Chapter 259: Collapse (1)

The first battle had been a success, but the tedious war of attrition that followed began to wear down the Anti-Imperial Coalition army.

In contrast, the Imperial army seemed to always maintain the same state, as if it felt no mental strain at all.

An enemy that does not lose morale makes despair feel even deeper for those who face them.

Countless lives were extinguished on the front lines.

“Are you all right, Ace?”

“Hmm?”

“You dropped a card.”

“Ah…”

Ace smiled wryly.

“Looks like I’m already done for.”

The army of Briol held the center of the Anti-Imperial Coalition’s front.
Although troops from the Confederation of Small Kingdoms had joined, their level was not high, so they offered little help.

That was why Briol’s elite troops had been sent to the Confederation to reinforce it.

In particular, the veterans from the allied army fulfilled that role.

“Can you imagine? The Confederation rookies daring to play cards against this big brother from Briol. I’m going to teach them a lesson. Come on, bring me the deeds to your houses. How are property prices in the Confederation? Do you have mortgages?”

“Of course they’ve gone down.”

“Huh? Why?”

“Friend, do you think property prices go up in the middle of a war?”

“Ah, right, we’re at war.”

Those sitting around the table burst out laughing. It was dark humor of the kind only those on the front lines could afford, to ease the tension.

Raymond, who was on one side organizing his weapons, spoke.

“Resting is fine, but the sentry says he saw movement on the Imperial army’s side. Better be ready. And put the cards away.”

“Oh, really?”

When Ace heard this, he began to put away his cards.

“Hey, rookies, we’ll finish the game later.”

“What’s wrong? You chickening out?”

“We can continue later. That is, if we’re still alive.”

“More like, by then you won’t be.”

“Then we’ll finish it in the afterlife.”

Laughter broke out again.

Raymond chuckled softly with them, took his weapons, and walked away.

A Confederation soldier, watching, asked.

“By the way, Ace, why do you pay so much attention to that guy? He just looks like some random old veteran. Too old-fashioned.”

Ace, putting away the cards, smirked.

“If you keep thinking like that, that extra life you’ve got is going to cost you. You’d better change your attitude.”

“Huh?”

“If you get on that old man’s good side, on the battlefield he’ll save you at least once.”

“Is he that good?”

“Since you only see him here lying around with us, he looks like just another old man, but that man…”

“What? Was he someone important?”

“Well…”

Ace left the sentence hanging. He wasn’t going to reveal that Raymond had been a knight; Raymond himself didn’t want it known.

So he only smiled.

“He’s an exceptional man.”

The Confederation soldiers shook their heads.

“Bah, you’re saying that because you’ve got nothing else to tell.”

“Those Briol guys really think they’re important.”

“Now that he’s gone, let’s play another round. What do you say?”

The Confederation soldiers hadn’t fought alongside Raymond yet, so they didn’t know his skill.

“Man, these guys…”

“Then tell us, what’s so special about him?”

“All right.”

Ace got indignant.

“Sir Raymond is a knight. A real knight. He’s serving as a soldier only for our sake. So don’t treat him with disrespect and give him the honor he’s due. He’s a man of incredible skill.”

The Confederation soldiers looked at each other and then burst out laughing.

“A knight? Pff, hahahaha!”

“You sure know how to tell jokes, friend.”

“If that guy’s a knight, then I’m the captain of the knights.”

“What would a knight be doing here?”

No one believed him.

Ace looked at them one by one with a disdainful expression and muttered.

“What you know determines what you see… If you knew that Sir Raymond is not only a knight, but someone very close to His Highness, you’d fall over backwards.”

“His Highness?”

“In the allied army, Sir Raymond was the knight who served closest to Prince Yuri.”

“Wow!”

The laughter grew louder.

Perhaps, if it had been another Briol soldier, they might have believed it, but Ace had such a reputation for lying at poker that they always doubted whatever he said.

“Ace, the master of lies.”

“I never lie, except when playing cards!”

“Sure, sure…”

“You’ll see…”

Ace ground his teeth.

“All right. Let’s make a bet. If, when we meet Prince Yuri, it turns out I’m telling the truth, how much will you give me?”

“And what would you give?”

“I’ll pay too.”

“I like it.”

And so, they even made a bet.

But no one believed Ace and they took it as a joke. They thought that common soldiers like them would never meet a noble as high as Yuri Briol.

As Ace wrote an IOU and sealed it, the alarm bell began to ring.

“What’s going on?”

Everyone turned.

“It’s an attack!”

The soldiers grabbed their weapons and ran out.

When they exited the tents, they saw the Imperial army approaching in the distance.

But this time, there was something different.

Among the troops running forward moved something black and strange. Ace couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

“What the hell is that?”

At first glance, they looked like beasts. They were crouched low, moving multiple legs like spiders, and the tentacles rising from their backs writhed fiercely, seeking their prey.

They were, literally, monsters.

Seeing that scene, a chill ran down Ace’s spine.

“What… what is that…”

“They’re monsters.”

“The Empire really…”

“How are we supposed to fight that?”

Everyone knew the Empire had fallen into the corruption of black magic.

Not because someone had told them, but because they had experienced fighting Imperial soldiers who no longer seemed human.

But they had never imagined such horrifying creatures would appear. The Anti-Imperial Coalition was literally fighting an Empire turned into a monster. Seeing this scene, everyone understood it with brutal clarity.

