Chapter 237
Chapter 237
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 237
Chapter Title: Throwing Sparks (3)
-----------------------------------------------------------------
“Gotcha!!!”
When you're completely absorbed in surviving, your sense of time starts to warp.
This is especially true for soldiers on the battlefield. They move through a bizarre flow of time where every event unfolds faster than expected, yet every battle drags on slower than imagined.
Incoming arrows and spears appear torturously slow. Meanwhile, siege towers approach leisurely, only to arrive astonishingly fast, hooks already snagging the walls before you know it.
Empire soldiers swarm up the siege ladders, shrieking, roaring, unleashing their desperate will to live.
Like a tidal wave crashing in. Like a dam that's held back everything until now, suddenly swept away all at once.
“Seize the walls!! Open the gates! Battering ram! Not yet?!”
“Battering ram in position! Impact commencing!”
Crossing the narrow bridge over the moat, the battering ram—surrounded by ironclad infantry defenses—advanced on the massive wooden gates.
The ram, carved in the shape of a sheep's head, drew back taut, then slammed forward with elastic force.
-Kuuuung!
“Break it! Break it down!!”
“Pull! Pull! Now, release!”
Even as their throats cracked and spat blood, the soldiers never stopped bellowing at the top of their lungs.
Impact. Another impact. The ram struck the gates like a rippling wave. With a crunch, cracks spiderwebbed out from the point of the ram's head.
“Faster and easier than expected.”
Everard watched the front lines cling to the walls and grinned.
Duke Erb had claimed the galleries a touch quicker, but Erb's legion wouldn't be marching straight into the palace after securing the walls.
From the start, such a minor difference meant nothing. His sector was the farthest from Labirata's palace, and the narrow contact area limited how many troops could pour into the capital at once.
“Well, not entirely unexpected. Consider how those fools have fought up to now.”
One knight chuckled dryly. Everard let out a laugh that carried all his relieved satisfaction.
Right. That's why the war had been so easy so far. They hadn't suffered a single defeat on any front because—
‘It's not the duke's brilliance. The enemy was just weak.’
That made sense.
The Imperial Army wasn't incompetent. Nor were he himself or the war nobles' tactical councils. That thought filled Everard with pride.
“The first soldier to breach the walls gets a golden commendation!”
Everard, his spirits soaring, bellowed and swung his sword.
The wall batteries had all been seized—no more cannon fire rained down. The arrow barrages that had darkened the sky had fallen silent.
If you judged by individual prowess, those spectral legion skeletons were no match for humans. They were frail, light, rigid. The skeletons clattered as they swung spears and swords with effort, but the battle-hardened elites easily parried and shattered their skulls.
The moment they lost the advantage of range and siege engines—the moment the walls were taken—their defeat was sealed. As more siege towers hooked onto the galleries one by one, Everard's smile deepened.
-Kwaaaaang!
“The gates!! Breached!”
The massive gates shattered amid a plume of dust. Now. Everard roared savagely.
“Imperial cavalry!”
“Yes!”
“For His Majesty's glory!!”
“May the Holy Levintear Empire endure forever!”
-Dududududu!
At Everard's cry, the cavalry—who had waited astride their mounts for this exact moment—charged. Knights under the Imperial Central High Command. The capital's elite horsemen, who had honed their skills solely for promotion and greater honor, surged forward as one, like a wedge hammering into the enemy's heart.
Toward the demolished, gaping maw of the dust-choked inner city!
* * *
“We've backed them into a corner now.”
Fernandez gazed at the hawk drifting in the sky and murmured. It couldn't hear him, of course, but somehow, its movements felt like a conversation.
The hawk wheeled and soared freely.
Its flight seemed aimless at first glance, but the intricate flows of mana from its wingbeats betrayed that it was no ordinary creature.
“Planning to wait longer, Labirata?”
All outer walls were taken. Even Duke Erb, who had scaled the walls first, was leading his forces into the city streets.
Vibrant Imperial banners rose atop the walls everywhere.
Batteries drooped limply, and the undead archers who had drawn bows from the ramparts toppled as motionless corpses, swept aside.
The battle for the outer walls was ending.
Far too easily. Twice as easy as anyone had predicted.
-Piiiieek!
The hawk screeched from beyond the clouds. And at that instant, the heads of the mages preparing grand spells toward the palace exploded in unison.
* * *
Without warning, without a scream. Human heads burst like watermelons.
The Empire's battle mages collapsed simultaneously.
Headless corpses toppled one by one onto the magic circles reinforcing their mana circuits.
The scene was so utterly surreal that the on-duty knights and soldiers guarding the mages could only stare blankly, too stunned to even shout a warning.
“Wha... what the...?”
