The Returned Grudge (3)
When I opened my eyes, bright sunlight was shining down on me.
I couldn't remember exactly what time I'd fallen asleep, but I distinctly recalled it being sometime in the daytime.
Falling asleep during the day and waking up in the morning... I must have pushed myself harder than I thought.
Well. Time to get up.
Someone had apparently sat beside my bed — a chair had been placed next to it.
Was there a chair beside my bed before...? I tried to recall, but my condition had been so wretched yesterday that my memory was a blur.
It didn't seem worth fretting over, so I turned my attention toward the washroom and headed that way.
After getting up and stepping into the washroom for a quick shower to freshen myself, I changed into clean clothes and stepped out of the room.
The moment I opened the door, the maid bowed her head politely at the sight of me.
I gave her a light nod in return and spoke. "I actually only arrived here yesterday — would you be able to take me to the Lord of the house?"
At my request, the maid smiled and nodded. "Of course. I'll guide you there myself."
She walked ahead of me, leading the way through the halls.
A great deal must have happened while I slept — quite a few knights were striding through the mansion, deep in conversation.
Listening in, I caught word of a victory in the first battle, and talk of whether it was really true that a successor of the Four Perils had appeared.
News certainly traveled fast.
For a moment I worried the knights' morale might have taken a hit, but thanks to that first victory, there seemed to be no need for concern.
If anything, they were burning with fighting spirit, declaring that putting down the successor of the Four Perils was the business of Lee Hyun and Khan — all they had to do was clear the path.
Drinking in their words one by one, I steeled my resolve anew and kept walking.
At last, the maid and I arrived before the lord's chamber.
She told the soldiers guarding the door that I had arrived and asked them to inform Gerald.
The soldiers nodded at her request, asked me to wait a moment, and slipped inside. Shortly after, one emerged and nodded to me.
"The Lord is expecting you, Successor of the Azure Dragon."
I thanked the maid for escorting me and stepped into the lord's chamber.
Inside, I found quite a few familiar faces.
Khan and Fairy — fellow Successors, and the first reinforcements to arrive at Crystal Territory.
Gerald, seated at his desk, greeting me with a smile.
And Ellie, who must have arrived at some point, poring over a map to take stock of the situation. All of them were gathered in the lord's chamber.
I gave Ellie a brief glance, then shifted my eyes to the desk.
Across the map, several zones were circled in red — presumably marking where battles had taken place.
And every single one of those red circles bore an X through it. The information to be gleaned was clear.
Defeat.
The bitter traces of a losing war.
Only one area — the stretch near the outer boundary wall of Crystal Territory — bore no X.
That lone spot was the sole record of victory.
Until I appeared, they had apparently known nothing but crushing defeat or withdrawals at terrible cost.
And this, even with Khan in the field.
Which meant either Florence was formidable, or the bastard was unexpectedly adept at tactics.
But considering how brazenly he'd charged at me without a shred of caution, he didn't strike me as the type who lived and breathed strategy — so it must simply have been raw strength.
An attack that ignored Khan's defenses outright — no successor of the Black Tortoise could have withstood that.
I'd been lost in thought for quite some time, it seemed; at the sound of Gerald calling my name, I hurriedly raised my head.
When I did, Gerald spoke to me with a grave expression. "Successor of the Azure Dragon, you are one of the very few who has faced the successor of the Four Perils firsthand, alongside Khan."
I nodded. Many had laid eyes on the successor of the Four Perils, but every one of them had either been swept up in the battle before them and died, or been unable to truly observe him — blinded by combat, wounded, or worse.
"Moreover, some of our own knights possess firsthand knowledge of the successor of the Four Perils."
Any knight capable of gathering intelligence mid-battle was almost certainly a veteran of considerable skill. Observing an enemy while fighting for your life was a feat only the strong could manage.
"Judging by Khan's testimony and theirs, the successor of the Four Perils appears to wield an authority of the darkness attribute."
"That's correct."
"When you fought him, what manner of ability did he display?"
..."His authority was called Evil Spirit Command. Exactly as it sounds — he summons black masses from beneath the earth, and they obey only their caster's will."
"...I beg your pardon? Such an ability exists?"
Gerald clutched his forehead, his face tightening.
He had every right. The disparity in numbers between the enemy's forces and ours was already so vast that calling it heaven and earth would be generous.
And it wasn't as though their soldiers were weak. Florence had apparently scraped together every Supreme Demon he could possibly deploy — their numbers overflowed.
To exaggerate only slightly, cull a handful of Lower and Mid-tier Demons, and the moment you finish, the Supremes come straight for you.
Worse still—
"Evil spirits do not die to ordinary sword aura or half-measured magic. It takes a spell of considerable power, or sword aura unleashed with genuine force, to erase them."
