Ch.74Extinction

“Come at me!”

The Sword Master, seeing the knights charging at him, flashed a chilling smile as he infused his sword with a pure white aura.

The milk-white aura, which tolerated no impurities, enveloped the rushing knights of Amurtat and began to divide them into 256 pieces.

Soon, one knight caught in the blade’s path was literally diced from head to toe, his remains ‘spilling’ onto the ground, while the other knights, horrified by the Master’s white aura, swung their swords desperately to save themselves.

“You damned bastard! How dare you kill Gerard…!”

Clang! Clang! Clang!

Even a Sword Master had no choice but to defend against the combined attacks of dozens of knights. The knights of Amurtat were trying to pressure the Master by mobilizing as many knights as possible.

Although their numbers had dwindled to thirty-five, these knights were powerful experts who had reached the upper Expert rank within Amurtat.

While the skill gap between them and the white aura-wielding Sword Master was obvious, it also meant that if they were careful of his white aura, killing the Master wasn’t impossible.

“Keep pushing!”

“Don’t give him a moment to breathe!”

Soon the Master was trapped within their formation, and the knights, sensing an advantage, rushed at him all at once.

“Hup!”

Boom!

“Aaaagh!”

Of course, Alkius, who had reached the realm of Master, wouldn’t simply watch himself be overwhelmed. In an instant, he condensed and released his aura, instantly cutting down two knights who had lost their stance.

“Too slow. Both your reactions and your deaths.”

“Urgh…”

“Die…what?!”

Thud!!

Clang!

Fortunately, a massive arrow from a reloaded ballista struck the Master precisely, and the overwhelming kinetic energy made him miss the opportunity to kill another knight.

“!”

Slash!

The knight didn’t miss his chance, leaping with all his might. Alkius, who took time to recover his sword after blocking the ballista arrow, was forced to allow a wound to his leg.

“Ugh..! You bastard!”

In exchange, the knight who wounded his leg died instantly as his internal organs were pulverized by the aura blast, but other knights wouldn’t miss that small opening.

“Strike!”

With that command, the knights launched another coordinated attack, this time with ballista support.

Clang! Boom! Crack!

When sword strikes lessened, a massive arrow would fly in instantly; when he deflected the arrow, the knights would follow up with desperate attacks.

Though Alkius was steadily defending and counterattacking, taking down one enemy at a time, his once-unharmed body was accumulating more wounds, and as more blood flowed, his mind began to grow increasingly anxious.

“Damn it! If only the troops were still intact…!”

Unfortunately, the situation was turning increasingly unfavorable for Alkius.

The knights of Fahrenheit, having lost their mobility and now isolated, were being overwhelmed by the enraged knights of Amurtat. The regular soldiers, being one-sidedly beaten, had only about 3,000 left and had long since become walking targets for the archers on the castle walls.

Crack!

“Gaaack!!”

“Where are you looking…! We’re your opponents!!”

While he momentarily glanced at his troops, Ignatz, the standard-bearer, drove his blade into the Master’s back. No matter how strong a Master might be, he was still at the pinnacle of knighthood—a realm that could be reached if one piled enough corpses to climb upon.

“How dare you!”

Alkius pulled the sword from his back and, with a contorted face, infused it with aura and threw it at Ignatz.

Ignatz tried to dodge but was too late. In that split second, he had to choose whether to twist his body and sacrifice an arm or leg, or take the hit to his torso.

“Urgh!”

“Standard-bearer!!!”

“Don’t worry about me! Kill the Master! Now’s our chance…!!”

The standard-bearer chose to take it in the torso.

While prosthetic limbs existed in this world, finding ones strong and durable enough to channel aura was no easy task.

Fortunately, in that split second, he surrounded his abdomen with aura to prevent a fatal wound, then pulled out the sword stuck in his stomach and began to staunch the bleeding.

Through his gradually fading consciousness, he watched the Master kill 10 more knights, and then saw a ballista arrow pierce the Master’s abdomen.

“His stomach is pierced! Now’s our chance!”

“The knight who cuts off his head will receive a great reward from His Majesty!”

Five knights rushed in, but the Master split them all in half, then vertically sliced two of the three knights who charged in anger at their comrades’ deaths, and finally killed the last remaining knight.

“Grrrgh……”

And then, he died.

Ironically, none of the knights managed to kill him—only the ballista arrow had pierced his formidable body.

Of the 40 upper Expert-rank knights, only 18 survived. Excluding the standard-bearer, just 17 remained.

But still, they had succeeded in hunting down the Sword Master.

“Standard-bearer. Are you alright?”

“Here’s a potion. Drink it quickly.”

Gulp! Gulp!

The surviving knights rushed to the standard-bearer, who had suffered a severe abdominal wound and was on the verge of losing consciousness. At a senior knight’s command, the others hurriedly took out potions and poured them into Ignatz’s mouth.

“Cough…cough…!”

The standard-bearer was so close to death that it was unclear whether the potion was going into his mouth or nose, but as the potion somehow entered his body, his physical condition gradually began to improve.

His mental state, however, was another matter.

Thud!

“Lord Standard-bearer!”

“Calm down! The sudden recovery has put strain on his mind. This place is still dangerous, so carry him inside the walls. Hurry!”

“Ah.. yes!”

With enemy remnants still engaging their forces, leaving the standard-bearer on the battlefield was not a good choice.

The surviving knights escorted the standard-bearer inside the walls, and retreat orders were issued to the knights still engaged in combat.

Strictly speaking, they weren’t exactly “retreat orders,” but that’s another matter.

*

“The enemy is withdrawing!”

“Did we… did we win?!”

The knights of Fahrenheit, who had fought a desperate battle surrounded by flames for hours, began to assess the situation as they watched the knights of Amurtat pull back.

“Huff… huff…”

Catching their breath roughly, what they saw around them was horse fat still burning and turning black, and corpses scattered everywhere…

“If we won… why are the walls still standing?”

And the walls of Amurtat, still standing firm.

What this meant was obvious, but sometimes the most obvious facts can trigger extreme denial.

“No way…”

“No… it can’t be… There’s no way He could have been defeated…”

The knights of Fahrenheit began to deny reality as they dragged their blood-soaked bodies.

They had lost everything.

This is not a metaphorical expression. While they fought on the front lines, their rear encampments and supply wagons had been eliminated by foresters and elves, and traps had been laid along their retreat path, making it impossible for them to turn back.

With their troops annihilated, they couldn’t conduct a siege… and without their Master, victory was impossible.

If they continued fighting, they would be crushed by Amurtat’s forces. The surviving knights of Fahrenheit had truly fallen into an inescapable trap.

“Why can’t we see the Master…?”

“I can’t hear the sounds of fighting either… Until just now, we could hear the ballistas firing…”

The absence of Fahrenheit’s Sword Master instilled even more fear in the remaining knights.

If their Master had died, it would mean that Fahrenheit had suffered a humiliating defeat at the hands of a minor nation with a population of less than a million.

Clank! Clank!

“L-look over there….”

And as if to openly mock their distress, a long pole was raised high on Amurtat’s walls, visible even through the barrier of flames and smoke.

“T-that is…!”

“No…! This can’t be! That can’t be real!!”

And of course, what hung from that pole was the head of Alkius de Shaylen, and upon seeing it, the knights of Fahrenheit collapsed and began to wail.

The Master was dead.

Fahrenheit’s Sword Master, Alkius de Shaylen, was dead.

Fahrenheit had been defeated, and Amurtat had won.

Now, there was no way to prevent Fahrenheit’s downfall.