Severed Rampart
Severed Rampart
Rewinding time just a little bit.
The very moment the roar of the Western Front's defensive line collapsing echoed behind me.
I arrived at the old safehouse in the academy's rear with Ines in my arms.
I laid Ines down on the soft bed. She was clutching my clothes tightly in fear, breathing heavily.
My thoughts turned cold.
If Valian at the front line is breached, this safe zone will soon turn into a hell that ends up in the beasts' bellies.
Then, there is only one most rational and perfect answer.
To take Ines and run as far away from the Western Front as possible, to a place where the eyes of the Church and the Empire cannot reach.
I placed my large hand over her small hand that was gripping my collar.
Yes. This is the only way for Ines.
'Doubt.'
The moment I took a step to head for the door.
The old mage Walder's horrific brainwashing echoed in my ears like an auditory hallucination.
'What exactly?'
I asked myself dryly. Doubt the fact that I am doing this for Ines?
No. Even if I dissect and doubt it a thousand, ten thousand times, the conclusion is the same. I only care about her. For her sake, I can do anything—whether my underdeveloped body is crushed or the world is destroyed.
Then what on earth am I supposed to doubt in my head right now?
.......
It was then.
A strange force was applied to our clasped fingertips.
It wasn't my will. It was a frail strength, but something was definitely gripping my hand tightly and refusing to let go.
My gaze slowly traveled up our clasped hands.
And I met Ines's unfocused, empty, ash-colored pupils.
My breath hitched.
The moment I stared into those empty pupils.
Memories of my past life—the day my gaze first met hers when she was covered in blood on the Southern Front—overlapped in a bizarre way.
"Why are you here?"
Auditory hallucination.
It felt like she was asking me that right now.
No.
I faced 'something' in the abyss of those empty, ash-colored eyes.
"Why are you here."
I couldn't tell if that question lingering in my ears was resentment toward me or a sorrowful plea.
I couldn't even tell if what I was facing was Ines's empty gaze, or the bottom of my own self reflected in those eyes like a mirror.
I couldn't reach a clear answer.
Only an indescribable, massive sense of debt and a whirlpool of emotions tightened around my throat like a hand grabbing my collar.
"Sorry, Ines."
A metallic sound leaked through my lips.
I carefully set down her hand that was gripping my clothes. And I tried to let go of the hand we were holding.
To take steps back toward hell, toward that battlefield where the shield was breaking.
Wooooong-!
At that very moment I tried to pull my hand away.
From deep within my chest, where my heart beats, a massive and blind pure white holy power began to boil up.
As if a miracle had flowed into me through the fingertips of her hand I was holding.
A terrible illusion that she was gripping my hand—which I was trying to let go of—tightly, binding and supporting my crumbling reason and body.
It was a desperate and perfect blindness, as if she were hugging me tightly so as not to be separated.
With that pure white light wrapped around my entire body.
I turned my body like a beast and leaped back toward the blood-red battlefield.
And back to the present.
"Kuaaaaack-!"
The disaster, driven mad by the pain of its severed leg.
The overwhelming murderous intent exuded by the Red Moon of the Twelve Tombstones was perfectly tightening around my throat as I hung in the air.
My body floating in the void. There was no space to dodge.
The spider's remaining legs rushed in to pierce my body into dozens of pieces.
In that split second.
Valian, who was vomiting blood on the ground, must have had a perfect calculation in his head.
If he let me, in the air, become a meat shield and get pierced to death by the beast's legs, a fatal opening would appear in the beast at that moment, and Valian himself could perfectly cut off the bastard's breath—the 'only winning formula'.
However.
Kwaaaaang-!
Valian threw that winning formula into the gutter without a second of hesitation.
The Mindscape that had reached its limit and shattered, 'Wall of Steel'.
Valian endured the pain of mana backflow and bursting blood vessels, forcing the Mindscape back into reality.
His massive body perfectly blocked my front, deflecting the beast's rush that was meant to pierce me.
"Keu, heuk!"
Swept up in the shockwave, we rolled roughly on the muddy ground.
Even while vomiting bright red blood from his mouth, Valian staggered to his feet and shouted at me.
"You crazy bastard! Why the hell did you come back!"
It was less of a shout, and more of a bizarre mix of relief on his blood-soaked face.
Instead of answering, I clicked my tongue and gripped my longsword, imbued with holy power, more firmly.
The battlefield that followed was a perfect set of gears.
Valian, having deployed his defense-specialized Mindscape, took all of the beast's attacks like a heavy, giant tree and drew its attention.
I leaped using that Wall of Steel as a foothold, digging into the beast's blind spot with the sharpest and most ruthless trajectory.
Seogeok-! Kwaajik!
"Kieeeeeek-!"
The blade, coated in overwhelming holy power, instantly sliced off four of the beast's massive legs.
The disaster, having lost four legs, stepped back while letting out an eardrum-piercing scream.
Instead of attacking us, the bastard opened its maw toward the corpses of the Blood Wolves scattered around.
A horrific escape to devour magical beasts, bulk up its body, and regenerate its severed legs.
'If I miss this, it's over.'
I tried to kick off the ground to chase after the beast.
Udeudeuk.
"......!"
My vision flipped coldly.
There was no strength in my legs.
