Chapter 181 : Chapter 181
Chapter 181
“Your Liege’s prediction was correct. Ellenhower betrayed us, and in the first engagement, they lost nearly 300 knights and over 500 soldiers.”
Jacques Marin listened to his aide’s report with a pleased expression. It was the first stage where he had experimented with the mass-produced Death Knights. The efficiency was not bad, he thought.
However, the loss of 30 Death Knights in this battle was quite a painful loss.
“My liege, where should we prepare for next?”
“They will come straight here.”
“Yes? Are you saying the enemy will come to Marin Castle?”
“Yes.”
“But, there is no path for them to move without being seen by our eyes.”
“There is one.”
Jacques' vassal, no matter how much he looked at the map, could not find a path for the enemy to move.
Tap.
Just then, the Duke’s hand pointed to a spot on the map.
“Isn’t that the Venida Gorge? This is impassable terrain.”
“There is exactly one way to cross. They can use it. They will think we do not know of that path.”
As the head of the Nolan Viscount family, one of Jacques' vassals and a vassal family of the Marin Domain, he listened to his liege’s incomprehensible words while simply paying close attention.
Duke Jacques had never been wrong until now. It meant that he had never suffered a loss by following his words.
“Are we moving the troops to Marin Castle?”
Nod.
With Duke Jacques' approval, the Marin Domain’s army returned to the Lord's castle at a rapid pace. And they began to lay an ambush in a completely unexpected place.
‘…How on earth does His Liege foresee all of this. And….’
Where on earth did he bring those black-armored knights from? No matter how much he tried to pretend not to know, they were clearly the knights of death, the Death Knights, that only appeared in books.
Moreover, the monsters that sometimes popped out were not lacking for the word ‘magical beast’.
‘Has His Liege truly… become a servant of a demon….’
Even as Skoshi felt that something was going wrong as a human, he could not imagine betraying the Marin family, which his family had followed for hundreds of years.
And even if the things he commanded were strange, in his eyes, Duke Jacques Marin was still a more rational human than anyone else. No trace of a demon could be found anywhere on him.
‘Has His Liege ever once coveted human blood, or offered a person as a sacrifice. Never. Let’s not doubt His Liege, Skoshi.’
He reaffirmed his loyalty to the Duke once more and resolved the tasks the Duke had ordered one by one. When a few days had passed like that, the Arthur Domain army and the Ellenhower army appeared before Marin Castle, leading their troops.
***
“…Well, I’ll be.”
The Arthur Domain army and the Ellenhower army, who had arrived in front of Marin Castle using the dwarves’ secret passage, let out a hollow laugh as they looked at the heavily fortified Marin Castle, contrary to their expectations.
“It was predicted.”
They had moved so fast that it would have been difficult for the information to be delivered even if there was a spy inside. That meant the opponent was accurately predicting the enemy’s actions.
Either he was someone who could see a thousand leagues from where he sat, or his ability to read the opponent’s moves had reached the heavens.
“What are you planning to do?”
“It seems it will be difficult to retreat from here. However, even if we attack, we can decide the direction, I suppose.”
“What do you mean by that?”
Considering Duke Jacques' pattern, if they went in head-on, there was a high probability that he had separately ambushed troops to attack from the rear. They knew too clearly that they would be attacked, and they had enough troops to position in the rear.
“Where would he have placed them….”
I scanned the areas on the battle map drawn in my head. Just then, Marquis Nigel pointed to a spot next to me.
“If it were me, I would have set an ambush there.”
It was a low, shallow hill that, at a glance, seemed unsuitable for hiding troops, but after hearing Marquis Nigel’s words, the trees were densely packed and the area was quite wide, so it was a terrain where an ambush could be set if one wanted to.
Moreover, they had said that these people were capable of ambushing even from underground, using some kind of trick.
“While advancing towards the castle, I will split the troops in two. We will turn to the left, and you, Duke, turn to the right. We will enter while surrounding this shallow hill in the rear.”
“So that’s the primary target.”
“That’s right. There’s no reason to enter the castle anyway.”
If they had concentrated all their troops here, there was no need to obsess over the castle. Cut off the troops outside and take as much practical gain as possible.
And so that evening, the Arthur Domain army and the Duke Ellenhower army lined up facing the castle walls.
The congregation of over 5,000 soldiers and over 1,000 knights was quite a spectacle.
The Marin Domain army on the castle walls gripped their weapons tightly with tense expressions at the large-scale army lined up.
“All troops! Charge!”
Starting with Duke Ellenhower’s charge command, the soldiers began to advance quickly towards the castle walls. Along with that, the soldiers on the castle walls drew their bowstrings taut.
Just at the moment when the soldiers of Marin Castle and the allied forces were about to clash. The soldiers who were running just in front of the arrow’s range suddenly changed direction.
“All troops, turn!”
From the mouths of the commanders running at the front, the order to turn followed like a thunderbolt.
“What on earth…!”
Just as one of the people on the Lord’s castle was exclaiming in bewilderment at the sudden situation, the Arthur Domain army and the Ellenhower army, which had split into two, maneuvered in each direction and began to surround the shallow hill located in the rear.
“Fire the fire arrows!”
As the soldiers of both camps fired arrows in unison, hundreds of flaming arrows rained down on the forest.
“Grrrrrrrrowl!”
