Ch.647A Bolt from the Blue

The black-haired madmen kept swarming forward, attempting to break through the wall’s remains.

Counting them was meaningless. No matter how many he killed, there was no end to them. It was truly like watching a wave of cockroaches approaching—both in its overwhelming hopelessness and disgust.

Frederik gritted his teeth and continued cutting them down. He could no longer use his Tale of Heroes, “Flash of Einfeld.”

He had depleted too much Karma after manifesting it several times to keep Orhan pinned near the siege tower. Besides, given its characteristic of exploding thrown weapons, it wasn’t a technique suitable for the chaotic melee that had broken out.

It had been the same during the battle minutes ago, when he had stood against the Ka’har pouring from the siege tower.

Using Flash of Einfeld against warriors emerging from the siege tower would have been suicidal. The moment they were struck by the exploding javelins, they would leap straight at Frederik—a mutual death pact.

Explosions don’t discriminate between friend and foe. His Tale of Heroes, Flash of Einfeld, boasted overwhelming destructive power at range but was nothing short of suicide in close combat.

So instead of wiping them out with a few javelins, Frederik had to cut them down one by one.

The inability to use Flash of Einfeld applied not only to the siege tower battle but also to the defensive battle taking place on the wall’s remains.

It hadn’t been impossible from the start. When the Ka’har were at a distance, he could throw javelins and hurl stones to literally tear their vanguard to shreds.

Countless plainsmen had died in explosions while charging up the rocky hill.

Though he hadn’t destroyed the siege tower or stopped the champion, Frederik was undoubtedly the knight who had killed the most Ka’har on this battlefield.

Except for Haschal, who had caused the wall’s collapse and buried thousands alive.

Yet the Ka’har didn’t stop their charge even as they were caught in explosions and blown apart. No, they came even faster. As if determined to die together with the imperial forces if they were going to die anyway.

“It’s pointless to stop! Run! Break through between their ranks!”

“Push forward!”

After that, there was no choice but to engage in chaotic melee. In a situation where friend and foe were becoming entangled, causing explosions would sweep away the allied forces who were barely holding on.

“They’re human too—cut and stab them, and they’ll die!”

“Kugh, these bastards…!”

And in such chaotic fighting, even a knight who had reached the realm of heroes couldn’t exert overwhelming power. Even a hero’s body was still human. It would be wounded if cut by a blind blade, and would fall if struck in a vital spot.

Moreover, the Champions mixed among the Ka’har forces could pierce and destroy even areas protected by armor.

They persistently targeted Frederik’s openings amid the chaos, and Frederik had to continue his desperate fight without relaxing for a moment, simultaneously commanding and fighting.

It was a difficult task for him, having expended so much power.

He might cut down five with a single strike, but the next moment, ten more would surge forward. Cracks appeared in the heavy infantry’s formation, and warriors who penetrated between the shields scattered a rain of blood.

“Hold! If this point is breached, it’s a straight line to headquarters!”

Frederik fought desperately. The hill of corpses added another layer to the pile of rocks. But willpower alone couldn’t stop the Ka’har who, consumed by madness, threw away their lives and charged.

‘…We’re being pushed back.’

At the front of the retreating defensive line, Frederik, drenched in blood, exhaled a breath that was almost a lament.

‘I misjudged. Alone, I cannot defend this place…!’

With each glance at the increasingly higher peak, the despair in his chest grew stronger.

The black-haired barbarians surged forward like a torrent. The imperial heavy infantry had already lost the high ground and were being pushed back as if tumbling down the mountain peak.

They hadn’t been broken through only because Frederik was holding on, but the situation could collapse at any moment. In other words, the moment Frederik’s strength gave out, their fate would be sealed.

And that moment was drawing ever closer.

—Thunk!

“Kugh!”

Frederik swallowed a groan between his teeth. A sharp spear tip had pierced his calf. It was a javelin thrown like an ambush by a Champion who had been hiding among the corpses.

Frederik’s body froze for an instant from the intense pain inflicted on his exhausted body. A fatal opening. Warriors who spotted the opportunity rushed in all at once.

The next moment, a crimson mist rose like a tidal wave and engulfed them all.

“W-what is this?!”

“Sorcery! The imperial dogs’ sorcery!”

