top nascent soul masters with their commander being the most powerful. This situation didn’t look too favorable for him, he might have been slightly stronger than their leader but there were too many enemies to count.

With that in mind, he decided to not engage the group in a close-quarters battle instead, he pointed out with his finger that quickly produced a ray of light. This ray before impact split into many smaller ones that showered the ten enemies with his attack.

Yet before the moment of impact, all of the knights raised their kite shields. All of them were uniform in their looks with a head of a lion on the middle part. At the moment of impact instead of an explosion, his attack was somehow suctioned towards the lion’s mouth then after a fraction of a second, it was sent back towards him.

“Wait, that’s illegal!”

He shouted out while infusing his body with more power to flee. While the attack came from him it was somehow altered through those shields. He was unable to control it anymore and if it collided with his body there was a possibility of being injured even with his body refining skill making him impervious to most damage.

This was quite the surprising turn of events which then turned for the worse. When he was dodging the blasts sent back his way the knight leader managed to catch up to him. The flying horse that he used was actually faster than he had assumed.

“I have you!”

There was no hesitation as the sparkling halberd headed towards his head. The man ignored the wizard’s shouts while going straight for the kill. He was not sure what that Sir Gregory character had told this knight commander but it was enough to cost him his head.

“How about you take this instead?”

But he didn’t despair yet, there were various ways to get out of this predicament, one of them was his trusted moving skill that he had perfected through his battles. Thus the moment the weapon went for his head instead of a bloody stump it created a light show of electrical energy.

Instead of his head flying off an afterimage containing a jolt of holy electrical energy was discharged through the man’s weapon. It traveled further up his hand and was discharged through his entire body along with the mount Lucius was riding on.

This was the opportunity that he was waiting for, this technique was able to stun even the strongest opponents for a moment. A sword appeared in his hand along with his true form to the flank of his enemy. With a quick swing of his weapon, he decided to punish his overzealous opponent.

“Hmm?”

But Lucius didn’t seem that impressed as he twirled the halberd in his hand to deflect the shorter blade with ease. His horse then took off forward before turning around for another attack. This was not his only problem as the other enemies had caught up to him and surrounded him from all sides.

‘Could they be resistant to the golden lightning, or is that armor just that good?’

It seemed that he was not the only person that could resist holy attacks. Perhaps to get the edge over these opponents he would need to utilize one of his other Dao’s. Using his soul core to weaken his enemies before striking them down seemed like a good plan but there was something protecting them.

Zhang Dong found himself in an evasive battle the knights attacked from all directions while he dodged. The only thing on his side was that he could perform more difficult aerial maneuvers than the men on horseback. Like an eel, he managed to evade all blows with only sustaining marginal cuts on his white combat robe.

‘These guys aren’t that simple.’

After a few exchanges, it was clear that these knights had gone through many battles together. Whenever he aimed for an opening there was someone blocking his way before he could deliver a finishing blow. They reacted quickly and covered each other's backs even though he was a lot faster than them.

Then there was also their leader who after the first few exchanges took himself out of the main battle. He would monitor him from afar before jumping in for the kill, it was him that constantly tore his clothes as he barely evaded.

‘If this continues I might actually die here…’

Zhang Dong realized that he had been too haughty for once. He had allowed the enemies to come this close in hopes of testing their true strength. Now he found himself with no time to do anything but dodge. His movement techniques seemed to have been seen through and the armored men weren’t damaged by his holy aura nor his lightning. He was also unable to affect their souls either putting him at a large disadvantage.

‘I guess it’s time to make a run for it…’

“Oh my god, isn’t that the radiant goddess herself… and what is this! She is holding the secret sword Lightbringer!”

During the onslaught, he shouted while pointing in one direction. The knights were taken off guard and even when they didn’t want the Lightbringer name had some weight behind it.

“The Lightbringer?”

Lucius turned his head around to look at empty space along with some other of the knights. Yet when they looked back towards the man that had shouted the lies he was already to the side and waving.

“You really fell for that? Well, I’ll see you next time, ciao!”

What they witnessed was a smiling Zhang Dong waving at them after finally having a chance to activate his teleportation escape. Even when they tried it was already too late, their weapons hit a few energy particles that were left behind while he vanished to fight on another occasion.