Chapter 164
Chapter 164
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 164
Chapter Title: One Strike
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Myushu’s charge was reckless.
Of the surviving Olmus, there were scarcely thirty left. Even if most were hero-grade, the number of human knights gathered here was nearly ten times that.
Add to that the hundreds of warriors capable of fighting, and just their volley of crossbow bolts alone unleashed devastating power.
Had the mages not depleted their mana with those initial massive attacks, the battle might not have even been possible.
But in that very situation, the charge brought one advantage.
The bewilderment felt when an enemy expected to flee suddenly bares its teeth and counterattacks.
That bewilderment delayed the humans’ response by a beat.
“They’re attacking!”
“Stand your ground!”
In response to Myushu’s charge, the Olmus heroes scattered in all directions and struck.
The human knights met them head-on with their weapons, while the regular warriors behind fired crossbows in support.
And in a spot a short distance from that clash, where an eerie stillness hung in the air.
Arsen faced off against Myushu.
“The one who serves the king’s command, Commander Myushu!”
“Arsen of Belluan.”
The Olmus Arsen had encountered until now spoke human tongue, yet they were fiends akin to monsters, evoking images of marauders.
Unlike them, Myushu exuded a strange nobility. It felt like a human—nay, a well-trained knight.
“My king has commanded me to take you alive…”
Arsen paid no heed to Myushu’s solitary rant. With the battle already intensifying, the longer it dragged on, the more lives would be lost.
He simply drew a spatula-like rod from his belt and attached the javelin bound to Black Lion’s flank.
‘What’s that?’
Myushu had never seen the tool before, but he could easily guess its purpose.
No doubt it was for launching something.
With no fear of it landing, Myushu observed his foe’s actions with relative calm.
“You can even throw spears like that?”
Along with Myushu’s admiring exclamation, a fierce strike shot from Arsen’s javelin launcher. It was a spear forged entirely from black star iron—unyieldingly tough and razor-sharp.
The strike tore through the air with a deafening roar, packing the destructive force of a sniper rifle. A direct hit to a vital spot could fell even a massive magic beast in one blow.
It was a fact proven multiple times in past raids: a frontal hit would reduce even an Olmus hero to a lump of meat in a single strike.
Yet inexplicably, before the spear could touch Myushu, it lost all momentum and rolled across the ground.
Not deflected by anything—just as if the spear itself had expended its force and dropped. A bizarre sight.
‘A relic?’
He’d guessed Myushu had some ability to block projectiles after the launcher’s earlier attack failed.
This strike was merely to test if it was temporary or sustained.
Unshaken by its failure, Arsen thrust forward with the drill at the ready.
The motion evoked a medieval knight’s lance charge.
Naturally, Myushu dared not meet it head-on.
Though Myushu was slightly larger in build, Arsen rode the massive Black Lion, giving him the edge in mass.
The sheer power of that weight driven by the spinning drill—its piercing tip—was terrifying to even imagine.
“Hup!”
Myushu rolled aside to evade Arsen’s charge and hurled the wing blade.
The target: Black Lion’s leg.
The beast was huge and swift, but he presumed its reflexes were comparatively sluggish.
Even if the rider reacted, if the beast didn’t, the ankle would be severed—and that would strip the enemy’s mobility.
But contrary to Myushu’s expectations, Black Lion deftly lifted its foot and dodged.
Had he known how Jin operated, he wouldn’t have tried such an attack. He didn’t realize Arsen controlled Black Lion, making the beast’s reflexes effectively Arsen’s own.
“Gah!”
Black Lion wheeled around. Its speed was like a gale, forcing Myushu to leap away again and parry Arsen’s drill with his blade.
Myushu’s sword was no match for the wing blade but still fine steel, so it didn’t shatter on impact.
Seizing that opening, the wing blade that had sliced through the air looped back—not at Black Lion, but at Arsen himself.
Arsen twisted his body and bashed it aside with the shield in his other hand.
‘This is annoying…’
Myushu ranked among the strongest Olmus heroes. If one had to quantify his melee prowess, it matched Arsen’s own upon first awakening as a senior knight.
Considering how meager his gear had been back then, Arsen would’ve been utterly crushed in a fight.
But through his journey, Arsen had acquired numerous relics and honed his skills in endless battles. Crucially, the senior knight techniques learned from Kren, and the insights from facing desert warriors adept against senior knights, had proven invaluable.
Now, given time, Arsen was confident he could subdue Myushu in twenty exchanges—thirty at most. Even using the wind axe instead of the drill lance.
But the fight didn’t end swiftly.
The unidentified weapon soaring through the air independently, relentlessly targeting Arsen regardless of the main foe: the wing blade.
“Die!”
Myushu swung his sword to cleave Arsen’s skull, while simultaneously the wing blade arced from behind to slice his spine.
This was leagues beyond the prior duo of Olmus heroes. Myushu’s skill far surpassed the ones he’d blocked earlier, and unlike crossbow shots, the wing blade whipped freely at vitals.
Countering its unpredictable trajectory while clashing with Myushu in melee was no easy feat.
Unlike those two, whose coordination faltered, the wing blade obeyed Myushu directly—their movements synchronized perfectly.
In the end, Arsen leaped back and tried a different approach.