"....."
"Khan and I can each handle them with our own authorities, but the number of evil spirits the successor of the Four Perils can command at once exceeds thirty."
".....!!"
Their faces hardened as they took in my words.
It couldn't be helped. Reality had to be laid bare. Only then could they prepare for what was coming.
"And one final thing. Do any of you know who the successor of the Four Perils actually is?"
At my question, every eye in the room sharpened and turned toward me.
Florence, you son of a bitch... you told your identity to ME, of all people...?
I drew one steady breath and spoke his name. "The successor of the Four Perils is Florence — the former Successor of the White Tiger."
"!!!!"
Stunned silence, then uproar. Every mouth hung open, every face contorted in disbelief.
"According to what he told me, Florence is currently drawing on the power of one of the Four Perils — Taowu."
Gerald, visibly overwhelmed by the flood of information, said with a pained look, "Thank you... for the intelligence. I'll need to consolidate all of this."
Combining what I'd revealed with what they already knew, the army began to take shape.
The First Army: Khan and Fairy.
The Second Army: me and Ellie.
The Third Army: Gerald and his wife, Jewelry.
I already knew Gerald's wife was a warrior. Even in the game, there had been scenes of Jewelry carving through enemies alongside Gerald, both wreathed in frost-pale sword aura.
The remaining soldiers of Crystal Territory numbered roughly seven thousand — a figure that fell pitifully short of the enemy's strength.
Each army, leading roughly twenty-three hundred soldiers, would hold the east, west, and north of the territory anchored to the second wall.
In case the successor of the Four Perils appeared, each army would carry three communication artifacts.
And should a successor of the Divine Beasts appear, every army would leave behind only enough force to hold the demons at bay and make eliminating Florence their highest priority.
That was the newly decreed rule.
"According to our scouts, we haven't yet located where Florence is hiding — but we've received word that an enormous host of demons is marching on this place."
Demons on the march.
Which meant the next battle was close at hand.
"Their numbers are estimated at five thousand. At their current pace, they will reach the wall in roughly two days. I ask everyone to hasten your preparations for battle."
At Gerald's word, all who had gathered in the lord's chamber nodded in assent.
Once the meeting broke up, I called Ellie aside.
I had to ask. Even granting that she'd sprinted down the fastest route to Crystal Territory, it simply wasn't a distance one could cover in a single day.
Ellie turned around, seized my face in both hands, and declared, "Obviously! I rode here alone!"
??? Why?
"Hyun-a, think about it. You send someone off, and six or seven hours later, their heartbeat suddenly starts pounding like mad — what would you think?"
There it was — our lord, monitoring my heartbeat through the contract's effect the entire time.
So the moment Ellie felt my pulse spike, she'd switched mounts and pushed into Crystal Territory that much faster.
"And the demons you left behind?"
"Handled."
.....
No, what IS that execution speed?
Even if she really was my equal in strength now — wasn't she a bit too overpowered?
Chasing down a Successor of the Divine Beasts on a human body alone made her a monster from the start.
It explained how she held the seat of lord and Grand Commander of the Holy Empire's knights simultaneously.
"So I came racing over, and what do I find? You, dead asleep."
"...You saw that?"
"Mm-hm. I was going to wake you for the meeting, but I figured I'd let you sleep and slipped out quietly instead."
So THAT'S why there was a chair beside my bed...
Ellie must have been watching over me while I slept. She'd sprinted here herself and had every right to be exhausted, yet she'd spent that time simply tending to me.
Heart swelling with gratitude, I pulled her gently into my arms, and she settled into the embrace without a hint of resistance.
But the one to shatter that tender mood was none other than Ellie herself, wrapped snugly against my chest.
"Two days left, right? Let's train hard until then. Understood?"
.....
That chill down my spine...
Two years ago, when Ellie and I were deployed together on campaign after campaign, hunting demons, she had trained me mercilessly.
The taste of blood in my mouth was a near-daily occurrence. We sparred and drilled until I was genuinely bleeding.
Looking back, I'm now certain she did it because she couldn't bear to lose me so cheaply.
And if I was feeling that same sensation now... it could only mean one thing. I was about to be run into the ground.
Ellie and I headed for the training hall together — and I shuddered at the hell awaiting us.
And so came the day I wished would never arrive.
Ellie and I made our way to the Crystal family's training hall and exchanged the customary bow.
It was a ritual we'd observed since two years ago, when Ellie and I first began sparring in earnest — and it was I who had proposed it.
Ellie had been so taken with the idea that she adopted it, and it had stuck ever since. Twice in total: once before the bout, once after.
When I explained that it meant laying down every emotion before we began, and laying them down again to truly see one another when it ended, it had struck a chord in her.
Ellie took the two wooden swords hanging in the training hall, gripped one in both hands, and tossed me the other.
