Chapter 188: Counterattack (3)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 188: Counterattack (3)
Two hours ago.
Having received a report on the movements of the Kronos Empire from the scouts, Roman Dmitry spread a map across the conference table.
Thud.
Rustle.
"As anticipated, the Kronos Empire has chosen to retreat," Roman said. "We sent scouts ahead to check for traps, but there were no signs of an ambush waiting for us. The enemy is currently crossing the plains along this route. Despite the dense foliage—terrain where they should be wary of pursuers—they are maintaining a remarkably loose formation."
"They are completely off their guard."
"Indeed. The Kronos Empire knows they aren't completely safe. Under normal circumstances, they would march in a tight, disciplined formation. But right now? They've completely ruled out the possibility of the Cairo Kingdom giving chase."
It was blatant contempt.
Outside the castle walls, Kronos had absolutely no reason to fear Cairo.
Though they had invaded Cairo’s territory countless times in the past, Cairo had never once sent a pursuit force, regardless of how the battles ended. Both sides knew the grim truth: Cairo was barely surviving behind its fortresses. In an open field, the Kronos Empire would unilaterally slaughter them.
That was precisely why a pursuit force had been organized.
They needed to set a single, definitive precedent to shatter the enemy's complacency.
Roman continued. "Our plan is simple. The enemy is marching in a long, drawn-out column. We will divide our forces into two and strike their center and rear simultaneously. Severing their center will inevitably throw them into chaos. From there, we swiftly swallow up their rear from both sides, decimating their numbers before they can even react."
"...It is a good plan, but the danger lies in the possibility of our forces being isolated."
It was Baron Noel who spoke up. Roman's strategy described an ideal scenario, but it didn't account for the worst-case outcome.
"If the enemy's resistance is fiercer than expected and the plan goes awry, the force attacking the center will be completely isolated—sandwiched between their vanguard and rear guard. In that scenario, we would be the ones wiped out. Wouldn't it be better to pool our strength and strike only their rear? If the enemy rallies to respond, it will escalate into a full-scale battle, but a safe hit-and-run strategy would at least prevent total disaster. Our goal is simply to set a precedent. Even if we don't annihilate them, the fact that we struck back at all remains unchanged."
"No. That is not enough."
Roman had no intention of accepting a half-hearted result for this operation.
He had to show them, beyond a shadow of a doubt, exactly what happened when they dared to touch Cairo.
"With this attack, we must achieve a victory grand enough to be called a great triumph. To do that, a two-pronged attack is essential. We must shatter the enemy's formation with a sudden, overwhelming assault. It is true that there is a risk, as Baron Noel pointed out. However, from the moment we opened the castle gates and stepped outside, we had already accepted that risk."
Roman Dmitry met the gazes of the gathered commanders, his voice ringing with absolute conviction.
"I will take charge of attacking the center. I assure you, with the strength the enemy has revealed thus far, they have no way to withstand our assault. Their unprecedented complacency will be the very thing that plunges the Kronos Empire into the abyss."
The commanders nodded in agreement.
If Roman Dmitry was the one leading the charge, the commanders of the Western Front judged that this perilous plan was well worth following.
*
When the sun reached its zenith, the plan was set in motion.
Having taken a shortcut to intercept the enemy, Count Vandenberg's forces lay hidden in the dense foliage, waiting for the signal from the vanguard.
Bang.
Bang! Bang!
Signal flares burst in the sky.
Count Vandenberg drew his sword.
"All forces, attack!"
"Charge!"
"Waaaaah!"
Rustle!
Thud! Thud! Thud!
It was a flawless surprise attack.
As the Cairo soldiers burst from the underbrush, the Kronos imperial soldiers frantically raised their weapons in panic. But they were utterly helpless against an ambush they hadn't prepared for. The moment the two sides clashed, screams erupted from all directions. Before the Kronos soldiers could even process what was happening, cold steel was already tearing through their flesh.
Stab!
"Cough!"
A Kronos soldier's eyes bulged. Vomiting blood, he stared in disbelief at the blade protruding from his abdomen.
That was only the beginning.
Leveraging their numerical superiority, the Cairo soldiers ruthlessly dispatched the enemy. If an opponent managed to block a strike, two or three more soldiers would immediately swarm them, driving their blades deep into the enemy's body. In an instant, living, breathing men were reduced to mangled corpses. If a sword failed to pierce chainmail, a Cairo soldier would simply yank the enemy's head back and slit their exposed throat.
