novelraw Chapter 129 : Chapter 129
Chapter 129 : Chapter 129
Chapter 129: Counterattack (5)
Nine Executor cadets faced Drenbalk.
By numbers alone, they had the advantage.
And they believed their individual skills were sufficient.
Through years of training, they’d reached beyond Aura, if not full Executor level.
Thus, they were confident that together, they could subdue a Kandahr chieftain.
But reality was different.
Drenbalk was a beast.
His title as Kandahr’s vanguard was no empty boast.
His brutal axe swings were like a storm, and none of the cadets’ attacks landed effectively.
‘What is this monstrous human? How did Young Master face such foes?’
Jack couldn’t fathom the extent of Drenbalk’s overwhelming strength and toughness.
Jerito was already critically wounded and incapacitated, and the others, bearing various injuries, clung to willpower alone.
‘If it were Young Master, what would he do? He’d find a weakness…’
But Evan was far across the battlefield, fighting the Kandahr’s absolute ruler, Bakan.
Help from him was unthinkable.
‘We can’t keep relying on Young Master. We have to win this ourselves.’
Yet, Jack had no clear strategy.
Even Jaina, the most strategic and composed, gripped her sword with a grim expression.
Drenbalk was that impregnable.
“What are you doing? Tired? Or have you lost your will?”
No one answered Drenbalk’s taunts.
Then, breaking the silence, one stepped forward.
Elliott Harpman.
“Jack, listen carefully, we’re out of time.”
“Huh?”
“I’ll buy time, so you gather strength for one big hit.”
“Buy time? What’s your plan?”
“I’ve got something.”
Elliott spoke calmly, but his eyes burned with resolute determination.
Taking a deep breath, he gripped his spear tightly and charged Drenbalk head-on.
“Foolish!”
Drenbalk swung his axe with his thick arm.
Normally, one would stop or dodge, but Elliott didn’t.
Instead, he pressed deeper, fearless of death.
‘I always hated being called first, but now I’ll step up first to rouse my friends! That’s my role!’
A reckless charge, as if abandoning his life.
“Elliott!”
Drenbalk’s axe blade deeply cut Elliott’s shoulder.
His arm severed, excruciating pain surged, but he didn’t stop.
Suppressing his screams, he thrust his spear deeper.
Amid blood and breaking bones, Elliott’s spear grazed Drenbalk’s side.
“…!”
For the first time, a red line marked Drenbalk’s tough skin.
A small wound, but the first blow the cadets had landed with all their might.
The cost, however, was immense.
“Elliott!!!”
Elliott, bracing the axe with his body, thrust his spear, but Drenbalk’s massive fist struck his ribs.
Bloodied, Elliott was flung back, yet a faint smile lingered on his lips.
Struggling to rise, he spoke to Jack approaching him.
“See, Jack…? He’s just human!”
Looking at his severed arm, Elliott didn’t close his eyes.
His voice carried the resolve of a true warrior.
“If we want tomorrow, we must throw everything we have today. Only then will we all survive…”
With those words, Elliott lowered his head and quietly passed.
The first knightly sacrifice.
Elliott’s words began to reveal Drenbalk’s vulnerabilities.
From that moment, all the cadets realized.
Without embracing death, they couldn’t even scratch this monster.
“Ah, ah…! Elliott…!”
Something snapped in the cadets’ hearts.
They no longer sought survival.
They stopped thinking of the future.
In this moment, they resolved to burn everything with the determination that it was their last.
Just as Dean Duke had.
The first to charge was Karl Stitz, a noble heir wielding a spear.
“Damn it…! Elliott, acting all high and mighty alone!”
He rushed Drenbalk with full force, his spear snapping instantly.
But Karl didn’t give up.
Gripping the broken spearhead, he drove it deep into Drenbalk’s left foot.
“You!”
Even as Drenbalk’s axe swung down, Karl didn’t release the spear.
As the axe cleaved his torso, he smiled.
