Despite his surprise, Reivan maintained his cool and dipped his head lightly in a quick bow—just as any commoner would if their gaze collided with a prince's. And it was a good thing too, because the Argonian prince looked away in disinterest the next moment.
Reivan maintained his stony expression while inwardly sighing in relief. Since his [Supreme Insight] had been "resisted", he thought that the Argonian would somehow be informed of where the "attack" came from. But that didn't seem to be the case, or at least the information wasn't clear. Because if it had been, the Argonian would have confronted Reivan about it.
'Prince Axion, huh...? I guess I'll keep tabs on what he does. Maybe even kill him if the opportunity presents itself.'
Not now, though.
If Reivan struck out and tried to assassinate Axion right this instant, he might succeed. But he would surely perish in the aftermath because he was far too deep within enemy territory and there were too many vanguards nearby. He would just get ganged up on by hundreds or even thousands of enemy warriors who weren't much weaker than him. It may have been a viable risk to take if the Samsaran Forces were striking in tandem, but there was still quite a while before they were supposed to do so.
For now, he could only let the Argonian prince go.
'Now, about the people in the tent...'
Once all the important people left, Reivan managed to catch a few smidgens of conversation from the servants within. They definitely spoke in Arkhanian, and it was with native accents that were difficult to fake. That, along with the short glimpses earlier, pretty much confirmed that there were Arkhanian captives within. Not a lot of them, however. From the faint footsteps, he counted a dozen or so—significantly fewer than the previous tents.
Just as he was internally debating whether to attempt a rescue now or wait until his allies struck, Reivan felt a distinct change in the atmosphere. It was subtle, but he felt that the area around the tent had grown quieter.
And that was when a feeling turned into conviction; he wasn't sure how exactly, but he'd been discovered.
'Fuck.'
Reivan turned around and ripped a hole through the tent with a quick swipe of his hand, summoning Zouros as he rushed inside. Dodging a javelin that came very close to piercing his head, he activated an aetherblade art that spread a deep dark fog with him as the origin, hoping it would make things more difficult for his opponents to hinder his actions. The surroundings were quickly obscured, even spilling outside the tent through various gaps and the hole he'd made. With a heavy stomp, darkness unfurled from the soles of his feet, filling the entire tent and even affecting the area outside.
The fourteen Arkhanian ladies in the tent were unable to resist, losing consciousness as a large snake scooped them up with a maw big enough to fit three people side by side. On the other hand, the Argonian vanguards outside suffered from dozens of shadowy hands grabbing at their legs and draining them of their energies.
With his targets acquired, Reivan launched sixteen swords outward, piercing straight through the tent and skewering one Argonian warrior each. Just as he burst out of one of the holes to escape the tent, he willed the swords to twist, churning the enemies' organs and snuffing out their lives once and for all.
‘I need to fire off the signal early.’
He would have really preferred to give the knights more time to rest, but that didn’t seem to be in the cards right now. If he didn't, then he would likely be consigned to eternal rest right here. It was a good thing that they agreed on a signal in case he didn’t have time to communicate through the dream crystal—which meant the situation was really urgent because exchanging information through those things took practically no time.
The moment Reivan left the tent, he confirmed that he was, in fact, surrounded. Luckily, he could only sense a few hundred presences. That did not sound like he was lucky at all, but if a few hundred people were surrounding a large area, that meant they were spread too thin to lock down someone like him. Clearly, he had discovered their ploy before they could sufficiently cage him.
“There he is!” some Argonian said, alerting everyone. “Catch him!”
“You wish!” Reivan snarled as he summoned dozens of daggers and launched all of them as hard as he could. He couldn’t be bothered to aim them all properly, hoping that at least some of them would find a target.
With a light toss, he sent numerous activated spell balls outward, causing streams of myriad-colored lights to shoot up toward the cloud like fireworks on New Year's Eve. Though some of the Argonians realized that he’d sent up some sort of signal, stopping the streaks wouldn’t help at this point—whoever needed to see them already had.
