Your Opponent Is Me
"Waaaaaaaaaah!"
"Forward! Slaughter every last one of them!"
A savage battle raged at the mouth of the canyon. The narrow entrance limited how many soldiers could push through at once, and the Kar warriors entrenched along the canyon walls exploited that terrain to full effect, locking the Imperial troops in a brutal grind.
It was natural ground that should have been enough to offset even a tenfold disparity in numbers.
"How… how is this even possible…?"
Bractus muttered in disbelief at the chaos unfolding before his eyes. Far too many of the warriors who should have been concentrated at the front had been forced to peel away and meet Imperial soldiers striking them from the rear.
"What the hell are you doing?! Stop them and get every warrior back to the entrance!"
He roared like a cornered beast, but the only answers that came back from either side were screams. To make matters worse, a section of the canyon wall had collapsed without warning, and massive boulders crashed down into the center of the pass, sealing the path. Their forces had been split clean in two, and there was no avoiding it.
Then—
"…?"
A small group entered Bractus's line of sight. Roughly ten soldiers were climbing the sloping face of the left-hand canyon wall, cutting down warriors as they went. That slope was where he had stationed archers specifically to pin down the Imperials flooding in from the front. If that position fell…
"…Turak. Take some warriors and kill those men. That ground must be held!"
"Understood!"
"I'll deal with that one coming straight up the middle."
A force was driving into the center of their rear. The man at its head, carving through bodies with his sword, radiated a presence that was anything but ordinary. At this moment, Bractus was almost certainly the only one here who could match him.
Turak answered his general's order with a shout. He still had no idea how the situation had deteriorated this far, but Bractus was right—things were critical. If the warriors posted along the canyon walls went down, there would be nothing left to stop the enemy main force pouring in from the front.
Turak and a dozen warriors broke into a hard run toward the left-hand wall.
Pabat!
Urgency drove every stride. He had to clear this threat fast and get back to holding the main assault.
If we just stop these ones… we can re-form the line in no time.
The collapsed wall had blocked the path and shattered their formation, but it would only take a few minutes for warriors to scramble over the fallen rock and link up again. What he still could not accept was something else entirely.
How did they get inside the canyon this fast…?
Their watch had been airtight. The eastern canyon had been dismissed as impassable even for their own people. Crossing it meant fording a river with a murderous current—
That shouldn't be possible.
The water ran more than three meters deep. Even he, a warrior marked with three feather tattoos, would struggle to cross it.
Don't tell me… there's someone among them stronger than that.
Turak shook his head. Impossible. A powerhouse of that caliber would already have been known to them.
He cast the doubt aside and closed in on Arteon and his men from behind.
"You bastaaaaards!"
With a thunderous bellow, Turak charged the rearmost soldier trailing Arteon. The man spun in a panic and got his weapon up—
Jjeong!
"Argh!"
—only to be blasted off his feet by Turak's strike and sent tumbling across the stone. Mana coiled along Turak's blade; condensed sword aura flashed with lethal intent.
In that same instant, Arteon snatched up a fallen Kar warrior's axe and hurled it at Turak.
Hwiririririk!
The axe spun through the air at vicious speed, flying straight for Turak's face. Turak flicked his sword and casually knocked it aside, then locked eyes with Arteon.
Pabat! Tadadak!
The brief window Arteon had bought was enough. The soldier who had gone down scrambled back to his feet.
In a heartbeat, Turak and Arteon faced each other across the narrow, sloping choke of the canyon path. Arteon glanced back over his shoulder, then looked to his men.
"Sergeant Ponlaron! There's nothing above but archers. Take the men and cut them down!"
"And here?!"
"I'll hold it."
Resolve burned in Arteon's eyes. Kill the archers on the walls and the canyon's greatest advantage vanished. It would become a pure contest of strength in a tight corridor—and with their formation already shattered, the outnumbered Kar would collapse in short order.
Ponlaron's gaze wavered. Why, at a moment like this…
He looks just like Sir Isaac…
That same decisiveness—focusing on the best call instead of his own safety, even in danger. And that baseless, stubborn conviction that if you left his back to him, he would somehow make it work. At first, Ponlaron had hated the idea of following Arteon instead of Isaac. There had been no time to argue in the heat of the crisis, and you didn't defy a platoon leader's order anyway, so he had come along. But now he thought he was starting to understand why.
"Then I'm counting on you," Ponlaron said.
"See you alive."
Ponlaron nodded at Arteon's words.
"The rest of you, on me!"
With that, Ponlaron and the remaining soldiers charged up the slope.
Turak's eyes flew wide.
"You think I'll just let them go?!"
He had barely taken two steps when—
Kwaang!
