Ending Maker Chapter 116
Ending Maker Chapter 116
Chapter 42 — Distortion #3
Yuder's strategy was simple.
The eastern army would serve as the anvil, while Yuder and Cordelia would be the hammer.
In the battle that would begin on the Snowflower Wind Plain, if the eastern army could force a standoff, Yuder and Cordelia would ravage the western army's rear and make it impossible for them to hold the line.
The hammer had succeeded for now.
They had crossed the Skyroof Mountains, and through their meeting with Melissa, they had even gained access to the underground tunnels left behind by Magellan's High Elves.
It was possible to roam freely through the unguarded western rear.
But this alone was not enough.
The strategy was not complete with only the hammer's success.
'If the anvil cannot hold.'
If the anvil were shattered by the enemy's assault.
A tactical success great enough to shatter the strategy.
Normally, an impossible feat.
But Haragen possessed a hidden card that could make it possible.
* * *
"Ararara rai! Ararara rai!"
Seven Horns, reborn as Belial's servant, roared with crimson eyes blazing.
Tens of thousands of warriors joined the cry that shook heaven and earth, and the sheer momentum alone was enough to crush the enemy before them.
And Red Gale did not simply stand by and watch.
Knowing the importance of the battle of momentum, he raised his hand, and Nine Blades, chieftain of the Blade Song tribe, roared in Red Gale's place.
"Kurara! Kurara!"
The eastern army shouted as well. Horn trumpets sounded from all around, and the wild gods fighting alongside the eastern army let out furious roars. They sought to cover the Snowflower Wind Plain with holy power.
"Aaaaah!"
"Aaaaah!"
But it was not easy. Something pushed back against the holy energy.
The western wild gods, who had become hellish monsters as a result of their corruption, howled, and a massive malice canceled out the holy power.
The eastern army numbered about thirty thousand.
The western army, having expended troops during the unification of the west, numbered about twenty-eight thousand.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
War drums sounded.
Seven Horns, wearing a horned helm adorned with stag antlers, rode forward on a hellish monster resembling a rhinoceros, and the corrupted chieftains arrayed themselves at his side.
The same wedge formation as always, and a charge like a raging tide.
At the expected development, Red Gale raised his hand again.
Banners fluttered from all around, and the eastern army formed up to receive the attack.
"RAARGH! RAARGH!"
The eastern army struck the ground with their spear butts.
The western army raised their weapons and roared once more.
Haragen watched the scene from behind.
Sharp Horn, Haragen's trusted subordinate, swallowed hard as he tried to steady his pounding heart.
The mid-ranking Demonic Humans positioned throughout the field awaited the start of battle.
And then, at some moment.
Haragen exhaled. At that same moment, far away, Yuder realized the truth.
"Ch-a-rge!"
Seven Horns shouted the declaration. The warriors of the Angry Rhino Tribe raced forward, vying to be first.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Tens of thousands charged at once, and the ground shook.
At the overwhelming force filling her vision, Red Wind swallowed hard, while Sun Song beside her drew a deep breath.
Nine Blades drew his sword. He looked back at Red Gale, and Red Gale, who had been silently watching the front, counted the numbers.
It was like hunting.
Too fast was no good, and too late was no good either.
Sweat ran down Red Gale's brow. Even for a seasoned and bold warrior like him, this was the first time fighting against an army of this size.
One breath.
The Angry Rhino Tribe crossing the Snowflower Wind Plain.
The roars of wild gods and hellish monsters shaking the sky.
"Now!"
Red Gale shouted. Nine Blades swung his sword, and signal flags fluttered from all directions.
Blade Song, who had been crouching and waiting, sprang to his feet and shouted, while Great Storm carried his cry across the entire battlefield on the wind.
Rough Avalanche rose. Gentle Snow Breeze sang.
"CHAAARGE!"
The eastern army charged.
They shook the ground as well.
The front lines of both sides.
Those positioned at the very front.
