Book 3. The Long Journey. Chapter 164. That One In Four Chance.
Once the four hundred riders stormed out of the forest, they stopped suppressing their presence and unleashed their strength to the utmost. The massive aura filled with killing intent like none other thus spread at an astonishing rate, startling all the sell-swords who were trying to make their way to the center of the battlefield. Compared to a mere aura of an individual expert, even compared to the aura of multiple experts in one army, what they felt from behind their backs was far more terrifying.
The sensation was akin to the presence of one, huge and extremely powerful beast looming from just about a kilometer away. This feeling compelled almost all of the six to seven thousand sell-swords in the area to turn their heads and look. Only those who were actively entangled in the fight against the six hundred or so Euleanian nobles weren’t able to afford to turn around or look over their shoulders.
The majority that did turn to look, however, instantly froze in place. The enemies were few, just a few hundred, but the sight of those winged riders clad in white-bronze armor and surrounded by a layer wind caused all of them to shrink in fear. Who amongst them hadn’t heard of Tempest Riders, the elites of the northern cavalry, and their heroic and terrifying achievements in battle? Who amongst them didn’t fear the Warrior-King Azuresky who had retaliated with such ruthlessness once his family suffered harm? The Ikarian elites might not fear the Tempest Riders as much, but to mercenaries like them, the appearance of those fearsome death reapers on a battlefield meant only one thing! Death!
“Split up! White and Black, clear up!”
A young man’s shout that could only be heard amongst the ranks of the Tempest Riders resounded briefly, causing the four hundred riders to split into two halves and to move towards the left and the right. Yet, contrary to what one might have expected, the momentum of each of those two groups didn’t lessen, but accumulated further and grew stronger. As those Tempest Riders sped up, they all released their Qi, all of them having cultivated and mastered the exact same martial art. Aided by the extreme speed, all the wind-element Qi that surrounded those riders resonated with the various parts of itself and grew in quality and quantity by the second.
By this point, the originally slightly-visible wave-like layer of wind that engulfed each of the two groups had grown into a raging tempest of white-blueish and very much visible wind. At the same time, the Qi around each respective rider coalesced so much that the wind flowing alongside the mounts and the riders formed into a distinct image of white wings. Those riders in the very forefront showed the clearest and strongest form of their Tempest, while those in the back were somewhat weaker. However, thanks to the unique qualities of this martial art, the amount of power those two charging units had accumulated was far beyond what normal riders could hope to emulate.
It didn’t take even ten seconds before the two units of Tempest Riders descended upon their enemies. As for those enemies in question, with the suffocating pressure of the incoming charge upon them, they seemed to have lost their minds. Hundreds if not thousands of them who were directly in the way of the Tempest Riders released a multitude of martial techniques and spells in hopes of stalling the attack, while those who were somewhat further away abandoned all desires for Arslan’s head and chose to flee. However, both of those choices proved to be futile.
The many hundreds of attacks of various kinds and elements clashed against the raging wave of wind the headed the Tempest Riders, but without exception, all of them shattered in a series of loud explosions, unable to as much as touch the bodies of the riders and their mounts. Against an elite unit of Tempest Riders, those below a certain threshold of strength were simply helpless, with no way to retaliate nor with a way to flee. The wave of wind pressed upon the first lines of the mercenaries, turning hundreds of them into bloody mincemeat. Then, those who survived were met with thrusts of the six-meter-long lances of the Tempest Riders and without exception, were all killed off in an instant, if not by the thrusts, then under the hooves of the powerful armored horses.
An identical, almost mirrored scene played out on both the north-western and north-eastern parts of the battlefield. The two wave-like assaults of the Tempest Riders, one headed by Casimir and the other by Anna, turned the entire northern area into a bloodbath. With the extreme charging speed of the Tempest Riders, the quality and uniqueness of their martial art, and with the fundamental difference in strength between them and the sell-swords, the bloody paths of corpses grew by hundreds every second that passed.
The tempest-wind that engulfed the units cut everything in its way into pieces, depleting and growing in power as the riders plowed through the enemy ranks. Some of the stronger mercenaries were able to withstand it, but so what? All they did was delay their deaths by a split second, nothing less and nothing more. The break-through power of the Tempest Riders and their fearsome reputation amongst all the common soldiers, the number of casualties more than proved them true.
