Chapter 856

Chapter 856

“It is coming down,” Ignis remarked, breaking the silence. Cypress gave a simple nod of agreement.

“Indeed, it is.”

Was this a stroke of fortune? Given their circumstances, one could argue it was. At the very least, the aerial threat of the griffon riders would be neutralized by the storm. Cypress turned his gaze away from the empty sky and focused instead on the masses of water-bloat corpses clawing their way out of the mud.

On this southern front, a deluge was always a harbinger of misery. Most veterans would spit a curse at the first sign of morning rain.

‘Exhaustion is setting in.’

It wasn’t just his own weariness; every man stationed at the vanguard felt the weight. Instead of the usual fire and stone raining down from griffon saddles, the sky now birthed drowned horrors from the very puddles on the ground. At this stage, the griffons were the least of their worries. The real rot lay in the spirits and drowned rising within the perimeter, the ghouls stalking the outskirts, and the gnolls lurking just out of sight.

‘The horde is endless.’

To a man of Cypress’s caliber or his elite knights, these creatures were little more than a nuisance. But for the rank-and-file infantry, they were a death sentence. Nothing came easy here. The southern front was like a dying body, riddled with infection and weeping sores.

‘Should I seek counsel from the Goddess of Fate?’

He wondered if this was truly the end. Was the situation that dire? Cypress didn’t waste time arguing with the heavens. Instead, he renewed the silent vow held within his soul.

“A heavy, ill omen hangs over this place,” Ignis spoke up once more. “The men will sense it. They’ve lived through enough blood to smell disaster in the air. We shouldn’t try to force their spirits up.”

Ignis blinked in surprise. Wasn’t inspiration the duty of a leader in dark times? If his mentor was advising against something so fundamental, there had to be a deeper lesson. When Ignis found himself at a loss, he did the only sensible thing: he sought the answer.

“Then how do we proceed?”

Though his skill was undeniable, Ignis was still a novice in the art of command. Cypress saw this clearly. Ignis knew his own limits, and just as he always had, he turned to his master for guidance. This humility pleased Cypress; it showed the young man hadn’t been blinded by his own burgeoning power or pride.

“We look for the moment,” Cypress replied, smoothing his beard, which was now heavy with rainwater.

“The moment?”

Cypress gestured forward with a sharp, piercing motion. “If the enemy offers no weakness, you carve one yourself.”

Inspirational speeches weren’t what the men needed. They needed a miracle—like seeing their leaders plunge into the fray and emerge with the head of the enemy general. The commander of Rihinstetten was a coward who hid behind monsters from the Demon Realm and stayed out of reach. If they could force a proper engagement, this suffering would end.

What the southern front required was a decisive strike. If Cypress, Ignis, or their third companion could slay the enemy leader, the army’s morale would ignite on its own.

‘Or at least a feat of equal weight.’

As the influence of the Holy Relic flickered, the darkness in the camp was beginning to manifest into physical monsters. If the soldiers’ will broke now, the battle would be lost before a sword was even drawn. Cypress wanted to see the face of the strategist behind this slow, suffocating pressure.

‘It’s a meticulously crafted trap.’

He had seen such tactics before. His solution remained the same as it ever was.

‘Break through with sheer force.’

If you can’t outthink them, outmuscle them. Cypress solidified his resolve and the oath he lived by.

‘I will be the first among the knights to fall.’

That conviction was the anchor of a knight’s Will. To the soldiers and to Ignis, he was the living shield of the front.

“Understood, Master,” Ignis said, bowing his head. He absorbed the lesson, knowing that Cypress’s brevity often masked profound depth. It was, after all, Cypress who had forged him into a knight.

The dread remained, but there was a glimmer of hope: the King had arrived the previous night with the royal host. They would take the burden of fighting the drowned from the exhausted southern legions.

—

The Mad Knights were recognizable by their cloaks, which bore the embroidery of tiered battlements. These dark-green garments had become the hallmark of the order.

Enkrid’s cloak was unique, but even the standard ones were masterfully crafted to repel the elements. Most of the group, save for Temares and Lua Gharne, wore gifts from the fairies that stayed dry even in a downpour. With their oiled leather hoods pulled low, they were well-protected.

The Dragonkin, however, wore nothing at all, allowing the rain to wash over his skin. His kind were immune to the sicknesses of men; the weather was irrelevant to him. It was the natural arrogance of a race born with the inherent ability to channel Will. Though, looking at him, “dignity” wasn’t the first word that came to mind.

“Does your tongue ever rest?” Lua Gharne asked dryly.

Without looking back, the Dragonkin replied, “It has no reason to.”

Typical of his kind. He had recently voiced Lua Gharne’s private thoughts aloud—specifically her possessiveness over her partner. Shinar had merely nodded in agreement, unfazed.

“Naturally, I am his only one,” Shinar stated.

She was far from a typical fairy, a fact well-known to the group. Her bluntness didn’t shock anyone; she simply spoke her truth without the need for masks.

