novelraw Chapter 209 : The Empire Army Falling into Ruin (1)
Chapter 209 : The Empire Army Falling into Ruin (1)
Chapter 209: The Empire Army Falling into Ruin (1)
Grapheos descended to the ground, unleashed his Breath at the monsters, and devoured them.
“Only target the commanders! Negis!”
“I am! Are the others alright?”
“For now, we’re prioritizing the ones that look the strongest!”
Negis and Jade took the lead in facing the Empire’s forces.
Both of them held their own weapons, imbued with Aura.
I didn’t even know when they had come down to fight from the iceberg they had formed in the air.
Shuaaaaaak!
Raion immediately moved to their side and swept the surroundings once with a single sword strike.
“Is everyone alright?”
“We’re still fine. Have you finished everything?”
“One of them got away. Let’s clean up this place first.”
“It looks like it’ll take some time.”
The densely packed troops numbered at least 30,000, no matter how conservatively estimated.
Even if Grapheos dealt with the monsters around them, it wouldn’t be easy.
“Wait.”
Raion roughly checked the state of the army.
That was because he felt a familiar presence from several individuals.
[MAGUS]
A considerable number of Imperial knights were MAGUS, parasitized by magical devices.
As if they had been waiting for it, the knights’ bodies began to twist, and pitch-black energy poured out.
The light in the knights’ eyes turned black. At the same time, the swords gripped in their hands swung even toward their own allies.
Shwaaaak! Shwaaaaaak!
The already horrific battlefield became even more brutal.
“Save me!”
“Sir Debrian! Why are you doing this?!”
“Count Pokadir! Please come to your senses!”
The Dior Empire Army was chaos itself.
In the meantime, Raion rapidly drew spell formulas with his hands.
“Concrete Wall. Concrete Wall. Concrete Wall. Concrete Wall.”
He repeatedly chanted 6th Circle magic.
Then the ground shook violently, and enormous concrete walls rose up chaotically.
Boom! Ku-boom! Ku-boom—! Boom!
With a thickness of 5 meters and a length stretching hundreds of meters, the walls completely tore apart the Empire Army’s formation.
Moreover, with a height well over 10 meters, it was impossible to cross or destroy them unless one could fly.
“Defeat them individually.”
As he spoke, Raion consecutively opened entrances in each wall, just wide enough for at most two people to pass through.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
The Dior Empire troops directly in front of our forces numbered no more than about 3,000 at most.
That was not a difficult number for Raion’s elite forces to handle.
On top of that, priests in the rear continuously cast healing and blessings.
“Everyone, advance!”
Jade, Calsios, and Larsen Heights stood at the forefront and fought their way through the Dior Empire Army.
Even during that time, Dior’s knights who were rampaging as MAGUS slaughtered their own allies, their enlarged bodies emitting pitch-black Aura.
Papak! Pak!
Raion leaped through the air and targeted them. With a sword imbued with the power of the Aura Circle, he swiftly traced trajectories.
Shwaaaak! Shwaaaaaak!
The MAGUS knights struck by the blade collapsed, spewing pitch-black energy like blood from their wounds.
Shiaaaaak! Pak!
Hwarururuk!
From time to time, Negis’s Aura-infused arrows and Caldein Flavan’s Fire Lance flew in from afar.
Amidst it all, Raion’s figure fighting while swinging his sword was a spectacle.
“What is that man? Is he the incarnation of war or something?!”
Several Dior Empire knights who were not infected by MAGUS let out lamentations.
The abnormal state of their commanders and knights was a problem, but Raion’s 모습 fighting among them was far too shocking.
But since he was an enemy, they had to fight.
Even after steeling themselves, the Empire soldiers who watched Raion fight found it difficult to move their feet.
“Our allies can’t properly get through!”
“What?!”
“There are entrances in the suddenly formed walls, but we’re panicking because of the attacks from our allies who’ve gone mad!”
If it weren’t for Raion, far more allies would have already died even where they were standing now.
“Sir Caesar! What should we do?”
Questions burst out from all around, waiting for the commander’s response.
Judging by numbers alone, the Empire Army should never have lost.
However, with their own formation thrown into chaos and an unidentified knight of unfathomable limits appearing, they couldn’t judge the outcome.
On top of that, even the head of the current supreme commander of the Empire Army had fallen to the ground earlier.
For the moment, the knight called Caesar was the one responsible for the surrounding troops.
“Everyone, step aside! I’ll handle this!”
Caesar, an Imperial knight, pushed through the soldiers filling the area like a wave and advanced forward.
Chwaaaak!
Caesar rapidly closed in on Raion and swung his sword toward the back of his head.
Kkaang! Teong—!
In an instant, Raion turned, and his sword struck the attack away.
“Kuhk!”
An unmistakable difference in skill.
At the sight of Caesar collapsing onto the ground, a momentary silence fell over the surroundings.
No one dared to challenge Raion.
At that moment, a MAGUS-infected knight burst out through one of the wall entrances and charged at Raion.
Count Antonio, one of the Empire Army’s deputy commanders. He was well known as a swordsman of high beginner Swordmaster level.
“Kraaaaaah!”
Count Antonio’s eyes gleamed pitch-black along with his sword as he flew toward Raion.
Chwaaaak!
Even before charging at Raion, he had been cutting down two or three allies with a single sword strike.
It was an attack that looked that heavy.