Capitalizing on the enemies’ carelessness, Zouros exploded out of the dark fog behind him, immediately growing to its maximum size to snap up a grand total of twelve people in one fluid motion. The presence of such a giant creature, seemingly from out of nowhere, caused an even bigger disturbance, but that would work in Reivan’s favor so he wouldn't complain.
Not holding back any more of his cards, a white wolf rushed out of Reivan’s shadow. On its head and gleaming proudly were three golden horns jutting out of its head to form what looked like a crown.
With savage ferocity, Dom tore into enemy lines, easily overpowering anyone foolish enough to block his path. Lightning surged throughout his body and zapped anyone coming near as frosty winds flooded the surroundings, chilling enemies down to their bones. Those unable to resist or move out of the way in time were ripped to shreds by razor-sharp teeth or mauled by blade-like claws.
“He’s getting away!” someone cried out. “And he’s got two spirit beasts! Be careful!”
Easily getting out of the encirclement, Reivan made Zouros shrink to avoid being a larger target. The three of them then blew off tents and people in their path as they rushed northward. Though his serpentine companion could fly and grow big enough for him to ride on, doing so would only expose them to every single enemy in the camp.
It was better to stay low for now.
“Whoa there!” Reivan exclaimed as he jumped onto Dom’s back, ignoring the white wolf’s disgruntled grumbling through their mental connection. With the White King handling the movement and dodging anything dangerous, Reivan knew that he could focus on taking out enemies.
Sixteen blades reappeared around them and cut down any opponents strong enough to warrant death in their path, while he summoned a bow to take out enemies farther away. His flying fangs and arrows all met their marks, with a life being taken for every move. Still, there were a lot of people chasing after him, and from time to time, a javelin or a spear would come very close to striking at his armor. And though he trusted his soul armament’s defensive capabilities, he didn’t want to test if it could block attacks to the head.
‘Zee! You can do the thing! We can't hold back right now!’
Zouros’ jet-black wings fluttered powerfully, sending countless black feathers drifting through their air as if they were utterly weightless.
Its seemingly harmless act caused many of the Argonians trailing behind them to pause, but some of the more courageous ones powered through despite the feathers. Which was a huge mistake, because their bodies rapidly turned to stone, gradually spreading from various parts of their bodies. The more cunning ones thought that they simply needed to evade coming into contact with the feathers themselves, but this was a misconception that would cost them their lives.
The feathers were just conduits—not the source of the petrification.
Strange power emanated from the feathers slowly drifting in the air, relentlessly invading the bodies of any “enemies” nearby and turning them into stone sculptures, their expressions of fear frozen on their faces forevermore.
‘Good lord, Zee. I wouldn't wanna get on your bad side!’
Zouros let him know that it was very confused as to why he would ever get on its bad side, seemingly thinking that such a thing was impossible. Exasperated, Reivan resolved to teach his favorite snake more about humor and metaphorical expressions when they returned to Lageton. Regardless, the petrifying feather move apparently tuckered it out, so he wouldn't ask for it again today.
Just as he planted another armor in some poor sap's skull, he heard the clamor of distant fighting farther up north. Even from afar, he noticed the chaos caused by tempestuous winds upturning the very earth itself and blinding flashes of lightning that struck down from the heavens like divine tribulation. Had he been late in blocking off his sensitive ears, he would have winced at how loud those thunderclaps were.
Clearly, his allies were very concerned with his well-being and had stopped pulling punches. The tumult they were no doubt causing was headed in his direction at a tremendous rate.
‘Oh. Right.’
As he headed northward without letting anything stop him, Reivan inevitably came across the clumped-together pink tents that he’d spotted earlier. Since his allies were close enough, he went ahead and entered one of the tents with a shrunken Zouros, knocked everyone out with no explanation, and then had his snake eat them all up—temporarily, of course. Meanwhile, Dom stood watch outside, mercilessly taking down anyone foolish enough to come close.
