Floor 14 — The Battle of the Drina River (2)

Heijeong's second run, Floor 14.

The community of the dead.

An overwhelming horde of lizardmen came pouring down the river's slope.

Water had been flowing through there until moments ago, leaving the ground a churned swamp, and yet their charge was blisteringly fast. A human would have slipped and gone down mid-run, no question about it. The lizardmen, it seemed, simply weren't bothered by the mire at all.

I'd assumed they only moved freely underwater... not through mud as well.

"The Shadow of the Final Curtain watches over us! Spearmen, advance!"

"Spearmen, advance!"

"Spearmen, advance!"

The first to respond was the Deiorn Imperial army. At the legion commander's order, the spearmen of the front rank stepped forward three paces in unison.

We had to move too. Heijeong and I had already talked it over beforehand: I would lead the fighters ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠from the front, while she took the rear and overall command of the battlefield.

'If you're going to command, you have to be able to see the whole field.'

There were nearly three hundred thousand climbers. Untrained ones, at that — most had never even stood in a proper formation. They were hard enough to command as it was, and with power as overwhelming as mine, having me sit back directing traffic would be a waste. I was far better spent fighting at the front.

'Still, thank god we took command when we did.'

Whether it was because we'd brought the chaos under control, or simply because we were ranked first and second on the leaderboard, the climbers had tacitly accepted my authority and Heijeong's. They'd followed orders without complaint when we organized the formation earlier, too.

I raised my voice and shouted again.

"Advance in step with the Sobornians! Front rank, forward!"

"Front rank, forward!"

"Front rank, forward!"

"Riverbank dead ahead! Fire magic — cast!"

And at that moment, thousands of fireballs soared up over our allies' heads.

Yes — this was the perfect timing. The river had vanished. If the enemy had come down their slope, they would have to climb back up ours. Ideal terrain for a fight. We held the high ground, and we had to seal it shut completely — all while keeping the wyverns from landing.

"Don't let a single one of them reach dry land! Archers, target the wyverns!"

"Target the wyverns!"

"Loose!"

"Loose!"

Thousands of fireballs came crashing down on the heads of the lizardmen scrambling up the slope.

BOOM! BOOM—! KRAKA-BOOM!

Each explosion tore pieces of lizardman bodies loose and flung them into the air. And then the wyverns, having finally punched through the storm of arrows, came sweeping down ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠across our allies.

The battlefield was chaos incarnate.

'Damn it. I need to decide exactly what my job is.'

Earth and Soborn, allied. I couldn't measure the legion commander's prowess, but he hadn't looked stronger than me. I was the single strongest being in this alliance. To overcome the gap between regular soldiers and climbers — and the crushing disadvantage in numbers — I had to accomplish something only I could do.

'Just fighting shoulder to shoulder with the climbers won't change a thing.'

My offensive options boiled down to three: the Essence of Lightning, the double-bladed axe, and the Shadow Veil. Waging war beside the climbers with only these three would be limiting myself. To use them to their fullest, I had to plunge alone into the heart of the lizardman army and run wild.

'Yeah. Let's go in.'

Out there, I could hurl lightning in every direction and swing my axe without restraint. And with the Shadow Veil active, I'd be safe from their attacks. The mana drain worried me a little, but...

'Well, I've got the mana-accumulation gauntlet, so it should be fine.'

Four crossings in total. Four bolts of lightning — the mana already stored in my gauntlet exceeded four times my base amount. Even if the Shadow Veil devoured mana by the fistful, close-quarters slaughter would keep replenishing it faster. It would hold.

The 588th Bombardment Brigade — the Night Witches. The force the legion commander had spoken of would arrive within the hour.

'No idea what a "bombardment brigade" is even supposed to mean in a medieval world... but if Heijeong is right, they're allies with terrifying firepower.'

Mana at more than four times my normal reserves. An hour was survivable.

And if all else failed, I could always release the Shadow Veil.

"Do not follow me! Hold the current line!"

Worried that the other climbers might get swept up in my charge and come running after me, I bellowed the order, then bolted straight for the enemy.

Startled voices rang in my ears at my sudden burst of speed.

"Wh-what the—!"

"Where's he going?!"

I ignored them and kept running. All that remained was holding the line on the high ground. Patching reinforcements into whatever flank got pushed back...

That wasn't my role. Heijeong was there, and so were Alexei and the other top-ranked climbers.

At the river's slope, where the fiercest fighting raged, I planted my foot and launched myself into the sky. My destination: the dead center of the river.

'Best to open with lightning, right?'

I poured out mana without reserve and drew up the Essence of Lightning. A thunderbolt to strike down from the heavens themselves. I gripped the axe in both hands and heaved it overhead. Crackle— crackle— sparks burst violently from the blade as lightning coiled around it. The U-shaped channel where the river had once flowed now stood bare, and the searing light of the lightning lit up the whole gorge.

Then, at the river's center, I brought the axe crashing down on the skull of a lizardman bigger than all the rest.

"KGRAAAAGH—!"

"KIEEEEECK!"

"Kieee-e-e-e..."

In the next instant, lightning rippled outward across a fifty-meter radius. A searing sphere of lightning was born. The lizardmen caught inside it convulsed where they stood. I calmly pressed off the ground and landed, each step sinking into the mud like a quagmire.

