The Breaking Dawn
He was dead.
Once more, he felt the suffocating flames swallow him whole. Time seemed to stretch to an agonizing crawl as the nerves throughout his body shattered under a stimulus far beyond mortal endurance, ceasing to function entirely. Roaring fire consuming his flesh, followed by the cold, suffocating dark named death. Then fire once more. Then darkness again.
His sanity had reached its absolute limit.
The agony of burning alive bore no comparison to any other torment. He dreaded that pain—the sheer horror he experienced every single time he crossed paths with the demon legion commander. Yet what terrified him even more was the agonizing anticipation of the enemy's next assault. When respite was granted only to be inevitably followed by torture, the waiting soon became far more dreadful than the torment itself. His mind would begin to preemptively suffer, trembling in terror before the familiar agony awaiting him on the other side of the quiet.
And so, he resolved to stop merely enduring.
He would take the fight to them. This choice was not born of blind panic or a mind unraveling from fear. Having died again and again, he had finally grasped the true nature of the Ash Soldiers laying siege to the stronghold: the enemy never grew tired.
Felton Fortress was a border stronghold situated across wide, open plains with a treacherous canyon guarding its rear. Should it fall, the enemy would be able to crawl straight into the Empire's heartland in an instant, surging through the gorges and mountain passes. For that very reason, its strategic value was great enough to warrant the direct deployment of the Hero, and no one possessing a shred of reason could fail to understand that it had to be held at all costs—barring an outlier like Genom, a demon commander who prized the Hero's severed head far above any fortress.
Accordingly, Felton Fortress was equipped with devastating firepower and massive, reinforced ramparts. That was precisely why the enemy commander had initially attempted to batter down the main gate, even at the cost of catastrophic casualties. And when that assault was repulsed, he had shifted tactics, sending his Ash Soldiers to seize the battlements and open the gates from within.
That was where the true problem lay.
Through countless regressions, the Hero had seen to it that the battlements were defended flawlessly, yet with uncanny precision, the enemy would launch assaults with the Ash Soldiers the exact moment human stamina began to flag. Felton Fortress was the defender, and the enemy was the besieger. While the demon vanguard's supply lines might not have been terrible—given that the land near the fortress had once been a sprawling human city—they were still an attacking force. Maintaining better logistics than an entrenched garrison was practically impossible; prolonged warfare should have steadily eroded their combat effectiveness.
Yet the Gray Soldiers never lost their edge. If anything, they seemed poised to bleed the defenders dry.
Naturally, Einzel's deductions could have been flawed. But the moment he confirmed that troops sleeping in ragged field tents suffered less fatigue than men resting in solid barracks, any lingering doubt was cast aside.
What, then, was to be done?
Did hope even exist?
To that question, he could offer only one answer.
"We have to end this here."
"What do you mean by that...?"
"We have no way of knowing when the enemy might regain their strength. Above all else, right now is our only window to crush them in a direct confrontation." Einzel spoke with ironclad conviction. "The enemy is currently in full retreat with their tails between their legs, and their commander is far from peak condition."
Never mind that, mere moments prior to his regression, he had been burned alive by that very same "impaired" Genom.
"We, on the other hand, have conserved our stamina by holding the ramparts, and our morale is soaring. Mine included."
A blatant lie. Even now, he was silently enduring the excruciating phantom pain of his skin being boiled away alive.
"If we break them in the field right now, the burden on the Empire will be dramatically lessened. At the very least, we can strike down one of their legion commanders."
Beatrice shook her head gently with a soft sigh.
"Phew... if you insist, there is no helping it. I will speak with the fortress commander."
Moments later, upon hearing the proposal, the fortress commander-in-chief furrowed his brow.
"It is certainly an enticing prospect, I cannot deny that, but..." He bit his lip lightly before continuing. "First, the enemy may prove far stronger in a direct engagement than we anticipate. Second, if they simply maintain an orderly retreat, the risk of overextension becomes far too great."
He was entirely correct. Einzel had been so fixated on why the strike was necessary that he had overlooked those operational hazards.
Then, words echoed unbidden in his memory:
"Killing you matters far more to me than some miserable fortress."
It was the declaration the demon commander had spat in his face.
"If that is your concern, I have a solution."
The garrison of Felton Fortress poured out through the gates, surging in pursuit of the retreating demon host. Slaughter every last one of them here and end this battle. Consumed by that singular thought, the soldiers gave chase with bloodshot eyes.
