30. Battlefield (1)
30. Battlefield (1)
The war had not only begun for the main army.
The clash of arms had erupted from every direction. Imperial soldiers on the fortress desperately drew their bowstrings and cast magic to hurl down the barbarian warriors attempting to scale the walls.
A Pyneton warrior hurled a chain.
Chwarreureuk!
The chain had snagged an Imperial soldier like a living snake, dragging his body down to the ground.
Kwajik─!
The soldier's head had shattered like a watermelon. His skull had been crushed. Blood had splattered out with a splat.
Screams had echoed across the battlefield. People had died without end.
The Pyneton archers had moved along the ridge of the mountain in Marquis Tornel's territory without a shred of hesitation.
The giant wolf, Fenris, had been cunning. It had known to suppress even the sound of its footsteps in moments when silence was necessary.
"The enemy...!"
A ranger guarding the Imperial ridge had shouted, opening his mouth wide.
Puuuuk!!
And that shout had become his final death cry. An iron arrow. An iron bolt that maximized the advantages of the barbarian warriors' sturdy frames and immense strength had pierced through the ranger's temple.
Pyneton's Second Commander Hector had spoken in a low voice.
"Kill them all."
"Kurgh!"
As he had spoken, he had gouged out the heart of an Imperial soldier before him with a spear imbued with Aura.
A lump of blood had fallen onto a blade of grass.
The entire tide of the battle had turned against Marquis Tornel and the Imperial forces.
A vivid blue Aura had enveloped the great axe that Tornel held.
"Uwaaaaaaagh!!"
Toward a heavily armored warrior who had charged, bellowing a cry indistinguishable from a scream or a battle shout, the axe had cleaved straight down.
Chwaaaaaaaaak!!
The warrior had been split in half, armor and all, and had perished.
A warrior who had been breathing moments before had been cleaved in two, reduced to chunks of meat that sagged limply onto the ground.
Tornel had glared at his axe embedded in the earth for a moment, then had raised his head to take in the enemies directly ahead.
His grip on the axe handle had been stained with sweat and blood.
Dududududududu...
The rain had still not stopped.
As if a hole had been punched in the sky, rain had continued to pour down through the darkness.
The battlefield had grown sodden. The rain had made the battlefield heavy. The stench of blood had assaulted his nostrils. Marquis Tornel had retreated backward, stepping over the corpses of his subordinates.
The sensation of defeat had pressed down on his mind. He had already lost over three hundred troops. The knights he had always cherished had died in droves.
Ddudu-deok!
Tornel had grabbed a Pyneton barbarian soldier with both hands, twisted his neck, and thrown him aside.
The thousands of enemy soldiers confronting him from a distance had entered his vision.
"Marquis Tornel."
The hundreds of ferocious beasts drooling at their front line had entered his vision as well.
Fenris, the giant wolves with bodies far larger than lions.
The greenish-blue light flickering in Fenris's eyes had radiated an oppressive pressure. A pressure that told their enemies they could be torn apart at any moment, even in this darkness. Foreboding. A fear that slithered up the spine. The ability to inflict such emotions upon the enemy had acted as an immense advantage on the battlefield.
Conqueror King Kamet had surveyed the thirty-odd dead Fenris and over a hundred of his own fallen warriors. There had been no anger in the Conqueror King's eyes. No pity either. It had only served to aid his resolve.
The resolve to slowly, very skillfully, conquer another nation this time as well.
If he succeeded in conquering the Asthes Empire—
No. Even if he could conquer the Imperial southern gatekeeper, Marquis Tornel's domain that stood before him now, the deaths of his fallen subordinates and Fenris would be justified.
He would swallow up the edge of the Empire and spread the name of Pyneton far and wide across this mass of continental land. That was why he had brought thirty thousand troops.
The results of the war's first day had been immensely satisfying.
In every location where weapons had clashed, the barbarian kingdom had seized victory.
If one were to judge the outcome of today alone, it had been an overwhelming victory for the barbarian kingdom.
"Let us both withdraw for today. There is still plenty of time."
Was it not right to press forward when the momentum of victory had been seized?
Of course, that was correct. But the damage to his own forces had been stark as well.
The man with hair like a lion's mane, Conqueror King Kamet, his thick eyebrows twitching, had stared directly at the middle-aged man Tornel, who had been glaring at him as he continued to speak.
He was truly a being worthy of the title 'Tornel the Destroyer'.
The corpses now rolling at his feet had also been created by Marquis Tornel.
