The Day When the Sky Road Opens (3)
Those who first noticed the phenomenon were the wizards of Dotrin.
“This, this…”
“Oh my God-“
The wizards, who rarely left their quarters, ran from the barracks at once. They all looked at the same place as if sensing something was different.
Black specks spread all across the sky, and in the same way as ink dissolved in water, so too did the sky become dark. The wizards trembled.
Mana was raging across the entire area, and the wizards quickly became confused. They were facing such a great torrent of mana as they had never faced before.
‘Krrurrrueng!’ the black clouds vomited thunder. Some of the wizards were upset, angered, and they headed straight to the head commander.
“What is it?” demanded the commander with a firm face as he saw the pale-faced wizards.
“Tremendous! A sign of great magic!” a wizard shouted, adding, “At least an archmage-level wizard has appeared on the battlefield!”
The commander and the knights sprang into action and ran from their barracks before the wizard was even done speaking. And at that moment, a great roar erupted from the sky.
‘Kwwaa aaang Gwaang!’
It sounded as if the heavens were falling and the world would end. The knights looked to the western sky with hopeless faces. The dark clouds that covered the sky were constantly striking the earth with dozens of lightning bolts.
It was in the direction of Dotrin’s outpost.
* * *
The messenger who was sent out under order finally returned, and he could barely give his report, his face as ashen as that of a corpse.
“All! It’s all burned down! All that’s left is black ash.”
The situation at the outpost became known through the mouth of the messenger who spewed as much gibberish as he formed words: Broken barriers, barracks blackened by fire, and scorched corpses. According to the messenger, the outpost had become hell on earth.
The commander dispatched a search team, yet they could find no signs of survivors. The eight knight squadrons and four elite legions of the outpost have disappeared, without a single survivor.
Forty percent of the troops of the front line of defense evaporated overnight.
The commander had a heavy heart and only later remembered the large-scale ambush strike force that had been sent out. He had forgotten all about them in the tumult.
“At least half of the troops must have left the outpost on their sortie! We have to find them!”
It was so, for some of the troops quartered at the outpost had been out on the mission, and they now returned to the command encampment.
However, the commander had no reason to be pleased.
Through the survivors, he learned that a demon had destroyed the outpost, cutting through the allied forces. The occasional thunderstorm confirmed their words as truth.
The night was deep and long, and the number of survivors who trickled into the camp grew less and less. Sometime after the next day dawned, a knight stumbled into the headquarters and exclaimed, “The leader of the Veil Mercenaries is still fighting!”
The report went that the Sword Master of the twin swords was battling the demon. He was making time for his allies to escape, preventing the demon from rushing after them.
A couple of old men sitting in the headquarters jumped from their seats as they heard the knight’s words.
“We’re going into the forest!”
It was Berg Berten and his old knights.
“I made a fuss, and now a promising young man is saving our skins. Maybe he misunderstood me. Either way, I feel responsible.”
Berg went on to say that it might be because of him that the mercenary commander had drawn his swords to face such magic. Berg buckled his sword to his waist, ready to go.
“He has aided us a lot, but I cannot risk my knights to save a single mercenary,” said the commander.
“I don’t need help. I don’t intend to take your knights into danger when we old uncles can do a more proper job.”
The commander was just about to open his mouth in response to the old man – who was resolved to face death – when the door of the headquarters was flung open, and someone appeared through the aperture.
“The squadron of Berten need not risk themselves,” said the man, and the commander’s knights widened their eyes as they saw him enter. The man looked at these knights, raised his finger, and pointed to the sky.
At the same time, the command barracks shook, as if from a heavy wind.
‘Kraaahahah!’ something roared one second later.
“Because the Knights of the Sky have started their operations,” said the man, Jin Katrin, with a grin.
Berg Berten ran out of the barracks like a madman, and his old knights and the commander followed.
‘Fwooop, Fwooop~’
As if a great, bestial banner had been lofted above the barracks, the wyverns flew in breathtaking circles above the building.
“In my entire lifetime, I always wished to see the flying Wyvern Knights maneuvering as a group,” Berg said in an awed voice.
