Book 3. The Long Journey. Chapter 162. Time Is Up.
“Tell him that it’s impossible!” Duke Diego yelled back to the messenger after retreating a few steps. He grunted angrily and took one step to the front again, raised his sword and met the blow of one of the seemingly countless nameless mercenaries who surrounded them from all sides. With some effort, he managed to overpower the man and push his sword away to the side, then before his opponent could recover his stance, he quickly reversed the blade of his sword and slashed horizontally, decapitating the mercenary in one clean swipe.
“God damn,” he cursed under his nose and hastily retreated, allowing what remained of his original two hundred guards to hold the line on their own for the moment. Were he at his full strength, he would have been able to kill that weakling from a second ago effortlessly, but he was just too exhausted. The sun was rising, so he could tell that it had been over sixteen hours since this crazy and unnatural battle started. Unsurprisingly, his entire body ached from the accumulated fatigue and stung from the dozens of small wounds he had accumulated during this period of time.
Thankfully, he still had his body of a marital master of the fourth rank. Most of those mercenaries were martial masters of the first rank who had barely advanced into the Realm of Heroes, so he could deal with them even when extremely tired and without any Qi. His men and most of his nearby allies, however, weren’t as lucky. He had lost around seventy of his two hundred guards while the remaining eight hundred men of the fighting force on their side were reduced to just about five hundred, all of whom, without exception, were on the brink of collapse.
“Ha, look at those two old farts,” Duke Diego said to himself and laughed weakly. The two old men, one with his long golden hair and one with short grey hair, those two old farts who were the epitome of the aloof noble image, were now swinging their swords like madmen, their whole bodies covered in blood. Chancellor Meinhard of the Guode Federation and Duke Ayer of the Faren Republic, those two overly prideful and in his opinion, somewhat delusional old men, were brawling it out with those mercenaries, seemingly impervious to concepts such as fear or stamina.
Even Prince Ludwig, who was the weakest of the four of them, was giving his best and fighting with his men in the front row. The greenhorn whose sword had never tasted blood had killed well over a hundred people over the course of the battle and the naïve arrogance which had so clearly painted itself on his face up until yesterday was no longer there. As it appeared from the lack of constant attention to their backlines from the Prince or his subordinates, Ludwig now focused on fighting and surviving this battle so much that he had all but forgotten his originally apparent thoughts of turning on Arslan and capturing him if a chance presents itself.
“Good grief.” Duke Diego sighed. All of them were performing better than it could have been expected and General Julien’s remaining subordinates were also giving their all, but unlike those who had shifted their entire attention to surviving every next minute, he still had some room for thoughts to spare. He suppressed a second incoming sight and looked at the messenger. It was once again one of the older kids, of the six thousand which Abdain had driven into their group. They were so short on manpower that they were relying on brats who still had milk under their noses, on teenagers without any battle training or any degree of strong cultivation. Could it get any more shameful?
“Kid, tell Julien that if he wants to push into that forest, then his men need to clear the way. We are barely holding the lines here.”
“But General Julien said…”
“I don’t care,” Duke Diego cut the boy off mid-sentence but was too tired to even wave his hand dismissingly. “Go and tell him that it’s all up to him,” he stated and when he saw that the kid was about to say something else, he frowned and raised his sword a little, causing the boy to run off. He felt a bit bad, but he really wasn’t in the mood for getting into a pointless argument.
“Forest, eh,” Duke Diego mumbled as he was taking deep breaths, trying to recover a little of his strength before joining the battle again. “Is he hoping for a miracle to happen? They won’t be able to run off with the kid even in a forest, though I guess it does improve their chances just a little. Realistically, though, our only way to a victory is to have Julien and Reian kill that bastard,” he thought absentmindedly. This ‘weird battle’ was taking longer than it should have and unlike most of the nobles and their guards here, he understood why no large-scale attacks had been launched in their direction and why the enemies were yet to flood them with numbers all at once.
