Chapter 288: Let's Flee
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 288: Let's Flee
The moment Sachsen grabbed Encrid, an ominous sixth sense flared within him.
‘Crazy bastards.’
As soon as that motherless bandit Lycanos backed away, others rushed in to fill the void. Their movements were practiced and precise—a coordinated strike prepared for exactly this situation.
The sound of blades slicing through the air reached his ears first.
Swoosh!
Men clad in black, who had been waiting in ambush, lunged forward with skewer-like swords. Every single one of them charged with reckless abandon, and every single one of them was incredibly fast. It was a thrust aimed solely at piercing a single point—a heavy, swift strike that literally burned away their lives for the sake of a single blow.
Sachsen pulled Encrid back with his left hand while swinging his sword with his right. At the same time, he made a colder, more calculated judgment than ever before.
‘I can't block them all.’
Sachsen's sword danced, reminiscent of a butterfly's light, fluttering wings. With the tip of his blade raised, the "butterfly" fluttered through the downpour of long blades. His wings clashed against the incoming steel, moving erratically. Deflecting again and again, he diverted the trajectory of most of the strikes.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
He couldn't deflect them all. Two strikes slipped past his guard. One grazed Encrid's left shin—or more accurately, Encrid had twisted his body just enough to avoid a direct hit. The cloth and leather of his guard tore and fluttered.
The last strike hit Encrid's waist, but...
With a dull thud, the blade failed to pierce his body and bounced off.
‘The armor.’
It was the power of the armor he had obtained previously. Sachsen had seen the captain wrap it around himself like bandages.
Sachsen channeled more strength into his left arm. He intended to fling Encrid backward and carve up the remaining bastards, but the moment he threw Encrid back, the enemies scattered.
‘Damn.’
Fighting while protecting someone was not Sachsen's forte. He was perfectly fine fighting with enemies at his back, but his experience in protecting an ally was practically nonexistent. It was an extremely rare occurrence for him, and that was the problem.
‘A mistake.’
He should have accepted a bit of damage to keep Encrid behind him or retreated entirely to a place out of the enemy's reach, but he had missed the timing. The black-clad men leaped overhead, lunged from below, and rushed in from the flanks. Their swordsmanship was disgustingly blind and relentless.
As Sachsen's attention divided toward his rear—
“I'm fine,” Encrid's voice rang out. He was exhausted and his right arm was injured, but he wasn't dead yet.
However, the problem remained.
‘These crazy bastards, seriously.’
The black-clad assault squad threw themselves forward with zero regard for their own lives. He couldn't easily dismiss these men, who wore thin, elastic leather instead of heavy armor. Wherever they had learned their craft, their single-point thrusts were superb.
Sachsen kept his feet moving, swinging his sword without pause.
Slash. Stab. Thud.
Forearms were sliced halfway through; thighs were punctured. Sachsen's sword faithfully played its part as a soulless piece of iron, but as long as they weren't dead, the bastards simply twisted their bodies and continued their assault. They seemed like a mad cult, their humanity stripped away solely to pierce their opponents with blinding speed.
As Sachsen sidestepped, a sword plunged into the spot where he had just been standing. He had dodged it only because his senses predicted the strike a step ahead. The blade stabbed into the cold dirt.
Thud!
The man who had driven his sword into the ground looked up, his eyes gleaming as if possessed by a demon. Of course, none of that meant anything to Sachsen. He simply planted a knife into the forehead of the bastard who had failed his strike.
The ordinary knife flew with a whistle, acting as a grim reaper to claim another life. Sachsen thought to himself that fighting out in the open like this wasn't his specialty, yet he steadily thinned their numbers one by one.
Encrid glanced at Sachsen's fight and took in the enemies rushing toward him.
‘This is bad.’
His right arm had been ruined by Lycanos, and his shin had been grazed by the strike just now—but it was far too severe to be called a mere graze. The leather of his guard was cleanly sliced, leaving a deep gash in his skin and muscle. The armor had blocked the blow aimed at his torso, but the impact remained.
His internal organs shuddered. It was only because he had braced himself with his abdominal muscles that he got off this easy; an ordinary person would have suffered ruptured organs. On top of that, Lycanos's final blow had left his right arm half-crippled.
Since his left arm was the only one he could move, Encrid did what he could. He sheathed his Gladius, gripped his original sword in his left hand, and swung. He minimized his leg movements and held the sword loosely.
It was the Soft Sword Style.
He deflected and deflected again. His breathing was fine. When it came to stamina alone, he was a monster who rivaled anyone.