The price for forcibly pulling up both the holy power Ines poured into me and the aura in my dantian at the same time.
My 17-year-old underdeveloped body reached its limit, screaming and beginning to collapse.
My muscle fibers were all torn, capillaries ruptured, and blood droplets seeped out from every pore on my body.
Thud.
I vomited blood and collapsed ungracefully onto the muddy ground.
A perfect limit where I couldn't even twitch a finger.
"Kkigigigigik!"
The beast, having confirmed my collapse, stopped its escape and rushed at me with its maw wide open.
The sinister murderous intent of a predator wanting to chew and swallow me first.
At that moment, a massive shadow blocked my front.
It was Valian.
"Back, off...!"
I growled while vomiting blood.
Valian, who had forcibly deployed his Mindscape, was also in a state where he couldn't use a single ounce of aura due to mana backflow.
Blocking the maw of that massive beast with a bare body devoid of aura was no different from suicide.
But Valian did not back down.
He pulled his right arm holding the greatsword back and willingly thrust his empty left shoulder toward the beast's maw.
Kwaaajik-!
"......."
A chilling sound of bones and flesh rupturing.
A fountain of bright red blood poured down like rain.
Valian's left arm, which should have been extending below his shoulder.
Had been ripped out entirely into the beast's maw with a grotesque sound.
For a knight, having an arm blown off.
It means that all life and future as a knight have ended forever.
But Valian didn't even scream.
Even while blood was gushing like a fountain from his torn-off left shoulder, he swung his greatsword with his remaining right arm and struck the beast's face.
Kkang-!
The beast stumbled back, and Valian's massive frame staggered, protecting my front.
"What a stupid thing to do......."
I clenched my jaw until my molars felt like they would break.
My vision flashed bright red.
At my resentful, spitting words.
Valian, even while sweating profusely from the pain of his severed arm, twisted his blood-stained lips and sneered.
"That's why you should've dodged better, you brat."
The heavy romanticism of a true adult who, even in the face of his own permanent disability, doesn't blame me until the end and maintains his composure.
A blood-colored emotion that couldn't be described swirled deep in my chest.
"Keueueue!"
While time was bought by Valian's sacrifice.
The disaster that had stepped back finally chewed and swallowed the corpses of the magical beasts.
Ujeok, ujeok.
Along with a disgusting tearing sound, the four legs that had been severed instantly grew back.
A desperate sight, as if it had perfectly resurrected—no, boasting an even more massive and overwhelming majesty than before.
However.
My eyes, fallen to the ground, held not despair, but a cold, serpentine madness.
'Doubt all the laws of the world. Read the trajectory of mana.'
The teachings of the old fox, Walder, flashed through my mind.
I fixed my gaze on the beast and pushed my heightened senses to the limit, scouring the 'flow of mana' surrounding its entire body.
Found it.
A sense of incongruity.
The four regenerated legs.
They looked perfect on the outside, but the bastard couldn't properly put its weight on those legs and was slightly wobbling.
And above all, the 'base of the second leg on the right' where I had inflicted a fatal wound when it was in its cocoon state during the first battle.
It was pretending to be restored with a hard outer shell, but the trajectory of mana does not lie.
Only the mana there was still strangely fluctuating and tangled for regeneration.
In other words, that perfect regeneration is just a trick. It means the inside of its outer shell is still a fatal weak point where the flesh is festering.
I whispered the plan in a secretive and cold voice to Valian, who was vomiting blood and catching his ragged breath.
"The second leg on the right. That bastard's regeneration is fake."
"......."
"Please, draw its attention."
A cruel request for Valian, who had lost an arm, to become bait.
But Valian let out a hollow laugh and gripped his greatsword tightly with his remaining right hand.
"Cheeky bastard. Make sure you pay for your life."
Taat-!
Valian squeezed out every last bit of his remaining life force, roared at the beast, and leaped.
"Over here, you bug bastard!"
At Valian's fierce provocation, the beast's eight eyes and all its murderous intent were perfectly focused on Valian.
That split-second blind spot.
I forcibly raised my body that had reached its limit.
I gathered every last drop of holy power Ines had left me to the tip of my sword.
The pain of muscles tearing and bones crushing.
Using that pain as fuel, I kicked off the ground and shot out like a cannonball.
"Die."
My longsword cut through the darkness and extended in a straight line.
The beast, whose attention was occupied by Valian, could not dodge my rush.
Kwaaajik-!
"Kieeeeeeeek-!"
My blade smashed through the bastard's fake outer shell, and its most vulnerable weak point.
I perfectly pierced the festering core at the base of the second leg on the right.
Pure white holy power exploded inside the core.
The beast's massive body twisted and convulsed grotesquely.
The twelve legs lost strength and buckled, and the eight red moons (eyes) completely rolled back into the pitch-black darkness.
Kugugugung-!
Along with a roar that shook the earth.
The massive disaster that had almost breached the wall and dyed the world in blood completely collapsed with a death throe and crashed into the ground.
Haa, haa....
I gripped the hilt of the sword embedded in the disaster's heart, exhaling ragged breaths with a blood-soaked face.
Over the corpse of the disaster that was growing cold.
The bluish light of the breaking dawn was coldly illuminating our desperate hunting ground.