The Massacre Magic Begins
The sound of children crying filled the air. Mothers and fathers did their best to soothe their daughters' wails, murmuring It's all right. It's all right. A boy who heard them turned to his own parents and asked,
"Will it really be all right? Will this war ever end?"
To a question about a war without end, his parents could not answer—not even with a lie. The boy began to sob bitterly. There were still so many things he had wanted to do, he cried. So many places he had wanted to go with his mother and father.
A civilian shelter of the Fibron Empire.
It was a place where women, children, and those unfit for combat had been gathered. Though it sat well clear of the front lines, not a soul among them believed it was truly safe.
For now it might serve as a refuge—but if the knights standing before them all fell, this place would become hell. To be a civilian meant being someone who could be protected, and at the same time someone who could barely protect themselves. They had no power of their own. Or if they did, it was nothing against the enemy.
"I don't want to die... I don't want to die..."
The child's weeping spread like a fuse, infecting the others with despair. Into the chill silence came screams and sobs and cries of anguish. The people of the Fibron Empire had given way to hopelessness. They cursed the fact that their nation had become the Caelon Empire's target, and they believed their fate was already sealed.
Trapped in a cramped shelter, they were certain they would meet only a wretched death. And yet, strangely, they had not abandoned life entirely. When the military broadcast from the center of the square crackled to life, every mouth closed and every ear turned to listen.
People of the Fibron Empire. From this moment, we will engage the Caelon Empire in open battle. If we win, all of you may live. If we lose, all of you may die.
The voice of Flain, commander of the Imperial Knights. Carried by magic, the man's voice was firm—and yet it prepared them for the worst.
Should we fall, the only ones who can protect the families beside you will be yourselves. No matter what comes, do not give up. The Imperial House, and the knights and mages of the Fibron Empire, will fight for you until the very end.
A short broadcast. Flain never claimed victory to the last. That was why, before the decisive battle began, he had used a magic device to carry his voice into the place where the refugees were gathered. Whether his words had reached them or not, the children and adults who had been weeping only moments before no longer shed tears.
They rose with resolute faces. They began stacking whatever terrain and debris they could find, searching for anything that might serve as a weapon, bracing for the fight that might come. With hearts set like this, even if the enemy stormed in, they would not die quietly.
Drip...
Drip...
As they prepared, the soft sound of raindrops began to fall.
"Rain... it's raining."
Strangely, the rain fell only in the vicinity of the battlefield.
After a little time had passed, the magic device began to transmit images of the front. It was Flain's consideration—if the Fibron Empire fell, they were to respond at once.
Thanks to that, the people watched the battlefield from afar. As if under a spell, they began to take in the end of the war with their own eyes.
And there, walking toward the enemy lines, was the back of a single man.
"Fall back! The wounded to the rear—those who can still hold a sword, step forward and hold the line!"
The knight commanders of the Fibron Empire shouted. Their orders were split among many companies, and the commanders alone were no small number. Every one of them, however, had gathered on this field. The high command of the Fibron Empire had chosen open war.
"Commander Canyon! There are no more potions! Even if we pull the wounded back, we haven't the means to heal them!"
"Then fight! Hold your swords until you die! Kill even one of them before you fall!"
Canyon roared even as despair settled over him. The difference in numbers was crushing. With their forces alone, he was certain they could not defeat the Caelon Empire. And still the man did not flee. If fear drove him from this place, the ones who would die were the family waiting behind him.
More than his own death, he feared the sight of those family members violated by the Caelon Empire after Fibron fell.
"Guh—!"
Beside Canyon, a knight mid-swing took a blade and crumpled. Countless lives were snuffed out by the dozen, second after second.
This was hell. Kill and kill and still no end in sight—a hell from which there was no escape. Canyon emptied his mind and set to cutting the enemy down.
And as the battle wore on—
BOOM!
With a colossal roar, a vast crimson sphere appeared above the battlefield.
"What is that...?"
Caelon and Fibron alike had no idea whose magic it was, and both sides tensed at once. At the same moment, someone came shouting from behind the Fibron lines, racing forward.
"Knights of the Fibron Empire—all of you, fall back!"
