Ch.1237Brief Respite

Nigel and Turangkai weren’t the only ones who shone—Caljarat, who took the lead, was equally brilliant.

“KREUAAAAGH—!”

Though he couldn’t display the full might befitting a demigod since he fought with his divinity sealed at my command, his body, having experienced transcendence, naturally exerted power of a different caliber even without divine power.

Each time his six newly-forged greatswords sliced through the air, purple flashes of light extended outward, shredding everything within dozens of meters ahead.

—KWAGAGAGAGAK!

A storm of slashes impossible to dodge or stop. Everything touched by that light was carved apart, regardless of whether it was flesh or metal. His momentum was as relentless as an axe splitting firewood.

“GYAAAACK…!”

“What the hell is that blue-armored bastard?! Is he a monster?!”

A man who charged forward using a wall of blood as a shield was sliced apart, spilling his flesh and entrails, while a woman who had transformed into mist was caught the moment she materialized, her head smashed to pieces by a single punch.

“T-this is impossible, impossible to block…!”

A downpour of blood and flesh fragments scattered like crimson insects dispersing in a gale.

Partly due to the weakness of our opponents, but even accounting for that, the overwhelming and one-sided slaughter continued.

Until the vampire border patrol, who had staked their lives to stop us, was completely annihilated without even slowing us down.

“Send out all the messenger bats! We must hurry and deliver this urgent news to the castle!”

“—Ah, is that so? What a shame.”

“Human?! When did you get here…!”

They tried to make a final desperate attempt to alert their comrades at Nirvator Castle by sending messenger bats, but even that failed.

“How pitiful. I’m afraid your customer cannot be reached and will be connected to voicemail.”

“What…? What are you talking about—”

“Don’t understand? Your communication network is down. Like this.”

—KWADUDUDUK!

While my army drew the enemy’s attention by spraying a rain of blood, I concealed my presence to the limit, quickly infiltrated their outpost, and thoroughly destroyed all their means of communication, including messengers.

I burned the bat swarms, killed the messengers by throwing my sword, extinguished the signal fires with water, and dismantled magical facilities by using Hagalaz to break down the formulas themselves.

It was a task worth my involvement—no, one that required my direct intervention.

This battle was a race against time. It was a lightning assault meant to eliminate the Undead Duke’s ally as quickly as possible, before he could even respond.

In other words, it was a fight that needed to be finished as swiftly as a tidal wave sweeping through a city, giving the vampires no time to prepare and the Undead Duke no time to request reinforcements.

We had pushed forward at breakneck speed for this purpose, even at the risk of overexertion, and it would be a catastrophe to give the enemy time to respond because of a single bat.

How unfair would that be to our people who had to run until their hearts nearly burst?

“Somehow… must… inform…”

“You’re persistent. If you’re so eager to go, then go in death.”

That’s why I had to step in personally to preemptively eliminate such possibilities.

It’s actually quite funny—among all our forces, I’m the most skilled at infiltration and quick subjugation. Hush is on the ground, and Ophelia is busy with other matters.

Anyway, thanks to my direct intervention, all their communication methods were thoroughly destroyed. We gained perhaps dozens of minutes. Even I had to admit it was an excellent outcome.

—-

A magnificent fortress towering atop sheer cliffs.

Erzsebet’s stronghold, Nirvator Castle, was astonishingly massive and splendid.

The castle walls, bordered by cliffs on three sides, appeared three times taller than their actual height. Spires jutted out everywhere like the raised quills of a hedgehog.

The surface was pitch black as if shadows had melted into it, and sculptures, reliefs, and golden ornaments adorned the walls, roofs, and window frames.

How did they complete this in just a month?

I’d heard they used undead as laborers to build it hastily, but judging by its appearance, they must have worked those creatures to the bone.

“Everyone prepare for battle! Form ranks and recover your strength! We attack in five minutes after a brief rest!”

As I mentioned earlier, after our intense and fierce march, we finally reached Nirvator Castle and set up camp for a brief period of maintenance.

Though we needed to hurry and bring down the castle before enemy reinforcements arrived, after pushing ourselves to the limit to get here, we needed at least a moment to catch our breath, no matter how urgent the situation.

We had taken one short break earlier at a safe distance, but looking at the soldiers’ condition, that clearly hadn’t been enough.

“Isn’t everyone’s stamina too poor? You should have trained harder during peacetime. It’s lack of exercise, lack of exercise.”

Seeing both the Dane and rock apes gasping for breath with exhausted faces, it was obvious that attempting a siege without letting them catch their breath would lead to disaster.

“This is ridiculous. We’ve been on an insane forced march for nine hours straight. It’s already a miracle we have so few stragglers.”

Turangkai, who was washing blood off himself by pouring water over his head, heard my muttering about the soldiers’ stamina and scoffed incredulously.