“How are we going to stop that?”

“The knights will have to…”

Those creatures advanced, mixed among the ranks of Imperial soldiers rushing toward them.

There weren’t many, but they didn’t even inspire the will to fight. Even the knights, bewildered, stopped dead in their tracks.

“Everyone, stay calm!”

At that moment, someone shouted.

“If the soldiers form a line and block their advance, the knights will attack those monsters directly!”

It was Raymond. He shouted at the knights, who had been paralyzed by the shock.

“First, shoot them with arrows and observe their reaction! Then it’ll be the knights’ turn!”

“B-but… we’ve never faced anything like that before…”

“Has anyone here ever done it before?”

Raymond’s voice boomed with authority. Immediately, the knights sent from Briol stepped forward.

“Just as Sir Raymond says. The knights must act.”

“And who will stop the Imperial knights?”

“Who else? We will, of course.”

A knight who knew Raymond called him “Sir” when addressing him, but the situation was so critical that no one noticed.

One of the Briol knights spoke.

“Are you afraid to fight, being knights?”

“What are you saying?!”

“Then stop complaining. Let’s go!”

The knights and soldiers sent from Briol moved first.

“For Briol!”

The troops of the Confederation of Small Kingdoms began to understand, if only a little, why Briol had gained so much fame in the war.

Late, they rushed after them and shouted along with them.

“Hold the defenses!”

The Imperial army was already close enough to the defensive line erected by the anti-imperial alliance.

Under a rain of arrows, the Confederation archers responded. Projectiles crossed the air everywhere.

In the midst of that exchange, the clash began.

“Die!”

“Aaaagh!”

“Diiieee!”

The sounds of the battlefield, where life and death mingled, were harrowing. Everyone roared like beasts. The dead fell beneath the defenses, becoming stepping stones for the living.

Finally, the monsters arrived.

Their tentacles lashed out immediately.

“Aaaagh!”

“Block it!”

The soldiers hastily raised their shields. They didn’t pierce them, but the impact was so strong their bodies wavered.

Ace gritted his teeth as he held his shield. Up close, the monster was even more horrifying than he had imagined.

He couldn’t believe it was possible to defeat something like that.

But there was no room to flee.

If the anti-imperial alliance’s line broke at even one point, the collapse would spread like a domino effect.

And then, the next battlefield would be the entire continent.

“Diiieee!”

Ace shouted with all his might. He pushed his shield forward and thrust his sword past the tentacles, driving it into the creature’s body.

Blood splattered.

It didn’t penetrate much; its flesh was as hard as stone.

“Damn it!”

The tentacles whipped violently, striking in all directions. The soldiers beside him were pushed back.

“H-he’s… insane…”

“We can’t stop it.”

At that moment, a tentacle slipped under a soldier’s shield and pierced him.

“Ah…”

The tentacle moved as if sucking something out, and with each movement, the soldier’s vitality was drained from his body.

It was a scene that made the skin crawl.

“D-damn it!”

Ace shouted, but had no other choice. He held his shield and swung his sword desperately.

“How… are we going to stop this…?”

The tentacles whipped even harder, and Ace was pushed back without being able to resist. One of them shot straight toward his neck.

Clang!

Someone intervened and saved him.

“Are you all right?”

“Sir Raymond!”

It was Raymond. With sword in hand, he stepped in to face the tentacles.

Immediately, nearby Imperial soldiers attacked him with spears to block his advance, but Raymond dodged every blow and sent slashing waves of energy at the tentacles surrounding him.

Several of them were severed.

“Ah!”

The soldiers around him widened their eyes in astonishment at such skill from someone wearing the armor of a common soldier.

Raymond didn’t stop there. He activated his mana method and charged toward the monster.

The creature, sensing the danger, flared all its tentacles at once.

“Kgh!”

Raymond halted, unable to advance further. The Imperials took advantage to counterattack, and a spear grazed his thigh.

“What are you doing?! Help Sir Raymond!”

Ace shouted, and the Confederation soldiers, who had frozen up, began to swing their weapons.

But in the end, Raymond had to retreat. Other knights arrived to engage the monster, but the result didn’t improve.

The creatures were agile—immediately retreating when they sensed danger and attacking from a distance with their tentacles. When resistance weakened, they would advance and massacre without mercy.

Ace saw several of his comrades fall, impaled by those tentacles.

“Damn it!”

“Sir Raymond! Can we stop them?”

“Who knows… we’ll have to give it our all.”

Raymond only answered with a frown as he swung his sword. Little by little, the defensive line began to give way.

All around, the monsters were draining the life force of their victims, becoming even stronger.

They wouldn’t be able to hold out like this.

“If only reinforcements would arrive…”

Ace looked up.

The endless Imperial tide and those strange beasts made his morale plummet.

They didn’t have the numbers or the strength to hold.

Then, something lit up his vision.

“Huh?”

The light intensified. At first, he thought the sun had broken through the clouds, but soon he felt heat at his back.

Instinctively, he turned—and froze.

“W-what…?”

In the sky burned an enormous ball of fire.

“Magic…?” he murmured.

Impossible.

On the battlefield, magic was almost impractical—it was enough for the enemy to have one or two mages to nullify any spell in the area.

Then what the hell was that?

While he stood stunned, the ball of fire began to tilt.

And a massive blaze fell upon the Imperial forces.