It was the sheer, unadulterated brutality of war.
As the plains were dyed a brilliant crimson, it seemed as though Count Vandenberg's forces would completely overrun the rear guard.
However...
"You useless fools! Pull yourselves together! Our opponent is only Cairo! Do not fall to such trash!"
A knight of the Kronos Empire shrieked at the top of his lungs.
Aura flared from his sword, instantly slaughtering the high-spirited Cairo soldiers charging at him. From that moment, the tide began to turn. The dazed imperial soldiers, rallied by the knight's roar, snapped out of their panic. Standing back-to-back, they began to calmly fend off the swarming Cairo troops.
Bit by bit, Kronos reclaimed the upper hand.
Whenever equal numbers clashed, the imperial soldiers slaughtered the Cairo troops with overwhelming martial prowess.
Kronos and Cairo.
The difference in the sheer quality of their soldiers was stark.
While the soldiers of the Kronos Empire were a formidable military force seasoned by constant warfare and invasions, the soldiers of the Cairo Kingdom were little more than a rabble who only knew how to fight from behind the safety of castle walls. The momentum gained from the initial ambush was incredibly short-lived. Once Kronos regained its footing and bared its fangs, the Cairo soldiers couldn't overwhelm them at all, despite their numerical advantage.
Amidst the chaos, Count Vandenberg displayed outstanding martial prowess.
Unleashing his 4-Star Aura, he swiftly carved through the enemy ranks, but he soon realized the battle was taking a dangerous turn.
‘At this rate, we’ll be pushed back.’
The momentum was steadily shifting.
The empire's complacency hadn't been born of mere arrogance. They were genuinely confident that they could crush the Cairo Kingdom regardless of their marching formation, and they were now proving with sheer, bloody force that they had every right to be. A heavy sense of urgency washed over Count Vandenberg. Realistically, the wise move would be to wrap things up here and sound the retreat. But for the sake of the plan, they had to hold out until the bitter end.
Roman Dmitry.
He had gone to strike the center.
He was in a situation far more perilous than this one. It would be incredibly difficult for Roman to break through the enemy lines from both sides just to come and reinforce the rear.
However, the sword had already been drawn. Even if this battle ended in their utter destruction, Count Vandenberg had no intention of retreating.
"Do not fall back! Show these heinous imperial dogs the true strength of Cairo!"
Standing tall on the blood-splattered battlefield, Count Vandenberg fulfilled his duty as a commander.
*
At that exact moment.
Roman Dmitry led his forces in a devastating strike against the center.
Unlike Vandenberg's struggling troops, what was taking place here was a one-sided slaughter.
Rumble!
Aura exploded.
Roman Dmitry's sword sprayed arcs of blood.
Charging at the very front, he cut down dozens of enemies in a single breath. The soldiers surging in behind him displayed an equally overwhelming martial prowess from the very first clash. This wasn't a victory achieved merely through the advantage of a surprise attack. After exchanging only a few blows, the soldiers of the Kronos Empire found their heads severed from their shoulders, their faces forever frozen in shock.
Thud.
The soldiers of Dmitry.
They were a terrifyingly formidable force, easily rivaling the elite imperial army.
But it was the private soldiers—the ones who had followed Roman Dmitry from the very beginning—who stood out the most.
Clang!
Clash! Clash!
A common soldier.
A nameless foot soldier unleashed aura from his blade and began to actively push back a knight of the Kronos Empire. The knight couldn't help but be completely bewildered. His opponent was clearly wearing the cheap uniform of a common grunt, yet he was using aura to overpower him—a reality that defied all logic.
This was the terrifying power of the Asura Mind Method.
Those who followed Roman had entered the realm of aura one by one, and now, even the common soldiers had broken through that seemingly insurmountable wall.
Flash!
The knight's head flew into the air.
A nameless common soldier had actually slain an imperial knight.
"What madness is this?!"
"Block them! Block the enemy!"
The soldiers of the Kronos Empire were undeniably strong.
But Dmitry's soldiers had completely transcended the realm of the ordinary.
And that wasn't all.
Key figures like Chris and Kevin displayed overwhelming martial prowess, rapidly thinning the enemy's numbers alongside Roman Dmitry. Count Vandenberg's worries had been entirely unfounded. He had feared they might be in danger if sandwiched between the vanguard and rear guard, but Roman Dmitry's forces were producing results that shattered all expectations.
They dominated.
