Cutting Down the Emperor's Army and Heading South
"Now, it's time to feed my sword its dessert."
The moment my flat declaration reached their ears, the knight-captain's bloodless face flushed a furious, desperate red.
"Y-you insane madman…! Hold formation! Deploy the Wall of Light!"
At the captain's command, the three remaining Holy Knights hastily crossed their blades. Dazzling holy power erupted from their swords and forged a solid hemispherical barrier—the sacred light the Sun Sect loved to prattle about as divine grace.
Did they really think that scrap would stop me?
I adjusted my grip on the longsword and kicked off the ground.
A heavy boom tore through the leaf-strewn mud as my body shot forward like a loosed arrow, straight into their faces. The killing intent I had honed by cutting down tens of thousands of magical beasts on the northern front lines rode the edge of my blade, flashing sharp as a beast's fangs.
"Stop him—stop hiiim!"
Steel rang. Then a sharp crack.
The captain's scream and the impact of my longsword slamming into the barrier came as one. That much-vaunted holy power, supposedly absolute in defense, began to spiderweb like thin glass under my pure, mana-less brute strength.
"W-what is this…!"
"You thought hiding behind a shield would keep you safe."
A final twist of my wrist, and the barrier shattered into glittering shards. Silver armor stood exposed and defenseless amid the scattering light. I did not stop. I brought the sword down again.
A clean whisper of steel.
"Ghk…"
The foremost knight's head left his shoulders and spun into the air. Blood fountained from the stump and painted the ground crimson.
"You devil-spawned bastard!"
"Die!"
The last two knights swung from either side. Their trajectories were clumsy, survival instinct swallowing any real technique. I dipped my torso, let the blades skim past, and drove my sword straight into the gaps of their armor.
A wet thrust. A slicing draw.
Like wheat falling in a harvest field, the two Holy Knights crumpled at my feet in a spray of blood. It was less a battle than a one-sided slaughter. The captain, who had watched the brief massacre in a daze, let his sword slip from nerveless fingers.
It clanged against the dirt.
"Ah… aah…"
I held my blood-dripping longsword at an angle and looked down at the captain whose legs had given out. The face that had once spouted grace and righteous cause now held nothing but raw, animal terror.
"W-what the hell are you…!"
He scrambled backward, voice cracking with fear.
"You think you can block the Sect's path and walk away free? I don't know who you are, but if you don't hand over the witch, the main force—no, the entire Holy Knight Order—will come and burn this forest to ash!"
When his own strength failed, all he could do was invoke his master's name. I let out a short, dry laugh. I had heard the same dying words from terrified weaklings a thousand times on the northern front lines.
"I'll be waiting."
"Wh-what…"
"This forest eats more fertilizer than you'd expect. If a bunch of tin cans decide to walk in on their own two feet, I won't complain."
He opened his mouth to speak again.
A soft slice.
My blade punched clean through his throat.
"Gahk… kh…"
His eyes rolled white. He clutched at his neck and collapsed. His fingers scraped the ground a few times, then went limp as the last of his life drained away.
"Pretty tough for dessert."
I wiped the blade roughly on a corpse's clothes and slid it back into its scabbard. Bodies littered the ground; the reek of blood hung thick. At this rate the magical beasts that had fled earlier would return to finish their breakfast.
As if nothing had happened, I stepped through the blood pools and turned my feet toward the cabin. The Holy Knights who had been in the way were gone. It was time to return to the place of rest that waited for me.
Before reaching the cabin I stopped at a small spring on the forest's edge. When I plunged my hands into the cold water, the blood on my fingers bloomed outward in red clouds. I washed the spatters from my face and pushed my wet hair back roughly.
The closer I came to the cabin, the more the green scent of the woods gave way to a rich, slightly bitter aroma that teased the nose.
"Welcome back, Lord Cassian."
As I stepped into the yard, Elara looked up from stirring a ladle over the fire pit and greeted me. Her gaze flicked once over my dripping hair and wet sleeve cuffs. She must have caught the blood scent I had not fully washed away, yet she seemed to pretend she had not noticed.
She picked up a towel from the porch and held it out to me.
"For a morning walk, you got rather soaked with dew."
"…Well, I had to check the rat traps. Stirred up the forest a bit."
