34. End of War (1)
34. End of War (1)
The war that decided the tide of battle itself—far more important than the southern wall—was unfolding on the central plains.
A plain that stretched across the border between the Empire's southern front and the barbarian kingdom of Pyneton.
Tens of thousands of spears and swords dripped with killing intent. Countless streams of blood flowed.
Yuma gazed out at the battlefield.
Conqueror King Kamet was rampaging across the field.
"Kuhahahahahaha!"
A crimson light condensed on the greatsword in Kamet's hand.
Sseogeogeogeogeok!
A chilling sound of rending flesh echoed across the battlefield. An Imperial knight plummeted to the ground, a lump of meat.
Two more Imperial knights charged in succession.
They glanced at one another for a moment, then thrust their swords simultaneously. A combined assault that was near-perfect in its synchronicity.
But a sword path even more perfect than their combined attack flashed between the two of them.
Kamet's greatsword stood tall between a spear and a sword.
"Die! You fools who don't know your place! Kuhahahahahaha!"
Kamet brought his sword down, and the two knights' bodies tilted downward, still gripping their weapons.
"Ooooh...!"
The result of that moment's panic was gruesome.
Chwaaaaaak!
Kamet's greatsword swung horizontally. The upper bodies of the two knights caught in the sword path tilted diagonally. Two corpses slammed into the sodden earth.
"Tedious! Tedious! Is the Empire home to nothing but these pathetic weaklings!"
Someone advanced from beside Yuma. It was Marquis Tornel.
"Kamet!"
Tornel charged in, shouting the enemy commander's name. Bloodshot veins bulged in both his eyes.
"Yes—! You must come to me, Tornel!!"
Kamet's voice suddenly distorted violently at the end. Coarse fur sprouted thickly from both his hands. His muscles and flesh swelled.
His mane-like hair lengthened and darkened.
He had awakened the power he possessed as a Lion Tribe half-blood.
"Had you been hiding and clinging to the Grand Marshal's side, I would have been sorely disappointed! O Tornel of Destruction!"
By now, Kamet's voice had diverged entirely from the human register. Every word was a beast's roar. Among those beasts, it was the roar of a lion—the creature seated at the apex of all predators.
Yuma stared directly at Kamet with <Searching Eye>.
[Lv.146] Kamet
[Lv.147] Kamet
The level was rising in real time.
[Lv.149] Kamet
And as if that ascent had finished, the level locked in place.
[Lv.152] Kamet
In the end, he had risen to a level equal to Sword God Kronos.
Kamet's greatsword and Tornel's massive axe clashed head-on.
Kamet's red aura and Tornel's navy-blue aura collided.
Jjeoeo─────eong!
Thick clouds of dust billowed out from the ground.
The plains of war. The golden horizon shuddered, as if inverting itself.
'He was most certainly not this strong yesterday...!'
Tornel's arms, gripping the axe, trembled faintly.
An overwhelming weight. He could feel keenly just how powerful the blow Kamet had struck back truly was.
Under the crushing weight of Kamet's greatsword pressing downward, the neck of Marquis Tornel's warhorse broke. Its legs shattered.
Kwadeudeudeuk!
Marquis Tornel's warhorse was slammed to the dirt without even letting out a death cry.
Tornel rolled his body without panicking, then grasped his spear again.
It was judgment and action befitting a veteran of a hundred battles, seasoned by war. But the battle sense of Kamet, who had awakened the blood of a Lion Tribe half-blood, had transcended the human race.
A crimson flash struck Tornel's upper body.
"Keuheok!"
The sound of armor being crushed rang out. A mouthful of dark-red blood gushed from Tornel's lips. Marquis Tornel was hurled far to the rear.
Yuma swept his gaze swiftly across the battlefield.
The war situation was not favorable. The Asthes Imperial Army was clearly being pushed back.