Arteon smashed his spear into the ground. A section of the narrow path cracked apart, stone dust cascading into the drop below. Arteon's eyes flashed sharp as a blade.
"Your opponent is me."
"You little brat…!"
A soldier who looked absurdly young was blocking his way. It was enough to make anyone's blood boil. But the choke was so tight that three men at most could attack at once—and on the right side, a single misstep meant a straight fall into the abyss.
Turak snarled orders.
"I'll pin him down. The rest of you, go after the ones who went ahead. You will catch them!"
"Yes, sir!"
Arteon tightened his grip on his spear as the Kar warriors answered with hard-edged shouts. There was little room to plant his feet and even less to swing a spear. And the three feather tattoos carved into the shoulder of the man in front of him marked an upper warrior of the Kar—the strongest fighter present short of the commanders themselves. As he was now, Arteon was not supposed to be able to beat him.
But…
Retreat never crossed his mind. Holding this ground was the job in front of him. That was all that mattered.
"Come."
"Hraaaaaah!"
The word had barely left Arteon's mouth before Turak bellowed and charged. Unlike a normal sword, his blade was short in length and broad in the edge—something closer to a fusion of sword and axe, built thick enough to endure the full force of a crushing blow.
Anyone who fights with a weapon like that…
Was someone who put absolute faith in raw power. Factor in the three feather tattoos, and the conclusion was simple.
I cannot meet him head-on. Not ever.
Arteon had fought thousands of Kar warriors. He knew the type at a glance, and he knew exactly what he had to do.
"Hup!"
As Turak came on like a landslide, Arteon took one step back and thrust his spear out long and straight. Turak simply turned his head aside and let the point slide past. The thrust wasn't threatening enough to bother parrying—and more than that, he meant to split the boy in half with a single stroke the moment the opening came.
The instant he recovers the spear and starts his next attack…
That would be Turak's turn. A spear's reach was its strength, but recovering it always cost time.
In the blink of an eye, Turak finished every calculation and raised his sword for the kill.
But in that same instant—
Pit!
Something seemed to whip sideways past him. The boy who had been holding a spear nearly two meters long was suddenly gripping a rod less than half that length. And the moment Turak registered it—
Sseuek!
"…!"
Something flashed. From the shortened shaft in the boy's hand, something shot out at blinding speed.
Jjeong!
"Gah!"
Turak swung on pure instinct and knocked it aside. The spear glanced off his blade and stabbed past into empty air—
"Argh!"
"Lord Turak!"
—and the Kar warrior who had been about to sprint past him caught the reeling Turak with a shout. An attack no one could have predicted. Did the boy have an artifact that could change the length of its spear?
And that wasn't even the most shocking part. The mana control Arteon had shown in the space of a single shortening and extension—how could some young Imperial foot soldier display control like that?
There was no time to dwell on it.
Pabat!
Having stolen the timing with that unpredictable strike, Arteon kicked off the ground and vaulted into the air. A jump—in a path this narrow. Turak's eyes flared.
But Arteon's target was not Turak.
"Hraaaaaaah!"
Kwaaaang!
Mid-leap, Arteon slammed the wall above where Turak and the Kar warriors stood. Mana detonated on impact. A heavy crack split the rock, and chunks of stone began raining down over their heads. The Kar warriors scrambled backward—
Kung!
—and Turak stomped the ground hard, launching himself straight at Arteon. In that sliver of time, it was the best choice he had.
"Playing cheap little tricks…!"
"Tricks? I was just peeling the others off you."
"What?"
Had the boy actually planned that last strike to force the warriors back? No—more than that—
"You're saying you knew I would charge?"
"If a few falling rocks are enough to make you give ground, maybe you should tear those tattoos off yourself."
Arteon knew the Kar better than anyone alive. He knew the weight that came with feather tattoos—and the emptiness without them. An upper warrior with three feathers could stand toe-to-toe with an Imperial knight and not yield an inch. And one of them was standing right in front of him.
So not a clean fight.
Make the situation as filthy as possible.
Keep him from thinking straight. Keep stacking pressure. That single remark about driving the ordinary warriors back might already be clogging the man's head.
And then—
Pabat!
Arteon, who by every rule of spear fighting should have been widening the distance, charged instead. Turak's brow twitched.
"You must be desperate to die!"
Mana surged along Turak's blade and condensed into sword aura. A spearman who was supposed to fight from range was closing in. But Turak had never imagined what kind of spearmanship Arteon used—or what kind of power the close-quarters combat of Vargas Northern Spearmanship truly carried.
Kwa-kwa-kwang!
What erupted before his eyes in the next breath was that power made flesh.
"I'll finish this in an instant."
Arteon's words rode the wind like a reaper's whisper.