“You mentioned the difficulty of the weaving,” Enkrid noted, shifting the focus. His own cloak shifted perfectly with his movements, shedding water and providing a layer of magical defense. He recalled the words of a Dryad back at the forge: “This cloth is the soul of our people.”

The fairies were a diverse lot, each clan with its own obsession. Enkrid thought of the Woodguard who spent his days with a pipe, the blacksmith who had mended Penna. They were all driven by their crafts. He ran a hand over the hilt of Penna, secured at his hip.

His mind wandered, a luxury of the road. Despite the gloom, Enkrid felt no despair. If a little rain could break his spirit, he wouldn’t have survived the cycles of his past. He wasn’t entirely at peace, but he was a master of maintaining a cold, steady exterior.

“I am simply grateful for a garment that actually fits,” Audin said with a rare smile. The fairies had gone out of their way to tailor a cloak for his massive frame—the first proper gift of clothing the former monk had ever received.

“It is a surprisingly good fit,” Rem added.

Teresa felt the fabric between her fingers, marvelling at how it remained light and cool despite the humidity. It was a masterpiece of fairy arcana.

“If anyone requires a flame, you need only ask. I am a fairy of the fire, after all,” Shinar declared with a touch of vanity that matched the Dragonkin’s pride.

A horse nearby whinnied, sensing the corruption in the air. Shinar calmed the beast with a gentle touch. Their journey was bleak and heavy with the scent of the Demon Realm, yet the group seemed insulated from the misery. They shared jokes and lighthearted insults. No one complained of the cold or the damp. Their pace remained brisk and unwavering. With the mountain peaks as their guide, they moved south—safe as long as Ragna wasn’t the one leading the way.

“Wake me if we end up in a ditch,” Ragna muttered, already beginning to nod off in the saddle.

“Right,” Enkrid replied.

As the plains gave way to rolling, shrub-covered hills, the atmosphere grew denser. To the east lay the Harrison Barony, but their path took them deeper into the heart of the “drowned” territory. Scholars agreed that these monsters were the seeds of the Demon Realm, blooming whenever the rain fell. They were the scouts of the coming darkness.

“I’m getting tired of these things blocking the path,” Rem growled, eyeing a gathering of the undead ahead. For this group, the drowned weren’t a threat—they were a chore. Rem was no stranger to the foulness of the West or the sudden shifts of the Border Guard.

‘Still better than the Silence.’

Rem had been raised on the edge of the Demon Realm known as “Silence.” This weather was nothing to him. He gripped his axe, the sorcery within the blade pulsing like a heartbeat against his palm.

“Don’t you agree?” Rem grinned, though he didn’t expect a reply as he coiled his muscles for the strike.

Enkrid scanned the mist, his knight’s vision cutting through the haze to count the enemies.

‘More than two hundred.’

A terrifying number for a merchant, but a simple calculation for him.

“I’d join the fun, but someone has to watch the supplies until Odd-Eye gets back,” Shinar said, continuing to soothe the pack animals.

“I’ll handle it,” Lua Gharne announced.

Like the Dragonkin, she found the rain somewhat refreshing, though the corruption within it was distasteful. She nudged Temares’s arm. “Have you ever heard of a companionship tax, Temares?”

“Is that some new human custom?”

“It means you pay for the pleasure of my company. Since I don’t want your gold, you’ll have to provide something else.”

Temares pondered this for a second. “Do you wish for me to take a female form and replace that man’s partner?”

“Where do you even get these ideas?” Shinar snapped, her fairy composure slipping into genuine irritation.

Lua Gharne laughed. “Just fight. Clear the path for the leader. It’s time to pay for the entertainment, Temares.”

The Dragonkin gave a sharp nod. “Very well.”

Enkrid unsheathed his sword. He didn’t need a deep spiritual connection to the blade to know what had to be done. At the center of the undead mass, a water wraith began to form—a shimmering, deadly spirit that most soldiers feared as a death omen.

“Let’s pick up the pace,” Enkrid commanded.

“That big one is mine!” Dunbakel screamed, launching herself forward. She moved with such speed that the raindrops seemed to shatter around her like glass.

“Impatience of youth,” Rem grumbled, though he followed close behind.

Dunbakel didn’t hesitate. She vaulted over a lunging corpse, crushed its skull under her boot, and soared toward the water wraith. With a single, Will-saturated strike of her scimitar, she cleaved the spirit in two before it could even finish manifesting.

As the wraith dissipated into lethal shards of pressurized water, she danced through the spray, deflecting what she couldn’t dodge. She carved through the remaining drowned with a flurry of steel and bone-shattering kicks.

“Behold! The most stunning jewel of the East, Dunbakel!” she cried out, spinning in a circle that sent a halo of rainwater flying.

“She’s a loud one,” Ragna sighed, finally waking up to join the fray.

“And a bold liar,” Rem chuckled. No one who knew the stench of the East would ever call its inhabitants “jewels.”

The two hundred drowned were dismantled in minutes. Without stopping to catch their breath, the group pushed further into the night. The rain became a drizzle, but the sky remained a bruised, oppressive gray. The deeper they marched into the south, the more the air tasted of malice—but their stride never faltered.