Chapter 49
Chapter 49
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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 49
Chapter Title: Showdown
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“A sword?”
Harun scoffed.
“Drawing a sword for a mounted battle? It was a bit bent, but that spear of yours looked decent. Why switch?”
I didn't feel his question was worth answering.
I squeezed the horse's belly hard with my thighs and aimed Vanroah.
Harun grinned.
“Aww... so cold. Fine. Let's end this. You're about at your limit, aren't you?”
The annoying thing about Harun was that for all his talk, he never made the first move.
Just as he had been doing, one of his royal guards stepped forward first this time as well.
They’re all dead, only two left now...
Crack—!
I sent the head of one poor royal guard flying.
Crunch!
The second head was split open.
In the brief opening that appeared before I could recover my sword,
A chill.
The fine hairs on my skin stood on end.
Clop—
The sound of hooves stretched long beside my ear.
A cold wind cut through my bristling hairs.
The air, scorched by aura, smelled burnt.
A brilliant, golden Aura Blade, blooming from the tip of Harun's sword, magnified before my eyes.
I keep feeling this, but…
This... is absurdly fast!
Thwack!
I retreated without delay.
As my horse, sensing my intent, took a step back,
I kicked off its back entirely, throwing my body backward.
“Huh...?”
He must not have expected me to abandon my horse. A weak sound escaped Harun's lips.
And then I saw it.
Harun’s dazzlingly focused Aura Blade flickered and blurred as it passed its intended point of impact.
Harun's specialty was gathering all his power at the end of a mounted charge and unleashing it precisely at the point of impact.
My body was a wreck from blocking it head-on, but thanks to that, I had been able to grasp the exact timing and weakness.
‘First, avoid the moment his power is most concentrated...’
Then, from bottom to top, along the grain of that minutely wavering Aura Blade,
I cut!
CLAAAAANG!
The smell of burning stung my nostrils.
My aura and Harun's shattered in all directions as if in an explosion.
However,
It was different from before.
This time, far more fragments of Harun's golden aura scattered than my own dark blue ones.
“What the—!”
Harun lost his balance, revealing an opening.
If I could, I would have rushed in and cut his throat, but the distance was a bit too far.
Instead,
Slice—
I fired an Aura Shot and cut off the horse's head.
CRUMPLE!
His beloved steed, which had supported Harun's terrifying charges until now, collapsed like a marionette with its strings cut.
Having kicked off the horse, I landed lightly on the ground.
“You...! My Eldin...!”
Harun, who had quickly regained his balance while falling, unleashed a savage killing intent.
What's his problem?
This from the guy who was grinning when he heard his lover had died.
So the horse's name was Eldin?
Like I care.
“That look on your face... Right. Let's talk after I've cut off both your legs.”
What? What was wrong with my expression?
Schwing—
Harun, now thoroughly enraged, drew his sword and charged.
He was still nimble.
His speed was chilling, and his aura concentrated terrifyingly as it waited for the moment of explosion.
But I had already finished my analysis.
CLANG!
It was the same pattern.
The only difference was that this was a slash, not a thrust, so I leaped forward instead of back.
I split the grain of his concentrated aura a step before it could generate its explosive power.
“Keuk!”
Harun's face twisted in pain.
He had focused so much aura, and since it was forcibly shattered, the backlash was bound to be immense.
A tidal wave was probably raging inside his body right now.
Vwoooom—!
But Harun’s grip on his sword only tightened.
Another of his specialties was a relentless barrage of attacks.
The shattered aura surged up the blade again without a moment's pause.
Not that it would change anything.
“It's useless, no matter how many times you try.”
“Ha! You can't be a cavalry commander without being stubborn!”
Clang! Cl-clang! CLANG!
The smell of burning tickled my nose. Fragments of aura glittered before my eyes. Harun clenched his jaw, sharp breaths escaping between his teeth.
Harun desperately tried to press me, but all his attempts ended in failure.
Because I had already thoroughly analyzed his martial arts.
And now, Vanroah was in my hand.
The power of ancient sword ki varied wildly depending on the quality of the sword used...
And Vanroah was a treasured sword without equal.
Rather, the shocking thing was that Harun's sword was still holding up without breaking in two.
I was using Vanroah's sword ki to repeatedly strike only its weak points... and it was enduring this?
Just how much aura does he have?
Clang! K-crack!
Of course, Harun wasn't entirely unscathed.
“Cough! Cough!”
He spat out mouthfuls of blood from having forced out so much aura.
The hot air and acrid, burnt smell were now mixed with the metallic scent of blood.
But through his disheveled hair, his pale golden eyes still shone with a cold light.
“You want more?”
At my question, Harun bared his teeth and growled.
“The only cavalry that stops... is dead cavalry...!”
Having lost all the royal guards he used as meat shields and the beloved horse that gave him mobility, Harun now faced me one-on-one.
He was a completely different person from the slick character he had been at the start.
GROOOOOM—!
He charged straight at me, as if ready to burn everything to the ground.
His spirit, far from being broken, blazed even brighter as his Aura Blade lit up.
WHOOOOSH—!
The violent power of the Aura Blade tore the atmosphere apart.
A few horse archers who were too slow to escape were caught in the storm, crashing to the ground with their horses. THUD! THUD!
Blood splattered on my body from all directions.
“Hyaaah! Hraah!”
Harun charged, letting out incomprehensible battle cries.
His steps were simple.
He just ran toward me.
If I took one step back, he advanced two.
If I was pushed back two steps, he charged forward three.
