Chapter 37
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 37
Chapter Title: Battle of the Red Mountains (5)
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「Be, kus…… Taris……!」
At that single command, the entire mountain range trembled.
The bodies of the soldiers from the 14th Infantry Regiment, who had dared to block the advance of the Old Nobles as the eleventh line of defense, melted away.
Swept away by the primordial lava that poured from its massive maw...
“Kuh, kuaaaaaaaah...!”
“A-a monster...!”
The demonic beings following the Demon pushed through the broken ranks, twisting the necks of the survivors, tearing them apart, and splitting their skulls.
Thud...
Above the carnage swirling with the stench of blood, a great and fearsome presence passed, whipping up volcanic ash.
Thud, thud, thud...
The power of a Forgotten King seethed crimson within its body, emitting a heat so intense it melted the corpses.
Its reptilian skull, adorned with six horns, was bare bone, and from the depths of its eye sockets, lava writhed like an inner light.
The power of the Lizard Lord Neigallas, a power that had independently taken form—this was an incarnation.
The primordial volcano, Mauna Loa...
“The third defensive line has been breached!”
“The fourth defensive line is annihilated...!”
“We can't stop the Demon's advance! The scattered demonic beings are regrouping behind it! Their numbers are approximately 300,000! It's a massive army!”
At that moment, Mirngadia of the Blue Star felt sickened by his own methods, using countless deaths as bait.
‘Yes, it's coming right on schedule...’
Treading the path paved with blood...
How many deaths had been necessary to forge this path...
And how many more would be needed to complete it...
Rather than sending others to their deaths, the memory of Yonghyun's back as he walked alone into the jaws of death flickered in his mind.
- Mir, come here.
Mirngadia could not be like Yonghyun. Had he not ended up with this body by fighting in such a way...?
His abilities were pitiful in comparison, and his reputation was shabby, but he wanted to feel no shame when he met Yonghyun again in the afterlife.
Yet he lamented his own battle, a life he had to live filled with nothing but shame.
[What's the status of the formation composed of the First Front Army's detachment?]
“It's nearly ninety percent complete. Kaisen Alter Aradamanthel has also just regained consciousness.”
[It was worth buying time. We just need the Iron Cross. Tell them to begin the moment Mauna Loa crosses the threshold.]
The prelude to an all-out war,
Battle of the Red Mountains (5)
In the depths of the Red Mountains, the sound of the Abyss's arrival was the whimpering moan of leaves as volcanic ash swept over them.
The intense heat of the ash stole the moisture from the plants.
As the ash passed like a black plague of insects, trees withered and crumbled, and the land cracked.
“It's been seven hours already. Seven hours we've been waiting since that thing woke up. That makes it almost twelve hours! Why are we just sitting here on standby?”
Tval barely managed to weave the questions and indignation churning in his heart into words.
“An Incarnation-class Demon has appeared. Shouldn't we be on the front lines, stopping it?”
As he spoke, the sounds of cannons and gunfire that had been echoing from the distant mountains began to fade.
[Over here... Aaaaaaaargh!]
[Help me, please, help... ]
[Oh, Lord...]
Kaisen bit his lip helplessly.
On the battlefield, the severing of sound was the severing of life...
That was why, in war, a sudden silence could pierce the heart more deeply and desperately than any scream.
‘An order to wait until the Demon gets here...’
In the distance, he could see the valley where the 4th Artillery Regiment had been positioned being engulfed by a storm of volcanic ash.
“Another unit... I just don't understand. Why are we still waiting here?”
“Tval, are you questioning Lord Blue Star's judgment right now?”
“More than questioning! I can't accept this situation!”
Amidst the heated debate, Roveris remained silent.
“Take a good look around, Tval.”
Beside them, Alidona, who had been silently holding a pipe, exhaled a listless puff of smoke.
“This Hill 118 is an artificially created plateau deep within the rugged Red Mountains. To the northwest is Jiseon Peak, to the south is Hwayeon Peak, and to the southeast is Yeomgyeong Peak.”