“They are determined to capture Arslan alive. They keep poking and whittling down our numbers and strength while Abdain keeps Julien, Reian and a few dozens of our experts occupied. Abdain… was it his plan or of one of his men? They are giving us hope on purpose, making us think that if our commanders and just kill Abdain then we can turn the tables. This way the likelihood of any of us attempting any extreme, suicidal plans goes down considerably.”
“But… it also gives us a chance,” Duke Diego laughed in his heart. He didn’t want to die, but he wasn’t scared to die either. So, even in face of foreboding death, he was able to laugh and smile. “So, do it you two. Surprise Abdain, go beyond his expectations, exceed your own limits and kill him!” he cheered in his heart, maintain an optimist outlook despite everything. Just for a little longer, their faction of nobles would be able to hold off the northern portion of the mercenaries on their own, so if there was a time for Julien and Reian to do something, it was now.
Thinking so, Duke Diego turned his eyes across the large group of six thousand kids and to the west-southern part of the battlefield where the strongest experts of both sides faced off.
“How much longer do you need?” Julien asked while glancing at Reian, the tone of his voice betraying how restless he was. He wasn’t one to easily display his worry in front of his subordinates, but having lost exactly eighty-seven out of his one hundred and eighty men who served as their outermost line of defense, he simply couldn’t rein his emotions in anymore. Additionally, the awareness that the only reason they weren’t routed yet was because Abdain was intent on slowly grinding them down was pissing him off all the more. By this point, keeping a relative level of calm was taking all of his mental strength.
“An hour,” Reian replied briefly, without even opening his eyes. Currently, he was meditating in the very center of their formation, just beside Arslan, Sirius, Kasha and the twenty remaining subordinates of Julien’s sixth group of thirty-six who were left here for emergencies. As for why he was sitting down and doing nothing why everyone capable was fighting, the reason was simple.
“Feel free to move in the moment you’ve recovered,” Julien said bitterly. “If we can’t kill or at least critically injure Abdain this time either…” he began saying, but closed his mouth and shook his head instead of finishing the sentence. They had already agreed that if this fourth attempt failed, he would take Arslan and try to flee with him towards the Ruishi Federation while everybody would give their best to obstruct Abdain. Yet, all it could be called was a truly desperate attempt. From Abdain’s supreme speed and unreasonable breakthrough power to Arslan’s body’s inability to withstand the pressure coming from a high-speed run, they had no advantages whatsoever.
In retrospect, their best chance to flee would have been at the exact moment they had spotted Abdain yesterday in the afternoon, before they were surrounded and worn down. Alas, they hadn’t known about Abdain’s advancement to a martial master of the seventh rank back then, so realistically speaking, there wasn’t anything they could have done about it.
“General.” The teenage youth came running just as Julien was pondering such dark thoughts. “Duke Diego says that they can’t push into the forest and if you want them to do it, you would need to send your own men over to help them,” he relayed, using somewhat softer words than the ones uttered by Duke Diego. In this youth’s impression, Julien was an amazing and respectable person who didn’t abandon them even when no one would have blamed him for doing so. Naturally, he didn’t want to upset him in any way, especially if there was no good reason for doing so.
“Mm, as expected,” Julien said with a sigh. “Thanks, go back to your friends,” he told the youth and forced out a smile, causing the boy to nod energetically and do as he was told.
“Eh.” Sighing, Julien wondered silently. “Elder Samuel and Mustafa should have learned about us many hours ago, yet no reinforcements are coming. Well, it’s not too surprising considering that as long as Abdain chooses to go for Arslan’s head, then none of us will be able to stop him before the reinforcements can make their way all the way to Arslan. Eh,” thinking so, he shook his head resignedly. He had already had similar thoughts many times, but with how mentally exhausted he was, he couldn’t help but wonder about those same, useless things again and again.
