End Game (2)
What matters most on a battlefield?
Vision.
And as always, the most important thing is also the hardest to secure—especially when you are surrounded on every side.
Noise erupting irregularly from all directions. A head flushed hot with blood and battle-fever. Roars that make friend and foe impossible to tell apart. Thick fatigue, and vision already narrowed by armor. All of it conspires to make identification a nightmare.
Of course, if the enemy has already closed the ring, survival comes before sight. All the more so when that ring is a host of countless undead.
But that rule did not apply to the strike force now.
Hoooook— an undead mammoth charged with a wheezing, deflated roar, bringing the crushing pressure of mass measured in tons that ordinary monsters would never dare attempt.
Thuk-thuk-thuk! Javelins punched home in rapid succession and its head burst apart.
Of course it did. The whole point of a mass attack is the tremendous velocity added to that weight—overwhelming physical force delivered through speed. The undead before them were doing no such thing. They could not even run; a brisk walk was beyond them.
Even so, thousands of undead still hemmed them in—a well-knit legion mixed evenly from low-grade to high-grade. A normal man would struggle to take a single step, let alone break through. Even an elite strike force handpicked from the fortress was in real danger.
Yet the strike force was relentless. At the very tip of the spear stood the old man who had reigned as Iceland’s strongest for decades: Richard Felwinter.
Even for him, the situation ahead was a burden—if he had been alone.
Craaash!
Richard swung his aura-wreathed hammer and pulverized an undead ogre’s upper body. Hundreds of zombies, large and small, began slowly closing in on him.
Watching from the side, Gordon advanced two steps in time with the booming bagpipe rhythm. He drew the aura-clad longsword in his right hand back over his left shoulder to its absolute limit—then swung with everything he had.
Slash!
A blue crescent of cutting force scythed out. Hundreds of heads dropped to the ground along with the limbs of some of the larger undead.
"Don't look back! They're just slow walkers anyway!"
"Ack! This damn skull's got my foot—!"
"Louder! Even louder!"
And the strike force’s vigorous charge crushed the space they had cleared. With the roaring bagpipes as their soundtrack, they smashed undead, smashed them again, and smashed them still more.
The reason they had stayed quietly inside the fortress until now was simple: they had people to protect. Relatively ordinary folk still lived inside those walls.
The strike force’s plan had originally been for Present as well—the place that would fall first if the holy water supply failed. So before that problem could arise, they would take the enemy’s head. A headhunting operation. A decapitation strike.
But the holy water problem had been solved. The whole thing could have ended as wasted effort. Richard decided that since the elites were already gathered, they might as well drive the charge home.
Baston, however, had one worry left.
"Richard! Are we even going the right way!?"
"You're asking that after we've come this far?"
"Well, all I can see in every direction is corpses!"
"Don't worry! The place with the strongest energy is in one direction!"
Baston swung his siege flail and shoved aside a lindwyrm reduced to bone, wearing a strange look. He would grant Richard’s wild senses were sharp—but to pick that out here?
Gordon, still launching aura slashes, looked curious too.
"You can feel something in this filthy field of undead death-energy? There's a blizzard going as well!"
"Oh, I feel it just fine! Thick death-energy filthy as a ratman sewer that's been rotting for a hundred years!"
"What the—damn! What kind of undead just keeps comin' endle—crazy, what the hell is that!?"
Gordon froze in shock.
Undead trampling the undead ahead of them, trampling the undead that rose behind those, over and over until they clumped into a single mass and came surging forward in the literal sense of a tidal wave of the dead.
An undead wave.
The answer was simple.
"Sprinkling won't cut it! Throw the whole thing!"
"Barrel throw! Barrel throw!"
"Taste the grace of God!!!"
Whiiish— Craaash! A barrel of holy water smashed down, crushing a few undead on the way. Those that stepped into the scattered holy water began melting from the feet up.
Thuk-BOOM!!! A ballista harpoon detonated into the same spot—supporting fire from the fortress once they grasped the situation. Starting with the ballista bolts, chunks of ice and rock came flying on the wings of magic into every part of the undead wave, and explosions rose in mushroom clouds.
All of it was clearly visible—and clearly felt—by the giant as well.
His leisure ended here.
I thought the mayflies were just thrashing about—
Methods like these would not stop them. When those bastards had suddenly left Tomb Fortress, he had thought the mayflies were discarding their lives in a most un-mayfly-like fashion—but to think a force of that caliber held three Sword Masters.
And he realized.
These damned bastards used me…!!!
Rage erupted from him.
Rumble— the earth answered his tenuous authority. At the giant’s single utterance, Drew, the grizzly beaver chieftain still contesting control of the magic circle while scattering sacrifices, reacted the same way.
"Squeeeak!!! Squeak-squeak! Squeeeeeeak!!!"
Filthy demonkin trash that only know how to destroy and never how to create—worse than ants—how dare you!!!
The collaborators who were supposed to sabotage the fortress from within were not responding either. Of course they weren’t. There had never been any collaborators to begin with.
Three Sword Masters? A prepared army? Nothing but discarded pieces?
Drew, the grizzly beaver chieftain who had refused death for the sake of kin and tribe, and Gomot, the giant risen again for his father’s revenge and to reclaim his rightful place, both burned with fury.
Just what did those bastards hope to achieve by going this far?
But there was no time left to think. Bolstered by the fortress’s siege fire, the strike force was closing on Gomot and Drew by the moment.
"Squeeeeeeak! Hiss! Hiss! Squeak-hiss!!!"
At those cries, Gomot turned his head. Armed grizzly beavers were pleading with Drew—who was now screaming in something closer to a groan—begging him to calm himself, not daring to approach the blood-soaked ground around him.
