Chapter 82: War (2)

A grating sound of teeth grinding echoed through the room. I lacked the energy or composure to tell her to stop.

The sight of my daughter was unfamiliar even to me, her mother. Her usual heavy makeup was absent, her hair disheveled as she ground her teeth.

My daughter wasn’t the only one anxious. I and others who had been favored were all trembling with fear like her.

In a matter of hours, everything we’d enjoyed our entire lives would be stripped away.

What terrified us most was that it wouldn’t end there – we’d have to obey whatever that man said.

‘I’m scared…’

Never before had I felt such visceral terror. Who knew uncertainty could be so frightening?

I wished I could take poison to preserve some dignity in death, but the royal officials watching us would never allow it.

Three officials with swords at their hips, like royal knights, were here as observers and mediators for this duel.

They were watching to ensure we didn’t escape through suicide.

When they first arrived, I considered trying to eliminate them with the remaining forces in the mansion.

But the royal family wouldn’t have sent knights weak enough for our remaining forces to dispatch.

‘Is there nothing I can do but watch?’

Try as I might, I saw no way out. All that remained was prayer.

Though I’d been to church, I’d never prayed sincerely before. I closed my eyes and clasped my hands together.

I wasn’t sure if this was the proper way to pray, but it was all I could do now.

As I prayed with closed eyes to a god I’d never believed in, a triumphant fanfare sounded from the crystal ball on the desk, enchanted with primitive magic.

‘The signal for battle to begin…!!’

My eyes flew open at the sound. I stared at the plains reflected in the crystal ball, where thousands of mercenaries had gathered.

It had cost a fortune to hire so many men on such short notice.

‘If I’d known it would come to this, I never would have filed that lawsuit in the first place!’

But such regrets were useless now. I kept my eyes glued to the crystal ball, clasping my hands again in desperate hope that they would put up a good fight.

[I’ll kill every last one of you!!!]

That brute bellowed something barbaric and charged forward without even drawing his katana.

The mercenary cavalry formed up and rushed at him as one.

Normally, the outcome would be obvious when dozens of mounted troops faced a single swordsman who hadn’t even drawn his weapon. But this was no ordinary swordsman – he had single-handedly defeated Lobo.

I watched without much expectation, figuring they’d be lucky to even tire him out a bit, when…

[Aaaargh!!!]

A scene more horrific and brutal than I could have imagined unfolded before my eyes.

‘W-what’s happening?’

The crystal ball showed severed horse heads and limbs, human body parts, all scattered like fallen leaves, swirling through the air in the wake of his sword.

“What on earth is going on?!” I exclaimed.

I hadn’t taken my eyes off the crystal ball for even a second, yet I’d failed to perceive what had happened. Like skipping from the first page of a book to the last, only the gruesome result was visible.

I wasn’t the only one stunned by this sight. My daughter, the head maid, and even the royal knights all stared with wide, disbelieving eyes.

“M-Mom!! At this rate…!!” my daughter cried.

“It’s alright!! We’re still fine!!” I reassured her, though I didn’t believe it myself.

Their role was just to buy time until the knights commander could use ‘that’, and to wear down that man’s stamina as meat shields.

If ‘that’ could be activated once the mercenaries had depleted his strength as much as possible, we might still have a chance at victory.

‘Commander Alpha!! Please…!’

Clasping my hands again, I prayed with all my heart that he, my daughter’s birth father, would turn this situation around.

Having sent the cavalry charging at me to hell with a single Baldo, I stood still, gazing at the blood-drenched plains.

It seemed I couldn’t devour over a hundred at once – the field was littered with dismembered horse and human corpses amid pools of blood.

It was a brutal scene that could only be described as hell, but I found it pleasing.

I enjoy using baldo against people.

It’s somewhat exhilarating to see the most efficient technique for killing humans used for its intended purpose.

“Wolffang, eat up the rest without leaving any behind.”

[Woof!!]

After ordering Wolffang to clean up, I looked up at the remaining enemies.

I’d killed about 200, but thousands still remained. In other words, I could perform thousands more baldo!

I expected the remaining cavalry or infantry to charge, but no matter how long I waited, they didn’t come.

