Chapter 153
The subjugation of the magical beasts continued.
The cause of this magical-beast outbreak.
The anomaly in the western sky.
The anxiety needling at my nerves.
‘There’s more than one thing that feels off…….’
In the end, my top priority was cutting down the magical beasts right in front of me.
“Don’t stop! Follow the commander!”
“Waaaaaaaah!”
The knight corps charged from both sides, slicing through the waist of the horde.
Splitting their formation and surging into the enemy’s flanks, the knight corps were executing a strategy designed to maximize the firepower of the mage corps stationed in the center.
-Whoooosh! KABOOOOOM!
Hundreds of magical projectiles flew through the sky, drawing sharp arcs with a sound that tore through it.
Their points of impact formed a killing zone in the center, densely packed with magical beasts and perfectly clear of the advancing lines of the knight corps deployed to the left and right.
There was no danger of striking our own forces.
Because every one of them was one of the Empire’s finest elite mages.
The impact points and firepower of the magic were controlled with spine-chilling precision.
As a result.
The magical beasts, with nowhere left to retreat, were swallowed whole by the storm of magic.
Flames burst, and winds whipped around.
An overwhelming display of firepower, enough that the knights hardly needed to swing their swords.
Thunderous booms and sparks flying in every direction blanketed the battlefield in light.
In the middle of it all, I was running alone.
-Ssswish!
A gray shadow thrust its head through the blazing heat. Pitch-black claws rushed right up to my face.
I didn’t slow down.
I twisted my upper body slightly, letting the attack’s trajectory slide past me.
My sword passed through the magical beast’s neck.
Its head fell.
I didn’t check.
Before the magical beast’s body had even collapsed, my feet were already carrying me toward the next enemy.
Most of the magical beasts couldn’t withstand the magic and were reduced to dust. But not all of them were.
Individuals with naturally high magic resistance.
Individuals that refused to die through abnormal regenerative powers.
Dealing with those creatures was the knights’ job.
Even among them, the qualification to break away from formation and roam freely across the battlefield was granted only to a handful of skilled fighters.
Eliminate in advance any magical beasts that could pose a danger to everyone.
That was why I could run alone through the middle of the magical-beast horde.
“Phew.”
The detection range expanded to its maximum through mana sensitivity.
Information flooded in like a torrent.
The movements of the magical beasts.
Killing intent being sent from somewhere.
Changes in the flow of mana, and so on.
An inundation of information that would have paralyzed an ordinary person’s mind.
Yet my accelerated thought process made the world seem slow. I processed the information rapidly without strain.
I dodged the attack of a pack of Blood Wolves closing in on my blind spot from the left.
Rotating my body half a step to the side, the Intangible Sword thrust diagonally through their brows in succession.
At the same time, the true sword in my right hand was already slicing cleanly through the neck of a troll charging straight at me.
The magical beasts around me fell once again.
-Thud.
A movement that perfectly erased the gap between judgment and execution.
The moment my mind perceived something and the moment my body moved became one.
Every exchange of attack and defense flowed together in a natural line, like running water.
Even dozens of monsters closing in on my blind spots simultaneously from all directions posed no threat.
In this slowed world, I alone moved quickly, doing nothing but cutting magical beasts down, again and again.
-Kwooooooh!
I sensed the surrounding air currents changing along with a bizarre roar.
What entered my field of vision was an earth drake.
Intense heat billowed around its gaping jaws.
‘Breath…!’
Even if it was an earth drake, it was still dragonkind.
The lowest of the dragons, called the kings of magical beasts.
As expected, a blazing inferno erupted, seemingly capable of turning everything before my eyes to ash.
Red flames filled my field of vision.
An incredible heat.
The air warped.
But in my accelerated vision, I could see even the individual tongues of flame clearly.
Between the fiercely burning streams of flame, there was a faintly wavering gap.
“Hup!”
I threw myself straight into the center of the onrushing breath.
Flames brushed past the hem of my clothes.
Before the heat could even reach my skin, I had already reached the drake’s side.
For an instant, my gaze met its yellow eyes.
The drake tried to turn its head in a hurry, but.
-Ssslash!
My sword sliced effortlessly through its thick scales. Its enormous head dropped with a thud.
-Grrrr……
Even a frenzied magical beast seemed shocked that a dragon had fallen.
The ones that had been charging recklessly, as if they had lost their minds, hesitated.
Come to think of it, the number of magical beasts in sight had noticeably dwindled.
‘We really are taking down all those things.’
I wouldn’t have been able to kill even half of them on my own.
Their combat power certainly lived up to their reputation as the Empire’s strongest military force.
What was frightening was that even this was with the First Division and the mage corps, the core of the Imperial Knight Order, absent from the scene.
“Wow, what is all this? You really tore them apart.”
“Just how far ahead did he go alone? Don’t tell me he’s dead somewhere.”
A human voice I felt I hadn’t heard in quite some time.
It was Hugo and Knox of the Second Knight Order.
The two men, jogging leisurely along the path I had cleared, soon spotted me.
“Leon, there you are?”
“What happened?”
“The commander sent us to help. I was worried you’d died somewhere, but I guess that was a needless concern.”
“As you can see, I’m alive and well.”
“Looks that way.”
Hugo spoke matter-of-factly, but a disbelieving snicker tugged at the corner of his mouth.
“How many did you kill? Just at a glance, it looks like you’ve taken down hundreds.”
“Who knows? There were too many to count after a while. Wouldn’t you say it’s over four digits?”
“Four digits on your own in this melee…… You really are no ordinary lunatic.”
