Ch.308Chapter 308. This Is It

* * *

Despite the chaos from the sudden ambush, Epinel was secretly breathing a sigh of relief.

‘If they’ve sent soldiers here, it must have affected the enemy’s main formation!’

If that was the case, she could relax. They would be able to reconnect with the heavens again. It was as good as having successfully thwarted Serpina von Einhart’s scheme!

Although it was a foregone conclusion that their forces would suffer some casualties, if they could disrupt the enemy’s formation, they would achieve their objective.

Now she had to trust Yurie. Trust her comrades!

Though it seemed impossible—the things she had seen with her own eyes were compelling evidence supporting this impossibility, so Epinel wasn’t particularly shaken up to this point.

However.

Very naturally, despite being pushed back—

Nothing was happening.

‘What’s going on…?’

Lightning should be striking the enemy by now, or an earthquake should suddenly occur… why was nothing happening?

Had they not disrupted the formation enough yet?

Epinel briefly retreated on horseback, then quickly climbed a nearby hill to survey the battlefield.

‘What is this…?’

The battlefield was certainly chaotic. Enemy and allied forces were messily intermingled, fighting each other.

Although our forces were being pushed back one-sidedly—the enemy didn’t appear to be maintaining any peculiar formation.

‘But why… is nothing happening?’

Thump, thump.

Epinel’s heart began to race.

The anxiety she had buried deep in her heart—simply because it was frightening, because there were no answers, because there were many things in this world that couldn’t be explained—began to creep up again.

‘Could it be…’

That anxiety soon raised its head and spoke to Epinel.

What if Anima was right?

No, that’s impossible.

Serpina orchestrating a charade?

The destruction of the fortress, the repeated delays in troop deployment, the deserters—all according to her plan?

No matter how she thought about it, it made no sense.

Think about it. If it had been a charade, our prayers would have been meaningless—and she would have used magic directly to destroy her own fortress, kill her own soldiers, repeatedly expanded or retreated battle lines wasting resources needlessly, and even allowed soldiers to desert without stopping them.

If she had gone that far, she must have gained something from it, but there was nothing, was there?

Even Anima couldn’t prove it, which is why she couldn’t stop me and Yurie.

Even now, Epinel’s thoughts were no different from then.

As long as there was nothing for her to gain by going that far—just as she was thinking this.

‘Ah…!!!!’

Epinel’s eyes widened in shock.

Only now.

Only now did lightning strike.

To be precise, it struck Epinel’s head, and even that wasn’t physical lightning, but.

‘Could it be… that Serpina’s aim was exactly this situation…?!’

Regardless of the process, the result was extremely important.

Given this outcome—it seemed that the reason Serpina had gone to such lengths was to achieve this very result.

She couldn’t say with absolute certainty. This wasn’t something with evidence or proof; it was more like the intuition of Epinel, who had fought on many battlefields as a warrior.

In any case, she seemed to understand now. It felt as though Serpina had wanted them to react exactly like this.

If so, her purpose was—

‘To deplete our national strength?’

The reason our forces had launched this strategically foolish surprise attack from this position was based on the premise that ‘our forces are connected to the heavens, and Serpina’s forces are interfering with it somehow.’

If her charade was real, did she induce our forces to waste time and resources building altars?

Finally, a plausible reason had emerged—

Yet there were still facts that couldn’t be explained.

‘Wait… was there really a need to go that far?’

It might make sense if the Aeshus forces were just slightly disadvantaged against Serpina’s forces.

But Serpina’s forces could have engaged in battle at any time, anywhere. The Aeshus forces could never defeat Serpina’s forces. No matter what.

Considering the resources and time Serpina’s forces had expended just to deplete our national strength, it simply didn’t add up from Serpina’s perspective.

Then what was the real purpose—

‘…Snap out of it!’

Epinel immediately stopped her train of thought.

She wasn’t that clever of a person. While she had some expertise in combat-related strategies, it was Anima who had the sharp eye for events occurring outside the battlefield, not her.

So instead of thinking further, she calmly considered what needed to be done now.