His spear was lodged in the monster’s foot.
Seeing his death, Amod, a commoner, and Ferdin, a noble, stepped forward.
Once divided by status, they were now inseparable friends.
Exchanging a brief glance, they charged simultaneously.
“Ferdin, take the right!”
“Got it!”
In their first and last perfect coordination, Ferdin sacrificed his shoulder to block the axe, halting Drenbalk’s attack, while Amod drove his sword into Drenbalk’s right thigh.
“Grr!”
Drenbalk, enraged, swung his axe with force.
Amod and Ferdin’s waists were severed, blood pouring out.
Collapsing, they shared a faint smile in their final moment.
“It’s done…”
“That’s enough…”
Next, Leman charged, teeth gritted.
Once a flail user, he switched to a sword after meeting Evan, relentlessly honing his own path.
Drenbalk’s axe broke his sword, but Leman didn’t falter.
Even as both arms were severed, he bit the broken blade and drove it into Drenbalk’s right shoulder.
“You… insect!”
Drenbalk smashed Leman’s chest, shattering his ribs.
Despite the agony of torn organs, Leman threw his body, driving the blade deeper with his forehead.
“You… will fall…”
His final cry.
One by one, the cadets fell, drawing blood and tearing flesh from Drenbalk.
Their lives were the cost, but their marks were significant.
Each pull of the cadets’ bowstring left a wound, though the arrow broke.
Only three cadets remained.
Jack, Jaina, and Meris.
Meris, tears streaming, looked at her fallen comrades.
Trembling, she gripped her bow and shouted to the others.
“Sob! Jack, Jaina, you must survive. Live and cut that bastard’s head off!”
Crying out, she charged Drenbalk.
But Drenbalk was no fool.
He had no intention of allowing more sacrificial attacks.
“I’ll grind you all down!”
He began spinning, swinging his axe.
Jaina, grabbing Meris' shoulder, threw her back and stepped forward.
“Looks like you and Jack will have to finish this.”
Jaina infused her sword hand with Qi.
Drenbalk’s spinning axe, a whirlwind, was suicidal to enter, yet she plunged in.
“Milady!”
“Jaina!”
She didn’t look back.
Lest she hesitate.
‘If I stop, we all die.’
Aligning her sword with her body, she charged into the axe’s vortex, like an arrow into a storm.
―Scrape!!
Her sword cut through the air, advancing deeply.
Hitting the axe blade, blood, metal shards, and torn flesh flew.
‘I have to hold!’
Drenbalk’s axe grazed her left eye.
Yet she didn’t stop.
The pain only drove her harder.
‘If it’s rotation… I’m faster.’
Spinning, Jaina entered the axe’s rotation axis.
Before her was Drenbalk’s center, his unguarded heart.
Seizing it, she unleashed the Ritual of Bloodstorm.
―Clang! Clang!!
Sword and axe clashed relentlessly, sparks flying.
And now, Drenbalk’s blood sprayed too.
‘She dares enter my core to defeat me?’
A moment’s lapse could let her seize the flow.
Drenbalk stopped spinning, forcibly grabbing her sword.
He kicked her abdomen, and Jaina, spitting blood, flew back.
―Thud!
Her body bounced across the ground.
Her eyes were bloodied, one arm broken.
But…
“It’s not over.”
Wiping blood from her mouth, Jaina rose.
Her sword still pointed at Drenbalk.
“No, it’s over.”
Drenbalk raised his axe overhead to strike.
At that moment, a sharp whistle of air, and a silver sword aura slashed across Drenbalk’s back.
―Swish!
The fleeting cut wasn’t fatal, but it marked Drenbalk’s body.
Jaina looked up, eyes wide.
At first, she thought Evan had appeared, sensing the familiar aura.
But it was a bloodied, battered man, gripping his sword with an unyielding gaze.
“No more… harming the cadets.”
Everhart Mylon, the head instructor.