Clang! Clang!
Right after deflecting three or four blades with split-second judgment, the next blade was already before his eyes. It was a finely honed, chillingly bright point.
‘I can't block this.’
The Beast's Heart awakened, and Single-Point Focus set his brain ablaze. He figured that even if he executed the best possible move he could muster, he would still lose an eye.
The enemy's tactics were superior. The moment they failed to kill him after tying down his main forces with Lycanos, they had deployed their prepared squad of swordsmen. This was the result.
The future of losing an eye was clear as day. Though he couldn't dodge within this split second, he could still ask and answer himself.
Lose an eye? So what? Does that matter?
Nothing changes even if I lose an eye.
Encrid twisted his head, trying to wrench himself away. In his mind, the option of dying here and starting over did not exist. If he were the type of man to throw away his life and give up over something like this, he would have withered away in this repeating "today" long ago.
The tip of the sword magnified, and just as the point began to look like a thick club—
Thwack!
With a crisp sound, the "club" blocking his vision vanished. The owner of the sword targeting him flew through the air. Naturally, his sword flew into the sky along with him.
“Aaaagh!” the man screamed as he soared. He flew quite well; in that moment, even a bird would have envied him. Of course, his flight was temporary, and its end was by no means auspicious. The flying bastard crashed into the ranks of the Border Guard Standing Army, impaled mid-air on a spear raised by a soldier startled by the sudden projectile.
Encrid, who had been falling backward in his struggle to endure, landed flat on his butt. Looking to the side, he saw a wild horse that had just launched a human into the sky with its hind legs.
Neighhh!
“Odd-Eye?”
Neighhh!
The horse seemed to cry out in protest of the name, but in a moment like this, Encrid couldn't even remember any other name he might have forced upon it.
Grrrrr.
And before he knew it, Esther was by his side as well. Unable to transform into her human form, she was in her Lake Panther body. The silky black fur covering her body brought to mind her hair when she was in human form.
Furthermore, swooping in beside the black-clad squad was a man who, even if lost, would survive as long as he had a sword.
Whoosh, thud, whoosh, slash, whoosh, crack, whoosh, rip.
Encrid's eyes darted frantically, trying to follow the rapid succession of sword strikes. Ragna swept in from the flank, taking a single step and swinging his sword five times to cut down the five men in front of him.
‘What kind of trick is that?’
A single step, but five strikes. How was that even possible? It was an unfathomable display of swordsmanship. A speed that surpassed the opponent's speed—the sword of the preemptive strike. Ragna's blade was demonstrating exactly that.
“I'll finish them and follow. Go ahead,” Ragna said. His tone was blunt, his bangs falling over his eyes. Through his blonde hair, his dry, red eyes stared silently ahead. Deflecting the arrows raining down from above, he cut down the enemies closing in.
Ragna's sword began to move so fast that even to Encrid's eyes, the motion appeared fragmented. As arrows fell toward Encrid, several shield-bearing soldiers approached from behind.
“Damn, he's good with a sword,” Dunchabel remarked from the side. She spoke while crushing the skull of an assassin who had lunged from behind with two daggers. The moment she perceived the assassin's movement, she had planted her right foot and smashed her left knee into his head.
Encrid had also reacted and was holding his sword, but still. In any case, her gaze was also fixed on Ragna.
Seeing arrows raining overhead, Odd-Eye rushing in like the wind to save him, Esther and Dunchabel by his side, and his allies surrounding him with large round shields, Encrid knew he wasn't going to die here.
His gaze naturally drifted forward.
‘Lycanos.’
Ragna's sword was fast, but in that final moment, Lycanos's blade had been even faster. And the swords of the bastards rushing him just now were similar. After a few of them were carved up by Ragna, the determined attackers finally retreated.
Ragna had also been grazed on his thigh in the melee. His armor was sliced and blood stained his clothes, but he returned as if it were nothing.
“Don't spare the arrows!”
“Die, you bastards!”
“The flower of the battlefield is the infantry!”
“At the end of pain lies pleasure!”
Shouts and curses erupted from all sides. Some died with arrows through their skulls; others were hit by throwing axes, collapsing mid-charge.
“Yorororororo!”
An enemy mercenary clad in strange fur-lined leather armor beat his chest and let out a bizarre battle cry. Out of nowhere, Bell appeared and hurled a javelin, knocking him down.
“Fight if you don't want to die!” Bell's shout echoed.