If Serpina’s real purpose was simply ‘this situation’… the battle was as good as over.

The allied forces, thrown into disarray after their surprise attack was discovered, would be annihilated at an astonishing speed, and it was only a matter of time before the minimal forces guarding the castle would fall and a white flag would be raised over Valhart Castle.

Then she would certainly be captured. Yurie. The woman who was our master. The only figure who could lead the Aeshus forces and their symbol.

Although she was currently in a devastated state due to unfortunate events—ultimately, the survival of the monarch was most important for the future.

Under the cruel reality that being captured by Serpina meant her death, what was the best course of action Epinel could take?

To fight to the death here and prove her loyalty?

Meaningless. It would go against her pride that true loyalty meant achieving merit rather than sacrificing one’s life.

There was only one way. Somehow save Yurie alone.

‘In that case…!’

Epinel closed her eyes and quickly deserted the battlefield without informing the tens of thousands of soldiers.

A commander abandoning the battlefield. Under normal circumstances, this would be absolutely unacceptable… but for Epinel now, there was no rationality left to distinguish between right and wrong means.

‘Damn it…!’

Beyond repeatedly uttering empty cries, there was nothing else she could do.

* * *

Rewinding time a little—

At the mountainside where the old mansion she had briefly secluded herself in was located, Anima was clearing her head.

‘Is it really okay to leave things like this?’

No matter how she thought about it, the fairy tale-like story that our forces were connected to the heavens and finally pushing back Serpina with miraculous power didn’t seem real—

But as Epinel said, she couldn’t present evidence to the contrary to Yurie.

Moreover, Yurie was currently in a kind of uncontrollable, rampaging state, regardless of all that.

In a nation already on the brink of destruction, Anima knew that unnecessarily shaking the monarch could lead to self-destruction.

‘What I can do…’

After spending some time like that, when she arrived at Valhart Castle, what she heard was—

“An invasion, you say…?”

“Yes! Commander Epinel specifically asked me to inform you!”

The uneasy feeling she had when she saw a soldier at the door became reality.

‘Why, why now of all times…!!’

At this point, Anima naturally wanted to curse her miserable fate.

She had learned swordsmanship, only to lose an arm in an accident. During the war, she had been taken prisoner under none other than Serpina.

It was fortunate that she survived the plague, but—when Emma died, she couldn’t shake the thought that Emma had died in her place.

And now, of all times—when she had briefly left her post, this news arrived.

“…Where did Epinel go?”

“She departed immediately.”

Departed? Not to fortify but to intercept?

It was obvious they couldn’t win by going out to intercept—

‘Epinel wouldn’t have acted so thoughtlessly. I need to trust Epinel now.’

Saying that to herself, Anima headed to where the remaining forces for the defense were being managed.

What she could do now was trust her comrade. And prepare an environment where she could help her comrade whose thoughts were unpredictable, regardless of the situation.

With things as they were, she was actually hoping for a miracle as Yurie had said.

She found herself wishing that Emma and Erinandorf were truly watching over them from heaven.

‘Yes. With evidence, and the certainty that something like magic exists, nothing is impossible…!!’

As she spent time preparing for battle and observing the direction of the conflict from atop the castle wall, at that moment.

From beyond, she spotted a mounted general racing toward them.

‘Epinel…?’

* * *

“What’s going on? The battle? The soldiers?”

As Epinel immediately climbed up to the castle wall, Anima bombarded her with questions—

But Epinel, without answering any of them—

“Anima. We don’t have time, so listen carefully. Understand?”

“What… what is it?”

“Take Yurie and a minimal number of soldiers and go into hiding somewhere remote.”

“Go into hiding? You mean retreat? To Laclaine Castle, or maybe Zeta Castle further up? Besides, what about the soldiers who went to intercept—”

“Yurie.”

Epinel cut off Anima’s words sharply.

And then, with an extremely serious expression she had never shown since they had decided to go beyond a master-disciple relationship and become blood brothers, she looked at Anima.

“The Aeshus forces… this is the end.”