It was when he entered the third tent—the one in the middle—that someone burst out of the ground with their hand making a grab for his neck.
Reivan was already dodging it when Zouros’ maw snapped shut, right where the ambusher’s hand used to be.
“Well, now. That’s one scary spirit beast you got there.” A voice spoke from among the throng of frightened naked women.
Following the source of the voice, Reivan unconsciously licked his lips upon seeing that it was the troublesome prince from earlier: Prince Axion Argonia.
“So you found out about me after all…” Reivan muttered just loud enough for the other side to hear.
Axion smiled widely, his teeth bared like a lion finding a hearty meal. “I'm quite a good actor, don't you think? In any case, I’ve never experienced that before, so you’ve made quite an impression on me. Care to tell me your name?”
“Rather than my name, you should worry about your safety.” Reivan sneered under his helm, knowing the other side would never guess who he really was. Even if the Argonian could somehow see into a helm made by a soul armament, Reivan was still wearing the face of some imperial vanguard he killed earlier.
Still grinning confidently, Axion procured a decorated halberd from his spatial ring, swinging it around wantonly, without a care for the Arkhanian women cowering away in panic. “Why should I be worried? Is it because your allies are coming? If so, mine are coming too. In fact, mine should already be here.”
With a scoff, Reivan rolled his eyes even though he knew it was the truth. He could hear Dom growling and snarling in exertion from fending off his legendary battle. A single step forward spread darkness throughout the room, knocking out all the women and causing the Argonian to frown at the shadowy hands grabbing at his legs.
“You have strange abilities, knight,” Axion remarked, uncaring of the captives that Zouros was now depositing into its mouth. “But they don't scare me.”
The Argonian nonchalantly kicked the misty arms around his legs into nothingness before lunging at Reivan like a charging bull.
Reivan activated all the buffs he could as he conjured a shield to deflect the enemy prince’s strike, stabbing forward with the sword in his other hand.
Surprisingly, the Argonian slapped the tip of the incoming blade away like one would to a gnat, redirecting its trajectory just before it buried its point into his neck. With merciless efficiency, Axion aimed a kick at Reivan’s exposed legs while pulling back his halberd for another strike.
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‘What the hell…He’s as strong as me! Nobody human’s supposed to be as strong as me!’
With the combination of his half-ascendant physique, qi reinforcement, perfect magic power application, soul armament energy, and his ability as a hybrid warbeast, Reivan should have been unmatched by any other human in the mortal realm.
Now, if he was against a half-ascendant warbeast, with perfect magic power application and a soul armament, then he would concede. There was no way he could match a transformed warbeast in pure physical might.
But Prince Axion was a human, as far as he could tell.
‘That means he must have an ability similar to Helen’s that can boost his physical abilities… And if he’s matching me without a soul armament, then his special ability is better than Helen’s...’
Alternatively, the enemy prince might also have fully stacked [Malevolence], just like Valter did. Reivan would never know since the bastard was apparently resistant to [Supreme Insight].
All in all, Reivan designated Prince Axion as “extremely dangerous” and a prime target to get rid of as soon as possible. So much so that he was even willing to forgo the rest of the women he hadn’t saved yet if it would give him a better chance.
After all, more lives would be lost if he let this Argonian prince roam free.
The guy was not only difficult to assassinate without sending an entire group of knights, but the enemy prince seemed to have a decent head on his shoulders too, judging from the conversations Reivan heard earlier—just not a head capable of mercy, it seemed. Strength and cunning were a dangerous combination to have when it was possessed by an enemy.
“Hm…” Axion flexed the fingers on the arm he used to block. “You are stronger than you look, knight. I didn't expect this to be so difficult.”