A small, young grizzly beaver—the successor—approached Gomot. Like the others, he wore bronze armor and a shield fashioned through Gomot’s power. The difference was the weapon: where the rest carried bronze, he held an obsidian magic sword.
"Squeak! Squeak! Squeeeak!"
Had it been any ordinary young grizzly beaver’s cry, Gomot would not have bothered to listen. But the successor was more than qualified—qualified to receive his respect, the same as the chieftain.
And that young successor was saying:
"Squeeeeeeeeeak-!!!"
That he would not simply die quietly.
A sigh escaped Gomot unbidden. The successor had only just become an adult at five years old last year. To reach Sword Master at that age—even in Gogmagog’s day, talent like this had been rare. Even Gomot himself at that age had been nothing but a big kid who roughhoused a little with ogres. With gifts like these, and the charisma to gather his fallen monster kin and forge a nation in another ten years, it was a waste for him to die here.
"Squeak! Squeeeak!"
Reading Gomot’s thoughts, the successor cried out again. His tribe would not have survived this winter anyway. Better to wager on a hope that might not even exist.
Thud- thud- thud- thud-
Whether they agreed or not, armed and unarmed grizzly beavers alike surrounded Drew and crowded in behind Gomot and the successor. Gomot looked into hundreds of eyes smaller than acorns—every one of them bright, clear, and resolved for death.
The strike force had drawn near. When Gomot wordlessly turned, the successor and the grizzly beavers formed a phalanx. At his will, the many high-grade undead waiting in the rear and conducting the siege slowly gathered.
Richard sensed it at once. At a distance this close, it would have been more impossible not to see Gomot, whose bulk easily topped four meters.
"So they mean to face us head-on!"
"The Margrave speaks! The enemy is right in front of us! Keep your wits about you! No dropouts, I trust!?"
At Richard’s words, Baston began checking the strike force following from the rear, his kilt flapping dangerously.
"Hm!?"
Richard’s face twisted.
"Lord Margrave. What's wrong?"
"I thought there was only a great mage."
"There's something more?"
"A Sword Master."
"…They've really made up their minds. Made up their minds."
Gordon’s face contorted; he spat on the ground. Even for a super-powered force packing three Sword Masters among its elites, it was awkward to say—but a Sword Master was exactly the kind of thing that could reverse a battle’s tide. What’s more, Gordon could feel that the giant on the other side was no ordinary monster. Anyone in the strike force could feel it.
And with the fortress’s support behind them, the strike force finally came face to face with their true enemies.
"What—"
The strike force faltered—not at the giant, not at the various high-grade undead massing toward them.
"Squeeeaaaaaaaaaaaah-!!"
"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaargh!!!!"
A grizzly beaver unit in full metal gear, mixed among the high-grade undead, charged the strike force. Recovering their senses, the strike force slammed into the enemy formation and plunged into a contest of strength and chaotic melee.
While high-grade undead, grizzly beavers, and the strike force tore into one another, four Sword Masters and the ancient giant gathered in the clearing that Gomot’s bulk had naturally created.
Gomot reshaped his arm into a long stone sword.
Mayfli—hm!?
Clangggg!
Richard cut the giant’s words short by charging in and swinging his hammer. Gomot moved his arm to deflect, but Richard withstood the blow with raw strength.
"Who has time for neat little speeches when the enemy is right in front of you! Baston!!!"
"Bet you don't have anything like this at your house!!!"
Whoooooosh-!!! Baston hurled his siege flail with everything he had. At the tip of the solid-iron weapon, deep blue aura streamed like a meteor’s tail and left a sonic boom in its wake.
You bastards with nothing left but death—how dare you!!!
Gomot raged and swung the stone sword. Whooom— the massive blade, charged with tremendous power, tore the air apart.
As Richard and Baston moved to answer, the successor read the signs at once. Seeing the two old men put power into their stances, he charged at a speed hard to imagine from a grizzly beaver’s heavy frame.
Clang!
"Whoa there! Where do you think you're going!"
Gordon, already racing in like the wind, slipped into the gap. Screeeech— when the longsword brimming with blue aura crossed the obsidian magic sword, bright sparks sprayed in every direction.
The successor flinched at the unbelievable sight. His first battle against a being who had reached the same realm. He had heard Gomot’s words, but he had never thought they would prove true.
Gordon, for his part, frowned for a different reason. At the Sword Master level you could almost be considered a different species—not merely from humans, but from elves, dwarves, gnomes, and every other living thing. Ordinary poisons and curses failed; magic you tanked with your body. Senses trained and expanded through practice and mana approached those of monsters.
So the moment their blades met, Gordon knew. The monster before him was his equal—but had never fought a peer, let alone a superior.
In that case—
Acting on instinct, Gordon twisted sideways and changed the line of his sword. Sizzle— screeech! The auras of the obsidian magic sword and the longsword collided. Fierce sparks sprayed wildly, scattering and cluttering the successor’s vision.
Because of that, he never saw the kick coming.
"Squeeeeeak-!!!"
Crash-thud-thud! Driven by a mana-laden boot, the successor rolled across the ground in pure shock. An opponent the likes of which he had never faced scrambled his mind.
"Well now, this might be easier than I thought."
"Would you hurry up and finish that and join us already!"
"Understood! You're impatient, aren't you."
Muttering the rest only inside his mouth, Gordon lightly spun the aura-edged longsword a few times, drawing a bright blue circle in the air.
"Well then—since you put it that way, I'll wrap this up quick."
The successor could not understand the words. But the meaning came through clear enough.
Sprawled on the ground, he rose without even time to brush undead debris from his fur. Black aura surged roughly, and a clear ringing note pealed for an instant.
"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaargh!!!!"
With a trembling body, the successor fixed his aim on the enemy—and charged.
For the future.