The cry of Flain, commander of the Imperial Knights, rang out. He charged ahead with more than a hundred riders, clearing a path for the retreat.
"If you don't want to die, fall back!"
He gave no reason, yet the knights began to withdraw as they had not before. They slaughtered the Caelon knights who pursued them without mercy, and the Imperial Knights took heavy losses holding the line—but the retreat itself was possible. Not because of a mere few hundred men.
The crimson sphere hanging in the air was drawing an ominous power from the corpses around it, and the Caelon knights, wary of it, could no longer press the charge.
The sphere swelled as if about to burst, then steadied, then drank in power and ballooned again, over and over.
"Enemy magic! Attack and destroy it!"
The Caelon mages, having assessed the situation, rushed to erase the crimson sphere—but it simply deflected every strike.
RUMBLE—
From the sphere that had only been turning attacks aside, a vast sound began to roll, and then things like enormous walls began to fall from within it.
CRASH!
CRASH!
CRASH!
The walls slammed down between the knights of Caelon and the knights of Fibron. Walls a full five meters high drove into the earth in a tight line, leaving only the narrowest of gaps.
There were gaps one might have forced through, but no one did. The ground was heaving like mad—and a single man was walking straight down the center.
Between the walls, through the empty space, a man in a mage's robe advanced without even a staff. That the crimson sphere belonged to him was plain enough. Every time someone struck at him, grotesque fragments burst from the sphere and knocked every attack aside.
While all the others held back, the Caelon knight commander at the very front bravely charged the man. The man raised a sword and split him in two in a single stroke. The corpse that crashed to the ground had its power sucked into the crimson sphere once more.
"Cease this pointless action."
McDeras spoke—but this time hundreds of knights charged as one. Still more tried to force their way through, yet the walls made any greater rush impossible.
Their charge never became a continuous wave. Spear-like shapes erupted from the crimson sphere and skewered the men as they came.
Watching from behind, Commander Flain let his sword drop without realizing it. He understood there was no place for him in this. And he dared to ask the princess beside him,
"Your Highness... just who is that man...?"
Princess Brainy answered briefly.
"Hope."
Then she fixed her gaze on McDeras standing on the field.
"Who he is doesn't matter. What matters is that he is our last hope."
Brainy's hand trembled. Beside her, Knight Commander Tekeloman, and Choi Yebin and Plimia with him, watched the scene without a word.
Plimia clasped her hands and prayed.
That the man would save this place. And that he would return unharmed.
"Damn it... who the hell is that bastard who just appeared? I'm certain the Fibron Empire never had anyone like that."
Caelon's forces still stretched on without end, yet they had stopped moving. They felt it—the hopeless gulf in power. An opponent no mere weight of numbers could overcome.
McDeras raised his voice.
"I will give you one last chance. Surrender now and cast aside your emperor. Then you will live."
But on a battlefield, no one takes an enemy's words at face value. They still held their swords and watched McDeras with wary eyes.
"You want us to mutiny? Don't make me laugh. You're all dead men walking. No matter how hard you struggle, most of Fibron's forces are already broken. You're the one who should surrender. At least then we'll kill you without torture."
Then the man shouted,
"Knights of the Caelon Empire—all of you, prepare to attack!"
McDeras looked at them with eyes empty of feeling. He knew as well as they did that this was nothing talk could settle.
From the moment war began, there were only two ways to end it. One side swallowed catastrophic loss and raised the white flag—and became a vassal of the victor. The other: one side took damage so fatal it could never recover.
Looking at the Caelon knights who refused to abandon the fight to the last, McDeras spoke quietly.
"I have no intention of justifying a massacre. So by all means—hate me."
McDeras stretched both arms and poured mana into the sphere. Sensing that something was about to happen, the knights and mages of Caelon unleashed attacks as one—but they could not break through McDeras's walls and barriers.
The sphere drank every last scrap of power from the corpses around it, then swelled and burst with a thunderous roar. A sound loud enough to rupture eardrums slammed across the battlefield.
Along with a terrible noise like lightning striking—
"Rain...?"
From the sky, a crimson rain began to fall.
It was the sign that the mass-slaughter magic had begun.