Chapter 122
Chapter 122 — Ashapel
A few days prior, northeastern Astria Kingdom.
Yaleyan Von Ashapel surveys the crumbling camp in full armor. Scattered campfires, faces drained of emotion, soldiers hunched listlessly — and between them, a wounded man with worsening injuries struggling to swallow his groans.
'No reply from the imperial court.'
The messenger sent to the Emperor had returned empty-handed. In his stead came the sharp, cutting demands of capital nobles and central bureaucrats.
'Retreat at once and avoid defeat at all costs. Leave no further stain upon our name.'
He skimmed the letter's contents, then tossed it into the fire without a second thought. As the fine paper turned to ash, someone quietly drew up beside him.
It was the captain of the Silver Shield Legion — the Marquis house's own dedicated knight order.
"My lord, we have intelligence that the Alliance Forces are moving northward."
"Kalahim?"
"The Mountain Rabbits. They approach with a force exceeding ten thousand."
"Can we fight?"
"……The unrest within is no small matter. The knights are resolved to resist to the end, but the lower commanders are badly shaken."
Yaleyan furrowed his brow.
'To think I would be driven this far into a corner.'
A long silence drifts between them. A cold wind rattled the tent, and the face reflected in his silver helm was sunken and heavy.
'The soldiers can endure no more. Only my name — the pride of the Marquis house — remains on this desolate ground.'
And yet, there was still something left within his grasp.
The Silver Shield Legion — among the top three elite knight orders in all the Empire. Men who would not show their backs even as defeat loomed near. The soldiers wore their exhaustion openly, but the knights never ceased sharpening their blades and readying for battle.
Beneath the banner bearing the silver hawk, loyal knights waited for the Ashapel Marquis's command.
Then, Yaleyan's brow twitched ever so slightly.
"Calix."
That name — carrying blood and honor — drew nearer, poised to swallow him whole. And yet, its bearer surely did not come merely to take his life.
"……I must negotiate."
"When you say negotiate……"
"There is a different enemy, is there not? He too carries the blood of Ashapel, so he will possess that characteristic cool-headedness. The battle of life and death comes after."
A beast cornered is the most ferocious. Yaleyan Von Ashapel was a man of ambition, and he had not yet surrendered a single thing.
In the chill of the early dawn, a black cloak billowed in quiet.
***
And now, in the present — two men face each other in the middle of a battlefield. They stand on opposing sides, yet share the same blood.
"You are…… Calix."
"Marquis Ashapel."
The breath of warhorses crosses through the cool morning air. The face-off between Calix and Yaleyan. Behind each of them, a thousand cavalry stood in formation.
One side — the Mountain Rabbits. The other — the Silver Shield Legion.
"Are you afraid to speak with me alone?"
"My comrades were simply worried."
"A commander who earns the worry of his subordinates. What cause, pray tell, drives you to swallow your shame?"
"I once fought those who knew nothing of honor. I suspect you're more familiar with that than most."
"……"
The first skirmish goes to the younger man. But it was merely a stepping stone to the real discussion at hand.
The Marquis Ashapel struck first.
"What brings you all the way here? Wicked things press in from the east — do you truly intend to shed blood among men?"
Calix studies the man's face intently. Brown hair, a neatly trimmed beard, blue eyes. His maternal uncle remained a man of great resolve — and of considerable ability to match.
'Golden, as expected. A top-rank knight.'
The vivid, deep coloring quietly spoke to the level of Yaleyan's swordsmanship. Having seized the seat of power by ousting the previous head at a young age, his political acumen was equally not to be underestimated.
'But I have changed as well.'
The answer to a long-held question — when might he finally stand on equal footing — was right before his eyes.
"What I want is one thing alone. The Imperial Army is to withdraw to its homeland at once."
"……There may be room for an agreement. The Empire will relinquish the northeast — however, we retain ownership of Silvana and the Paladin Fortress. Both are buried deep within the northern mountain range, making them sufficient as guarantors of peace. What say you?"
Rather than answer, Calix simply stared. The man wanted a justification for retreat. In truth, if he chose to, he could give him one.
'Duke Saitz has fallen, and Count Mozak along with House Hoover now hold the real power in the Kingdom.'