“Pitiful Argonian,” Reivan feigned confidence as he summoned his sixteen flying fangs, launching them toward the enemy at supersonic speeds. “You haven’t seen anything yet.”
Yet the Argonian swatted some away, using spear or bare palm, all while dodging the rest as if it were easy. With no civilians in the tent, Reivan didn’t hold back as much; the swords ripped up the tent in their attempt to get an angle on the enemy.
Sensing that the enemy was adamant about hindering him, Reivan sent blades of ice that ripped up the last two tents and sent Zouros toward the captives, who were pitifully too exhausted or injured to even huddle in the corner. Some of them weren’t even terrified by the developments, as if they'd already lost all sense of self-preservation.
As for knocking them out so they weren’t traumatized by the cosmic horror that was Zouros’ stomach, well, the giant black serpent with beautiful ebony wings could do that too. After all, Reivan’s ability to drain others of their energy came from Zouros in the first place.
Reivan just hoped it could control its draining powers enough not to instantly kill the women. Honestly, Reivan really wanted to do it himself but was too occupied.
‘It’s all because of this nuisance.’
“Oh, would you look at that?" Axion smirked and nudged his head southward, where dozens of imperials caught up with him after circling around the feather-infested area. “It seems my friends got here first.”
Reivan snorted, subtly noting his surroundings. “Seems like it.”
Dom was still untouchable, momentarily transforming into a gust of freezing wind, a bolt of lightning, or simply jumping into a shadow when he was in a bind. Meanwhile, anyone who let their guard down—and even some who were perfectly on guard—were rent asunder.
Meanwhile, Zouros was halfway into rescuing the unconscious captives.
Axion frowned when he saw the giant serpent. “I can’t believe it was even possible to essentially kidnap people like that. So that’s how you took away all the war slaves in the other tents?”
Reivan didn’t answer, but he inwardly cursed. Axion probably waited for him inside one of the remaining pink tents after noticing that whoever the intruder was, they were aiming to rescue the captives.
But that said, it wasn’t as if Reivan could do anything about that. What, was he supposed to fill it up with new slaves after rescuing the old ones? Even if he was going to walk down that idiotic route, where would he even get the new slaves from? He didn’t keep a stock of them inside Zouros’ stomach, that was for sure.
Noticing some of the Argonians who caught up to him moving to his blindspots, Reivan casually flicked his wrist, sending flying swords toward them. As expected of warriors lauded as Imperial Vanguards, they parried or evaded in time, having already seen him control weapons earlier.
Really, tricks weren’t as effective the second or the third time around. This was exactly why people more experienced than him kept on telling him to keep as many of his cards close until the decisive moment.
‘Try this on for size, then.’
The flying swords that were parried, blocked, or avoided burst into a thick cloud of frosty mist that seeped through the gaps in his enemies’ armor and wormed through their pores to penetrate into their bodies. Screams filled the air as steel shattered like glass and limbs snapped off. Some were unlucky enough for their heads to be the affected area, dying instantly without a chance to realize what happened to them. These were the types of techniques he couldn’t ever use when sparring with an ally.
Now, on the field of battle where enemies were aplenty, they were finally finding a use.
Axion scanned the surroundings with a somber grimace. “I suppose the veterans’ stories about knights weren’t overblown. You people really are monsters. We have elementalists too, but none who can do things like this with such ease. I commend you, knight.”
“Where’s all the confidence from earlier?” Reivan gloated a little, even though he knew it was a waste of time to exchange words with an enemy.
However, in his defense, he was waiting for Zouros to completely rescue all the captives and for his allied knights to arrive and help him get the heck out of this place. So maybe, for once, talk-no-jutsu was the best choice in a real-life situation.
“Ah, well.” Axion shrugged. “I’m just a little alarmed at the thought that there could be more of you. But at least I can kill one of you here. From your strength, you're likely not a common knight either so it'll be a great honor to claim your head.”