But while Count Antonio was in midair, his entire body suddenly split into five pieces and fell.
“Aaaaaaagh!”
It was the middle of a battlefield splattered with blood.
Even so, the soldiers below screamed in shock upon seeing the body parts fall in front of them.
Raion wiped the blood splattered on his face with the back of his hand and approached Caesar, whom he had knocked down earlier.
Perhaps they had felt the limits of force. The Dior Empire’s knights and soldiers filling the area could not bring themselves to attack.
“……If you intend to keep fighting.”
“We surrender!”
“…….”
“All units, surrender! We surrender!”
They had already lost their will to fight.
A gigantic, unidentified wall that had suddenly risen up, arrows and magic raining down from above it. On top of that, even the priests and holy knights of the Holy Kingdom were fighting on the enemy’s side.
Of course, no matter the situation, the Empire Army still outnumbered the enemy.
However, commanders within their own ranks had begun attacking their subordinate troops.
As a result, the internal damage had become severe.
“Aaaaaaagh!”
“Save me!”
Screams continued without end.
The source of those sounds lay beyond the wall Raion had created.
‘Is the surrender declaration not being properly conveyed because of the wall?’
Through his perception, Raion was able to understand the reason behind the screams.
He immediately stepped through the air and onto the wall, crossing over to the other side.
There were still many Imperial knights whose appearances had changed into MAGUS.
Shiiiik—! Pak!
Hwarururuk!
Negis and Caldein Flavan were attacking them with arrows and magic, but they did not fall easily.
“Die!”
In the end, Jade stepped in, charging straight into the midst of the enemy and slashing through the chest of one MAGUS knight.
“The Empire Army has surrendered! So everyone, focus on dealing with the MAGUS!”
At Raion’s shout, the Personal Guard and knights who had been fighting elsewhere also rushed toward the knights emitting pitch-black light.
The battle grew even more intense.
“They’re fighting that hard for us, even though we’re the enemy?”
Caesar, who had been shouting surrender from a distance, could not understand the situation unfolding before him.
They were the Empire Army that had been advancing to attack Boluzan, followed by Mineta and Bachenan.
“As expected…….”
Along with his sigh, a thought that Caesar had been agonizing over finally solidified into certainty.
The emperor who had begun acting strangely at some point. The Empire’s course of action. A war without justification…….
These were things any Imperial knight would have thought about at least once.
“Is this what they call MAGUS?”
The states of those who had once enjoyed great renown as Imperial knights had become completely abnormal.
Among them were several knights Caesar himself had respected.
“This is for the sake of the Empire Army……!”
After finishing his deliberation, Caesar shouted.
“Protect our allies! Execute any ally who attacks our allies!”
No matter how strange they had become, they were still Imperial nobles and knights.
Countless soldiers had already died after hesitating against them.
There was no more room for hesitation.
With Caesar’s decision, the knights stepped forward first and began attacking those infected with MAGUS.
“So they’ve finally come to their senses?”
Raion watched the scene from atop the wall he had climbed.
“In this situation, it’s not bad.”
Killing every single Imperial soldier felt unsettling.
The fact that the situation could be overturned simply by them regaining their senses was enough to bring relief.
“Graphi! Kill every last monster! Focus especially on the large ones!”
The Empire Army’s formation had monsters guarding the front and the outer perimeter.
In response, Grapheos, who had been flying in the sky, drew in a deep breath and then exhaled.
As a fiery Breath erupted forth, it burned the area where the monsters stood into a blackened wasteland.
Hwarurururuk!
The remaining flames spread outward as they leapt onto the surrounding undergrowth.
[Did I do good? Did I do good?]
“You did great! Keep fighting like that!”
[Got it! Got it!]
After issuing his command to Grapheos, Raion continued cutting down the MAGUS knights who were spewing pitch-black energy and erupting in madness.
Just how many had been infected—most of the upper-ranking knights were rampaging wildly.
“Sending monsters like these…… are they really planning to destroy the entire continent?”
It had been the same in his previous life.
The Empire Army that had invaded the Kinazen Territory after the Canel Kingdom had slaughtered everyone.
Raion himself had been among the dead.
Thinking back carefully on that time, the states of the knights and soldiers had been strange as well.
‘It was the same back then.’
With their eyes stained black, they had killed people like beasts.
Moreover, there had been an abundance of existences like Swordmasters, who were supposedly difficult to mass-produce.
The person who had died beside Raion at the very end while facing them was Patrick.
‘But not anymore.’
He had the power to protect everyone now.
With that resolve, Raion cut down the MAGUS knights as swiftly as lightning.
Chwaaaak! Chwaak!
From the paths his sword passed through, pitch-black energy sprayed forth like a fountain.
It felt as though the blood throughout his entire body had been replaced by that energy.
“How many are left?”
Raion climbed back up onto the wall and swept his gaze across the surroundings.
Thanks to even his subordinate knights stepping in, the cleanup was progressing at a rapid pace.
“Is that side the last of them?”
It was an area completely enclosed on all sides by concrete walls.
There, just like before, the screams of soldiers filled the air.
“Is it those guys?”
Knights whose eyes flashed with pitch-black light.
Judging solely by the Aura they were emitting, their boosted power was close to that of top-tier Swordmasters.
“Were they originally around high intermediate Swordmaster level?”
They seemed to be commander-level knights responsible for the Empire Army’s rear guard.