In the end, he couldn’t accept that all of them would die only because no one had anticipated Abdain suddenly stepping into the seventh Realm of Heroes. As a General, the right thing to do was to protect Arslan until the last drop of their blood was spilled, but as a person… “If Abdain pushes past us and there’s nothing to be done, should I use those seconds and order a full-scale retreat? This way, at least some of my men will survive,” he asked himself, not sure what to do.
Fundamentally speaking, he would have hated himself for abandoning Arslan when he was supposed to protect him to the best of his abilities. However, if there truly was nothing else he could do for the kid, then wouldn’t it be better if he saved what remained of his subordinates and himself? Logically speaking it was a right assumption, but somehow, his heart wasn’t in agreement with his brain.
“Whatever,” Julien murmured. “I will worry about it when the time comes,” he decided silently and looked towards the south-west. Judging by the intervals so far, Abdain was likely to attack in around half an hour from now. The clash would take half a minute at most, so they would need to repel him for Reian to recover all of his Qi, and to do that more lives of his men would need to be forfeit. Had it not been for visible improvements of Reian’s and the ever greater wounds that those two huge wind blades left on Abdain’s body with each time, he would have insisted on acting sooner. However, as things stood, everything would be up to this last, fourth attempt.
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If they failed to kill Abdain once again, then…
Although he didn’t know if someone had said it or if Arslan had thought of it on his own, if they failed once again, if Arslan was unwilling to become Abdain’s hostage, then the best choice would probably be for him to kill himself. Or speaking more sensibly, for him to ask one of his White Guards to kill him.
“It’s not my business,” Julien told himself and focused on recovering his Qi. Whatever Arslan and his party decided, it was entirely up to them.
Yet, contrary to Julien’s predictions, neither Arslan nor his three White Guards ever considered such a possibility as a viable option. The three adults had long since resolved themselves not to give up until the very end, while Arslan simply never considered the possibility of committing suicide; it wasn’t that he didn’t realize such an option existed or that he trusted that their side would ultimately win one way or another, but he refused to give up. Even if he got captured, he was determined to wait for a chance to come and one day regain his freedom!
Of course, those thoughts weren’t formed into such neat words in Arslan’s head as he was still a young kid, but his intentions were clear. He was nervous and extremely scared, how could he not be, but he didn’t give up and resign himself to the fate of a prisoner. If there was one thing that weighed on his mind for the past hours, it was that he had caused trouble for his father; compared to the perspective of being taken a hostage, he was far more concerned with the former matter.
Strangely enough, Arslan, Reian, Sirius, and Kasha were all more or less calm. Even the six thousand children who knew they could be killed at any moment by just about anyone involved in this battle remained calm. The eight old guards of Laien and Yin’s who had chosen to come along and try to be of use weren’t panicking either, and the same could be said about the other five which consisted of the old man Rakar, the siblings’ father Jacob, Albert, Sarah and last but not least, Johan.
Whether it was because they all had gone through a lot of risky and stressful situations or because they had made a conscious choice in tagging along, aware of the possible dangers, not one of them lost their cool. Perhaps it was due to both of those reasons, but instead of beating themselves over the possibility of dying here, they were hopeful. As for why, it was the same thing that crossed Arslan’s mind from time to time. The feeling Arslan himself had been having ever since they left the borders of the Ruishi Federation. In other words, it was the belief that Laien and Yin weren’t dead.
Be it Arslan and his White Guards, the old guards of Laien and Yin’s or the group centered around Johan and Sarah, all of them had witnessed the two boys accomplish impossible feats and create miracles. All of them wanted to believe that those two hadn’t died so easily and if so, if those two truly were alive, then they trusted that they would be able to create another miracle.
As such, in this tension-filled atmosphere and amidst the sounds of constant skirmishes the battle between the forces led by the four high-ranked Euleanian Nobles, the remaining elites under Julien, and the forty thousands of the nearby mercenaries went on. Without a doubt, an order for all of those people to attack at once, with the support of Abdain’s ruby-golden-robed experts and Abdain himself, would be more than enough to break the weakened defenses of Arslan’s camp. Yet, despite the temptation of claiming the main reward, those mercenaries didn’t move, undoubtedly having received different orders from the commanders of Abdain’s men.