Bearing scars of torture and battle, he had joined this fight with a firm mission.
To kill Drenbalk, the one ravaging the cadets.
“You die here.”
Everhart raised his sword again.
Panting, he channeled his last Aura into the blade’s tip.
―Swish!
The sword aura was weaker than the first, easily deflected by Drenbalk.
“Is that your final struggle, trash?”
But it was enough.
The fleeting moment Everhart created, Drenbalk’s turn, became the pivotal gap.
Jaina rose first, and as Drenbalk turned back to her, realizing the situation, she summoned her last strength—her very essence—and struck the massive axe blocking her.
―Clang!
The axe slid back, exposing Drenbalk’s vulnerability.
Jaina collapsed forward, exhausted, and behind her, Jack appeared.
The deaths of his comrades, swallowing all despair, he forged a single fist.
“Hah!”
Resembling Duke’s life-burning Fist of the Raging Storm, but distinct, it was Jack’s resolve-crafted technique, the Fist of Shattering.
A fist with the force to break steel surged from Jack’s shoulder, aiming to strike Drenbalk.
Drenbalk, with his vast combat experience, instantly recognized the danger.
‘That White Hawk’s technique… A direct hit could be trouble.’
Recalling Bakan’s blow, Drenbalk instinctively dodged.
But he overlooked one critical fact.
Jack had another mentor besides the Dean.
A master of ever-changing, flow-disrupting combat.
That teaching was Jack’s new path and ideal.
‘This guy, using tricks!’
Jack’s body spun midair.
His leg extended at an unexpected angle, wrapping around Drenbalk’s neck, climbing onto his shoulders, and slamming both elbows into his crown.
―Crack!
The impact broke Jack’s elbows, and Drenbalk reeled from the intense blow.
“Grr…”
Instinctively shaking Jack off and kicking him, Drenbalk staggered, off-balance.
At that moment, Jaina charged again, thrusting her sword.
Drenbalk raised his axe to block,
but—
―Whoosh!
An arrow suddenly altered the axe’s trajectory.
Meris' shot, carrying the cadets’ rage and resolve.
“For the cadets’ vengeance!”
That slight deviation became a critical crack.
Jaina’s sword grazed Drenbalk’s neck by a paper-thin margin.
―Spurt!
A red line drew across his neck, blood gushing like a fountain.
Drenbalk clutched his throat, swallowing a roar, and knelt.
“You… you greenhorns…!”
Seizing the moment, Jack, dragging his broken arm, rose again.
“Arghhh!!!”
With his last strength, he slammed his forehead into Drenbalk’s face with his full weight.
“Guh!”
As Drenbalk’s head snapped back, Jaina’s sword, already positioned, slashed through the air.
―Slash!
The sharp blade precisely severed Drenbalk’s neck, drawing a red arc in the air.
A beat later, his head fell to the ground.
―Thud.
His massive body collapsed, and a brief silence fell over the battlefield.
“Haa…”
“Ha…”
Everhart, exhausted, slumped to the ground, looking at the bloodied survivors.
‘The Executors of this era… are undoubtedly you. Well done.’
Meris ran to Jack and Jaina, embracing them and sobbing.
“Waaah…!”
If only this were the end.
But reality reminded them the war raged on.
Especially at the battlefield’s heart, where none dared tread, the ground trembled, and the air screamed relentlessly.
‘Young Master.’
‘Evan, it all rests on you.’
***
After Executor Rona left the battlefield, Bakan planned to crush the remaining two and storm the castle’s gate.
But his grand plan was spectacularly thwarted by one man—Evan.
‘What is this technique?’
Bakan, seeing blood drip from his arm, looked at Evan in disbelief.
Even Gaiard was speechless at the sight.
“What did you do?”
Evan swayed fluidly, like a breeze, gripping his daggers.
Bakan and Gaiard had never seen such a fighting style.
The true essence of Evan, the Weapon Master, began to shine.