‘Is he insane...?’
A cold sweat trickled down my back, even though I had been certain of victory.
Harun seemed intoxicated.
There was no doubt in his mind.
It was as if he believed that no matter how many times I blocked him, he only needed to break through once.
He swung his blade with all his might every single moment.
A storm of consecutive strikes... that would only end when one of us was dead.
Then, at one moment,
CLAAAAANG—!
“Gwaaaack...”
It was a particularly clean hit.
So much so that the shattered aura fell from the sky like snowflakes.
Harun vomited blood.
He bled profusely, an amount incomparable to before.
The fact that his sword didn't waver even then was astounding.
Harun smiled, blood pouring from his mouth.
“The gale... doesn't stop...”
An Aura Blade bloomed once more from the sword he held in a twisted grip.
I tensed and corrected my stance.
But it wasn't our swords that ended this fight.
“My lord!”
A warrior on horseback charged in and intervened.
She looked familiar.
The very same high-grade Expert who had come to Kashu City to deliver the ultimatum.
Was her name Pirje?
She suddenly cut in, grabbed Harun by the collar, and threw him onto her horse before fleeing.
“...”
I expected Harun to struggle, but he was silent, just hanging limply over the horse like a corpse.
Only then did I realize.
‘That guy... he was already unconscious.’
In any case,
I couldn't miss this opportunity.
I grabbed a horse and shouted with all my might.
“Harun is fleeing! Everyone, pursue! Capture him!”
That was the decisive blow.
Enemy commanders had already been falling in various places.
On top of that, the commander-in-chief, Harun, was in full retreat.
It was like the final drop of water falling into a glass already filled to the brim.
“We... we lost?”
“Look over there! The horse archers are all running away!”
“Dammit... Just run!”
Harun's army, which had held on tenaciously even after losing its commanders, collapsed in an instant.
Worse, the mid-level commanders were out of sync.
“Protect Lord Harun!”
“What are you talking about! We’ll all die if we fall back now!”
“But Lord Harun’s life is in danger!”
“Stop talking nonsense and maintain formation!”
“It’s already broken. Retreat!”
Should they protect Harun, maintain formation and fight, or simply flee...
With the high-grade Expert officers who should have been making that decision either dead or tied up, the confusion, far from subsiding, only grew.
In the end, the ground was littered with the bodies of Ailun's warriors, who died in their indecision.
I yelled until my throat was raw.
“Advance! Keep advancing! Don't let a single one escape!”
* * *
At first, they must have been bewildered.
“Did we win...?”
“We won, right?”
“The army of one of the Five Kings is... running away?”
Are those warriors fleeing before us really the famed, powerful soldiers of Ailun, said to be the strongest in Norverge...? But why are they running?
What came next must have been a thrill.
“Now that I look at them... aren’t they a bunch of pushovers?”
“Shit, they’re running away just when I was getting ready to fight?!”
“Kuhhh—! The Five Kings. Nothing special.”
“I won... That's 300 Dalons...”
And what erupted at the end was the most primal form of joy!
“Uwaaaaaaah!!!!”
“We won!”
“300 Dalons! 300 Dalons!!!”
“I won! I won!”
“What did I tell you! I said I’d win!!! I said we’d win!!! Uwaaaaaah!!”
Surge!
The army moved like a wave.
Where in the world was all this energy coming from, which they thought had been completely spent in the fierce battle?
“Kill them all!”
“Pursue them to the end!”
They chased Harun's fleeing army, their heavy armor bouncing as they ran, full of vigor.
As they joyfully captured, pursued, and killed the enemy soldiers, advancing and advancing, the heat of battle gradually cooled, and the forgotten fatigue began to creep back in.
That was when they saw it.
The back of the man leading them from the very front.
A path of countless corpses formed behind him, his dark blue aura undulating.
Whether they were elite warriors or Experts, all who tried to block his path simply became new material to pave that road.
Only then did Lansen’s warriors realize.
The soldiers, who had been unable to grasp the state of the battle because they were focused only on what was in front of them, slowly looked around.
How did this happen?
Why did the enemy suddenly start to flee?
Thanks to whom were they able to win this gamble where they had wagered their very lives?
“So... Count Lansen... beat Harun?”
“Didn’t you hear him earlier? He shouted it really loud.”
“Well... I heard him, but... I was out of it. There were spears and swords flying right in front of my face.”
“Wow... I knew he was strong, but to beat Harun.”
“I saw it. He looked half-dead being carried away on a horse.”
“No way...”
“It’s not ‘no way.’ To my eyes, he looked less half-dead and more just plain dead.”
“It wasn't even a one-on-one fight, was it?”
“Didn't you see it earlier? The Count single-handedly tearing through the horse archer unit?”
“Is he... a new member of the Five Kings?”
With no more enemies to kill right in front of them,
and their limbs growing heavy,
their movements gradually slowed, and they began to talk amongst themselves.
A chill ran down their spines as they slowly grasped a reality far greater than before. A deep, resonating conviction settled in their hearts.
“This is...”
“This might be...”
No one said it out loud, but their eyes conveyed the same meaning.
‘Did we... just hit the jackpot in life?’
No, seriously.
Our commander just tore one of the Five Kings to shreds.
And we saw it with our own eyes.
And he's only twenty-seven...
Most importantly, he pays incredibly well.
And! I’m serving under him right now? The salary and performance bonuses are unbelievably generous...!
‘This is insane!!’
In the hearts of the warriors of Roverland, known as outlaws,
the embers of something called fiery loyalty were ignited