Minutes passed quickly, too quickly for Julien and Reian’s liking. As the two of them expected, after half an hour, Abdain moved out against them once again. On one hand, Reian wished for another thirty minutes in order to recover all of his Qi and then, use as much of it as possible in one, last all-out attack. On the other, Julien hoped that he would have some more time to recover as he had been forced to use his Qi at a far, far faster rate than Abdain. Had it not been for the sacrifices of his subordinates, Abdain would have long since broken past him and attacked Arslan. Even now, he had recovered at most one-third of his Qi Origin’s capacity.
He didn’t have much of a choice though, so he hastily moved out to meet Abdain. Either of them ran at great speeds, so it took just a moment before they approached each other at the half-way point, just at the area Julien’s men were clashing with attacks of Abdain’s men. Everyone was already used to seeing the exchanges between those two, so both sides knew what to expect. The ruby-golden-robed experts pressed their attacks harder than before while the men of Julien’s were forced to steadily give ground as they shifted part of their attention towards sudden earth spikes coming their way.
The disadvantage in the matchup of Julien and Abdain, the fact that they were outnumbered, the problem of their formations being too spread because of all the kids they were protecting, the fatigue from facing the repeated attacks of mercenaries and the constant hit-and-run tactics of Abdain’s experts. On their own, none of those factors was decisive in this battle, but all of them together proved to be too much for Arslan’s allies to handle.
Thus, even though not even twenty-four hours had passed since their two sides clashed for the first time, they were about to lose.
“Silly righteousness,” Abdain mused while exchanging blows with Julien in an almost mechanical of a way. The two of them had long since gotten used to each other’s fighting styles, so the chance of one side obtaining a decisive victory in a few blows was pretty much non-existent. Julien was too fast, while Abdain’s own defenses were too sturdy. All they could do was to wear each other down. “Here you could have bought yourselves about twenty more hours had you decisively discarded those kids and those nobles, but you didn’t.”
“Who knows, maybe if you did do that, then I would have been hard-pressed to win in my forty-eight-hour deadline. You proved to be stronger than the rumors claimed you to be.”
As Abdain praised Julien in his heart, he didn’t forget to be wary of Reian. The golden-haired menace had injured him thrice already. The first time the wound reached merely the outer layer of his muscle, barely piercing through his skin. Nothing dangerous. The second time, his muscles were cut to a degree and the third time, one of those detestable wind-blades cut halfway through his left forearm. Those attacks weren’t at the truly threatening point yet as they ‘only’ reached halfway through his muscles and not even to the bone, but if he allowed Reian to keep preparing this long-winded technique a few more times, then he could potentially lose an arm to it.
“Looks like he is still meditating,” he mused contentedly. It was the highest time to end this in one swoop else Arslan could get some stupid ideas into his head like killing himself, or so he worried. “I’ve got almost all of my Qi ready, so I could tire out that silver-haired fella first, but there’s no reason to risk anything and waste more time than necessary,” he decided in an instant and after fending off a straightforward attack from Julien, he swept out with his broadsword frontally.
Naturally, Julien had no choice but to jump backward, what he did, causing a wicked smile to emerge on Abdain’s face. This sight caused Julien’s heart to skip a beat, but the little warning wasn’t enough to change the outcome of what was about to happen.
Like many times before, Abdain kicked at the ground and even aided himself with some Qi to create a tougher platform. Despite that, the rocky earth still caved in as he jumped forward, accelerating at a frightening rate. Mid-jump, he swept out with his broadsword once more, leaving Julien with no other choice but to use Lightning Steps to get out of the way. Although Julien could use his technique to alleviate some of Abdain’s usual attacks, there was no way for him to stop a full-force blow without suffering serious damage in return.