The look in his eyes said it all—was there anything more insane than attempting a siege with an army exhausted from nine hours of full-speed marching?

“Well, it’s too early to call it a miracle. To use such words, we’d have to win first, wouldn’t we? Though I certainly intend to win.”

Admittedly, this was madness. Conducting a siege with exhausted soldiers is something no sane commander would even imagine.

…Which means the enemy probably hadn’t anticipated such a situation either.

Realistically, how many people in the world would prepare for the possibility of their enemy doing something so insane?

At the very least, I predicted they wouldn’t be that meticulous, and it seems my prediction was spot on.

‘The castle itself is larger than expected… but there aren’t many on the walls. And those few seem quite confused.’

[Your gamble has paid off. At least the first step, that is.]

While ordering the soldiers to take a short rest, I moved to the front of our formation with my sword drawn and looked up at Nirvator Castle.

Impressively grand and ornate, yet somehow ominous and eerie, perhaps due to the pitch-black walls and crimson lights—the stronghold of the vampire empress.

“—? ——! ———!”

“……! …, ……!!”

Though they might have anticipated war breaking out soon, they clearly hadn’t expected such a lightning assault—the atmosphere on the castle walls was visibly chaotic even from a distance.

Yes, of course they’d be in disarray.

Since their border patrol and scouts had been annihilated by us, the castle’s occupants only noticed us when we were close enough to be seen with the naked eye.

That was just three minutes ago, so they hardly had time to assess the situation and respond.

If even the walls, where troops hadn’t yet been properly positioned, were in such commotion, the interior of the castle must be in complete chaos, like a disturbed beehive.

I hope they stay that way as long as possible. We’ll see.

“Miss, the troops are deployed. What’s next?”

Leonore approached me as I was observing the enemy castle and assessing the situation inside, asking in a playful tone.

“Next… is there anything else to do?”

“Well, how about offering them a chance to surrender?”

Surrender offers—certainly something anyone would consider after surrounding an enemy castle with a large army, but…

“That would be a waste of time. They wouldn’t listen anyway.”

These weren’t the type to be swayed by such proposals.

If they were the kind of people with such low morale that they’d surrender at the first sign of an unfavorable battle, their border patrol wouldn’t have tried to stop us at the cost of their lives.

Making such an offer to those with no intention of surrendering would be meaningless. At best, they might feign surrender to buy time.

So rather than wasting time on such useless endeavors, it would be more beneficial to use that time for a brief discussion with our commanders.

“Turangkai, could you shake and collapse the castle itself—or perhaps the cliff?”

That’s why I gathered them for discussion.

Though we had already decided on the general strategy before setting out, there was no harm in repeatedly discussing specific tactics.

Now that we were actually seeing the enemy’s castle, we might come up with ideas or tactics we hadn’t thought of during our departure.

Like me asking Turangkai if he could bury their castle in the cliff.

“I regret to say it would be difficult. The material of the walls differs from ordinary rock, and they’ve covered not only the castle but the cliff below with defensive formulas.”

But that seemed impossible, at least for Turangkai.

“What if we destroy those formulas?”

“I could cause earthquakes to create confusion, but I couldn’t completely collapse it. To do that, we’d need to weaken the structure itself by destroying the axes and pillars supporting the weight…”

So if we wanted to make the castle collapse, we’d first need to partially destroy it ourselves.

I thought we might be able to end this in one go since they had the audacity to build a castle on a cliff… but it’s not that simple. Unfortunately.

“Hiyalbajer, are there any signs of other enemies in the vicinity?”

“No. The sorcerers report no traces of high-level magic like spatial transfer in this area. It’s safe to assume there’s no possibility of an undead army lying in ambush.”

So we don’t need to worry about Garmerlic’s forces, at least for now. That’s fortunate.

“What about forces other than the undead? Might there be border patrols scattered around like the ones we encountered earlier?”

“A captured vampire confessed that their outposts are located here and here. They will likely dispatch reinforcements as soon as they learn of our situation.”

While Nirvator Castle is the vampires’ main base, they’ve also set up guard posts and support fortresses throughout the surrounding area.

Though it’s quiet now, once news of the castle being attacked reaches them, they’ll undoubtedly rush out to target our flanks or rear.

“Can we eliminate them before they arrive?”

“If you give me a thousand—no, eight hundred warriors…”

“Set an ambush along their route and surprise them. You don’t need to kill them all—just prevent them from joining up with the castle or scatter them.”

“Yes!”

I dispatched a separate unit to intercept them.

One top-tier hero and eight hundred Dane warriors.

A force that wouldn’t significantly impact our main battle but could effectively stop enemy reinforcements through proper ambushes and surprise attacks.

For the eight hundred Danes who had just arrived at our destination only to be sent elsewhere immediately, it was undoubtedly frustrating to wonder why they were the ones chosen.