“Now you will see them often,” said Jin Katrin proudly, adding, “Our enemies shall fear the sky from now on, and will not dare enjoy the great greenery of our forests.”
* * *
The roles have changed.
Dotrin was no longer the hunters but the beasts being pursued.
“Don’t stop marching. Just a short while more and we are out of the forest. If we keep moving with haste like this, we will soon join “It hurts like hell!” up with the main force. Then we can all survive,” a man, and only knight encouraged the soldiers.
At that moment, a flashing light arose above his head. The knight looked at the others with a hopeless face. Such lights were floating above all the soldiers.
And in that dark forest, the brilliance of the flashes could be seen from some distance.
The wizards of the imperial army were determining the location of Dotrin’s forces and marking them by these hovering lights.
“Damn,” said the knight in desperation.
The same desperation was mirrored on the faces of the soldiers.
“Do not give up! Keep moving!” exclaimed the knight, urging his men to greater haste.
“If the enemy appears, do not stand and fight! Just run!”
Unlike the others, the knight gripped the hilt of his sword. If the imperial troops appeared, he planned to buy his men some time so they could save themselves.
However, determination alone cannot prevent the outcome of certain dire situations, and that proved to be the exact case now.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t the imperial knights or soldiers who discovered the marked soldiers of Dotrin. It was the demon that had turned the forest into hell.
‘Krgukgkguu!’
The knight raised his head. The sky was obscured by the thick branches and leaves of the forest roof. Still, the knight could sense a tremendous energy gathering beyond the foliage.
“Damn,” he muttered, his sword hanging limply by his side.
I can’t stop that.
And at that moment, the world became white, and the knight closed his eyes.
This was how we would die. He truly thought so.
‘Kruaang!’
There came a roaring sound, and that was all. There wasn’t the pain he had braced himself for, nor did he suffer an imminent death.
The knight opened his eyes. In front of him stood a man, exerting himself, and looking a right mess. In his hand, he gripped a sword that seemed aflame under the strikes of the lightning.
‘Gschaschagscha!’
The glaring light tangled with the blade, drew away, and struck at it once more like a snake.
The man seemed to push back the light and shrug it from his sword. The light could not reform itself and was scattered in all directions as the knight watched on.
‘Quazzzik!’
A giant tree was cut right through the trunk as the light careened through it and then dissipated. Yet, the area was still lit.
shouted the then did the knight see the sorcerous mark floating above his head. It shone with a greater intensity and radius than anyone else’s the knight had encountered.
“What are you standing around for so blankly!? Run! Go!” the man shouted.
Only then did the knight snap to his sense and urge his soldiers on.
“I want to know your name! If I live through this and return, I will honor you!” the knight asked just before following his men into the forest.
But the man didn’t answer. He just stood staring at the sky whilst holding his sword.
* * *
“…!”
The knight seemed to have said something before leaving, but I couldn’t make out the words. After I had been struck by that damned thunderbolt, it felt as if my eardrums had burst – I could hear no sound.
‘Reeeeeeeee!’
All I heard was an unpleasant ringing in my ears.
And it wasn’t just my ears; my entire body felt battered and bruised. My armor had already half-melted, the scorched metal pressing into my skin, and my hands kept shaking. Every time I took a breath, it felt as if my throat was being torn out.
Nevertheless, I still couldn’t flee this battlefield.
It was madness to join up with my allies with the mark that floated above me. If I did, that terrible storm of lightning would fall upon Dotrin’s main base. I ground my teeth as I stared at the sky through the thick branches. Dark clouds were gathering once more.
The surface area that the clouds covered was too great for me to flee. When I saw another flickering flash, I readied my body.
‘Krakka!’
A lightning bolt struck above my head.
‘Kaarreull!’
The energy stored within me flashed through my body and into my hand, and I met the bolt.
‘Ssuuvak!’
As I summoned the mana from my mana heart, the bolt of light was driven away.
“Bleeurg!” However, because my mana had not been released, I ended up retching blood. I placed Twilight on the ground and knelt down as I vomited.
“Hfoo, Hfoo,” I stared at the sky as my breath came on short.