“Sir Hugo, once you become a slave, you’ll be able to do it too. Would you like to try?”
“No, you lunatic.”
Tsk.
I feel like we could get along well and help each other if I gained a fellow slave.
What a shame.
“The commander ordered us to return soon. Let’s go back.”
“But they’re coming again?”
“Fall back to the defensive line and get a drink. You came too far on your own, so the blessing has been cut off too.”
“Ah.”
Only then did I check my condition.
The glow that had faintly surrounded my body had disappeared at some point.
Because I had left the range of the magic.
‘No wonder it started taking more effort partway through.’
Of course, I still had plenty of mana and stamina, but there was no need to fight at a disadvantage for no reason.
More than anything, I was a little tired from keeping my nerves so tightly strung.
“Then……. Hmm?”
I withdrew my mana.
No, it was the moment I was about to withdraw it.
“What’s wrong?”
“……”
Leaving the puzzled Hugo behind, I focused on my senses.
I felt a vibration beneath my feet.
It was extremely faint.
A tremor so slight that I wouldn’t have noticed it if it had been drowned out by the battlefield’s noise.
At a glance, it could even have seemed to be caused by the movement of a large magical beast.
But my senses, honed to their limit, did not miss that tiny discrepancy.
‘What is it?’
I placed my palm against the ground.
Beneath the earth stained with pieces of magical beasts and blood, something was moving deep underground.
Dozens.
No, hundreds.
And at an extremely rapid speed.
It writhed and extended in one direction like a living root.
That direction was none other than.
‘The mage corps…!’
Helena was with the mage corps.
The instant I realized that, I kicked off the ground.
The ground burst, and my body shot explosively toward the rear.
“Huh? Hey, Leon! Where are you going!”
Hugo’s voice came flying from behind, but the distance had already begun to widen.
***
At the same time, in the mage corps behind the defensive line.
Following Richard’s orders, Helena, assigned to guard the mage corps, waited with her hand resting on her sword hilt.
Ready to draw her sword at any moment.
“……”
It was an emergency—the magical-beast outbreak.
Helena had fought a large number of magical beasts before.
She was an experienced fighter, with enough practical experience and skill that it would not have been strange for her to become a knight immediately.
But she had never fought a horde of magical beasts on this scale.
A large-scale battle that truly deserved to be called a war.
It was only natural that Helena’s hands were drenched in sweat.
“You don’t have to be so nervous. There’s no chance those magical beasts will make it all the way here.”
A knight who noticed Helena offered that advice with a light smile.
“Is that so?”
“Of course. To get to us, they’d have to wipe out all the knight corps in front. If this were a war against people, they might go around us, but do you really think magical beasts know how to do that?”
“Hmm……”
Just as he said, Helena was far more idle than she had imagined.
The explosions from the far-off front line were deafening, but the rear, where the mage corps was stationed, was strangely safe.
Not only had they deployed knight corps to guard the mages, they had also layered barrier spells upon barrier spells.
Even the ground beneath their feet had been reinforced against any unforeseen situation.
A barrier of this level could easily withstand even a dragon unleashing its breath repeatedly.
Thanks to that, Helena had nothing to do.
‘The commander must have assigned me here knowing this would happen.’
Of course, she knew intellectually that there was no unimportant role on a battlefield.
But while everyone else was making a name for themselves by cutting down magical beasts, she could only watch, and her body was itching to move.
“Still, you never know what variables may arise on a battlefield. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with staying alert.”
“You’re more serious than you look. Well, I suppose that’s the right attitude. I’m the one who’s grown complacent.”
The knight let out a self-deprecating, meaningless laugh and looked away from Helena.
He began chatting idly with another knight beside him.
Helena watched them for a moment, then turned her head forward again.
Yes, nothing was unimportant in war. Everyone had a role to play.
Since she had forced her way into this, simply being able to observe from close by was already a valuable experience.
Someday, this moment would prove useful.
Helena convinced herself of that.
Then she lowered her head for a moment.
“……What is that?”
For an instant, she felt the ground beneath her feet shake.
It was nothing unusual.
The mages had been firing magic from earlier, so the aftereffects of the vibrations had been reaching this place too.
Thinking it was nothing serious, she raised her head again.
“Huh?”
What Helena saw was darkness.
The battlefield scenery that had been visible only a few seconds earlier had vanished completely.
As if a curtain had been drawn.
But it was not a curtain. Something outside the barrier was writhing.
Hundreds, thousands of tentacles surged up from the ground and wrapped tightly around the barrier.
“I-It’s an enemy attack! They’re attacking from underground!”
“Maintain the barrier! Cut the tentacles!”
The mages maintained the barrier’s strength despite their panic. They fired magic and cut down the tentacles.
Yet every time they were cut, tentacles quickly filled the empty spaces.
They wrapped around the barrier without leaving the slightest gap. Then they pulled.
-Rumble-rumble-rumble!
The ground sank.
With the defensive barrier at its center, the earth itself caved inward and downward.
The mass of tentacles entwined around the barrier was dragging both the magical shield and the ground beneath it underground.
“I-It’s pulling us down……!”
“Dispel the barrier!”
“Idiot! Then we’ll be left defenseless!”
The mages milled about in confusion, not knowing what to do.
That was when it happened.
-Whoooom!
Along with a wind that left their ears ringing, the air currents twisted vertically.
The sensation of falling underground reversed in an instant.
“Huh?”
A feeling of weightlessness enveloped Helena’s entire body.
The chunk of earth beneath her feet shot into the sky together with the barrier.
They hung suspended in the air for a brief moment.
“……Huh? Huh? Huh?”
The earth began to fall from the sky.