It had been but a few seconds since those two units attacked, but the pressure upon those Euleanian nobles who had been desperately defending lessened to almost nothing. With both the left and right, and considerable portion of what was in front of them, having been cleared of enemies, they could hold their own with ease. However, as it seemed there wasn’t even a need for that; those remaining mercenaries were so terrified by the appearance of the Tempest Riders that they routed and with no one amongst them to restore order, they weren’t about to stop fleeing and trying to hold their ground.
“We were lucky,” Casimir thought in relief as he led the charge, slaughtering all the enemies in his way without mercy. “It’s good that we arrived during a battle and even better than we came when Abdain and his people were attacking hard. At the very least, we won’t get wiped without accomplishing anything,” he mused, his eyes drawn towards the center of the battlefield. It had taken him less than a second to ascertain the detailed situation and as he had prepared many potential battle plans beforehand, he simply made the choice he thought was the best.
“Split again!” he shouted to his men to Black Sword unit that was tagging along. He would have those people loaned out from General Adrian do the clean-up of the mercenaries and if possible, of Abdain’s men, while his Royal Guards would rush to Arslan. He could see that on the opposite end of the battlefield Anna was about to proceed with the same maneuver, so up until this point, everything was going as well as it could. They had killed off about six to seven thousands of those sells-words and shattered their morale, lessening the pressure on Julien’s subordinates. Still, they were yet to clash with the greatest obstacle that would stand before their victory and defeat.
“The greatest problem is that I can’t see General Julien,” Casimir complained in his heart. If Julien had somehow gotten himself killed, then they were possibly all heading towards their inevitable deaths. However, it wasn’t like they could turn around and retreat by this point and it wasn’t like he wasn’t aware of the risk when he agreed to the request of those two boys. When he claimed that three out of four times Abdain’s side would wipe them out, he wasn’t exaggerating by any means.
“Wedge!” he shouted once Black Sword unit split from them. So far, they had been moving in a wave-formation in order to kill off as many enemies as possible, but what they needed now was the break-through power and the striking power. For that, focusing all the momentum of their unit on him would be far more suitable than any other possible tactic available to them.
The hundred Royal Guards of Casimir’s shifted the formation in a matter of two seconds. In the middle of a charge, two seconds was neither particularly long or a particularly short period of time. However, it was enough for their group to plow through and push aside thousands of enemies in the incredibly crowded central battlefield and for them to advance a few hundred meters. Were those Royal Guards not trained as well as they were, they might have failed to shift formation in time for enough momentum to once again gather for their charge to be effective.
“That’s crazy,” Laien muttered at the end of the wedge-like column of one hundred riders. He had expected those elites to be powerful and he knew that riders had a great advantage over infantry, but those four hundred exceeded his wildest imaginations. Compared to what he knew of the southern cavalry, those riders were three or four times more effective in battle. What would have taken a minute or more for an equivalent number of experts on foot, they achieved within around fifteen seconds and certainly, in a few more spectacular and effective manner. Moreover, it looked like none of them used all that much stamina or Qi at all.
In terms of impacting a large-scale battlefield, a few hundred of those northern riders might be better than even a martial master of the seventh rank, or so Laien thought.
“Stop daydreaming.” Yin’ thought surfaced in Laien’s mind, causing him to quickly regain his focus. At this rate, they would attack the spot from which the aura they had once felt before was coming. At that time, this aura had still been that of a martial master of the sixth rank, but now it was far stronger. Yet, strangely enough, neither of the two of them were scared. They were nervous and full of adrenaline as before any dangerous battle, but somehow, they didn’t feel much fear.
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“Fuck!” Abdain cursed, then slashed with his broadsword, smashing the incoming martial technique, only to once again be blown away by a dozen or so metes by the remnant force behind it.
“Fuck!”
“Fuck!”
“Fuck!”
