Chapter 25
Chapter 10. Civil War Breaks Out – 02
“Huh?”
The deputy commander’s eyes grew as large as lanterns.
The earth suddenly lurched, and a massive earthen wall surged up to block the cavalry’s path.
“W-What is this?!”
Not only that, but the flat ground suddenly changed into a downhill slope.
Already thrown into confusion by the earthen wall, the deputy commander gritted his teeth and turned as the ground sloped downward.
“Wheel right!”
“Yes!”
Though they could have broken through with their lances, the deputy commander chose to go around.
He saw no reason to take unnecessary risks.
He thought the spirit art could not be maintained for long, so the more time passed, the more favorable things would become for them.
“I’m sorry, but you won’t be able to get out of there.”
“M-Madman!”
The deputy commander was aghast.
It was because earthen spears suddenly shot up from the earth, which had been undulating like waves.
They had armored the horses with iron for their role as a shock force, but not their legs.
Furthermore, they were running at full speed, so avoiding the spears was impossible.
Neigh!
The horses collapsed with agonizing death cries.
They had been helpless against the earthen spears surging up from beneath their feet.
But the knights were the real problem.
When the horses went tumbling, their riders crashed horribly to the ground as well.
“Keh!”
“Ghk!”
They were wearing heavy armor to begin with, and after suddenly falling to the ground, there was little the knights could do.
Then the horses following behind trampled them, and knights died one after another without even getting the chance to fight properly.
“Graaah! You damn bastard!”
The deputy commander barely pulled himself free of the chaos and cursed with bloodshot eyes.
He was enraged because more than half the cavalry had been killed or wounded in an instant.
They had not even fought properly; suffering this much damage from a few gestures made him glare at Jade as if he wanted to tear him apart, then kick off the ground.
Ssshhk! Ssshhk!
However, he could not take more than a few steps.
The War Elves’ arrows were flying between the arrows fired by the archers.
Arrows without mana posed no great threat to the deputy commander, but the War Elves’ arrows were different.
“Aaaah!”
Every one of the arrows precisely targeted a joint. Even as he fell from his horse, the deputy commander protected his vital areas with the shield he had refused to let go of, then snatched up a lance lying nearby.
Then he hurled it with all his strength at Jade, who had created this damned situation.
He poured all the mana he had into it, aimed carefully, and threw.
Ssshhhhh!
He had even given the lance a spin with a snap of his wrist at the end, so it flew toward Jade like a bolt of lightning, emitting a terrifying shriek as it split the air.
However, the deputy commander’s desperate final strike failed futilely despite its momentum.
Jade had deflected it far too easily with a sword made from Black Drake teeth.
Thwack!
While the deputy commander stood dazed at the unbelievable sight, Noes, the upper-grade earth spirit summoned to the Middle World in place of Silairon, stabbed him in the stomach with an earthen spear.
Noes had gathered the earth’s power behind the deputy commander and attacked with all its strength, without missing the opening.
“Kgh!”
The deputy commander drew up his aura against the stealthy attack, but it was useless.
The already densely compressed earthen spear pierced not only his full plate armor but also his stomach.
“Guh!”
“S-Save me……”
The other knights were in no better situation.
Most of the knights who survived cried out in pain; it would have been better if they had died instantly.
Thwack!
Noes dispatched them without hesitation.
As a spirit, Noes was not particularly concerned with human life or death.
It merely followed Jade’s orders faithfully.
“D-Damn it!”
The deputy commander cursed as he was trapped in the earth and left to die without ever having properly fought.
But cursing would not change anything.
Soon, the deputy commander sank onto the blood-soaked ground and closed his eyes as well.
Kraaaang!
By the time the cavalry had been wiped out, the duel between the two was also nearing its end.
The battle had initially been evenly matched, but at some point, the balance had tilted sharply.
“Kgh!”
Marquess Madrain staggered backward under the whirlwind of twin swords.
A long diagonal slash ran across his chest.
While he was blocking one sword, the other had cut across the Marquess’s chest.
“My lord!”
The knights of House Madrain watching from behind shouted in alarm at the sight of the obvious, serious wound.
They looked ready to rush forward at any moment.
“Who are you? As far as I know, there are no Masters in the Kingdom of Arhan who use twin swords. Are you a knight they trained in secret?”
“You talk too much.”
“……A woman?”
“Why? Can’t a woman become a Master?”
Marquess Madrain’s brow twitched.
He had never imagined that the person he had been fighting all this time would be a woman.
“Graaah!”
Just then, a horrible scream rang out from not far away.
It was unmistakably the scream of someone on the verge of death.
Not only that, but he could also feel a faint tremor in the earth.
“Th-They’re all dead! They’ve been wiped out!”
‘Wiped out?’
Marquess Madrain’s pupils shook.
He had been unable to pay any attention to anything else while fighting the woman before him, but he knew that the cavalry had charged.
Yet when he heard that they had all died, Marquess Madrain could not believe it.
He knew all too well how powerful the cavalry was.
“Shouldn’t we decide the winner soon?”
“Aren’t you getting too deeply involved in another country’s affairs? What are you planning to do about the consequences later?”
Marquess Madrain said this while quickly staunching his wound with his left hand.
No matter that the Crown Prince’s maternal family was the royal family of the Kingdom of Arhan, it seemed they were becoming too deeply involved.
“Is that a threat?”