The Astria Kingdom would not be able to refuse the Mountain Rabbits' mediation.
But the problem lay elsewhere.
"Once you withdraw your forces first, we shall depart immediately——"
"This isn't your land." "……"
That was right. If anything were to be offered, it was the Mountain Rabbits' to give. Calix was the one to speak — and Yaleyan was the one to choose.
Accept, or refuse.
"What I can offer you is nothing more than your own life. Know your place, and withdraw."
At the blunt reply, the atmosphere turns cold in an instant. The Marquis's eye corners trembled finely, and the knights at the rear trained piercing glares forward. To them, it was nothing short of a vicious insult.
Yet even so, they could not bring themselves to leave.
This was not the time for pride. He needed to survive. Yaleyan drew upon his innate patience to quiet the turmoil rising within.
"Perhaps leaving the family so long ago has left you unable to grasp deeper meaning. To depart empty-handed is a far greater shame than death. Do you wish for a battle to the last? Then so be it."
"……"
"If you want blood on your hands, I will not flinch. Not a single one of my knights will turn their back."
As if on cue, the warhorses of the Silver Shield Legion snorted and stamped. They looked ready to charge at any moment. And just then — a storm of energy erupted around the Marquis Ashapel.
A show of force, meant to intimidate.
And that was precisely the moment Calix had been waiting for.
***
Yaleyan Von Ashapel played his final card.
'I cannot concede this far.'
The exchange could not end as a one-sided transaction. Still mounted, he rested his hand quietly on his right hip. His neural accelerator responded at once, and a current of will flowed through his veins.
Whoooosh!
The grain of energy surges outward like a silver curtain in every direction. Dried grass blades pressed flat against the earth, and some were cut clean and sent flying.
A force to suppress the enemy.
The horses on his own side flinched and stepped back several paces. The Mountain Rabbits, too, felt the shift in pressure and hardened their expressions. An invisible wall — the bearing of a top-rank knight — bore down upon the battlefield.
'Calix, I hear you have reached the Realm of the Geomhwa as well…… But that is no more than the threshold of the Clear Mirror.'
He had yet to reach the next stage — the Empty Heart. Yaleyan did not doubt his own skill, tempered over long years.
Something forged harder than golden energy — the swordsmanship of the Royal Road.
In a one-on-one duel, the outcome would have been all but decided.
"Choose. What is your answer?"
And yet — not a trace of change crossed Calix's expression.
Then, in the very next moment—
Something went wrong.
Shhhhh.
The energy that had surged outward faltered strangely. The sensation of a blade that had been cleaving across the surface of water — caught in a pile of mud. The other's power was not simply resisting; it was spreading, consuming his own.
"……You dare use some foul trick—!"
The Marquis Ashapel cried out in shock, but reality did not bend to his words.
A deep grey vortex twisted the laws of the world and warped the very space around them. In rhythm with Calix's exhaled breath, a disorderly violence scraped away at every particle.
The barrier built by sheer will — crumbled in an instant, like a sandcastle swept away by a wave.
"This is……"
At that moment, the knights under his command felt much the same. They could not see it with their own eyes, but a strange energy pressed against every inch of their skin.
Their lord had been completely overpowered.
Prrrrr.
One after another, the warhorses shook their heads and betrayed their unease. They had sensed the smell of death by instinct.
And at last — the pupils of the Marquis Ashapel trembled in fine, rapid shivers.
'I am afraid? Me?'
Bewilderment spread across his pallid face.
Even before he was a noble, he had accumulated countless battles as a single knight — yet he could not even name what manner of force his opponent wielded.
What followed was a short, quiet exhale.
His final card had vanished into nothing — so this could no longer be called a 'negotiation'. He turned his gaze toward the young man before him.
And only then did he realize the mistake he had made.
They had never been on equal footing.
***
A combined army of thirty thousand stood in formation, yet not one opened their mouth. The knights of the Silver Shield Legion felt it in their bones — the world they had known, the absolute hierarchy they had lived by, had been turned on its head.
A wind that blew in from the frontier announced the end of an era. Only the Marquis himself had yet to accept it.
"……Must you force such a cruel choice upon me?"
For the first time, Yaleyan Von Ashapel let his emotions show.