With three major peaks surrounding it, the terrain was ideal for seizing the high ground and luring the enemy into a kill zone.
It was a highland formed 270 years ago from the reverberations of the battle between Yonghyun Rain Ludwick and the Old Noble Nariaduk.
Therefore, it would be more accurate to call it a gorge rather than Hill 118, but...
“Artillery units are already in position on the three peaks. It's all for a strategic advantage. They're luring it in.”
“You know that's nonsense, don't you? There were plenty of more advantageous positions than this!”
“That's enough, Tval. It took over eleven hours just to get here from the plains. The Red Mountains are vast. Even this pace is abnormally fast.”
Roveris silently watched the approaching volcanic ash, then her gaze shifted to Kaisen.
“Kaisen, who do you think you are?”
The question was direct and sharp.
It seemed like the point of a blade aimed not only at Tval, but at Kaisen, who held the same doubts, and beyond him, at the entire world.
“You are a fake. Not a real Hero. A Hero who saved the world without letting anyone die doesn't exist in this world. It's not just you; it's me too. Because we're fakes.”
“......!”
“Always remember this. We cannot accomplish the unrealistic feat of saving everyone. What we can do—no, what we *must* do—is to make sure that fleeting, pointless deaths become noble sacrifices.”
What did that mean?
What was she trying to say?
Kaisen found the senior FakeWarrior's words difficult to grasp, his eyes merely widening.
“If you die a meaningless death and we lose this battle, all the deaths here will be recorded simply as tens of thousands of casualties in the text of a great defeat. But if we win? They will be remembered forever in the history of a great victory.”
Roveris paused there.
She took the pipe from Alidona, placed it in her mouth, and drew the smoke deep into her lungs.
Then she spoke again.
“I've always thought that way. Ever since I realized my own powerlessness...”
Kaisen closed his mouth.
For in the trail of her words lay the grief of one who had endured an unbearable world.
“...Does being powerless mean we must turn away from those dying right before our eyes?”
Roveris gave a bitter smile.
What must she have thought then, seeing the fiery spirit of the young FakeWarrior?
Seeing those eyes, filled with the confidence that he could do anything, defeat anyone, and save everyone.
The same dream.
The same heart.
She, whose own dream had already shattered against the wall of reality, leaving her with empty eyes...
“That's not what I mean. The day will come when you understand what I'm saying. Soon enough.”
Was he too young to understand?
The young hero's understanding was always slow and belated. That slowness was heart-wrenching.
Looking back, it always made him feel miserable.
“Now, get ready. The holy sword is crying out, so you know. It's about to begin.”
Clink, clink, clink...
Just then, Aradamanthel and Scherpang began to cry out sharply from within the two FakeWarriors' grasps.
The entrance to the pass at the far end was engulfed in volcanic ash, and soon, an ancient nightmare appeared, shaking the very earth.
Caught in a primal fear, the warhorses reared up on their hind legs, snorting fiercely.
“Iron Cross!”
The suffocating terror...
The dizzying madness...
The chilling mystique...
“Hold it back!”
At that moment, the being called a Demon looked as if a volcano had donned a devil's skeleton and burst forth into the world.
The Demon drew closer.
It unleashed a storm of volcanic ash from its entire body, and with the Uruk cavalry charging ahead to guard it, it looked as if a volcano itself was walking toward them.
‘Yes, this thing...’
An overwhelming presence that made his pupils tremble.
A scorching wind that pierced even temperature-regulating magic, threatening to burn his skin.
It seemed as if the world itself was bowing low before the killing intent the creature commanded, wielded, and exuded.
‘Mauna Loa...’
At that killing intent, his heart pounded.
Against that killing intent, the holy sword cried out.
As the shadow of absolute slaughter, mockery, and deception descended, an unanswerable question flickered in his mind.
‘What in the world is your purpose...?’
