Chapter 340
Chapter 340
Iron Emperor — Chapter 340
"There are many reasons to fight a battle. A battle for victory. A battle to cut the enemy's supply lines. A battle to hold ground..."
As Buru slowly swept his gaze across the enemy soldiers arrayed before them like a folding screen, Muhyul and the remaining soldiers felt the strength drain from the hands clutching their weapons. They had understood the practical meaning behind his words—that any further fighting was pointless.
"You all fought well. We couldn’t hold this place, but we bought plenty of time, and you fought damn well."
"Great General."
"Hngk."
A mournful sound escaped Muhyul.
A few soldiers began to choke up. The enemy troops observing their reaction seemed to catch on; a stir rippled through their ranks. No doubt they were preparing to savor their victory.
Crunch. Crack. Crack.
"So the battle is over, for now."
"Great General?"
Buru was saying it was over. But his actions were not those of a man ending a fight.
He shook out his left hand, the one not gripping the great axe, then rolled his neck from side to side, producing a series of loud pops. As if loosening knotted muscles, he twisted and stretched his limbs.
And yet Buru did not stop talking.
"You've all been through hell. So here's the thing—I've got one more job to do."
As he spoke, he glanced back over his shoulder, and a thick, sticky smile settled deep into the corners of his mouth. The moment they saw that smile, Muhyul and the remaining soldiers tightened their grip on their weapons.
They stared at him, eyes blazing as if determined not to miss a single whispered word between lovers. And to them, Buru murmured:
"There's something we owe the comrades who died to hold this ground."
"..."
Time seemed to stop.
"A Requiem Ceremony."
WHOOM!
After uttering the words, Buru swung his great axe through the air. A sound like the air itself being torn apart burst across the battlefield.
Snap. Crack.
Beside him, Muhyul broke off the arrow shaft embedded in his body and stepped closer.
"We'll need offerings."
"Right."
When Muhyul spoke, his eyes fixed on the Holy Empire troops before them, Buru's short reply came back. The remaining soldiers, having approached unnoticed, were now gathering one by one to form a line.
"The more offerings, the better, eh?"
A soldier whose head had been split open somewhere along the way, now wrapped in a blood-crusted cloth, cut in with a grin.
"Right."
Buru answered him again.
"When are we gonna finish slaughtering 'em all? Not even the whole night'll be enough."
"Heh heh."
A soldier who had limped up, not to be outdone, joined in. Buru answered with a laugh.
Step.
Buru stepped forward and looked left, then right.
Twenty-one smiling Gauri warriors.
He received their gazes one by one, drew a slow breath, and then, facing forward, he called out in a low voice:
"Let's throw the final feast."
"In the end."
Earl Pelloman's face hardened into stone as he watched the twenty-two Gauri soldiers approach. When the enemy had let their weapon hands go slack, he had thought it was a stroke of luck.
He had thought that if the enemy's high-ranking commander and handful of survivors surrendered, it would neatly restore his troops’ morale and show that even these ferocious enemies were only human. Instead, they had suddenly formed a line and were advancing on his forces with fighting spirit blazing.
In the end, it meant they would fight to the very last man. For the Holy Empire soldiers who had endured this brutal battle, the prospect of more fighting could only breed fear. The tenacity the enemy had displayed up to this point had piled up relentlessly, like snowfall.
A single snowflake weighs as light as a feather, but enough snow piled high can collapse a roof and swallow the world whole.
"Vicious bastards."
One of the nobles beside Earl Pelloman spat a curse. At this point, who truly looked like the victor?
Judging by their expressions alone, the enemy looked like the victors.
Unflinching, with absolute confidence.
They were advancing on a force of over ten thousand.
"Baron Sevigi. Finish them off."
Earl Pelloman quietly issued the order. One way or another, it was time to wrap this up.
"Play with them as much as you like, then kill them. The men need to be reminded that these are nothing but a handful of broken, routed remnants."
"Ah, understood."
Baron Sevigi looked briefly puzzled by Earl Pelloman's command, then spurred his horse forward. The order must have surprised him coming from a man who had always seemed like a straightforward knight.
Earl Pelloman watched the baron's retreating back as he shouted orders to the soldiers and let out a bitter smile. The earl delegated the rest of the battlefield cleanup, then urged his horse toward Marquis Luchia. But his ride was cut short before he could get far.
The sensation of hundreds, thousands of blades slicing at his back. Earl Pelloman hastily wrenched his horse's head around and looked behind him. And then he saw it.
Baron Sevigi's head... soaring into the sky.
The Gauri soldiers who had charged forward so boldly had not survived three clashes. They had already been at their limit.
"Heh."
Buru could only laugh.
Even as they died, they never lost their smiles, and in the middle of it all, each one took an enemy soldier with him. Each had claimed his own share of the offerings.
"Hyaap!"
Geom Muhyul, the sole surviving one, was rampaging like a wounded beast. Perhaps because there were no more soldiers to urge on, no more men to command.