Black Lion’s maw gaped wide.
‘Take this!’
What poured from Black Lion’s mouth was hellfire straight out of nightmare. Flames akin to those in ruin traps—fierce enough to incinerate ordinary knights.
It had worked on Olmus heroes before, but not on Myushu. A gem on his body glowed, conjuring a barrier that halted the blaze.
Arsen sighed inwardly.
‘As expected. I suspected, but that’s all there is…’
The gem shattered, but over a dozen more dangled from Myushu’s form.
Arsen’s magic helm revealed they held mana—relics imbued with spells.
The gems swathing Myushu weren’t mere adornments. Each was a one-use relic. Potent ones at that.
‘Fire attacks are off the table for now.’
Not all would block flames, and that might’ve been the last one.
But it consumed Arsen’s mana heavily too—overuse wasn’t viable.
If Myushu blocked three or more, Arsen would lose to mana exhaustion.
In the end, Arsen gripped his lance and charged again.
“Hah!”
“Urk!”
In the renewed clash, Arsen exploited the moment Myushu raised his sword to block, striking with Black Lion’s forepaw.
Myushu’s garish garb tore, leaving three gashes across his chest.
He staggered back, clutching the wound with one hand, and groaned.
“Groh.”
Surprisingly deep cuts—blood now streamed freely.
‘No physical defense? Maybe he couldn’t activate it in time, or he’s holding it back.’
As Arsen pondered, Myushu counterattacked. He plucked a gem from his body and hurled it.
Arsen’s instincts screamed danger; he vaulted aside. Where the gem landed, frost exploded in a bloom of ice flowers. A sight he knew well.
‘Freezing Orb!’
A direct hit would’ve frozen him immobile.
In that state, Myushu and the wing blade would’ve wounded him gravely.
Relieved, Arsen noted Myushu’s darkened expression.
That must’ve been his trump card.
* * *
‘Is he really human?’
Arsen sensed Myushu’s gloom, but what Myushu truly felt was despair. Utter, fathomless despair.
The human astride that enigmatic magic beast was a monster beyond imagination.
Myushu’s lifetime-honed martial arts, the king’s sharpest blade and myriad blessings—they all failed against him.
Like Arsen eager to end it quick, Myushu yearned to subdue him fast. By current odds, a prolonged battle meant defeat for the Olmus.
Yet Arsen was no easy mark. Before long, Myushu wasn’t trying to win—he was stalling for survival.
Unlike Arsen, most of Myushu’s relics were one-shots. Dragging it out meant his loss.
‘Damn, damn, damn!’
Losing his troops shamed him enough to burst a vein, but failing the king’s order? The mere thought induced vertigo.
Myushu channeled boundless fury into his swings and wing blade control, desperate to overpower Arsen.
But each clash only confirmed the skill gap.
It was like facing two foes, yet Myushu took damage every time. Keeping the wing blade aloft so long had drained his mana too.
The tide turned ever against him.
‘Flee?’
But was fleeing after losing everything worthwhile? That thought rooted his feet.
Abandoning all forces and the objective to escape alone—even if the king forgave him, he couldn’t forgive himself.
As he wavered, Arsen’s drill lance suddenly stopped spinning. Myushu’s eyes gleamed.
‘Out of mana!’
Such potent magic weapons guzzled it.
Sensing victory’s return, Myushu steadied his breath and urged his screaming muscles. Just a bit more.
Fulfilling the king’s command made a thousand kin’s deaths mere cost.
“You bastard!”
Deeming the motionless lance useless, Arsen wielded a black club-like weapon.
Myushu confidently met it sword-to-blunt, while directing the wing blade at the foe.
He readied a hoarded gem as his finisher, too.
Use it the instant Arsen’s momentum faltered post-clash, and victory was his.
Arsen raised the iron mace sky-high and brought it down. Myushu angled his sword to deflect.
Precisely: he tried to.
Had that mace—laden with tons, perhaps dozens—sliced through the sword, head, torso, and groin in a straight line, pulverizing him flat, it would’ve ended that way.
In his dying moment, Myushu’s final thought was:
Just use this gem, and I’d win.
* * *
‘It’s over.’
Arsen massaged his throbbing wrist and sighed.
The trump weapon had clinched a swift victory, but fatigue dulled his timing, spraining his wrist.
A miss would’ve disadvantaged him instead.
“Sir Arsen has won!”
“The commander’s dead!”
Witnesses shouted in cheer, the jubilation spreading contagiously.
Though his eardrums were burst and deaf, Arsen saw the joy on human faces, the exultant gestures. Even the battling Olmus gradually realized.
“The commander’s dead!”
“Run!”
“Don’t scatter! Stick together to survive!”
A collective soliloquy, each yelling unheard into the din.
Realizing communication failed, the Olmus lost all morale. They abandoned the fight and fled.
Retreats claim the most lives in battle; crossbows rained on the fleeing Olmus heroes.
Unlike the cautious shots amid the melee, this was a storm of bolts. Several heroes fell.
Pursuing were Jin-mounted knights, Arsen at the fore.
Wrist sprained, he held the lance in his off-hand, but the roar echoed grandly regardless.
Cheers erupted behind the Black Lion rider.
Praises for the savior, the great Arsen.