"Even between sworn enemies, there are times one must yield to walk forward together. All the more so when a common enemy is closing in right before us!"
He elaborated at length — tracing the positioning of the dark army and each corps commander, filling the air with political rhetoric. Calix, meanwhile, offered no reaction at all.
'The bargaining is over.'
Without a single word, he conveyed his firm intent through silence alone. Then, all at once, a cold venom crept into the Marquis Ashapel's eyes.
"Does it feel as though you are Astrian? No. You are a subject of the Empire. You are, without question, a member of House Ashapel."
A laughable thing to say.
Calix kept it from showing outwardly, but behind him, Volga let out a loud, incredulous snort. There was no wavering in his heart.
But in that moment — Yaleyan Ashapel crossed a line.
"Think carefully. Your mother is waiting for you as well."
"……"
"I made a wrong decision in the past. It is understandable that you feel bitterness. But even so — will you truly turn away from family? Beneath the banner of the hawk, we can come together once more."
A commotion stirs again at the rear. It was not something the Mountain Rabbits could simply let pass.
At that, Calix — smirked.
"……?"
His opponent wore a puzzled expression, but in truth, Calix himself was just as surprised. Genuinely — there was not the slightest stir of emotion.
"My mother is a far stronger woman than you seem to think. If I were to return for any reason other than genuine need, she would more likely scold me and ask why I came back at all."
And with a composed voice, he severed even the bond of blood.
"So she has no reason to be spoken of by you any longer."
With that, what had once been a hazy, pale shape — the fear of his past — took the full form of a human being.
Calix saw the inadequacy of Marquis Ashapel.
It was not because his swordsmanship had reached greater heights. Nor because he had gained the unknown power of chaos. It was, more than anything, because of the sense of responsibility that came with leading a group of people.
He had become a better person through his time with the Mountain Rabbits.
Perhaps — he had grown up.
Just as Great Chief Yoman had taught, he had taken to heart the resolve to bear full responsibility for the choices given to him.
That truth was so strikingly clear before him that, strangely, his heart began to pound. The moment he felt the full certainty that he had completely overcome his past, a deep and pure joy followed in its wake.
And at the same time, he did not lose sight of his ultimate purpose.
"……In the end, it comes to ruin."
Yaleyan Von Ashapel muttered, his face shadowed. The time had come to create an opening for the Imperial Army to slip through.
Soon, Calix's voice rang out, quiet and steady.
"……I remember the Marquis house from my childhood. You were the heir back then. Cadet Ashapel — that person held the seat of lord."
"Yes. And what of it?"
"What I mean is — no one expected a new Marquis Ashapel to appear."
A remark that seemed to reveal the speaker's own origins — and with it, gazes poured in from both sides without distinction. In particular, the captain of the Silver Shield Legion's eyes sharpened.
Even as confusion stirred within, his mind was calculating the gains and losses of battle.
'We must not fight.'
They were already in a disadvantageous position, and now they had been drawn into the enemy's design. With just a handful of words, it had come to look as though Ashapels were leveling blades at each other.
Calix continued.
"The name Yaleyan had never surfaced openly. There was a separate, legitimate heir. Yet in a single night, you rose to become the ruler — and sold me away."
"That was……"
He waved a hand, giving no room for excuses. There were more important things.
"I know. You are not foolish. You would sooner bide your time and wait for the right moment than stake your life on a meaningless fight."
"……Honestly, I'll tell you — I don't even remember your face. And still you are so certain?"
"I am certain."
A complex emotion settles over the marquis's face.
The Mountain Rabbits had yielded no fortress, no territory. There was not even a hint of any talk about rights to farmlands or mana stone mines.
They had simply saved the man's face, and given him only a reason to retreat.
'Planned down to the last inch, mercilessly resolute, leaving just enough of a gap to slip through. This is exactly like—'
His own father. Cadet Ashapel, in his younger years.
Yaleyan held his silence for a long while, then at last raised his head and looked upon his own 'nephew'. The fierce emotion from before was nowhere to be found.
"……Indeed. This is worthy of an Ashapel."
That answer was enough. And from that day forth, the Imperial expeditionary force of fourteen thousand quietly withdrew.