And spearheading the charge was the Hero.
Catching sight of him, Genom ground to a sudden halt.
An opportunity.
If he could strike the Hero down right here, this retreat would mean nothing.
Genom moved in for the kill, but as if anticipating the ambush, Einzel abruptly veered off in an entirely different direction. Genom made his decision instantly, staking his entire army and the Ash Soldiers on a single gamble. While his forces clashed with the Imperial soldiers, he would butcher the Hero.
Braking his advance, he barked the order and lunged after Einzel.
Hook, line, and sinker.
Einzel ran, a faint smirk tugging at his lips.
The stratagem he had proposed was simple: he would serve as live bait. Genom held him in extraordinarily high regard—or rather, harbored an obsessive fixation on him. The demon had previously declared that claiming the Hero's life was vastly more critical than taking the stronghold. Einzel had reasoned that if he dangled himself before the commander, the monster would unfailingly follow.
Under normal circumstances, such a gambit would have been suicide. The demon commander possessed power that effortlessly transcended mortal limits, and Einzel would have ended up incinerated within seconds. But right now, Genom was nursing severe internal wounds. Channeling black magic would place an excruciating strain on his shattered body, meaning Einzel needed only to keep his distance and run.
As for the demon army, Peria and Beatrice were on the field; the Imperial forces would surely prevail.
In truth, Einzel was already pushed to his absolute limit. If he failed and died once more, he was not sure he would ever find the courage to face this nightmare again.
He was staking everything on this final roll of the dice.
Genom hurled a massive dark fireball at Einzel. Belonging to a legion commander, its destructive force was beyond imagining, and it struck Einzel dead-on.
A titanic explosion ripped through the air.
Holy Power and dark mana harbored a violent mutual repulsion, triggering catastrophic detonations whenever they collided. Needless to say, Einzel had been sprinting with Saintess Beatrice's divine barrier wrapped around him—specifically to provoke that very blast. The concussive shockwave was absorbed by Peria's magic barrier layered beneath the divine shield, while the detonation kicked up a churning screen of sand and dust that completely severed visibility.
"...!"
In other words, the attack had failed to scratch him.
Genom clicked his tongue in sharp annoyance, waiting for the dense haze to settle. But the dust showed no sign of clearing. Shrouded within the cloud, Einzel smiled thinly. Through wind magic, he kept the dust churning endlessly, denying it any chance to settle so he could remain concealed.
Left with no choice, Genom moved to plunge straight into the shroud—until an arrow came whistling for his vitals.
Every time Genom attempted to close in, Einzel drew his bowstring, forcing the demon's features to twist in rage. In peak condition, Genom might have brushed off such attacks, but in his wounded state, a clean hit could prove fatal. He attempted to pinpoint Einzel's presence using dark mana, but Einzel scattered Holy Power into the air, refracting the dark energy and blinding his magical senses.
Pressed for time, Genom began unleashing wild, indiscriminate bombardments. Even now, his legion was being dismantled; he had no time to waste. Evading the barrage, Einzel sprinted off once more, reigniting the desperate chase.
How much time had passed?
He ran until the bitter taste of blood and bile rose in his throat. He ran to escape Genom—or rather, the agony and terror that wore the demon's face, and ultimately, the root of it all: death itself.
Yet in the end, Genom caught up to him.
Iron fingers clamped down around Einzel's wrist. In that instant, he felt something snap deep within his mind.
"You put up an admirable struggle... but this is where it ends."
Genom spoke, but Einzel's lips remained sealed.
"Farewell."
No. Stop. I don't want to die. Please, someone save me.
A chaotic tempest of thoughts swirled through his head as despair crushed him. He had staked his very existence on this plan. Was it still a failure, even after all this? Even after fighting so desperately?
Slowly, the tension left his limbs. He let it all go.
Right. I was destined to die like this after all.
...Does a life like this even hold any meaning?
Flames surged toward his face.
Death rushed in to claim him.
Then, an arrow punched clean through Genom's heart.
"What...?"
For a monster who had slaughtered the Hero multiple times, his final gasp was pathetically frail.
In the distance, Lena's silhouette emerged through the dust. Sayne, Peria, Beatrice. And countless Imperial soldiers. Genom had fallen to Lena's bow.
Einzel stared blankly at the spectacle before him. His gaze drifted between them in a daze for a few fleeting moments before his vision abruptly blacked out, and he collapsed into unconsciousness.