Chapter 317

“Is that even a human?”

Lyudmila inwardly gasped in shock. She hadn’t expected her thrown spear to work either. If the warrior was strong enough to behead Valentin, they could probably deflect her spear too—whether by deflecting it with a sword or countering it with something else.

Still, she thought it would at least slow them down a bit. But her opponent turned out to be more of a monster than she anticipated.

Ha-shal-leur, charging at her like a wild beast, not only shattered Lyudmila’s spear, which was imbued with her full strength, as if swatting a fly, but completely obliterated it. Along with the scattered fragments, her pride was also shattered into pieces. Not that she had the luxury to think about pride at this point.

“Ai-shan Gi-or!”

Lyudmila gritted her teeth and drew two spears. Death was approaching her, wrapped in a crimson storm, with blue flames flickering in its eyes like a ghostly figure.

There was no way to win. No way to stop it.

“Lyudmila! Dodge somehow! Don’t face it head-on! You’ll die!”

Oleg, who had pushed Freide and Noah aside with a swing of his axe, shouted at the top of his lungs. Lyudmila’s life was hanging by a thread, but he couldn’t help her either.

“Where am I supposed to dodge to?!”

Lyudmila yelled back fiercely.

There was no escape. Even if she tried to jump off the wall to save herself, she had clearly seen that walls were no obstacle to that monster. Throwing herself down would only result in being helplessly slaughtered by the pursuing creature.

“How about the afterlife? I don’t plan to chase you that far! It might be a better place than you think, you know?”

Ha-shal-leur taunted Lyudmila while sticking her fingers into Valentin’s throat. The icy fingertips crushed flesh and bone, digging deep into the wolf’s skull.

All fingers except the thumb were embedded in the upper jaw, while the thumb pierced the lower jaw, locking it in place like an animal-shaped gag. Ha-shal-leur repeatedly opened and closed her fingers, mimicking Valentin’s voice this time.

“Yes, Lyudmila. Now that I’m here, I can see it. The afterlife isn’t so bad after all! Brother Boris is smiling by my side! You should come over here too, Lyudmila!”

Every time the Beastman Devourer moved her fingers, the wolf’s snout moved as if it were speaking.

“You crazy monster, what are you doing now?!”

It was a disgustingly low provocation. Lyudmila’s gaze involuntarily focused on Ha-shal-leur’s left hand, which weakened her guard against other parts. Exactly the reaction Ha-shal-leur wanted.

‘Is it because they’re just instinct-driven beasts that they fall for such cheap provocations so easily… How convenient.’

Her right hand moved toward her back. At her fingertips were two daggers, gifts from Asha, with threads of life force woven into them like a net.

“Awooooo!”

Seizing the moment, Ha-shal-leur let out a howl and hurled the daggers at Lyudmila like lightning.

“Oops…!”

Lyudmila gasped in shock. Distracted by the taunt, she hadn’t even noticed the sneak attack. As a warrior, this was an inexcusable lapse.

The black-and-red energy-wrapped blades flew toward her. No doubt, it was the same kind of attack as the arrows from earlier.

“Where did you learn this trick?!”

She frantically swung her spear. There was no time to throw it. The daggers, shot like red beams, were already right in front of her eyes.

– Clang!

The tips of her spears collided with the daggers. Lyudmila, gritting her teeth, braced herself for the storm of blades. Though bracing herself only meant preparing for the pain. Even if she could regenerate, it didn’t mean the pain would be any less.

However, the daggers Ha-shal-leur had thrown were slightly more lethal than Lyudmila had anticipated.

– Crash!

The daggers shattered like glass upon impact with the spear tips. Dozens of black iron fragments scattered like shrapnel beyond the spear shaft, each imbued with the cutting edge of life force.

“Ah…!”

Lyudmila’s eyes widened.

A shard of the blade lodged deep into her eye through the gap between her eyelids. The crimson life force ground her eyeball like a millstone. Pain like a lightning strike to the brain. Half her vision went dark in an instant.

“AAAAAAAH!”

Lyudmila let out a blood-curdling scream.

The black iron fragments tore through her body, shredding her flesh. Her arm, now tattered, couldn’t bear its own weight and fell off. Her intestines spilled out from her torn abdomen, and her collapsing body crushed her own organs.