The morale of the barbarian kingdom Pyneton's warriors was nothing short of overwhelming. Where the Imperial army formed methodical ranks and thrust spears and swords in coordinated breaths, Pyneton's warriors broke through with individual martial might.
A barbarian warrior stabbed his sword into an Imperial knight's heart.
The barbarian warrior who had snuffed out the Imperial knight's life bellowed loudly.
"The swords of Imperial knights lack ambition! They have no manly spirit! Uuhahahaha!"
It was the difference between the Imperial army's swords, dulled by protracted periods of rest, and the barbarian kingdom's swords, endlessly craving the necks of enemy nations.
"Stay still, Marquis Tornel."
Yuma, who had commanded the struggling Tornel to stay still, gripped the reins tightly.
Tudududududu!
The massive black warhorse, Hector, began advancing forward.
Seureung─
Yuma drew [Axion], the cherished sword once wielded by Sword God Kronos, from his subspace pouch.
Kamet's eyes flew wide open.
Ash-gray hair, and blue-colored eyes.
The God of War Yuma was walking toward him.
Hector's black mane billowed elegantly.
"God of War...!"
Conqueror King Kamet felt a thrill rising from the tips of his toes.
Tension and pleasure ruled his brain.
Combat, war.
For Kamet, these were the things that made him feel alive.
The pleasure that came from his life clinging to the edge of death, the slaughter of foes and the seizure of the territories they had stood upon—that alone was the reason Kamet lived this life.
"God of War! I thought you'd gotten scared, standing there silent all this time!!"
The red cloak—the same color as the fresh blood spattered on Kamet's armor—fluttered violently.
Yuma's gaze swept over the dozens of Imperial soldiers scattered around Conqueror King Kamet.
Too many casualties had already occurred. Further damage was meaningless.
Yuma, still mounted on the great black horse Hector, slowly opened his mouth.
"Come, Conqueror King."
The corners of Kamet's lips curled upward at that deep voice steeped in oppressive weight.
God of War (武神).
He could not know how well the man himself suited that grandiose title, but the damnably lofty bearing he displayed now certainly seemed close to the name of God of War.
Kamet signaled his giant wolf, Fenris, to charge.
Hector and Fenris rushed toward one another.
Red Sword Aura blazed upward from the greatsword Kamet gripped in both hands.
Kamet hoisted his greatsword high.
Kiiiiiiing!
It was the most brilliant and densely concentrated Sword Aura Yuma had ever seen.
Sword God Kronos's swordsmanship had been like flowing waves. A sword of exquisitely hidden lethality that somehow snuffed out the breath of any target before it.
By contrast, Kamet's Sword Aura was like a thunderbolt crashing down with brutish directness.
A thunderbolt that crushed everything it met.
Kwareureureureureung─!
The crimson Sword Aura, shaped like a thunderbolt surging from the tip of the greatsword, covered the sky like an aurora.
"Die!! O God of War! Curse that grandiose name! Kuhahahahahaha!"
Kamet imagined Yuma being cleaved in two: the sight of Yuma's own body, and even the black horse Hector he rode, splitting into two pieces.
He did not doubt for an instant that this fleeting imagination would become reality.
Because he was certain that this downward strike of the greatsword—<Furious Rage>—could never go to waste.
Yuma faced the red Sword Aura descending like the sun.
<Hyper-Focus>
The light in Yuma's two eyes shimmered faintly. He located the parry point of <Furious Rage>—none other than the very tip of the greatsword's blade.
There was not a shred of doubt in the assessment.
He swung [Axion].
Kkwaaaaaaaaang!
His arm shook as if it would shatter. Yet, there was no fear in Yuma's two eyes.
Because he had most certainly succeeded in 'parrying' it.
A golden circular impact—signifying a successful parry—radiated outward along with thick clouds of dust.
Kiiiiiiing!!
The great lightning-shaped Sword Aura tilted like a crescent moon.
<Absolute Counter - Disaster Split>
Two red thunderbolts surged up at either side of the crimson crescent.
