A black tide covered the desolate land.
Grotesque creatures shaped like all manner of land beasts, yet possessing blood-red eyes and pitch-black bodies.
Having appeared without warning, they were called the black monsters.
"Captain! We're getting pushed back!"
"Front line, shields up and hold! Hold even if it kills you!"
In a mere two months, this horde of monsters had reduced the northern continent to ashes.
Armies from the central and southern regions had converged to stop the bastards.
Over ten thousand soldiers and mercenaries had built a defensive line across the narrow land route connecting the north and the center.
Fierce fighting had raged along that defensive line for a full month.
"Hold on just a little longer! Reinforcements are coming soon!"
The rallying cry of Leo, captain of the Red Wolf Mercenary Corps, rang out across the battlefield.
He was a striking man with thick eyebrows and brown hair that jutted out wildly like a lion's mane.
"Hold! Hold if you want to live!"
Planting his massive shield into the dirt, he kept thrusting his sword through the gaps with his other hand, never once stopping his shouts.
Hours of relentless combat had pushed his body to the limit. Every breath burned in his throat, his arms felt like lead, and his grip had gone completely numb.
Even so, he could not rest. As captain, he couldn't show weakness to comrades who had already been pushed past their limits.
"Leo! The left flank is about to cave!"
Vice-Captain Dex rasped through a shredded throat.
Just as he said.
On the left, the Castia Mercenary Corps' formation was buckling violently and crumbling apart.
"Those weak-ass bastards!"
Leo roared at the top of his lungs.
Those bastards had never been reliable to begin with. Their scheme to tag along on a massive expedition just to chase fame had been blatantly obvious.
GRIND—!
At this rate, his men would have to take hits from the left as well as the front.
Monsters plunged straight into the heart of the shattered Castia Mercenary Corps, and the butchery began.
Finishing their brief feast, the bastards trampled over blood-soaked corpses and charged straight at the Red Wolf Mercenary Corps.
"Reform the line! Shields up! Brace for impact!"
CRASH—!
Under Leo's command, the corps swiftly shifted formation.
They threw up a shield wall on the left and somehow weathered the initial impact, but what came next was the real problem.
"When the hell are the reinforcements getting here?!"
"Captain! At this rate, we're all gonna fucking die!"
Desperate cries erupted from his men on all sides.
Everyone's stamina had bottomed out long ago. Pure survival instinct was the only thing keeping their arms and legs moving.
'Why aren't the reinforcements coming?'
Leo bit down on his lip.
If things had gone as promised, Count Kelsion's private troops should have backed them up ages ago, yet the rear remained dead silent.
A chill sank into his chest at the thought that something had gone terribly wrong.
'Did they use us as bait?'
It was the worst-case scenario—one he hadn't wanted to consider.
Yet it made no sense. They had no reason to throw away the mercenaries here and pull back.
Even if they were building a new defensive line in the rear, every single fighting man was precious right now. Throwing away mercenaries like this gained them nothing.
The odds that they had abandoned this defensive line altogether and retreated were just as slim.
Doing so meant opening the gates to an invasion of the central continent. Count Kelsion's own territory, lying right nearby, would be the first to get hit.
"Fuuuck! The right flank is collapsing too!"
Someone's curse snapped Leo back to reality.
The mercenary units holding both flanks were crumbling fast.
"Circle formation!"
There was no other choice. Monsters surged in like a tidal wave, leaving nowhere to run.
In an instant, the Red Wolf Mercenary Corps was surrounded on all sides.
Like a tiny uninhabited island in the middle of a vast ocean, they were stranded dead center in the black tide.
"Aaaagh—!"
A black maw forced its way through a loose gap in the shields, snatching a mercenary whole.
His scream trailed off into the distance like a fading echo.
"Plug the gaps in the shields! Leave only enough room to shove a blade through!"
"Whose fucking hands are slacking?! Stab them!"
Monsters battered relentlessly against the shields as the mercenaries snarled and strained to hold them back.
Amidst the chaos, Leo screamed himself hoarse with fury.
He knew the truth. It was only a matter of time before the formation broke and every last one of them was wiped out.
"This is fucked...."
Leo let out a low breath.
Fifteen years he had spent grinding in the dirt as a mercenary after running away from home.
Just when he thought life was finally getting decent after building a mercenary corps from scratch with his childhood best friend into one of the best in the Empire... this shitty death was how it ended?
"Looks like this is where we die."
A man stepped up beside the scowling Leo and pressed his shoulder against his.
It was Dex, his childhood friend and vice-captain.
"Shit... Looks like it."
"If I'd known it'd end like this, I should've visited home last year."
"What's there to see in that backwater village? Did you leave a pot of honey buried there?"
Even as he talked tough, images of their home village surfaced in Leo's mind on their own.
His mother's potato dishes, and the laughter of his little sister, who must have grown into a proper young lady by now.
He had simply hated that boring mountain village.
Convinced he wasn't a man meant to rot away in the sticks, he had sworn never to set foot back home until he made it big for all to see.
Yet here he was, reduced to this....
His left hand closed around the pendant hanging from his necklace.
It belonged to his mother—something he had stolen when he ran away. Even after selling off everything else, he had held onto this one piece until the very end.
"Uwaaaagh—!"
The formation that had barely been holding together finally caved.
Monsters leaped inside the defensive ring, turning the stand into a bloody melee.
Screams tore through the air as his men went down one by one. Black monsters swarmed over comrades whose limbs had been ripped apart. Fewer and fewer men remained standing back-to-back.
CLANG—!
Unable to take any more punishment, Dex's shield shattered, and a monster's snout lunged through the opening.
Several times he held them off, bashing with his broken shield and stabbing with his sword.
But his exhausted limbs refused to obey him any longer.
"Aaaagh—!"
"Dex!"
Piercing through the din of the battlefield, his friend's scream gouged into his ears.
By the time Leo whipped his head around, Dex was already gone.
"You fucking sons of bitches—!"
Leo's sword hand lashed out wildly.
A completely shattered formation, and the dying screams of his comrades echoing from every direction.
Was anyone even left alive? With no time to check around him, he stabbed, slashed, and stabbed again.
"Ugh!"
Searing pain, like a branding iron, tore into his thigh. Immediately after, a bone-crushing impact slammed into his entire body.
Thrown into the air, his body spun several times before crashing straight into the middle of the monster horde.
Amidst a writhing sea of black, dozens of blood-red eyes filled his vision.
'Haa....'
Is this the end?
Despite the agony ripping through his body, his consciousness began to fade. He didn't even have the strength left to twitch a finger.
A black maw clamped down on Leo's limp neck.
And ripped it open savagely.
"Son of a... Gah! Fuck...!"
Even his final curse scattered into the empty air along with the hiss of escaping breath.
Gush, gush.
Bright red blood poured from his half-torn throat.
His flushed face drained to a deathly pallor, and the light died in his wide, staring eyes.
Before long, his fading pulse went completely still.
Moments later.
THRUM—!
A faint glow rose from Leo's blood-drenched corpse.
It was a tiny light radiating from the pendant on his chest.
Swelling rapidly, the light flared and swallowed Leo's entire body whole.