Chapter 94
Chapter 94
- Enemy attack!
The shout echoed faintly, and not long after—
"Enemy knights are ambushing the rear tunnels! Approximately twenty enemy knights...!"
A soldier's urgent report followed.
Upon hearing this, Logan smiled.
"Twenty, you say... Perfect."
"Huh?"
The reporting soldier stared at him in confusion.
Logan turned his gaze to the battlefield and roared:
"All forces—!"
The moment the MacLaine soldiers' attention focused on him—
"Charge!"
Logan drew his sword and pointed toward the enemy fortress.
"Huh?"
The soldier who had reported the rear ambush alternated between looking at Logan and the rear with a bewildered expression.
But—
"Raaaaaah!"
The MacLaine knights, who had endured a tedious standoff for over half a day, instantly surged forward in a full-frontal assault.
Behind them, the crossbow cavalry and infantry followed suit, and soon, Logan himself joined the charge after issuing his orders.
Thud-thud-thud-thud.
The entire command center lunged forward, leaving nothing behind.
"What in the... Ah, screw it."
The soldier who had reported the ambush glanced between the rear and the front before finally sprinting forward as well.
Naturally, chaos erupted among the enemy ranks as MacLaine's forces—already three times their number—began their relentless advance.
"Hold the line! Hold the damn line!"
The enemy commander screamed from atop the fortress walls, but his panicked soldiers looked pitiful in comparison.
Despite the frantic volleys of arrows raining down from above, not a single MacLaine knight was unhorsed.
Thud-thud-thud-thud.
The "mere" five hundred enemy troops fired wildly, but their arrows couldn't even knock down one ordinary knight.
Watching this, Logan exhaled in quiet relief.
'Half their knights diverted to the rear. That's enough. Heinkel will handle the rest.'
Even if they couldn't eliminate all of them, they could at least keep them pinned down.
That was all Logan's plan required.
"We'll tunnel beneath the walls and collapse them. It doesn't require high-level magic—just destabilizing the supports underground."
Clayton's earth magic and golem-assisted tunneling strategy was tempting, but Logan deemed it too risky for the Tomodo siege, which had to be concluded before Vifros' reinforcements arrived.
Even under the most optimistic estimates, they'd barely manage to breach the walls just as enemy reinforcements arrived.
So Logan decided to use the tunneling as a decoy—flaunting it openly to lure enemy forces away.
He even feigned distraction with meaningless crossbar fire.
"What if the diversion hadn't worked?"
Logan glanced to his side, where a towering middle-aged man exuding the aura of a seasoned warrior stood.
Clayton, the earth mage, looked far more natural in soldier's armor than his usual robes.
"It was never going to fail," Logan replied. "When faced with overwhelming numbers and shaking walls, staying put would've been idiocy."
The trembling walls were nothing more than Clayton's magical bluff—a lure that had worked flawlessly.
'Now, we just need to take the fortress.'
Logan's burning red eyes fixed on the knights reaching the walls.
BOOM.
The first knights struck the gates.
But behind the splintered wood, a dark metal portcullis came into view—a secondary defense.
The knights immediately abandoned the gates. Smashing through would be more trouble than collapsing the walls.
They had only tested it on a whim.
Retreating, they turned their gazes to Logan.
'There. There. There.'
With heightened senses, Logan pinpointed three locations beyond the walls—where enemy high knights were stationed—and raised three fingers.
As prearranged, the knights avoided those spots and began scaling the walls.
"Enemy forces are circling to the northern wall! Thirty-plus knights!"
"Fifty knights on the southern wall!"
Panic erupted among the defenders.
Logan's eyes darted rapidly, assessing enemy movements.
"Now we just need to capture it quickly. Assist me."
"That's why I'm here."
Clayton smirked as mana surged within him.
Logan briefly glanced at his father, standing a short distance away, awaiting his signal.
Nodding in acknowledgment, Logan refocused on the walls.
The strongest knights of MacLaine—himself and his father—now sought the perfect moment to strike.
Eileen gritted her teeth as she faced the fortress walls.
The past months of grueling cliffside training had been for this exact moment—scaling godforsaken siege walls.
Though safety measures had been in place—whether from the lord, knight commander, or Logan himself—the cliffs had been even higher than these walls.
And unlike the sheer cliffs, the fortress walls had small footholds protruding like steps.
Eileen's sharp senses told her this minor alteration came from the hulking mage in soldier's armor standing near Logan.
'The mage. Probably that...'