Seeing Wolffang ravenously devouring horse and human corpses, they seemed too afraid to move, standing far off and just staring at me.

But that didn’t last long. After what sounded like their commander shouting orders, hundreds of spells and arrows came raining down on me.

‘Magic, not very high level…’

It was pitiful magic that couldn’t even compare to Marina’s, barely on par with an upper-class academy student.

Well, the casters were likely mercenaries or magic swordsmen who combined swordplay with magic, so their low level wasn’t surprising.

“Wolffang, finished eating?”

[Woof!!]

As Wolffang barked more energetically than usual, I smiled and executed a Baldo towards the hundreds of incoming spells and arrows.

As I drew, I extended Wolffang’s blade to its maximum length, creating a massive shockwave similar to what Lobo had once unleashed at me.

That energy-infused shockwave spread outward, deflecting all the arrows and spells descending on me.

As the airborne spells and arrows fell limply from the intense shockwave, the enemy’s morale visibly plummeted even from afar.

Understandable. They’d just realized one of their safest methods of attack was completely ineffective.

‘Many nobles were watching this duel!’

At first, I’d been slightly irritated by their carefree attitude.

But now, thinking of it differently, I felt better knowing I could showcase my baldo before so many.

‘I can hear it…! The evaluation of my baldo skyrocketing!’

Wolffang seemed to sense my excitement too – her hilt had been pulsing like a heartbeat for a while now.

Was this a sign of some impending change?

As I pondered this, looking at Wolffang’s quivering scabbard, the enemy cavalry and infantry that had been trembling moments ago suddenly charged at me en masse.

That uncoordinated, formation-less charge made them seem more like peasant levies wielding swords for the first time than battle-hardened mercenaries.

‘They’re crying.’

As they drew close enough for me to make out their faces, I saw they were streaked with tears and snot.

For mercenaries like them, the threat of death was likely as constant as the air they breathed.

But that was just the possibility of death – what stood before them now was inescapable, absolute death.

Seasoned as they were, they couldn’t fail to realize this. Yet they threw away their lives, knowing full well they were about to die.

To show even a modicum of respect for their resolve, I decided to end them with the strongest Baldo technique I could currently muster.

“Wolffang!! Let’s go!!”

Drawing Wolffang from her scabbard, I plunged her deep into the earth.

Embedded in the ground, Wolffang extended her fangs, piercing through the crust as if aiming for the earth’s inner core.

‘I can feel it….’

Perhaps because I’d extended the blade further, the ley line’s power surged through my entire body, far more intensely than I usually felt through my legs.

Unaware of this, the mercenaries saw me hunched over and charged faster, thinking they’d found an opening.

A glimmer of hope flashed across the faces of the leading cavalry – perhaps they thought they might survive.

At that moment, I spoke:

“Ley Line Baldo: Marang’s Fang.”

Wolffang erupted from the ground with enough force to split the earth, transforming into a massive torrent of power infused with the ley line’s energy. It swallowed up the enemies before me.

With an indescribable roar, the slash that carved the earth took on the form of a wolf, devouring the enemies as it surged forward.

The ground trembled as if hit by an earthquake. I nearly fell on my backside, unable to control my own technique.

The wolf-shaped slash rode the ley line, streaking towards the enemy’s left flank.

Faced with this embodiment of death bearing down on them, they forgot all formation and fled in a desperate attempt to avoid the attack. But it was futile.

As the slash approached, they all collapsed from the intense tremors. Then the wolf-shaped slash swallowed them whole.

“That attack must have killed around 2,000…”

Soon after the slash passed, corpses mangled into mincemeat by the attack began gathering here like iron filings drawn to a magnet.

Wolffang was pulling the blood and flesh towards herself to consume her prey.

‘She’s never craved meat like this before…’

Had consuming so much blood and human flesh in such a short time awakened something in her?

The river of flesh, worthy of being called a river of blood, was quickly absorbed into Wolffang’s blade.

Looking back and forth between the faint bloodstains left on the ground where the river of blood had vanished in an instant and Wolffang, I pondered.

I wasn’t sure what it was, but some change was about to happen in Wolffang.