I answered shamelessly and scrubbed my hair with the towel. Elara knew perfectly well that what had been caught in those traps were not rats but men; still she only smiled gently and did not press.
"Come inside quickly. The soup is just right."
Steam rose from the table. The herbal soup Elara had made slid down my throat and spread a gentle warmth through my stomach. Yet while calm lingered on my tongue, my mind was already mapping the next battlefield.
The Holy Knights of the Sun Sect. Those fanatics would never abandon the field just because a vanguard of a hundred had been wiped out. For the sake of their pride, and for the holy water that would restore their lost power, they would shove even more troops into this forest.
A few traps won't be enough for that scale.
Perhaps the entire military strength of the Sect would come. I set down the empty bowl and looked out the window at the woods.
"Elara."
"Yes?"
"The magical beasts that live in this forest. If you wanted to, could you guide their movement paths?"
She blinked, then nodded.
"Mm… full control is impossible, but if I adjust the aura I give off, I can manage it to a degree. I can also force the poisonous thorn thickets to grow densely in specific zones. Why?"
"I'm going to set some traps."
"Traps?"
"A sturdy fence around the house is the least you need if you want to sleep with your legs stretched out."
I rose and leaned against the window frame. In the past, to hold back the magical beast hordes that had gnawed at the North, I had torn down and rebuilt the front-line defenses dozens of times, forging them into something solid. Narrow the enemy's advance routes, funnel them into traps, and eliminate the beasts with the least force possible—tedious work.
I began spreading the forest's terrain across my mind like a blueprint. There were roughly three approaches through the southern plains by which the Sun Sect could enter.
If I borrowed Elara's power and raised walls of poisonous thickets across two of those routes, the enemy would have no choice but to take the single path I left open. And at the end of that path I intended to drive every apex predator of the forest, with Elara's help.
"…Looks like things are about to get busy."
It was time to teach those hypocrites who cried out for grace and miracles what true hell looked like.
"Aaaaaagh—!"
A raw scream tore through the tent. The stench of blood and rotting wounds hung thick; the northern field hospital had long since left peace behind.
"Hold that leg tight! If he thrashes, the saw will slip!"
Military physician Victor shouted, apron already soaked red. He was amputating a knight's thigh, the flesh poisoned by a magical beast's bite. The hideous sound of the saw grinding through bone filled the tent.
"Hnnngh… L-Lord Cassian…!"
The knight, gagged and convulsing, wept as he cried out.
"If only Lord Cassian were here… this dog's death wouldn't…!"
Victor set down the bloody saw and let out a short, bitter snort.
"Keep your mouth shut before the wound bursts open."
Only a few months earlier the words coming out of that same knight's mouth had been entirely different.
That black-magic junkie.
A parasite clinging to the Grand Duchess's back like a leech.
While Cassian had been vomiting blood as he absorbed Isolde's curse, these very men had stood at the front of the line mocking his noble sacrifice. Now they screamed his name.
Blackened veins, rotting flesh—the only physician who had known the full measure of the pain Cassian had carried felt his own insides rotting.
"You should have treated him properly while he was still here. Looking for him now is far too late."
Victor muttered coldly as he wound the bandage. Outside the tent, the shadows of magical beast flocks darkened the gray sky. With Cassian—the North's solid shield—gone, and Isolde herself having taken the main force of the Black Knights south, the remaining troops had no hope of stopping the disaster pouring down on them.
Victor wiped his bloody hands on a rag and started toward the underground dungeon. On the way to fetch more of the dwindling anesthetic he stopped, turned, and changed direction.
A rusty hinge creaked.
In the dark, damp dungeon a man bound in chains lifted his head at the sound of footsteps. It was Julian—the fraud who had blinded the North's eyes and ears while playing at being a false saint.
"…Quite a racket up there. Holding a magical beast festival, are we?"
Julian's split lips twisted in a sneer.
"With that Cassian gone, even the proud North doesn't amount to much, does it?"
A vein jumped on Victor's forehead. He thrust his blood-soaked medical coat toward the bars.
"This is the fruit of that silver tongue of yours, you swindler! If it hadn't been for you…!"
"Haha! A little late to start blaming me, isn't it? I may have branded him a junkie, but the ones who actually shoved him off the cliff were you northerners."