For an enemy commander who had lost a considerable number of troops, the fighting spirit still shimmering in his eyes had not died in the slightest.
Tornel, the guardian of the Empire's south, had slowly opened his mouth.
"You will come to regret having dared to lay a hand on the Asthes Empire."
Kamet had raised the corner of his mouth into a smirk.
"Yes, that is the kind of attitude that makes it satisfying to crush you. Put your ranks in good order, wash your necks clean, and wait."
At those words befitting a barbarian, Tornel's face had crumpled fiercely.
"Get lost."
Kamet had let out a chuckle.
"Let us return, warriors."
At Kamet's words, the two thousand warriors who had stepped forward had slowly pulled back and begun their retreat.
"The renowned swords of the Imperial knights had been quite feeble! I wonder if they can handle that business properly through the night!"
"Kahahahahahahaha!"
The uproar had been enough to shake the night.
Eventually.
The knights of Marquis Tornel's house who had been standing behind him had approached his side.
"How many have died?"
"If you count all locations together, it appears to be close to six hundred. Your Excellency."
"...Haah."
Tornel had staggered on his feet at those words.
The mental agony had struck him far harder than the physical fatigue.
The terrible night had begun to draw to a close around the time the Pyneton warriors could no longer be seen.
The sun had begun to rise.
It had been sunlight he had faced over fifty times, crossing back and forth between countless life and death. He had never seen the sun appear so red as it did today. It had never felt so intensely hot.
It had been a complete defeat.
***
Soldiers were collecting the scattered corpses.
"O Mother of the Sun... We firmly believe all these trials are to temper our blades, so grant us the strength to summon the light. Mother of the Sun."
"I do not wish to die. Let the light shine upon this sword...."
The weeping sobs of comrades. Knights reciting prayers alone to shake off fear. The voices of soldiers clumsily following their lead.
To Marquis Tornel, all those sounds had sounded like the wailing of spirits. They had been twisted grotesquely enough to make him want to rip off both his ears, and they had sounded somber. It had felt as if the mud of a marshland, from which one could not easily escape once trapped, had risen all the way to his neck.
The only thing that had helped suppress all that displeasure and guilt had been his sense of responsibility. The responsibility to defend this southern front of the Empire.
He had no choice but to find hope in the urgent dispatch that had arrived that dawn.
It had been an urgent message telling him to hold on just a little longer because special-grade reinforcements had been deployed.
"It seems they will not attack tonight. They will likely push forward as soon as dawn breaks tomorrow."
The words had come from Luxwood, the aged chief advisor of House Tornel—aged, but wise because of his age.
"You must pull yourself together. Your Excellency."
Tornel had nodded slowly.
Because there had been no error in the old chief advisor's words.
He had poured every moment into regrouping the front lines, and so the day had inevitably flown by like an arrow.
The sun had risen once more.
Kugugugugugugugugu!!
The sound of the giant wolves, Fenris, stomping their feet without hesitation had thundered.
Just as Chief Advisor Luxwood had said, the barbarian nation Pyneton had mobilized its army the moment dawn had broken.
The war had begun again.
The nerve war between the main armies had started once more.
Far in the distance, the lion-haired man, Conqueror King Kamet, standing and observing his troops, had entered Tornel's vision.
It was a situation where it would not have been strange for them both to draw their weapons and unleash slashes at any moment.
Just as Tornel was sharpening his senses, one knight had urgently approached his side.
"Marquis, Your Excellency!"
"What is it?"
The knight had spoken rapidly, without even taking a breath.
"Outside the fortress walls, people claiming to be reinforcements have arrived. And they have actually begun to rout the Pyneton warriors."
Tornel had narrowed his brow.
"Are those individuals the special-grade forces sent by the Empire?"
The knight had shaken his head.
"It does not appear so. They introduced themselves as a revolutionary group."
***
The southern wall of the front line.
A red flag had fluttered.
A crimson flag. And within that red background, there had been a golden circle. And within that circle, a single golden sword had soared vertically.
Cassiela, the commander of the Dawn Revolutionary Group, had her vivid red hair whipping in the wind.
She was the commander of the revolutionaries who had faced Yuma, the Sword of the Emperor, on the magic train to Akan City and had become convinced that Yuma was an old friend of her mother.
"We follow the same will as the God of War Yuma! We do not need a revolution that is only a facade! For the glory of the Empire! All of you, raise your swords!!"
Seureung!
Seureung!