“Don’t tell me…!” The scary thought crossed Julien’s mind. Was it now, at this random moment, that Abdain chose to go for it? If so, then he needed to do everything in his power to stop him! Most of his subordinates who could use movement techniques were dead, so he was the only one who could do anything to prevent Abdain from plunging into the crowd! There were still the twenty of his Cherubim stationed around Arslan, but he dreaded the casualties were Abdain to charge into them!
Thus, he disregarded the strain it would pose to his body and used Lightning Steps once again, without giving his muscles and Qi paths this one precious second they needed to recover and stabilize. In exchange, he was able to instantly catch up to Abdain. He appeared behind his back, then slashed out with all his strength, intending to force Abdain to turn around so he could force him into melee like before. However, he quickly noticed that something was wrong. Abdain, he wasn’t moving to defend at all!
As he was overcome with an ominous premonition, Julien followed up with the slash and successfully left a bloody wound across Abdain’s back. This result, however, left a look of dismay on Julien’s face. He wounded Abdain, but he didn’t manage to make him slow down in the least. In contrast, Abdain kicked the ground again and sped up further, ignoring the light slash on his back
At this time, Abdain smirked to himself. As threatening as Julien’s piercing attacks could be if he failed to guard against them, thrusting at someone who’s running at a high-speed in the opposite direction naturally reduced the blow’s power by more than a half. As for the slashing attacks, although they could draw his blood, they weren’t much of a threat. He could take a dozen of them and it still wouldn’t make much of a difference.
“So now that you realize it, your only option will be to…” Abdain mused, reading himself to intercept Julien’s next attack. He wasn’t sure if he would be able to pull off what he wanted perfectly, but it wouldn’t hurt to try. Thus, he focused and when he sensed that Julien indeed used Lightning Steps and appeared in front of him, and when he saw Julien send a thrust at his heart, he almost laughed out loud. With his left hand already slightly raised and ready to move, he twisted his torso to the right and at the same time, reached out with his open palm from below, straight towards Julien’s forearm.
Those minute actions all happened in a mere split of a second. With his thrust thrown, there was no way for Julien to withdraw it immediately. Moreover, the instant one left his movement technique, he had a harder time grasping his surroundings. This weakness was least pronounced in Lightning Steps as in comparison to Shadow Step or Wind Steps. However, it still existed and exploiting it was possible, especially in the heart of a battle and when your opponent’s mind was exhausted.
When Julien realized the danger he was in, it was too late. His sword left a bloody scar across Abdain’s chest while Abdain’s hand gripped his wrist, and gripped it hard. Unable to use Lightning Steps to run away, Julien felt himself be pulled up high into the air and twisted in half a circle. He felt as if his arm was about to be pulled out of its socket, such was Abdain’s destructive strength, yet him losing an arm would have probably been the best outcome given the circumstances.
He couldn’t see as he was being twisted around, but his aura worked just fine. Thus, he ‘saw’ Abdain pull him across in the air, from his right to the left, with the huge broadsword raised over his head, tilted slightly towards his back. For the briefest period of time, Julien felt his mind blank out… then, he felt a torrent of warmth spreading from his waist. He smashed into the ground abruptly, then saw Abdain dash past him in the corner of his slowly fading vision.
“Haah,” he laughed, but soon blood spurted from his throat and caused him to start suffocating a little. With time slowing down around him, he glanced at his lower body, or rather at what was left of it after Abdain shredded him into two halves straight through the stomach. He had thought that with how familiar the two of them had become with each other, it would be hard for their duel to end abruptly, but he had still underestimated Abdain.
He didn’t want to sacrifice more of his men and wanted to stop him for a bit longer on his own, allowing everyone to regroup hastily, but that ended up costing him dearly.
“Damn it,” he muttered, unwilling to die so soon. Alas, there was nothing he could do as life continued to quickly escape his body.