“You’re not lacking in confidence, at least. Where does it all come from, I wonder?” Reivan continuously eyed his surroundings for as many escape routes as possible. When outnumbered like this, the thing he had to avoid the most was getting surrounded without a way out. The only reason he wasn’t dead yet was because he managed to do this so well, capitalizing on his opponents’ surprise and the mysteriousness of his abilities.
If he stood still for too long and let them completely cage him in, he would eventually fall.
‘Hm. Zouros would finish in a few seconds, so we have the choice of just taking off into the air.‘
He didn’t like it because his companion would likely get shot down in the process, but Zouros could always revive as long as Reivan survived. That was a lot better than both of them perishing here, at least, and Zouros was mentally endorsing the idea as he thought of it.
“You’re looking for a way out, I see,” Axion remarked, breaking Reivan away from his thoughts. ”A foolish assumption to make, thinking you can still escape.”
“Like I said,” Reivan scoffed. “Where is it all coming from? We are a match in pure strength but I exceed you in many ways. Even these warriors you’re so proud of are just fodder for me.”
“Where is my confidence coming from…?” Axion repeated, taking out what seemed to be a scroll of some kind. His fingers tightened around it, crumpling the ancient parchment and causing it to erupt into flames before quickly turning into ash.
Just as Reivan wondered what the hell that was about, the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. He immediately hopped on Zouros—who had just finished rescuing all the hostages—and had his long-time companion soar into the sky despite the risks. Dom, taking the hint, returned to his soul in the middle of mauling someone.
Not one to waste an opportunity, he threw up several spellballs that sent signals upward to mark his newest location, just in time for thousands of espers to rise up from the earth and chase after him. Their ghastly faces were twisted in malice as they pursued, much faster than any other espers he’d faced in the past.
‘What the fuck!?’
Afraid that Zouros was too big a target, he had the giant serpent shrink to the thickness of a horse. Unfortunately, length was not so easily adjustable, so just as he feared, some of the espers caught up and grabbed onto Zouros' tail. He couldn’t tell from their faces, but they seemed to be making an effort to pull Zouros back, though it wasn’t working very well.
They did, however, steadily climb their way toward him, forcing Reivan to engage them while his thighs clamped on for dear life.
“Fuck!” Reivan jerked his head to the side in time to dodge a javelin, cursing as he remembered how lauded legionary throwing arms were. It went without saying that Vanguards, their direct upgrades, had good throwing arms as well. He just wished the reminder didn’t come at the cost of almost losing his head. The worst part? That javelin wouldn't be the last one.
Annoyed at all the flies buzzing around it, Zouros turned its head back to suck in dozens of them into the void that was its mouth.
Unfortunately, this made Zouros slow down a little.
“No!” Reivan yelled in frustration as hundreds of javelins aimed for Zouros.
Quickly, he conjured dozens of floating shields to stop some, but under the rain of javelins, the shields were either blasted away or shattered. Though he could reform them, it created enough of an opening for some of the javelins to bury themselves into Zouros’ body, penetrating through layers of its obsidian scales.
Zouros hissed in a mix of anger and pain, yet that wasn’t the end.
As the vanguards on the ground readied another volley, a spectral horde of espers grabbed anywhere they could on his serpentine companion. He would have liked to escape their grasp by having Zouros and himself turn into a cloud of black mist like they would against normal opponents, but espers were ethereal.
The fuckers could grab the two of them out of the technique.
Predicting its impending doom and apologizing for its mistake, Zouros gave up on defense. It enlarged to its full size and inhaled as much of the espers as it could. They were numerous, too many to count, but being a world-devouring serpent meant something, even if it wasn’t an Archon.
‘Son of a… Zee, I’ll see you later, okay? I'm sorry!’
Zouros’ massive form protected him from the javelin volley. And even when he could feel the familiar loss of something in their connection, the halfway ethereal serpent’s body didn’t disappear until the volley ended.
