Enforcer Manual
Chapter 652: The Declaration of Allegiance_1

This was indeed a tradition of the knighthood ceremony, and although it was considered entertainment, for the new recruits, it represented a prime opportunity to make an impression. If their performance was outstanding, they could make a lasting impression on the lords of the various Knight Groups and the upper echelons of the Consortium.

But the ceremonies of previous years had never been so one-sided as they were today.

Most of the top-rated recruits had joined the Crimson Knights, and the Gilvez Family did not even manage to pick up the "scraps"; they had only one recruit at the very bottom who joined them, and if it weren’t for her proactive application, they would have found themselves in the embarrassing position of having no one to participate in the martial display.

Colin Capello naturally became the dominant force in the display.

Everything was developing according to his expectations.

What he truly cared about was not the ceremony or the martial display itself, but the gathering after the ceremony. That would be the opportunity to showcase the Capello Family to others, where those with the potential to influence the Consortium’s decisions would be in attendance.

They intended to do more than merely embarrass the Gilvez Family; they aimed to wrench back control of the Consortium’s future into their own hands.

They had been waiting too long for this day.

Colin covertly exchanged a glance with a maid behind him, and she responded with a reassuring look.

His fists, clenched in nervousness, finally relaxed.

The order of appearance for the martial display had been arranged in advance, and representing the Crimson Knights, of course, was Cain. He donned his helmet confidently and strode onto the battlefield—a victory was certain. In the overall assessment, his combat skills were among the best of his peers.

After much discussion, the Monk Family finally pushed out an unlucky soul to accept this already predictable duel.

Cain felt that the duel did not even require him to enter the fray personally; there were at least several people among the audience who could easily topple the opponent.

The reason the Monk Family was ranked second was that the Capello Family did not consider them a threat. The main actors of this knighthood ceremony were the Gilvez Family and the Winter Knights.

As expected, the first match of the martial display ended swiftly, possibly the most one-sided battle in recent years.

Before the servants could recover from their shock, the recruit representing the Monk Family was effortlessly thrown off the platform by Cain. It seemed that even the loser herself had not come to grips with her defeat.

"Logically, there shouldn’t be such a wide gap in strength between peers,"

said an older servant, frowning.

Though he had never become a knight or participated in a martial display, as a regular audience member, he was no novice, "Did he cheat, or was it a fixed match?"

"How could it be a fixed match?"

A younger servant retorted, "The martial display represents the family’s honor. Besides, even if he didn’t want to consider the Monk Family’s dignity, he’d still have to think about his future in the Knight Group. Being defeated like this would be looked down upon by others."

Upon hearing this, Song Lan glanced at Young Master Franthing.

Fortunately, the respected Young Master Franthing’s mood was stable; the loss in the display did not sour his disposition. Indeed, he had never focused on the ceremony or the martial display.

His face was still pale, and judging by his restless fidgeting, Song Lan surmised that Young Master Franthing was yet to recover.

All he could do was wish the young master a quick recovery and learn from this bitter experience to eat less spicy food in the future.

The Winter Knights didn’t need much strategy in their choice; they could only send the only recruit willing to join them this term onto the martial stage.

"I hope she doesn’t get beaten too badly, since she is a girl,"

remarked the older servant upon seeing this.

Song Lan disagreed with this sentiment, holding absolute confidence in Director Lu. He had long deemed the director’s one-on-one combat skills unbeatable amongst her peers, never having won against her without the use of Spiritual Energy.

He believed the director had at least a dozen ways to take out Cain.

Firstly, the name Cain did not sound like someone who could put up much of a fight.

On the other side.

"Don’t you want to say something?"

Seeing that Lu Xiang remained silent after they had exchanged the standard Knight’s salute, Cain spoke in a voice only the two of them could hear, "Honestly, when the mentor assigned you to the Crimson Knights, I was really nervous. If you had agreed, we couldn’t have met like this."

He couldn’t help but recall their conversation from the previous night.

"I’ve said before that one day, we might stand blade to blade."

Only, that time came much sooner than he had expected, and under such circumstances.

Who could have foreseen that he, as the top of this term, would ultimately face off against the recruit who ranked last in the overall assessment? And he had come prepared.

After returning home the previous night, Young Master Colin sent an experienced member of his Personal Guard. Based on each peer’s technical and tactical characteristics, he devised a detailed strategy for him.

The Capello Family had only one demand of him.

No matter who represented the Winter Knights in the ceremony, they were not to be let off easily.

"Mo Lian, this isn’t about you..."

was an oath of his allegiance sworn to the Capello Family.

In response, the roar of the Shell Launcher erupted, the sound of explosions nearly at arm’s reach; for a moment, it left Cain with ringing ears, and Mo Lian, who had been only a few steps away, had vanished from sight.