He cursed again and again as the precious seconds were being robbed from him by Reian and those annoying men of Julien’s. The moment he had halted his attacks and jumped out of the pit to see what the hell was going on in the north, he was met with an unceasing torrent of suppressive attacks. Had it not been for those damnable riders from the Holy Union that appeared out of nowhere, this tactic by Reian and the rest would be entirely pointless as they were all exhausting themselves for little gain in terms of Abdain’s own Qi reservoir. However, those damnable weak attacks were pushing against him time and time again, making it so that he couldn’t move forward!
Arslan was no more than two hundred meters away from him and yet, he couldn’t get past those obstacles in time!
“Fuck!” he cursed, infuriated by this incomprehensible development. He had no idea how strong those few hundred riders were and he didn’t know if they weren’t only the forefront unit with the rest of the army following behind them. If this old monster Azuresky came here personally and was suppressing his aura in order to sneak-attack him, then forget capturing Arslan, he feared that he wouldn’t be able to get out of this place alive! Although now both he and Azuresky were marital masters of the seventh rank, not only was Azuresky at the very peak of this realm, his overall battle prowess was comparable to Arakar’s. In a one-on-one fight, Abdain didn’t doubt that either of those two people could easily tire him out and slaughter him without much of a problem.
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“Fuck… off!” Seeing how two wedges of riders were closing onto him from opposite sides, effortlessly turning the mercenaries in their way into a mass of gore, Abdain grew impatient. No longer caring whether he would kill Arslan or not, he stomped with his foot and released a large amount of Qi, bringing forth hundreds of sturdy and lethal earth spikes. His technique successfully wounded six or seven of the Cherubim and killed four of the most exhausted ones, but before the attack could reach deeper in, two of the Cherubim in the back released their own attacks right into the ground and disrupted the spread of the technique.
He would have been quite happy with killing and wounding this many of Cherubim as it would take him at most two or three more pushes for him to get to Arslan, but he had no time to rejoice. Willing or not, he had created a small opening by using a martial technique of his own, which Reian didn’t allow him to get away with. Naturally, the compressed burst of wind that came flying at him wasn’t dangerous, but he had no time to dodge it, so he was once again pushed away, this time by almost a hundred meters before he managed to come to a stop.
Before he had time to curse more, though, he sensed Reian’s presence in the air up above him. The golden-haired bastard must have jumped up immediately after unleashing that previous attack, so he had noticed him a step too late. As a result, before he could do much else than to stabilize himself on his feet, he was smashed towards the ground by a blast of wind which most likely was the last of Reian’s Qi.
How could he not see what Reian was aiming for? Those two hundred-man groups of Tempest Riders were aiming at him, but if he didn’t stay in place, then this charge of theirs would be rendered pointless. So, Reian likely wanted to pin him down for a little bit, just for long enough to allow those people to get a clean hit or two in. The idea was good in principle, but…
“Ha, got worried for nothing,” Abdain smirked to himself. He had recklessly wasted about one-fifth of his Qi with that spike-attack before, but now he could tell that there were no true powerhouses hiding amongst those Tempest Riders. He had sweated a fair bit at the thought that Arslan had in some miraculous way obtained the support of Azuresky’s, but it looked like those reinforcements were simply a few hundred Tempest Riders without anyone who could serve as their spear. They were frighteningly effective against cannon-fodder he’d give them that, but he feared them not.
“One-two, huh?” he noted, seeing as the two wedges were poised to hit him within a small interval of time, probably just in case he was able to shrug off Reian’s attack and jumped off to either side. The idea was good, but before a supreme level of strength, no amount of planning or tactics could change the outcome.
With a smile on his face, Abdain focused on the martial master of the fourth rank with a powerful aura that was aiming to hit him first. He looked at the cascade of wind approaching him with all of its unique momentum behind that rider at the head of the unit. The man was clad in full armor, but as far as Abdain could tell, he was the strongest out of those two hundred closes Tempest Riders. There were some martial masters of the fifth rank there, too, but they couldn’t compare to Julien’s elites. As long as he got rid of that man and possibly of the woman who was leading the second charge, he was confident that he would be able to disable the strength of those Tempest Riders.
