Chapter 753

Shockingly, Ha-shal-leur, who descended from the sky spewing fire, and the Insect-Dragon that followed, crashing down, literally turned the battlefield upside down.

Following the avalanche and the continuous breath of black flames, the fairy army suffered massive losses, with more than half of their patrol units annihilated. The only consolation might be that the Dragonkin’s losses were no less severe.

“Complacency… I heard they had a stubborn personality, but I never expected them to be this extreme…!”

On the wind spirit soaring through the void with fierce wingbeats, Tersillius couldn’t help but deeply regret that his plan to divide and conquer was an undeniable mistake.

It wasn’t entirely his fault.

No one in Alvheim had anticipated that the target possessed high-speed flight capabilities. Naturally, he couldn’t have guessed that Ha-shal-leur would return so quickly.

The information they had about Ha-shal-leur was all from before the Eastern War.

While they could easily gather information about the Holy Kingdom due to its proximity to Alvheim, the Great Plains were practically on the opposite side of the continent, far from Alvheim.

Moreover, Ha-shal-leur arrived at the Sky Mountain Range shortly after returning from the Eastern War, so the fairies had no way of knowing how much she had grown.

At best, they could only assume she wouldn’t match the level of the ancient Twelve Knights, considering the constraints of the Heavenly Barrier created by humans.

Even the World Tree couldn’t have foreseen that such a judgment would lead to this catastrophe.

“Lord Tersillius! Give us orders!”

Of course, this wasn’t the time for leisurely reflection.

The dragon’s breath, which had been spewing endlessly, began to thin like a dried-up river, but the dragon itself was still intact, and the core forces of the Dragonkin remained unscathed.

It was as if another enraged dragon had joined the chaos of the previous battle.

Tersillius shook his dizzy head from the rapid maneuvers and gave new orders to the surviving guardians and the few remaining patrol units.

“Leave the Insect-Dragon to the Dragonkin! We pursue the target!”

Their target was never the Insect-Dragon, so there was no reason to get entangled in a fight with the dragon or the Dragonkin.

In the past, Nidhogg was undoubtedly a heinous enemy that gnawed at the World Tree and rotted its roots… but the current Nidhogg was not the same dragon. It was more like billions of insect monsters forcibly moving the remains of a dead dragon.

From the fairies’ perspective, attacking it would only amount to desecrating the remains of an old enemy.

Declaring it an old enemy was merely a pretext to naturally intervene in the Insect-Dragon subjugation and lure out their true target. Their goal had always been singular.

To eliminate Ha-shal-leur of Median, the Empire’s strongest knight and descendant of an old enemy, who might even be the reincarnation of Carolus. That was the sole command given to them by the Council of Elders.

However, the target that arrived on the battlefield had already slipped away from the hills, carefully managing her subordinates amidst the chaos of Nidhogg’s rampage. The fairies, busy dodging the dragon’s breath, couldn’t even attempt to stop her.

So, what other command could Tersillius give?

Leave the dragon and Dragonkin to their own devices and chase down the fleeing humans to kill them.

“Wait, Tersillius. They’re coming back.”

“What…?”

At Ereneisia’s report, Tersillius turned his head from his allies to look in the same direction she was… and twisted his brow in confusion.

“They’re coming! Everyone, be careful!”

As Ereneisia said, the humans were returning. Leading them was a golden-haired man wielding a greatsword.

“They’re back…? Are they trying to push us into the chaos and corner us?”

“It seems so, but Median isn’t visible. Wasn’t she the type to charge ahead of everyone?”

“Don’t trust the homeland’s intelligence. Those incompetents couldn’t even properly assess the enemy’s strength!”

Tersillius drew the bowstring of the Bow of the Divine Tree, aiming at Damien, and shouted at the top of his lungs.

“Divide the guardians into three! Pailandria, Disgelpier. Hold off the Dragonkin and Insect-Dragon with the surviving patrol units! Aurelius and Iberfalos, block the humans! Ereneisia and I will find and deal with the target. Until then, stay alert for enemy ambushes!”

“Yes!”

“Understood.”

The four guardians, including Ereneisia, responded.

‘…Four?’

Startled by the one missing response, Tersillius urgently turned to look in the direction where Aurelius should have been flying.

