Ch.650The Period of the Wall Battle

“Haschal…!”

Glar moved to the side as if avoiding the line of fire from my right hand, addressing me with a look of disgust and hostility—like someone who had just found a maggot crawling out of their soup bowl.

“Left arm of the Kagan, is this your doing?”

“Yes. I did it. I broke the Unyielding Flesh and cut off his arm. It wasn’t difficult at all.”

I smirked and boasted. In truth, it wasn’t me but Hersella who had cut off Orhan’s arm, something still impossible for me… but there was no need to tell him the truth, was there?

“You treasonous, unfilial wretch, how dare you…!”

My response must have been particularly grating, as Glar trembled with rage. His feelings, however, were none of my concern.

“Unfilial? That’s harsh. I’m going through all this trouble to avenge my mother, so shouldn’t I be called a filial daughter instead?”

“Enough of your nonsense!”

I sneered mockingly as I swung my right arm toward Glar, who was charging at me after kicking Joshua aside.

【 ᚲ 】

“Kenaz”

The mana concentrated at my wrist became a wave of flames that scorched the earth.

—-

It didn’t take long for Glar to meet his end.

Even without the flames of karma, my mana flames were enough to neutralize his heroic tale, and despite my less-than-perfect physical condition, I was still capable of countering his attacks.

Moreover, while Joshua couldn’t attack Glar directly, he could block Glar’s strikes aimed at me.

Additionally, thanks to my intervention, the battle priests had gained enough breathing room to recover Heinrich with their rudimentary healing techniques, allowing him to rejoin the fight.

Suddenly facing three hero-class knights alone, Glar thrashed about like a trapped beast, but as the ancient saying goes about three against one, he couldn’t hold out for long before collapsing.

The outcome was inevitable. At full strength, I could have handled Glar, Joshua, and Heinrich by myself with power to spare. With me on the side of the three against Glar alone, how could he possibly withstand it?

– Thud!

In less than ten minutes after the battle began, Glar lay on the prairie ground with all his limbs burned away.

“Kuh… heuugh… is this… as far as I go…”

He was in a miserable state. His two prized curved swords had been shattered into pieces by Joshua’s full-powered strikes and scattered everywhere. The black armor of the Dark Cavalry had melted beyond recognition, fusing with his flesh.

“Not even… a single wound… how utterly frustrating…!”

Glar coughed up blood, his face contorted in anguish.

Indeed, he had reason to be frustrated. He had persistently targeted my life, determined to take at least me down with him… yet he couldn’t even touch me.

Thanks to Joshua and Heinrich’s thorough protection, I had only suffered some scratches on my armor without shedding a single drop of blood.

“Is that all for your last words?”

I grabbed his neck with my right hand and lifted him up.

“Go ahead and wait for us. I’ll send every warrior your way. Enough to rebuild Aishan in the afterlife, and then some.”

Glar gurgled blood and muttered as if wailing:

“Kughk…! Why… why do you resent the Kagan… Even though you know… it’s unjustified…!”

Well.

According to Hersella, it was because he didn’t flee with her and her mother in the night. Proof that he chose Aishan over her mother?

“Because he abandoned my mother.”

I spoke words that Hersella might have said, on behalf of her sleeping consciousness.

“I cannot understand. I cannot…! How can you be so merciful and loyal to one bloodline… yet so cruel to the other…?”

Do you really not know the answer to that?

“Your inability to understand that is precisely why you must die.”

Bandits like you, whose first instinct when gaining power is to kill and plunder others, find it unfair when it’s your turn to die. How ridiculous.

I tightened my grip on his neck and awakened the fire seal. So he would burn to death with his windpipe crushed.

Until his desperate screams faded away with the smoke.

======[ Ka’har ]======

After escaping the range of the imperial army’s arrow rain, Ibamai collapsed to the ground, gasping for breath.

“Huff…! Huff…!”

His vision swam and his heart convulsed as if about to burst. He had reached his limit. Though he had managed to stop the bleeding in his leg with ice, he had no strength left to move forward.

Not that he needed to go any further.

“Kagan!”

“War Commander Ibamai?! What in the…!”

Aishan warriors cried out in shock as they emerged from all directions to support the two men. Six thousand cavalry who had just returned from launching wave attacks across the wall, following Orhan’s orders.