A grizzled veteran barely whispered it. In the heat of battle, neutralizing combat mages was secondary to grasping what it meant.
By the time the soldier snapped back to reality with a jolt and looked up, it was already too late.
-Kugugugung...!!!
“Ah... aaaah...”
The soldier counted his blessings that he was assigned to the rear, a relatively safe spot guarding the mages. The walls were crumbling. All at once. Into dust.
* * *
-Kugugugung!!!
It wasn't just vibrations. This was an earthquake.
Horses buckled at the knees; running soldiers tangled and fell in chaos. No one could see through the massive dust cloud billowing from the walls.
The walls were collapsing. Screams and despair scattered like the dust. In this era, walls were static fixtures. Like mountains, fields, or seas. Part of the landscape.
And when such a 'natural' fixture crumbled... could you compare it to a landslide or tsunami?
Most soldiers were near the walls, and even the greatsword nobles and field commanders directing them were atop those walls. The disaster only worsened.
“Labirata... impressive.”
Those still compos mentis fell into two categories.
Those far in the rear, witnessing this overwhelming natural calamity from afar, shivering more in awe than shock.
-Kugugugung!!
And those who could see the dense net of light cascading from the heavens like a waterfall.
Those with mana circuits embedded in their bodies, feeling the flows through their flesh.
Mages.
Fernandez marveled at the beautiful mana torrent pouring down like a waterfall, swirling like quicksand.
Each fragment was an exquisitely precise incantation, and even as they formed that massive flow and raged, there was scarcely any mana waste or leakage.
Just as a swordsman at their peak could channel mana through their body, a mage at a certain realm could wield raw mana itself. By the standards of attainment, Labirata's display was mythic sorcery.
However...
-No one casts magic like that without a cost.
‘Right. The backlash must be enormous.’
If Labirata could casually unleash such massive spells anytime, it would have unified civilized society long ago. No chance.
To command magic of that scale required nearing Munto's prime.
Labirata's place in Munto's conclave marked it as one of Upper Ashit's greatest heroes—but also proved it was clearly below Munto's level.
-Now's our chance.
‘Perfect.’
All troops were buried in the rubble. Assuming that single spell wiped out everything below was extreme optimism. It wouldn't. The spell disrupted formations and inflicted casualties, but stopped there.
It emphasized mental and visual shock over physical. Even survivors below would have lost all morale, fixated only on retreat.
Fernandez patted the shoulder of Kirhas Hearttaker, who stared vacantly ahead.
“Uh, m-my lord. N-now. Right now...”
“Just the walls crumbling. Why the fuss?”
“P-pardon?”
“We've seen the World Tree burn. We were there above it. We've met great demons. After all that, isn't gawking at this a bit much?”
At his words, Kirhas swiftly regained her composure. She smirked and nodded.
“You're right. So, what's the plan? Retreat?”
“I need your help, Kirhas. We're breaking through head-on.”
“Into... there?”
“Precisely, to Labirata's palace. Labirata can't be allowed to survive.”
The beastfolk tiger alliance and Duke Erb needed to stabilize the southern wilds reliably. Labirata was an unforeseen variable absent in his past life, impossible to predict in the coming war with Karadskär.
Empowering Kirhas, who had decisively halted Karadskär before, was the rational choice. Fernandez gripped his reins tight and spurred forward.
“Follow me. We're becoming assassins now.”
“What we always do.”
Infiltrate deep into enemy territory, slay the leader, extract. Viewed that way, it wasn't much different from the missions Fernandez and Kirhas had undertaken for the Inquisition.
Fernandez chuckled at her words, and Kirhas whipped her mount ahead, shouting.
“I'll lead the way!”
“I trust you!”
Kirhas's eyes advanced toward victory on an instinctive level.
Not some magical effect, but a peculiarity of her soul.
Past-life Kirhas—specifically, the one from Munto's horizontal world—had accumulated vast karma and stature. Merging with her soul during the crossing to Kadan created a rift.
Somewhere in her instincts, the 'completed' Kirhas from another world screamed, 'This is the path.' Current Kirhas didn't understand it.
That spiritual dissonance manifested in her eyes.
Perhaps, once she amassed enough stature, it would fade naturally. Then it would become not a special ability, but cold, reasoned judgment.
That's what heroic stature was. Fernandez chased her with a wry smile. A fated gift he could never have. All he'd gained lifetime after lifetime against such foes—fleeing, scheming—was ruthless survival instinct and vile plots.
Still. Having watched her heroic birth up close, witnessed her growth fully, he couldn't help but feel proud of Kirhas's spirited cry and dash.
Fernandez laughed as he followed her into the dust, into the fog of mana and earth churning across the battlefield.