As the mountain began to burn fiercely, a strange cry started to be heard, and at some point, wolves of enormous build and knights in black armor emerged from the burning forest.
Along with them, soldiers who had sprung from the ground crawled out of the burning forest, casting a red glint.
“What on earth is that…?”
“What do you mean, what is it? It’s the undead.”
As a newly joined knight spoke, a member of the Lighthouse Knights, who was already fed up with fighting the undead, blurted out.
“Have you seen the undead before, senior?”
“…I’ve killed them until I was sick of it.”
The members of the Lighthouse Knights, who had fought countless battles with the undead in the past, were not very tense. They had even fought countless real battles with endlessly spawning monsters on Saraban Island.
“Let’s finish this quickly and go get something to eat.”
At one member’s words, the rest of the knights nodded and gripped the swords they were holding tightly.
Their equipment had all been recently changed to dwarf-made gear, and feeling the sensation of the grip that fit perfectly in their hands, they began to charge towards the undead. And at the head of their charge, as always, stood Karl, clad in golden aura.
“Are you saying they aren't even afraid?”
The sight of the undead and monsters walking through the flames evoked a fear as if facing the demons of legend.
Even before the fight had begun, the Ellenhower army was unconsciously shrinking back from that strange momentum.
But in the same situation, the Lighthouse Knights and the Arthur Domain army, including me, began to charge rapidly towards them. No fear could be felt from me and my knights at their head.
Although some time had passed, for those who knew the skill they had shown at the Somerset Knight Grand Tournament, their current actions were incomprehensible.
‘They’re charging at them with that level of skill?’
The Lighthouse Knights were certainly strong, but they were definitely not a knight order skilled enough to charge at them. And yet.
Kwaaaaaang!
With a tremendous first clash, a golden aura split a huge gash through the middle of the enemy and broke through the front, and at that moment, an aura wrapped in white light swept away the monsters on the left and right.
A faint line of light followed behind it.
It looked as if the messengers of God were charging.
“Stick to the Commander! Anyone who falls behind gets left behind!”
Just as their desperate shouts were heard, the golden aura had already penetrated deep into the enemy and was pushing straight ahead. And the knights, wrapped in light, were desperately following the golden aura at the front.
During their charge, they did the work of one knight and relentlessly cut down the enemy’s necks.
“Were they… that strong…?”
Johannes, the 1st Knight Commander of Somerset, was dumbfounded as he watched the scene, his mouth agape. It was an opponent that their 900 knights had struggled against, but the Lighthouse Knights were now overwhelming them with only 200 members.
Of course, at their head was I, who boasted overwhelming military power, but the skills of the knights following behind were also showing a remarkable level.
“It’s not even comparable to back then.”
The knights were also feeling it. They had improved to an unbelievable extent since the last Somerset Knight Grand Tournament.
“We can’t just stand by and do nothing, can we!”
The 2nd Knight Commander, Basho, shouted roughly.
“Somerset Knights, prepare to charge!”
For some reason, their blood began to boil. The previous fear had long since disappeared. And seeing the enemy being swept away, confidence that they could win rose.
With that, the Somerset Knights began to charge. Following them, a force of nearly 5,000 soldiers began to run towards the enemy.
Kwaaaaaang!
Sounds close to explosions were heard from here and there, and somewhere, the screams of black wolves were heard.
The undead army, boasting red-glowing eyes, was swept away by the light of the Lighthouse Knights. And the Death Knights, who had raised their auras, began to be shattered to pieces by my golden aura without exception.
“Grand Master…”
Johannes, watching my form, repeated the great state of Grand Master. I had clearly far surpassed the state of a Master. No enemy could remain on the path of the sword he swung.
The slash that cut down everything in front of him was a state too distant to be contained by the expression ‘Master’s aura’.
‘God has not abandoned us.’
Johannes, wielding a blue aura, felt once again that they had not been abandoned by God. And to exact the price for the unjust deaths of the 3rd Knights, he swung his sword more diligently than anyone else.
“We won!”
“We wooooooon!”
When the neither long nor short battle ended, the Death Knights, undead, and black wolf-like monsters in the vicinity were all cleaned up.
The only ones standing on the earth, alive, were the Arthur Domain army and the Ellenhower army.
They let out a roar of victory towards Marin Castle from around the hill that had been burned to a mere trace.
***
“…”
Duke Jacques frowned slightly as he watched his soldiers being swept away before his eyes. The numerous hours that had gone into creating those undead were flying away in an instant because of a single human.
“He has truly surpassed the realm of mortals.”
It was a Transcendent, the first he had seen in a long time.
Occasionally, among humans, those who had undergone extreme training became Transcendents and surpassed human limits.
The demon Murr, residing in Jacques Marin’s body, watched the human he had encountered after a long time with interest.
“My liege, what will you do?”
“What choice do I have? I’ll have to fight a defensive battle.”
“If we stay like this.”
Although it was a defensive battle, the difference in military strength with the opponent was almost double. In terms of the quality of the troops, the opponent seemed to have the upper hand as well.
The only advantage they had was that they were defending from on top of the castle.
“Set up the things we prepared.”
“I understand.”
Skoshi placed about 20 large, covered objects from inside the castle onto the castle walls. And the next evening, the attack of the Arthur Domain army began.