Bai Shi stealthily crept up behind the Godrick soldier, getting closer with each step.
When he was still four or five steps away, the soldier finally heard a faint sound.
But the moment he turned his head, Bai Shi lunged forward, covering his mouth with one hand while using the other to stab his sword fiercely upwards into the soldier's ribs.
The sword went straight through the soldier, with the tip emerging from his collarbone. A large stream of blood flowed down the hilt, a clear sign that it had pierced his heart.
The Godrick soldier struggled for a few moments and then fell still. A bit of golden Rune energy drifted out of his body and into Bai Shi's.
Bai Shi shook the blood from his sword, tore off a piece of cloth from the corpse, and wiped the remaining blood from the blade.
The cloth, now stained with blood, soiled the embroidered Golden Tree and lion, and Bai Shi tossed it aside.
"His reaction time is faster than in the game, but he's still not as sharp as a normal human."
Bai Shi knelt, carefully examining the soldier's face.
It was a desiccated face, dark and shriveled.
After the shattering of the Elden Ring, all living things in the Lands Between who were blessed by the Golden Tree were affected.
In the past, to truly die in the Lands Between, one's body had to be absorbed by the roots of the Golden Tree at a graveyard, which would then allow them to be reborn.
But now, with the Ring shattered and the Golden Order unable to function, the blessed could no longer be absorbed by the tree and were thus unable to truly die.
Under this curse of immortality, they aged day by day, their bodies and souls deteriorating together. Many soldiers were now just husks.
Their souls were incredibly weak; they might not even know who they were, simply continuing to patrol and fight based on old instincts.
One day, they would become little more than mindless walking corpses... perhaps they already were.
Bai Shi sighed. What a pathetic world.
He began to search the body, but there was nothing worth taking from a common soldier.
His armor was already stained and tattered, and Bai Shi had just stabbed through it. He already had a torch, and taking on more weight would be a burden.
The only thing of value was the sword he hadn't had a chance to draw: a Lordsworn's Straight Sword.
It was a standard-issue weapon for soldiers serving various lords. After prolonged use, the surface had blackened and its quality had deteriorated, but there were signs of maintenance.
However, Bai Shi decided not to take it. He already had enough weapons.
And even though the soldier had lost his mind, he still maintained this sword. Bai Shi decided to let the sword stay with the soldier and rest in peace.
Bai Shi continued to move through the bushes. He encountered a few more soldiers, successfully ambushing two of them and picking up a few Kukri knives.
But once, a soldier who seemed to have retained more of his consciousness discovered him first.
Bai Shi fought him for a couple of rounds and eventually landed a clean cut into his neck.
However, the noise of the fight and the soldier's shouts attracted three other soldiers nearby.
The three soldiers swarmed him, attacking in turns. Bai Shi found it hard to fend them off and, in a moment of carelessness, was struck twice.
One hit landed on his shoulder guard, but the armor held, only denting slightly.
The other blow was more dangerous, aimed directly at Bai Shi's head.
Bai Shi had no shield, and his straight sword was busy blocking another attack.
He could only use his vambrace to block, but the armor was cut through, and the straight sword dug deep into his flesh.
Bai Shi fought and retreated, finding an opportunity to take down one of them first. The frequency of attacks immediately lessened, and he quickly finished off the remaining two.
"Huff—huff—"
Bai Shi's face was pale, and his left hand was trembling. The bleeding and back-to-back fights had exhausted him.
Even though these soldiers were essentially zombies, they fought like they were alive.
Bai Shi slowly took off the broken vambrace, exposing his bleeding arm, and wrapped it with a piece of cloth from a corpse.
"They're walking dead, but they can still coordinate when there's a group."
"Good thing the armor is decent. If that hit on my shoulder had gone through, my whole left arm would have been out of commission."
The armor Bai Shi was wearing was already heavily weathered. Some parts had lost a lot of their defense, which was why he had been cut so easily.
"Heh, good thing this isn't a game. I can loot corpses whenever I want."
Bai Shi picked up a vambrace from a corpse. The Godrick soldiers' vambraces were leather gloves with metal bracers on top, wrapped in a layer of torn cloth.
He endured the pain and put the new vambrace on his left arm. He didn't know what fights lay ahead, and fighting with an exposed arm was too dangerous. A direct hit could sever it.
There was nothing else of value on these soldiers, so Bai Shi ignored them and continued.
Fortunately, there were no more soldiers on his path, and Bai Shi successfully made it through the dense forest.
The sky was now starting to darken; it was the twilight before nightfall.
Before him was a stretch of ruins, with a few tents scattered among the wreckage of some unknown buildings, serving as rest stops and supply depots.
Although he was far away, Bai Shi could see numerous soldiers patrolling the area even without his telescope.
To the left was a huge gate. A stone wall was built between two mountains, with only one road passing through its arch.
The mountainsides on both ends were sheer rock faces, impossible to climb.
And right in front of the gate, a Site of Grace was glowing brightly, waiting for Bai Shi to touch it.
Bai Shi had to go to this Site of Grace because this was where Melina first appeared to the player.
He wanted to meet her.
But the terrain made Bai Shi hesitate. The map was much bigger, and the soldiers weren't as deaf and blind as they were in the game. Trying to sneak past them without being seen would be impossible.
And with so many soldiers stationed in the ruins before the gate, a frontal assault would be extremely difficult.
Suddenly, an idea flashed in Bai Shi's mind. He remembered the Kukri knives he had picked up from the corpses.
They were a type of large throwing knife, a kind of heavy throwing weapon with good damage.
But more importantly, these knives had a special property: because of their weight, they made a loud noise when they hit a stone surface.
Bai Shi licked his lips as a plan formed in his mind.
But before he acted, he moved to a different spot and used his telescope to examine the situation at the gate.
"The soldiers are spread out, but one of them seems to be holding a crossbow. I'd be in trouble if I got sniped."
After thinking it over, Bai Shi concluded that the plan was quite feasible. Even if it failed, he could make a clean getaway.
So, Bai Shi found a bush near the cliff face, hid inside, and waited for night to fall.
Note: The AI of the enemies has been enhanced, and their combat ability depends on how much of their consciousness they've retained. This book doesn't use the game's strict stat system. While Godrick's soldiers and other royal armies have vastly different stats in the game, in this story, the average level gap isn't as ridiculous. However, with the passage of a long time, other soldiers have retained more of their consciousness, which is why there's a huge difference in power between the early-game and late-game soldiers. Within the same species, their stats are similar; only special individuals are much stronger. For example, the dragons you fight early on have similar stats, while the ones that use freezing mist and scarlet rot are significantly stronger.
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