Ambush.

The Personal Guard knight had particularly mentioned Mo Lian’s tactical characteristics, believing that her combat style was more similar to an assassin’s, optimizing her ability to compensate for her lack of strength and handling of exoskeleton armor.

But once the assassin’s methods are uncovered, what awaits them is total defeat.

They had rehearsed such scenarios many times before.

Even with his vision blocked and his hearing impaired, he could still predict the opponent’s next move.

"Your target must be my chin, right? This is where the exoskeleton armor’s defense is weakest..."

Before he could finish his sentence, Cain suddenly lost his balance and fell backward, landing flat on his back.

The defensive posture he had confidently assumed was utterly useless and instead created a rather comical image in the eyes of the knights.

As the opponent moved behind him, Cain, the chief, confidently assumed a defensive posture in front of no one and even made a futile slash at the air before tumbling down in disarray.

Lu Xiang glanced speechlessly at Cain, who lay on the ground dazed, momentarily unable to tell if he was a knight or a battlefield commentator.

But Cain’s commentary did give her some clues.

The reason the opponent had won so easily just now was not only due to overpowering strength but also because someone had tipped him off in advance, devising tactics based on the technical characteristics of each peer, which gave him the ability to anticipate moves in combat—a "Prophet’s" ability.

At best, this could only be considered as advice; it was far from the true ability to foresee the future.

And she had seen the true ability to foresee the future.

Following the principle of stopping upon contact, Cain was already defeated the moment he fell.

If this had been a real battlefield, she would now be able to blow his head off with a shell launcher, but since the Iris Consortium’s martial arts meeting was based on exchanges, lethal weapons were prohibited, and the ammunition she had installed in the shell launcher today was only a burst bomb that caused dizziness and ringing in the ears.

What happened next made the sounds of spectators enjoying the show gradually disappear, replaced by a silence, leaving only the occasional sound of sword blades scraping against exoskeleton armor on the stage.

They all held their breath in unison, for Lu Xiang’s mode of attack was so light it didn’t seem knightly at all.

Every time Cain struggled to rise from the ground, the sword blade would accurately poke at his joints, forcing him to fall back to the ground in a humiliating manner.

The heavy exoskeleton armor became a burden, and only the lords and members of the Personal Guard could see the technique behind it.

Aside from the unmatched accuracy, what was more frightening was that in front of Lu Xiang, Cain was like a blind man.

The knight’s standard helmet was equipped with a thermal imaging system, so even invisible opponents could not escape their scan. Cain was in such a sorry state because at that moment, his vision, hearing, and the parts hit by the blade were all conveying completely different information to him.

His senses deceived him, leading him to make the wrong judgment.

The lords looked at their mentor as if by agreement; such techniques were not accessible to new recruits, and they even saw a shadow of the chief knight in them.

With each passing second, impatience and anxiety filled Cain’s heart.

Gradually, he seemed to understand the real purpose of his opponent.

After continuous impacts, the exoskeleton armor around his ankles could no longer protect him, his feet began to tremble uncontrollably, and the weight of the exoskeleton armor became the last straw that was about to crush him. Now, it seemed he just needed a light push to fall to the ground.

Moreover, ever since the first moment he lost his balance, the opponent had never really let him stand up again.

This made Cain recall the days of his childhood when he aspired to become a knight, when his parents had spent a lot of money to hire an experienced knight to teach him combat skills, and he had also been knocked down repeatedly in such a humiliated manner.

Did this mean that from the start, Mo Lian had no intention of treating him as an opponent worthy of seriousness?

With his ankles completely numb, he fell to the ground once again.

And it was only after Mo Lian ascended the martial arts platform that she spoke for the first time, "Do you concede?"

A simple and direct question, void of any emotional fluctuation.

"I don’t, ah—!"

His angry shout was stifled by a muffled sound in his chest.

Mo Lian seemed not to give him a chance to catch his breath or struggle; as soon as she received a negative reply, her raised right foot stomped hard onto Cain’s chest, suppressing his resentful roar completely.

"Do you concede?"

"No—"

This time it was a sword falling toward the helmet, which swerved at the last moment before the gap of the helmet could be penetrated, instead embedding itself into the ground next to Cain’s neck.

"Do you concede?"

The response to Lu Xiang was a prolonged silence.

All the audience watched in silence as the duel moved towards its conclusion.

"I..."

"Useless."

A voice suddenly emerged in his mind, interrupting Cain’s thoughts.

It bypassed the opponent, reaching him directly, leaving him disoriented and instinctively filled with unease and panic. Cain could distinctly feel that the voice seemed to be taking over his consciousness and body.

"Don’t think about anything, don’t do anything."

The voice issued him a warning, "Then, hand over your body to me."