Chapter 871

Chapter 871

“If a massacre is required, I will see it through. But why spill blood without a motive?”

That was the philosophy of Crang. If there was no justification for carving out a canyon of corpses and building a monument of broken bones, he refrained from it. Looking at it through that lens, the chaotic performance of the maniac called Pell was actually quite refreshing to witness.

From a strategic standpoint, thinning the ranks of the opposition by even a single man was likely a benefit for the days to come. Every enemy combatant granted mercy now was a potential killer of his own subjects and warriors in a future conflict.

‘It feels as though I am balancing on a thin wire stretched across a chasm, Enki.’

Crang pondered those thoughts in the silence of his mind.

Opting for the lesser of two evils was a simple task, but the true burden lay in abandoning the path of convenience to walk the grueling road of the ideal. One who pursued the absolute best outcome, rather than just the tolerable one, was forced into the role of an acrobat, constantly defying a fall.

This was the trial Crang faced in this moment.

“Hoo.”

He released a heavy breath, but only internally. To the world, he presented nothing but a confident grin. Such was the burden of sovereignty. The King was aware that he lacked the mind of a master tactician; however, he possessed a profound understanding of what his station demanded of him.

Should these grand hosts clash in earnest, both Naurillia and Rihinstetten would suffer wounds from which they might never recover.

‘If we tear each other apart with such ferocity, who is left to reap the rewards, High Pontiff?’

Crang directed the question toward the southern sovereign, though he was leagues away. Predictably, silence was the only response. The inquiry lived only in his heart, beyond the reach of the man’s ears.

He didn’t actually require a verbal answer. The truth was already manifest.

Neither he nor the southern High Pontiff would find much cause for celebration in a total war. In all likelihood, only the Emperor of the northern domain, secluded behind his wall of shadows, would find joy in their mutual destruction.

Consequently, a bloodbath was to be avoided. This was why he felt such profound relief at the current state of affairs. It felt as though he had navigated the first treacherous steps of his high-wire act with grace. Pell had secured that opening for him.

‘But this is no moment for complacency.’

The engagement had not yet reached its conclusion. Crang’s mind raced with the implications of the aftermath: the duties of his crown, the objectives that had driven him to this distant front, the contingencies for if reality shattered his projections, and the lives already traded for this position. The King’s thoughts were a tangled web. He did not have the luxury of simple joy.

—

“So, is your partner perhaps a bit… slow in the head?”

Galluto tossed the question over while observing Pell swatting away a hail of arrows and weaving through the chaos with frantic energy. Rophod gave a vigorous nod of confirmation. He was in such total agreement that it felt like this enemy was speaking the very words he had been holding in his own heart.

The man was perceptive. It seemed almost a pity that he had to die here.

However, mercy was not a luxury they could afford. He couldn’t be allowed to return home. Before the blades were drawn, Enkrid had laid out the terms.

“Overpower the knights. You may take them as prisoners, though it serves little purpose. Use your own judgment.”

As was his custom, Enkrid’s orders were rooted in a respect for their autonomy. In essence, they were free to handle the situation as they saw fit.

“Take them alive? Not a chance. I’m taking their heads with my axe,” Rem had snarled in response.

Knights lived and died by their sacred oaths. Southern knights were not the type to switch allegiances or abandon their soil simply because the tide turned against them. Such defections were legends, not realities. At the very least, there was no time for such idealistic mercy on a field this bloody.

Capturing them was a waste of breath.

This was the secondary reason Rophod had shoved Pell aside to take this fight. That idiot Pell would have certainly tried to show off his finesse by attempting to subdue them without killing them.

‘Our position is precarious.’

Rophod looked past the immediate duel, weighing the momentum of the entire conflict. It was a realization he had solidified with the insights Kraiss had shared earlier. That was why they couldn’t afford the sentimentality of sparing a talented foe.

Of course, the primary reason he had pushed Pell away was to secure one more opportunity to mock the man. Once the dust settled, he intended to call him a sluggish fool, as unmotivated as Sir Ragna, and bury him in insults.

“Indeed.”

Rophod finally spoke, his voice cold. Galluto squinted, his mind processing various scenarios before landing on a singular truth. Taunts would find no purchase here.

“A knight’s true voice is his steel,” Galluto declared.

It was time to decide the matter with prowess, not rhetoric.

Galluto used his calm demeanor as a shield, but that didn’t mean his blade was dull. Quite the contrary. While Elma was the most ferocious warrior in the Amethyst Order, Galluto actually held the superior record in internal duels.

He was a master of the calculated victory. He analyzed the terrain and claimed the advantage, dragging his opponents into a mental labyrinth of his own design. His personal combat style mirrored his command of a battalion.

