Chapter 852

Chapter 852

“Centaurs.”
They were creatures of dual nature—the muscular torso of a man joined to the powerful frame of a stallion.
“Since they are abominations, their pupils are pitch black, and their hide, while not exactly armor, possesses a rugged durability.”
Enkrid had crossed blades with their kind once before. He struggled to recall if it had been on the flatlands preceding the southern woods of the Border Guard.
His recollections were murky. So much had transpired in the interval that even a sharp mind could lose track of certain events. Yet, he hadn’t lost everything. Enkrid delved into the recesses of his mind.
“A commander-class swarm.”
He visualized the fluid strikes of the one wielding a heavy glaive. Simultaneously, he remembered how it directed the group, utilizing organized maneuvers.
It was the strategy known as the triple-surge formation.
Distract with the initial line, strike home with the second, and shatter the remains with the third.
It was a basic approach, but devastatingly effective if one possessed superior physical force.
“Back then, he even withstood the bloodlust radiating from the creature.”
He had countered the monster’s murderous intent—which felt remarkably like the mental pressure of a knight—with a sheer refusal to buckle.
As he pulled together the disparate fragments of the past, his memories began to solidify. Some remained hazy, others grew vivid.
He might have forgotten the specific names of those present, but the tactical flow of the engagement and the skills he had honed during that struggle remained etched in his mind.
“This feels different from that encounter,” Enkrid remarked.
These foes lacked that raw, suffocating bloodlust. If the commander-class swarm he once faced was like a heavy, unstoppable juggernaut, these adversaries were more akin to agile skirmishers—skilful and deceptive.
“Every time I lay eyes on those freaks, it makes my skin crawl,” Dunbakel growled. During that previous clash with the commander-class swarm, hadn’t Dunbakel served as the bait, leading the pack on a chase into the thickets?
“Time to settle the score, oh Protector of the Putrid Breath,” Rem jibed at Dunbakel.
The enemy rushed forward, unleashing a volley of bone-tipped shafts, yet no one in the group flinched. Not a single person here was lowly enough to be taken down by such a rudimentary strike.
Ragna pulled herself back into her seat with a look of bored indifference.
“Maddening,” she sighed. That was the extent of her concern. Pursuing them would be an exercise in futility. In truth, they had already shrunk to mere specks on the horizon, moving so fast even a knight’s keen vision struggled to track them.
A few of the horses snorted in agitation, pawing at the dirt, but when Odd-Eye let out a series of sharp, commanding whinnies, the mounts immediately settled.
“Do we give chase?” Rophod inquired. It would push his horse to the breaking point, but if he could shorten the gap even slightly, he could dismount and sprint the rest of the way on foot.
Naturally, he spoke knowing the order wouldn’t be given. It was simply the kind of thing Rophod said because of his status within the group. He was the one who consistently volunteered for the thankless, gritty tasks.
“Not possible,” Enkrid replied, measuring the velocity of the retreating centaurs.
A knight’s explosive power can outmatch a horse in a brief dash, but even accounting for that, these monsters were exceptionally swift. Could their current mounts catch them? There wasn’t a prayer.
“You’re right,” Rophod conceded with a nod. He had known it was a lost cause before he spoke. He merely wanted to ensure the reality of the situation was acknowledged by everyone. That was the nature of his “grubby work.”
“This idiot always has to state the obvious. We all know the score without you flapping your gums, you coward,” Pell mocked.
“How many times must I explain that these exchanges are vital to prevent the group’s focus from splintering? I’ve lost count. This is why no man wants to follow you. Your hideous face is only the second most annoying thing about you.”
A sharp click echoed.
Pell flipped the safety on his blade. Perhaps it was time to add a few more scars to that fool’s face.
Rophod’s gaze turned icy as well. Would the southern front truly miss one man who spent every hour looking for a fight?
At this moment, cutting him down to size and leaving him behind didn’t seem like such a bad idea.
“Listen up, brats, we have a schedule. If you want to kill each other, do it over there,” Rem intervened. His approach differed from Enkrid’s, but it was effective enough to make the two men hesitate.
When a massive, grim barbarian looks at you like he’s ready to split your skull with a heavy axe, the desire for a petty brawl tends to evaporate.
The group resumed their journey, pressing onward. The centaur swarm continued their hit-and-run tactics, and the consensus was to ignore them.