Encrid was carried to the rear, supported by three soldiers. Walking was out of the question, as the wound on his left shin was severe.
“Fuck, they're ridiculously strong,” Graham said, staring into the distance.
Lycanos was there. Encrid saw him too. He hadn't just taken a beating at the end; he had managed to land a slash on the bastard's face. Despite half of his face being drenched in blood, Lycanos remained composed. Without a smile, Lycanos silently stared at Encrid and his companions before turning away. As he retreated, the black-clad swift-sword squad gathered around him.
“There are too many of them,” Graham muttered.
“Indeed.” Behind him, a pale-faced Krais agreed.
A unit that threw away their lives just to kill their opponents with a single thrust. At a glance, there seemed to be over fifty of them left. Considering they had already killed a fair number, and factoring in the need to fend off the assassins hidden among them...
‘This is going to be a headache.’
Encrid thought it, and Krais silently agreed.
The battle was short. Since the Wolf Bishop hadn't made a move, Audin didn't step forward either, and Ragna didn't push any deeper. Sachsen had also returned before long. The commanders of both armies did not seem to intend to end the war in a single day.
Before the situation could even be fully sorted out, a pale Graham approached Encrid, who was roughly wrapping bandages to stop his bleeding. Seeing this, Krais spoke up.
“We knew from the start that we couldn't finish this in one go. We just need to end it within three attempts. We only need to crush their main force. After all, battlefields are ultimately decided by the might of a select elite.”
His voice sounded somewhat drained. And for good reason—Krais had believed in Encrid's martial prowess. He had judged that even if Encrid couldn't blow the opponent's head off in a single strike, he would ultimately win.
But he was wrong. The first clash was no different from a defeat. Moving their camp back inside the castle was the worst possible move, so they had to settle things here. And in the shortest time possible. Three battles within that limited timeframe.
‘If we just try to hold out, we lose.’
Behind the Border Guard, Azpen had not even drawn its sword yet.
‘Dammit.’
Krais pretended to be calm while secretly plotting an escape. It was truly time to look into escape routes. ‘Would a dog hole work?’ He had made various preparations just in case, but...
“The cultists seemed to just watch, didn't they? Only a few wolf demonic beasts attacked.”
Graham surveyed the overall state of the battle and delayed deploying the Heavy Infantry. If the enemy was conserving their strength, they had to do the same. If they rashly committed their forces and got pushed back, it would mean total annihilation. If the battle between the elites was a stalemate, the rest would fall to the main infantry. And among them, the role of the Heavy Infantry would be far from insignificant.
“Indeed. Though I'm not sure if they'll just watch tomorrow as well,” Krais said, looking at Encrid.
The captain was always calm. His expression was completely nonchalant.
‘Sigh, this is going to kill me, seriously.’
He couldn't just abandon him and run. Krais had been a merchant, a thief, and even a pickpocket in the past, but he had never turned his back on someone who saved his life. That was a matter of character, transcending any profession. Moreover, he could save him with just a little extra effort. It wasn't even a matter of risking his own life.
“Next time, I will cut him down,” Ragna said.
“He was fast, though,” Encrid replied with his usual nonchalance.
“If that is all he has, then cutting him down is all it takes.”
At Ragna's firm words, Encrid fell into thought. It really was quite fast, that strike. His right arm was currently unusable, and his left shin was giving him trouble. Although his armor had blocked it, his abdomen was bruised. His internal organs weren't damaged, but they throbbed with pain.
The Isolation Technique was an art of accumulating repeating days. He had endured thanks to the strength he had maintained, trained, and sustained. Therefore, getting hit in the torso was nothing a good meal and a solid night's sleep couldn't fix.
But his right arm was a different story.
“For now, rest and get through tonight. Watch out for night raids, and keep the scouts moving without rest!” Graham shouted.
The Heavy Infantry would personally handle the guard duty tonight. Though the battle had been short, the casualties were unprecedentedly high. The death toll had already surpassed double digits.
Encrid remained deep in thought. Krais stopped watching him and stepped in front of the captain. With the torch stand behind him, his shadow swayed, dancing over Encrid's head.
They were inside a newly pitched tent. Outside was the wild horse, and inside were Ragna, Audin, Dunchabel, Teresa, and Esther.
Whoosh.
A cold wind blew into the half-open tent, making the torchlight flicker. Krais's swaying shadow split into two before merging back into one.
“What is it?” Encrid asked, leaning back at an angle. Krais had just finished changing his full-body bandages.
Swallowing hard, Krais spoke.
“Let's flee.”