‘Prepare for every door the enemy might open.’

The Indomitable Shield, The Anchor, The Mire-Sword—those were the titles Galluto had earned. Within the Amethyst Order, the warriors capable of besting him could be counted on one hand. His talent lay in the extreme application of logic and foresight.

His gaze darkened, resembling a patch of earth where one couldn’t distinguish solid ground from a death-trap until it was too late. His eyes were a deep, murky brown. They looked like a bog composed of rotting foliage, ancient bones, and layers of compressed silt. It was a dark, stagnant mass of things that had yet to fully decay.

The warmth of the brown bled out of Galluto’s eyes, replaced by a flat, ashen hue.

He ran the numbers, analyzing Rophod’s stance and his center of mass. He projected the trajectory of the continental knight standing before him. He was looking into the immediate future.

‘A concentrated thrust.’

That was the move his foe would make.

‘Parry and riposte.’

The clash wouldn’t end in a single heart-beat. The subsequent steps were already mapped out in his mind.

Rophod simply stood there, feet rooted to the soil, regulating his breath. He made no elaborate preparations and ran no complex simulations. He observed the man’s talent and watched his movements with an open gaze. He recognized a fighter whose tactical foundation was much like his own.

Upon realizing that, Rophod stopped thinking entirely. He distilled his entire existence into a single intent: lunge and pierce. He coiled his muscles and funneled power into the foot bracing against the earth. His right boot sank deep into the dirt.

*Crunch.*

The soil, compressed by immense force, became as solid as granite—a perfect launching pad. As Rophod shifted his weight onto that improvised block and pitched his body forward, he flexed his leg and exploded. The movement was a blur of pure kinetic energy.

*Boom!*

The earth fractured.

*Thud!*

The sound of meat being torn.

Galluto remained motionless, and Rophod came to a halt behind him. They were now back-to-back. The duel had reached its conclusion in the span of a single heartbeat. Both men began to bleed.

However, the one whose throat had been impaled was a dead man, while the one who had merely lost his shoulder plate and suffered a flesh wound lived.

*Clang.*

A shard of the pauldrons, sheared in two by the weight of the strike, hit the dirt. It was forged from premium steel and beast-hide, but it was no match for a knight’s desperate edge.

‘Still, it served its purpose.’

Without that armor, the blade would have bitten much deeper. Rophod could feel a chunk of his left shoulder missing where the steel had skimmed past. It wasn’t a minor injury, but considering he had just slain a high-ranking knight, it was a price he was happy to pay.

“In our outfit, we have a monster who makes it impossible to even attempt a strike, no matter what you try,” Rophod remarked.

A glimmer of life still lingered in Galluto’s eyes, despite the ruin of his throat. He was fading fast, but his senses remained for a few final seconds.

Why had the fight ended so abruptly? The answer was uncomplicated. Galluto had prepared for a marathon, focusing entirely on his own defense. Perhaps witnessing Elma’s fate had rattled his confidence.

Rophod, conversely, had channeled Pell’s recklessness. He had adopted Enkrid’s philosophy, stepping into the fray with a total disregard for his own survival.

The dying Galluto reached out, his fingers grasping at nothing. Perhaps he had a final word to offer? It was impossible to tell. A knight, no matter how disciplined, cannot speak when his windpipe has been opened.

He clawed at the air one last time before collapsing face-first.

*Thump.*

Galluto lay in the dirt, his head lolling to the side as he struggled for air. His silent message wasn’t hard to interpret. Based on the movement of his lips, he was thinking of the word “gamble.”

Blood surged from the wound in his neck. The crimson flow was a final testament to his humanity.

Setting aside the outcome of life and death, did he feel cheated? Did he feel the sting of losing everything on what he perceived as a reckless bet? From his perspective, it must have looked like a roll of the dice.

“It wasn’t a roll of the dice,” Rophod whispered.

It truly wasn’t. It was a tactic forged through thousands of sparring sessions and real battles—the move with the highest statistical chance of victory. He had simply executed the most efficient path to the win.

‘If I had let the fight drag on, my endurance would have eventually failed me.’

The opponent was a master of the long game. It was a style of psychological and mathematical pressure that Rophod himself usually preferred.

The deciding factor between Galluto and Rophod was that Rophod was willing to fight like Pell if it guaranteed a win. He felt no loyalty to his preferred style if a bold, reckless move offered a better result.

This adaptability was rooted in the lessons he had internalized—specifically, a concept the captain had emphasized.

‘The Perfect Circle.’

