The wall of fire was shredded by magic, and as the oil gradually burned away, the flames began to flicker out. Knight Daliger stood at the bow of the boat, glancing first at the two Glintstone Dragons locked in a death struggle in the lake, then at the retching Academy lecturer behind him.
This fool panicked and wasted far too much mana!
He scowled, but then a second thought crossed his mind: if sorcerers were actually experts in slaughter, the Knights wouldn't be entertaining thoughts of replacing them.
Ignoring the sorcerer, Daliger saw the beach littered with charred corpses and others skewered by ballista bolts. By a rough estimate, less than half of his eighty-man strike force remained. He drew his greatsword.
"Cuckoos, advance!"
The surviving soldiers scrambled up, forming a tight phalanx. Shields raised, shoulders pressed together, they marched through the embers. The moment they stepped onto solid ground, a whistle cut through the air.
Thud.
The lead soldier was struck in the eye socket and collapsed screaming. The hated twang of a bowstring echoed again.
Did these Carians build fortifications? Daliger realized they weren't dead yet; instead, they were lurking in the shadows, using the dying light of the fire to turn his men into target practice.
"Charge! Do not get bogged down by these remnants!" The knight rushed to the front, his greatsword batting away incoming arrows as he kicked and shoved the shielded soldiers forward.
The two knights crossed the broken breastplate, treading over ballista splinters. Upon closer inspection, they found only a single, mangled corpse of a shield-bearer.
All that noise for nothing.
Daliger cursed under his breath and leapt over the trench, heading up the slope toward the manor, which was currently shrouded in a cloud of fire and smoke. The sound of intense combat reached his ears.
The main force has taken the walls. Once we strike from the rear, the Carian line will collapse!
As the thought formed, an arrow hissed from the pine woods on the right. A soldier beside him clutched his face and rolled on the ground.
"They still haven't broken!?" The knight's eyes widened. These few stragglers were actually trying to pin them down. As he hesitated, a flare of red light exploded in the night sky.
It was Commander Mathews, demanding to know why they hadn't struck yet.
"First squad, with me! Deal with these annoying flies! Tore, take the rest and cut your way in. Ignite the Carian storehouse at all costs!"
He made a split-second decision. A strike force wasn't there to play hide-and-seek; they had to break in, burn the supplies, slaughter the wounded, and utterly shatter the Carians' will to fight.
"They're splitting up," Don whispered, leaning against a tree. By the firelight, he saw the thirty-odd Cuckoos divide into two groups. The javelin-throwing knight led three men into the woods toward them, while the main group, led by the other knight, charged toward the manor. Their packs were bulging; it didn't take a genius to know they were carrying combustibles.
"We'll split too. Captain, you keep delaying them. Leave this side to me."
The giantess hesitated. She had been dragged here planning to fight to the death on the shore. "Are you sure?"
"Very," Don nodded heavily.
There was no room for hesitation on a battlefield. Karin gripped her bow and moved out. After a few steps, she turned back and patted Don lightly.
"Take care."
"Don't die," the laconic man with the fire pots added.
"I'll bring your ashes back to the village," Arno called out as he hurried away.
"Screw you," Don muttered, faking a kick as Arno dodged and vanished.
The sound of clashing armor faded. He wasn't worried about the others; they had delayed the enemy long enough. Unless Alayn was a complete idiot, he would send reinforcements to the granary regardless of how thin the lines were.
Don looked at the silhouettes entering the forest. The rabble were nothing, but two Cuckoo Knights charging together might actually break through. He couldn't gamble on that.
How to do it...
His grip on his hilt turned white. Don narrowed his eyes, hurled a Fire Pot, and lunged forward like a released arrow.
"Kill him!"
Only one?
Daliger realized instantly that these remnants wouldn't give up. For a single man to face them was suicide. He drew a short javelin from his back.
"Seeking death!"
The Fire Pot was intercepted mid-air, exploding into a shower of sparks that ignited the dry leaves. The forest brightened. In the flash, a blurred figure darted between the trunks, wrist flicking as he prepared another pot.
Incoming!
Don threw it from ten meters out. The distance was so short the fire exploded directly against a soldier's shield. The spreading flames forced two others to scramble for cover.
Shield raised, the soldier didn't burn, but he instinctively recoiled. Then he felt a weight slam onto his shield. He looked up to see a silhouette leaping over his head, a curved blade held in a reverse grip.