So, as the long lance engulfed by the white-blueish wind came flying at him, he calmly swung his broadsword and smashed the side of the weapon. The impact, however, was more than he had expected. His hands shook and had he not been gripping the hilt tightly, his broadsword would have been blown out of his hands. Thankfully, he didn’t have a habit of underestimating his enemies and relaxing when he shouldn’t, so he managed to push the lance away before it could lunge itself in his torso. Then, in during those same split seconds, all the muscles in his arms, shoulders, on his back and in his legs tensed up at the same time as he forcefully added new strength to his broadsword.
The huge weapon, having just deflected the lance, was once again set in motion against all reasonable expectations purely through Abdain’s own monstrous physical strength. It moved fast and steady like a mountain and inevitably, it slashed at the armored Tempest Horse, crushing both the refined steel and the beast’s flesh all at once. The only regretful thing was that he couldn’t get the rider along with the mount since the lance’s blow was stronger than he had anticipated. As a result, the rider went flying above his head as his mount was cleared into two halves.
“Hoh.” Abdain couldn’t help but appreciate the wedge formation of the Tempest Riders as right after he dismounted their leader, the two experts who were riding right behind aimed their lances at him. There was no time for him to dodge or to attack again; those horses were moving at almost five hundred kilometers per hour at this moment, so it was inevitable. However, he wasn’t too concerned. There was no momentum of the entire unit gathered behind those two lances, so they wouldn’t be of threat to him. Even that leading man’s lance would have at most shaved off some of his skin and wasted some of his Qi had he taken a clean hit, much less those two lances here.
Additionally, he sensed that the second column turned to one side when they saw that the first one was about to connect. They weren’t willing to risk crashing into one another just to lane one more attack on him, what truth to be told wasn’t a wrong choice. Still, it allowed him to be calmer as those two lances struck his torso and lifted him up, then sent him flying and tumbling across the ground and into the ranks of the mercenaries good four or five hundred meters away.
In the perfect world, Casimir’s men would have immediately stopped, taken Arslan and started fleeing from Abdain. However, in this crowded battlefield and in such a tight formation, they couldn’t afford the leisure to shift their horses sideways to make them halt forcefully. If they did that, they would crash into one another and their horses would also trip on the uneven ground that was soaked with blood and flesh of hundreds of people. So, the most they could accomplish was for one of them to grab Casimir out of the air as they turned towards the right and startled circling around while slowing down and mowing down the mercenaries that were in their way.
The same thing applied to Anna and her Royal Guard, though they moved in the opposite direction as to not collide with Casimir’s men. This whole maneuver would have taken roughly ten seconds to complete, but in the middle of a heated battle that involved top-tier experts like Abdain, ten seconds was far too long of a period of time.
It didn’t take Abdain long to regain his footing and to jump straight into the vulnerable flank of Casimir’s Royal Guard. As he had been blown away somewhat sideways, the line of those riders now separated him from Reian, the remaining ten or so Cherubim and finally, from Arslan. As such, he simply slashed sideways and killed off a few riders and their mounts with each blow as he was quickly making his way through. He wasn’t about to give those reinforcements time to reorganize; he was confident that he could wear them down and kill them off within the time limit as he had done to Julien and his men, but he didn’t feel like risking any more ridiculous surprises.
He swung his broadsword once more, sending the last two riders in his way into the air, both the men and the horses in pieces. He stomped the ground and charged at the Cherubim; he smirked when he saw that Reian had retreated to Arslan’s side, gasping for breath and too tired to fight. What few attacks were sent his way by the weakened and wounded Cherubim, he deflected with a strong swipe of his broadsword, slowing down only for an instant before speeding up again.
His gaze locked onto the black-haired five-year-old, he kicked the ground with each step, causing the dirt and rocks below it to shatter time after time. Finally, there was no one who could get in his way. He had been carefully using his aura to scan his surroundings the whole time, not to mention how sensitive his battle sense was. Reian had no strength, the old White Guard was spent too, likely from too much healing, while that third White Guard, the girl, was both spent and too weak to be a threat anyway. He had gotten rid of Julien and locked up a half of his men in battle, and finally, he had cut down the last line of defense in form of those annoying Cherubim.