Only Enkrid and a handful of others questioned the wisdom of leaving them to their own devices, but he found himself agreeing with Lua Gharne’s assessment as she rode beside him.
“Groups like that are best handled with superior numbers. You deploy a wing of the army to hem them in and trap them.”
They were an annoyance for a small, elite band to chase. While they could theoretically run them down, it would be an immense drain on their time.
From the way the monsters loosed their arrows, Enkrid sensed a specific purpose.
Venom, distance, and archery.
Combining those three elements, he could vaguely intuit their strategy—but as they reorganized and moved out, the centaur pack reappeared.
“Look at them now,” Rem said, his lip curling in disgust. The persistence of the creatures was becoming a nuisance.
“Hoho, it seems the Lord wishes to engage in a bit of theater,” Audin mused.
If the centaur unit were sent to the afterlife, the Lord would likely observe their struggle with detached amusement.
Whether a deity truly desired such things, Audin couldn’t say—but his nature compelled him to believe that all events fell under a divine plan.
To him, these monsters were merely the Lord’s playthings.
“Sister Teresa, prepare yourself.”
“I understand.”
The bear-beastman siblings pulled on their reins and came to a halt. The rest of the party followed suit.
They waited, poised for the monsters’ next sally. If the pack dared to close the distance this time, they would be obliterated instantly.
The Order of Madmen operated with a singular, lethal intent.
The air hissed as bone arrows whistled through the sky, launched from a great distance. If they got even a step closer, they’d be hunted. That was Enkrid’s internal metric.
The centaur pack seemed to accelerate in mockery, firing their bows mid-gallop before banking away and vanishing into the distance.
They were competing against creatures that were already at full speed. Catching them was, by all accounts, an impossibility.
“We can’t catch them.”
They were incredibly fast—perhaps three or four times the speed of a warhorse at full tilt, or even a prized racing steed.
If the gap would only close, more than half of these knights could engage the monsters with their own weapons.
“They have no intention of letting us get close,” Enkrid observed.
This pattern repeated for three days. Rem argued that they were merely waiting for the party to succumb to exhaustion, while Lua Gharne remained lost in deep thought, her eyes tracking the horizon.
Like clockwork, they fired at dawn, noon, and dusk, then retreated. The party’s progress slowed to a crawl.
“Monsters that endure within the blighted lands eventually develop unique traits.”
He had learned this during his time in Thousand Brick—the city now called Oara. The ghoul known as Jericks was a creature that could analyze and replicate human combat forms.
“Mortals discovered the art of mental pressure by observing the killing intent of monsters.”
The foundation of pressure was an imitation of a beast’s lethal aura, just as the foundation of Will came from witnessing the overwhelming physical power of a titan.
He had gained this insight during a conversation with the Imperial knight Valphir. Valphir had also noted:
“Just as men scavenge and adapt the techniques of monsters, I believe the time has come where monsters are learning the systems of men. Each side takes what it can use.”
Had these archers on the horizon learned the tactical maneuvers and strategic patience of sentient races?
“That appears to be the case,” Enkrid said to Lua Gharne, and she gave a slow nod.
“If we let this continue, not only will the southern conflict be long over, but we won’t reach our destination for another quarter-century. I’ll take care of it.”
Rem was a natural predator. He set out to hunt the centaur pack, vanishing into the night and returning at daybreak. He had nothing to show for it.
“The bastards have lookouts posted for miles.”
The environment was working against them. In a forest, stalking them would be simple. But here on the open plains, with dozens of sets of eyes scanning every direction, a stealthy approach was out of the question.
“Maybe we should have brought that wildcat kid along?”
For Rem to admit such a thing was telling.
“In my place, you have Dunbakel,” Enkrid reminded him.
In the East, survival depended on the hunt. Games of cat-and-mouse with monsters were a daily reality.
“I’m going,” Dunbakel announced.
No one contested her. She was back in less than half a day.
“They fire their bows and run before I can even get within striking range.”
“Chief, why does he seem even thicker after his time in the East?” Rem muttered, shaking his head.
Dunbakel’s sense of smell was unrivaled, even among her own kind. However, on a flat plain where visibility was absolute, her nose offered no advantage. It was useful for tracking something hidden, but she wasn’t built for stealth across an open field.
