Chapter 139
Chapter 139
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 139
Chapter Title: Clash of the Spears
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Rakrak had no fear whatsoever of Ledin Bial Oser's spear blade.
It was Ledin who dodged just before their spear tips could meet.
'This charge is nothing more than the brute clashes beasts engage in. No reason to collide head-on like this.'
As Ledin veered away from Rakrak's spear blade, the knight order split apart as well, trying to evade Rakrak's attack range.
Or more precisely, attempting to.
"Cowards!"
Rakrak spun his body halfway around and thrust his spear blade long and far, striking the rear of the knight order.
A few elks collapsed outright, unseating their knights.
The holy knights of the vanguard leaped right back up, facing off against Rakrak.
Ledin and his knights were circling back around in a wide arc.
'Not a single word of conversation. This troll called Ledin must be able to command the entire knight order without even speaking.'
Rakrak charged at the dismounted holy knights.
With a thunderous roar, his spear blade pierced the first knight straight through his shield.
He shook off the blood toward the next charging knight, hurled the spear at the one after, and kicked the third knight's body skyward.
The massive frame, clad in steel armor and over two meters tall, soared dozens of meters into the air.
'Next up... Hm?'
Rakrak crouched to launch himself at the next knight, then rolled across the ground instead.
A sharp whoosh cut the air as a glowing arrow embedded itself right where Rakrak had been.
-Thud!
Rakrak rose and eyed the spot where the arrow had struck.
An explosion bloomed there.
'No ordinary arrow.'
The shooter was Ledin and his knights, now charging in.
Even in full heavy armor, the holy knight order displayed pinpoint archery.
But Rakrak was no slouch with a bow himself.
He thrust out his left hand and gripped the empty air.
A golden composite bow materialized in his left hand, while his right clutched a bolt of lightning itself, glowing fiercely.
Rakrak nocked the lightning to the bowstring and drew it back with all his might.
Ledin shouted.
-Evade!
Rakrak loosed his shot.
A streak of light connected Rakrak and Ledin for a split millisecond in a brilliant flash, and in the next instant, six holy knights struck by the lightning bolt billowed thick black smoke from within their armor as they tumbled from their mounts.
'Do the Apostles of Yacheon bear no empty titles?'
Ledin thought he had no cause for self-reflection.
Ledin believed himself plenty strong.
He had thought so when borrowing a god's power to slay his own father, when co-opting the knight order and making it his own, and when leading them to crush the rebels at unprecedented speed.
'But I must admit I've walked too easy a path until now.'
In that first charge, Ledin had no choice but to dodge Rakrak's attack.
He could clearly envision what would have happened had he met it head-on.
'I would have been unhorsed, and the knights behind me flung aside.'
Rakrak possessed the ferocity of one who had slain a god, backed by the ability to match it.
'A monster who can kill gods. I'm not his equal.'
Ledin judged he needed a different approach.
-Split the unit in two. Vanguard, follow me. Rearguard, with the vice-commander. And, vice-commander?
"Yes!"
-Take your unit and pin down Rakrak's feet.
"Understood."
As Ledin turned his direction, half the knights following him wheeled to match.
-Meanwhile, the remaining vanguard strikes the Blackscale main force. Rakrak's weakness... is those retreating soldiers.
By the time Rakrak drove his spear into the skull of the last dismounted knight, the knight he'd booted into the sky earlier crashed back to earth.
-Crunch!
Rakrak glanced back and forth between the two splitting knight detachments.
'Trying to shake me off somehow, are they?'
Rakrak pondered briefly.
He could support the main unit, but that would leave the other knight detachment free to hit the Blackscale army.
Either way, it meant taking losses. They were short-handed as it was.
"...Grrgh!"
Rakrak spotted a troll holy knight who had been smashed into the ground, groaning as he pushed himself up.
Blood black as ink poured from beneath his visor, but somehow, he seemed alive.
'Tougher bodies than expected. Can't afford to get sloppy with them.'
Rakrak, his face twisted in a scowl, realized he didn't need to shoulder everything alone.
He glanced at the sky, then booted the rising holy knight's head clean off.
-Thwack!
The severed head sailed far into the distance.
Vice officer Suheon galloped alongside Blackscale commander Basen Rak Oranz on horseback.
"General, the scouts are back."
"Situation?"
"Not good. The Divine Flame army is joining late, but the Stone Mask forces were already mobilized."
Suheon relayed the scouts' report on the Stone Mask army's numbers and defenses.
"Numbers are about 10,000 for now, but that doesn't seem to be the full force."
"Total estimate?"
"Unclear. Still compiling from scouts, but enemy units keep popping up. Roughly 30,000."
Suheon continued.
"At first I thought retreating this way was a bad call, but looking again, it's not. Stone Mask forces are everywhere. We're effectively surrounded. I can't think of any way out."