They were reserve forces meant to ambush and annihilate any pursuit force should the siege fail and retreat become necessary.

‘Though they didn’t take the bait.’

Orhan sighed deeply as he glared toward the wall.

The returning reserve was merely insurance against the worst-case scenario. Without a pursuit force, the strategy was meaningless.

‘That cautious fox Ludwig wouldn’t send a pursuit force. I didn’t expect much, but still…’

It was disappointing nonetheless.

If the imperial forces had been blinded by the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to kill Orhan himself and given chase, he could have hunted down most of them right here.

“Kagan, what exactly happened?”

“…We fell into a trap and were defeated. There was no point in continuing the fight when victory was impossible.”

Orhan summarized the brutal siege battle in two sentences, then ordered the bewildered cavalry to treat Ibamai and cover the retreat of their allies.

“As you command. And you, Kagan…?”

“I must return to the main camp to treat my left arm and prepare for the next battle. We may have lost this fight… but it wasn’t without gain.”

Even as he answered his warriors, Orhan’s eyes remained fixed on the wall. His war commander would be fighting there with all his might right now.

He wanted nothing more than to return to the wall immediately to rescue Glar, but in his current condition, it would be tantamount to suicide.

Far from saving Glar, Orhan himself would end up buried beneath the wall.

Returning to the wall knowing this would be trampling on the resolve of Ibamai and Glar, who had risked their lives to ensure his safe retreat.

“…I’m sorry, Glar.”

Orhan turned away with a deep sigh.

—-

The six thousand cavalry who had set out to cover the retreating allies as ordered by Orhan wore grim expressions.

It wasn’t because they had failed to capture the wall. Victory and defeat were common in warfare; retreating to prepare for the next battle when at a disadvantage was only natural.

However, this retreat was fundamentally different from the withdrawals they had experienced before.

While being pushed back due to numerical disadvantage was common enough, this was the first time in decades that their Kagan, Orhan himself, had been defeated.

Even during the invasion nine years ago when they faced the Empire head-on, they had retreated only because casualties had snowballed while Orhan was held up by Valenstein.

But this battle was different.

“The Kagan lost his arm… does this mean the Unyielding Flesh has been broken?”

Orhan’s left arm, torn away as if ripped off, was proof of his defeat. That was why the warriors felt such shock and anxiety.

The myth of invincibility surrounding Aishan’s Kagan, Orhan, had come to an end. The legend of the Unyielding Flesh was over.

======[ Haschal ]======

With the ashes of what was once Glar scattered across the prairie ground, the defense of the wall came to an end.

“Is it over…? Finally?”

“We survived! Thank you, Lord Elpinel!”

“We won!”

The soldiers’ cheers echoed all around.

Following Ludwig’s order not to pursue the Ka’har who had retreated beyond arrow range, knights and soldiers collapsed to the ground, savoring the joy of being alive as the Aishan army disappeared into the distance.

Those who couldn’t rejoice lay dead on the wall, savoring the peace of eternal rest.

It had been a brutal fight.

Corpses were piled everywhere along the wall, and the once gray walls were stained dark red, emitting a terrible stench of blood.

The Ka’har had all fought until their dying breath, so clean deaths were rare.

Bodies with more than ten gaping holes in the torso, flesh riddled with holes like a sponge, heads burst open with brains and eyeballs dangling, half-burned corpses.

It was a sight that would make the faint-hearted vomit everything in their stomachs.

“Gweeeeeeeck-!”

Yes, just like that.

The overwhelming smell of blood and burst intestines was joined by the sour stench of vomit.

The soldiers, now coming down from the excitement of battle and regaining their senses, seemed to feel disgust rather than pride at the scene they had created, retching here and there.

Trying to avoid breathing in the dizzying stench, I moved toward the command post where Ludwig was waiting, with Nigel beside me.

“Are you feeling alright?”

“I can manage. What about you, Lord Haschal?”

Nigel looked down at my legs, which I was dragging across the floor, and asked with concern.

Just as the healing priest had warned, the bones that had been mending seemed to have split again from the somewhat vigorous movement while dodging Glar’s attacks.

“…My nose hurts more than my legs.”

Compared to this smell, the pain was bearable.