Extreme excitement seized them.
Drunk on the madness of the battlefield, the two forces finally crashed into each other.
CRAAAASH!
Wave met wave.
They shattered each other.
Those in the front ranks, east and west alike, were crushed in the collision.
In an instant, dozens, then hundreds, lost their lives.
It was a situation slightly different from Red Gale's expectations.
The western army's ferocity, their savagery beyond imagination, had brought about this result.
But Red Gale did not lose his composure.
It was only hundreds out of tens of thousands.
The first day of battle was bound to bring heavy losses anyway.
To keep the war from reaching the east, they had to stop them on the Snowflower Wind Plain, so this side had to be prepared for bloodshed as well.
'The guardian gods are with us.'
That was what the people of the Wild Lands called the wild gods.
Red Gale's faith was not misplaced.
Gentle Snow Breeze's song healed the warriors.
Great Storm bolstered the warriors' spirits, and Rough Avalanche's cheering was not particularly helpful, but it was still better than nothing.
And then Blade Song.
He did not hide his nature. Transforming into his true form, a giant black wolf, he took to the battlefield himself and displayed the power of a wild god.
"Tear them to death!"
He did not stop at trampling and biting. Unleashing his divine power, dozens of invisible blades rose and tore apart the western soldiers around Blade Song.
"Blade Song! Blade Song!"
It was not only the Blade Song tribe. The eastern army cheered loudly, and Blade Song, in high spirits, rampaged across the battlefield.
Red Wind also fought hard. Instead of joining the very front line, she wielded her phoenix from a little farther back, repeatedly searching for Sun Song as he fought at the front.
Great Storm transformed into his true form, a giant bird, and soared high into the sky.
From there, he looked down over the entire battlefield and relayed what he saw to Red Gale.
The clash between the eastern and western armies.
It had been a violent collision that shattered both front lines, but now it had entered a lull.
Instead of mounting casualties, it had become a contest of pushing each other back.
It was not bad.
The western army was not making any particular tactical maneuvers either. There was no flanking force circling to the rear, and there was no unusual movement from the reserves.
Just an utterly brutish charge.
'Maybe, just maybe.'
Could they not merely hold out, but outright shatter the western army?
The two ends of the eastern army crept forward.
It was to encircle the western army, which was attempting a brutish frontal breakthrough.
If the encirclement was completed like this.
Great Storm anticipated a great victory.
Gentle Snow Breeze's song evoked a victory anthem.
And then Haragen looked to the sky.
Watching the beautiful white bird high above—watching Great Storm—Haragen moved his hand.
"Carry it out."
The ritual.
What we have prepared.
Sharp Horn raised a banner.
The Demonic Humans spread throughout the battlefield began to move, and the corrupted wild gods, who had done nothing but hold their positions since the battle began, finally rose.
Haragen looked to the sky again.
He no longer concealed the compound eyes of a Demonic Human.
* * *
Cordelia knew Yuder well.
She could tell what he was thinking just from his eyes.
So she crouched down and met the eyes of Yuder, who sat before the altar with a blank expression.
"Yuder."
She called again. Yuder, snapping back to his senses, looked at Cordelia, and Cordelia, instead of speaking again, simply gazed at Yuder.
Yuder let out a breath.
After several breaths, he calmed himself.
He returned to the Yuder that Cordelia knew well.
"What kind of ritual is it?"
It was not a ritual to summon the great demon Kraimler.
Cordelia could tell that much.
Yuder opened his mouth.
He told her what he had discovered.
And immediately afterward, Cordelia understood instinctively.
Her intuition told her.
The eastern army would be defeated.
They could not withstand the western army.
And as always, her intuition was not wrong.
* * *
In the original story, Haragen had taken the Wild Lands with ease.
He had corrupted nearly all of the western and eastern wild gods and made them his subordinates, and he had purged the defiant chieftains, including Red Gale, building the barbarian tribes into a single army.