[Absolute Counter - Disaster Split : Counterattack. Activates upon a successful Parrying, identically to <Absolute Counter>. Upon parrying, allows the use of <Absolute Counter> with identical attack power against up to two additional enemies excluding the original target.]
The destination of the crescent was already set. Yuma thought rapidly.
Where the two thunderbolts should be aimed.
The extreme flanks of Conqueror King Kamet.
The zones where the Imperial army was clearly being pushed back and had lost its strongholds. He designated the massive warriors standing at the front of both sides as targets.
Kkwaaaaaaaaang!
"......!"
Kamet stared directly at the red crescent surging up at a bizarre angle.
Kwaaaaaaaaang!
The giant Fenris and Kamet's body were swept away by the crescent. Without even a moment's chance to grasp the principle.
Without even the time to make an instinctive movement for defense.
His vision exploded in crimson.
The Sword Aura of red flames swallowed Kamet's entire body and passed on.
Kuuuuuuuung!
Conqueror King Kamet tumbled to the ground along with the Fenris he had been riding. The heart of the Conqueror King, which had been galloping across the vast earth, stopped.
Whether he went to the Valhalla he had so dreamed of, or merely to a hell mingled with the dead, no one could know.
The outpouring of red Sword Aura that began from where the God of War Yuma stood did not end there.
Kugugugugugugugugugugu─!!
Storms of red Sword Aura stretched outward to both sides.
They bisected.
The battlefield.
The two trails of crimson storm.
Kwagwagwagwagwagwagwagwagwagwa!!
The ground was swept away, and countless rock fragments and stones scattered violently.
"...God of War (武神)."
On the left flank, the 1st Commander, Great Warrior Luke, murmured vacantly at the crimson that had completely filled his vision.
The blue Sword Aura he had ignited on his sword was annihilated. The entirety of his legion, standing behind Great Warrior Luke, was pierced through by the crimson storm.
The roughly three hundred members of the 1st Legion—who had slaughtered more Imperial soldiers on this land than anyone else—thus vanished from this world.
Conqueror King Kamet's all-out strike.
There existed no warrior on this earth who could withstand an attack power ten times that of his all-out strike.
On the right flank, the 5th Commander, Great Warrior Yuloken, had no thought of giving up until the very end.
"All of you unleash your sword strikes! Wring out every last drop of aura in your bodies! We will obliterate that storm!!"
At Sword Master Yuloken's words, all the knights under his command who were intermediate-level Sword Experts and above unleashed their sword strikes. Countless sword strikes of Sword Aura.
However.
Kwagwagwagwagwagwagwagwagwagwa!!
The nearly hundred Sword Auras were all simply chewed up and swallowed by the red dragon. The crimson storm swept away the right-flank legion like a living dragon.
A quiet silence crushed the battlefield.
The soldiers of the Asthes Imperial Army and the warriors of the barbarian kingdom Pyneton slowly moved their heads at the same time.
The source from which the three calamities had extended.
Everyone stared at that place.
There stood a single man. Solitary, atop a great black warhorse.
Yuma slowly opened his mouth.
"Kamet, the Conqueror King of Pyneton, is dead."
The gazes of tens of thousands of Pyneton warriors shifted toward their king, now a cold corpse.
"Throw down your weapons and surrender."
It was merely two short sentences.
Jjeolgeureong─
Jjeolleong─
Kuuung─
Swords and spears dropped.
Axes and bows fell.
To shout the barbarian kingdom's fighting spirit now—the martial prowess he had just displayed was far too overwhelming.
The barbarian kingdom's fighting spirit no longer existed in their eyes.
Kung─
Tens of thousands of barbarian warriors began dropping to their knees in succession. Those once-proud warriors, without a moment's hesitation.
Kung─
Terror.
In the eyes of the barbarian warriors who had faced a martial art that faintly transcended humanity, nothing existed but a dreadful horror.