Fighting to the Death is Easy, But Lending a Path is Hard (2)
Most wyverns were intelligent. It was the instinct honed as apex predators of the natural world. Wyverns belonged to that species too. They might lack the wisdom of civilization, but they had swift situational judgment born of sharpened instincts. Add the demonic nature bestowed by the abyss, and their beastly instincts grew sharp enough to sometimes supplant strategy and tactics.
"Grrr...?"
Even for those wyverns, the current situation was somewhat hard to comprehend. No matter how they looked at it, the knight approaching from the west was clearly a higher-ranking demonkin, fit to serve as their leader. Yet no presence of the abyss emanated from him. Instead, there was a thick, somehow repulsive scent—the fragrance of those at the opposite pole from the abyss.
By their intuition, he was a being they should charge and tear to shreds right now. But somewhere deep in their instincts, a whisper warned them. That sword. The ash-gray blade hanging at the knight's right hip. Something with an atmosphere eerily akin to the abyss. An instinctive alarm rang out: don't touch that.
The knight drew not the two swords at his waist, but the massive greatsword slung across his back.
Whoosh—
Dust rose lowly with the motion of unsheathing the blade. An extraordinary weight in that greatsword. Even without a sharp edge, its mass alone made it a weapon capable of cleaving a man apart.
As the knight drew his sword, tension skyrocketed among the border guards. They broke into cold sweats, turning to their commander.
"…Prepare to fire."
No guards remained atop the battlements. To shield themselves from wyvern talons, most soldiers had taken positions inside the watchtowers and behind the walls. But being inside the walls didn't mean they couldn't attack outward. Weapons were aimed through the arrow slits punched into the walls for shooting at the enemy—cannon ports, not just bows and arrows. A few staves loaded with spells from the mages peeked through as well.
Everyone could sense it instinctively. The vanguard of the abyss had arrived. The demonkin who had sealed the gateway city with wyverns.
The commander calmly gauged the effective range. His gravest mistake would be issuing a hasty attack order before the enemy entered proper engagement distance. Such guidelines were originally for army-versus-army battles, but the commander knew better. A demonkin was a force unto itself. Especially one commanding wyverns.
'Even at minimum, we have to assume it has combat power equal to our entire guard force…'
The moment the commander measured the distance to the knight and prepared to order fire—
The knight charged.
Boom, boom, boom. The ground trembled with his heavy footfalls. The wyverns still hadn't grasped the situation. His movement was intimidating but not sluggish. In the blink of an eye, the knight closed in on the gate.
'Is he planning to play battering ram all by himself?!'
The commander's shock. But the knight's charge wasn't toward the gate. He ran straight for the wall—and scaled it.
As if the plate armor enveloping his body and the greatsword's weight were nothing, he climbed the near-vertical cliff like it was flat ground. A superhuman siege tactic the commander had only read about in history books. A lone warrior with physical prowess that rendered walls meaningless breaking through alone. To counter such brute siege strategy, they needed mages. Barrier spells to block entry even over the walls. But this gateway city had no such mages. Or rather, they were absent.
Had the city's archmage not left, the citizens wouldn't have cowered in fear of wyvern raids, too scared to venture outside the gates.
In mere seconds, dozens of thoughts flashed through the commander's mind. A life-flashing-before-his-eyes moment. But his instincts as an officer of the empire—ingrained through training—didn't tolerate wasting time blaming the absent mage.
"Commence firing!"
It was a desperate order to stop the intrusion somehow. But the black knight moved a step faster than the commander's order. He soared higher than the arrow slits. The guards' attacks naturally fizzled out.
Yet the knight didn't crest the wall. Reaching the battlements, he kicked off the wall. His target: a wyvern's nape.
Without hesitation, his weighted kick slammed precisely into the wyvern's neck bone. Crack—a bursting sound echoed through the air. Kriel transferred the recoil to the wyvern and leaped. While it still couldn't distinguish friend from foe. He had to deliver maximum impact. His mark: the largest wyvern in the flock, flapping highest in the sky.
Sacrificing one wyvern and the wall, Kriel finally reached an altitude above the leader wyvern.
In midair, the greatsword's direction shifted. Gripped firmly in both hands, its blade pointed earthward.
Then, the plunge.
Sensing the diving shadow, the wyvern instinctively beat its wings. But it was a blunder. The greatsword's blade pierced its wing membrane. The acceleration of the fall, the hefty weight, and the shredded wing stripped the wyvern of the skies.
With the wyvern's scream, the knight plummeted.
——!
A thunderous crash shook the walls as the leader wyvern's wings crumpled. The greatsword that had rent its wings now shattered the paved road, burying its blade deep into the earth. The full force of the impact pulverized the leader wyvern's body.
Only now did the scent of blood spread. Realizing the black knight wasn't their ally, the wyverns erupted in fury. Talons and tails lunged at Kriel.
At that moment, the border guards' belated attack followed. They couldn't hit Kriel soaring above the slits, but now that he'd descended, it was different. The soldiers reflexively executed the latest order. Panic-driven unconscious action, one might say. But the commander alone kept his wits. His mind assessed coldly.
The knight was the wyverns' enemy.
'But the wyverns are our enemies, so the enemy of my enemy is a friend, right?'
'…Huh?'
"Cease fire! Cease fire!!"
Overwhelmed by the chaos, no one had thought of it—but the black knight had approached from the west, where the Holy Kingdom lay. He might be a holy knight, not an abyssal vanguard. The commander felt a mix of emotions, realizing he might have turned precious reinforcements into arrow fodder with his own hands. No fervent believer, but this time he prayed fervently to the entire pantheon.
As the soldiers opened the gates, I hurried inside. The wyverns had retreated for now, but their numbers were still substantial. Come full night, I could manage, but the soldiers' combat performance would inevitably drop. Thick darkness would blind them. Without clear sight, they couldn't replicate that precise support fire from earlier. I was inwardly impressed by its accuracy. A perfectly timed response.
My charge drew the wyverns' attention, and the moment they lunged at me—magic, cannon shells, and concentrated firepower wiped out the flock nearing the ground. Exquisite timing and precise strikes. Even with prepped attacks, gauging the moment would've been tough. The commander had remarkable improvisation and response skills.
The commander, distinguishable by the red tassel on his helmet as higher-ranking than the other soldiers, approached me. I placed a hand near my heart and bowed my head slightly. The heart symbolized life. A greeting meaning ally against the abyss.
The commander returned the gesture.
To lighten the mood and learn the situation, I spoke first.
"That was splendid command."
"…Pardon?"
"The volley on the wyverns. Impossible without precisely predicting their descent after my fall. With the risk of friendly fire, it showed tremendous boldness and decisiveness."
For some reason, the commander seemed perplexed even receiving praise. A humble sort, perhaps?