Because of that, even the Devil's Eye's headquarters in the Argon Empire did not interfere with Haragen's activities. Rather, they spared no support.
For that reason, Haragen did not summon the great demon Kraimler in the Wild Lands.
Only after using the unified barbarian tribes and corrupted wild gods to lay waste to the northern border region of the Saelun Kingdom did he call forth Kraimler.
Because before that, it had not been necessary.
Because the cards he held had been sufficient until the two swordmasters, Count Bayel and Count Hraesvelgr, began cutting down not only the barbarian chieftains but even the corrupted wild gods.
But everything had changed.
Yuder and Cordelia had made it so.
Haragen was cornered, and he made a choice he had not made in the original story.
"O Belial."
Haragen laughed sinisterly.
He had effectively laid waste to the west.
Except for the warriors standing on the battlefield and the minimum personnel for rear support, he had offered everyone as sacrifices.
Rivers of blood flowed from the ritual conducted by the great warriors.
'I will not hold back.'
Wild gods and the like.
Burn them all as firewood.
Before Haragen's eyes.
A place slightly behind the contact zone between the western and eastern armies.
The point where the two ends of the eastern army were slowly approaching.
There, the corrupted wild gods gathered.
The Demonic Humans gathered and stood.
Haragen gave the order.
Belial's will dominated the Demonic Humans, and the Demonic Humans cut the throats of the sacrifices they had brought. They soaked the ground with blood, and then they stabbed their own throats in turn.
Blood.
The currency of souls.
It covered the ground.
It drew a circle.
And the corrupted wild gods standing along the circle's edge offered themselves to the magic circle.
Nearly twenty wild gods.
Tens of thousands of human sacrifices.
What was created by it.
"Ah...... aaaah......."
Haragen exuded rapture.
The blood magic circle seemed to writhe, then completed itself. Complex patterns were engraved into the ground, and Great Storm, watching from the sky, opened his eyes wide.
It must be stopped.
It must be stopped somehow.
But how.
Blade Song, who had been rampaging madly, raised his head.
He saw the power concentrating in the blood magic circle. He saw the demonic energy beginning to swirl above it.
Gentle Snow Breeze realized.
Rough Avalanche collapsed to the ground, stifling a scream.
"Open."
Haragen said. He burst into laughter drawn up from the very depths of his lungs.
RUMBLE—!
The ground split open. From within, a colossal gate surged upward.
A massive rift connecting this world to another world!
"The Hell Gate."
Yuder said.
Cordelia turned to look south.
Haragen laughed, and the Hell Gate opened.
Countless hellish monsters revealed themselves.
* * *
The Hell Gate stood dozens of meters tall.
No, the size did not matter. The moment it opened, everyone on the battlefield could feel it.
So they turned to look.
For an instant, the entire battlefield stopped.
The eastern army raised their heads.
The western army looked back.
A small monster walked out of the colossal gate.
In truth, it was a three-meter giant. It only looked small because the gate was so enormous.
And it continued.
The monsters kept stepping forward.
Dozens, then hundreds.
And the stopped time began to flow again.
A new battle began.
* * *
"Run!"
Nine Blades shouted desperately.
The battle line had long since collapsed.
The monsters pouring out of the Hell Gate broke through the front.
The western army, which had been locked in a contest of strength with the eastern army, split to both sides and tore the eastern army apart.
It was utter chaos.
The monsters did not distinguish between eastern and western. They tore apart, smashed, and killed every human blocking their path.
The demonic energy pouring from the Hell Gate overwhelmed the holy power of the wild gods.
"We cannot win."
Great Storm said. It was not out of fear.
It was a cold judgment.
"We have to run."
Running well was what mattered.
If they stood and fought here, the entire eastern army would be annihilated.
Blade Song knew it. So he did not show his back. Instead, he stepped forward and shouted.
"Warriors of Blade Song!"
At the wild god's command, the warriors of the Blade Song tribe turned around.