This was my true limit. If I was hit by lightning a couple more times, my body would not withstand it, no matter how well I channeled mana into offsetting the magical bolts.
I raised my body, no longer staring at the sky, and I sprang into a sprint.
After running on for a long time, dozens of lights were dancing over my head. Each one was a stigma to draw the magic of the wizards, as well as a more physical mark that announced my presence to everyone.
I extended my mana and knew that there were enemy forces in all four directions.
It was only then that I realized that I was being driven on by them, being encircled.
I didn’t understand it.
There is a great stretch of forest with many enemies, so why would they be mobilizing such a great number of troops to catch only me?
The enemy’s magic poured in at me before I could even grasp the situation. A ball of flame rushed me, and I crushed an arrow of ice.
I dodged the fireball and kept running.
Once more, I felt a great energy gathering overhead.
And just before that energy formed itself and struck at me as lightning, the Imperial Army made their appearance.
The energy gathered above my head quickly dissipated into nothingness.
I would have been glad of it were there not hundreds of knights and dozens of wizards surrounding me. It was a very precarious situation.
“…!”
“…!”
Shouts in True Imperial rang out from all over the forest, yet my ears still rang, so I couldn’t understand what the hell they were trying to say.
But there was no need to understand the words: Their intent was obvious.
They must have been giving voice to the stereotypical yells: “Catch him! You there, stand still!”
I fixed my sword and tried to gauge the might of the enemies surrounding me.
Seven paladins, two-hundred knights. Twenty wizards under heavy guard.
I gave a bark of laughter.
It was always nice if wolves surrounded the tiger that they always avoided, but the problem was that there were far too many wolves.
“Why are they so many?”
After saying this, I fixed my swords before me.
Dawn was approaching.
By now, the news would have reached Dotrin’s main encampment. I hoped that they were able to prepare measures to stop the terrible enemy. If they could not field countermeasures, then the front defensive line would be rendered defenseless.
“Hfoo,” I breathed out, blinking my eyes as I looked for a way out.
Then I noticed that one section of the encirclement was rather weak. Maybe they had deliberately left the gap so that they could corner the rat without it biting the cat. Or maybe the knights closing in one me had just done a bad job by leaving such a sloppy gap.
Either way, I had no choice in the matter.
“…!”
As I was formulating my plans for escape, two paladins and dozens of knights approached me.
“…!”
“What are you saying, man. I can not hear,” I replied to the paladin, who drew his sword as he continued to shout. Then he rushed right at me, stabbing in with his blade.
I blocked, dodged, and struck out. He parried my attacks in turn, avoided a blow, and counterattacked.
After we had exchanged a few strikes, I quickly stabbed out into the paladin’s shoulder. He reeled back, and my blade squelched out of the wound. He then hesitated.
‘Klang!’
A sword blazing with an Aura Blade slashed in from the side, intervening in our duel, and I managed to block it.
Suddenly, all the paladins had me surrounded.
“Okay. So this is the empire’s way.”
I spat on the ground and then fixed my swords, gripping them tight. I started reciting a poem in my head that could help me overcome my current predicament. If worst came to worst, I would escape this situation by singing the [Poem of the Dragon Slayer], which once slew Gwangryong. But that was the last resort, and I would hold it in reserve for as long as possible.
I started softly reciting the [Golden Poem].
The energy that had leaked from me without my knowledge was recaptured into my body. My breathing calmed in an instant.
I held up Twilight and angled my body.
If I survive this, I’ll probably gain a new poem. The agony left my body, and my energy sprang to the fore. And then the thought suddenly came to me: I’m glad I’m alone.
It would have been a grim situation, a big deal, if Gunn, Adelia, and Bernardo had been here.
I was surprised by this thought, and then I realized: I had never thought such things until this day, even though I had battled across numerous battlefields.
Perhaps I had just been ignorant, or maybe I had been arrogant.
Today was the first time that I was thinking about my death, and the moment that I realized this, my body trembled – And someone spoke in my head.
It didn’t sound like the voice of the idiot, nor was it one of those messages that came from my true body on occasion.
Yet, it wasn’t a voice utterly unfamiliar to me.
That’s…
b Hey, you empty-headed fuck!}
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