“It’s not a threat. I’m telling you to think about it calmly. The Arhan royal family’s involvement itself could provide grounds for war. The Kingdom of Arhan wouldn’t want that either.”
He spoke indirectly, but the meaning was clear.
If she wanted to avoid war, she should stop here.
But instead of answering, the woman smiled.
At the sight of her only visible feature, her lips curving into an arc, Marquess Madrain gave her an incomprehending look.
“That’s right. The Kingdom of Arhan doesn’t want war. That’s why it hasn’t intervened.”
“……It hasn’t intervened?”
“Yes. I’m not affiliated with the Kingdom of Arhan. Neither is the support force.”
“What does that……!”
Marquess Madrain could not finish his sentence.
His words had failed him when the hood fell backward, revealing pointed ears unlike those of a human.
“You understand what I mean now, don’t you?”
“What are the mages doing?! Attack already! Soldiers, advance! Mercenaries too!”
Arrelia spoke in a bright voice utterly out of place on the battlefield.
Then the Second Prince’s furious voice split the battlefield.
With the cavalry wiped out and even the trusted Marquess Madrain seriously wounded, he finally ordered a full-scale attack.
He could no longer stand by and take hit after hit while trying to minimize casualties.
Hummm!
Before long, mana began to surge in various places in the rear.
The mages had begun casting.
Some immediately unleashed spells they had prepared in advance with Memorize, but just then, an earthquake struck.
“I-It’s the spirit’s power!”
“Stop it! Stop it!”
The Second Prince shouted irritably.
He had instantly realized who was trying to interfere.
So he glared at Jade atop the castle wall with a murderous expression.
But despite that gaze, Jade merely looked down at the battlefield with an arrogant expression.
“I’ll do my best to stop it!”
“Stop it no matter what!”
“Y-Yes, yes!”
The increasingly violent earthquake gradually weakened.
At the same time, the mages who had finished casting all unleashed their spells toward the lord’s castle.
They had used the most destructive fire- and lightning-element spells.
Behind them, the knights and soldiers of the various noble houses advanced.
Ssssss……
Yet the spells that had been flying brilliantly toward the castle wall suddenly vanished.
They had dispersed like mist near the wall.
The mages shouted reflexively at the sight.
“D-Dispel?”
“But there aren’t any mages?”
The mages began to murmur as nearly half of the spells disappeared.
However, no matter how closely they searched the castle wall, they could not see anyone who looked like a mage.
Kra-kaboom!
Dispel had erased nearly half the spells, but the remaining half was still intact.
And those spells struck the castle wall and the soldiers with pinpoint accuracy.
“Graaah!”
“Guhhh!”
At the first screams from the enemy, the morale of the Second Prince’s advancing soldiers rapidly rose.
They had been taking hit after hit, so seeing the enemy suffer raised their spirits.
The mercenary companies that had been hesitating also began joining the battle in earnest.
Grind!
At the sight, Lloyd bit his lip.
They had seemed to gain the upper hand for a moment, but the numerical disparity could not be ignored.
If both sides suffered equal losses, they were the ones at a disadvantage in the end.
The War Elves were performing beyond expectations, but once the mages joined the fight in earnest, they could no longer display the same presence as before.
Swish! Swish!
Moreover, Marquess Madrain had set aside his pride and begun attacking in concert with the knights.
The instant he decided he could not handle the situation alone, he abandoned his pride.
Everyone was fighting desperately, but Lloyd could see it.
The tide was slowly turning toward the Second Prince.
“If we could just take Marquess Madrain, I think we could completely turn the tide.”
“I agree. But we don’t have the manpower to do that.”
Haines trailed off.
He had the same thought, but unfortunately, there were no troops to spare.
“What if you joined the fight, Sir Haines?”
“I have to protect the two of you.”
“Steven is here, and so is Lord Jade. If you help Lady Arrelia, you can break that deadlock. More than that, you might be able to capture the Second Prince right away.”
A Sword Master was still a Sword Master, even if tired and wounded.
There was a reason people called Masters Masters.
Since only another Master could stop a Master, Lloyd tried to persuade Haines.
Haines and Arrelia could capture the Second Prince, no matter how many Royal Knights were protecting him.
“I can’t. We’re already outnumbered; I can’t leave the two of you.”
“If this continues, only our casualties will increase. They’re citizens of the kingdom too. We have to end the battle as quickly as possible.”
“Hmm!”
Haines let out a low groan.
He could not reject the words outright because they were not wrong.
But just then, something strange caught Haines’s eye.
A group was leisurely crossing the battlefield, where arrows were raining down and spells flew wildly in every direction.
‘A strike team!’
The moment Haines saw the eleven lightly armed figures approaching the castle wall at tremendous speed, an alarm rang in his head.
He immediately realized what mission they had been given.
“Those men!”
“They appear to be the Second Prince’s secret weapons. The one in front is a top-tier Expert.”
Gulp!
At Haines’s words, not only Lloyd’s face but Rainy’s hardened as well.
Even Haines in his current condition could not take a top-tier Expert lightly.
And Haines was not finished speaking yet.
“Those following them are all high-level Experts as well.”
“Where did they find people like that……”
Lloyd spoke with a hollow expression.
The appearance of these unknown powerful figures made everything go dark before his eyes.
“Your Highness the Crown Prince!”
Viscount Aus had apparently spotted the strike team as well, because he shouted urgently.
But he could not move while dealing with the enemy.
No, the same was true of everyone atop the castle wall.
“Let’s handle the two of them.”
“Huh?”