Basen spoke from atop his galloping kokatu.
"Different numbers from what we knew. Their preparations too."
"Pardon? Ah, yes. Indeed."
"We usually scout thoroughly."
"Yes. But this time, maybe we slipped up..."
"No, we didn't. I confirmed everything myself. And parts we miss, Yacheon covers for us sometimes, right? Isn't that why the priests chase after these iron-stinking swordsmen?"
Suheon chuckled at that.
"Blaming Yacheon, are you?"
"No. It means they—and Sukseon—prepared meticulously."
"Don't all war prep boil down to that?"
"Sure, but they prepared for today all this time. So we should be glad."
"Glad? Why?"
As Suheon stared in confusion, Basen said,
"This feels like our last fight with the alliance."
Suheon laughed.
"Excellent."
"Order the whole army to pick up speed. Full gallop if possible."
"You sure? Telling them to run faster?"
Basen clicked his tongue.
"Vice officer."
"Yes?"
"You've still got a lot to learn."
Suheon looked puzzled.
Basen said,
"If we're surrounded, we're not retreating anymore. We're charging."
Suheon, face lighting up with realization, slowed his horse.
Someone else drew up on Basen's opposite side.
A scout.
"Bad news. The rear of the unit's been caught!"
Basen turned to look at the army's tail end.
-Loose!
At Ledin's command, the knight order unleashed their arrows.
The glowing arrows shot from the knights struck Blackscale soldiers without ever touching the ground.
Soldiers who had let their guard down against mere arrows writhed and screamed as the projectiles embedded in their flesh.
-Aaaagh!
The impact sites suddenly swelled, flesh ripping open as muscles, blood vessels, bones, and nerves burst outward.
Those organs twisted into grotesque new forms.
Even the lucky ones who avoided direct hits were pursued to their backs and cut down by the knights' blades.
When a knight's blade severed an arm, it instantly unraveled into muscle, vessels, bone, and nerves, scattering across the ground.
The next screaming soldier was struck at the throat.
'...The power of order!'
Ledin exulted at the sight of this new order.
Sukseon's fundamental power was the force of weaving and binding.
Originally tied to tangled skeins of thread or intricate woven tapestries.
But many gods' powers embodied both creation and destruction.
For instance, Yacheon birthed bugs but also drove them away through his apostles.
Thus, Sukseon's priests wielded not just the skill to unravel threads but also to bind them.
'And we holy knights possess an even higher level of power.'
If one could bind, one could also unbind.
'It's a matter of perspective.'
Unraveling the bound might not seem like much on its own.
But shift your view, and it had uses.
After all, everything in the world could be seen as 'bound states.'
A well-made garment, a log cabin fitted without nails, a book, the alchemists' intricate mechanisms.
'Living beings are just another bound state. Life is merely more complex binding—its essence no different from death.'
Ledin stabbed the back of a fleeing Blackscale soldier and completely unraveled him.
'This is true... genuine...'
But Ledin's praise for Sukseon cut short.
'...Bugs?'
As Ledin and the knights raised their bows again, a swarm of pitch-black beetles appeared before them.
As if challenging him to unravel these too.
'Yacheon!'
Ledin had thoroughly researched every god on the continent, so he knew Yacheon had deep ties to bugs in the past.
'These pathetic bugs...'
The less complex, the easier to unravel, Ledin figured.
Sure enough, clothes or books could be unbound with this divine power merely by touch.
But contrary to expectation, these beetles refused to come apart easily.
Struck by blades, they spilled shells, guts, and ichor onto the ground—that was all.
When one beetle vanished, another took its place; unravel one, and more blocked the way.
'Yacheon's power? Or bugs by nature...'
Vision obscured, the elks grew anxious, slowing, hesitating, halting, even backing away.
As Ledin battled the sudden beetle swarm, he sensed a flash of light at his back.
'Damn, wasted too much time?'
It was Rakrak.
Fortunately, Rakrak hadn't finished off the other knight detachment—he was just harrying their heels.
'No, wait. He saw his main unit under attack and panicked. Chance for a pincer strike!'
Ledin bellowed to his knights.
-Charge Rakrak! Arrows loose!
The knight order broke free of the beetle swarm and surged toward Rakrak.
Rakrak and Anaksa thundered across the plain.
Knights on elks peppered them with arrows from front and rear.
Every one a master archer, no misses.
At last, an arrow struck Rakrak's forearm.
-Got him! Now, if the power of order infuses...
Rakrak yanked the arrow out immediately, but the struck forearm bubbled as if boiling.
Rakrak's internal organs were shifting to reestablish themselves.
Rakrak drew a deep breath and glared at his right arm.
"Hah!"
Tension flooded the arm, halting the changes dead.
Rakrak resumed his charge.
"Keep it up, troll!"