Julian's words held no falsehood. That made them all the more nauseating, all the more wretched.
"That Isolde bitch has completely lost her mind. The second she learned the truth she mustered an army and marched south—didn't even glance at the land she left behind with its defenses stripped bare."
Julian giggled like a madman.
"Isn't it hilarious? The trash you kicked out with your own feet was the only shield holding this entire defensive line together! Now that the shield is gone for good, all that's left for the North is to rot together nicely in the bellies of beasts—gahk!"
Victor's arm shot through the bars and seized Julian's collar in a death grip.
"Don't delude yourself. The North without Lord Cassian may have become hell, but you won't be walking out of here alive either."
"Kh… koff…! You lowly field surgeon…!"
"Watch carefully. See how the price of your false deeds comes home."
Victor flung Julian aside like a sack of refuse and turned his back.
"Before the Sect comes to save you, you can sit here waiting for the day you get digested in a magical beast's guts."
As Victor climbed the dark stairs, screams and explosions from the surface poured without pause into his ears. The end that awaited those who had kicked their hero away with their own feet was utterly wretched.
Banners bearing the golden lion of the Imperial House cracked and snapped in the wind. At the vast border fortress that divided the Empire's central and southern regions, thousands of regular Imperial troops stood in layered ranks of shields and spears, forming an iron wall without a single gap.
The Imperial garrison commander on the ramparts bellowed through a magical amplifier.
At that razor-edged warning the column of Black Knights behind Isolde faltered as one.
"Your Grace…"
The knight-captain's voice trembled. Cutting down magical beasts and striking the Emperor's regular army were problems of entirely different dimensions. Open rebellion. The extinction of their house. Even if any survived, a stain of infamy that would last for generations. Realistic fear and hesitation clouded the eyes of knights who had lived by the pride of the North.
"Your Grace! This is too far. If we fight the Imperial army here it will truly be judged as treason…!"
Yet Isolde did not even turn her head at the captain's desperate plea. Her gaze remained fixed beyond the Imperial wall, on the distant southern sky alone. Imperial law? The safety of her domain? The brand of traitor? There was no room left in a mind already shattered by regret and obsession for Cassian for such petty words to take root.
"Anyone who wishes to turn back may do so."
Steel whispered as Isolde drew the demonic sword from her back.
"Whatever stands in my way, I will clear it alone and open the road."
"Y-Your Grace!"
Before the words finished she yanked the reins hard and shot forward alone. Dark crimson aura erupted around her entire body.
"So you really mean to commit treason! Open fire! Kill the Grand Duchess!"
The garrison commander screamed himself hoarse. Hundreds of magical arrows and javelins rained down like a storm. Isolde did not slow.
A thunderous blast.
She swept the demonic sword diagonally through the empty air; the entire arrow storm was blocked by her aura and bounced away uselessly. An instant later her body slammed like a cannonball into the heart of the dense Imperial shield wall.
"Gyaaaah!"
"The shields—the shields are torn—ghk!"
The proud central army of the Empire was carved apart by Isolde's single blade. Hardened steel armor parted like soft flesh; severed limbs spun through the sky. An army that had armored itself in the Emperor's law and Imperial dignity was reduced in moments to a heap of corpses before one woman's madness.
The Black Knights watching the overwhelming slaughter swallowed hard as one. Fear of treason became a trivial emotion beside the sight of their lord drenched in blood and trampling the enemy ranks. The destructive heat Isolde radiated paralyzed the knights' reason like a plague.
The captain clenched his fist until blood welled, then finally squeezed his eyes shut and raised his own sword.
"…All forces, cover Her Grace the Grand Duchess! Open the road south!"
"Uwaaaaaah—!"
The roar of knights whose reason had snapped shook the battlefield. Unable either to flee or to stop her, the Black Knights ultimately followed Isolde's back and crossed the irreversible river of rebellion.
A wet crunch.
Isolde crushed the garrison commander's skull beneath her boot and slowly lifted a face ruined by blood. Standing amid a hill of severed corpses, she looked once more toward the southern sky.
"Just a little longer… wait just a little longer, Cassian."
Isolde's relentless advance, trampling the shattered Imperial banners underfoot. And the meticulously designed labyrinth of slaughter that Cassian had prepared. The hour when two monsters on a collision course would meet was drawing near.