The fact that the daggers were silver-plated rather than pure silver made the outcome even more gruesome. If they had been pure silver, she would have died instantly, but silver weapons only slightly weakened her regeneration, not completely nullifying it.

Even with her body reduced to a rag, she was still alive. Rolling miserably in a pool of blood, bile, and urine, she writhed in agony.

“Tricks, you say? This is called tactics. A human way of fighting.”

[As if. If all humans fought like this, the word ‘demon’ would have come to mean ‘human.’]

Hersela muttered in protest, but Hashalr ignored her words and approached Ludmila.

“This… monster…!”

Ludmila stared at the Beastman Devourer with her one remaining eye.

A woman like a demon, devouring them, skinning her own kind, and laughing while desecrating the corpses of her kin.

Through her blurred vision, caused by her dilated pupils, the ghostly blue eyes of the beast stared down at her like she was an insect.

“…You’re the monsters. Neither human nor animal, just some grotesque mix of the two. What makes you any different from the monsters?”

Hashalr tossed aside Valentin’s now-useless head like trash and drew Durandal once more.

“Don’t whine about it being unfair. You’re just getting what you deserve.”

Jin’s blade flashed pale like moonlight.

Ludmila sensed death. Resentment and bitterness filled the chest of the hyena-like Suin.

—

Hashalr tilted Durandal diagonally. She intended to sever Ludmila’s neck right then and there.

…If only that sudden intruder hadn’t shown up, she surely would have.

“Woooooooh-!”

A roar that shook her eardrums. From behind Hashalr, where her gaze couldn’t reach, something white flew in like a meteor.

Her instincts screamed. An indescribable sense of danger shot up her spine like lightning.

Every hair on her body stood on end. She was certain that if she swung her sword now, she’d lose her life too.

“Tch…!”

Hashalr gave up on striking Ludmila’s neck and threw herself forward, rolling away.

Through her spinning vision, she caught a glimpse of a winter wolf swinging its claws at the spot where she had just been standing.

Ten long, sharp claws shredded the stone wall like tofu.

‘Ryurik…! The soldiers were supposed to hold him back. How did he get here so fast?!’

Hashalr pushed herself up from the ground, gripping Durandal tightly, and glared at the white monster now standing beside Ludmila.

A rising tension dripped down her cheeks.

Ryurik, the Winter Wolf. If she was the hero of humanity, he was the king of the Suin. Even Hashalr couldn’t take him lightly.

“Grrrr… I’ve been wanting to meet you, Ai-shan Gi-or. Hard to get a glimpse of your face, huh?”

“I’m a busy person. You should’ve made an appointment first.”

Hashalr bantered casually but carefully adjusted the angle of her blade. Every nerve in her body was focused on Ryurik’s every move.

There was no more room for toying with her enemies. It was time to fight with everything she had. A bit sooner than she’d expected.

She quickly figured out how he had managed to ambush her. From where Ryurik had been rampaging earlier to this spot, deep claw marks lined the side of the fortress wall.

He must have run along the wall, just like her, digging into it with his claws and nails.

“Still, I didn’t expect the Empire’s strongest warrior to resort to such tricks. Sacrificing soldiers just to assassinate the great warriors? That’s too ruthless.”

Ryurik clicked his tongue as he glanced at Ludmila, who was half-dead, and Valentin, now just a head.

The pure-blooded great warriors were the core of his army. Losing them so easily, even if it was due to emotional turmoil, was a massive blow.

“I… have no face… to show… Pfft… To think I’d be seen in such a state…!”

“No need to apologize, Ludmila. That enemy was never one you could have beaten. Focus on recovering.”

Ryurik stopped Ludmila from trying to get up, her body still trembling.

The fact that she hadn’t regenerated yet meant the wounds were definitely caused by silver. It was better for her to focus on recovery rather than pushing herself.

Once the battle with the Beastman Devourer began, he wouldn’t have the luxury of worrying about her.

“You care quite a bit for your subordinates. Surprising. You used Milichia as a disposable pawn, after all.”

Hashalr sneered with a smirk.

Ryurik turned his head toward her, baring his fangs.