The arrival of the Tempest Riders was unexpected, and he could see and sense quite a few of the martial masters of the fifth rank amongst them jumping off their mounts and heading their way, but they were all too slow. Moreover, given that they were on the ‘outside’ now, they couldn’t recklessly fire their martial techniques his way without getting Arslan’s party caught up in the mess.
Having confirmed this much, he didn’t stop at all and simply rushed towards Arslan. The Cherubim tried to stop him, but all he needed to do was to swing his broadsword and the exhausted men and women fell before him, all falling in one strike, too tired to put up much of a resistance. He was killing top-class experts of Julien’s as easily as plucking out the weed, but he didn’t care much. He would have been ecstatic under normal circumstances, but at this time, all he wanted was to get his hands on Arslan. Once he did that, the entire Makarash would be in their hands!
As the few experts who were left protecting Arslan were fending off those of the sell-swords who had recklessly rushed in to sweep the prize for themselves, Abdain joined in. He felt the auras of many experts coming closer to him from all around, but he didn’t care. Not only were they of no threat to him, but all he needed to do to end this battle was to grab that kid who was just thirty meters away from him. He wished he could leap straight at Arslan and grab him, but he slowed down at this last moment; the boy was too weak, so if he grabbed him while moving so fast, he would likely kill him. He didn’t work his ass off for so long only to be satisfied with such a mediocre outcome.
He almost laughed when Reian moved towards him, apparently planning to delay him by even a little bit by through his body at him. Still, he wouldn’t mind adding Reian’s head to his collection along the way as he would waste no time at all to kill him when he was so weakened. He wondered, did his subordinates get Julien’s corpse or did mercenaries snatch it up? It would be regrettable to pass on a trophy as good as this one, but still, this half-conscious thought only swept past his mind for an instant before it disappeared.
Wanting to keep Reian’s head in one piece, he chose to swipe horizontally. He swung his broadsword from the left to the right, holding it with one hand to extend the range of the blow. The blade swept through, but to Abdain’s shock, another ridiculous thing happened as two powerful auras sprung up behind him, somewhat to his left side, literally out of nowhere. To top it off, a gust of spiritual energy turned into a block of unnaturally tough ice and bound his leg, causing him to come to a forceful stop and making his swipe miss Reian by just a few centimeters.
“Martial master or a fifth or sixth rank and a dual expert of the fifth rank? No, why… not even in the Realm of Heroes?”
The intense confusion caused by the conflicting auras and prowess of the Qi and spiritual energy caused Abdain to stop for the briefest of moments. However, he didn’t let those questions occupy his mind for long as he added more strength to his lower body and shattered the ice around his left foot, then took a short balancing step before twisting his body and swiping his broadsword at those two hindrances behind him.
“Eh?” The muffled sound involuntarily escaped Abdain’s mouth when he saw the figures of two kids, the two kids who were supposed to be dead. The black-haired kid was in the front, holding his white spear, while the green-haired one was behind him, for some reason having just released his hold on the black-haired one’s waist. How did those two make it out alive from the Forbidden Lands and why did they come here with those Tempest Riders, he had no idea. He didn’t know where did they get the courage to face him in battle either, but his surprise only reached the apex the next instant.
Before his swipe landed, the green-haired kid disappeared from before his eyes at a speed comparable to Julien’s in a flash of emerald lightning. Simultaneously, the black-haired kid released a large amount of Qi and spiritual energy, neither of which should be nearly as powerful when wielded by a boy his age, and created a layer of water around his spear before moving to meet the swipe of his broadsword. He hadn’t attacked with full strength, but he still thought it ridiculous for the boy to hope to block. However, the chain of incomprehensible events continued regardless of his thoughts as he was overcome by a weird sensation of his broadsword being pulled in and robbed of its strength.
Before he understood what had happened, the direction of his slash changed and the black-haired kid was able to duck downwards while guarding himself with his spear in order to dodge the blow that by all right should have ended his life. Then, at the timing so perfect that it was aggravating, he felt two bloody lines being sliced in a cross-shape on his back by the attack of that other brat. One twelve-year-old defended against his attack while the other was actually able to wound him! He had experienced it first-hand just now, but he still was having a hard time believing that it happened!