And then, their eyes met.

“…Caught, huh?”

With a ghostly grin, a blue-eyed barbarian of the short-lived race was covering Aurelius’s mouth and pulling out his neck.

“What…?!”

“Aurelius!”

The guardians who had also turned to look at Aurelius let out cries of shock.

Even if he was a young guardian, a guardian was still a guardian.

They couldn’t have imagined that Alvheim’s top combatant would die without even a groan of resistance. For a moment, they doubted if they were under an illusion spell.

But the scene before their eyes was undeniably real.

Guardian Aurelius was dead. In a single strike, despite it being an ambush.

This, too, was beyond their expectations.

—

Ha-shal-leur, who had burrowed underground and melted through earth and rock with the Rune of Fire, shot up vertically the moment she sensed the guardian’s presence, unleashing her Heroic Tale. Guardian Aurelius, unable to even react properly, had his neck ripped out.

You couldn’t blame Aurelius for his weakness.

The time it took for Ha-shal-leur’s right hand to reach his neck after breaking through the ground was shorter than the time it took for his optic nerves to transmit the image to his brain.

How could he have countered an ambush faster than even his neural reflexes?

“Guardians aren’t all that, huh?”

Ha-shal-leur, holding Aurelius’s lifeless eyes between her index and middle fingers like a bowling ball, lifted his dangling head and shook it, taunting the fairy guardians.

Which was more insulting—her attitude or her tone—only the fairies would know.

“How dare you…!”

In any case, they fell for Ha-shal-leur’s provocation, furiously drawing their bowstrings.

Tersillius and Ereneisia charged at Ha-shal-leur with high-level spirits, and the other guardians also momentarily focused all their hostility on her.

Of course, Ha-shal-leur only smirked further, internally mocking how easy it was to provoke such fools.

She hoped they’d reveal even bigger openings.

“Pulling out a friend’s neck got you this mad? After hundreds of years together, you’d think you’d be tired of seeing each other’s faces.”

“Shut your mouth, short-lived scum!”

“Alright, alright. I’ll give him back, okay? I’ll heal him, so don’t be mad.”

Ha-shal-leur held up Aurelius’s body like a shield, flashing a smile so bright even Or-han would call her a demon, and raised Aurelius’s head high.

And then—

*Crunch!*

She shoved the head back into the neck stump. Like hammering a nail into clay.

The severed spine scattered in all directions, and the limbs of the body that had regained its head trembled violently. Splattered blood dripped down Ha-shal-leur’s cheek.

Even the guardians, who had lived for over a thousand years, were momentarily speechless.

“Treatment complete! How’s that, seamless?”

Ha-shal-leur, having fixed Aurelius’s head back onto his neck—now significantly shorter—lightly shook the corpse and quipped.

“I’ll kill you, Ha-shal-leur Median—!”

The provocation was effective enough to drive the young guardians into a frenzy.

Guardians Disgelpier and Iberfalos, forgetting about the dragons, Dragonkin, and even the other humans, fired spirit arrows at Ha-shal-leur.

“Stop! If you fall for her provocation—!”

Tersillius tried to stop them, but no shout could halt the enraged fairies or recall the arrows they’d already fired.

The moment the two guardians became defenseless after firing their arrows, something streaked past their feet.

A line of light, a mix of gold, white, and blue. It was Damien, who had been waiting for the chance to cut down their high-level spirits as per Ha-shal-leur’s instructions.

“Damn…!”

“Ugh—!”

Suddenly finding nothing beneath their feet, the two guardians fell helplessly in shock.

They summoned earth spirits to cushion their fall, but it was too little, too late.

By the time they landed on the earth spirit’s palm, Damien’s greatsword had already severed Disgelpier’s left arm, and Milia’s arrow had torn through Iberfalos’s shoulder.

“Argh!”

“Damn short-lived scum!”

The two guardians roared in pain and charged at the humans who had inflicted deep wounds on them.

What happened to the spirit arrows they fired?

Well, you could tell by looking at Ha-shal-leur. More precisely, by looking at the chunks of flesh in her hand.

A fairy guardian’s body made for a pretty useful shield. The only downside was that it was disposable.