Only a tower master could provide such aid from this distance.
Perhaps Logan and the lord hadn't taken the vanguard to protect him.
But now wasn't the time for trivial thoughts.
'I will distinguish myself!'
No one in MacLaine's ranks hungered for glory more than she did.
This was her chance to shed the label of "female knight" and earn recognition as a warrior in her own right.
With a fierce cry, Eileen leaped onto the walls faster than anyone else.
In just a few jumps, she reached the top—only to be met with a cascade of boiling oil.
'Hah!'
Anticipating the attack, she twisted midair, narrowly avoiding the scalding liquid.
But then—a sword swung down at her from above.
Mid-jump, with no footing, the blade descended toward her head.
Thankfully, she'd trained for this.
"Haah!"
With a sharp exhale, Eileen twisted again as if pushing off thin air, dodging the strike.
"Wha—?!"
The enemy knight's shocked voice leaked through his helmet as Eileen flipped past him and landed behind.
But her reckless aerial maneuver left her landing unstable.
Thud.
"Ugh!"
A slash sent her helmet flying, her long hair whipping free in the wind.
And that created the perfect opportunity.
"A woman?!"
The idiot's sword hesitated—
Shhhk.
—and Eileen's blade sliced his throat.
"Guh... Damn... bitch..."
Blood sprayed. Curses and bloodshot eyes burned into her vision.
Absurdly, it was only then that Eileen truly realized she was on a real battlefield.
Clench.
A trembling heart. Sudden, gut-wrenching fear.
To suppress it, she swung her sword instinctively—wildly.
Luckily, only enemy soldiers surrounded her.
Shhhk!
"Gyaaah!"
An instant clearing formed around her on the wall, and allied knights quickly filled the gap.
"Magnificent!"
The brief praise came from Leckton, an intermediate knight who had once sneered at her.
"I respect your spirit, but real combat's different. A woman... And the Young Lord's fiancée—shouldn't we protect her?"
After today, she doubted she'd hear such words again.
That single thought steadied her panic-stricken mind.
"Huuuh..."
A long exhale. Her emerald eyes sharpened.
'I can do this.'
Her sword moved with more ferocity than ever before, carving through enemies like a storm.
Ronian grinned as faint orange force emanated from his blade.
A power he'd barely grasped before deployment.
"You're the master's brother, so I lent you some strength. Not as fine as his, but solid mithril—better than most low-tier artifacts."
His beloved sword, Mane ("Morning"), named in homage to Logan's Lux ("Dawn"), now shone in its moment of glory.
'Now I'm a step ahead.'
The pressure Victor once exerted now felt lighter.
Pride swelled in his chest—his efforts were paying off.
So he charged the walls without hesitation.
"Huh, the Young Lord...?"
Ronian outpaced even the knights who'd started before him, dodging two descending blades mid-leap and landing smoothly atop the wall.
And then—
'Wave-Cutting Slash.'
Kwaaaaang!
Four orange waves erupted from his sword, obliterating the two knights before him.
"Come at me!"
Though still slightly smaller than an average adult, Ronian's presence commanded attention.
"That brat...!"
He was overdoing it.
Proud as Logan was of his brother's rapid advancement to intermediate rank, this recklessness was excessive.
But it served its purpose.
Two high knights converged on Ronian, while another moved toward Eileen and the advancing knights.
Their positions—opposite ends of the wall—left the center unprotected.
The moment Logan confirmed this, he lunged.
His father charged the walls as well.
'Faster. Faster!'
With the Wind God's Boots and Ghost's Shadow at full power, Logan reached the walls in a single breath and scaled them in two leaps.
No intermediate knight could stop this.
Shhhk.
Landing like the wind, Logan beheaded two enemy knights in one stroke.
He was in a hurry.
The plan had worked—but the bait had been his brother.
As he prepared to draw enemy focus—
"I am Patrick MacLaine!"
His father's thunderous voice boomed across the wall, instantly drawing every enemy's attention.
The high knights targeting Eileen and Ronian immediately redirected toward the center.
Two recoiled in terror as Patrick's two-meter force blade forced them into frantic retreat.
Another high knight fared no better.
Whooosh.
'Earth-Cleaving Strike!'
A colossal golden blade erupted from Logan's sword, bisecting the charging knight and his surrounding troops.
Shhhhk!
A slash that could've split the walls themselves.
Twenty meters of space before Logan collapsed into a pile of severed corpses.
And in that moment—Tomodo Fortress' morale shattered completely.