A total of seventy-two members of the revolutionary group had simultaneously drawn their respective weapons.
"For the glory of the Empire─!"
Every single one of them had been a strong person who could shroud their weapons with ki. All of them had raised their swords in the hope that the Empire would transcend its decay and completely shed its entrenched corruption.
Cassiela's vivid blue Sword Aura had cleaved through a barbarian warrior's shoulder.
Then, after sheathing her sword without hesitation, she had launched her body toward yet another warrior.
Starting from the southern wall, the direction of the war front had begun to shift, little by little.
The eastern mountain ridge of the front line had already been choked off by Pyneton warriors.
"Chase them to the end!"
Two Imperial soldiers and one knight were clenching their teeth and fleeing, evading the pursuit of Pyneton warriors.
They had fled to the entrance of the ridge but had been forced to stop.
Because it had been the edge of a cliff.
Ddududuk...!
Small stones knocked off by their feet had tumbled over the cliff's edge.
Surrounded by a total of forty-two Pyneton warriors, the soldiers had ground their teeth.
'If I manipulate ki, I might be able to survive.'
'Something will probably get broken. Then I'll just end up dead at the hands of these bastards either way.'
They had been desperately racking their brains to survive. It had been then that a voice had suddenly been heard from below.
"You lot. Are you the Imperial Army?"
A man's figure had come into view at the bottom of the cliff. On either side, a robed figure clung to him.
The man wore what looked like a black coat. And on the right shoulder of that coat, a golden epaulet had been visible.
"I am the Grand Marshal of this battlefield. Identify yourselves."
One of the soldiers standing at the cliff's edge had shouted with all his might.
"We are the Imperial Army!"
The Pyneton warriors, who were encircling the Imperial troops while pressing their bodies tightly together, had glared at Yuma, the Grand Marshal of the battlefield, standing on the path below the cliff.
"Grand Marshal? The Imperial Grand Marshal only goes around with two subordinates? How amusing."
Clid, the Third Commander of Pyneton with blue hair, had raised his sword.
"If you are the Grand Marshal, try blocking this single strike."
Unlike his snide voice, a brilliant golden Aura blade had condensed onto his sword. A searing golden Sword Aura.
Clid had stepped forward with his right foot and swung his sword.
Kwaaaaaaaaaang!!
It had been a slash. A Spatial Slash that fired a highly condensed blade strike.
The golden Spatial Slash had descended upon Yuma literally like a flash of lightning.
Yuma had drawn the dagger [Black Dragon Bernak's Fang].
Kaang!
The blade of the dagger had perfectly struck the central point, the parry point of the Spatial Slash. A golden impact signifying a successful parry had bloomed like a full moon.
Kwaaaaaaaaaaang!!
The Spatial Slash had reversed course.
However.
It had not been just one.
The moment the Spatial Slash had touched the tip of [Black Dragon Bernak's Fang], the blades of two more Spatial Slashes had erupted on either side of the original.
<Absolute Counter - Split Disaster>
[Absolute Counter - Split Disaster : Counter. Can be activated upon a successful Parrying in the same manner as <Absolute Counter>.
Upon a successful parry, allows the user to execute an <Absolute Counter> of identical attack power against a maximum of 2 additional targets besides the original target.]
The original target had been Pyneton's Third Commander Clid.
And the other two targets had been designated as the warriors positioned at the very ends of the group of forty-two Pyneton warriors.
Kwaaaaaaaaaaang!!
Kwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaang!!
Three Spatial Slashes had been fired toward the Pyneton warriors.
Clearly, according to the <Absolute Counter> skill, the directly targeted individuals had been those three.
But those bastards were currently in a dense formation for encirclement.
Just because the skill had been aimed at three people, there was no way only three would have been hit.
Because the Third Commander Clid's sublime <Spatial Slash> had been fired with a built-in ten-times-stronger attack power.
A colossal explosive roar had burst forth.
Before the three Imperial soldiers standing at the cliff's edge, a thick cloud of dust and dirt had spread out.
"...Wha, what is this... What the hell is this! Yo, you Imperial bastards! Did you sell your souls to a demon or what!!"
It had been a warrior's scream.
Out of the forty-two who had formed the encirclement.
Only ten people had survived.
There had not even been a trace of the corpses. Only a deep scorched mark remained, as if a meteorite had fallen in the forest.
"Grand Marshal of the battlefield, Yuma."
The three standing at the cliff's edge had stared blankly down below.
"Report the current battlefield situation, Imperial Army."