Thud.
The Bloodhound's Fang pierced the round helm, driving straight from the crown into the chest. Don twisted his wrist, ripped the blade out, and kicked the corpse away as he used the momentum to somersault backward.
A heartbeat later—
The chest cavity of the corpse he'd just vacated exploded as a greatsword whistled through the air, drenching Don's face in a spray of blood.
That's two.
Don landed, palmed the earth, and used his core strength to backflip away as a javelin hissed past his spine and buried itself in the dirt.
That's three.
He arrested his somersault in a half-crouch. A cold light swept in from his flank—a soldier had been waiting. Don didn't panic. He leaned into the strike, scooping up a handful of dirt and hurling it at the man's face.
Clang!
Straight sword met curved blade, but the dirt blinded the soldier completely. He felt something slide beneath his center of gravity and lift upward. He was sent flying, crashing hard into another comrade.
Don scrambled up, seeing the two soldiers tangled together. This "throw" wasn't for show—the two men now perfectly blocked the knight's line of sight. Daliger stood with a javelin raised, hesitating to throw.
This body is still weak, but my experience and eyes remain sharp!
In that moment of hesitation, Don lunged. Sparks danced on his cloak like a fire-arrow. He thrust his curved sword forward, using the full momentum of his charge.
Puchi!
The blade entered the first soldier's nape, tore through his throat, and slammed into the bridge of the second soldier's nose, exiting through the back of his skull. The two men twitched in a macabre dance of death as Don continued to drive forward, using their combined weight as a battering ram.
Whoosh—
Flesh and armor fragments sprayed the air. Daliger finally threw, and the sheer force of the javelin impaled both corpses, pinning them into the dark woods behind.
Such speed. Such power. Daliger narrowed his eyes until a blood-soaked figure burst through the mist of gore.
Not dead!?
Don said nothing. A jagged tear had been ripped through his breastplate. Had he not twisted his body in time, his chest would have been caved in. Fortunately, they were in the woods; in an open field, even a Troll would have been picked off by that throw.
Time seemed to slow. They were less than five meters apart. As the knight gripped his greatsword, Don triggered the Ash of War.
Bloodhound's Finesse!
Without conscious thought, the strange power executed the combo.
The curved blade swept upward, a spark flying as it ground against the heavy plate. The knight's armor was high-grade, and the man himself was no mindless NPC; he stepped back half a pace to dodge the upward sweep. Before his heel even touched the ground, he lunged forward, bringing the heavy greatsword down in a vertical smash.
BOOM!!
The earth was gouged, but Don had already rolled away. This was the beauty of the Ash of War—it compensated for his body's lack of raw reaction speed.
As the dirt settled, Don immediately triggered the second phase. He vanished from sight.
A Bloodhound Knight? The thought flashed through Daliger's mind. Meeting an ally of the Carians here wasn't impossible. He twisted his wrist, swinging his greatsword in a rising arc.
"No... just a brat with a skill!"
Clang!
The greatsword batted the curved blade aside. The Bloodhound's Fang spun high into the air. The knight grinned savagely at the boy who was now airborne and unarmed.
"Did you think I hadn't seen that skill before? Die—"
The words died in his throat. The leaping youth held a staff high. The Carian Royal sigil bloomed, and a blade composed of pure magical energy emerged. Don gripped the staff with both hands as if it were a hilt, bringing it down with every ounce of his soul.
Ichimonji: Slicer!
Spirit, energy, and mind focused into a single line. Fast, precise, ruthless.
Puchi.
A spray of blood erupted. The knight let out a strangled cry as the light-blade carved through his pauldron and deep into his chest cavity. But he didn't die immediately; he dropped his sword and reached out, his gauntleted hand closing around Don's throat.
Does the strength of the Slicer depend on the sorcerer's mana?
Don ignored the hand crushing his windpipe. He raised his right palm, catching the falling Bloodhound's Fang perfectly. With a twist of his wrist, he executed a horizontal draw-cut.
Slash—
A cold light swept across the knight's neck. The hand on Don's throat lost its strength instantly. The two-meter-tall warrior collapsed to his knees as his head rolled away into the grass.
The geyser of blood from the neck stump turned Don into a red wraith. He dispassionately peeled the dead hand from his neck and turned toward a sorcerer frozen at the edge of the woods. His lips curled into a friendly smile.
"Sorry. I'm a hybrid build."