They slaughtered the enemy, carving open a bloody path in an instant.
‘...What on earth is this?’
Amidst the chaotic battlefield, there was someone staring at the unfolding events in utter bewilderment.
Casually cutting down an enemy charging at him, Rodwell Dmitry looked at his surroundings with a dazed expression.
This.
This made absolutely no sense.
*
There was a famous saying in Cairo:
"If you want to succeed, go to the capital."
When Rodwell Dmitry first arrived in the capital, he immediately understood why people said that.
It was a whole new world.
Unlike the unorganized rabble of the fringes, even the city guards were highly disciplined. Aura swordsmen—a phenomenally rare sight in the provinces—could be seen quite often. The rumors were right. Though Rodwell Dmitry had been hailed as a peerless genius back in his small pond, to truly succeed, he had to distinguish himself in the capital.
That was his last memory of Dmitry.
Yet these men, who previously couldn't even hope to match the standards of the capital's lowest guards, were now displaying a shocking spectacle right before his eyes.
Stab!
"Aaargh!"
A Dmitry soldier.
A man with a completely ordinary, forgettable face casually pushed back a Kronos imperial soldier and drove his sword straight into the man's heart. The soldiers of the empire were famous across the continent for their monstrous strength. According to Rodwell Dmitry's memories, it should have been impossible for anyone of Dmitry's caliber to even stand against them. Yet right now, several imperial soldiers were desperately struggling just to fend off a single common soldier.
And it wasn't as if that particular soldier was an exception.
Not a single soldier wearing Dmitry's uniform was being pushed back by the imperial army.
Furthermore, there was Chris.
Rodwell still remembered him clearly. The youth who had been called the genius of Dmitry before Rodwell left for the capital had, in just a few short years, evolved into a monster that defied all common sense.
Flash!
Splatter!
Chris painted the battlefield in blood.
Even when the knights of the Kronos Empire charged at him with their aura flaring, they were no match for his blade. He actively sought out the densest clusters of enemies and slaughtered them without hesitation.
A profound sense of cognitive dissonance washed over Rodwell. Whether it was the ordinary-looking foot soldiers or Chris of the Dmitry Knights, they were completely different from the people Rodwell remembered. Because he, too, was a member of the Dmitry family, he simply couldn't logically comprehend the scene unfolding before his eyes.
But the one who stood out above all the rest was Roman Dmitry.
His martial prowess wasn't just overwhelming—it was downright miraculous. He was proving, with every swing of his sword, exactly how he had claimed the title of the First Sword of Cairo.
"You are my younger brother. If you follow me to the battlefield, I will show you what it means to live as a member of the Dmitry family from now on. In exchange for Rodwell Dmitry, the younger brother of Roman Dmitry, losing an eye... the Kronos Empire will have to pay with countless lives."
Roman's words echoed in his mind.
At the time, he hadn't understood what they truly meant. But now, he finally understood.
The Dmitry family.
They had completely changed.
A family whose name was only known in the remote, backwater provinces had undergone a complete Shedding of Bones and Rebirth, all because of Roman Dmitry. He couldn't begin to fathom how such a thing was even possible. But the bloody reality before his eyes was undeniable. While he had been stationed on the Western Front, Dmitry had undergone a massive, unimaginable transformation.
His mind was in absolute turmoil.
He didn't know how to process the situation. Although Rodwell Dmitry had stepped onto the battlefield, fighting through the handicap of his eyepatch, there wasn't a single role here that actually required his help.
It was then.
"Chris!"
"Yes, my lord!"
In the distance, the main forces of the Kronos Empire were surging forward like a tidal wave. Realizing the center was under attack, the soldiers who had been marching in the vanguard were now rapidly flocking back to reinforce their lines.
Roman spoke calmly, casually decapitating a charging enemy.
"From this moment, we split our forces into two as planned. Take your troops and head to the rear immediately. Assist Count Vandenberg and crush their rear guard. I will hold off the Kronos vanguard heading this way."
It was an utterly reckless strategy.
Rodwell Dmitry wanted to shout, to stop their conversation.
However, both the man giving the order and the man receiving it treated this suicidal choice as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
"Understood. Group 2, follow me!"
Chris immediately pulled back.
Behind him, Roman held his ground alone.
And the moment the enemy vanguard swarmed in...
Rumble!
Unleashing a massive, blinding explosion of aura, Roman threw himself directly into the endlessly surging tide of enemies.