Like the paw of a tiger leaping into a pack of jackals, his Hwandudaedo lashed out in every direction.
"Good!"
As if caught up in the rhythm, Buru threw in a shout of encouragement and swept his great axe around. Soldiers fell, cut down like reed stalks.
"What the hell are you all doing!"
When they failed to handle just two men, a red-faced figure on horseback berated the soldiers. Buru's brow furrowed.
Who dares soil the feast table!
Buru launched himself up as if flying through the air, hopping from soldier's head to soldier's head like stepping-stones.
"Hurk!"
SHHK!
"Baron Sevigi!"
By the time Buru landed on the ground, the noisy bastard's head was already sightseeing in the sky. While everyone was gawking at the head of the one called Sevigi drifting through the air, Buru was already swinging his great axe again.
Another five or six heads flew skyward.
"Aaaagh!"
The enemy’s screams became Buru’s song for the dead.
CRACK!
The blood that burst forth in the wake of his great axe was a cup of ambrosia offered by Buru.
Crows flocked to the feast he had laid. They must be the souls of the Gauri soldiers.
They alighted on the feast he had laid out.
And they sang.
Caaaw!
He roared.
"ROOOAR!"
A requiem for those who had fallen there.
The powerless common soldiers fell back, and a silver tide massed together and surged toward him.
"The bigger the offering, the better."
Muhyul, who had drawn near at some point, had let his hair completely loose and his crimson eyes gleamed.
"Right."
Buru answered Muhyul and charged forward. Muhyul followed. There would be no retreat now. The two crows hurled themselves into the silver tide.
"Th-this is impossible!"
Not all knights were equal.
There was a vast difference between the knight orders of provincial lesser nobles and the elite orders of great nobles trained in the capital.
"Charge them all at once!"
Even in identical armor, the gap in skill was obvious. The knights Earl Pelloman had personally led into battle were counted among the capital’s elite, and Marquis Luchia’s personal guard knights were among them as well.
They were called Marquis Luchia's personal bodyguard knights, but it would be more accurate to call them his disciples.
And yet these mighty warriors were being tossed about like small boats caught in a massive typhoon.
"Aaaagh!"
"My arm!"
The enormous typhoon was Eulji Buru and Geom Muhyul.
"Who in the world are those men?!"
A shout erupted from Earl Pelloman, one utterly unlike his usual disposition.
CRACK!
Every knight knew that attacking an enemy commander from behind was disgraceful. But the knight who thrust his longsword at Buru’s back was killed when Buru’s violently swung great axe split his torso open.
"Now! Kill him!"
Anyone would know that one must not lose composure on the battlefield, but that principle did not apply at all to those surrounding Buru. When his great axe became briefly lodged in a dead comrade's torso and failed to come free, the knights rushed in with bloodshot eyes.
"Now this is finally getting worthwhile."
Buru bared his blood-soaked teeth in a smile.
Clang! Crunch!
The ringing of metal and the dull thud of impact sounded in rapid succession.
Instead of pulling his great axe from the corpse, Buru left it lodged there, chopped through the incoming sword blade with the edge of his bare hand, twisted, and kicked in nearly the same instant. The knight whose sword had been severed staggered for balance, while the knight charging beside him folded around Buru’s foot and flew backward faster than he had charged in.
"How can he cut a blade..."
CRUNCH!
The recovering knight gaped in disbelief at his sword, now reduced to half its length, and began to speak, but his words never finished. The great axe, yanked free from the corpse, had already split his skull.
"Uwaaaah!"
Witnessing Buru's combat drove onlookers into madness.
He chopped, kicked, broke, and crushed.
It was textbook close-quarters combat. A manual of slaughter, far removed from the romantic battlefield ideals cherished by lofty knights. The aura-laden swords of a few especially skilled knights failed to cut through Buru's great axe, and like the others, they either died or lost a limb.
CRUNCH!
"Guaaagh!"
A knight whose waist was snapped, armor and all, let out a tearing scream and rolled his eyes back.
Thud.
"Still a long way to go."
When Buru spoke in a low voice, his frightening eyes blazing, the knights charged again with feverish faces. And the results repeated themselves...
"What do you think you're doing!"
Earl Pelloman shouted furiously at the rampaging knights. How were they any different from blood-drunk madmen at this point? But despite his yelling, the knights kept charging.
"No...."
In this unbelievable situation, a single word suddenly flashed through Earl Pelloman's mind.
Terror.
"It can't be!"
To feel a terror so unbearably powerful—what if one felt a terror that could blow away all reason completely?
The result appeared in two forms.
What commonly happens to ordinary soldiers: they flee in terror or collapse where they stand. And the other reaction: driven by terror, they charge mindlessly, like moths hurling themselves into a flame.
"Just what in the..."
Though the thought was his own, Earl Pelloman could only shake his head, unable to believe it.
What kind of beings were knights?
They were men who pushed through downpours of arrows despite their armor and forced their way through forests of densely packed pikes. And men like that... were feeling terror?