What kind of purpose could you have been born into this world with,
what kind of noble purpose,
that you can kill and kill people so matter-of-factly?
‘As if the right to decide the life and death of all humanity is your natural-born right.’
Just then, hundreds of shells rained down from the artillery units positioned on the three peaks, creating clouds of acrid smoke, but...
「RasssssAsssssssss!」
The Demon easily broke through the curtain of countless iron shells and continued its approach.
“Severing Circle, Spacetime Flash.”
Roveris's Scherpang tore a rift in space.
As the Uruks were sucked into the wake of the slash along with screams and blood...
The Demon, instantly regenerating its severed arm with lava, pressed forward without hesitation.
“The Severing Circle...?”
“Don't let your guard down, it's an Incarnation-class!”
The wedge formation of the Iron Cross Knights, a wave of steel, shattered and scattered before the volcano's might.
When the volcano slammed the ground, three or four men were crushed into bloody pulp, and the impact sent horses flying into the air before they came crashing down.
Just then, Tval and Kaisen charged forward to the vanguard together.
One strike.
Spurring his horse, Bloodwind, he leaped.
The moment he deeply slashed the Demon's flesh with the blade of Aradamanthel.
He was thrown back by the momentum, and a sharp pain shot through his wrist.
‘My wrist bone... it's shattered...?’
What...?
This sensation, like I just cut through solid rock...
No, not rock. It was unrealistically massive, as if I'd tried to slice a mountain with my sword...?
“Kaisen, look ahead!”
As he injected a syringe of dragon's blood serum into his hand, which dangled loosely, held only by tendons, to regenerate it.
The Demon turned toward him and opened its maw wide...
And the lava that surged violently from its throat rushed forward, melting everything in its path.
‘Damn it, it can control lava at will...’
Mern's arrow struck the Demon's maw, the arrowhead branching out into several stems, slightly altering the trajectory of its snout.
‘That was close. Just by a hair's breadth...’
But it was enough to give Kaisen the chance to get out of the way.
The lava that flooded the spot he had hastily vacated swallowed all the trees and wild grasses, releasing the pungent stench of sulfur.
As he rolled across the ground, cutting down the Uruks that charged him, the Demon tore up the earth and rushed forward.
That was somewhere around the threshold.
The moment the Demon's body crossed that line, blue light erupted simultaneously from Jiseon Peak, Hwayeon Peak, and Yeomgyeong Peak, the three mountains surrounding the hill.
‘What is that...?’
A faint chill ran down his spine.
Is that it?
That light?
Is that light Lord Blue Star's plan?
‘To create that light, he lured the Demon here with all those countless deaths?’
The three beams of light began to weave together dazzlingly in the sky, as a griffin rider delivered an urgent message from above.
“The Iron Cross Knights are ordered to take the outer edge of the hill, surround the enemy, and prevent the Demon from leaving the center!”
Did it understand those words? No, it must have instinctively read the threatening flow of power.
The Demon looked up at the peaks.
And then, chunks of rock on its back began to break away as six pairs of wings started to sprout.
“Wings...?”
At that moment, Kaisen hooked the second knuckle of his right index finger on the pin of his inhibitor.
“Mern, don't let that thing escape!”
“Commander, I've been firing since before! I can only barely restrict its movements!”
“Alidona, lend your strength!”
“I'm already on it!”
This is the turning point.
This is where Blue Star has made his move.
In that clear realization, it felt as if the inhibitor's pin came out on its own.
Ting...
At the tail end of that cold, clear, metallic sound of magic, all noise vanished.
A transcendent power momentarily and finitely overlaid his weak physical body.
In the single moment it took to take a deep breath in and out, his five senses were amplified to their absolute limit.
‘If this indiscriminate slaughter is a right given to you.’
The ground he stood upon.
To the point where he could distinctly feel even the minute creases in the terrain beneath the soles of his boots.
‘Then my duty is to strike down every last one of you.’