Chapter 69
“Run, run, you bastards!”
Breathing becomes labored. Damn mask keeps obstructing the vision, and the field of sight keeps distorting as if covered in haze. With the warning bell sounding in the middle of the enemy ranks, it wouldn’t be long before hordes of bodies come swarming this way.
The time for stealthily traversing between covers is over.
“Shit, shit…!”
“Haa… haa…!”
Harsh breaths and curses pour out from the soldiers. They ran with all their might, their breaths reaching the brink of tolerance. The soldiers could only hear the sound of their own breathing. The soles of their feet ached from poisoning, and it felt as if their skin was stuck to the soles of their boots.
An overwhelming urge to rip off the masks clawed at them, but they restrained themselves.
Arthur’s legs were trembling and his breathing labored, just like the others.
“Damn.”
Though Arthur had been training constantly to maintain strength on the battlefield, he couldn’t compare to this elite group of soldiers.
With the soldiers lagging behind and the mage falling back, keeping guard all around was becoming a challenge.
Uuuhhh!
A strange, massive sound echoed once more. From afar, it was like a ship’s horn, but as it grew louder, it resembled a massive whale’s call.
“Another 100 meters and we reach the objective. Arthur, get out the parchment!”
Upon Menes’ command, Arthur pulled out the parchment from his robes.
“You have a minute—wrap it up!”
Menes spoke to Arthur almost as if issuing an order. Prolonging staying in one spot in such a situation is dangerous—no further explanation was needed.
“…I’ll do my best,” Arthur managed to reply while steadying his breath.
Despite the dampness inside the mask and the painful peeling of the skin beneath his feet, Arthur did not show it.
“Infantry! No time to rest! Quickly form ranks and prepare! We’ll hold here for one minute, then retreat!”
As soon as they reached the target point, Menes began commanding the soldiers. His loud voice reverberated through the soldiers’ masks.
“Remember our previous instructions—Arthur does not participate in the fight! Consider that we have no general-level force here. Got it?!”
In this situation, Arthur cannot use any magic.
A mage is both a top-tier resource and the unit with the lowest mobility and survivability on the battlefield. For someone as powerful and dangerous as Arthur, infiltrating enemy lines willingly is no ordinary feat.
When the marauders catch sight of Arthur’s face—or even the corner of a mage’s robes—they will sense something uncanny and begin to destabilize their formation.
If the scrolls Arthur concealed are found, the operation relying on “Bin” as top bait would become meaningless.
Under any circumstances, Arthur cannot be discovered. Thus, he cannot engage in combat.
“Fucking Astellara, for fuck’s sake!”
Meaningless cries of despair escaped from the soldiers’ mouths.
The feeling of death pressing upon their skin was becoming all too clear. Ignoring it was impossible.
“Pillars, mountains. A voided space…”
Arthur placed the final scroll on the ground and began the incantation. From his cloak, Menes produced a small scroll and tore it open beside Arthur. Yellow smoke rose from the split parchment, masking Arthur’s figure.
“Damn worst-case scenario.”
The soldiers took their positions, weapons drawn, around the smoke screen.
Regret for not wearing armor flooded in—”If only I’d known, I could’ve worn armor.”
Almost immediately, the eerie cry from before echoed once again, and a shriek of terror escaped the lips of the Citadel sergeant.
“Ugh… Haa, ah… Okay, okay! Stop! All this because of you, Danny!”
Other soldiers, including Add, reacted nonchalantly, as if expecting his breakdown all along.
“Yeah, we’re still salvageable, right? We can still get a mask, right?! I’ll go get it now! So please… just stop!”
The Citadel sergeant screamed into the air, and then abruptly began walking out of formation.
Some of the soldiers tried to hold him back by grabbing his shoulders.
But the Citadel sergeant shrugged them off and glared at them with sharp eyes.
“Traitors! You’re abandoning your ally?! You’re… you’re abandoning your ally!!”
And with that, raising his blade high, the Citadel sergeant dashed off somewhere.
Add and the other soldiers could only gape in shock at the sight.
With no room for mercy for a soldier collapsing into madness at the brink of life and death, none had the freedom to care.
Whoosh!
Unluckily timed, the ominous sound reverberated through their ears again.
The soldiers’ legs froze instantly.
After the deep sound that rocked their bodies, an oppressive silence enveloped them.
The only sounds were ragged, unstable breaths falling heavily into the cold battlefield.
“No… No, please!”
From the runic engravings inside his mask, the Citadel sergeant’s voice could be heard. It was desperate, terrified.
“Go away, fuck! Please, please… Just go away… I beg you…”
The sound of something breaking followed. It sounded like a mask cracking, accompanied again by the sergeant’s curses.