The ones already down, I ignored for now. Cutting down their commander would've been nice, but holding the high ground our allies had seized mattered far more.

'I have to disable as many of them as possible, as fast as I can.'

To slow an army of hundreds of thousands, I would have to choke the river's width — even if that meant piling their own corpses into a wall.

I kicked off the ground and ran. Weaving between the magical bombardments raining down without discrimination, I flashed another fifty meters in a lightning dash.

'Shadow Veil first.'

I swung my lightning-wreathed axe in a savage arc. One swing — and the current running along the blade leapt through more than ten lizardmen at once. Before the convulsing bodies had even finished falling, I flashed forward again and swung once more.

An hour had passed since I began fighting at the center of the U-shaped river. Even the mana I'd banked at four times my base amount was nearly spent. What remained was roughly half of my original reserves.

But thankfully, thanks to my rampage and Heijeong's command, the Earth–Deiorn alliance still held the river's high ground.

The Shadow Veil, the Essence of Lightning, the gauntlet-stored mana — if even one of the three had been missing, I couldn't have lasted.

'Though of course, that's only because the Black Dragon isn't here.'

Something about it gnawed at me. A dragon — the very progenitor of magic — abandoning its post to dam a river for over an hour made no sense. Yes, it was an enormous river... but a dragon should have been back long ago. It could have sculpted the earth into a dam with magic inside an hour, surely. Or was it literally holding the water back with its own body?

Well — good news for us, either way. The bombardment brigade would arrive any moment now.

'Come on. Hurry, hurry.'

After perhaps ten more swings of my axe, I heard something slicing through the wind in the sky behind me. I let loose a wide burst of lightning around me and, in the breathing room it bought, turned to look.

Witches, riding bizarrely shaped broomsticks. Under the bright moonlight, several hundred Night Witches descended upon the Drina River.

'...How on earth did they build those in a medieval age?'

Blue flames spewed from the tail end of each broom. And slung beneath every broom was an iron barrel the size of a grown man. Bombardment brigade — so those barrels had to be packed with magical bombs. Every last witch wore a black peaked hat. So that's why they call them the Night Witches.

"The 588th Bombardment Brigade has arrived! Throw everything at them!"

"HURRAAAH! The Night Witches! The Night Witches!"

"The bombardment brigade is here!"

The Deiorn Imperial army's mood flipped in an instant. Five hours of relentless, breathless fighting had left everyone running on fumes — but the moment they ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠laid eyes on the brigade, they began to rave like they'd been handed drugs.

One thing was clear from the imperial soldiers' reaction: the Night Witches were no ordinary reinforcements. They'd arrived a full hour later than a giant black dragon, after all. And when you were outnumbered and trying ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to hold a river, nothing in the world beat air support.

'I should get off this spot — we might catch some of that bombardment. Up onto the river.'

Springing off the corpses of lizardmen, I leapt skyward and used Kashatum's Sky Shoes to double-jump out over the river's surface.

Where the Deiorn soldiers erupted in cheers, the climbers wore nothing but bewilderment.

"What the hell even is that?"

"Beats me? The way the soldiers are reacting, those things must be a really big deal."

"Holy crap. When did they say they'd get here? Kwon Suhyeok, you've worked hard. That was just flat-out insane."

"He was literally flying around out there? I figured I'd claw my way into the top ranks soon enough... turns out there was an insurmountable wall sitting right there."

The climbers who'd only just noticed me tossed greetings my way even amid the chaos. I gave them a few cursory words and turned my eyes back to the sky.

The Night Witches swept past overhead.

"KIEEEEEK—!"

"KIEEEEECK!"

The wyverns above hurled themselves at the witches, yet not a single one was shot down. The blue flames at the tail of each broom flickered in tiny, precise adjustments, threading evasive maneuvers between the diving wyverns.

"You witless spawns of a brainless dragon!"

Witch-laced laughter rang out across the Drina River. And the instant the Night Witches passed over our heads, thumb-sized iron pellets began pouring down from the sky.

'Are those... bombs?'

The ground where the lizardmen advanced. Before the pellets ever touched the earth, they detonated above the lizardmen's heads.

KWA-KA-KA-BOOOM—!

An endless chain of explosions. Mud and shredded flesh sprayed high over the riverbank.

'So this is why they said things would turn around once the brigade arrived...'

But one worry still remained.

The black dragon, Sarkage.

The Night Witches' successful bombardment just now had been thanks entirely to me. Heijeong's original plan had been absolute: someone had to seize the dragon's gaze and drag it down to the ground. With the dragon in the sky, the brigade's losses would have been catastrophic — and the witches would never have been able to bomb this freely, the way they just had.

'I have to go upstream.'

I had to keep the dragon damming the upper reaches from coming back. Until now, holding the line had been about buying time for the brigade's arrival — but that was no longer necessary. The brigade was still raining destruction down on the enemy formation. If we could just neutralize the dragon, water would flow back into the river, and the bombardment would continue without end.

Then Floor 14 would end in the alliance's complete victory.

I turned to head upstream — and promptly realized there was no need.

"KROAAAARAAAAGH—!"

A roar rolled in from the distant sky.

The dragon was back. The black dragon Sarkage revealed itself over the battlefield once more.