He shifted his weight from foot to foot, slightly adjusting his position and standing at the end of the formation. A little ahead of the support positions where Yennefer and the other mages were located, but not on the very front line like Dalton.
Though he wore enchanted inner armour gifted by Karl, which provided a certain degree of protection, he was also covered in leather and padded armour with rivets. However, his defensive capabilities were significantly inferior to the solid, multi-enchanted full plate armour worn by Dalton and his companions. He needed to rely on his witcher skills and swordsmanship to compensate for the lack of protection, rather than simply taking hits head-on.
Karl had asked Geralt if he wanted a similar set of plate armour, but Geralt politely declined. The reason was quite practical: witchers were constantly on the move, carrying out various contracts, and had no permanent residence. Wearing such conspicuous and heavy full plate armour would not only hinder movement but also make daily maintenance significantly more difficult. Moreover, the law stipulated that civilians were prohibited from possessing plate armour; otherwise, they would be executed according to the law. The rewards for witcher contracts were often meagre, sometimes barely enough to cover expenses. If he carried such an expensive set of "iron plates" on his back, he would probably soon have to seriously consider selling his underwear to buy alcohol.
---
At this moment, about twenty mutated fish-men at the front had already stepped onto the dry lakeshore. They let out challenging, hoarse, piercing hisses, their webbed feet stomping on the gravel and mud, swaying and accelerating as they charged.
Yet they managed to take fewer than five steps.
The ground beneath their feet, which appeared ordinary but faintly glowed with magical light, suddenly illuminated.
"BOOM! CRACK!!!" A deafening explosion and the sound of lightning rang out almost simultaneously. Triss, Keira, and the others had instantly triggered the pre-set runic traps.
Flames erupted from the ground, forming a wall of fire several metres high that engulfed the fish-men within its range. Fierce bolts of lightning, like silver serpents, swam and writhed among the fish, electrocuting them until they were charred and convulsing. There was also an invisible forcefield impact that sent several fish-men flying like ragdolls, their bodies contorting and deforming in mid-air.
Smoke and dust, mixed with the smell of burnt flesh and blood, quickly spread.
When the lake breeze slightly dispersed the smoke and dust, the scene on the shore elicited completely different reactions from both sides.
The first wave of mutated fish-men that had surged onto the shore was now a pile of severed limbs and charred chunks of flesh. Arms, legs, internal organs... mixed with thick, black, foul-smelling blood, were scattered everywhere, almost none of them intact.
Dalton remained silent; the scene unfolding before him fully met his expectations. Geralt gripped his silver sword tightly, his cat-like eyes scanning the debris with increasing vigilance and seriousness.
Meanwhile, from King Foltest's side, after a brief silence, bursts of laughter erupted and casual discussions began.
"Haha! Is that all?!"
"You scared me! I thought you were amazing! Turns out you couldn't even avoid a trap?"
"Exactly! They look disgusting, but they're so easy to defeat!"
"Why don't we just ask those lovely ladies to set up a few more of those traps? Why should we have to do this ourselves?"
"Has His Majesty deceived the Grand Duke? These aren't followers of an evil god — they're clearly just a bunch of mutated rotten fish!"
Laughter and jeering remarks came from among the guards. Many people relaxed, calming their nerves, and some even lowered the defensive barriers they had been holding.
Dalton slightly turned his head, his gaze sweeping over the laughing crowd beneath his visor, a flicker of undisguised contempt in his eyes.
"What fools," he thought to himself with a sneer. If the enemy were truly that vulnerable, why would Lord Karl have gone to such lengths to gather so many people and make such meticulous preparations? They had even invited mages, druids, and even a golden dragon? Any sensible person would understand that this was impossible. The weaker and stranger the enemy appeared, the greater the likelihood that they posed a deadly threat.
And indeed, before the laughter of Foltest's guards had fully subsided...
The charred chunks of flesh and severed limbs scattered across the ground — which should have been lifeless — suddenly began to writhe. As if pulled by countless invisible threads, or as if they themselves possessed some strange vitality, these fragments of flesh began to gather and fuse together in ways that defied common sense.
In just two or three breaths, several even larger, more twisted, and more repulsive masses of flesh rose again. They had no fixed form; they looked like haphazardly assembled pieces of meat. Their surfaces were covered in mucus, and they extended several tentacle-like limbs of varying lengths, tipped with bone spurs or sharp teeth. Some of these entities, denser in flesh and blood, were more than twice the size of the original fish-men and exuded a richer black aura.
"What the hell is that?!"
The smile on the face of one of the White Lily Knights, who had been laughing just moments ago, instantly froze, replaced by terror.
"How... how did they come back to life?!" another said in a trembling voice.
Fear once again gripped Foltest's guards, and even more intensely than before.
Dalton had anticipated this — or rather, he had never let his guard down. The moment the flesh and blood began to fuse together, he decisively raised his right hand and made a simple gesture.
"Crossbows!" he shouted, and the knights behind him moved in perfect synchronisation. Almost immediately after the order was given, he unstrapped the crossbow hanging at his waist, cocked it, and nocked a bolt.
The bolt tips were not made of ordinary steel; they had a rounded shape and faintly glowed with a pale-golden sheen. These were explosive crossbow bolts, specially treated by Karl and imbued with a weak power of faith.
"Aim at the fusing flesh and blood! Fire!" Dalton commanded.
"Swish! Swish! Swish!" The sound of overlapping air feeds came frequently. Dozens of crossbow bolts, like a swarm of bees, rained down upon the writhing, deformed masses of flesh.
"Thud! Thud!" The bolts sank deep into the flesh and blood. Immediately after, a sound erupted — "BOOM!! FWOOSH!" The struck parts suddenly ignited and burst into pale-golden flashes of light from afar. In an instant, it was like a red-hot brand plunged into oil.
The foul flesh and blood shuddered and writhed in an instant, as if suffering unbearable pain. The areas struck by the golden light rapidly turned grey, dried up, and peeled away like ash. The process of fusion was violently interrupted, and they even began to collapse in reverse.
Philipp closely observed the effect, and seeing it, a cold smile appeared on his face beneath his visor. He whispered to Dalton beside him: "It seems the crossbow bolts consecrated by the Master are indeed effective against these abominable creatures."
Dalton nodded, his gaze sweeping over the deformed masses of flesh struggling and disintegrating in the golden light, before he looked back at the lake. There, like a black tide, a second and third wave of even more mutated fish-men surged forth.