Nine Blades looked at his guardian god, and Blade Song smiled bitterly. He declared to his warriors.
"Today is the day."
This is the place.
Where we will die.
Where we will sing our final song.
Nine Blades understood.
And he smiled.
Because he was a warrior of Blade Song.
Because he was one who stood on the battlefield and sang of death.
Moreover, it was a fight to protect.
It was a beautiful and worthy fight.
A fine song would surely be made of it.
"Blade Song."
Great Storm said, and Blade Song simply smiled.
He did not want to show weakness to a rival he had fought for so long, but he still could not leave without saying one thing.
"Take care of the children left behind."
The children who did not stand on the battlefield.
The children who would carry on Blade Song's song.
"Brother!"
Gentle Snow Breeze shouted, and Blade Song did not look back. Laughing fiercely, he charged.
"Let's go! My warriors!"
The warriors of Blade Song turned. They charged alongside their guardian god.
They became a living wall to buy time for the eastern army to retreat.
"Father!"
Sun Song shouted, and Nine Blades looked at Sun Song. Smiling, he bade farewell.
"Go."
Lead the children left behind.
Because Lord Blade Song wanted that as well.
That was all. Nine Blades did not look back anymore. He charged with the warriors of Blade Song.
They bought time with blood and lives.
"Retreat!"
Red Gale shouted loudly.
Gentle Snow Breeze sang through tears of blood. She bolstered Blade Song's warriors and gave the fleeing eastern soldiers strength to run.
Red Wind grabbed the arm of Sun Song, who was crying and roaring, and pulled him along.
The eastern army retreated.
The Blade Song tribe became a wall.
The western army tore down the wall, and monsters poured out of the Hell Gate.
"O Golden Dragon King."
Blade Song, his entire body drenched in blood, faced the hellish monsters and thought of the king of the wild gods.
He recalled the cheeky brats bearing his emblem.
Why was it.
That at the final moment, the faces of those two came to mind?
"This is farewell."
Blade Song hurled his body at the monsters.
He sang his final song.
* * *
The eastern army collapsed.
The Snowflower Wind Plain was stained with blood, and the western army likewise effectively collapsed as the Hell Gate opened and monsters poured out of it.
About half of the western army's common soldiers were corrupted and became low-grade monsters that could no longer be called human, and the other half were sacrificed as offerings to sustain the Hell Gate.
Haragen had won a single battle, just as he had declared.
He had been forced to sacrifice far too much to do so, but he did not care.
The die had already been cast.
Moreover, his goal was to sow chaos throughout the Wild Lands and the northern region of the Saelun Kingdom.
The method had changed, but what mattered was the result.
Inside the Hell Gate.
A demon of immense power was approaching.
If he could descend upon the surface.
If it happened before the power of the divine artifact sustaining the Hell Gate ran out.
"O Belial."
I shall offer the Wild Lands to you.
At the moment Haragen prayed as if serving a god.
Rough Avalanche, who had become separated and alone while fleeing, raised his head.
He saw a man in a crimson robe standing before him.
A man he had never seen before, who did not resemble her at all, yet somehow reminded him of Cordelia.
The man saved Rough Avalanche from the monsters pursuing him. Then he turned his gaze into the distance and looked at the Hell Gate rising far away.
Having deeply studied the tragedy of the Paragon Kingdom, he did not fail to recognize the Hell Gate.
"Cordelia."
The man who spoke in a low voice, Count Chase, looked back at Rough Avalanche.
And at the same moment.
At the eastern edge.
A place called the holy land.
Blue Beard, who had been cowering at the terrifying energy felt from the west, suddenly raised his head and turned around.
He hurriedly flew into the temple. There, he saw it.
Pure white angel wings unfurling.
A Holy Angel, cleansed of the hellish energy, opening her eyes.
Lena Einsberg.
One of the five heroes who ended the tragedy of the Paragon Kingdom.
She had awakened.
She looked to the west.