That was Enkrid’s core teaching: identify your greatest strength, lead with it, and then refine it until that extraordinary skill appears ordinary and seamless. Standing over the cooling body of the knight, Rophod knew his years of pain had been worth it. The blood soaking into the ground turned the earth a dark, bruised red.

At the exact moment Rophod’s duel ended, Dunbakel also claimed her prize.

The curved blade in her grip traced a wide, vicious arc. She retreated an inch, then lunged with a swing that seemed to shred the very atmosphere. A high-pitched whistle lingered in the air as the enemy’s neck was expertly opened.

“Behold the secret technique: the ‘Quick Snip,’ you brat.”

There was nothing secret or technical about it. She had simply studied the man’s pattern, found his range, and then exploited it with a sudden burst of speed.

Not that there was anyone left to hear her boast. The knight, his head barely attached, dropped to his knees before falling over.

Dunbakel held her breath during the execution, only speaking after she had cleared the immediate area. This allowed her to avoid the metallic “venom” of the battlefield’s scent. Her olfactory senses were far beyond even a typical beastman. She could practically see the path of a scent in the air. It was a level of sensory perception that defied belief.

The slaughter was total. It was exactly what the “madmen” and Crang had anticipated, but for the opposing forces, it was a moment of sheer, incomprehensible horror.

—

Enkrid maintained his seat atop Odd-Eye, scanning the carnage from above.

While he had been dominating the airspace, he had watched the members of the Mad Order—Rem, Dunbakel, Rophod, and Pell—tearing through the enemy knights like wolves through sheep. He had particularly noted Pell’s bizarre displays of agility.

“What do you suppose makes him act like that?”

He directed the question to Odd-Eye, who merely shook its head and let out a sharp whinny.

True, the beast wouldn’t know.

You can never truly grasp the contents of a soul unless you occupy it. Even a being like the Dragonkin Temares could only catch fragments of a person’s thoughts.

‘If you wrap your heart in a lie, even a Dragonkin can be led astray.’

It was a basic, rigid truth. For those who lived by the sword, masking one’s true intent was a fundamental skill. A knight might feign a finishing blow to draw out a defensive response, or act as if they are settling in for a long siege only to end it in a flash.

Deception was the greatest tool on the field. Everyone knew that.

‘To fool the enemy, you must first fool yourself.’

That was the cornerstone of the Valens mercenary style. He realized now that their technique was essentially the art of the deceptive blade. It was the foundation upon which Enkrid’s own formal style had been built.

‘Everyone is a liar here.’

The fairies were the undisputed masters of the craft. Shinar could even use a Dragonkin as the butt of a joke. The fairies, who lived to warp reality, knew how to shield their hearts from psychic intrusion and how to weaponize that very process.

These reflections drifted through his mind as he observed the field. It was a habit of his to take stray thoughts and weave them into his understanding of combat.

Regardless, the outcome was decided. The scales had tipped. The soldiers who had endured the hellish rains of the Demon-lands alongside the gryphons were now erupting in celebration.

“Uwooooo!”

“We are the—!”

“Guardians!”

“We are the—!”

“Guardians!”

Every legion had its own chant. The Border Guard used to roar that the “infantry are the flowers of the war.” The enemy’s cries usually involved fighting through the gates of hell. Since the Border Guard relied on the sheer numbers of their footmen rather than a small elite cavalry, their chant reflected that reality.

The enemy’s battle cry likely stemmed from the resilient spirit of the south.

‘The land that perfected the art of a soldier clinging to a knight even as they die.’

In simpler terms, the south was the birthplace of the “Slayer of a Thousand.” The legend of the knight who carved through a thousand foes, fueled by drugs and a death wish, still resonated in those lands.

The cry of this fortress, the southern bulwark, was direct and powerful.

*We are guardians, we are Guardians.*

It was a chant heavy with the pride of generations who had repelled southern raids and horrors from the Demon-lands. Enkrid was merely a catalyst; he had no desire to diminish the victory they had earned through their own blood and sweat. Even without his intervention or the help of the Mad Order, the Red Cloaks would have eventually prevailed.

But that was the problem.

‘This isn’t enough.’

There were only four knights among them. The troop count was significant, but compared to the legendary status Cypress had maintained, these forces were too sparse and too inexperienced.

‘Why?’

The thought was fleeting. Just as he began to dig deeper into the mystery, he spotted movement. Several shadows were closing in on the rear of their own lines. An enemy flanking force. More accurately, they weren’t human, so calling them an “army” felt wrong.

Galluto had not died in vain. He had played every card in his hand, including his final gambit.

He had likely entered the fight expecting a win, but even in failure, the arrow he had fired had reached its mark. This was the threat Enkrid was now witnessing with his own eyes.