The blood mist was so thick that one couldn’t see an inch ahead. The plains warriors unconsciously halted their steps at the terrifyingly intense killing intent contained within it.

Fear seeped into their hearts, pressed down by the bloodlust, and incomprehensible hallucinations were branded into their minds like hot irons.

It felt as if something they couldn’t comprehend with their minds, a mountain-like beast starved for thousands of years, was looking down on them.

“What, what is this…! What the hell have you done?!”

The warriors shouted in shock toward the imperial forces, but the imperial troops were equally confused by the dark red something that had risen like a tidal wave and covered everything like mist.

“Lord Frederik! What, what is this? It’s too much to be magic…!”

They too were equally ignorant of the cause of this phenomenon. Those who had witnessed Hersella’s Tale of Heroes, Field of Mortality, were rotting as corpses in the basement of the Church of Grimnir.

“Retreat for now! Get away from the mist! It’s dangerous!”

Only Frederik, who had reached the realm of heroes, could barely discern that this was someone’s Tale of Heroes by reading the Karma and soul remnants contained in the dark red mist.

‘But such a sinister soul…! Can this really be a human soul?’

Frederik could hardly consider the person who manifested this Tale of Heroes as an ally. Even the monsters he had faced had never emitted such a malevolent aura.

He could tell just from the sensation. The owner of this power regarded human lives as less than insects, took pleasure in slaughter, and specialized in piling mountains of corpses.

Frederik unconsciously looked down below. What was there was something closer to a monster than a knight or warrior.

‘What in the world is happening down there?’

Frederik was also aware of the trap set below the wall.

However, the operation plan he knew involved Haschal and Orhan engaging in a war of attrition in a pit of fire, not releasing a monster there.

Rationally speaking, this should be considered a power manifested by Haschal. The color of the mist was similar to the power of murder Karma that had earned her the nickname “Crimson Empress.”

But Frederik simply couldn’t think that way. The Haschal he knew, while rough in personality, was not such a monster.

To begin with, the Tale of Heroes he knew Haschal possessed was a technique that accelerated her movements to the extreme, not something this horrific.

No, “horrific” was a word that couldn’t even express half of what unfolded before his eyes the next moment.

“Wh-what…?!”

The red mist covering the remains contracted as quickly as it had risen, enveloping all humans within its range. Not just the Ka’har who were conquering the rocky hill, but also the imperial heavy infantry formation that hadn’t managed to escape.

Frederik gritted his teeth, sweating cold. Among the more than a thousand men enveloped by the mist, only he could guess what was about to happen.

“No…!”

Frederik’s cry was meaningless. The moment he opened his mouth, death that could neither be stopped nor avoided had already seized and devoured them all.

A red lake overflowed across the remains.

—-

Silence and stillness descended.

On the remains of the wall, where the fiercest battle had been raging in an increasingly intense battlefield, it had transformed into the most peaceful place along the entire wall.

Pieces of flesh floating on the surface couldn’t swing swords and spears at each other.

Frederik stared blankly at the carnage before him, his mouth agape. A river of blood and flesh created by the simultaneous rupture of over a thousand humans.

He was the only human remaining in the vicinity.

Before his eyes flowed a river of blood, and the soldiers who had fought shoulder to shoulder with him had become pieces of meat in crushed armor.

Although the number of imperial troops caught up in it was only about a hundred, as they had been in the process of being pushed back down the rocky hill.

Frederik felt a dizzying vertigo.

He couldn’t tell whether it was due to the thick smell of blood and stench of entrails, or because the power of Karma that had sustained him was completely depleted.

The only fact he could grasp with his reeling mind was one thing: his battle was over. Neither imperial troops nor Ka’har dared to climb the hill that wept tears of blood.

“What kind of sorcery is that…?!”

Indeed, even the Ka’har warriors who had charged forward without fearing exploding javelins couldn’t even set foot on the hill, let alone climb it, as they stared at the top of the rock pile with terrified eyes.

Even those with the courage to leap into flames wouldn’t stick their heads into a hungry wolf’s jaws. They possessed enough reason to distinguish between bravery and suicide.

If by chance this unknown sorcery wasn’t a technique that could only be used once, jumping onto the hill would be like charging toward a cliff.

And so, the remains of the wall entered a temporary state of ceasefire that no one had wanted.

Until, a few minutes later, when a massive pillar of fire rose up.