When it did, Reivan started freefalling to the ground. There were still some errant espers that had somehow escaped the void of Zouros’ stomach, but he could easily deal with those. Espers could only attack by going into melee range, after all, so all he had to do was wait for the scattered bastards to come to him.
Just as he thought that, he felt another chill run down his back. That was a familiar feeling in his gut that something very dangerous had just been launched in his direction. He followed the feeling to its source to discover a lone javelin flying toward him without a sound. This one was thrown with much more force than the other ones, and he could already tell that a certain overconfident Argonian prince did it.
‘This bastard actually waited until the final moment to snipe me!’
Reivan was annoyed, but inwardly praised his enemy. Not everyone had such a sharp presence of mind. With a grin, he conjured a shield to kick against, drastically changing his falling trajectory. He did this a couple more times so he would fall farther north, toward his allies.
But his grin fell off and his eyes narrowed when he noticed the casual shift in the javelin’s own trajectory.
‘What the hell is up with that thing!?’
In a bit of a panic but still moving with precision, Reivan conjured more shields to redirect his trajectory, but every time, the incoming javelin continued to adjust itself.
Making a split-second decision, he gave up on dodging and resolved to block the projectile, deflect it, or at least let it strike a non-lethal area. There was the option of turning into an element just as the attack connected, but as soon as he considered that, his spine chilled again—most likely, Axion had used a technique similar to the one that knights used when facing ethereal opponents.
Biting his lip and swearing to himself that he’d get his revenge for this, Reivan formed a column of conjured shields in the javelin’s path to slow it down or at least weaken it.
His plan was shattered when the thing just swerved out of the way though. Gritting his teeth, he instantly conjured and crushed numerous defensive spellballs with [Formless Will], and then he transformed his soul armament into a long warhammer. The essence swirling in his body erupted as Reivan activated as many aetherblade arts as he could to empower his swing, striking the javelin’s body just before it struck him, hoping to redirect it forcefully.
Reivan’s heart dropped in horror when the thing didn’t even budge. Before the pain could rebound from his arm all the way to his shoulder, the damned javelin broke through all the barriers surrounding his body as if they didn’t even exist.
‘Are you fucking Cu Chulain or something!?’
Gritting his teeth, Reivan shifted his body just enough for the javelin to pierce his left shoulder instead of his heart. It drilled through everything in its path, be it steel or bone. Only a few sinews of muscle near where his armpit used to be attached his left arm to his body, but that didn’t last long.
Reivan held back a grunt as he grabbed his arm out of the air and stored it in his spatial ring. Growing back an arm was significantly harder than reattaching it, even when a bunch of flesh was missing.
Also, being the same arm he’d used for nineteen years in this world, he’d grown quite attached to it.
‘Heh. Attached.’
Filling his head with anything but bad things, Reivan made sure the javelin wasn’t preparing to come back and finish him off. Thankfully, the sharp end had seemingly disintegrated after mutilating him beyond natural repair. A cautious glance toward where that asshole was supposed to be told him he got blown away too far for them to attack him with throwing weapons.
With his only remaining hand, he took out his dream crystal, asking his allies for help. He could have landed on the ground by himself somehow, but why do that when he could do it more gently with a [Wind] attribute knight’s help? There were plenty of them here, given how half of his forces were composed of House Mercer's knights.
Before he could procure a spellball to signal where was, Reivan felt someone grab him by the scruff of his neck and break his fall with an updraft of wind. He wasn’t surprised to see that it was Helen. Though he couldn’t see her face through that blood-splattered helm of hers, he was happy to see her.
Reivan laughed awkwardly as he looked at his missing arm and his wife, who was no doubt giving him a death glare at the moment.
“See? What’d I tell ya? In and out. Worked like a charm, if I do say so myself.”
For that, he got a smack in the face. But it was the gentle kind of smack, done with love and worry. And honestly, he kind of deserved it. He just wished she didn't do it while wearing a gauntlet.