The enemy wasn’t in hiding; they were in constant motion, maintaining their distance while raining down arrows. Dunbakel, however, had her own ideas.
“What if I take my beast-form and sprint?”
Her transformation had evolved significantly during her time in the East. If she utilized the second stage of that change—
“I could run them down.”
The problem remained that the creatures never allowed her to get even that close. They would simply return later to resume their harassment.
The arrows whistled through the air again. Rem had attached thin lines to his throwing axes and began spinning them rapidly. They formed a protective canopy over the group, knocking the incoming shafts out of the air.
A few arrows found the gaps, but Lua Gharne’s whip lashed out, batting them aside.
Was it a lethal threat? Not really. But their progress was halted. No one in the group would be hit by accident, but the tips were coated in venom.
If a horse was even slightly nicked, it would become a liability. The supplies on the saddles would have to be carried by the men, further slowing their pace. The South was a long journey. They could make it on foot, but they would arrive far too late.
Should they ditch the camping gear?
Enkrid weighed the options.
“If I were you, I would divide the group,” Lua Gharne suggested practically.
It was a frustrating situation—a pack they could easily slaughter if they could only get their hands on them, yet they were currently helpless.
As Lua Gharne noted, if they split up and staged a coordinated pursuit once they cleared the plains, they might stand a chance.
“We’d likely need to split into three teams.”
Should they take the risk? The enemy’s goal was transparent. If these monsters had learned strategy and intended to stall them, wouldn’t splitting up be falling into their trap?
“What if we just ignore them and keep moving?”
If they abandoned the mounts and traveled light, it was an option.
Odd-Eye suddenly nudged Enkrid’s back with his head. When Enkrid turned, he saw a fierce, predatory light in the horse’s mismatched eyes.
It was a mixture of killing intent and pure pressure.
While Enkrid had been busy slaying the Balrog, what had this wild stallion been up to?
He didn’t know for sure, but the horse certainly hadn’t been wasting time. That was the kind of creature Odd-Eye was.
“All right, Indomitable. Do you have something to suggest?”
For the first time in a long while, Enkrid used the formal name he’d bestowed upon him. Despite being a horse, Odd-Eye seemed to scowl. His facial expressions were uncannily human. His look clearly said, ‘What is this sudden nonsense?’ Enkrid ignored the reaction and asked again. He had mastered this kind of stubborn persistence back in his mercenary days.
What was the name of the captain who taught him that? Tom? It was something like that. Perhaps longer.
It was too far back; the memory was a blur.
“So, what is it?”
Odd-Eye gave a sharp snort.
Enkrid and Odd-Eye could communicate on a basic level, but discussing complex battle plans was impossible. No matter how clever the horse was, he lacked human speech.
However, there was one among them who could interpret the thoughts of humans, giants, spirits, and beasts alike. For the Dragonkin, spoken words were merely a formality.
“He is telling you to mount up,” she said.
“Hm?”
“He says he will be the one to catch them.”
The Dragonkin had suddenly taken a keen interest in the wild horse that followed Enkrid. A surge of frantic willpower and zeal was radiating from the animal. What was driving him?
The Dragonkin peered into Odd-Eye’s mind.
‘Faster than me?’
A wild horse that had conquered jagged plains, mountain ranges, rocky trails, and swamps would not permit anything to outpace it.
Odd-Eye snorted again, his internal resolve burning brightly. Enkrid could sense that much with perfect clarity.
There was no gear on Odd-Eye’s back. He hadn’t planned for it, but the stallion would never have allowed a heavy load to be strapped to him anyway.
Instead, Enkrid shouldered his own pack and handed the rest of his equipment to the others. He unslung the bag and tossed it to Pell.
“Hold onto this.”
Then, he swung himself into the saddle. The moment he sat, a wave of heat surged from the horse. The dark, bruise-like markings on Odd-Eye’s hide had darkened, and a palpable warmth filled his body.
“You’re claiming there isn’t a horse alive faster than you?” Enkrid asked.
Odd-Eye reared back, his front hooves striking the air in a defiant answer.
“That is exactly what he’s saying,” the Dragonkin clarified.
At that moment, from the distance, the centaur pack launched another volley.
They were venomous bone arrows fired by a monster swarm that had mastered human tactics. In response, a wild stallion—one that had transcended the tainted blood of monsters—set the Balrog Slayer on his back and began to run.