“…”
Soon, the frantic voice fell silent.
An eternity seemed to pass.
Or perhaps, just a second.
It was unclear.
The soldiers froze like statues, breathing heavily. The wind refused to stir.
Sweat streamed, drenching their skin and leather armor, which began to stick together.
“…It’s done. Let’s move,”
Arthur’s calm voice reached the ears of the soldiers, who were holding their breath.
It felt as if the tension across the tense bodies had suddenly eased.
They could go back.
All they had to do now was escape.
But that was the problem.
Something pierced through their slightly relaxed guard.
A white streak cut through the air, aiming directly at the forehead of one of the soldiers. It was as if this moment had been meticulously awaited.
“Ah…”
The soldiers, caught off-guard, swung swords to deflect the sharp bone fragment, shattering it on impact. The solider who’d experienced that moment of mortal fear stood rooted in place like a statue.
Wind.
The wind started to pick up.
The air that had been frozen solid began to move again, and the gas that carried toxicity started to spread. The smoke screen cast by Menes’ scrolls began to weaken.
Pfft!
Menes scattered another parchment around the fading smoke screen.
All the smokescreens saved for escape had been used, but it was fine.
At any cost, Arthur’s presence shouldn’t be compromised by the enemy.
Boom!
An unsettling tremor ran from the tip of their feet upward.
The muddy ground shifted like turbulent waves of the sea, and every living soul’s gaze was inevitably drawn to its source.
Add looked west, the Elf lieutenant looked east, the remaining soldiers south and north.
…The incomprehensible sound came from all sides.
Moments later, a massive arm came into their sight. It was so enormous that even a juvenile dragon could be crushed in its grip.
The body of the creature, no less imposing than the arm, was grotesquely massive. Openings big enough to swallow a small dragon occupied the creature’s jaws, and elongated slitted cat-like pupils stared ahead from its massive eyes.
Compared to the monstrous bulk of the top half, the lower half was pitifully underwhelming. The mutated limbs resembled several stitched-together orc legs, trailing across the ground like limp tails.
Overwhelmed by its imposing aura, Add found himself paralyzed momentarily.
“Soldiers, clear a path to the south!”
Arthur’s cold, sharp voice rang out in Add’s frozen ears.
As the voice echoed, Menes’ arrow zipped past Add’s ear.
The sharp arrow pierced directly toward the southern mutated monster’s eye.
In the colossal, adult-like body of the mutated creature, five arrows struck the right eye, and shortly after, the same number found the left.
As its eyeball oozed a mixture of blood and vitreous humor, the creature made no sound of pain and didn’t lower its eyelids.
Menes quickly turned to attack the eastern creature’s eyes for the same reason. They were the most vulnerable parts, and, more importantly, Arthur’s robe couldn’t be exposed through the smoke.
If the enemy discovered that a mage had infiltrated their lines, the entire mission would fall apart.
That much had to be prevented at all costs.
“South, soldiers. Fight. Clear the path.”
Arthur’s cold command descended once more upon the battlefield.
“…Fuck, I knew this would happen. We’re all gonna die.”
“That Citadel bastard… We should’ve taken him out the moment we got that bad vibe.”
“…Already happened. Thinking about it now is poison. Clear your mind and focus on what’s ahead.”
The soldiers’ mouths sang the chorus of despair, but their eyes and swords remained cold and accurate, pointed at the monsters before them.
They moved forward.
They might not fully embody the proud and mighty warriors of legend—shaking limbs, red-rimmed eyes, and mouths screaming despair—but despite it all, they moved forward.
Step by step.
“Everyone, die here.”
The harsh, uncaring command struck their ears.
At that moment, a sudden, primal impulse surged through Add to turn the blade in his hand and strike through the smoke, aiming at the hidden mage.
“I beg you.”
…But the deep impulse soon dissipated.
“Hmph.”
“Guess the end has come… hearing nonsense.”
Plop!
Their boots hit unusually muddy patches, splashing up murky water.
Whoosh!
A deafening roar engulfed the soldiers’ ears, but they didn’t stop.
Again, mud shot up, and beneath it, a human bone was uncovered.
Then finally, the towering giant creature with the whale-like aura stood face-to-face with the tiny humans wielding swords.
“…”
The soldier at the forefront was overwhelmed by despair.
The shadow of the monster loomed so immense that his blade felt powerless to even scratch its surface.
“AAAAH!”
The soldier roared, shaking off his despair. He raised his sword and charged forward through the sticky mud.
The mutated creature lifted one of its massive hands, capable of crushing several houses with ease. Mud cascaded down from its palm.
Bang!
The hand slammed down onto the ground with a size inappropriate speed.
The soldier who roared disappeared under the impact.