The wooden sword tumbled through the air, spinning, and dropped toward me. I caught it by the hilt and settled into my stance.
Spar as if it were real. That was Ellie's rule.
Right now, I had to face her believing she was my enemy. That, she insisted, was how your skill grew for war and battle alike.
Master of the Storm
Aura of the Coiled Dragon
Bolt from the Blue
Three techniques surged through my entire body, sealing every opening.
Ellie charged at me in the same instant, fast as lightning.
My right flank. I raised my blade to meet the incoming wooden sword and turned the thrust aside.
Craaack—!
Wood ground against wood with a splintering shriek. Had these been live steel, the sound would have been deafening.
Knowing full well her blade-edge would suffer for it, Ellie drove her sword in even deeper, forcing me back in the contest of strength.
The closer the grind crept toward the hilts, the more force bore down on me — a sharp read of the battlefield on Ellie's part.
I knew she meant to use that difference in raw power to shove my sword aside, so I channeled the wind's force into my blade to match her head-on.
Perhaps anticipating that, Ellie swung her left hand down atop my sword-arm.
My stance — blade inverted to pin hers in place — made the damage all the worse.
"Ugh!"
A groan tore out of me; I poured strength into my grip, desperate to shake her off.
But Ellie, satisfied she'd already banked her advantage, wasn't about to let me off easy. The instant my kick came, she retreated a step and watched for her opening.
Insane swordsmanship. I knew better than anyone that "insane" wasn't a word you used about your lover — but reading every one of my moves as she attacked, she felt like someone who could see the future.
She came at me again. Facing her onslaught, I dropped my blade to the lowest line — straight for her ankle — and swung.
Ellie slammed her own wooden sword into the ground, jamming it across my blade's path, then stepped up onto it and launched herself at me in a single motion — and kicked.
I barely wrenched my sword back in time to catch her heel on my edge — and only because of the attack-speed boost from Master of the Storm's passive.
Without it, that strike would have landed clean.
I reset my stance and fixed my focus on her incoming blows.
Right. Left.
I turned aside the strikes raining in from both flanks — and tracked the wooden sword diving for my legs.
Her blade was targeting my right ankle this time. I hoisted my right leg high and, on the exact beat, stomped down on her sword.
"Aagh!"
The jolt knocked the sword clean from Ellie's hands. She let out a hiss of pain — and instead of faltering, she sharpened her focus, and I swung at her.
Once, long ago, mid-spar, I'd halted an attack in exactly this situation, worried I'd actually hurt her.
She chewed me out without mercy. A sparring match was no game, she said.
She'd been right on every count, so I'd simply taken the scolding in silence — and that lesson had carried through to this day.
Her left horizontal cut came. As if she'd never made a sound of pain at all, she arched her upper body back to slip past it — and as she rose, drove her knee into my stomach.
"Oof—!"
Damage on a different dimension entirely from the strike to my arm. Unbearable pain bloomed through my abdomen.
While I stood immobilized, Ellie — her recovered sword somehow back in hand — brought it to rest against my throat, and victory was hers.
I glared at her through half-lidded eyes. "That's going too far...!"
"You should be able to endure at least that much."
"How am I supposed to endure a knee to the gut?!"
"On a real battlefield, you die if you can't endure. So you endure."
"That's..."
"See?"
No fair — put it that way and I have no choice but to concede...
Defeated in the contest of strength, then in the contest of logic, a sigh escaped me of its own accord.
"Haah..."
She pressed her lips lightly against mine, a small seal of affection.
"Does it still hurt a lot?"
At her question, I realized the pain in my abdomen had already faded to nothing.
Since when does it heal that fast?
Well — good was good.
By the time we finished every last bout and made it back to the mansion, it was nine in the evening.
We'd washed away the fatigue and were settling in to prepare for the coming fight when the sound of the household staff scrambling through the halls woke us.
The clock read four in the morning. Far too early for this much commotion — and not wanting to wake Ellie, I opened the door alone.
Down the corridor, I glimpsed figures sprinting, relaying reports, rushing battle preparations.
Sensing something deeply wrong, I stopped a passing maid and asked, "What's happened? Why is everyone moving like this?"
Her answer was enough to turn not only my blood to ice, but Ellie's — who had been roused by the commotion as well.
"The second wall has fallen!"
My eyes flew wide open as I turned to Ellie.
She was already out of bed and heading for the mansion's entrance, where a knight in armor soaked crimson, the tattered sash of a centurion commander still knotted at his waist, was pouring out his anguish in a report to Gerald.
"The successor of the Four Perils and the demon host struck under cover of night! It was the dead hours — there was no way to count their numbers! I beg your forgiveness, my lord!"
That soldier's cry told us everything.
Our time was nearly up.